The Silver Shooter

by Erin Lindsey

  Aloud, Thomas said, “We’ll get you your evidence, Sheriff. And then I trust you’ll set the young man free, with the profound apologies of the Billings County Sheriff’s Department.”

  “You do what you gotta do, Pinkerton. Just remember what I said: if I catch the two of you making trouble again, I’ll have you on the next train out. In irons.”

  With that cordial farewell, he sent us on our way.

  Outside, we found the sheriff’s deputy, Snyder, loading the dead man into a wheelbarrow. I hadn’t got a good look at him until now, and I halfway hoped I’d recognize him, but I didn’t. If he worked at Cougar Ranch, we hadn’t seen him, and he wasn’t one of the outlaws Bowie Bill had brought to the river. Neither of which told us very much. By all accounts, both men had foot soldiers to spare. He could be working for either of them—or neither.

  “Could be one of them treasure hunters,” Snyder suggested. “There’s still a few of ’em about. They don’t take kindly to rivals, and word is you all just picked up some of Ben Upton’s things.”

  Thomas sighed. “Ideally, one would have a shorter list of potential assassins.”

  “Anyways, we’ll put him in a pine box and set it up outside the jail here. Maybe somebody’ll recognize him.”

  “How festive,” Thomas said dryly.

  It would be even more festive after a couple of days out in the sun. The thought made me shudder.

  Thomas hefted his satchel, where he’d stashed Parnell’s ledger and the strange collection of Upton’s belongings. “Where shall we regroup? The hotel or the saloon?”

  “Definitely the saloon,” I growled. “I need a drink.”

  * * *

  “Arrived in Medora 3 o’clock yesterday. Spent today reconnoitering the area. Ain’t much to look at, but they say it’s good country for running beeves, and Lord knows I had my fill of the Black Hills. Reckon I’ll give it a go, at least for a season. If it don’t earn like they say, maybe I’ll keep on up to Canada. Hell, I’ll ride all the way to the North Pole if that’s what it takes to shake Kit loose.” I lowered the journal. “That’s it. For this entry, anyway.”

  “Interesting.” Thomas reclined in his chair—or at least, as far as he could with his back to the wall. We’d chosen a table in the deepest corner of the saloon, away from the doors and windows, and I’d taken the added precaution of sitting next to my partner instead of across from him. We’d made too many enemies to be taking any chances. “From the sounds of it, Upton’s original plan was to take up ranching. I can think of better ways to invest one’s profits, but perhaps he was in a hurry. He did sound awfully eager to be away from Deadwood.”

  “Not to mention Kit, whoever that is. But he must have changed his mind pretty quickly, because he started sketching these within days.” I gestured at the pages. Some of the drawings were hastily done, others incredibly detailed, and I still couldn’t make heads or tails of any of them. They certainly didn’t look like any mining equipment I’d ever seen. Once a prospector, always a prospector? Or had you already found the gold? I supposed it didn’t matter. Whether he went looking for a new strike or just stumbled across it, Upton obviously found something, and spent the next few weeks obsessing over how to get it out of the ground. “It must have been some deposit, if he didn’t just go at it with a pickax straightaway.”

  “Large enough, apparently, to make a hundred thousand dollars seem like chicken feed in comparison. Which suggests Roosevelt was right about Upton being lucky.”

  I tried to imagine what that would be like. “So he’s out riding his horse one day and just…” I mimed sniffing at the air. “Gold?”

  “Why not? It’s how Burrows’s great-grandmother struck gold in Carolina, and look where that family ended up.”

  Where they’d ended up was sitting atop a pile of gold, which they’d parleyed into more gold, and more after that. That’s how it went with the lucky, each generation building on the success of the one before it, until they no longer even needed to be lucky at all. Mr. Burrows had inherited the family gift, but he was already so rich that it didn’t matter.

  “But wait … If Upton and Mr. Burrows have the same form of luck in their bloodlines, does that mean they’re…?”

  “Related? Not necessarily. There are cases of similar forms of luck being found in persons who are not obviously connected. It’s a bit like crossing paths with a doppelganger.”

