10

He had to smile at that. The woman had sharp eyes. The Colt was plain in its worn chamois holster, but even Hammett had missed the Forehand & Wadsworth under Siringo’s shirt. “We’re not here for ideas.”

“We’ll see. Are you hungry? We have sandwiches and beer. Becky can’t abide turning away even a plagiarist on an empty stomach.”

“Becky?”

“Jack’s youngest, by his first wife. She’s here on a visit.” She raised her voice. “Becky?” No answer. “She’s probably upstairs, reading.”

“One of her father’s books?” asked Hammett.

“One of Dickens’. David Copperfield, I believe. She’s on the second volume. She started the first in January. She makes it a point to read Dickens every winter. A determined child, Mr. Hammett. And no longer a child, as I must keep reminding myself. Sandwiches, gentlemen? Beer? Something stronger? Jack left us well-stocked.”

“Thank you,” Siringo said. “I could eat a horse, and as you can see, Hammett plumb disappears when he turns sideways. And a beer would go good right about now.”

She looked at Hammett, who nodded.

“I’ll get them. Make yourselves at home meanwhile.” She left them, her English riding boots clip-clopping on the redwood floor.

Hammett sat, coughing quietly into his fist, while Siringo toured the room. China settings in every design filled a row of glass cabinets. Jack London had been nearly as well-known for his hospitality as for his writings, but they looked neglected now; although not a speck of dust showed, they bore the air of objects that hadn’t left their places for weeks, months, maybe years, like books in a library owned by a semiliterate man who wanted to appear educated. The trophies on display—swords, boxing gloves, long guns and pistols, a pick worn to nubs, probably during prospecting days in Alaska—all contributed to the sensation that they were visiting a museum, or more particularly a mausoleum.

Hammett, apparently, had been thinking along the same lines. “Scatter a few heads around and the place might have belonged to Teddy Roosevelt.”

“I met him once.” Siringo lowered himself into a rocker and squirmed around on his saddle sores. “He didn’t have anything good to say about London. We shared the same opinion of radicals.”

“He’d’ve thrown me down the White House steps.” The young man looked around. Reassured, evidently, by a framed photo of London writing with a cigarette drooping from his mouth, he took out his makings. “Hell, I’m out of tobacco.”

Siringo tossed him his pouch.

He examined it. “What is it, horsehide?”

“Buffalo.”

“I thought buffalo’d be coarser.”

“It is, till you get to the balls.”

Hammett smiled. “What happens if I rub it?”

“Turns into a pair of saddle bags.”

He laughed his snarky laugh, opened the pouch, and sprinkled some tobacco onto a paper. He was lighting the cigarette when a young woman entered. She stopped when she saw the two men, who rose, Hammett just behind Siringo.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When I smelled someone smoking, I thought it was one of Father’s old friends. I’ve missed that smell.”

She looked just under twenty, a pretty, grave-faced girl with blond hair that curled inward at her shoulders, in a sheath dress with an unnaturally low waist, the way women her age were wearing them now. There seemed to be a good figure underneath. Her feet were small in patent-leather pumps that buttoned to the ankles.

“I’m Mr. Siringo, and this is Mr. Hammett. We’re guests of your stepmother’s. I’m sorry to say we never knew your father.”

“You missed something, I assure you.” A wisp of a smile lightened her features, and Siringo saw the resemblance then. She had her father’s deep-set eyes and strong brow, but the shy upward twist at the corners of her mouth had appeared in hundreds of photographs of the oyster-pirate-turned-sailor-turned-prospector-turned-vagabond-turned-world-traveler-turned-bestselling-writer. They were very modern faces, Siringo thought; not at all the grim visages of his contemporaries, men and women resigned to hardship, who only smiled when something amused them. Very little had.

The smile vanished then, like breath from a mirror. “You call yourself guests, but that’s no comfort. As long as I can remember, guests in this house have taken advantage of my father’s good nature. They borrowed money and didn’t pay it back, stole his ideas and sold them to other writers—one of them even left with a dozen of his silk pajamas in his suitcase. Pajamas! Death hasn’t stopped them. You’re not movies, are you?”

“Movies?”

“Moving-picture people. They’re the worst of all. They make away with Father’s experiences and imagination and hard work like thieves in the night.”

“Mr. Hammett and I are here only to ask the favor of a few minutes’ conversation. We’re detectives.”

“You mean like Nick Carter?”

Hammett laughed, this time without sarcasm. “Not as heroic as that; but if it’s all right with you, we’d prefer to discuss the details with the lady of the house.”

