The Spirit is Willing (An Ophelia Wylde Paranormal Mystery) (5 page)

After Calder left, I sat at the table and drank more coffee and pondered what I had done to make him so cold to me. The prouder the man, the harder it is to get him to talk about his feelings. It was infuriating. We were supposed to be partners, and all I did was ask an honest question out of concern, and he treated me like I had killed his dog.

Then the front door banged open so hard I thought it was going to break the glass, and into the restaurant stumbled a local prostitute by the name of Frankie Bell. Everybody in Dodge City knew Frankie, or knew of her, because she did things that inspired gossip. For one, she was a whore and unashamed of it. This was undis-turbing to the night denizens, but unacceptable to those who had daytime jobs, attended city council meetings, and went to church on Sundays. For another, she was a big girl—taller than most men, in fact, in her bare feet—and she had muscles under those curves, and she wasn’t afraid to use them when she believed her honor had been challenged. Last week, she had pummeled a shoe salesman from Wichita who had suggested Frankie could turn a better profit as a circus curiosity.

“The usual, doll?” Bernard asked.

“Yep,” Frankie said.

She was wearing a red kimono, her wild blond hair spilled over her shoulders, and a badly rolled cigarette dangled from her lower lip. Her brown eyes were bright with whiskey and she navigated the restaurant by gripping the backs of chairs like they were the rail on a storm-tossed ship. She found a table she liked by the kitchen door and sprawled in a chair.

Bernard brought a short glass and an armload of ingredients. In something resembling a ritual, he placed the glass in front of her, then cracked a raw egg on the rim, and plopped the unbroken yolk in. He poured about a shot from a bottle of Worcestershire sauce, added five shakes of Tabasco, and sprinkled it all with salt and pepper.

“It is ready,” Bernard said.

Frankie nodded, snubbed the cigarette out on the tabletop, and snatched up the concoction in her right hand. She held the glass high and offered a toast in a surprisingly firm voice.

“Let those who did not get us cry,” she said. “And let those who did not want us . . . muck off and die.”

She threw the contents down her throat, wiped her mouth with her forearm, and slammed the glass upside down on the table. The restaurant applauded, and Frankie nodded in appreciation.

“What was that?” I asked Bernard as he walked by with the empty glass.

“Prairie oyster,” he said. “Want to try one?”

“Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

“Say, you’re that Wylde gal who talks to ghosts,” Frankie said, casting her wild eyes upon me. “What in hell did you do to old Hickory Lane?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“She’s got it in for you something fierce.”

“Oh?”

“She went on a drunk last night and said you were full of it.”

“Did she, now?”

“Swore she was going to take you down a peg or two.”

“I don’t know why Hickory would feel that way about me, but I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding,” I said.

Frankie snorted.

“The last person Hickory misunderstood,” she said, “ended up losing her front teeth.”

I turned away from Frankie Bell.

Through the restaurant windows, I could see people moving along Front Street, people with purpose, with lists of things to do. They were going to open stores for business, doing the shopping, paying bills, and settling accounts.

Dodge City was like that. By day, it was as normal as any little town you could hope for. By night, it was Sodom, Port Royal, and Deadwood all rolled into one.

I decided I might visit the
Times
office and quiz the Shinn brothers on the finer points of composition. But it was still only five o’clock in the morning and, having known journalists in other locales, I doubted the Shinns were likely to receive visitors much before ten or eleven o’clock, depending on how much inspiration they had drunk the night before. I decided instead to take a walk down by the river, while it was still cool enough to enjoy it.

I walked down to Bridge Street, crossed the Santa Fe tracks, and then ambled down to the sandy banks of the Arkansas a block or so east of the toll bridge. The river was low, just a few inches of water, but it was wide enough to brilliantly reflect the sunrise.

Looking at the dull orange ball of the sun through the trees, I thought about the heat that would surely come. Stepping down to the water’s edge, I knelt on a broad, flat rock. The water was sluggish and fouled from the thousands of cattle nearby. The animals were either held in the railway pens in town, awaiting shipment, or in massive herds up and down the river, waiting for their turn to be driven into the city.

