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

  I wondered who she was.

  I said, “Who are you?”

  She said, “My name is Opal Blossom.”

  It was a real pretty name. However, I have learned that here in Virginia many people make up new names for themselves. I reckoned the name Opal Blossom was not bona fide.

  I said, “What job do you have for me?”

  She said. “I want you to shadow my fiancé. I believe he is Playing me False.”

  I sighed deeply. It appeared I had another Romantic Job on my hands. I reckoned I would almost have preferred being abducted by former Deputy Marshal Jack Williams.

  I STUDIED THE BEAUTIFUL Celestial lady who had abducted me. I was trying to figure out why any man would Play her False.

  I said, “Did your fiancé call off the wedding because you have no feet?”

  For the first time she showed an expression. She smiled. “Thank you for the compliment,” she said. “In fact I do have feet. I have the prettiest feet of any lady west of the Rockies. That is because they are the smallest.”

  She extended one of her legs and now I could see that she did indeed have a tiny little foot at the bottom of that leg.

  It still made me feel peculiar to look at them, so I took out my Detective Notebook and a stub of pencil that I always keep in the right-hand pocket of my buckskin trowsers.

  “If your fiancé did not leave because of your feet, then what was his reason?”

  She put her foot back down and said, “That is what I want you to find out.” She spat delicately into her dark-blue spittoon and said, “You might know that some of the men of this territory are having a big meeting down in Carson City. I believe that is where my fiancé has gone.”

  I nodded. I had heard some of my newspaper friends talking about going down there. A body of men called the “Legislature” were trying to make Nevada Territory civilized.

  I said, “A body of men called the Legislature are trying to make this Territory civilized.”

  She pinched another pea-sized chaw of tobacco from a cotton pouch and nodded. “That is correct. I think my fiancé has gone down there to attend those meetings and I believe he is cheating on me. I want you to go to Carson City and shadow him and tell me if he is True or False.”

  I said, “You want to know if he is sparking another woman?”

  She said, “I want to know everything he does. Are you willing to go to Carson if I pay for your hotel room and give you two dollars a day?”

  I was tempted. I thought, “I am not known in Carson City. If I take this job I might finally have some time to be on my own. I might have some time to sleep & start a new collection & read my Bible & breathe.”

  She said, “I will pay for your transportation, too.”

  A picture appeared in my mind’s eye. The picture showed me riding a horse through the empty sage-dotted desert with a big blue dome of sky above me. In my head-picture, the horse was the Buckskin mustang stabled up at the Flora Temple Livery Stable. I had been thinking a lot about that mustang. His name was Butternut & he had once been an Indian pony.

  I said, “For two dollars a day plus a dollar a day expenses to cover the hire of a pony and a room at a nice hotel I will go to Carson and shadow your fiancé. What is his name?”

  “He is a Mississippi gambler named Jason Francis Montgomery,” she said. “Only everybody calls him Poker Face Jace.”

  My stomach did a cold flip, like a clammy frog jumping into a pond.

  I said, “Your fiancé is Poker Face Jace?”

  She said, “Have you heard of him?”

  I kept my gaze fixed on my notebook. “Yes,” I said. “I have heard of him.”

  Poker Face Jace was one of the reasons I was living in Virginia City. He was teaching me how to be a good Detective. He had told me how a person’s body can reveal what they are thinking. So far he had taught me about feet, legs, trunk and arms. I knew he had been going to Carson City but I thought it was because he was considering buying some property down there. He had never mentioned that he was engaged to a beautiful Celestial lady. Would he abandon me before he had finished my education?

  Opal Blossom picked up a framed Carte de Visite from the table beside her & handed it to me. “He is a rich and handsome gentleman of about thirty-eight. This is what he looks like.”

  Carte de Visite is French for “visiting card.” Some people call them CDVs. My next-door neighbor Isaiah Coffin makes such things. He has a special camera that takes eight pictures of you all exactly the same. Then he prints them on thin egg-white-coated paper & pastes them onto cards & cuts them up. They are about as tall as a playing card but not quite as wide. You are supposed to give them to friends & family. You can sometimes even buy CDVs of famous people you do not know. Ma Evangeline used to have one of Mr. Charles Dickens even though she had never met him.

  This one showed Jace when his hair was thicker on top and not gray over the ears. He looked younger. Happier, too, even though he was not smiling.

  I handed it back with trembling fingers. I observed that her hands were steady as she took it.

  She said, “The more I know about who he is seeing and what he is doing, the better my chances of winning him back and keeping him here.”

  I thought, “I would like to go to Carson so I can breathe a little & have some time on my own. But Jace is my friend. What he is teaching me is worth all the gold and silver in the Comstock. How can I shadow him?”