She beamed—genuinely beamed—and clapped her hands. “A lady! Oh, she’d be amused by that. She says that’s Mother’s area of expertise.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “She voted for Debs.”

“So did I,” said Hammett. “We met at a rally.”

“Riot, you mean.” Siringo frowned.

“There you are, you willful girl. I could have used help with this tray.” Charmian entered, carrying a silver tray containing a pile of sandwiches, a pitcher of beer, and two schooners gray with frost. It was a feast fit for a troop of cavalry.

“I’d have offered encouragement,” Becky said.

“Sauce! Since you’ve obviously all met, you may as well join us.” The widow placed the tray on a low table carved from pale wood and filled the glasses from the pitcher. A thick head grew on each. “Brewed on the premises, gentlemen, from hops planted by Jack; for private consumption, hence legal. Thank the Lord Congressman Volstead doesn’t prohibit us from drinking, only selling. The sandwiches are liverwurst and ham. Old Pete, dear,” she told Becky. “He died in his sleep last week.”

“Not Pete! Father caught me riding him once and said it was time I learned horsemanship. He was the gentlest thing.” She perched herself on the edge of a rocker, helped herself, and bit into two slices of coarse bread with a thick slice of Old Pete in between.

Siringo fidgeted, disapproving of the girl’s presence; what if she took it in her head to warn Abner Butterfield they’d come for him? Readers of Nick Carter got all manner of things into their heads about injustice and such. But Hammett caught his eye and gave his head an almost imperceptible shake. We’re outnumbered, it seemed to say.

*   *   *

“Abner?” Charmian, who’d taken neither food nor drink, stopped rocking her chair. “But Mr. Earp gave him a sterling character.”

Siringo responded before Hammett could; settling women wasn’t for a man who considered them the enemy. “That was at our suggestion, ma’am. We had to be sure he’d light someplace he could be found.”

Becky stopped chewing Old Pete. “You let us invite a thief into our home?”

“Calm yourself, dear. We don’t live in the stable. However, it is a point. I had to sell most of the stock to settle Jack’s debts, but I kept his favorites, Washoe Ban and Neuadd Hillside. They’re past their prime, but I’ve turned down offers for them recently. If they were to vanish—”

“That’s why we didn’t waste our time getting here,” said Hammett. “The sooner we can talk to him, the sooner he’ll be off your hands.”

“What makes you so certain he’s guilty?” she asked.

Siringo said, “We ain’t, but he was the last to see Spirit Dancer before she went missing. Every case starts there.”

“He came here afoot, Eliza said. He told her he’d hitchhiked from San Francisco.”

“He wouldn’t be likely to ride a stole horse, ma’am. Chances are somebody bribed him to sit on his hands while it was took. We’re here to ask him who it was.”

“Will you arrest him?” Becky seemed to have forgotten all about the sandwich she was holding.

“We don’t have that authority,” Hammett said. “All we want is a few minutes’ conversation.”

Charmian’s lips pressed tight.

“You were wise to give Eliza a story, and had I known your mission, my reaction would have been the same. But let’s get this over with and send Abner on his way. This ranch has sheltered more than its share of brigands as it is.” She rose. Siringo and Hammett scrambled to their feet.

“No need for your presence,” Siringo said. “It may be unpleasant.”

She laughed shortly. She had a smooth rich contralto, and even mirthless laughter was musical in her case. “I nearly died of malaria, lost two babies in the hospital, sailed through fierce tropical storms, and nursed the finest man I’ve ever known through his last agonies. I’m no stranger to unpleasant adventures. No, Becky, stay here and put away these things. Your mother thinks little enough of me now. She’ll never forgive me if you come to harm.”

Becky, who had risen, colored and set her jaw, looking more than ever like her father; but after a moment she acquiesced. “I shall expect you back in a quarter-hour. If you haven’t returned, I’ll come for you, with as many hands as I can muster.”

“And a fine lot of pirates they are. Gentlemen, you are forewarned.” Her stepmother removed one of the revolvers from its glass case, rummaged in a drawer until she found a box of cartridges, and loaded the cylinder, wasting not a moment in the operation. She thrust the weapon under her belt in the small of her back and concealed the handle beneath her shirtwaist.

The rain had let up, and the clouds to the west had parted to release a shaft of copper-colored sunlight. A mist continued to fall. It was a combination of conditions Siringo disliked intensely. “Devil’s whipping his wife, Charlie,” Shanghai Pierce had said in that situation; although what Mrs. Satan could possibly have done to rile up her husband, Siringo couldn’t guess. He’d invented disloyalty along with all the other vices.

