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LIKE A SPRING WOUND tighter and tighter, the tension heightened over the next five days. Then Joy received the anticipated wire:
Arriving Denver Wednesday.
Tomorrow. Wednesday was tomorrow.
Joy surveyed sober faces around the dinner table that evening. “In the morning, Sheriff Wyndom and I will take Ruby and Beth to Denver. Mr. Wheatley, I would like you to drive us to the train in the buggy. Billy, I would like you to accompany us onto the train. I will have you buy a ticket, but as soon as the train moves past the platform, please step off and come straight back.”
Beth gripped Rose’s hand. Ruby studied her plate. Mei-Xing, as usual, remained quiet but looked a question at Joy.
Joy felt for the young woman. “Mei-Xing, from what Tory told us, Banner and Darrow’s employer considers you to be a much more valuable ‘commodity,’ and your, er, departure still has them very incensed. Since they searched the house, they think you are already safely away. I would not want to show them otherwise.”
She gave the girl a sorrowful smile. “We are, as Sheriff Wyndom called it, ‘poking the snake with a stick.’ We do not know what will happen tomorrow, but I have a strong sense that you are actually safer here for now.”
Mei-Xing seemed to accept Joy’s answer with more peace than Joy expected. “It is all right, Miss Thoresen. I . . . I like it here. With all of you.” She looked at Rose who took her hand and held it. “And I have nowhere else to go,” she added.
The following morning Joy, Ruby, and Beth climbed into the lodge’s small covered buggy. They took no luggage. Billy had already walked to the siding and purchased a ticket to Denver. Flinty joined him and purchased a single ticket. Then they sauntered back to Flinty’s smithy to wait for the buggy to arrive.
The usual two watchers at the siding had grown to three. They were alert and watchful.
As Mr. Wheatley pulled the buggy up to the siding, Sheriff Wyndom and his nephew Luke were just purchasing two tickets.
A few minutes still remained before the train was scheduled to depart. Joy and the girls would wait, concealed in the buggy, until the conductor signaled the train’s imminent departure. Three minutes later the man stepped out onto the siding, puzzled that four ticket holders had not boarded nor were nearby to board.
Wyndom nodded toward the buggy, strode up to the siding, and handed two tickets to the conductors. Billy walked up just then and handed him two. Both men headed over to the buggy where Joy, Ruby, and Beth were climbing down. Joy saw one of the watchers nudge another. The three of them jumped to their feet.
“Back off, boys,” Wyndom’s rifle was out and pointed in their direction. Luke mirrored his uncle’s stance. Billy hustled the three women onto the train.
As the sheriff turned to board the train, he addressed the shocked conductor. “If you know what’s good for you, you will get this train moving. Right now.”
Wyndom stood between two cars, rifle still pointed at the watchers, while Luke began backing toward the buggy. The train sent out its shrill wail and eased away from the Corinth siding.
Luke and Mr. Wheatley hustled back to the lodge with the buggy. Down the track and out of sight, Billy Evans dropped off the train’s last car and also made his way back to the lodge.
—
JOY AND SHERIFF WYNDOM returned late that afternoon—accompanied by Arnie Thoresen. Marit put together a celebration dinner of sorts, and Wyndom and Luke joined them. Rose gave Arnie a long and heartfelt embrace before demanding to know why he was not with Anna and the girls on the way back to Omaha.
“Brought one of Groman’s Pinkerton men with me,” Arnie explained. “He’s seeing they get back safely. And Groman sent his latest report with me.” He handed Joy a thick envelope. “I also brought this, Cousin Joy.”
Joy eyed the second envelope with relief. “Thank you, Arnie.”
“I knew you would want it as soon as it was available.”
Arnie turned to O’Dell and Wyndom. “Will this escapade push Banner to move against us?”
“Us, Arnie?” Joy asked.
“I am here, and I am not going anywhere until this is resolved. Groman is willing to send men, but shall we get the Denver office involved instead?” Arnie directed this question to O’Dell.
“It is time,” O’Dell agreed. “You have all of the evidence the Omaha office has dug up on Morgan and we have Ruby’s identification of Gretl Plüff. I suggest you and I head down the mountain tomorrow, meet with Beau Bickle, and get some reinforcements up here, pronto.”
