I was outnumbered and outgunned. There were two Reb Road Agents & only one me. They each had a big revolver and at least one rifle. I only had a Muff Deringer.
But I had the advantage of not being dead like they probably thought I was.
And I had my Indian skills. Using these skills, I scanned the camp and spotted the Henry rifle leaning against the trunk of a pine tree not too far from the fire. Dizzy’s double-barrelled shotgun was there, too. Ray must have left it inside the coach when he climbed up to help me.
I put my little four-shooter back in the inner pocket of my sacque & made my way carefully back into the darkness of the pine forest & circled round real stealthy & slow, so as not to alarm the horses.
When I came up behind the leaning gun pine, I reached my hand around kind of groping-like & took first the Henry & then the double-barrelled shotgun. Tucking both guns under my arm, I melted back into the darkness of the forest and returned to my first vantage point.
By now the Rebs were tipping letters out of the leather sacks and filling the empty bags with silver ingots. There were letters scattered everywhere but at least they had stopped burning them.
I was about to step forward & throw down on them, when I remembered I was wearing a velvet sacque and a wig of swinging ringlets beneath a lighthouse bonnet. I would not make a very imposing figure thus attired. At least I could take of the danged wig & silly bonnet.
I took off the danged wig & silly bonnet.
As I was about to toss away those two hated objects, I saw something that made my blood run cold as snowmelt.
There was a bullet hole in the sticking-up part of the bonnet! A hole made by a .44 caliber ball, I reckoned. I remembered how something had knocked my bonnet forward when they had been shooting at us.
‘Dang!’ I said to myself. ‘They were shooting to kill.’
They were pretty drunk by now. I could tell because they were weaving around as they lugged leathern sacks full of silver bricks over to the horses. I reckoned I might as well wait until they finished loading the silver on the horses. Otherwise I would have to do a lot of heavy lifting myself.
The moon was high now and I judged it to be around 10 pm. My stomach was growling but my last few pieces of jerky were in my yellow velvet purse which I had left hanging on the front rail of the stagecoach. I peered at the ruined coach and thought I saw something yellow in the moonlight.
While they were busy loading the last of the silver onto the stage horses, I snuck over to the wrecked body of the stagecoach & got my yellow velvet bag and fished out a piece of jerky. Then I looked inside the coach. I saw Ray’s flat brimmed gray hat lying on top of a letter-sack that was half spilling out its letters. There were also some lengths of whang leather that had bound the mouths of the mail sacks.
I lowered myself down through the open window of the door & I put on Ray’s hat. It was a mite too big so I stuffed a few loose letters in the crown to make it fit. But what to do about my puffy sacque with its bell-like outline?
Then I had another idea. I took one of those strips of whang leather & tied it around my waist over the sacque. In the darkness they might take me for a short man in a belted coat. I also tied my yellow velvet purse to the belt of whang leather, but I made sure it was hanging down behind me.
Quiet as a bug on burlap, I climbed out of the ruined stagecoach & lowered myself onto the moon-dappled ground & melted back into the inky shadows of the pines.
Over by the horses, Kepi stretched & yawned. ‘Toting those silver ingots has tuckered me out,’ he said to his pard. ‘Can’t we take a little kip?’
‘Nope,’ said Slouch. ‘We gotta put some distance between us and the wreck while the moon is still up. If Chauncy or Jonas find us slacking there will be h-ll to pay.’
‘They ain’t the boss of us,’ said Kepi.
‘No, but they promised us a good piece of the pie for our help,’ said Slouch.
‘H-ll,’ said Kepi. ‘We got about seventy-five pieces of silver pie right here on these horses. We ought to keep the booty and skedaddle to Frisco. Or we could lay low in Angel’s Camp.’
‘Better not,’ said Slouch. ‘They would hunt us down and kill us dead if we betrayed ’em.’
‘Aw,’ said Kepi. ‘I could take ’em easy.’
‘You could maybe take Chauncy,’ said Slouch. ‘But not Jonas. He is as cold-blooded as a rattler.’
‘He is most likely dead of a busted neck,’ said Kepi.
‘Maybe,’ said Slouch. ‘Maybe not. You willing to take that chance?’
‘Nah,’ said Kepi, ‘I reckon not. Where was we supposed to meet em?’
‘Grizzly Gulch,’ said Slouch. ‘Where we stashed the booty. We can make it back to our shebang easy before the moon sets. I reckon it is less than a mile.’
‘Better mount up, then,’ said Kepi, starting towards their horses.
My heart was pounding in my chest. It was now or never. I could not show any fear or they might throw down on me.
I picked up the double-barrelled shotgun & checked it was capped & loaded.
