Horse With No Name (13 page)

"Where the hell do you think I was, lass?
Right where you see me now. We don't get..."

The back door of the shop opened and closed.
Meddy snapped to attention. "Thank you ladies," he said loudly,
"enjoy your bread. The missus and me will be heading home now." He
put an arm each behind Julia and Betty and ushered them in no
uncertain terms toward the front door. Before they knew it they
were out on the street and the door was closing and latching behind
them. Betty still had her basket over one arm.

"Two loaves of sourdough?" she asked her
friend. "What on earth am I going to do with them?"

"Sell them," Julia suggested, "and make back
some of the cash you need to cover the debts your husband is
owed."

"And make what? A penny each?"

"Every penny counts, as my old gran used to
say."

Seventeen

"Do you think a woman could have inflicted that harm
on Mr. Hunter?"

Julia was sitting in Dr. Parker's office. He
was a man of few words. He reminded Julia of Walt Sheehan in that
way, except it was different with Parker. There was a tightness
about him, like something coiled. Where Walt was quiet because he
was observing and accepting everything around him, Parker seemed
always to be restraining himself, holding back somehow. Julia
imagined that being the only doctor in town couldn't be easy. Much
like Constable Merrick's job, she thought the doctoring position in
Horse might be a lonely one. Parker was unmarried and Julia guessed
him to be about fifty years old. She didn't know if he had been
married at some point. She had never been in a social situation
with the man so that she could ask him more about himself. She
suspected he preferred it that way.

He had an impressive mustache that was greyer
than the hair on his head. It floated down over his upper lip and
made Julia's own lips tickle just looking at it. He often looked
tired, she thought, and his expression was stern, which went along
with his personality. He kept his hair cut quite short, much
shorter than most men. His hands were always clean, the nails
trimmed right back. He had thickened through the middle with age,
and occasionally seemed self-conscious about that, covering his
belly with his hands.

He was thinking about her question, leaning
back in his chair, which tilted on its base when he did so. The
walls around her were gleaming white and the sunlight coming
through the windows caught in the glass jars around the room and
made them sparkle.

Julia waited, knowing enough not to rush the
man.

Parker came forward on his chair and laid his
hands on his desk. "He's not talking?"

"No. He won't speak to Constable Merrick. He
says he doesn't remember anything about the attack."

"Why are you asking?" Parker placed the
emphasis on the word 'you', highlighting that Julia was not
officially employed to ask such questions.

She straightened her spine. “I want to help.
Merrick is swamped with other work and Hunter isn't able to provide
him with any information. I thought I'd do a little digging and see
if I can put the pieces together.”

Parker watched her with a calm detachment
that she found unnerving. "Does Merrick approve?"

"No."

For the first time a faint smile touched
Parker's lips. "I expect not. Well..." he nodded, thinking again.
"I can't say too much. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that.
But since you saw Hunter's injuries yourself I can speak to those.
My assessment is that most of the injuries were not inflicted by a
weapon."

This didn't surprise Julia. Until now she had
been operating on the premise that it was fists that had caused the
bruising and wounds on Hunter's face.

"What about his broken arm?"

"He could have fallen on it during the
attack. The break is low down on his arm. Almost at his wrist. That
tells me it could be the result of an impact."

"Like landing on it."

"Yes, like that. Land on it at the wrong
angle and the bone snaps under the weight being forced down on it.
He's not a big man but when we fall, of course, our weight is
multiplied by the force of the fall."

Julia sat quietly for a moment, thinking.

Parker surprised her by volunteering some
information. "Fists, well, knuckles really, break the skin on
impact. Hunter had that head wound, which may have been caused by
knocking it against something. But the bruising around his face was
mostly just that - bruising. There wasn't much broken skin, except
that cut on his lip."

"But there's no way to tell," Julia said,
coming back to her original question, "if the wounds could have
been inflicted by a woman."

Parker shook his head.

"Why wouldn't he have defended himself?"
Julia was thinking out loud. "If it was a woman he could
theoretically have grabbed her arms to restrain her."

