Horse With No Name

by Alexandra Amor

  Julia sat quietly for a moment, thinking.

  Parker surprised her by volunteering some information. "Fists, well, knuckles really, break the skin on impact. Hunter had that head wound, which may have been caused by knocking it against something. But the bruising around his face was mostly just that - bruising. There wasn't much broken skin, except that cut on his lip."

  "But there's no way to tell," Julia said, coming back to her original question, "if the wounds could have been inflicted by a woman."

  Parker shook his head.

  "Why wouldn't he have defended himself?" Julia was thinking out loud. "If it was a woman he could theoretically have grabbed her arms to restrain her."

  "Maybe it was a surprise attack."

  "Still. Who wouldn't try to stop someone who was battering them?"

  The doctor looked out the window, thinking. When he turned back to Julia she could see he had made a decision. "When I removed his shirt and vest, there was quite a bit of bruising and redness here." He held up his own left arm and pointed with his right hand to the underside of the forearm, between elbow and wrist. "On both arms."

  Parker then waited while Julia processed that information. "Defensive wounds," she said.

  Parker nodded. "That's what I thought." He held both his arms up in front of his face. "If he was shielding himself, like this, it's that part of the arm that would take most of the force of the blows. And it's a very natural, human instinct to protect one's face and eyes in such an event." He put his hands back down on the desk. "Why do you ask about whether a woman could have done the damage?"

  "Just a suspicion I have based on a conversation I had with someone this morning."

  Julia made it a habit to stop in to see James Hunter each morning on her way to school. Betty, Millie Jones and several other women in town were keeping him stocked with food. The man had probably never eaten so well. His suits might not fit when he was ready to go back to work. The women always stayed for a visit when they dropped off a stew or soup, although Betty mentioned that Hunter never wanted to chat for long. He always seemed relieved when she took her leave. Julia had the same experience each morning. She wanted to make sure Hunter had had a good rest and was set up with tea and whatever breakfast he might want. He never asked her to do anything extra and she wondered if he even ate the porridge she made him.

  This morning as she had approached the house, she'd heard shouting from inside. It almost sounded like two female voices. Julia broke into a run and dashed up the front walk. The front door was not quite closed and she could identify Lily Cecil's voice as she pushed through.

  "Mr. Hunter? Is everything all right?”

  Hunter was standing in front of one of the upholstered chairs in his parlor. Lily was standing several feet away. Both were red in the face. Hunter was dressed for the first time since he'd come home from Dr. Parker's. His suit jacket was slung over his right shoulder so that his broken arm could rest in the sling. Julia fleetingly wondered how he'd managed to get dressed and put the sling on.

  Lily and Hunter abruptly stopped arguing the instant they saw Julia come through the door. Their jaws snapped shut and the room was suddenly filled with uneasy silence. Julia felt like a child who had interrupted a parental argument.

  She said again, "Is everything all right?”

  Hunter and Lily looked at one another and then Hunter assured Julia, "Yes. Everything is fine, Miss Thom. Lily, er, Mrs. Cecil and I were just having a disagreement about whether I should go back to work today."

  "You're not thinking of going back to work yet, are you?"

  Hunter nodded, decisively, "I am. Today. I can't sit around here any longer. I've got customers waiting."

  "But Mr. Hunter, you only have the use of one arm."

  "Then I'll be slow. But I must go back. If I stay here staring at the walls for one more minute I'll go mad."

  Julia didn't know what to say. The man was captain of his own ship and she had no authority over him. She looked at the other woman, "You must feel it would be better if he rested for a few more days?"

  Lily looked confused for a moment. Julia was starting to feel she wasn't the smartest of women. She glanced at Hunter and then she said, "Yes. Yes, that's right. I think a few more days of rest are in order."

  Lily had taken her leave then, bidding them both good day and walking through the front door that was still hanging open. Hunter watched her go with an expression in his eyes that Julia couldn't identify.