It was.
I took a deep breath & stepped out into the firelight.
‘You ain’t going nowhere,’ I said, making my voice as deep as I could. ‘Throw down your sidearms and reach for the sky.’
Read on...
After Bee slapped me, she turned & ran through the crowd back the way she had come.
‘Why did she strike you?’ asked Affable, looking after her retreating bonnet.
I stared at the boardwalk. ‘She had a bad habit of trying to kiss me,’ I said. ‘I reckon she is mortified to learn I am a girl.’
‘I will attempt to console her,’ said Affable. He touched his hat & turned & followed her.
As my pa and I resumed our perambulation along the boardwalk I clenched my jaw. All my fears were coming to pass. My friends felt betrayed by my secret that was no longer a secret.
If my deception had caused a prim and proper girly-girl to strike me, how would my less demure friends react?
I wished I could put on my beloved buckskin trowsers & pink flannel shirt.
I stopped dead. ‘Where are my buckskin trowsers and flannel shirt?’ I asked my pa. ‘I took them off at Wassermann’s.’
‘Those greasy old things?’ said Pa. ‘Why, Ray and I tossed them on a bonfire out back of the livery stable while you were getting alterations.’
I was too stunned to reply.
Then my pa stunned me some more: instead of crossing over to Almack’s, he turned right. He was taking me up steep & muddy Taylor Street.
‘Where are we going?’ I said. ‘Almack’s is right back there. It is kitty corner across C Street. Ain’t we going to supper?’
‘I thought it would be good for us to preserve this special moment with an ambrotype,’ he said. ‘Before the sun sets.’
He was taking me to Isaiah Coffin’s Ambrotype & Photographic Gallery right next door to my office! That meant Isaiah would find out I was a gal. So would Belle Donne. So would Ping, the person I most dreaded telling.
‘No!’ I cried digging in my heels.
‘But I want to send photographic image to my brother, when I tell him about you,’ said my pa.
Reluctantly, I undug my heels.
The sun had not yet dropped behind Mount Davidson when we reached Isaiah Coffin’s Ambrotype & Photographic Gallery. The little bell over the door gave a familiar tinkle as we came into the empty studio.
‘They ain’t here,’ I said, tugging his arm & backing up. ‘Let’s go. We can try tomorrow.’
‘Nonsense,’ said my pa. ‘The door was unlocked and the sign said OPEN. Hello?’ he cried. ‘Anybody here?’
There were some muffled noises from the store room where the proprietor has various costumes & also a small laboratory in a cupboard. After about a minute Mr. Isaiah Coffin emerged, putting on his frock coat. Despite a grim-sounding name he is a good-looking man with fair hair, symmetrical features and a billy-goat beard. I observed his cheeks were pinker than usual.
‘Excuse my disarray,’ he said, ‘but I was developing – Zounds!’ He stopped with his arm half in one sleeve and stared at me open mouthed. Then he closed his mouth & resumed putting on his coat.
‘That is to say: Good afternoon, sir! Good afternoon, little girl. May I help you?’
‘We’d like ye to ambrotype us,’ said my pa. ‘My name is Robert Pinkerton. I believe ye know my daughter, Prudence Kezia?’
Mr. Isaiah Coffin’s gray eyes opened wide in Expression No. 4 - surprise. ‘Prudence Kezia?’
I nodded.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Prudence Kezia?’ This time his face wore No. 5 – suspicious or thinking.
I sighed. ‘Yes.’
Finally his face showed No. 1 – a genuine smile. ‘Prudence Kezia?’
I sighed again. Deeply. ‘Yes.’
‘Sacray blur! You have confounded us all! For over half a year you have pulled the proverbial wool over our eyes.’
‘Who has pulled the wool over our eyes?’ said a feminine voice, and Miss Belle Donne came out of the same storeroom from which her husband had emerged. Yes, the prim & proper English photographer and the pistol-packing Soiled Dove were now man & wife, though she retained her stage name.
She was prettily attired in a dark blue silk outfit with flounces & furbelows. Her cheeks were also pinker than usual and her bodice was buttoned wrong near the top.
‘Vwa La!’ said Isaiah Coffin to his wife. He flourished his hand at me. ‘It transpires that P.K. Pinkerton is one of the weaker sex.’
‘Ha, ha!’ said Belle. ‘That is rich.’
‘Go on, Prudence,’ said my pa. ‘Tell her.’
I hung my head. ‘It is true,’ I confessed. ‘I am a gal.’ I shot a glare at Isaiah Coffin. ‘But I ain’t weaker, dam it!’
‘Prudence…’ said my pa with an admonishing tone. ‘Didn’t I tell ye not to blaspheme?’
