A week later, I found myself standing on the stage of Minnehaha’s Medicine Show, listening to hearty applause.
It was Sunday May 10th and we were all at the Willows Amusement Park celebrating the capture of the criminals & the recovery of the money & our reward. Minnie had invited me to help her with the final part of her act. It was her last day in the city as she was bound for Sac City and parts beyond.
She was wearing her tight buckskin top and her puffy skirt with the stripes & zigzags on it. Her hair was wavy & glossy & black & fell down to her shoulders. She was not wearing war paint so you could see her freckles and pale skin.
I was wearing my fringed buckskin trowsers & beaded moccasins & beaded buckskin gloves & my red, blue and yellow zigzag jacket. I was also wearing the wig of straight black hair. (I had bought it from Minnie.) I was using my bogus pa’s Smith & Wesson No. 2 with its 6in barrel and rosewood grip. I like it because it fits my hand real good and also because it takes the same .32 rimfire cartridges as my 4-shooter Deringer. That means I do not need to bother with cap & ball & powder.
Minnie and I had been shooting tin cans.
My ears were still ringing with the sound of gunfire and my nose was full of the pungent smell of gun smoke. We had hit every can!
I had also been using my fine new Henry Rifle which takes fourteen .44 caliber cartridges and makes a bang like a shout. It was engraved thus: To P.K. Pinkerton, with thanks from the Overland Stage Co.
Mr. V.V. Bletchley had come all the way from Virginia City to present it to me, along with a generous reward of $2000. I had given $500 to Martha & Zoe & $500 to Ping & $500 to Minnehaha. (That was when she had invited me to be part of her show for just one afternoon.)
As the cloud of white gun smoke cleared on that fine May afternoon, I could see the people looking up at us and clapping.
I saw Ping & Affie & Martha & Zoe. Mr. Sam Clemens AKA Mark Twain, was there, too, with his friend The Unreliable and also Mrs. John D Winters who was smiling and not looking down her nose. I saw my new colleague Mr. Detective Rose & half a dozen of San Francisco’s finest. They were clapping as hard as anybody else.
Mr. Icy Blue was there, too, all in black. And Dizzy, with his leg in plaster! He was making a good recovery. He had verified my side of the story & was now ‘Yee-Hawing’ on account of he could not clap as he had to use both his hands for his crutches.
Best of all, Ping had got an indebted Virginia City client of his to ride Cheeya to Frisco in easy stages. So I was now reunited with my beloved pony.
I was about to jump down off the stage to join them when a man with oval spectacles ran up. He pointed to me. ‘You! Stay up there!’ he commanded. ‘I am Mr. H. W. Corbyn. I am going to make photographic cards of you. I will sell them and make a fortune. It will only take a moment or two and I will give you half the proceeds,’ he added.
So while Minnehaha was going round and collecting tips in her quiver, I remained on the stage.
Mr. H. W. Corbyn heaved his big black camera up onto the stage & drew the red velvet curtains so that the people in the audience would not disturb us. The sun was right overhead and it was shining for all it was worth. Mr. Corbyn made me stand with one foot up on Minnie’s ammunition box, like when a hunter stands over the prey he has just killed.
While Mr. Corbyn was making adjustments, a dark figure stooped to enter through the tee-pee door at the back of the stage & then stood tall.
It was Poker Face Jace.
I could not move because Mr. Corbyn was making adjustments.
Jace stopped about two paces away from me. He had his hands behind his back.
‘Go away,’ I said. ‘I am quit of you.’
‘Hear me out,’ said he.
I said nothing.
He said, ‘Remember when you came to Steamboat Springs end of last month and I said how in the whole world, only you and I knew the secret of your initials?s’
I gave a curt nod.
He sighed. ‘Well, after you left, I got to thinking. I remembered when I was with Violetta in Carson.’ He paused & took a breath. ‘She was interrogating me about you and we had been drinking and I might have mentioned something to her. About you not knowing what the P and the K stood for, that is.’
He still had his hands behind his back & suddenly his pale cheeks were pinkish. I had to look at him to make sure I was really seeing this. It was the first time I had ever seen Jace discombobulated. He even remained cool & collected under fire. But danged if he wasn’t blushing or flushing or something.
‘Keep your head still,’ Mr. H. W. Corbyn told me. ‘I am almost ready.’
‘That was why I came here to Frisco,’ said Jace. He spoke quickly & without his usual drawl, like he wanted to get it out fast. ‘I wondered if Violetta might be scheming against you. I had just got into her hotel room and was about to search it when you showed up.’