  Julia helped Hunter finish getting dressed and then walked the man to his shop. He was even quieter than usual, which hardly seemed possible. Julia wondered if he was really feeling well enough to spend a day at his shop.

  He unlocked the door and they stepped inside together.

  "Well," Julia said, "you can always go home and rest anytime you need to. Your customers will understand."

  Hunter nodded absently, not really seeming to hear her. He was surveying the spots of blood on the floor behind the counter. "That's the first thing I'll need to clean up, isn't it?" he said. "Can't have customers walking into a watchmaker's and thinking they're in a butcher's shop."

  This was the first time Julia had ever heard Hunter make what could be construed as a joke. She smiled at him and noticed the bruises around his eyes were turning quite a foul shade of green. "Let me help you with that," she said, beginning to pull off her gloves.

  "No, Miss Thom," Hunter put one of his slight hands on her arm and then pulled it away quickly, "You've done enough. I thank you. You're going to be late for school. I've got all day to tidy up around here, so that's just what I'm going to do. You go now." He pulled his mouth into a faint smile.

  "I'll check in on you on my way home this afternoon.”

  "That would be kind of you."

  Julia walked to school slowly, mulling over what had just unfolded. The tension between Hunter and Lily seemed odd to her. It had a familiarity about it, the way that she had observed siblings can be with one another. Lily had said to Julia that she had known Mr. Hunter at school, but she hadn't mentioned when they'd last seen one another before they both moved to Horse. And, in the moment, Julia hadn't thought to ask. You have to know someone well enough to argue with them. This trail of thoughts caused Julia to wonder if Lily and Hunter had a broken engagement that they didn't want talked about. People did so often hide the truth, especially when it involved protecting personal business.

  When it came to living in a small town, in a place as far from anywhere as Horse was, one almost had to be running from something. Many in town and the surrounding area, of course, were running toward something; a better future, a different life. But Julia knew intimately that many people, including herself, were trying to leave a past behind them. She wondered if James Hunter was one of these. She determined to go and talk to Dr. Parker when school was finished for the afternoon.

  Her thoughts were interrupted when Susan and Ellen, her two grade-six students, came running down the street toward her.

  "Good morning, ladies," Julia said, putting aside her circling thoughts about past connections and present troubles.

  The girls flung themselves at their teacher, braids bouncing, speaking over one another indecipherably.

  "Slow down, girls. Slow down. What are you saying?"

  Ellen Simcoe, self-proclaimed den mother of all the children younger than herself, put her hands on her hips and declared, "Peter Little was eating dirt, Miss Thom, and now he's thrown up on his shoes."

  Julia almost burst out laughing. This was an unexpected benefit of working with children that she hadn't anticipated when she'd applied for the job. One moment was always vastly different from its predecessor. She could never predict what each day would hold and she loved that. Children brought a unique brand of beautiful chaos that she hadn't realized she'd been missing from her life.

  "Well then, nurses, lead on," she said. "Take me to your patient."

  ***

  Peter Little's dirt-eating escapades aside, it
was a quiet and thankfully smooth day at school. Julia found Dr. Parker in his office immediately after she closed the school for the day. And although he was willing to talk to her, the conversation left Julia feeling more confused than anything.

  James Hunter seemed to be an enigma. Everyone knew of him, but no one seemed to know him. She knew him as well to be a man who was stand-offish and remote. Almost like he always had somewhere to go, some place to be other than talking to the person he was with at that moment. She experienced this feeling even when she and Betty were in his home, helping him with the cooking and cleaning. He never seemed entirely relaxed.

  How could someone so difficult to reach have created an enemy who despised him so much he would beat the man half to death? Hunter was a puff of smoke. A ghost. Who could he have offended so badly?

