by J. T. Edson
Having kept them under surreptitious yet careful observation after the perturbation caused by the attempted assassination and its aftermath had ebbed from her, Freddie had not detected anything to suggest any of the Englishmen were aware of her true identity!
Yet it appeared Ramage had identified her, even though they had never met!
It was, Freddie told herself silently, impossible for the diplomat to have been told who she was since arriving in Mulrooney. With the exception of Babsy, only one other person in the town was party to her secret and neither of them knew the whole of it. Trusting them both implicitly, she was confident neither would have disclosed the information to Ramage, or anybody else. In fact, as Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog had not yet returned from Hays City—although expected on the noon train which she had heard was delayed—he would have been unable to betray her even in the inconceivable possibility that he was so inclined.
Nevertheless, faced with the indication that her secret was known, Freddie now considered it advisable to accept the invitation. Because of the extreme delicacy of the situation which drove her from England, only her parents knew of her present location. In the interests of avoiding suggestions of complicity, not even the other members of the Besgrove-Woodstole and Houghton- Rand families had been taken into their confidence. Therefore, she wanted to stress to Ramage—whose letter suggested he was sufficiently cognizant with her affairs to appreciate the need—the importance of continuing to keep everybody else in ignorance of her whereabouts.
‘I can’t for the life of me decide what it is,’ the black haired beauty admitted, in response to the question posed in a voice redolent of concern and worry by the curvaceous little blonde. ‘But there’s something about this letter that just doesn’t seem right to me.’
‘I don’t suppose’s you know whether it’s his writing, ma’am?’ Babsy inquired.
‘Unfortunately I’ve never seen any of it to let me know whether it is or isn’t,’ Freddie admitted. ‘But, if it isn’t, who else would have written it?’
‘Search me,’ the little blonde answered, knowing the contents of the message ‘But, if you’re that worried by it, why not send word’s how you can’t come to meet him?’
‘If only it was that simple,’ Freddie sighed. Then she glanced at the wall clock and followed a gesture indicative of frustration by complaining, ‘He certainly hasn’t given me much time to get there. I’ll have the black walking out dress, the mauve blouse and the jockey cap with tassels, please, Babsy.’
‘Yes’m!’ the blonde assented, albeit with less than her usual eagerness to comply with orders.
‘What is that for?’ the black haired beauty asked, after having donned the garments produced by the little maid.
‘Nothing, I hope,’ Babsy replied.
While her employer was dressing, the little blonde—being what a later generation would refer to as ‘streetwise’—had collected a .442 caliber Webley British Bulldog revolver with a two and a half inch long barrel and a ‘bird’s head’ handle from the well stocked firearms’ cabinet in the main room of the living quarters. Having checked that it was loaded, despite knowing this was always the case, she had placed it in a specially made reticule and was holding it out with an air of satisfaction over a job well done.
‘What’s in it?’ Freddie inquired, referring to the reticule, the weapon being concealed and undetectable as was the intention.
‘The Webley,’ Babsy replied, with no more emotion than if naming a more conventional item of feminine attire; albeit conveying the impression that she expected to be praised for making the correct selection. A twinkle came into her eye as, being possessed of an irrepressible sense of the ludicrous, she continued, ‘I didn’t think’s how that there elephant gun’d go with madam’s ensemble.’ 33
‘What impeccable taste you have, my dear,’ Freddie obliged with a smile, going along with the maid’s attempt to lighten her spirits. ‘But surely the Remington Double Derringer would have gone so well with this outfit?’
‘Not with madam’s ‘black walking out’ and jockey titfer,’ Babsy corrected, in the fashion she had seen employed by more staid and ‘proper’ female servants in her kind of employment than she had ever aspired to be. ‘Besides which, I don’t trust them foreign gadgets. You never know where you are with ’em half the time. Give me something made in good old Blighty any day of the week. Anyway, it only holds two bullets.’
‘I hope I don’t need even two,’ Freddie stated and her serious tone was not entirely assumed.
‘So do I, ma’am,’ the little blonde asserted fervently. ‘But, if you should, unless I come with you, you won’t have time to send me to fetch you any.’
