Scryer's Gulch

by MeiLin Miranda

  His thoughts must have shown in his face. "You realize Simon Prake's in line, too," Runnels said out one side of his mouth.

  "Why, whatever do you mean, Sheriff? In line for what?" said Tony. Runnels snorted in scorn, and Tony suppressed a malicious smile. So the Sheriff knew nothing of where young Mr Prake's heart really lay. So much the better for me. Advantageous knowledge was best kept secret.

  The door creaked at Tony's knock; Mrs Walters poked her pinched face through the crack, looked them up and down, and opened it the rest of the way. "Come in, Mr Tony." Tony walked past her; for a moment it looked as if she might actually bar the way for the other two, until Tony finally said, "Mrs Walters, they have an invitation."

  "I know, I know," she snapped. "Come in, I suppose." She fixed a beady, spite-filled eye on Annabelle, and stepped aside. Annabelle braced herself as if for a confrontation, and passed through the door. She seemed to know what to expect. That's right, she's been here before. He had a good guess what Charity was expecting, and he was pretty sure she sure wasn't going to get it.

  Episode 39: Indigestion

  There were times Annabelle regretted having used schoolteacher as a cover. Would that there were enough women in town to have come as a dressmaker, or a milliner. If she'd been either of them, she wouldn't have to be at uncomfortable occasions such this one. She tried not to fidget on the horsehair sofa in the Bonhams' stuffy front parlor as they all waited on Jedediah Bonham's arrival to his own dinner party.

  Charity had done herself and her household up a little too fine. A down-on-his-luck greenhorn in ill-fitting formalwear had been pressed into service as butler; he presented Annabelle with a glass of sherry she desperately wished were something stronger. Bourbon. She liked that now and again, but wouldn't get any until she went back home. She probably wouldn't need it then. Might she bolt down the sherry? Not here, no matter how tempting. John and Tony looked as if they wouldn't have minded a snort, either.

  Charity, meanwhile, preened before the men in a new plum-colored silk; its color was ever so slightly the wrong shade for her blazing red hair. Every excess of the French fashion plates plagued that poor dress: an overly-elaborate fringed overskirt, a huge bustle ending in a puddling train, feathers dyed to match at the shoulders and edging her fan, and if the dress had one ruffle it had a dozen. In her room, Annabelle's black faille had seemed drab, but next to her hostess's profusion of bad taste, drab looked good.

  The cuffs of Annabelle's dress covered the marks her detector's bracelet had burned into her wrist. Despite the still-tender burns, she'd remained true to her duty and slipped the bracelet onto her other wrist. She prayed none of the tainted hermetauxite turned up tonight. She didn't really expect it to, but the Bonhams still made her nervous. Someone as controlling as Jed Bonham was likely to have a hand in anything suspicious.

  Nevertheless, Tony Bonham had set off a slight buzzing when he'd arrived at the Hopewell, and perhaps not the buzz he'd hoped for; he was quite interested in her, wasn't he? A very handsome man, Bonham the younger, but too slick for her taste. He was carrying something--maybe a nugget like Jamie's?

  Charity was making no effort to include Annabelle in conversation. Instead she murmured flirtatiously to Tony and fluttered her fan, sending tiny poofs of plum-colored fluff into the air. Flirting with her own stepson? That was all kinds of disturbing.

  In desperation, Annabelle turned to John. "And how is Jamie?"

  "Still a bit hangdog, I fear," he grimaced. "Rabbit's taking him shooting Monday after school out where you and--rather, at a canyon not far where we frequently target shoot."

  A tiny musical chime broke in on the two stilted conversations. Tony absently took out a gold watch and thumbed it open, apparently out of habit; he gave it barely a glance before closing it again. Annabelle's bracelet prickled more forcefully. "What an unusual watch, Mr Bonham!" she said. "Such a charming little chime, I've never heard anything like it."

  "On the quarters, half, and full hour, Miss Duniway," he said. "A present from my mother. No," he said at Annabelle's automatic glance at Charity, "the first Mrs Bonham. Would you like to see it? Though it is five years old now, it is still the pinnacle of magical timekeeping."