  “A what?”

  “Someone who bears an uncanny resemblance to someone else. Is that evidence of shared ancestry, however distant? Or is it merely that the universe has a finite number of features, and certain combinations are bound to repeat now and then? Science will provide an answer eventually, but for the moment we can only speculate.”

  I smiled at him. “You could have just said no.”

  “Because you generally prefer the uncomplicated answer.”

  “Touché.” Returning to Upton’s journal, I flipped forward through the pages. I’d only skimmed it so far, but if there was anything useful in there, I hadn’t found it yet. “Pretty sure he doesn’t mention the word gold in here at all.”

  “Perhaps that wasn’t the sort of thing he wished to set down on paper.”

  “Yes, why would you want to write about a silly old gold strike when you could have page after page recounting your fortunes in poker?” Which fortunes had been more foul than fair, from the looks of it. That Upton would choose this, of all things, to record for posterity suggested he had more than a passing affection for gambling. “I can tell you what cards he had nearly every night, but I don’t see anything that’ll help us find our killer.”

  “It’s almost as if he didn’t know he was going to be murdered.”

  I glanced up. A more relaxed Thomas, apparently, came with a side of sauce. I’d always figured there was a dry wit lurking beneath that gentlemanly veneer, but until recently I’d only seen glimpses of it. What else is hiding under there? Little by little, I was finding out. It was like peeling an onion. Or removing layers of clothing. Stripping them off one piece after another, letting them fall to the floor at his feet, button after button slipping through my fingers, exposing the bare …

  Focus, Rose.

  I cleared my throat. “What about the lawyer? Anything useful in the ledger?”

  “As advertised, it’s a complete list of his transactions going all the way back to last year.” Thomas pushed it over so I could take a closer look. “It appears Parnell initially concentrated his purchases along the Little Missouri, which would be logical if one were looking for gold. Then, after Upton’s cabin was discovered, he shifted his attention to that area.”

  “So it all adds up.”

  “Not quite. It doesn’t explain why so many attacks have occurred at Cougar Ranch. We thought perhaps those might have been exaggerated, but nothing we saw today supports that theory.”

  “No,” I agreed reluctantly. Much as I would have liked to find a reason to throw Gus Reid in jail, we hadn’t turned up any evidence of his involvement. On the contrary, everything we’d heard pointed to the attacks on his stock being real. “Which means he probably isn’t working with the killer.”

  “Nor are most of his ranch hands, or they wouldn’t have bothered with any subterfuge about escaped bulls. If they’d had us outnumbered, they would simply have attacked us outright.”

  “So it’s probably just Howard and a handful of his Buckshot buddies.” That explained why John Ward had been none the wiser. According to him, the former Buckshot boys spent all their time out on the range, rarely crossing paths with the rest of the ranch hands. He would have had no idea what they were up to.

  Which was what, exactly?

  “Seems a bit excessive, if you ask me,” I mused. “Hiring a whole pack of mercenaries when all you really need is a bully or two.”

  “I think we can assume our Buckshot friends had a hand in the disappearance of at least some of those treasure hunters. Anyone who got too close to the truth about Upton was quietly t
aken care of.”

  I supposed that made sense. On top of which, the killer might have figured he needed professionals on the job. Howard and Skinny might be capable of murder, but they’d made a complete hash of the affair at the hotel, leaving a great big mess and coming away empty-handed in the bargain. Cowboys, apparently, did not make master criminals.

  The thought gave me pause.

  “Howard and Skinny seem like an odd choice of henchmen, don’t they? There’s no shortage of gunslingers around here, plenty of them a lot tougher than those two, and probably smarter, too. Why not hire Bowie Bill, or one of those treasure hunters? What does he want with a couple of local cowpunchers?”

  “You have a theory, I take it?”

  The beginnings of one, anyhow. “A cowboy’s job is to look after animals. Mean ones, too, like that old bull we saw tearing through the bushes this morning. Men like that would come in handy if you needed help wrangling a dangerous beast.”

  “Like our unusual predator.” Thomas nodded slowly. “It makes sense. I wonder, does that mean the creature lives on Cougar Ranch?”