‘I’m going alone,’ the black haired beauty affirmed gently but firmly. ‘And you are starting to think and talk like a Texan again.’
‘I’ll have to watch out for that, it’s bleed—catching,’ Babsy claimed, sounding contrite and disturbed by the possibility. Then she glanced at the clock. ‘Just like a man.’
‘Who is?’ Freddie inquired.
‘Cap’n Fog,’ the little maid replied. ‘Never around when he’s needed!’
Chapter Eight – Does This Feel Like A Joke?
Dressed and armed as she felt befitting the occasion, Freddie Woods set out from the Fair Lady Saloon with what she estimated as just sufficient time to keep the appointment which was still a cause of puzzlement. Wanting to arrive at the rendezvous suggested in the letter signed, “Sir John Uglow Ramage, Bart”, without the risk of being seen by the other members of the British Railroad Commission who might be at the front of the Railroad House Hotel, she selected a route which would take her along what amounted to a back street.
At first, although the beautiful young Englishwoman had not anticipated meeting many people, there was nobody else to be seen!
However, this satisfactory state of affairs changed as she went around a bend which hid the hotel from sight of the saloon!
Coming into view of a man lounging on the sidewalk at her side of the entrance to an alley separating two buildings, remembering the suggestion she had heard that Arnaud le Loup Garou Chavallier could have more adherents in Mulrooney, Freddie studied him carefully yet without allowing her interest to become too apparent.
Around six feet in height, dark haired, with a hard and unshaven face, the man was tall and burly. Although he was dressed in none too clean range clothes, with a hat having the ‘Montana peak’ style and a loose fitting unfastened jacket such as were favored in the northern cattle country, 34 the gunbelt he wore was more suited to one who earned his living by a willingness to hire out the Colt 1860 Army Model revolver in the fast draw holster tied to his right thigh. There was a noticeable lump under his left armpit which was another suggestion of how he earned his living.
Despite there being no discernible reason for the man to be where he was, leaning a shoulder against the wall of the nearer building, Freddie could detect nothing to make her assume he posed any kind of threat to her. In fact, he appeared little different from numerous others of his kind who had visited her saloon. His leathery features were less than prepossessing, but were definitely Caucasian in their lines and gave no suggestion that he might be the product of a mixed marriage. Furthermore, while it had not been cut for some time, his hair was neither black nor as long as that of the Metis who had carried out the thwarted assassination bid the previous afternoon. Therefore, even though the street was otherwise deserted, she felt sure he could not be harboring any hostile intentions when he was where a scream for help would bring it swiftly enough from the other side of the buildings which flanked the street.
Having drawn the conclusion, the black haired beauty kept walking at the same brisk pace!
Freddie found nothing out of the ordinary about the scrutiny to which the man was subjecting her. It was something which she had grown accustomed to receiving even from more respectable and harmless looking individuals. What was more, he neither changed hi
s position nor spoke. Albeit remaining alert in case something should be wrong and keeping the reticule in her left hand where it could be easily reached and entered by her right, she went by without giving him a second glance.
Which proved to be a mistake!
As Freddie was passing the entrance to the alley, a movement from it caught the corner of her eye. Because of her wariness with regards to her still unresolved misgivings over the letter she had received, she swung her gaze around to ascertain what had attracted her. She subjected the two men who were approaching along it to a quick scrutiny.
Both were dressed in much the same fashion as the one on the sidewalk and neither more cleanly in appearance nor more prepossessing!
One was tall, lean and blond. Whatever redeeming features his oak bronzed face might have had, they were removed by a livid white scar which ran the entire length of his left cheek from the corner of his eye to the side of his loose lipped mouth. There was something unusual about the way he was armed. While there was a sheath of Indian manufacture at the left side of his gunbelt, which supported an Army Colt in a fast draw holster on the right, it did not hold a knife.