  She said, “There is one more thing.”

  I said, “Yes?”

  She said, “I heard a rumor that he might be in danger down there.”

  That decided me.

  “When do you want me to leave?” I said.

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “I want you to go first thing tomorrow.”

  PING WAS NOT HAPPY the next morning when I told him I was taking a case in Carson City for a few days.

  “Who has hired you?” he said. “You must tell me. I am your partner.”

  “I cannot tell you,” I said. “That was part of the deal. This job will make us lots of money,” I added.

  (I do not care about money, but Ping does.)

  “But you have three other cases,” he snapped. “They bring in money, too.”

  “Why don’t you take over those three cases?” I said. “They are mostly just shadowing people. You can do that. Most people take no notice of Celestials.”

  Ping scowled at me. “You think I could do this?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Put on a straw plate hat and grab a parcel of laundry. Like you are making a delivery. That is what I sometimes do. Nobody ever pays me no mind.”

  “I am not laundry boy!” he snapped. “That one time you saw me I was being punished.”

  The first time I had seen Ping he had been pegging up sheets outside Hong Wo, Washer. I had been hiding beneath the skirts of a Soiled Dove.

  This was not a usual occupation for either of us.

  I said, “It is called ‘Being in Disguise.’ You might even attract some Chinese clients,” I said. “After all, you speak the lingo.”

  He pondered this for a moment. Then he said, “All right. You go Carson City for big job.”

  “Thank you,” I said, even though I am the boss and he is my partner.

  He was still scowling as I went out of our office, but just before I closed the door I heard him whistling “Camptown Races.” By that I knew he was happy. Or as happy as an ornery Celestial can get.

  I went down to the Flora Temple Livery Stable on North C Street. It was early morning of a clear day: bright and cold. I was wearing my High-Tone Disguise of coat and vest with black brogues & plug hat as I intended to ride straight to Carson without being recognized. I had bought one of those new India Rubber blankets over at Wasserman’s Emporium. I had wrapped it around a wool blanket plus my normal clothes, my slouch hat, and t
he girl’s wig I sometimes use for my disguises. I had also bought a saddle wallet and filled both pouches with some pocket-sized Detective Notebooks, some blank Ledger Books, 12 Detective Pencils, cheese, crackers, jerky & apples.

  When I reached the Livery Stable, I could see the south side of the building had all new planks to replace those burnt in a fire a few weeks before. During that fire I had saved a pretty pair of white mares and also that Buckskin pony named Butternut. I had been thinking of that Buckskin a lot.

  I wondered if he would still be there.

  He was.

  I wondered if he would remember me.

  He did.

  He came right up to the half door of his stall and put his pretty head over and snuffled at me.

  His coat was the same color as my buckskin trowsers, and his mane and eyes were dark brown. I fed him some maple sugar candy from the upturned palm of my hand. (I have started carrying a few squares of maple sugar in my left-hand pocket & a few sticks of beef jerky in my right as I am often shadowing someone and cannot break off for a meal.)

  “Cheeya likes you,” said a deep voice.

  I looked up to see an old Negro stable hand. I could tell he was a stable hand because he wore a canvas apron and smelled pleasantly of hay & horse manure. I could tell he was old because his hair was white as wool except for a bald place on top.

  I said, “Why do you call him Cheeya? Last time I was here, the stable hands called him Butternut.”

  The Negro came over to the pony and said, “They called him that because they don’t know no better. Cheeya be his real name.”

  When he said this, the Buckskin nodded his head & gave a soft whinny.

  “How did you know that?” I asked.

  “Man who brought him in last year was part Indian like you. Said the horse’s name was Something Cheeya. Gave Mista Gardiner ten dollar to look after him. Say if he don’t come back in a month Mista Gardiner can have him. That was a year ago,” he added.

  I said, “Something Cheeya?”

  He said, “Don’t rightly remember the first bit.”

  I said, “Was it Tawamiciya?” I pronounced it the Lakota way: Da-wa-mee-chee-yah.

  The Buckskin snorted and nuzzled my neck.

  “Yessir!” said the Negro stable hand. “I believe it was. What does it mean?”

  I stroked the Buckskin’s neck & opened my mouth wide & slowly blew warm breath into his nostril.

  I said, “It means ‘Belongs to Himself,’ or ‘Is Free of Others.’”

  He said, “That is a good name. I like it.” His eyes were kind of twinkly. He said, “What is your name?”

  “I am P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye. What is yours?”

  “My name is Nebuchadnezzer,” he said. “But everybody calls me Uncle Ned.”

  “Where are the stable hands who used to work here?” I asked him. I did not mention that they had once tried to lynch me and set me on fire.

