P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows Read online

  Also by Caroline Lawrence

  P.K. Pinkerton and the Deadly Desperados

  P.K. Pinkerton and the Petrified Man

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

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  Copyright © 2014 by Caroline Lawrence.

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Richard Lawrence.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lawrence, Caroline.

  P.K. Pinkerton and the pistol-packing widows / Caroline Lawrence.

  pages cm

  Summary: In 1860s Nevada, master-of-disguise P.K. Pinkerton uncovers a sinister plot when he takes a case that calls for him to shadow his friend and mentor, Poker Face Jace.

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Disguise—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 5. Nevada—History—19th century—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L425 Pl 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013000211

  ISBN 978-0-698-14957-1

  Version_1

  To Bob “The Unreliable” Stewart and the other “Never Sweats” of Nevada, with a thousand thanks for your help & advice

  Contents

  Also by Caroline Lawrence

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Maps

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  MY NAME IS P.K. PINKERTON, Private Eye. I was born in Hard Luck near Mount Disappointment, just over 12 years ago. I reckon that pretty much sums up my short & miserable life, which is anyways soon about to end.

  A few months ago, I decided to become a Detective.

  That, and my Thorn, is what got me in the Predicament I am in today.

  By “Thorn” I mean the fact that people confound me.

  By “Predicament” I mean the fact that I am lost in a blizzard somewhere in the Nevada desert.

  I have found some shelter, so I will write out my Last Will & Testament before I die of starvation and/or cold:

  LAST WILL & TESTAMENT OF ME:

  P.K. PINKERTON, PRIVATE EYE

  To my business partner, Ping: I leave my office, my disguises & all the money in my strong box at Wells, Fargo & Co.

  To Miss “Bee” Bloomfield: I leave my Bug Collection, my Button Collection and my Big Tobacco Collection.

  To Mr. Sam Clemens: I leave my Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter, which used to be his anyways.

  To Mr. Jason Francis Montgomery aka “Poker Face Jace”: I leave my three feet in the Chollar Silver Mine & also my Indian medicine bag & its contents (including my original pa’s Pinkerton Railroad Detective button). I leave those things as a personal memento, even though Jace no longer cares about me and probably will not want them.

  Signed P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye

  On this day of our Lord, Sunday December 7th 1862

  While I still have the strength to hold my pencil, I reckon I should also leave an account of what happened, in case they ever find my frozen body.

  It all started last month in Virginia City, when I solved the murder of Miss Sally Sampson and brought her killer to justice. Miss Sally was a Soiled Dove, with a little place on D Street. She was real popular, especially with the miners and volunteer firemen. After I caught her killer & avenged her death, I became real popular, too.

  People flocked to my Detective Agency.

  Some people asked me to find lost dividends or necklaces or to investigate their partners. But most of the jobs were what I call Romantic Jobs. My clients were mainly miners who wanted me to “shadow” ladies they liked. As there are only two women for every dozen men in these parts, business was brisk.

  At first I thought this was good. One day I hope to join my pa, Robert Pinkerton, at the Detective Agency founded by my uncle Allan. Because my pa and uncle have not met me yet, and because I am a half-Sioux misfit, I wanted to become the best detective I can before going to Chicago.

  Now I was getting lots of experience.

  I was so busy that my Chinese friend, Ping, abandoned a promising apprenticeship with Mr. Isaiah Coffin, the photographer who works next door.

  Ping moved into my narrow office and took charge of my desk and made me sit at the back of my store, behind the wooden counter where Sol Bloomfield once sold his many & varied tobacco products.

  Every time a client came into my office, Ping would take their details (and a cash money deposit), and then send them on back to me. Ping said I was lucky to have him as a business partner because he was better with money than me.

  Ping is right.

  I am clever about some things but foolish about others.

  For example, I can do any sum in my head, but I am no good at budgeting or bargaining.

  I can identify over a hundred types of tobacco, but sometimes I do not recognize a person I met the day before.

  I can remember a pack of cards in the order they were dealt, but I have to make up strange pictures in my head to do so.

  Then there is my Thorn. I cannot easily tell what people are thinking, though I learned some tricks from my friend Poker Face Jace before he renounced me.

  Did I mention my Foibles and Eccentricities?

  One of my Foibles is that loud noises hurt my ears but some music entrances me.

  One of my Eccentricities is that sometimes
I get overwhelmed by people & as a result I need to be on my own.