Freddie found something toad-like and even more repellent about the other occupant of the alley. Short and squat, with little hair if his shoved back hat was any guide, his waxy features suggested he spent little time out of doors. Perhaps because they had no lashes to offer protection, his eyes blinked more than normal. He was wearing two Colt Model of 1851 Navy Belt Pistols—a revolver despite the name—in low cavalry-twist draw holsters. He seemed to move in a progression of hops, much like those of the kind of reptile he resembled. However, regardless of his less than healthy looking skin pigmentation, she gained the impression he was extremely powerful and might prove as dangerous a proposition with his bare hands as when relying upon his guns.
However, while neither man was the kind Freddie could imagine a girl being willing to take home to meet her mother, they too gave no indication of being Metis in disguise!
The consolation which the black haired beauty had drawn from the latter consideration ended almost as soon as it was reached!
‘Keep right on walking and don’t even think of yelling out!’ commanded a harsh Northern voice from close behind the Englishwoman and she felt something hard and circular being pushed against her spine. ‘If you make so much as a squeak, you’ll get a busted head!’
‘Whatever you say,’ Freddie replied, her manner calm despite suspecting the threat would be carried out. What was more, she concluded that she had no reason to anticipate there would be any help forthcoming from the pair leaving the alley. Nor did she believe any of the three were cowhands engaged in some form of harmless mischief. ‘But, if it’s robbery you have in mind, you’ll get precious poor pickings from me.’
‘She reckon’s how we’re figuring to rob her, Camb!’ scoffed the scar-faced man as he ranged himself swiftly to the Englishwoman’s right.
‘Why that’d be right dishonest, Lecky,’ claimed the toad-like man who had taken up a similar position on Freddie’s left. His somewhat croaking mode of speech added to the impression of being toad-like and gave the same suggestion of origins in the Northern States as those of the other two. ‘And here we are, working for the law. Ain’t we, Camb?’
‘Blink ’n’ Lecky’s got the rights of it, your duchess-ship,’ the third member of the party declared. ‘We’re making what’s knowed as a citizen’s arrest.’
‘If this is some kind of a joke—!’ Freddie began, although her every instinct warned nothing so innocuous was taking place.
‘Her duchess-ship reckon’s how we’re just funning like a bunch of those beef-head sons-of-bitches in town to spend their pay, boys,’ Hugo ‘Camb’ Camberwell jeered and ground the muzzle of the modified Army Colt with a shortened barrel—which he had drawn from a shoulder holster causing the lump beneath the left side of his jacket—deeper against the beautiful Englishwoman's back. ‘Does this feel like a joke?’
‘They reckon’s how them rich Limey folk’s live in castles ain’t over bright, Camb,’ Russell ‘Blink’ Profitt commented, before Freddie could speak.
‘It certainly doesn’t strike me as being in the least bit funny' the Englishwoman claimed, puzzled by the references to her as ‘your duchess-ship’ and the remark from the man at her left. She had wondered whether the trio might have merely deducted from her attire that she was wealthy, or knew her to be the owner of what was rated as being the most profitable saloon in Mulrooney, so had the idea of kidnapping and holding her for ransom. However, this did not explain the suggestion that they were ‘working for the law’ and making a ‘citizen’s’ arrest. For one thing, none of them were wearing a badge and, even if they had elected to keep proof of their official standing concealed until she was surrounded, she felt sure it would have been produced when this was accomplished to lessen the chance of raising a protest. ‘And I doubt whether Captain Fog or any of his deputies will think it is either.’
‘Be that so,’ Camberwell replied, sounding unimpressed. Nevertheless, he darted a quick glance around as if wishing to make sure none of the local peace officers were in the vicinity before going on in the same kind of blustering fashion, ‘We ain’t never run across Fog, nor none of his deputies; though we’ve heard you've got him and his lousy beef-head bunch running the law hereabouts for you.’'
‘I have,’ Freddie said, sensing there might be an advantage in denying the assumption that she had hired the Texans as the owner of a saloon expecting favors from the appointment and not in the capacity of Mulrooney’s mayor. ‘And, as they’re running the law for me, they aren’t going to take kindly to what you’re doing.’