"Maybe it was a surprise attack."

"Still. Who wouldn't try to stop someone who
was battering them?"

The doctor looked out the window, thinking.
When he turned back to Julia she could see he had made a decision.
"When I removed his shirt and vest, there was quite a bit of
bruising and redness here." He held up his own left arm and pointed
with his right hand to the underside of the forearm, between elbow
and wrist. "On both arms."

Parker then waited while Julia processed that
information. "Defensive wounds," she said.

Parker nodded. "That's what I thought." He
held both his arms up in front of his face. "If he was shielding
himself, like this, it's that part of the arm that would take most
of the force of the blows. And it's a very natural, human instinct
to protect one's face and eyes in such an event." He put his hands
back down on the desk. "Why do you ask about whether a woman could
have done the damage?"

"Just a suspicion I have based on a
conversation I had with someone this morning."

Julia made it a habit to stop in to see James
Hunter each morning on her way to school. Betty, Millie Jones and
several other women in town were keeping him stocked with food. The
man had probably never eaten so well. His suits might not fit when
he was ready to go back to work. The women always stayed for a
visit when they dropped off a stew or soup, although Betty
mentioned that Hunter never wanted to chat for long. He always
seemed relieved when she took her leave. Julia had the same
experience each morning. She wanted to make sure Hunter had had a
good rest and was set up with tea and whatever breakfast he might
want. He never asked her to do anything extra and she wondered if
he even ate the porridge she made him.

This morning as she had approached the house,
she'd heard shouting from inside. It almost sounded like two female
voices. Julia broke into a run and dashed up the front walk. The
front door was not quite closed and she could identify Lily Cecil's
voice as she pushed through.

"Mr. Hunter? Is everything all right?”

Hunter was standing in front of one of the
upholstered chairs in his parlor. Lily was standing several feet
away. Both were red in the face. Hunter was dressed for the first
time since he'd come home from Dr. Parker's. His suit jacket was
slung over his right shoulder so that his broken arm could rest in
the sling. Julia fleetingly wondered how he'd managed to get
dressed and put the sling on.

Lily and Hunter abruptly stopped arguing the
instant they saw Julia come through the door. Their jaws snapped
shut and the room was suddenly filled with uneasy silence. Julia
felt like a child who had interrupted a parental argument.

She said again, "Is everything all
right?”

Hunter and Lily looked at one another and
then Hunter assured Julia, "Yes. Everything is fine, Miss Thom.
Lily, er, Mrs. Cecil and I were just having a disagreement about
whether I should go back to work today."

"You're not thinking of going back to work
yet, are you?"

Hunter nodded, decisively, "I am. Today. I
can't sit around here any longer. I've got customers waiting."

"But Mr. Hunter, you only have the use of one
arm."

"Then I'll be slow. But I must go back. If I
stay here staring at the walls for one more minute I'll go
mad."

Julia didn't know what to say. The man was
captain of his own ship and she had no authority over him. She
looked at the other woman, "You must feel it would be better if he
rested for a few more days?"

Lily looked confused for a moment. Julia was
starting to feel she wasn't the smartest of women. She glanced at
Hunter and then she said, "Yes. Yes, that's right. I think a few
more days of rest are in order."

Lily had taken her leave then, bidding them
both good day and walking through the front door that was still
hanging open. Hunter watched her go with an expression in his eyes
that Julia couldn't identify.

Julia helped Hunter finish getting dressed
and then walked the man to his shop. He was even quieter than
usual, which hardly seemed possible. Julia wondered if he was
really feeling well enough to spend a day at his shop.

He unlocked the door and they stepped inside
together.

"Well," Julia said, "you can always go home
and rest anytime you need to. Your customers will understand."

Hunter nodded absently, not really seeming to
hear her. He was surveying the spots of blood on the floor behind
the counter. "That's the first thing I'll need to clean up, isn't
it?" he said. "Can't have customers walking into a watchmaker's and
thinking they're in a butcher's shop."