‘A likely story,’ said I.
But part of me wanted him to convince me I was wrong.
‘P.K.?’ he said. His voice was kind of thick and he had to clear his throat and start again. ‘You are kind of like a daughter to me. Or a son. Or – I don’t know – maybe both of those combined. As you know, I lost my own… And I just wanted to say… I am sorry. I would like you to have this.’
From behind his back he brought out a straw hat of the kind they call ‘sombrero’. Only it was not as big as most sombreros.
The photographer was fiddling with his camera again, and had his back to us, so I reached out my hand & took it.
It was made of pale-gold straw and had a red hat-band and on that hat-band was a buckskin butterfly all embroidered with beads.
It was like the hat in my dream.
Had I told him about my dream? I could not recollect.
I looked at him and he looked at me.
I looked back down at the hat. I said, ‘It is a bully hat.’
‘Ain’t it?’ said Jace. ‘I saw it in on a Mexican gal near Sacramento on my way here and I thought it might suit you. She made me pay five dollars for it,’ he added.
‘Put it on!’ cried Mr. H. W. Corbyn from his device.
I put it on.
‘Yes!’ Mr. H. W. Corbyn called out to me. ‘But further back on your head, so it don’t shade your face.’
‘Let me,’ said Jace. He stepped forward & set the small sombrero a bit further back on my head & then he folded the front brim up a mite.
‘There,’ said Jace in a low voice. ‘That looks fine.’ For a moment he lingered to brush a strand of wig hair away from my face.
Then he stepped back.
‘Perfect!’ cried Mr. Corbyn once more. ‘That is the finishing touch we needed. Now put your left hand on top of the rifle barrel and put your right hand back so I can see your pistol and gun-belt.’
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jace moving away.
‘Don’t go,’ I said.
He stopped moving away.
‘Freeze!’ cried Mr. Corbyn. Then he took away the cover of the lens & I stood as still as a jackass rabbit even though I could see Jace out of the corner of my eye. I could see him taking a cigar out of his coat pocket & he had some trouble lighting it as his hands were shaky.
In front of me, Mr. H. W. Corbyn replaced the cover on the lens and cried ‘Got it! These are going to sell like glasses of iced lemonade in Hell!’ he exclaimed. Then he added, ‘Pardon my French.’
Mr. H. W. Corbyn took the photographic plate and hurried out the back exit, leaving us alone on the curtained stage.
I turned to Jace. ‘We are all going to have a picnic down by the duck-pond,’ I said. ‘The one by the emeu cage. Ping and Affie and Martha. Miz Zoe, too. Will you join us?’
‘I would be honored,’ he said. He puffed his cigar and blew smoke up. ‘Can Stonewall come, too?’
‘Sure.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Jace?’
‘Yeah?’
‘You know you said I was a bit like your son or your daughter or both?’
He nodded.
I took a deep breath. ‘Would you maybe give me a bear hug like a pa gives his kid sometimes?’
Jace opened his mouth. Then he closed it. Then he tossed the cigar away & stepped forward & put his arms around me in a safe bear hug.
I usually do not like being touched but sometimes a bear hug is necessary.
This one felt good.
It felt safe.
I thought, ‘I do not need to find out who my real pa is. No pa could be as good as Jace. He is true. And he likes me just as I am.’
My eyes filled up with tears & I felt a sob wanting to come up. Dang my changing body!
Just in time, my new hat fell off & we laughed & I bent down to pick it up & put it on & when I looked at Jace danged if his eyes weren’t damp too!
‘Bit dusty today,’ he remarked, taking out a pristine handkerchief and dabbing his eyes.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I noticed that, too.’
‘Dang,’ he said, putting the handkerchief back in his coat pocket. ‘You look mighty fine in that getup. How does it feel?’
‘It feels good,’ I said. ‘It feels like me.’
Then I took out my pistol & cocked it & fired it into the blue San Francisco sky & shouted, ‘Yee-haw!’
The End
[Don't have a clue what's going on? Start with chapter one.]
Mr. Lick’s office was not plush like the other rooms in the Lick House Hotel, but simple. It had leather chairs & a workbench at the back with woodworking tools & sawdust on the floor.
Two policeman helped Mr. Ray G. Tempest AKA Jonas Blezzard into one of the leather chairs. Detective Rose let me come in, and also Martha, Zoe, Affie & Ping. The five of us stood with our backs to the workbench.