  And furthermore, why didn't he want to talk about it? This was the part that really stuck in Julia's mind. He claimed he remembered nothing from the attack, not one shred of any part of the event had stayed with him. She found this very hard to believe. Was he covering something up? Was the beating somehow tied into something illegal or immoral? Julia found that just as hard to believe. A woman in 1890 had to be keenly aware of the character of those around her. Julia knew that she wasn't the only woman who had developed a sixth sense about those men she could trust and those she couldn't. Even before moving to Horse this skill was something she had mastered. Her mother had insisted on it and some of their only meaningful conversations, at least the ones that weren't about how to steep tea and what constituted proper attire for a Tuesday afternoon cello concert, had been about this subject. Julia often wondered if her mother had been hurt in some way when she was younger. But it was a subject she had never broached. She wouldn't have known how.

  James Hunter was not someone who ever struck Julia as being dangerous. And that he came to her aid at the dance showed that he was willing to stick his neck out for others. He cared about Julia's well-being that night, though he had gone back into his shell immediately afterward.

  As Julia walked away from the school, thinking hard about all this, she remembered that the gun Hunter had pointed at her assailants had surprised her on the night of the dance. She knew no one except Constable Merrick who owned a handgun. Most people, including herself, owned a rifle or a shotgun. She kept a rifle in the scabbard of her saddle in case she needed to deal with a wild animal while out riding. Although Walt Sheehan teased her and said that it was really just a pea-shooter that would only annoy a bear or a mountain lion should she encounter one. But it made her feel safer when riding on her own. When she remembered to take it.

  And most, if not all, families had a similar weapon. Not in the city perhaps, but definitely in small towns like Horse. Guns were used to shoot the game that provided most of the meat a family would consume during the year. All the boys in Julia's class who were over the age of ten had a small rifle of their own. Fathers taught sons how to hunt; it was just part of keeping a family well-fed.

  But handguns, revolvers, were another story. Julia had hardly ever seen one in person until the night Hunter came to her aid. Merrick wore his at his side in a leather holster, but it hung underneath his suit jacket and Julia rarely thought about it.

  Julia's walk slowed as she continued to think. Owning a handgun was perhaps one thing, but why would Hunter have it with him while he was out for a walk? That in itself was completely puzzling and something she decided she needed to talk to Hunter about. Her pace picked up again. She had a plan, though the longer she pursued the question of who had beaten Hunter, the more puzzled she became. It was absurd, in a way, to be trying to solve a crime that the victim seemed to want to ignore. Ah well, she thought, it's not the first time I've done something without someone's permission.

  Eighteen

  For the second time in as many weeks, the schoolhouse was being used for a town event. This time, it was the harvest potluck lunch.

  After church on Sunday, Pastor Thoreson was gently but firmly ushered out of the building so that his wife and the other women could set up the room. There was to be a pie contest, which the pastor was to officiate. "You can't see the ladies arriving with their pies, Harry," Mrs. Thoreson said, practically pushing him down the stairs. "It needs to be an impartial contest."

  "You know I would know your pie anywhere, Anne," her husband said, kissing her on the cheek.

  "Well, good thing I'm not entering the contest then. Now get along. There's bread, cheese and pickle for your lunch. But don't eat too much. Leave room for pie. And come back in an hour.”

  Anne Thoreson was a tiny woman. If she topped five feet Julia would have been surprised. But this tiny package came with a tremendous amount of energy. Julia didn't think she'd ever seen Mrs. Thoreson sitting down, except at church. The Thoresons came from back east, reassigned from Ottawa, Julia seemed to recall, and in Horse there was never enough for Mrs. Thoreson to do. She was part of, or ran, every committee the town had. She raised money for missionaries in Africa. She quilted like a dream and had gifted almost everyone in town with a quilt at one time or another. The one she had given Julia was a double wedding-ring pattern. "For good luck, dear," Mrs. Thoreson had said, which almost made Julia laugh.