I popped off the celluloid collar of my shirt so I could feel the cool morning breeze against my throat. Then I undid my shirt a couple of buttons and loosened my vest. The wind stirred the cottonwoods and tall grass along the bank, and it made such a pleasant sound I closed my eyes, momentarily at peace.

The tranquility was disturbed by the sound of boots on gravel.

I opened my eyes. A tall man with long auburn hair walked toward me, whistling an old tune, and as he walked his hair swayed from side to side. He wore a paisley vest over a loose-fitting pink shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His denims were tucked into calf-length walking boots. Over his left shoulder was slung a well-worn brown leather satchel, of the kind used by troops during the war to carry their ammunition.

I stood and, turning my back, quickly buttoned my shirt.

“Pardon,” he said. “Didn’t know you were doing your business.”

“You may have caught me at a disadvantage,” I said. “But I was doing no business of any kind. I thank you to move on.”

“Why don’t you piss up a . . .” The man lost his thought and stared intently at my torso, and then up to my face. “. . . rope. By God, you’re a woman.”

“Of course I am.”

“Forgive me, I just caught a glimpse of you and thought, naturally, because of your clothing, that you were a gentleman.” His voice was soft and strongly British.

“That is something we must share.”

“Pardon?”

“Being mistaken for the opposite gender,” I said. “Your hair goes below your shoulder blades. From the back, you must often be mistaken for a woman.”

I was immediately sorry I had said it, because in truth I am attracted to well-groomed long hair in men, but I had wanted to hurt him. He gave no sign that he was at all sensitive about the matter, however.

“Pardon, but are you all right?”

“I’m sure it’s no concern of yours,” I said, both appalled and a little frightened by his rudeness. “Additionally, that isn’t the kind of question one expects from a gentleman.”

“Meant no offense,” he said, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “But neither of us is the type of gentleman anybody would be expecting.”

He reached casually down and retrieved my collar from where I had dropped it, offering it to me with a smile. I plucked it from his hand and shoved it into my pocket.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning the opposite.

He reached into the satchel, and I must have flinched or otherwise telegraphed my concern, because he paused.

“I am disarmed,” he said.

“Unarmed, you mean.”

“No,” he said. “I am disarmed by your beauty.”

“Distracted, perhaps,” I said. “Disarmed? Surely not.”

From his satchel he removed a briar pipe with a straight stem and a pocket tin of Turkish tobacco. As he carefully filled the bowl of the pipe and tamped it with his thumb, he looked out over the water and squinted. His blue eyes reflected the dawn.

“I grew up on the bank of a river,” he said. “Now I find comfort in walking a riverbank in the still of the mornings, even along rivers as small as this. It seems strange to me now, because when I was a boy I couldn’t wait to leave the river behind.”

He struck a wooden match on his belt buckle and fired the pipe. He sucked vigorously for a moment, then released a great cloud of smoke.

“Let’s start over, shall we?”

I was silent for a few moments.

“What river?” I asked.

“The Thames,” he said. “A neighborhood called Millwall, on the west side of the Isle of Dogs. Not an island, really, but a peninsula the river loops around. Home to builders of ships and barges and ironworks of great import.”

“Were you a shipbuilder, or a sailor?”

“Good heavens, no,” he said, the stem of the pipe clicking against his teeth. “I was a mudlark, as was my father before me. Ah, I see by your expression you don’t know the term, but then I wouldn’t expect anyone outside of England to recognize it. Mudlarks claw a living from the banks of the river, scavenging whatever has fallen from the great ships that pass: chunks of coal, iron rivets and washers, bits of rope and canvas. Working in the filth and muck from first light until full dark. On a good day you might earn a few pence. Other days, only a farthing.”

He shook his head.

“I forget myself,” he said. “I have disturbed your morning meditation with melancholy ramblings about a time long ago and dead. It is inappropriate for a man of common stock to share intimate conversation with a gentlewoman to whom he has not been properly introduced.”

I told him I didn’t mind strangers sharing stories, as long as they proved interesting. He said if I would share my name, then we would no longer be strangers.