Two more policemen came in, along with Mr. Isaac ‘Icy’ Blue. They held some familiar-looking leather mailbags.
A distinct smell of horse manure pervaded the room.
‘The stolen silver ingots and gold coins,’ I cried. ‘You found them!’
‘Where were they?’ asked Detective Rose.
‘In two big travelling trunks,’ said one of the policemen. ‘Just like he said.’
‘There were tags on the trunks,’ said the other. ‘It appears the two of them had tickets on a cruise to the Sandwich Islands departing this very evening.’
No wonder everything had been done in such a rush. They were going to take that gold and silver with them, you bet!
‘I will get you for this!’ gasped Blezzard. He was looking at me.
‘If you confess now,’ said Detective Rose to Blezzard. ‘In will go easier for you. You might not swing.’
‘Swing?’ said Blezzard, his face blanching. ‘Do you mean at the end of a rope?’
I fished in my medicine bag for my silk butterfly but Mr. Jonas Blezzard was already co-operating.
The double threat of death by hanging and butterflies made him Spill the Beans, as they say.
Right there in that sawdust-scented workroom he told us how he had come up with the plan.
‘It all started with that half-Injun,’ he said, glaring at me. ‘She riled Violetta who became intent on revenge.’
‘Start from the beginning,’ said Detective Rose.
‘Just after Christmas last year,’ said Blezzard. ‘Chance and I were playing poker in the Bella Union saloon here in Frisco. There was a new lady in town, a shapely widow named Violetta De Baskerville. We got ourselves places on her table. She was drinking Pousse Lamour cocktails and by the end of the night it was only the three of us. We got to talking about how much gold and silver was pouring out of those Comstock mines. She was tipsy, and told us about a scheme she had once devised. She and a lawman friend of hers in Virginia City had planned to hire a couple of roughs to rob the stages. He would “capture and arrest” the desperados and split the takings with them, allowing them to “escape” on the way to custody. The traitorous lawman would then tell the authorities that the robbers got away without revealing the location of the stash.
‘Deputy Marshal Jack Williams,’ I said to Affie under my breath. ‘Violetta shot and killed him.’
Blezzard continued, ‘Violetta told us her lawman pard had been killed in a shooting affray. She did not know anyone stupid enough to play the dangerous parts of Reb Road Agents. I told her we knew a couple of bit-part actors who would pretend to be brigands for a spell. I said me and Chauncy could play lawmen. You got any whiskey?’ He asked Detective Rose.
‘When you finish telling us.’
Blezzard took a deep breath. ‘Violetta said she would fund us if we promised to exact revenge upon a brat in Virginia City. Violetta told us the kid was training to be a detective in order to join her pa’s agency. Well, I have a friend in Chicago, owns a jewelry store near the Pinkerton Agency. I asked him to tell me everything he could about them. He sent me a letter full of useful information about Robert and Allan Pinkerton. Chauncy was good with accents so he decided to play the kid’s pa.’
Jonas Blezzard shot me a glare. ‘We had briefed Johnny and Jimmy to stop a stage with a little girl riding on top. That was how they would know the one with the silver.’
‘How?’ said Detective Rose. ‘You could not telegraph a couple of Reb Road Agents hiding out in the high Sierras.’
‘It was our plan from the beginning,’ said Blezzard. ‘Violetta thought if we could get her to admit she was a girl it would serve three purposes; it would hurt her friends and help mark out that stagecoach.’
‘And the third purpose?’
Blezzard shrugged. ‘It would be easy to shoot her dead.’
I thought, Dang! that Violetta is a clever one.
‘What happened to Chauncy?’ said Detective Rose.
‘He threw down on me,’ said Jonas. ‘I shot back in self-defense. It was justified.’
‘That is a bald-faced lie!’ I cried. ‘You killed him in cold blood and with no warning. You tried to shoot me, too.’
Detective Rose turned to me. ‘Where is Chauncy Pridhaume now?’ he asked.
I said, ‘You will find the body of my bogus pa in a shallow grave near a cave in a place called Grizzly Gulch a few miles west of Friday’s Station. ‘I had my account all written out,’ I added. ‘But it was in the pocket of my greatcoat and I lost that.’
Detective Rose smiled. ‘We got your greatcoat,’ he said. ‘With all the incriminating documents and also a ledger book and a fine pair of buckskin gauntlets.’
At that moment the door opened and in came Violetta de Baskerville AKA Mrs. von Vingschplint AKA Mrs. Jonas Blezzard.