  Annabelle accepted the watch, deftly keeping her fingers from touching Tony's though the watch's chain by necessity pulled them closer together; she stood to avoid a confrontation with his trouser fastenings. She turned the watch this way and that, pretending to examine the engraving, which was top-notch and in the finest style. Ma Bonham at least had possessed good taste, if her successor had none. Tony reached over and pressed the clasp; the cover flipped open to reveal an appropriately motherly admonition engraved inside.

  All the while her bracelet did a tiny dance against her wrist. It wasn't half as painful as it had been inside Simon Prake's office, not even a tenth, but it still set her teeth on edge. "However does it work? I assumed it would take a very great hermetic battery to power such a watch, but it is so small!"

  "I don't expect you to understand its principles, Miss Duniway, and I confess to no more than an interested amateur's understanding myself," he smiled.

  I'll show you a thing or two about its principles, she fumed to herself.

  "Suffice it to say that one reason why its makers were able to keep it so small is that the battery needs replaced more frequently than, say, a clock like my father's." He gestured to a large clock supported by two fat, bilious gilt cherubs squatting on the mantel. "I don't believe Father has changed the battery on that clock once in all the time he's had it--since before I was born--and it was one of the first hermetic timepieces on the market." He took the proffered watch from Annabelle's hand, this time making subtle contact. "I replace this battery once a year. In fact, I replaced it just last week."

  "Oh?" said Annabelle. "Did you have to send back east for the battery? That would be odd, wouldn't it, sending back east for something that surrounds us!"

  "No, no," smiled Tony. "Simon Prake is a dab hand at encoding just about anything. He ran this up for me with just a few days' notice. I believe the most time-consuming element was shaping it."

  Simon Prake. Again. Annabelle sighed inside. She did not want her culprit to be that earnest young man, outwardly so conscientious and honest. Could he be that great a dissembler? He must be.

  It was time to ethergram Chief Howman. Now that she had her man, she needed to know what to do with him.

  Episode 40: Duchess Soup

  The little dinner party was rapidly slipping from Charity's fingers, and they hadn't even sat down to the meal yet. The cook had spoilt the soup and had to make up a new one, the greenhorn--er, butler--was clumsy, and worse, that schoolteacher was monopolizing both John Runnels and Tony.

  How could it be? Duniway looked like a blue-eyed crow in that black dress, while she was resplendent in feathers and plum-colored silk that set off the green of her eyes. She'd ordered the feathers all the way from San Francisco--what luck that they matched her new dress so well, even if they were shedding a bit. It was to be expected of ostrich.

  And Jedediah was late. Damn that Jedediah for not even bothering to show for a dinner he forced her to throw!

  The parlor door opened, and in he strolled, newly pressed and combed, his great gold and enamel fob hanging from the thick watch chain draped from his vest pocket.

  Tony consulted the watch he had just taken back from the Duniway woman. "Well, Father, how kind of you to join us."

  "Anthony," Charity hissed, though she was thinking the very same thing.

  "I do apologize, Mother. Business to take care of, Father?"

  "Oh, quite pressing business," grinned Jedediah. "Investments to look after." He'd been at Mamzelle's, then.

  That demon! Charity had to convince him to make that demon kill itself, or work in the mines, or just disappear! As long as it was around, Charity's allure wasn't enough to keep him from straying. Jed could force it to take any shape he wanted: a thousand, a thousand million women for Ch
arity to compete with, though she wasn't sure Jed had that much imagination. She could think of far more interesting things to do with a demon. Maybe it was better off as her servant and not Jed's. She wouldn't waste it next time on housework, that's for certain. She still hadn't heard the end of the ruination of the red silk dress, but she didn't care. That length of silk was supposed to have been hers. Jed said he didn't like her in red. Said she was surely too expensive to look that cheap. Hmf.

  Maybe she would work on Jed, turn his mind toward making Mamzelle a gift to her. She'd need to find a ready replacement for the demon at the Palace, and then she'd need to convince him he didn't need the bother of a demon. Then again, she'd heard of strong wielders taking demons away from lesser ones. Maybe she should bone up. She was fairly good back in the day, the few times she got hold of anything magical. Then she wouldn't need father or son.