“My name is Ophelia,” I said.

He smiled.

“Your name suits you,” he said. “I was never comfortable with mine. It hung like a stone around my neck growing up: Bithersea. I am the son of a Bithersea, who was the son of a Bithersea, who was the . . . Wouldn’t it be grand if we could choose our own names, when we come of age, instead of being branded at birth like a twist of tobacco or a box of soap?”

“What is your Christian name?”

“Bryce.”

“Charmed.”

“As am I, Ophelia. And your last name?”

“Wylde.”

“Of course it is, Miss Wylde.”

“And what do they call you here in the states?”

“Chatwin,” he said. “Bruce Chatwin. It sounds ever so much better than Bryce Bithersea, don’t you think?”

“It does have a certain ring to it,” I allowed. “Tell me, Bruce, because I have no head for British money. How much is a farthing?”

“It takes four farthings to make a penny,” Chatwin said.

I asked him when his occupation as a mudlark came to an end.

“When I stowed away on one of those great ships and came to America,” he said. “I was thirteen years old and landed in Five Points in New York, which was like jumping from purgatory straight to hell. Even the Irish gangs wouldn’t have me, at least not until I learned their cant and proved myself.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I made myself useful, don’t you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

He took the pipe out of his mouth and frowned at the bowl, which had grown cold.

“I never killed,” he said. “And I never hurt a child or a woman. But I gave plenty of pain to men.”

Chatwin tapped out the contents of the pipe against his heel.

“So, you were a criminal.”

“A minor one, yes.”

“People sometimes change,” I said. “How did you get out of New York?”

“The draft,” he said. “In 1863, a rich man paid me to take the place of his son in the Union Army. I deserted the first chance I got and came west. Missouri first, then Kansas for a long while. I’m always heading west, it seems.”

“And how far west are you headed now?”

“I’m following this river,” he said. “To the headwaters, in the mountains near the Continental Divide in Colorado. Men are making a fortune in silver there, and I aim to be one of them.”

“Leadville,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said.

“I’ve heard it is a rough town.”

“That’s a compliment coming from a resident of Dodge City.”

“All I know about it is what I read in the papers.”

“They say it snows there on the Fourth of July,” he said. “Just imagine, we’ve been broiling here in the summer heat and, a few hundred miles upstream, it is as cool and fresh as Christmas morning.”

“I’d like to see that. Someday.”

“What about you, Miss Wylde? May I ask for a bit of your personal history?”

I told him I grew up in Memphis, that my husband had died at the Battle of Spottsylvania Courthouse, and that I had remained unmarried for the past fourteen years.

“You might forgive my mistake, because you wear no wedding band on the fourth finger of your right hand. I am, of course, saddened by your loss. What was his name?”

“Jonathan.”

“A good name.”

“He was a good man,” I said. “But like many good men, he is long dead. I was never one to enjoy the false sympathy prompted by widow’s weeds. Not that your expression of sympathy was insincere, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Also, for professional reasons, you may continue to address me as ‘Miss.’”

“Professional reasons?”

“I am a consulting detective,” I said. Perhaps I should have added that I was in partnership with Jack Calder, but I did not want to give the impression that I was in some sort of romantic relationship with Calder.

“Whom do you consult?”

“Clients consult me,” I said. “In turn, I consult the spirits.”

Chatwin laughed.

“I’m not amused,” I said.

“Forgive me, but you can’t be serious.”

“I am quite serious,” I said, feeling the blood rush unwillingly to my cheeks. “I am a trance medium and I solve crimes by speaking to the only witnesses who never lie—the dead.”

“Sounds like you’ve rehearsed that.”

Of course, I had.

“There is something you could help me with,” he said. “I am contemplating testing my luck at the roulette wheel in one of the gambling houses, and perhaps you could give me some numbers to try.”

“You confuse me with a fortune-teller.”

“Seems like the same line of work,” Chatwin said. “No, don’t be like that. I truly am interested in the subject. A couple of years ago I read this book by a fellow Englishman, Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton, who talked about extrasensuous perception, the ability to know things beyond the five known senses.”