Her bosom was heaving and her violet eyes were flashing sparks. She looked mighty pretty. I heard all the men in the room exhale & even Ping & Affie were staring with their mouths open. Violetta was in the custody of another uniformed policeman. Jace was behind them.
It was now fairly crowded in that room.
All eyes were on Violetta. She looked around at us all & her gaze fell on me.
‘I wish I had let you die up in the mountains last year,’ she snarled.
I said, ‘If you had not sought revenge you would now be living in peace and prosperity. I hope you have learned your lesson.’
‘Why, you sanctimonious little blank!’ she spat out. (Only she did not say ‘blank’.)
‘Ladies, ladies! That is enough,’ said Detective Rose. ‘I believe I see the way of it.’ To the policemen he said, ‘Take Mr. Blezzard and his wife and lock them up. In separate cells,’ he added.
‘Jacey, help me!’ pleaded Violetta. Once again she swooned.
However, this time he made no move to catch her & she fell to the floor with a thud. One of the policemen helped her up and escorted her – now writhing and cursing – from the premises.
Detective Rose turned to me. ‘Thanks to your resourcefulness and bravery we have apprehended two possible murderers and nearly half a million in stolen gold and silver. Ever thought of setting up a branch of your detective agency here in San Francisco? I could use some operatives like you and your friends. That is, resourceful kids with a knack for disguise.’
‘Ping, too?’ I said.
‘Of course,’ said he. ‘We have a big Celestial population and not enough good men to help us there.’
‘Martha and Zoe, too?’ I said. ‘And Affable?’
‘You bet. You are all good detectives.’
I nodded happily. It looked like I was going to remain a Private Eye after all.
Read on...
I must have passed out because everything went black for a time.
When I came to, I found myself still falling through the night.
Yes! I was still falling.
But I did not splat.
This confused me.
Then I had a notion of what was happening.
I was suspended between Glory and the Fiery Place!
I had tried to be a Good Methodist but now all my sins came rushing back into my memory, viz: I had killed a man & told lies & played poker & tried whiskey once & a Pousse Lamour cocktail another time & ignored every single one of my foster ma’s dying wishes. Also I had pranked the people of Virginia City for over nine months, making them believe I was a boy not a gal.
That might have been the worst sin of all, for they were my friends.
I reckon I was in a place called Limbo.
Methodists do not believe in that place, but Mr. Hazard O’Toole at the Shamrock Saloon across from my office is Catholic. He told me all about it.
He told me that Limbo is where you go to wait while the angels plead your case and the imps of the Fiery Place accuse you.
Gradually, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I perceived that I was not in Limbo. I was still in the high Sierras, surrounded by the looming black shapes of whispering pines. Why had I not splatted onto the ground?
Was I dreaming?
My arms were hanging limp. I moved my right hand over to pinch my left.
I pinched hard.
It hurt.
That meant I was not dreaming.
Then I realized that I was kind of tipped forward. I could feel something tugging my underarms & the seams of my coat sleeves straining tight. Someone was holding me up.
Someone… or something!
I knew there were bears in these mountains. Was it a man-eating grizzly bear holding me aloft?
If a prey animal is in trouble, he does one of three things.
No. 1 – He fights
No. 2 – He runs away
No. 3 – He freezes, so that he will not be seen or so that his enemy will think he is dead.
I could not fight. And I could not run away. So decided to use method No. 3 and ‘play possum’. Maybe the grizzly bear holding me up thought I was dead. Maybe he was not hungry enough to devour me in my velvet sacque & yellow-straw lighthouse bonnet with its silk flowers & ribbon & ruffles.
I must have been dazed with terror to imagine such a foolish thing. By and by I realized it could not be a grizzly bear holding me so still. Or even a person.
It was one of them whispering pines.
Yes, I was caught by tree.
My velvet and fur-trimmed sacque must have puffed out as I fell through the air and got caught on a branch.
There was no sound except the wind in the pines and further off the jingling and snorting of horses.
The horses! Had they survived? What about Ray, who had been up on the driver’s box with me?
If only I could see!
I reached my arms up over my head and after some groping I clasped on to the branch holding me. I could feel it through the satin-lined velvet fabric of the sacque which was straining under my weight.
It felt brittle and prickly, like an old branch. A dead branch.
Crack!
That was the sound I heard as I found myself tipped forward a little more. My efforts to free myself had caused the branch that was holding me to bounce up and down a little. It was going to break and send me hurtling to the rocky gorge three thousand feet below!
