Holmes on the Range (11 page)

Edwards and the lady stepped down from the surrey, yet the only help they offered with the unloading came from the gentleman—in the form of reminders not to bust anything. He seemed to be an American, though his words were warped by an accent I couldn't place. The skinny kid, “Young Brackwell,” kept his distance from any work, as well. He took to wandering around staring at all there was to see, peering in astonishment at every hitching post and horsefly as if they were carved from purest gold.

Tall John, Swivel-Eye, and myself were quickly drafted into service lugging trunks. The lady took charge of assigning rooms, and it took us a good three-quarters of an hour to get everything stowed where she wanted. She had us deposit the maid's things—little more than a small case and a carpetbag—in a tiny room on the first floor, next to Perkins's old bedroom. Naturally, the biggest, heaviest items all had to go up the stairs to the second floor. If they'd brought a cannon with them, I'm sure the lady would've wanted it on the roof.

Not that she gave us any real cause to grumble. Her commands were firm but never harsh, and she even favored us with the occasional
please
and
thank you
.

It was the servant girl—Emily, the woman called her—who finally told me the lady's name. She'd overheard us cowhands talking about getting “Mr. Balmoral's” gear settled where “that pretty gal” wanted, and she pulled us into one of the bedrooms for a little lesson on how to address our betters—and also to flirt, which she did with an enthusiasm we were keen to match.

“His name's not ‘Mr. Balmoral.' Oooooo, he'll bark like an old bulldog if any of you call him that again!” Emily told us, somehow managing to cackle no louder than a whisper. “No, he's Richard Brackenstall de Vere St. Simon. Whew! Turns me blue in the face just saying it. Fortunately, he's just ‘His Grace' to the likes of us—'
Your
Grace' if you're speaking to him face-to-face. . .which I don't recommend! Ho! Best to stay out of the big boar's way, if you can.”

“You know, I knew a woman named Gracie once,” Swivel-Eye said, winking one of his squinty peepers. “Never met a man went by that handle.”

“It's ‘Your
Grace
,' ” the girl corrected, the smile on her face telling us she was in on the joke. “Don't forget or you'll regret it.”

“Thank you for the advice, ma'am,” I said. “Just so you know, folks around here refer to me as ‘Sir Red, the Earl of East Kansas.' Naturally I expect you and your bunch to do likewise.”

Emily hiccuped out a “Ho!”

“And everybody knows me as. . .,” Tall John said, upon which he unleashed a mighty thunderclap of flatulence. Being one of the many men who consider the breaking of wind to be the perfect punch line for any joke, Tall John immediately doubled over laughing.

Such buffoonery would have the chippies back in Miles City busting a gut. But I assumed a woman who spent her days in the company of the hoitiest, toitiest folks on earth would surely be scandalized. I assumed wrong.

“Oooooo, you must be a friend of the Duke's then,” Emily said. “I heard him mention you by name just this morning! Ho!” And then she blew a raspberry and doubled up laughing herself.

When the snorting and snickering finally faded, I asked the question that had been on my mind for the past hour.

“So what about the lady? Who's she?”

“You may refer to her as Lady Clara,” Emily said, sounding awfully prim and proper for a girl who'd been trading fart jokes with cowboys a moment before. “When speaking to her directly, ‘My Lady' or ‘Miss St. Simon' will do.”

“ ‘Miss St. Simon'? So she's the old man's daughter?”

I tried to keep my voice neutral, but the relieved smile that creased my lips gave me away.

“You were afraid maybe her name was Mrs. Edwards?” Emily said, her stiff airs disappearing with a leer.

I shrugged and blushed. “Well. . .itwouldbekindofashame.Not for her to be married, I mean. For her to be married to a feller like
him
.”

“Oooooo, it'd be a shame, alright—which isn't to say it won't happen,” the maid replied, rolling her eyes. “Not if that Edwards gets his way, nasty bugger.”

Tall John leaned in and planted an elbow in my ribs. “So who do you propose the lady
should
marry, Sir Red?” he said. “The Earl of East Kansas, maybe?”