‘I meant a mill dam,’ I said.
‘Why you cunning little vixen!’ cried Belle, narrowing her eyes.
She came close to me & circled round me & took my chin to turn my head this way & that. Finally she prodded my chest with a hard forefinger.
‘Outch!’ I cried.
‘Dang!’ cried she. ‘You have been pulling the wool over our eyes. The merino wool!’ Then she laughed & clapped her hands. ‘Oh, but this is bully news! I must tell everybody I know and have ever met.’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘Don’t!’
Too late. She was out the door.
By the time Isaiah had stood me and pa up against his new painted backdrop of a Greek Temple & put our heads in iron vise-like contraptions to keep us from moving – lest we make the image blurry – a whole passel of people had gathered outside the shop and were peering through the window at us.
I stood there in humiliation – the back of my lighthouse bonnet gripped by iron pincers – and watched the townspeople of Virginia City watch me.
I saw my lawyer, Mr. William Morris Stewart, a lofty man with a beard the size of a sagebrush whose office was right across the street. He had obviously been doing business with Joe Goodman, the young owner of the Daily Territorial Enterprise Newspaper, for he was there, too. Stewart and Goodman had both helped me in times past, but now they were staring at me with Expression No. 4.
Doc Pinkerton (no relation) appeared beside them. He had once offered to adopt me. I wondered if he would have made that offer if he had known my sex.
I noticed Titus Jepson, who had lost the tip of his pinky finger on account of me, but had promised to feed me in perpetuity. His Mexican waiter Gus was there, too, and several regular customers known to me by sight. They were all staring at me with banjo eyes & open mouths & shaking their heads in disbelief.
I felt a dribble of sweat tickle my backbone as Isaiah Coffin made a few last adjustments to his camera.
‘Compose your faces,’ he commanded, ‘look into the lens, and do not move! The sun will be gone in a moment.’ Then he took a black disc from the front of the camera. I kept my eyes on the front of the camera but that did not stop me spotting the person I dreaded seeing most: my partner Ping.
Belle Donne was beside him, gesturing & talking in an animated fashion. But he was taking no notice of her. He was glaring at me with his arms folded across his chest & the scowliest scowl I had ever seen. He was mouthing something, too. I am good at lip-reading but I could not tell what he was saying. I reckoned he was cussing in Chinese.
Finally Ping turned and stalked off.
I wanted to run out of the studio & go after him to explain, but my head was in the jaws of that vise & also I was too ashamed. Of all people, I should have told him sooner, for he was my business partner.
I hoped he would not stay riled at me forever.
More people had come and were jostling at the window to see.
They had stopped staring & were now laughing & pointing & shaking their heads. I felt my cheeks go hot.
When Isaiah released us from the gripping vises & said we could go, I wanted to climb out the back window & escape down that rotten ladder. But Pa said I must hold my head high and be seen as his daughter, so he made me go out the front door & hold his arm.
As we pressed through the gawping & grinning throng I heard people say, ‘Is it true? Have you really been a gal all this time?’
I kept my head up but squinched my eyes shut. I clung onto Pa as he led me through the clamoring crowd.
I knew it was vital to our Plan that I act like a girly-girl, but I hated it.
I thought, Pa had better take me back to Chicago when we have solved this case for I will never be able to face the folk of Virginia City again.
Read on...
The Case of the Bogus Detective by Caroline Lawrence is the fourth P.K. Pinkerton Mystery. You can buy the first 3 real cheap HERE. And you can read the rest of this one HERE. Or just check into this blog, where I will be posting chapters weekly!
I was facing the biggest challenge of my career as a detective. To act like a convincing girly-girl.
It was vital to our Plan.
Even dressed in the girliest dress west of the Rockies I was not convincing.
Pa smiled at me through a cloud of his own pipe smoke. ‘Don’t ye worry,’ he said. ‘I will teach ye to walk and talk like a lassie in no time. It is still afternoon, but what do ye say to an early supper at Almack’s Liquor & Oyster Saloon? They tell me it is the best restaurant in town.’
My stomach growled for I had eaten nothing all day. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘But only oysters. No liquor.’
‘Of course no liquor!’ said Pa. ‘I am teetotal.’
‘Well, I ain’t teetotal,’ said Ray, ‘and I need a few stiff drinks. So I hope you don’t mind if I dine elsewhere. I will see you both tomorrow at the offices of the Overland Stage at ten o’clock sharp.’
He exited the shop while I paid Mrs. Wasserman what I owed her.
As my pa and I emerged into the late afternoon sunshine and set out south on the C Street boardwalk I felt kind of queasy in my stomach.
