Cowboy Charm School

by Margaret Brownley

Spike turned to Dusty. “Wanna play baseball?”

  Dusty’s face lit up. “Yeah!” he said, barely able to contain his excitement.

  “Come on, then. You be the catcher.”

  The four of them ran off.

  Brett helped himself to another Dusty Drop. “I have to say, taming those boys was a brilliant piece of work.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t take all the credit,” she said, blushing. “I got the idea from something my uncle once said.”

  He stared at the piece of candy in his hand.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “I was just thinking that the beetle, mushroom—whatever—actually looks like a key.”

  She frowned. “That’s a funny-looking key,” she said, trying not to take offense.

  “I’m talking a telegraph key,” he said. “See?”

  He held it up in such a way that it did indeed look like a telegraph key. She sighed. “I meant it to be a leaf.”

  “A leaf?”

  She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a better candy maker than I am an artist.”

  “Well, if I’m right, you could add detective to your list of talents.”

  She angled her head. “What do you mean, detective?”

  He gave her a heart-stopping smile. “Kate Denver, I do believe you helped me solve the Ghost Rider case. At least partially.” Without explanation, he dashed across the street to his tethered horse, leaving her to watch him in bewilderment.

  * * *

  Brett woke that night with a start. Not only did he have the telegraph operator, Flash, on his mind, but he couldn’t stop thinking about rings. Diamond rings. Engagement rings. Wedding rings.

  Irritated at himself, he raised his head, slammed a fist into his pillow, and rolled over. It was no time to be thinking about rings. Or Kate. Definitely not Kate. That only took him to places of the heart where he didn’t want to go.

  It was far better, safer, and more productive to concentrate on his reason for coming to Haywire. He was getting closer to identifying the Ghost Riders and maybe even tracking down Foster One. He felt it in his bones.

  And he had Kate to thank for that. The candy design sure had looked like a telegraph key, and that had gotten him thinking. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe someone else had known that the shipment of gold would be transported by train.

  Maybe Flash had known.

  The sheriff said he’d sent the telegram with transport instructions to Austin in cipher. But what if Flash had done more than tap out the message? What if he had decrypted it? It was possible. If he enjoyed riddles, he probably liked solving other puzzles. Deciphering secret messages was a popular pastime. Even Edgar Allan Poe was said to have enjoyed the challenge of cracking messages in code.

  Flash was the right height to be a Ghost Rider, but so were most of the men in Haywire. And his candy of choice was licorice, not peppermint. Still…

  Perhaps the most critical evidence was his work schedule. Flash hadn’t worked the afternoon of the holdup, but coincidentally, Thursday was his normal day off. According to his landlady, Flash was a fairly new resident and had only moved into the boardinghouse eight months ago. That was around the time the Ghost Riders had started operating in the county.

  Oh yes, now that Brett had thought about it, there were reasons aplenty to suspect Flash. Still, suspicion wasn’t proof, and he needed more. A lot more.

  He tried thinking of the other clues he had, but his mind kept going back to rings. He was just about to banish the thought when something occurred to him.

  Sitting up in bed, he scrubbed his face with his hands. And he wore a ring. That’s what the boy, Dusty, had said. And he wore a ring.

  And it had been on his pinkie finger.

  Seeing Dusty yesterday must have triggered something in his subconscious. Brett hadn’t given Dusty’s observation a second thought before, but there was good reason for that. Pinkie rings weren’t all that unusual. Probably half the men in town wore such rings. Often they were signet rings with a Masonic or Odd Fellows insignia, but the boy hadn’t recalled any special design.

  During the War Between the States, a soldier would sometimes wear his wife’s ring, the small size necessitating the need to wear it on a pinkie.

  He tried to think. Flash didn’t wear a ring. At least not as far as Brett could recall. So where did that leave him? A pinkie ring, peppermint candy, and a scrap of paper in Kate’s handwriting were all he had to show for nearly two months of work, and that sure in blazes wasn’t much to go on.