  I’d toyed with that idea too, but only for a moment. “Too close to home. It would eat every animal on the property, and probably help itself to a few ranch hands in the bargain. Even Gus Reid wouldn’t be able to deny what was going on then. But I do think Howard and his buddies help themselves to the boss’s cows from time to time, when the thing can’t find prey of its own.”

  “It would be the simplest solution.” A wry smile touched Thomas’s lips. “It almost makes one feel sorry for Reid, doesn’t it?”

  It really didn’t.

  “I wish we knew how many of these Buckshot boys there are,” I said. “It’d be nice to know what we’re up against.”

  “That I can tell you.” Thomas flipped to another page in the ledger. “Parnell also recorded his payroll in here. No names, but there are seven weekly payments. Seven hired guns, all of them working for our mysterious CA.” He sighed. “What a pity C is such a common initial. Charles. Clive. Clancy…”

  “Assuming it’s a real name at all. There’s a hundred nicknames starting with C.” Our killer was careful; I’d give him that much. Using go-betweens at every step, keeping his true identity a secret even from them. Even so … “Someone has to know him. Maybe we could ask Lee Granger to help us put together a list, starting with Upton’s friends.”

  “His friends?” Thomas tilted his head. “You think he knew his killer?”

  I’d spoken without really thinking, and now I felt self-conscious, squirming a little under my partner’s sharp gaze. “It makes sense, doesn’t it? Upton was so careful. He kept two journals, one of which he went to the trouble of hiding, but he never once mentioned his secret project in either of them. And yet somehow his killer knew about it.”

  Something sparked in Thomas’s eyes, and he sat forward abruptly, pushing the journal toward me. “Would you kindly go back to that passage you read aloud before? The one about the North Pole?”

  Frowning, I flipped back to the appropriate page. “I’ll ride all the way to the North Pole if that’s what it takes to shake Kit loose.”

  “Rose. You are brilliant.”

  So brilliant, in fact, that I had no earthly idea what he was talking about.

  Was this about the initials? “Kit is spelled with a K,” I pointed out, tentatively.

  “Of course, and I wouldn’t have paid it any mind were it not for what you said a moment ago about nicknames. Kit is short for Christopher.”

  Could it be? We stared at each other for a moment, neither of us daring to hope.

  “Please tell me there’s another reference to him in the journal.”

  “There is, actually.” It took me a moment to find the page, and when I did, we huddled over it together, Thomas’s hand resting casually over mine as we read.

  Texas Sam took it all again tonight, with a pair of goddamn twos. I told him he was the worst cheat I ever seen, except maybe Kit. He said if I ever cussed him like that again he’d knock my teeth out. Ha! Guess I been bellyaching plenty about ol’ Kit. Not that he ain’t deserve it.

  “Well, well.” Thomas gave my hand a squeeze, and he lifted his gaze to the ever-present card game going on across the room. “Do you suppose one of those fine fellows is Texas Sam?”

  There was only one way to find out.

  CHAPTER 20

  FRESH BLOOD—FAMILY FEUD—AN IMPROBABLE OUTCOME

  The gamblers didn’t exactly receive us warmly.

  “Pinkertons ain’t welcome at this table,” said a weathered fellow with shaggy muttonchops, to grunts of agreement from the other players.

  “Oh, we’re not here to play.” I put just a touch of honey in my voice, in case it helped. “We were hoping for a few moments of your time. We’re looking into the disappearance of Benjamin Upton, and we heard he was a regular at this table.”

  “We can make it worth your while,” Thomas added.

  One of the gamblers eyed him from under the brim of his black felt hat. “How much?”

  In truth, Thomas had given almost everything he had to John Ward, for the horses. “I have five dollars on me, but I can obtain more when the banks open tomorrow.”

  The black hat tipped back down. “Come back tomorrow, then.”

  “Never mind him,” said a third man impatiently. “You in or out?”

  “I’m thinking, goddamn it.” Black Hat looked over the pot, as if trying to decide whether it was worth it. I didn’t blame him. It was even sadder than the one I’d noticed the other day, consisting of a small mound of chips and a battered-looking set of spurs. Not exactly a high-stakes table—which gave me an idea.