  That was the worst thing about Ping being my pard: he moved in with me. The bedchamber at the back of my office is tiny, with only one window and no door. With Ping there, I hardly had space to breathe.

  Even when I was “on a case,” I was not alone. Virginia City is getting more & more crowded every day. If a miner hired me to spy on his favorite saloon girl, I had to endure crowded saloons with people shouting & smoking & spitting. If a barkeep asked me to spy on his seamstress lady-love, I got jostled by bankers, miners & mule skinners as I lingered on the boardwalk, waiting to see who might call.

  I did not mind the noise so much; I can always plug my ears with lint. It was the never being on my own that got to me. It was enough to give a person the Mulligrubs.

  Why did I not tell Ping to vamoose?

  Three reasons:

  No. 1—Ping reminded me that we had shook hands on being pards. I was not sure when we had agreed that exactly, but I have a bad memory for some things so I reckoned he was right.

  No. 2—Ping was teaching me the “ancient Chinese art of hand-to-hand combat.” As far as I could tell, this consisted of bending a finger back or poking an eye. Usually it was my finger that got bent & my eye that got poked, but Ping assured me that I was “making good progress.”

  No. 3—The Sunday after Ping moved in with me, the Rev. C.V. Anthony preached from the Book of Acts. It was the part where all the disciples share their belongings. The Rev. urged us to be good Christians & do likewise. As the Lord had recently prospered me, I thought it only fair to take those words to heart.

  But it was mighty boresome being a Good Christian as well as a Detective. I did not have the opportunity to order my Collections or even read my Bible. I was that busy.

  So when two men in heavy overcoats, slouch hats and muffling scarves grabbed me as I was coming out of my office last month, I was almost relieved. They jammed a gag in my mouth & tied it there with a handkerchief & tugged my slouch hat over my eyes & bound me hand & foot. Then they put me in a sack & tossed me into the back of a wagon.

  I thought, “I am being abducted. But at least I will have a few moments on my own.”

  IF SOMEONE PULLS your slouch hat over your eyes & stuffs you into a gunnysack & tosses you into the back of a cart & then drives you somewhere in a flat town, you might get confused. But it is hard to lose your bearings in Virginia City, even when bound & gagged & in the pitch black.

  I was slowly sliding down towards the sound of hooves. That meant we were going down the mountain. Then I thudded up against some bumpy turnip-smelling things. From that I deduced I was heading east in a turnip wagon.

  Pretty soon the wagon jerked to a stop. I guessed we had stopped at C Street to wait for a break in the traffic.

  I was wearing my usual attire of blue woolen coat & pink flannel shirt & fringed buckskin trowsers over faded red long underwear. Lying on the hard floor of the wagon, I could feel the bump of my small revolver in my right-hand pocket. My abductors had not bothered to search me. I guess they did not think a 12-year-old kid would be “packing a pistol,” as they say in this region.

  The cart lurched into motion again. It stayed level crossing C Street but soon tipped forward as it continued downhill. Now, I have been tied up before, but never gagged. It was not pleasant. To distract myself, I tried to deduce what type of cloth they had stuffed in my mouth. I guessed it was one of those bags for loose tobacco, as it tasted strongly of tobacco & faintly of maple.

  Personally, I do not smoke, sniff or chew. However my office is located in an old Tobacco Emporium. When I first moved in, I acquainted myself with all the tobacco specks & crumbs the proprietor had left behind. Such things fascinate me. In order to learn more about tobacco I started a Big Tobacco Collection. This was useful because sometimes I can now identify culprits by the shreds of tobacco left at the Scene of a Crime.

  I know from my Big Tobacco Collection that there are two popular brands of tobacco with maple sugar added.

  Mohawk Maple is the cheap brand and Red Leaf is the high-tone label. As I lay jouncing in my sack, I tried to determine which of those my gag had once contained. My tongue figured out that the cloth bag in my mouth once held the more expensive brand of tobacco. I deduced that not only from the taste but also from the texture of the bag, which was fine cotton, not rough burlap. It is hard to get cotton, fine or not, because of the Rebellion going on back east.

  I reckoned one of the men who abducted me smoked Red Leaf Tobacco.

  But I did not know anybody who smoked Red Leaf Tobacco.

  I tried coming at the problem from another direction.

  I thought, “Who hates me?”

  Immediately a Name dropped into my head: former Deputy Marshal Jack Williams.

  He hates me because when I arrived in Virginia City there was an increase in shootings, stabbings and murders. He was dismissed & finally he got thrown in jail. But he was not imprisoned on account of an increase in other people’s crime. He got those just desserts on account of his own crime, viz: robbing a man at gunpoint.

