Sherlock Holmes In America (12 page)

On the morrow, we asked our host for directions to the United States Marshal's office, since we were anxious to make contact with Supt. Schmitt's colleague while Dennis's trail was yet warm. When he learned that it was Deputy Marshal Ames whom we sought, Smith tried to warn us away from a person of
,
he claimed
,
questionable character. Finding us adamant, he sighed.

“At any rate, you're far more likely to find him in Robertson's than in the Marshal's office,” he told us.

“Robertson's?” asked Holmes.

“A sort of private club,” sniffed our host. “The fumes! We are teetotal here, you understand.”

Holmes looked troubled. “When you say fumes, Mr. Smith, do you mean alcoholic?”

“That too, I fear!” tsked Smith. “But chiefly tobacco! Quite forbidden!”

“Oh dear!” said Holmes, turning pale. “I hadn't realized . . . but at any rate, Mr. Smith, we really must make the acquaintance of this officer, so may we beg you to direct us to this den of infamy. We shall steel ourselves in the name of duty.”

“I can't corrupt a servant by sending one with you to that sort of place.” Smith shook his head. “But if you must go, I'll draw you a map.”

When Holmes and I were admitted to the club (production of our pipes at the doorway being equivalent to an occult handshake, we discovered), I had trouble at first adjusting my eyes to the dim light within. I don't know why I was surprised that the place was not dissimilar to an English club, or that an enquiry to the first person we happened to encounter—yet another Englishman, a Yorkshireman—brought us to Ames, who we discovered to be taller than Holmes, and wearing a frock coat that would have passed in London, but with his trousers stuffed into high riding boots. He had an aquiline face, which, again, curiously resembled that of my friend, save that his windblown tan was evident even in the subdued light. With his shoulder-length, rather greasy hair and drooping moustache, he put me in mind of some of the Afghans I'd known in my service days.

But when he spoke, his voice was pure Yankee prairie. “Glad to meet you gents,” he said, wringing our hands with that excruciating American force to which I never became accustomed. “Schmitt wired me, and I reckon I can help you 'prise Tom Dennis outen his roost, but the jurisdiction may be kind of tricky.”

“Really?” said Holmes, lighting the cigar Ames had offered him.

“You see,” the Marshal continued, “we're in the City of Salt Lake, but also the County of Salt Lake, and of course the Territory of Utah. Now, of course I'm a Deputy United States Marshal, so I can collar the boy anywhere, theoretically.”

“I'm not sure I like the sound of that ‘theoretically,'” said Holmes. “This is an excellent cigar.”

“Thanks, I get 'em made special and brought through the Isthmus. The problem is that we're also in the Country of the Saints, and President Taylor is King over Israel on the Earth, and just about every municipal, county, territorial, and federal officer is also one of Taylor's faithful.... Now, I'm not sayin' they have divided loyalties, but there is just a bit of bad feelin's between the Feds and the Church right now.”

“Very bad?” I asked.

“Just a tad,” he admitted. “What with Washington trying to make them give up their plural wives and their church property and all . . . So we'll have to tread easy.”

“But you will help us apprehend Dennis?” Holmes asked.

“Oh, my pleasure,” Ames assured him, downing what looked like a double whisky. “Apparently, your boy is engaged in movin' some kind of contraband between here and Wyoming.”

I must have looked a little dubious.

“Oh, it ain't far,” he said. “It's just over them mountains to the northeast—you must've noticed 'em. There's an easy trail for a good horseman—I used to ride it myself when I was in the Pony Express with Cody and Hickock.”

This caught my attention. “Good Lord!” I cried. “You mean those chaps in the little soft-covered novels I've been buying in the train stations all along our route? I never dreamed they were real people.”

“Oh, they're realer than most,” he chuckled. “Leastwise, Bill Hickock used to be—damn fool fergot to sit with his back to the wall in Deadwood, a few years back. But I guess those dime novels keep him alive, and they're good publicity for Bill Cody—you might try 'em yourself, in your line of work, Mr. Holmes, bein' a sort of freelancer as you are.”

