The Case of the Bogus Detective 23

When I came out into the firelight with the double-barrelled shotgun, the two Reb Road Agents stopped and stared at me with Expression No. 4 – Surprise – across both their faces. 

‘Drop ’em. Now!’ I said in my most commanding voice. I held the gun beside my hip, my grip relaxed but not loose.

They looked at me & then they looked at each other & then they started to laugh. 

‘Lookee there! It is that strange little girl from the stagecoach!’ cried Kepi. ‘She is dressed up as a midget Marshal, you bet.’ 

‘I reckon if she pulls the trigger the kick will knock her off her feet,’ said Slouch. 

They were laughing so hard they did not even bother to draw their sidearms. 

I pointed the double-barrelled shotgun at the branch above their heads & pulled the trigger. There was a gargantuan explosion that echoed and re-echoed in the mountain night and sent pine needles drifting down into the clearing. The gun had indeed given a powerful kick, but I had been holding it slightly away from my body so it did me no harm at all apart from the ringing in my ears. When the gun smoke dispersed I saw their sidearms on the ground before them and their hands stretched high in the air. 

‘You,’ I said to Kepi. ‘Take off your pard’s belt and cinch up his hands real good behind his back. But first, back away from your guns.’

They backed away from their guns.

While Kepi was undoing Slouch’s belt, I walked over towards them and kicked their revolvers back towards where I had been hiding. Keeping the barrel of the shotgun trained on the two outlaws, I backed up. Then I used my left hand to pick up the biggest revolver. It was Slouch’s. One glance told me it was a Remington Army which takes a .44 caliber ball. I stuck it in my whang leather belt. 

After Kepi bound Slouch’s hands real good, I gestured at Slouch’s feet. ‘Take off his boots,’ I said. ‘Then take off yours.’ 

‘No!’ whimpered Kepi. ‘Not that!’

‘Take off your boots,’ I insisted. ‘Or I will blow you out of them.’

With much grunting and glaring, Kepi took off Slouch’s boots & then his own. 

‘Now, take those leather reins and use them to tie him to that tree trunk,’ I commanded. 

 ‘Listen,’ said Slouch, as he backed up to the tree in his stocking feet. ‘We got lots of silver here. We are happy to share it with you if you will just let us go.’ 

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘And stop talking.’

‘We were supposed to shoot her dead,’ muttered Kepi as he tied his pard to the tree. 

‘I did my best,’ said Slouch.

I only had one shot left in the scattergun so I took that big Remington revolver from my whang leather belt & cocked it & fired another warning shot into the tree trunk a few inches above Slouch’s head. 

BANG!

‘Dang!’ yelped Slouch, ducking down. 

‘Cheese it!’ I commanded. ‘Now, sit down with your back against the tree. Tie him up good,’ I said to Kepi.

Slouch sat at the foot of the tree & Kepi tied him to it real good. 

‘Now take off your belt,’ I said to Kepi. 

Kepi took off his belt. 

‘Use it to bind up your own ankles real good,’ I said. 

He bound up his ankles. I noticed he had a hole in his sock where his big toe poked through.  

‘Sit on the other side of the tree from your pard,’ I said. 

Kepi hopped over to the other side of the tree & sat down awkwardly, with his back to the leather-bound trunk and his belt-bound legs straight out before him. I stuck the revolver back in my belt, transferred the shotgun in my right hand & took the end of the leather traces in my left hand. I tied it to the strip of leather already wound around the tree. Then I made three circuits of the tree, wrapping them both up real tight. 

The fire had died down to a reddish glow so I threw a few more pieces of wood on the embers & stood with my back to it & examined my work. They could both see me if they turned their heads but they could not see one another. 

‘One word from either of you,’ I warned, ‘and I will take off your socks and stuff them in your mouths as a gag.’

‘You goddam blank!’ said Slouch. ‘You would not dare.’

I put down the double-barrelled shotgun & went over to him & tugged off his smelly socks and stuffed them both in his mouth. 

‘Try to spit them out and I will shoot you in the foot,’ I warned. 

Then I went round to do the same to Kepi. 

‘Please no,’ he whimpered. ‘I promise I will be quiet.’ 

But Ma Evangeline taught me never to make a threat unless you are prepared to carry it out. So I took off his threadbare socks and put them in his mouth, too.

I almost felt sorry for them until I remembered the .44 caliber bullet hole in my bonnet. 

It was now chilly, even with my velvet, fur-trimmed sacque. I went over to stand by the revived fire. I warmed my hands above it and pondered what to do. They had mentioned a stash of ‘booty’ at ‘Grizzly Gulch’. 

Then I remembered Slouch saying the ‘shebang’ was ‘less than a mile’.  

I reckoned they were talking about their camp. If I set out now with the silver-laden horses, I could get there before the moon set. I might even see another stage or rider on the road and send for the Law. Then they could put Slouch and Kepi in jail to await a trial. 

I glanced over at them. They sat barefoot & gagged & back-to-back with a big old pine trunk between them. They could not see each other but they both had their heads turned & were staring at me. With their socks poking out of their open mouths it looked like they were angrily sticking out their tongues at me. 

But even as I watched, I saw their expressions change. Their eyes got wider & their eyebrows went up. They were giving me Expression No. 4 – Surprise. 

Why were they looking at me like that?

Then I realized. They were not looking at me.

They were looking beyond me. 

Someone – or something – was coming up behind me!

[Don't have a clue what's going on? Start with chapter one.]

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!

The Case of the Bogus Detective 22

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.’

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