‘Time they get to know, it'll be way too late,’ the burly man asserted. ‘’Cause we ain’t figuring on being seen by none of ’em. Head for Hampton’s Livery. Only, on the way there, happen you make a peep to let anybody’s we might come across know’s how we’re not just walking along all friendly-like, you won’t be the only one’s winds up taking lead.’
‘I won’t have to “make a peep”, as you put it,’ Freddie pointed out, hoping they would not see anybody—unless it was one or preferably more of the very competent young Texans serving as deputies—who she could rely upon to act in a sensible and effective manner—as she did not wish to endanger the lives of other people. ‘If they see you with that gun pushed into my back and your friend there carrying my reticule, they’ll know something’s wrong.’
‘There won’t be no gun in your back,’ Camberwell corrected, withdrawing the weapon and returning it to its shoulder holster. While he was doing so, Profitt reached in front of the Englishwoman and tossed her reticule into an alley they were passing. ‘It’s gone back into leather, same’s Blink’s got rid of your bag. But don’t let either fill you with hope, your duchess-ship. I can fetch it, or its low-tied mate, out again as fast’s I’ve heard it said that beef-head bastard tame law-dog of your’n can. Top of which, Lecky’s got his real sharp ole Green River knife shoved up his jacket’s sleeve. Even if I don’t shoot you, he’ll be right pleasured to carve you so bad’s you’ll beg me to make you wolf bait as soon’s you see what’s left of your pretty face.’
‘You appear to have thought of everything,’ Freddie declared, trying to prevent any trace of alarm showing and allowing herself to be guided in the appropriate direction. ‘But what I’d like to know is, why are you doing this?’
‘For money,’ Granger ‘Lecky’ Lexington answered, holding forward his right arm so the Englishwoman could see the blade of the J. Russell & Co. ‘Green River’ knife he had slipped hilt first up the sleeve of his jacket before she appeared in front of the entrance to the alley.
‘Well, that means you don't have robbery pure and simple in mind,’ Freddie assessed. ‘And it can’t be you’re thinking of holding me for ransom either, because you say you’re working for the law. But, to the best of my knowledge—and I think I’d be the first to know—I haven’t broken it in any way.
’
‘That’s not what we are told,’ Profitt croaked. ‘Is it, Camb?’
‘It surely ain’t,’ confirmed the burly man bringing up the rear. ‘Fact being, going by what I was told, you’re wanted bad.’
‘Whoever told you that must have been joking,’ Freddie claimed, but she was assailed by an uneasy feeling as she remembered the three members of the British Railroad Commission who had arrived from England and, possibly, at least one of the Canadian contingent, might be cognizant of her reason for coming to the United States. If the letter was genuine, Sir John Ramage certainly did. However, she could not believe he would have set the three men on her trail. Nor did she consider either Lord James Roxton or Colonel George French any more likely as suspects. Hoping to learn something to enlighten her, she went on in a well simulated tone of mockery, ‘Or has he mistaken me for the famous lady outlaw, Belle Starr?’
‘He allows there’s no mistake and he sure as shitting wasn’t joking,’ Camberwell denied. ‘Fact being, I’ve never seen one of his kind’s even knowed how to joke, lop of which, he’s already paid us right well to take you over to the marshal in Brownton and, most times, his sort throw their money around like they didn’t have no arms.’
‘Why Brownton?’ Freddie inquired, concluding she could name one person and probably two who would qualify for the unflattering comments made by the man to her rear. Furthermore, she now realized what it had been about the letter she found disturbing. She could not relieve a man like Sir John Uglow Ramage would consider it necessary to attest to his promise of not disclosing her location in such a fashion. On the other land, adding the reference to her home town, Melton Mowbray, and making such an untypical assertion as the one which ended the letter were the kind of things a person trying to make her believe the baronet was responsible—but lacking any extensive knowledge of members of his class—might do. She felt sure that Sir Michael Dinglepied and the Englishman from the Winstanley Livery Stable came into that category. Wanting to gather all the information she could while remaining alert for the slightest possibility she might be offered to make a bid to escape, she went on, ‘We have a marshal here in Mulrooney and there’s a perfectly good sheriff over at the county seat.’