  The Thoresons had been blessed with two boys, but, tragically, both had been killed in an accident long before the pastor and his wife moved to Horse. "They fell through the ice on a lake there in Ontario," Millie Jones whispered to Julia one day as they left church together. "They were twelve and fourteen. So sad." Millie had tisk-tisked and Julia was struck by how people managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other after such an event. How was it possible? But there the Thoresons were, intact and seemingly happy, though the sorrow of their loss had surely never left them. Even so, they acted like love birds with one another. Julia had yet to have an encounter with them when they didn't touch one another. If Julia had seen her parents touch twice in her lifetime she'd be surprised.

  When she was sure her husband was out of sight, Mrs. Thoreson came back into the schoolhouse and began organizing the buffet tables and chairs, as well as the places of honor for the judges of the pie tasting contest. Julia and Betty were there to work, and Mrs. Thoreson didn't hold back assigning them tasks to do. By the time the room began filling up with families and couples, Julia felt a little damp under her arms, which made her self-conscious. Her mother would not approve of a woman of Julia's position doing anything other than sitting on the sidelines and looking pretty. Despite the sticky underarm situation, Julia liked that her life now would shock her mother in so many ways.

  Tables were set up around the perimeter of the room, and as guests arrived they added their dishes and pots of stew to the bounty. Everyone brought their own bowl or plate and filled these to the brim. Smaller tables had been set up around the room, each with three or four chairs. At an event like this, those who lived closest to the schoolhouse brought their dining table and chairs so that they could be used.

  Soon the schoolroom was groaning under the weight of the people, the tables, and the food laid out. The volume rose several decibels every few minutes. Children, dressed in their Sunday best, ran through the forest of legs, their energy crackling with excitement.

  This was a daytime event and, as such, there was no music. Julia spied Jack Merrick on the far side of the room, standing alone, his back to a wall. She took pity on him and brought him a bottle of Mayor Jones' cider.

  "Have you tried this, Constable?" She held the bottle out toward him.

  He raised his right arm and showed her a bottle already in his right hand.

  "Ah, okay then." Julia hesitated, while Merrick watched her. He had a way of looking at her in some moments that made her decidedly uncomfortable; the way a cat watches birds from behind glass. It was the first time they had spoken since the poker game and Julia remembered how unhappy he'd seemed about her presence. She felt that perhaps he didn't want to talk to her now, so she began to turn away.

  Then Me
rrick said something she didn't catch.

  "Pardon me?" she turned back.

  "Why don't you have it?" There was a change in his expression. He was almost arching one eyebrow.

  It was a challenge. Women didn't drink alcohol in public.

  He must have seen the internal struggle she was having. "If anyone asks, I'll say it's mine," he offered.

  Now she couldn't back down. Annoyed with herself for being so easily coerced, she opened the bottle, pulling the stopper out, and took a surreptitious swig, turning her body so that Merrick shielded her from most of the room. The cider was sweet and a little tingly on her tongue. It tasted very pleasant, although strong. Her eyes lit up.

  "It's nice, isn't it?" Merrick smiled at her.

  "It's a hell of a lot better than that awful grog Walt makes, that's for sure."

  "Aye. That stuff will have you breathing fire in no time."

  "Where is the blacksmith, anyway?"

  "He's on his way. Nelson threw a shoe this morning when we were out, so he wanted to see to that before he came over. He won't miss the pie though. Don't worry."

  Julia wasn't worried and wasn't sure why Merrick used the phrase, but she pushed the thought aside and asked, "When were you out? Before church?"

  "Aye."

  "You must've been up before the sun."

  "We were."

  Julia could tell if she wanted any details from Merrick she was going to have to ask for them. "Pleasure trip?" she said, casually.

  "Nope. Business."

  Julia waited and seethed slightly, her curiosity battling with her unwillingness to let Merrick think he had the upper hand.

  He watched her for a moment and then took pity on her. "We went out to the Piling place. I wanted to talk to the drovers out there, and Walt wanted to come along for some fresh air."

  Julia realized now why Merrick had been reluctant to tell her where he'd been; he hadn't wanted her to go with him as she had to the Double A Ranch. She was wondering how to phrase her next question when he offered more.