This was the first time Julia had ever heard
Hunter make what could be construed as a joke. She smiled at him
and noticed the bruises around his eyes were turning quite a foul
shade of green. "Let me help you with that," she said, beginning to
pull off her gloves.

"No, Miss Thom," Hunter put one of his slight
hands on her arm and then pulled it away quickly, "You've done
enough. I thank you. You're going to be late for school. I've got
all day to tidy up around here, so that's just what I'm going to
do. You go now." He pulled his mouth into a faint smile.

"I'll check in on you on my way home this
afternoon.”

"That would be kind of you."

Julia walked to school slowly, mulling over
what had just unfolded. The tension between Hunter and Lily seemed
odd to her. It had a familiarity about it, the way that she had
observed siblings can be with one another. Lily had said to Julia
that she had known Mr. Hunter at school, but she hadn't mentioned
when they'd last seen one another before they both moved to Horse.
And, in the moment, Julia hadn't thought to ask. You have to know
someone well enough to argue with them. This trail of thoughts
caused Julia to wonder if Lily and Hunter had a broken engagement
that they didn't want talked about. People did so often hide the
truth, especially when it involved protecting personal
business.

When it came to living in a small town, in a
place as far from anywhere as Horse was, one almost had to be
running from something. Many in town and the surrounding area, of
course, were running toward something; a better future, a different
life. But Julia knew intimately that many people, including
herself, were trying to leave a past behind them. She wondered if
James Hunter was one of these. She determined to go and talk to Dr.
Parker when school was finished for the afternoon.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Susan and
Ellen, her two grade-six students, came running down the street
toward her.

"Good morning, ladies," Julia said, putting
aside her circling thoughts about past connections and present
troubles.

The girls flung themselves at their teacher,
braids bouncing, speaking over one another indecipherably.

"Slow down, girls. Slow down. What are you
saying?"

Ellen Simcoe, self-proclaimed den mother of
all the children younger than herself, put her hands on her hips
and declared, "Peter Little was eating dirt, Miss Thom, and now
he's thrown up on his shoes."

Julia almost burst out laughing. This was an
unexpected benefit of working with children that she hadn't
anticipated when she'd applied for the job. One moment was always
vastly different from its predecessor. She could never predict what
each day would hold and she loved that. Children brought a unique
brand of beautiful chaos that she hadn't realized she'd been
missing from her life.

"Well then, nurses, lead on," she said. "Take
me to your patient."

***

Peter Little's dirt-eating escapades aside,
it was a quiet and thankfully smooth day at school. Julia found Dr.
Parker in his office immediately after she closed the school for
the day. And although he was willing to talk to her, the
conversation left Julia feeling more confused than anything.

James Hunter seemed to be an enigma. Everyone
knew of him, but no one seemed to know him. She knew him as well to
be a man who was stand-offish and remote. Almost like he always had
somewhere to go, some place to be other than talking to the person
he was with at that moment. She experienced this feeling even when
she and Betty were in his home, helping him with the cooking and
cleaning. He never seemed entirely relaxed.

How could someone so difficult to reach have
created an enemy who despised him so much he would beat the man
half to death? Hunter was a puff of smoke. A ghost. Who could he
have offended so badly?

And furthermore, why didn't he want to talk
about it? This was the part that really stuck in Julia's mind. He
claimed he remembered nothing from the attack, not one shred of any
part of the event had stayed with him. She found this very hard to
believe. Was he covering something up? Was the beating somehow tied
into something illegal or immoral? Julia found that just as hard to
believe. A woman in 1890 had to be keenly aware of the character of
those around her. Julia knew that she wasn't the only woman who had
developed a sixth sense about those men she could trust and those
she couldn't. Even before moving to Horse this skill was something
she had mastered. Her mother had insisted on it and some of their
only meaningful conversations, at least the ones that weren't about
how to steep tea and what constituted proper attire for a Tuesday
afternoon cello concert, had been about this subject. Julia often
wondered if her mother had been hurt in some way when she was
younger. But it was a subject she had never broached. She wouldn't
have known how.