  He lay his head back on his pillow and stared up at the dark ceiling. He couldn’t seem to get the ring out of his mind. None of the other witnesses had mentioned any such jewelry. Why was that?

  Had the boy been mistaken or…?

  His thoughts sifted through his mind like grains of sand. What if it hadn’t been a ring the boy had spotted, but something else? But what? A key, maybe. Some people slipped a key ring over a finger, a temporary action that could explain why Dusty was the only one to have noticed it.

  Brett groaned. Maybe he was just grasping at straws. Or perhaps he’d been going about this all wrong. The clues were there; he was sure of it. He just couldn’t put them together.

  He punched his pillow again and rolled over. He tried turning off his brain, but his mind refused to cooperate. Again, he ticked off the few clues he had: a pinkie ring, peppermint candy, and a handwritten fortune…

  The ring haunted him for the rest of the night and all the following day. He’d left Haywire early that morning to check out the series of caves outside Barterville. The trip turned out to be a waste of time. Nothing in the caves indicated they had been used as a hideout. The cold ashes of a campfire could have been left by anyone.

  Late that afternoon, he rode into the town of Barterville. After getting something to eat at the hotel, he stopped at the marshal’s office. Unlike the reception he’d gotten from the sheriff of Haywire, Deputy Marshal Bradshaw looked pleased to see him.

  An affable man with a deep voice and a balding head, the marshal invited him to sit. “What can I do for you?”

  Brett stepped around the hound dog sleeping on the floor and seated himself in the ladder-back chair. “Just want to ask a couple of questions,” he said. “Any leads to the bank holdup?”

  “Not a one,” Bradshaw said with a rueful shake of his head. “They blew up the safe, grabbed the money, and vanished”—he snapped his fingers—“just like that.” The dog lifted his head. With a shake of his collar, he gave his owner a sleepy-eyed gaze and then rested his head on his crossed paws.

  “What about you?” the marshal asked. “Any luck with the train robbery?”

  Brett pulled his gaze away from the sleeping dog. “Not yet.” He reached for the photograph in his vest pocket and slid it across the desk. “Do you recognize that man?”

  The marshal picked up the photograph and studied it. “Can’t say that I do. Who is he?”

  “Don’t know what he calls himself now, but he was using the name Frank Foster. I have reason to believe he’s a member of the Ghost Riders.”

  “Is that so?” The marshal slid the photograph back to Brett. “What makes you think that?”

  “A couple of years ago, there was a similar string of robberies in San Antone. The robberies stopped when Foster left town.”

  “And you think this same man is behind the holdups here in the county.”

  “If it’s not the same man, then it’s a copycat.”

  The marshal stroked his chin. “But you don’t believe that, right?”

  “Not for a second,” Brett said, staring at the piece of string tied to the marshal’s finger.

  Bradshaw drew his hand away from his chin and held it out in front of himself. “Just a reminder to stop and get flowers for the wife’s birthday.”

  “Yeah, you d
on’t want to forget that,” Brett said. For some reason, the string triggered a half-forgotten memory.

  The marshal folded his hands on his desk. “Something wrong?”

  Anxious to return to Haywire, Brett rose to his feet. “Not a thing,” he said. His mind in a whirl, he almost tripped over the sleeping dog, and the rest of the memory materialized.

  Could it be? Was it possible?

  “Not a thing,” he repeated. Thanking the marshal for his time, he left.

  And he wore a ring.

  Crazy as it sounded, the piece of string tied to the marshal’s fingers might both save a marriage and help solve a case. That and Kate’s beetle…mushroom…key!

  28

  That night, Kate stifled a yawn and poked the brown mass of taffy on the marble slab with a finger to see if it had cooled enough to pull. “I think it’s ready.”

  Aunt Letty laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just thinking of your uncle. Remember how he’d insist on making taffy over an open fire?”