Holmes made an expression of distaste. “I hope, Watson,” he told me, “that you shall never contemplate such yellow puffery in my behalf, despite your tendency to take notes. But Marshal, do I understand you to suggest that this ‘collar' will best be fastened somewhere outside the city, along this route you mention?”

“It'd sartainly keep the paperwork simpler,” Ames chuckled. “I'd like to do 'er in one of the mountain passes better than in the middle of the desert, too . . . Don't want to give 'im a long view of our approach, y'understand. What kind of riders are you gents?”

“I'm afraid the Holmeses had left off being country gentlefolk by my time,” deprecated my companion, “but I fancy I can sit a horse adequately to our purposes.”

“And horsemanship was one thing I acquired in Afghanistan besides a Jezail bullet,” I added modestly. “It was no jest riding in those mountains, either.”

“Especially when slung bottom-foremost in the saddle by your orderly!” laughed Holmes. “At least your acquaintance with our four-legged friends is not limited to the wrong end of a bookmaker's tally-sheet!”

“Really, Holmes!” I replied. “I wouldn't have thought that a pint of beer would make you so merry! It must be the thin air at this elevation. I'm surprised the Mormons allow this much alcohol to be served here, too.”

“Actually, they don't,” admitted Ames, glancing about somewhat furtively as he drained another glass of his own. “It may well be that this is the sort of contraband that no-good Dennis is runnin'. Natcherly, I'm prepared to do my duty and put a stop to it, even if the rascal
is
performin' a public service.”

So that, reader, is how I found myself encamped under the stars with Ames and Holmes.

“Don't move,” hissed the motionless Holmes to the Marshal. “Watson! Have you got your service revolver?”

But I was too late. Even as I was shifting for my weapon, the snake—a spotted Massasauga rattler, we later confirmed—struck Ames's heel, and my shot an instant later tore off its evil head, but was out of time.

The three of us knew well enough how to deal with poisonous snake bites, and I had not outgrown the habit of carrying my medical bag everywhere, so we were easily able to save his life. But there was no question now of the Marshal riding the mountain trail in pursuit of Dennis.

“It'll be about all I can do to get back to town to the hospital, I reckon,” he lamented. “Your boy will be over the border in Wyoming by the time I can get an officer detailed to you. Damn sorry! But no doubt Dennis'll make another contraband run sometime soon, he 'ppears to have gotten latched onto a going operation.”

Holmes did not relish a delay, and I doubted our financial benefactress would approve it, either. “Could you not describe the route to us, Marshal,” asked Holmes, “so Dr. Watson and I could secure Dennis on our own?”

Ames chewed his moustache and grimaced, either from the tourniquet we'd applied or the quandary we'd presented. “Well, the way is easy enough to see—bein' an old Pony Express trail,” he mused. “And I s'pose I could deputize you; you ain't Americans, but that's never made much never-mind in this territory. But I still don't care for it much.”

“Why not?” cried Holmes.

“You have to understand, we were cuttin' things mighty fine to begin with. We had to wait for the dawn because this trail is so durn precipitous some places that it would be risky even for an experienced rider in the dark. And shoot! Now that the sun's up, we've wasted so much time with this snake folderol that you'd have to do a Pony Express race just to catch up with Dennis before he crosses the border! And frankly, I'm fearful you gents might come to harm tryin' to go full-out 'round these mountains, unescorted-like.”

“Oh, that's all right.” Holmes waved his hand dismissively, and to my dismay said, “Dr. Watson is an old Afghan hand who can ride country like this in his sleep. But why does the territorial border matter if we have federal commissions?”

Ames squinted his eyes dubiously at me, as if his suspicions of my prowess as a horseman were much the same as my own. “Well, the federal writ runs both sides of the border, all right,” he acknowledged. “But Jack Taylor has a rough set of Mormon guards up there, and you're far better off to snag your man before you have to two-step with the Temple brethren.”