  The parlor door slid open again and the greenhorn butler appeared. "Dinner is served, ma'am," he said in a nasal eastern voice that grated on her already thin nerves. They stretched still more as Jed took Duniway on his arm--yes, yes, proper and all that, she'd done her studying up on high society back when she became Charity Grant of Chicago. She still didn't have to like it. She felt better once John offered his arm, which left Tony trailing behind her. That's where he belonged, trailing behind her like a dog.

  The soup course was brought out, and horror joined fury: duchess soup. The cook had replaced the opulent, succulent, expensive, hopelessly scorched turtle soup with plain duchess soup. With cheese in it. There would be words. There might even be a firing. She would have that Chinese cook from the Palace if it was the last thing she did. Everyone knew he was the best--

  "Don't scowl, dear, it's bad for your frown lines," murmured Jed. Was that a note of malice she detected? No one else seemed to notice; they were all prattling away about the doings at the schoolhouse, of all things. Still, she must check her frown lines in the mirror tonight. The last thing she wanted was to end up looking like her mother.

  She must contribute to the conversation, swing the men's attention back to her somehow. "Our Lily is doing well?" she ventured.

  "Oh my, yes!" said the Duniway woman, "Lily is one of my best pupils. She even helps the younger children with their work--I think she's done more to get Harry Lockson reading than I have!"

  "So nice you have assistance to do your job, Miss Duniway," purred Charity. "I imagine it's taxing, what with eight children in your care." She turned to her husband. "But this is what I feared, Jed. Surely she is bored, Miss Duniway?"

  "No, I don't think so. I will keep her after school on Monday, perhaps," the insipid blond said. "I will ask her if we might find other courses of study she might wish to pursue in addition to her main schoolwork."

  "It is as I feared," Charity sighed again. "I did tell you that she needed to go to Saint Monica Academy in New York, dearest. Scryer's Gulch is much too small for her ability, and she will never receive the refinements a young lady in her circumstances must acquire."

  "Not from you and that's certain," chortled her husband.

  She blanched. To be openly insulted at her own dinner table--by her own husband! In front of the Duniway woman! It was almost too much to bear, but she valiantly kept herself from a fit of the vapors with a long draught from her wine glass.

  "If refinement is necessary, I do play the piano and would be happy to tutor her," bleated Duniway. "Is there an instrument in town? I confess I haven't had the leisure to inquire. The Church of Our Lady has a lovely pipe organ, but that is not my expertise." Not her expertise. Charity made some offensive guesses to herself as to where the schoolteacher's expertise might lie, besides the piano.

  "The Hotel LeFay possesses one of the finest pianos west of the Mississippi, Miss Duniway--a Steinway, brought from New York--and I shall give it over to your service," said Tony. "Any time of the day or night you might wish to play it."

  The capper to a wonderful meal, thought Charity.

  Episode 41: A Challenge

  Being late to an event always proved a good tactic, thought Jed. It gave matters a chance to solidify, for patterns to become evident. It served as a reminder of who was in charge. And it angered Charity no end. He chuckled to himself as the piston inside her brassy head compressed her fury down and down. There would be a big bang tonight, but not before their guests had retired--he had that much control over his wife. More than she reckoned he did. He'd let her explode upstairs, and he'd take her in hand as he always did. Let her use up all that anger in his bed, wear her out. Then he'd promise her a trip to Frisco or some such. Not till spring, though. He doled himself out some kind of roast beef from the tray the greenhorn presented.

  Apparently he took too much. The greenhorn cleared his throat; to his left, Cherry widened her eyes and jerked her head toward the tray. He ignored them and took a bite out of both pieces. His wife deliberately turned her back and steamed a great cloud of charm in Tony's direction.

  Cherry's forceful attempts to make him jealous amused Jed no end. What had he to fear from Tony? The greater part of Tony's wealth was still tied to his own, and however well his second son had done by himself in some of his independent investing, he still couldn't top his father's annuity.