  “Yes, and he had a fit when you ordered the cookstove. Said it didn’t belong in a candy kitchen.” The memory brought a smile to Kate’s face. “I wonder what he’d say about the talking machine they call a telephone.” Haywire didn’t have telephone service, but the mayor insisted that was about to change.

  Aunt Letty rolled her eyes. “Lord have mercy. I shudder to think. Remember how he carried on when they first laid the railroad tracks here?” She oiled her hands and wiped the excess off with a towel. “Your uncle said progress was the exchange of one nuisance for another.” She plunged both hands into the sugary mound before her, adding, “That reminds me. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

  Kate pulled a ribbon of brown taffy and folded the ends together. Thanks to the sudden turn of mild weather, the taffy was the perfect consistency. “Oh?”

  “What do you think about hiring someone to help out around here?”

  Kate’s hands paused. “Whenever I suggested such a thing in the past, you rejected it. What made you change your mind?”

  Her aunt paused before answering. “The town is growing by leaps and bounds. Business has almost doubled this past year. As a result, we’ve both been putting in long hours. I mean, look at us. It’s almost eight o’clock, and we’re still here. Lawdy, we should have been home hours ago.”

  Kate couldn’t argue with her aunt in that regard. The arrival of the railroad had changed the community in many ways. There was even talk about building an opera house, which meant no more having to travel to Austin to see a play.

  Aunt Letty pinned Kate with a meaningful look. “Unless I miss my guess, you’ll soon be busy setting up your own household.”

  Kate snapped the taffy ribbon in half. “Things between Frank and me are still up in the air.” She hated not being completely honest with her aunt, but she had promised Frank to keep their arrangement secret.

  “You can’t keep him on the hook forever. Either you’re going to have to reel him in or let him go.”

  “These things can’t be rushed.”

  “Rushed? Mercy, child!” Her aunt held her hands in midair for a moment. “You’ve known him since you were six. That’s a whole lot longer than I knew your uncle before I married him.”

  “Some people take longer to get to know,” Kate said. “Others you know immediately, like…” Surprised to find Brett’s name on the tip of her tongue, she quickly searched for a substitute. “Like…like Uncle Joe.”

  “Frank’s a pretty open book. I can’t imagine what more there is to learn about him.”

  “I didn’t know that Frank had a romantic side.”

  Her aunt pursed her lips. “Come to think of it, I didn’t know either. Not till he sent those flowers and that note.”

  “See what I mean?” This new tender side of Frank not only surprised her; it taught her something about herself. She liked being treated like a lady. Liked it a lot. It made her feel special, and Frank had never before made her feel that way. Perhaps the problem wasn’t so much that Frank had changed. Maybe the change had come in her.

  Aunt Letty’s lips puckered. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

  Kate frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Has anyone else caught your fancy?”

  Kate sucked in her breath. Leave it to her aunt to ask the question she hadn’t dared ask herself. “You mean other than the two different Franks?” she asked, biding for time.

  “I just want you to be happy. And if I thought for one moment that Frank wasn’t the right man for you, I wouldn’t push so hard.”

  “I know that, Aunt Letty. It’s just…so much has happened in recent weeks. It’s hard to think.”

  “Maybe you’re thinking too much,” Aunt Letty said. “Sometimes, it’s better to just let yourself feel.”

  Kate nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “’Course I’m right.” Aunt Letty bent a ribbon of taffy in two. “You know, Charley Watts is into that thinking stuff too. By the time he made up his mind who to vote for, it was too late. The election was over.”

  Kate couldn’t help but laugh. Only her aunt could compare picking out a husband to voting for a candidate.

  “So,” Aunt Letty continued, “how do you feel about hiring someone?”

  Kate welcomed the idea but still couldn’t help but worry. It was true that business had doubled. And they had put in a lot of long hours of late. But was that the only reason for her aunt’s change of heart? Or was something else going on? Aunt Letty had seemed distracted recently and lacked her usual spunk.

  “Is there something you’re not telling me? You’re not ill, are you?”