I had worn a girl’s disguise before but I always had a poke bonnet to hide my face. That lighthouse bonnet made me feel exposed, especially in the bright afternoon sunshine. Also a ruffle at the back itched my neck.
Pa took my left hand and tucked it firmly under his right elbow.
‘This is how a respectable lassie walks with her escort in Chicago,’ he explained. ‘That is to say, a wife with her husband, a sister with her brother, or a daughter with her pa.’
I nodded and dutifully hung on to the crook of his elbow.
There was a line of people waiting outside the office of the Cal Stage Company. I reckon they were waiting to buy tickets now that the stage would soon be running again. I noticed Mr. Sam Clemens AKA Mark Twain, standing there with his friend Clement T. Rice AKA The Unreliable.
I did not want to be recognized so I hung my head.
‘Head up,’ whispered Pa. ‘Gracious expression.’
‘I only have one expression,’ I said. ‘Inscrutable.’
‘That will do at a pinch. But lift your head.’
We were past the line of people, so I lifted my head.
‘Don’t stomp,’ whispered Pa.
‘I cannot help it,’ I said. ‘These dam boots are so noisy.’
‘Walk on the balls of your feet,’ said Pa. ‘That is, the front part. Take two wee steps instead of one big one. And ne’er blaspheme.’
I tried walking on the boardwalk in little tappy steps without blaspheming.
I hated every step.
I missed my silent, butter-soft moccasins.
I missed my shielding slouch hat with the black felt brim I could pull down low against the slanting sun.
I missed my pockets, and the comforting weight of a gun in one of them.
Almack’s Oyster & Liquor Saloon was only two blocks south so I sent up an arrow prayer that I would not meet anyone known to me. If Sam Clemens and his friend were leaving town on account of a ‘delicate satire’, how would the townsfolk treat me when they discovered I had been pranking them all for over half a year?
Then I saw Bee Bloomfield and Affable Fitzsimmons walking arm in arm straight towards us.
I wanted to dive behind a nearby barrel.
I wanted to squeeze underneath the boardwalk.
I wanted to do anything to get me out of their path.
When I thought Pa wasn’t paying attention, I made a sudden lunge towards the swinging doors of the nearest saloon. I almost got away but Pa caught me & reeled me in & clamped my hand between his arm & his side. There was no escape.
I lowered my head as Affie and Bee approached, and tried to make my black ringlets hide my face.
We were almost past them when I heard Bee’s voice, ‘P.K.? Is that you?’
I made as if to keep walking but my pa stopped & turned to face them & touched the brim of his new brown hat made of beaver felt. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in his Scottish burr. ‘Are ye friends of my daughter Prudence?’
‘Pinky,’ I mumbled, keeping my eyes firmly on their feet. ‘Please call me Pinky.’ Bee was wearing her little white button-up boots and Affable had exchanged his canvas shoes for sturdy brogues.
‘Daughter?’ cried Bee.
I took a deep breath and looked at her face. She was staring at me with Expression No. 4 – Surprise.
Then her face relaxed & she said, ‘Oh, you are in disguise!’
Abruptly she clapped both hands over her mouth.
Affable was staring at me, too. His eyes looked extra-big behind his spectacles. ‘You are the same P.K. Pinkerton who collects bugs and butterflies?’ he said.
‘Shhh!’ hissed Bee in a barely audible voice. ‘He is in disguise.’
‘Pinky is not in disguise,’ said my pa in a mild tone. ‘We thought it time to let the world know that Pinky is a lassie.’
‘A lassie?’ said Bee with a frown.
‘A lassie?’ said Affable, wide-eyed.
‘Aye! That is to say, a girl. She always has been and always will be. Only she has finally decided to admit the fact and “come clean”. By the way, I am her father, Robert Pinkerton.’ He gave a little bow.
‘Of the world-famous detective agency?’ Affie extended his hand. ‘Honored to meet you!’
My pa smiled & nodded & shook his hand.
‘You’re a girl?’ squeaked Bee. She was staring at me with eyes as round as banjos.
I nodded & felt heat rise up into my face. My throat was tight. I did not know what to say.
‘But I…’ said Bee. ‘I wanted to… I almost… Oh, you creature!’
I saw her nostrils flare, which usually means someone is going to wallop you. I reckoned I deserved it so I braced myself & closed my eyes.
Sure enough, Bee Bloomfield slapped my face.
Read on...
The Case of the Bogus Detective by Caroline Lawrence is the fourth P.K. Pinkerton Mystery. You can buy the first 3 real cheap HERE. And you can read the rest of this one HERE. Or just check into this blog, where I will be posting chapters weekly!