I considered yelling for help but then I reasoned that the only other people for miles around were two Road Agents and one Pinkerton detective, viz: Mr. Ray G. Tempest. The road agents might be nearby. And the Pinkerton detective was probably dead.
So instead of yelling, I sent up an arrow prayer to the Lord.
‘Dear Lord,’ I prayed, ‘please forgive me for pranking my friends and help me to be a good girly-girl, if that is your desire. Only save me in my moment of need! Amen.’
As if in answer to my prayer, some pearly white rays poked up through the inky black branches of a pine tree below me. Those rays were like the halo of a saint, all fanned out. A moment later a light shone in my face. It was the moon, rising in the east and shining up through the gulch.
That blessed moonlight showed me that it was indeed the branch of a fir tree holding me.
I looked down.
Hallelujah! I was only about six feet off the ground.
(But I still might have broke my neck if that branch had not caught me.)
The next question was: how to get down?
Crack!
I could use the weakness of the branch.
I flapped my arms to make the branch bob up and down.
CRACK!
My plan worked. I fell the six feet but landed awkwardly on account of I was wearing those button-up boots and not my usual moccasins. The ground was padded with pine needles, which cushioned my fall, but it also sloped gently down so I rolled a few times. The prickly savior branch dug into my back but thankfully it did not pierce the daffodil-yellow frock nor break my skin.
I got up on my hands & knees and straightened my wig & bonnet & pulled the branch out from under my sacque.
Hallelujah! My little 4-shot Muff Deringer was still firmly in the hidden pocket. I took it out & cocked it & crept down towards the sound I had heard earlier, viz: the sound of horses snorting & voices in the pines.
I am used to sneaking in the dark & when I put my mind to it I can go over crispy leaves & crunchy pine needles without making a sound. I crept forward, as silent as a cat on a velvet cushion.
Presently I came to where I could see the flickering yellow light of a fire.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words.
Here is the picture the golden firelight & the silvery moonlight showed me:
One papier maché torso wearing a pink shawl & a flower-bedecked sunhat on her watermelon head & balanced on the ground as if sitting before the fire with her back to me.
Two Reb Road Agents sitting at the fire facing the dummy & also me & reading letters.
Three wheels scattered in various places around them.
Some pieces of a busted up old Concord Stage & a tangle of reins & a whippletree & some other tackle lying between me and the Reb Road Agents.
Seven letter-sacks sitting near them.
Eight horses standing whole and unharmed, loosely tethered a pine.
Seventy-eight gleaming bricks of silver piled up beside the fire.
This is what that picture told me:
The stagecoach had crashed but the whippletree had broke loose from the singletree & all the horses had survived. I could see the drop was not as steep as I had feared, though it was still enough to cause the coach to roll over a couple of times and break up, probably on account of the heavy silver bars inside. The Reb Road Agents had obviously come upon the site of the wreck as they pursued us. They had seized all the silver bars and were now relaxing.
I could see no sign of Ray.
I reckoned he was dead.
The decoy stage full of guards and also my pa riding behind were probably ten miles further along the road. Maybe more.
I was on my own.
I focused all my attention on the Reb Road Agents. The one with the slouch hat was older. He was smoking a pipe & reading a letter. The one with the kepi was younger. He was swigging from a bottle of champagne & reading a letter. I noticed they had an open letter-sack beside them.
I wormed forward to the trunk of the tree closest to their fire.
I was close enough to hear them talking.
‘Hey, darlin,’ said Kepi to the dressmaker’s dummy. ‘Listen to this: Dear Ma, It is Bonanza here on the Comstock. They struck it rich in the front ledge in Gold Hill the other day. Tell little Pete and Edward they must come and join me. I have got a job working for the Yellow Jacket mine. It is hot and tiring but I get four dollars a day and I have feet. Give Betty my love and tell her she will not have to wait much longer.’ He took a swig of champagne & then he tossed the letter into the flames.
‘Hey!’ I got a good one, said Slouch. ‘It is a love letter from a gal to her betrothed: Oh Roderick I count the hours until I see you again.’ He was making his voice all high like a lady’s. ‘I have not heard from you in three weeks and I fear you have stopped caring for your sweet Elspeth. Are the girls prettier in Frisco? Please write to me, dear one!’
He also tossed his letter in the fire.
I was outraged. They were burning letters from sons to their mothers & lonely gals to their sweethearts!
Silver could be replaced, but not letters.
I had to stop them!
But how?
Read on!