  As for the Sheriff: Handsome man, in a flinty sort of way. A tad too incorruptible as yet, but water wore down stone and Jed was as patient and sneaky as any river. Runnels wasn't the type for a fling, Jed's suspicions about Annabelle Duniway notwithstanding. And more than a fling Cherry would not be contemplating; Runnels had no money, and Jed had no illusions about Cherry's interest in him.

  He suspicioned she had no illusions about his interest in her. He always bought the best, though, and Cherry was still the most comely woman he'd ever seen. She dressed real well, too. Look at that get-up with the feathers. Must have cost him a fortune, but the plumage fit the bird. A man does appreciate variety, though. A beefsteak every night grew tiresome in short order. That's why he kept the Palace--a restorative baker's dozen spring chickens, not counting Mamzelle. He kept it for the variety. And the money. And to give Mamzelle something to do that'd bring her down a notch or two. Ten thousand years old and not a lick of sense, that demon.

  He returned his attention to the Duniway girl seated on his right.

  Now here was a fine piece of the Divine's work, through the intercession of the Prophet or the beneficence of the Mother. Take your pick. As fine as Cherry--a little finer in her way, he admitted, though she dressed too drab for his taste. He hated to see a girl in black. Reminded him of Lillian's death. The hair and eyes were like Lillian's, too. He wondered if he could somehow contrive to acquire the schoolteacher some finery that she would accept. What would the Duniway girl look like done up in a red rig like the one Mamzelle'd had before Cherry got to it? He hooded his eyes and looked Annabelle over, slow and appreciative.

  Those cornflower eyes met his: disinterested, analytical, neither coy nor blushing. Almost challenging. A fine emergency gear seemed to engage in her head; at the speedy turning of the key, she dropped her gaze to her plate before she took up conversation with Tony.

  Oh ho! There were unplumbed depths to this Duniway. He didn't intimidated her in the least, despite her prior retiring manner in his presence. No demure little chit she, but he'd already ascertained that from the tail of men she dragged behind her, whether of a purpose or of an accident. You don't attract that many fish without some kind of bait. Perhaps she was one of those independent, overly-educated women--what did they call them--bluestockings. No, too pretty for that. Then again...

  He surveyed her again. He would ask Mamzelle for an opinion on the quality of her clothes, for instance, talk with Mayor Prake about her background. He hadn't paid much attention when they'd discussed hiring her. She might be a challenge after all instead of the more easily swayed--by inexperience or money--girl he expected.

  That suited him fine.

  The meal ended; brandy for the men, and coffee and petit fours for ever
yone was served in the front parlor; the horrible little party broke up. Tony helped Annabelle on with her cloak. He and John were about to repeat their sullen parade behind her to Hopewell's, when Jedediah Bonham called, "Stay, son, I have some business to discuss with you." Annabelle was left with John to escort her alone.

  They walked in silence until well out from under the mansion's immediate environs. "That was perfectly dreadful," Annabelle finally said.

  "That's a fact," said John with a low laugh. "Fair food, though. Good soup. I must ask Mrs Smith to assay a duchess soup more often."

  "Ralph's cooking is surprisingly wholesome, but I did welcome the change," she smiled.

  Silence reigned again, an awkward tension building. "Miss Duniway," John began, "do you think you might come to dinner at our house? I know Minnie--Mrs Smith--would enjoy the chance to meet you. She's more a member of the family than a housekeeper, you know, and eats with us--something of a chaperone, so it'd be proper."

  The brim of her black silk bonnet with the gray trim concealed all of the camp from her gaze but for John, and she saw what he might have looked like before Mrs Runnels died and left him a widower. The tense lines around his jaw were softer, his eyes hopeful. She saw Jamie's bashfulness, Rabbit's sense of humor, and a tiny fluff of ostrich feather on his shoulder.

  Annabelle plucked the purple remnant from his shoulder. "Mrs Bonham leaves more behind than impressions."

  "You leave nothing but. Will you come tomorrow? Minnie puts on quite the spread after church."

  She should say no, Misi would advise her to say no. She'd cleared him of potential wrongdoing, but she should still say no. "Yes, I would love to," she smiled. "But now we must speak of something less enjoyable."