  Her aunt drew back in surprise. “Ill? Certainly not. Who has time to be ill? It’s just… I’m not getting any younger, and neither are you. I think we could both use some time to ourselves. Maybe if you hadn’t been so tied down here, you and Frank would have resolved your problems by now.”

  Kate’s heart sank. Back to Frank again. Fortunately, the jingling bells signaled that someone had entered the shop, effectively stopping further discussion.

  “Who could that be at this late hour?” Kate asked. Whoever it was deserved a hug—or, at the very least, extra sweets—for the timely arrival.

  “Probably someone picking up an order,” Aunt Letty said, stifling a yawn. Wiping her greasy hands on a towel, she started for the door. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Her aunt’s cheery voice wafted from the front of the shop. “Oh, I didn’t expect to see you tonight. Don’t tell me. The usual, right?”

  A man’s low, rumbling voice wafted into the kitchen, but Kate couldn’t make out who it was. Her main thought was to finish up so she and her aunt could call it a night.

  Just as she reached for a sponge, her aunt’s voice stopped her. Puzzled, Kate frowned. It sure did sound like her aunt had said she’d gone home.

  That couldn’t be right; she must have heard wrong. What possible reason would her aunt have for saying something that wasn’t true?

  Still, the oddly disturbing tone of her aunt’s voice raised the hairs on the back of Kate’s neck. Wiping her greasy hands on her apron, Kate tiptoed to the door. The mirror on the far wall allowed her to view part of the counter area unseen.

  She spotted Ringo in front of the counter. Head tilted, ears cocked, the dog appeared to be waiting for his treat. Sighing in relief, she forced herself to relax. It was only Lucky Lou.

  Obviously, she’d heard wrong.

  Maybe her aunt was right; she had been working hard. They both had been. The train robbery hadn’t helped, and now she was imagining danger where none existed.

  Hiring an employee was definitely a good idea. She was about to go back to work when once again, her aunt’s voice made her pause. “You’ll never get away with this.”
>
  Puzzled, Kate shifted slightly to the right to gain a wider view in the mirror on the far wall, and her jaw dropped. Was that a gun in Lucky Lou’s hand?

  She pulled away from the doorway in disbelief. Back against the wall, she pressed her hands on her chest to calm her racing heart. What was Lucky Lou doing holding a gun on her aunt? Not sure she could believe her eyes, she braced herself with a deep breath and chanced another quick glance. There was no mistake. She couldn’t see Lucky Lou’s face, only the hand holding the weapon.

  Confusion spurting through her, Kate pulled back. What was the matter with him? Was this some sort of joke? Had he lost his mind?

  Fearing for her aunt’s safety, she considered her options. She could sneak out the back door and race up Outhouse Alley for help, but she didn’t want to leave her aunt alone.

  Another quick peek told her things had taken a turn for the worse.

  Her aunt was moving ever so slowly around the counter, hands held above her shoulders. Lucky Lou was now in full view, and Kate hardly recognized him. Face dark as night, he didn’t look like himself. The wild look in his eyes was even more worrisome than the gun. He turned his head, and Kate ducked out of sight.

  After a moment, she looked again. This time, her aunt was heading for the door, the gun pointed at her back. Kate’s mind scrambled. Where could he be taking her? It was late, and most of the shops and businesses were closed. Anything that happened after dark took place beyond the Dead Line, and that was three blocks away. There was a good chance that no one would see them.

  Forcing herself to remain calm, Kate curled her hands at her side. This was no time to panic. Think! She glanced about the kitchen in search of a weapon.

  Grabbing hold of a sturdy pot, she braced herself with a deep breath and slipped off her shoes. Bent at the waist, she left the kitchen on stockinged feet. She ducked behind the counter, keeping her head low. Her heart thumped against her ribs, and she feared the sound would give her away.

  Her aunt was clearly stalling for time. “I-I won’t tell anyone that you’re a bank robber.”

  Kate stiffened and almost dropped the pan. Lucky Lou a bank robber? That could mean but one thing—he was a Ghost Rider.