  “Mr. Wiltshire, do you have the time?”

  Thomas gave me a blank look. Then understanding dawned, and with the perfect amount of flourish, he produced his extravagantly expensive Patek Philippe. “Hmm,” he said. “Later than I thought.” He angled the watch as if to show me, which just happened to offer the gamblers a bountiful view of its face, including the perpetual calendar and phases of the moon.

  The Swiss really do make miraculous watches.

  Four pairs of eyes locked on the timepiece, pupils dilating. One of the players shifted in his chair. Another actually licked his lips. The man with the muttonchops stared so hard that he didn’t even blink.

  “You’re right,” I said. “It is getting late. Enjoy your game of euchre, gentlemen.”

  Thomas didn’t miss his cue. “Oh dear.” He laughed. “I think you mean poker, Miss Gallagher. Do forgive my partner, gentlemen. I’m afraid she’s not familiar with card games.”

  I folded my arms and pouted a little. “And I suppose you’re an authority? Play much poker at the Madison Club, do they?”

  “In fact, a number of us in the Fifth Avenue set have taken an interest in poker. Not for gambling purposes, of course, but as a scientific diversion.”

  “Ha! Where’s the science in a game of chance?”

  “But you are quite mistaken! Chance is not twenty-five per cent of the question. It is probability that rules in poker, Miss Gallagher. It is a game of skill and character, as these gentlemen will no doubt attest.” Thomas raised his eyebrows at the players, inviting them to agree with this manly assessment.

  “Mister,” said one of them, “we’re trying to play this here game of skill and character, so if you don’t mind…”

  His companions, though, looked to be reassessing their positions on the matter, now that they’d had an eyeful of Thomas’s gold watch. A pompous New Yorker with a fat pocketbook was simply too juicy a mark to pass up.

  “Might be we could use some fresh blood,” said Muttonchops reflectively. “Whaddya say, mister? You play a few hands, and we’ll answer your questions.”

  “That there’s a sensible compromise, Sam,” said Black Hat.

  My glance flicked over the fellow with the muttonchops. Well, hello, Texas Sam. At last, we’d found someone with more than a passing connection to our
missing prospector.

  “Got something to play with?” he asked Thomas. “Five dollars ain’t gonna last the round.”

  As far as I could tell, five dollars would have bought everything on that table and then some, but I held my tongue.

  “Will this do?” Thomas flashed the silver buckle we’d used as a makeshift mirror earlier. I figured it was worth about as much as a decent horse, but Sam was visibly disappointed, leaning back in his chair and scratching his muttonchops. I could tell he was trying to figure out how to goad Thomas into putting up the Patek Philippe.

  “It’s a start, anyways,” he said grudgingly. “What about you, little lady?”

  Black Hat looked positively aghast. “Pinkertons is one thing,” he said in a stage whisper, as if I wasn’t standing right there. “But a woman?”

  Well, I was hardly going to refuse after that. “Certainly, I’ll play.”

  “With what?”

  Good question. I had two dollars in cash and nothing of value on my person, except my gun and …

  “What about that?” Sam leaned back in his chair to get a better look at the hairpin holding my chignon in place. “That’s jade, ain’t it?”

  My hand strayed to the jade rose at the nape of my neck. It was my most treasured possession, and not just because it helped me fend off the dead. That hairpin was a gift from Thomas, and Mei Wang had seen to its crafting, imbuing the ash wood with magic for added strength. I didn’t care how important a witness Texas Sam might be, there was no way in creation I was going to—

  “Perfect,” Thomas said. “That’s settled, then.”

  I gave him a horrified look, but the eyes that met mine said, Trust me. So with nervous fingers, I pulled out my precious hairpin, letting my hair fall loose. I could count on one hand the number of times Thomas had seen me with my hair down, and he watched me with something like the look the gamblers had given his Patek Philippe. I couldn’t help blushing as he pulled out a chair for me, but happily, the other men were too absorbed in their hands to notice.