I was getting ribbed—literally—and if I didn't act fast it wouldn't let up for days. I decided the best thing to do was give the conversation my spurs and point it in another direction.

“So how ‘bout that beanpole—'Young Brackwell'? What are we supposed to call him? ‘Your Royal Highness' or ‘Your Majesty'?”

Emily giggled and filled us in. Though his family had titles in spades, Brackwell didn't carry any himself. Nevertheless, as the youngest son of the Earl of Blackwater, he was due the respect afforded a nobleman. He was no older than any of us hands, but we were to address him as “Mr. Brackwell.”

I was about to ask what we should call Edwards—simply “Jackass” or “
Mr
. Jackass”—when Lady Clara got to calling for Emily. Our little sewing circle broke up, and Tall John, Swivel-Eye, and I headed downstairs to grab the last of the trunks. In doing so, we found that the stage and wagon crew had finished watering their horses and were getting set to roll out. That was a big disappointment, as we'd been looking forward to hearing news from town.

“You can't even stay for supper?” I asked.

“Wish we could, friend,” the fellow riding shotgun on the stage said. “But we gotta get back. The old man wouldn't hire us out for two days—he'd only pay for the one. That cheap son of a bitch might look rich, but he pinches pennies till they bleed.”

“But your horses could surely use more of a rest,” I pointed out. “And there's no way you'll make it back to Miles before sundown anyway. If you don't have business callin' you back to town, you really oughta stay the night.”

It was true enough, and for a second it looked like they were giving it real thought. But then Uly came outside, glared at the drivers, and snarled, “What the hell are
you
still doin' here?” Then he turned to me and Swivel-Eye and Tall John and added, “And you three—get back to work.”

That settled that.

“Don't let Hungry Bob get you!” I called as the stage and wagon clattered away from the castle.

The shotgun rider looked back from the stagecoach and waved. “Don't let the McPhersons get
you
!”

I turned to see how Uly would take that crack, but he'd already gone back inside, no doubt to apply more lip varnish to the Duke's seat cushions.

While Lady Clara and Emily had been setting up house, the old man, Edwards, and Young Brackwell had holed up with Uly in Perkins's office. Snoopiness having become a habit by now, I found every excuse I could to tarry at the bottom of the stairs, outside the office door. But all I heard from the other side was the rumble of the Duke's deep voice and the occasional “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” or “I don't know, sir” from Uly.

All this kowtowing apparently had Uly a bit buffaloed, for he'd made a rare mistake when he'd been barking at us a moment before. Unaware that the lady was through using us as her personal pack mules, he'd simply told us to get to work—without telling us what to do. As we saw it, that made us our own bosses for as long as we could make it last.

Tall John volunteered to take care of our horses, something he could do at as leisurely a pace as he pleased with Uly occupied and Spider out on the range somewhere. Swivel-Eye said he was going to help the Swede get supper going, which really meant he was going to hang around the cookshack and see if he couldn't get an early meal. And I chose to go back into the house to check on Lady Clara. After all, there might have been more heavy lifting to do, and it wouldn't be very gentlemanly to leave such work to the women.

Swivel-Eye and Tall John saw right through me, of course, but they didn't give me any guff but a couple of wicked grins.

After the boys left, I lingered outside the office door again. All I heard this time was the opening of drawers, the rustling of papers, and
a low murmur of voices that just about lulled me to sleep. After a minute or so, I began making my way to the second floor to avail myself of the decidedly more stimulating company we'd been blessed with that day.

When I was about halfway up the stairs, I heard a door below me open, followed by the
clop
-
clop
-
clop
of someone taking the steps two at a time. I whipped around to see the rail-thin form of Young Brackwell flying at me—and then past me. When he reached the second floor, he hurried to the room Lady Clara had claimed for herself.

“You must come downstairs immediately,” I heard him say.

“What is it?”

Brackwell sighed. “They're already going over the ruddy bookkeeping and the tedium is simply
killing
me. I made an excuse to slip out and—”

“They weren't supposed to start without me.”