He eyed Wyndom and Luke. “I do not think Banner will wait long to hit back. That man has a short fuse.”
Wyndom nodded in agreement. “If you’re headed down tomorrow, we will make a point of walking the lodge perimeter all day. You have got some good men here, but a show of force is a nice deterrent.”
That evening O’Dell and Arnie Thoresen walked a cautious path, following the property line around the lodge. The new moon provided little light for their reconnaissance. As they made their way through the trees, Arnie remarked, “O’Dell, I like you. You’re a good man to have around right now, and I want you to know I appreciate you.”
Arnie’s statement was an overture to something else. O’Dell stopped and faced him. “Thanks, I think. Are you working your way up to something?”
Arnie nodded. “I cannot help but notice how you look at my cousin.”
O’Dell blew out a frustrated breath. “I have tried not to, believe me.”
“She’s a good woman, O’Dell, but she has been through a lot, probably more than you know. I do not want to see her hurt again and . . .” Arnie’s words trailed off.
“And I am not the kind of man she should be with?” O’Dell asked. Arnie detected a hint of anger in his question.
“As I said, you are a good man, O’Dell. But you have heard Joy say she is a Christian. I have not heard you say the same.”
O’Dell was quiet several moments. “Well, you’re right. I am not much of a Christian. Have not been to church since I was a kid.”
“O’Dell, church is important, but church isn’t really what we mean. For a Bible-believing person, being a Christian is much more than a denominational affiliation or attending church services—it is a relationship with God through Jesus, a living, daily walk with him.”
O’Dell sighed. “It means so much?” he asked.
Arnie prayed for the right words. “Yes, it does. Jesus is the foundation of our lives—of Joy’s life. He is the one who led her here. You heard what she said about her plans, her dream? She is not talking about a social program to help girls—she’s talking about Jesus helping them, changing and healing them on the inside so that they can walk free from the life they were either forced into or chose willingly.”
O’Dell stood in silence.
Arnie soldiered on. “You said that I thought you were not the kind of man she should be with. I want you to know that perfect behavior isn’t my concern. I think, given your line of work, that you would understand how ‘good’ people make mistakes or can sometimes get caught up in unsavory or disreputable events. Even though Joy is a Christian, she is not perfect. You do not know everything about her, and she would be the first person to tell you so.”
“I may know more than you think,” O’Dell said. He indicated the benches near the overlook, and they sat down. O’Dell rested his shotgun across his lap and slid a cigar from his breast pocket. As he lit it and puffed on it to make it draw, he stared out into the dark valley.
Out of the shadows, he spoke. “Arnie, if it is all right with you, I would like to tell you a story.”
Arnie glanced at O’Dell. “All right. I am listening.”
He waited until O’Dell spoke again.
“I have been with Pinkerton for twelve years. Started out in Chicago and it is still my home office. As I came up through the Pinkerton ranks, my bosses noticed that I had a mind and an aptitude for a certain line of investigation. Turns out that I am pretty good at solving kidnapping and missing persons cases.
“After a few years with the agency, those were the only cases Pinkerton assigned to me. Other Pinkerton offices began calling on me to advise on their missing persons cases, especially the high-profile ones where leads had gone cold.”
Arnie looked at O’Dell with new-found respect. “Finding lost people is a valuable and honorable service, O’Dell.”
O’Dell’s smile was crooked. “Yeah, well, the cases I get called on these days are the toughest ones. I am sad to say that on most cases I do not have the luxury of giving good news to the client.” He looked off into the distance. “Maybe nine out of ten cases I work do not end well.”
Arnie frowned as he took in that information, and he and O’Dell sat in companionable silence for several more minutes before Arnie spoke. “It must be difficult to give bad news to people.”
“It is. Rips your heart out, to tell you the truth. You might wonder why I keep doing it, but it is that one time, the one case where the police or other Pinkerton agents have given up, maybe the family has given up hope, too. It is that one case where, against the odds, I find a child who has been abducted or a daughter who has gone missing . . . and I can give good news to a family. I guess that is what keeps me doing this.”
He drew on his cigar and exhaled. “Anyway, I said I wanted to tell you a story.”
Arnie nodded. “I would like to hear it.”