Holmes was thoughtful for a moment, and then turned to me. “That settles it,” he said with an air of resolve. “Watson, since I am hardly in your league as a mountain rider, I must follow in your wake as best I can. You must start at once, at full speed, to overtake Dennis before he reaches the border.”

“My dear Holmes,” I assured him fervently, “I'm sure I cannot.”

“Do so all the same,” he replied.

Reader, I did.

Looking at the fire in those keen eyes, I had a prevision of the partnership that would outlast the shadows eternally shifting through those foothills. And though I confess that I heaved a sigh, my pulse racing a little, it did not take me long to saddle my horse, a fine mustang paint called Nestor, which Ames had broken himself, and climb into the stirrups. A few last minute instructions from both my superiors, and I set out at a brisk gallop.

Before long, though, the steepness of the climb and the sharpness of the turns forced me to slow Nestor to a walk. It seemed the pathway skirted one dizzying precipice after another the entire way! But we continued to make the best time we could, and when I looked down at the chasms below us, I blessed my beast's sure feet.

Sooner than expected, I heard the sound of voices drifting down from above and wondered at first if this might be some trick of the acoustics of the mountains. But not wanting to give our approach away, I stopped and tethered Nestor to some rugged bushes sprouting out of the side of the mountain wall.

Holding my pistol ready, I crept as softly as I could along the path until, rounding a corner, I suddenly found myself staring at a considerable flat expanse in which there was an encampment of several tents. A few young women were busying themselves at some activity, which I had no time to scrutinize because I hastily moved back out of sight. But I was too late. One of the women had seen me, shrieked, and pointed in my direction, and a moment later, a gunshot ricocheted off the rocks, spraying fragments inches from my face just as I leapt back.

This was a fine predicament! I could only reflect back on my Afghan experience for guidance, so I decided that since I knew nothing of the other party's strength, but knew all too well my own, I should gain little by delay, but might gain something by boldness.

Having a notion of the shooter's position, to make an impression, I darted out from behind my rocks and hazarded a quick couple of shots, one of which found its mark—for as I ducked for cover again, I was glad to hear a cry of surprise mingled with pain, followed by the sound of a body evidently fallen from some height. This was followed by an unmelodious chorus of feminine wails, and sounds of scurrying feet.

Hard-pressed to know what to do next, I was startled to hear a bold female voice close at hand, beckoning me: “You might as well come out, now, whoever you be—there's nobody left to shoot back, and I reckon you won't shoot women, will you?”

It sounds foolish, and I daresay it was, but this challenge to me as a gentleman provoked me to step out into what might have been harm's way. Instead, I almost stepped into the arms of a masterful-looking woman of perhaps forty years walking toward me, dressed in male western fashion, but rather attractive withal.

“Whoa!” she said, holding up a leather-gloved hand. “Put up that shootin'-iron if you don't mind. Ain't I already told you there's nobody but us women, now you've plugged poor Tom?”

“Tom Dennis?” I bellowed. “How badly is he hurt? I'm a doctor!”

She lifted one fine grey eyebrow. “You ain't much of one fer your Hippocratic Oath, are you? Or do you plug 'em first and then charge to mend 'em?”

“Don't bandy pleasantries when someone's bleeding!” I snapped. “My name is Watson. I
am
a doctor. I've chased that man all the way from London, and I want him alive!”

The woman sagged against the mountain wall. “Not Mr. Sherlock Holmes's friend?” she asked in a weak voice, and also, I noticed, a suddenly more cultured accent. “I thought—we thought—you were from the Church.... Tom's over here.” She gestured toward a space behind the nearest tent, where I saw several young women huddled. “You only winged him, Doctor. He's more hurt from the fall.”

As she led me where our long-sought quarry was now stretched upon a camp cot, she turned her fine profile to me over her shoulder and added, almost as an afterthought, “I'm Lucy Ferrier Hope.” The words stunned me, and for a moment I simply stared in amazement. Her face, however, was filled with concern for the wounded man, and I realized that explanations would have to wait. Gathering myself, I knelt by the cot to attend to my patient.