“Edwards and old Dickie just couldn't contain themselves. And you know how that horrid Edwards feels about women and—”

Before he could finish, Lady Clara came storming out of the room and swept past me without so much as a glance in my direction. I didn't mind being overlooked just then, for there was enough fire in her eyes to melt a man.

Brackwell followed at a slower pace, dragging his heels like a fellow on his way to the gallows. When he saw I was eyeing him he brightened up, and he actually gave me a nod and a smile as he passed by. Why a high-class aristocrat, even as gawky and poorly tailored a one as this, should favor a low-class hand like myself with such friendliness I didn't know.

Downstairs, the lady went marching into Perkins's office, and I managed to catch only two sharp words before Young Brackwell slouched in after her and closed the door.

“Gentlemen!”

“Clara!”

Slam
.

I started down the stairs again to catch what tidbits of conversation I could, but just then the front door flew open and Spider came striding in. He was still in chaps and spurs from saddle work, and clouds of dust gusted off him with each stomping step.

“Amlingmeyer!” he snapped before he'd even seen me, leaving me to wonder how he knew I was in the house.

I didn't have time to wonder long. He caught sight of me on the staircase and waved me outside with an angry jerk of his hand.

“Listen good, you big, dumb son of a bitch,” he said once we were out on the porch. “You stay away from them Britishers. Shoot off your mouth around ‘em, and I'll shoot off your damn
face
. Understand?”

I restrained myself to a simple nod as opposed to the punch to the gut his words warranted.

“Good. Now get over to the barn and help Tall John with the horses.”

I nodded again and got on my way. As I trudged along, taking out my anger on whatever rocks I could get my boot toe under, I saw Swivel-Eye and the Swede coming from the cookshack, their arms piled high with kitchen gear.

“You fellers goin' to a bar-b-q?” I called out.

The Swede answered in his usual gibberish, which Swivel-Eye quickly translated into regular English.

“We're headed to the big house. Spider told the Swede to get set up there for some fancy cookin'.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “Who's gonna cook for us then?”

“Talla Yon!” the Swede said.

Swivel-Eye didn't need to decode that for me. I knew who the Swede was talking about. And I knew what that meant for my stomach: hard times. Putting Tall John in charge of a skillet made about as much sense as putting an Eskimo in charge of a cattle drive.

I found our new pot-rustler in the barn. It looked like Tall John
had fared better shirking work than I had, for he'd barely begun putting away the saddles, bridles, harnesses, and whatnot. We got to it together. By the time we'd finished with the horses, Old Red and the rest of the fence crew came rolling in on the wire wagon.

I'm sure my brother was overjoyed to discover that Swivel-Eye and Tall John hadn't sunk me in a bog hole. Yet when he saw me he simply said, “How'd it go?” so casual you might've thought he was making chitchat with a hand coming back from the outhouse.

“You ain't gonna believe it, Gustav!”

“The owners are here!” Tall John cut in.

Being one who's reluctant to give up the stage when there's a tale to be told, I cut right back in, trotting out the detail that was sure to be greeted with even greater amazement.

“And they brought women!”

There was little variation in the responses, most of the boys opting for either “What?” or “Holy shit!” Old Red being Old Red, he stuck with silence.

For once there were fellows fighting to help with the end-of-theday chores, as the boys didn't want to leave the barn until they'd heard everything. Naturally, I held a few choice details in reserve for some later time when my audience would be reduced to one. Just when that time might come was unclear, as hot gossip is strong glue, and it looked like nothing was going to break apart the Hornet's Nest bunch until these new developments had been totally talked out.

I only got one moment alone with my brother. It was later that night in the bunkhouse, and the boys were deep in debate. Half of them hadn't laid eyes on our guests, yet they'd already broken into two camps: the ones who favored the delicate, raven-haired maturity of Lady Clara and those who found themselves stirred more by the bawdy, blond girlishness of the maid, Emily. Old Red didn't weigh in himself, except to say that pining for either woman made as much sense as trying to can sunshine. Then he got up and drifted to the doorway, puffing
on his pipe. After throwing in a few more words on the lady's behalf, I ambled after him.