“All right, then. Starting about two years ago, Pinkerton offices in the east began receiving requests to find young girls who had disappeared. It was a small number, but one of our agents noticed a possible pattern to the disappearances. The missing women were typically poor and many were immigrants. What the women who disappeared had in common was that they all answered some form of advertisement to come work in Denver, Colorado.”
Arnie sat up. “Uli and David and their ‘underground’ network had discovered the same thing. The two girls they spirited away told them how they had been tricked.”
“Yes. Being fairly new to America and without means to support themselves, you can understand that the women who answered the ads were desperate for work. The reports we received were that the missing girls we were searching for had been untruthful with their prospective employers. They had told them that they had no family because the employer seemed to indicate that an applicant without family ties back east was more likely to be hired.
“We interviewed one girl who answered such an advertisement. She arrived in Denver, realized the danger, and managed to escape from the man sent to pick her up. She ran to a church and the folks there helped her get back to her sister in Boston—her only remaining family. She reported her experience to the police.
“The police didn’t expend much effort on a poor immigrant woman’s report, but they did pass the girl off to us. The Pinkerton Agency was working on four disappearances in three separate states.
“Like I said, one of our agents saw the pattern and cross checked the cases against how long the ads had been running. That is when we realized that many girls had probably gone missing. However, without families to report their disappearances, we could only guess at the number. Those few women whose friends or family members sought us out put us on to the kidnappers’ ploy.
“At one point I was sent to Boston to interview the girl I just spoke of. While I was there, I met a man who was also looking for someone.” O’Dell took a breath and let it out slowly. “This . . . is the part of the story I wish you to hear.
“This man walked into the Boston Pinkerton office one morning. At first blush, the Boston office added him into the small group of clients in our missing women case. But, upon deeper investigation, it turns out that his is an entirely separate missing persons case.”
“Who is he looking for?” Arnie asked.
“He, too, is looking for a woman.”
“What woman?”
“That is the problem. He doesn’t know.”
Arnie snorted. “What?”
O’Dell drew on his cigar. “Now let me tell you his story. He calls himself Branch. His first memories were as he recovered from a severe brain fever. He has absolutely no memories from before this. He woke up one morning and knew nothing about his life.
“However, when he sleeps, he dreams, and his dreams are always about a woman, the same woman. He sees her but cannot remember her name.”
Arnie interrupted, “What does this woman look like? Young, old? Coloring?”
“She is young, with long, flowing hair. He says that she calls to him, ‘Branch, Branch’ and he tries to call back to her or go to her—but he cannot remember her name. And then he wakes up.”
Arnie stared at the red glow of O’Dell’s cigar. “You said he recovered from a brain fever. Surely you know where? Someone must know him there?”
“Yes, well, his tale is more complicated than that. You see, he awoke in a little fishing hamlet. I interviewed the crew from a whaler out of that village. They say they plucked him from the sea one morning. He was barely alive—his arm was tangled in a life preserver—and he had been in the frigid water for hours. They took him aboard and back to their village where they treated his wounds. He battled a fever and lingered half-way between life and death for several weeks. When he recovered, he had no memories. None.”
Arnie grew very still. “You said you wanted to tell me this man’s story.”
“Yes.”
“You must have felt . . . there was some reason for telling me.”
O’Dell sighed. “Yes, I believe so.”
Arnie tried to swallow; his throat had gone dry. “Where is this little fishing town, O’Dell?”
“On a small island off the southeastern tip of Nova Scotia. It is a remote place, and the people there are simple folks, not much in touch with the rest of the world. Often not up with current events.”
Arnie shuddered. His eyes misted over. “O’Dell, when did this happen? When did those fishermen find this man in the water?”
O’Dell sighed again. “A year ago last fall.”
“And he has been looking for this woman ever since?”
“Yes.”
Arnie wiped his hand across his face and was quiet for a long moment until he whispered, “Where is this man . . . Branch . . . right now?”
“He was in Chicago last I saw him.”
Arnie rested his shaggy head in his hand. When he spoke, his voice was grave. “Not a word to my cousin, O’Dell. Not a word.” He stood up. “I need to see this man myself.”
“I know. The Chicago office has my location. I will get word to them to send him out to Denver.”
Arnie touched the other man on his shoulder. “I am sorry, friend. I realize now what you have been struggling with.”
O’Dell nodded but said nothing. The glow of his cigar burned as a silent witness in the dark.
~~**~~