Charmian insisted on leading the way along the flagged path to the stables. The two detectives stayed as close as they could without stepping on her heels. The old cowboy admired her trim waist, on top of all her other attributes; he could have used her reloading for him in that Gem shithole. She wasn’t that much younger than him, he decided.

Step down, Charlie. You don’t hunt vermin with your bump of romance up.

*   *   *

They found Butterfield in the tack room, sitting on a milking stool and eating sardines from the can with his fingers. A single window with four discolored panes let in all the light there was. The detectives’ gear was there, including Siringo’s Winchester in its scabbard. He hoped the stable boy hadn’t monkeyed with the rounds.

“Abner, these men would like to ask you some questions. I’d consider it a favor if you’d answer them truthfully.”

His sullen face pulled into a scowl and he leant his weight forward, ready to spring upright. He hadn’t risen on her entrance, which to Siringo’s mind settled the point about his character. But he folded that thought out of sight and put on his most amiable expression.

“Abner, is it? I had a horse by that name. Damn fine mount; beg pardon, Mrs. London. I’m Charlie. This here is”—he hesitated; Dashiell seemed to him to strike the wrong note.

“Sam.” Hammett had adopted a curt attitude. Pinkerton hadn’t invented the ploy, but it had been around so long Siringo reckoned it went back to Pharaoh.

“Sam’s from around here. I live in Los Angeles. You come from there, didn’t you?”

“What if I did?” The boy went on chewing with his mouth open, strings of fish caught between stained teeth, one of them gold, but he set aside the can and wiped his hands on his overalls.

“I wouldn’t hold it agin you. There are worse crimes. Abner, it’s Spirit Dancer we want to talk to you about.”

Butterfield started up from the chair, his expression bent on flight. Hammett placed the flat of his hand against the boy’s chest and shoved him back down. The stool balanced precariously on one leg, then righted itself with a bang.

Siringo hooked his thumbs in his belt, spreading his coat casually so that the butt of the Colt showed. “We ain’t here to accuse you. All we want to know is who paid you to go pick daisies while the horse went and vanished.”

“You calling me a hoss thief?”

“What if we did?” Hammett spread his feet, hands balled into fists at his sides.

“Easy, Sam. Nobody said that, son. I know Wyatt Earp from way back. He can pinch a penny till the buffalo bawls. There ain’t a soul living wouldn’t give a better offer the courtesy of a listen.”

Charmian, standing near the open door that led toward the stalls, smiled kindly, without showing her teeth. “It’s all right, Abner. I give you my word these men won’t take you away. You’re under the protection of Beauty Ranch. As my husband used to say, there’s no sanctuary more reliable.”

“I don’t know what that is, but there’s no call—”

“Balls to sanctuary,” spat Hammett. “You can talk, or ride double back with us to the Frisco jail, or come tied belly-down over the saddle. It don’t make no difference to me which you choose. This offer expires in—ten, nine, eight…”

“Listen to reason, son. You don’t want to see what happens when he finishes the count.”

“Six.” Hammett reached up and took a coiled bullwhip off a nail. “Five.” He uncoiled it.

The boy’s dirty face paled. He looked up at Charmian. “You gonna let him flay the hide off of me? Who is it I work for, you or them?”

“All you have to do is what I asked.” Her smile was still in place.

“Three. Hell, I forget what comes next.” With a move so swift it impressed even Siringo, who’d seen Bill Cody clear leather in the arena and thought only a locomotive was faster, the young detective flicked the whip in a side-hand maneuver. A sharp crack, and the right side of Butterfield’s overalls tore open. He howled, clapped a hand to the rip. Blood slid between his fingers from a gash on his rib cage. “Jesus!”

“Never met the man.” Hammett drew back the whip, this time higher, on a level with the boy’s face.

“Nobody paid me! It was my idea! That skinflint Earp; wouldn’t advance me a penny on that puny bit he paid me, for cigarettes and other incidentals. I figured—”

“Get down!”

Dropping the whip, Hammett moved in two directions at once, kicking out a leg of the stool and twisting to grab Charmian London around the waist and bear her to the floor, falling down on top of her. Butterfield crashed down at the same instant, his legs indistinguishable from those of the stool. Siringo, whose reflexes were rusty, moved an instant slower, but got himself clear of the window just as one of the panes exploded. The report followed, warped by wind and distance.