  So how can he blame me for his misfortune?

  And yet he does. I know this because he once said, “I blame you, half Injun. Until you arrived in these parts everything was bully.”

  As I lay gagged & bound in that turnip wagon, I reckoned Jack Williams had got out on bail & decided to get rid of me once and for all.

  I thought, “I’ll bet he and his accomplice will turn left towards Geiger Grade and toss me into a chasm.”

  However, Jack Williams and his helper did not turn left. They carried straight on down the mountain. We crossed D Street and kept on going.

  By this time my mouth was full of tobacco-flavored saliva from all the gag-pushing my tongue had been doing. Everybody knows that if you swallow tobacco-tinted spit you will feel sick. That is why there are about ten thousand spittoons all over the city. But I did not have a spittoon and I did not have a choice. So I swallowed.

  We crossed E street and kept on going.

  Then I thought, “I’ll bet they are going to take me down to the Carson River and drown me in the icy water like a bag of unwanted puppies.”

  Immediately Jack Williams and his accomplice turned left.

  Even had I not been counting streets I would have known we were now in Chinatown because I could smell the josh lights & incense & starch & lye soap & hear some women arguing in Chinese. The wagon stopped & jolted & started again & turned & stopped once more.

  I felt dizzy & light-headed, probably from all the tobacco juice I had swallowed.

  I heard male Chinese voices speaking loudly nearby.

  I came west 21/2 years ago on a wagon train with a Chinese cook, name of Hang Sung. He taught me about 30 or 40 words of Chinese. Most of those Chinese words were cusswords or words to do with poker.

  As strong hands lifted me roughly up & out, I heard some of those Chinese cusswords & also the word for “angry.” And then the word for “boss.”

  It was not Jack Williams and his pard who were abducting me. It was a couple of Celestials.

  I thought, “My Detective Skills are still not good enough for me to go to Chicago and work with my pa in the Detective Agency founded by my uncle Allan Pinkerton. I have no clew who is abducting me, or why.”

  MUSCULAR ARMS CARRIED me into a warm place. I was plunked down on a kind of cushion.

  “Cut him free,” said a woman’s voice in English.

  My abductors cut me free & removed my gag.

  I found myself in a wooden room dimly lit by red paper lanterns. It smelled strongly of incense & was warmed by a cast-iron wood-burning stove. A Chinese lady in a throne-like chair sat facing me. Even in the dim, reddish light I could tell she was young and beautiful. She also appeared to be calm and in control. From this I deduced that she was not another cap
tive but the person who had ordered my abduction.

  I put my hand in my pocket and gripped my seven-shooter.

  One reason I want to be a Detective is so I can figure out how to understand People. I find faces hard to read. I can only spot three emotions: happiness, fear and anger. My foster ma, God rest her soul, also taught me to identify a genuine smile, a fake smile, disgust, surprise and suspicion.

  I could make out none of those expressions on the Celestial lady’s face. It was as smooth as a saucer of cream and as hard to read as a cat’s.

  My former friend Poker Face Jace once told me that the face is the lyingest part of the body. He always says the feet are the most truthful part. I looked down at her feet.

  My whole body went cold and I got the fantods.

  My Celestial abductor did not seem to have any feet at all.

  It appeared someone had chopped them off at the ankles.

  She had little embroidered slippers on the stumps. That made all the hairs on my head rise up. I felt sort of queasy in the pit of my stomach, too.

  I tore my gaze away from those slippered stumps and looked at the rest of her.

  She was wearing black satin trowsers trimmed with red piping & a loose shirt of the same material.

  “I am sorry that I had to bring you here in such a fashion,” she said in good English, “but I have a job for you and I did not want anyone to see you coming here, especially your partner.” She lifted a pretty dark-blue goblet to her mouth and spat into it. It was a lady’s spittoon!

  I said, “You did not have to abduct me. You could have sent me a note saying you had a job for me and telling me where you lived. You could have warned me not to tell anyone where I was going.”

  She gave a little shake of her head. “Your partner, Ping, might have seen such a note.”

  I said, “What have you got against Ping?”

  She said, “Also, you would never have found me. You would have to ask persons and then everyone in Chinatown would know I hired you. This is private matter.”

  She used her tongue to shift a pea-sized chaw of tobacco to her other cheek. Her pillowy lips, flat nose & slanting eyes made you want to look at her for a long time.