  “Mista Gardiner had to let them go,” said Old Ned. “They was mistreating the stock.”

  I nodded. “I would like to hire this horse for a few days,” I said. “Maybe a week. Maybe even a month.”

  He said, “You got money?”

  I held out a gold coin.

  He said, “I will go fetch Mista Gardiner.”

  And so it was on that Wednesday the 12th of November, 1862, I found myself riding away from crowded & noisy Virginia City on a horse called Freedom.

  RIDING A BUCKSKIN PONY from Virginia City to Carson City was not as I had imagined it.

  I had pictured us trotting down a canyon road between yellow-leafed cottonwood trees with the winter sun warm on our backs & the tangy smell of wood smoke & the rhythmic thump of the quartz stamp mills around us & the drumming of the pony’s hooves & his life spirit making my life spirit happy.

  Instead I found myself on a busy road full of mule trains, quartz wagons and stagecoaches. Business was booming in Virginia and that road was busier than a beehive with a bear outside. The air was full of blacksnaking & whip cracks, braying & cursing. Wagons were taking wood & whiskey up the mountain, and they were taking quartz & silver ore down. The general populace was going both ways, some on horseback and some footing it. There was even a sprinkling of dogs and goats.

  Then there were the toll houses.

  Every time I passed an overloaded stagecoach or full milk wagon and found a level place to stretch my pony’s legs, I would round a bend in the canyon road to find a line of pedestrians, pack animals and wagons all waiting to pay the toll keeper.

  With all the coins those toll keepers were taking, I reckoned they were richer than some miners. And miners get paid a whole $4 a day.

  Cheeya and I made our way through Gold Hill & Silver City & Devil’s Gate, and took the road to Carson. The road soon left the canyons behind and headed across mostly flat & scrubby terrain.

  At the Half Way House between Virginia and Carson there were two toll roads to Carson, both charging 10¢ for a rider and horse. I paid my short bit for the left-hand fork, but the road was too clogged so I decided to be bold and set out across the sagebrush-dotted desert, like in my head-picture. I heard a few people yelling, “Hey! Come back! You cannot do that.”

  I did not know why they were yelling at me, as I had paid my short bit.

  I gave my pony a little kick with both heels and we were off. I put my head down and urged him on across that sagebrushy wasteland. We fairly flew and I gave a Lakota war whoop.

  The sky was high and the ground was flat. We sped along like a bullet from a double-charged revolver.

  As soon as we were out of sight of the roads, I reined him in to a walk.

  At last. I could breathe! I inhaled the magnolia-polecat perfume of the sagebrush and let the sun warm my plug hat for a while. Presently I began to talk to the pony in Lakota, my mother tongue. I asked him which name he preferred to be known by: Butternut? Belongs to Himself? Freedom? Tawamiciya? Cheeya?

  He snorted when I said “Cheeya” and turned his ears back towards me.

  So Cheeya it was.

  As we trotted beneath a big blue bowl of sky, I told him about my life so far. I told him how my real pa was a Railroad Detective who left my young Lakota ma with nothing but a button from his jacket, and me. I told Cheeya how my original ma and I had survived by begging & stealing & making medicine for the first nine years of my life. How in the spring of 1860 she had taken up with a man called Tommy Three and they had bought a covered wagon and headed west with a Chinaman named Hang Sung as our cook. I told Cheeya how our wagon got separated from the other wagons and how the Shoshone attacked our wagon & took our horses & killed everybody but me.

  Cheeya made a snuffling sound and turned one ear towards me. I guessed he was asking me why the Shoshone did not kill me, too.

  “I do not know why they let me live,” I said in Lakota. “That part is a Blank in my memory.”

  I told him how another wagon train had passed by a few days later and found me all alone in a kind of trance. A kindly preacher and his English wife had adopted me. Pa Emmet and Ma Evangeline taught me to read & write, and also the Word of God. We lived near Salt Lake City for a time, until Pa Emmet started evangelizing the Mormons and they asked him to leave the region. After a day of prayer and fasting he felt the Lord was telling him to found a city called Temperance in the desert near Virginia City. So we set out and arrived in Nevada Territory last May. Pa started to build his town between Dayton and Como, but he got himself murdered before the church steeple was even finished.

  I told Cheeya how it was partly my fault my foster parents had been murdered, because I had something their killers wanted. I had to flee to Virginia City, which Pa Emmet called Satan’s Playground, and there I avenged the murder of my foster parents.

  I had been speaking Lakota all this time but I went back to English for the next part.<
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  “One day,” I said to Cheeya, “I intend to head east to Chicago, to join the Pinkerton Detective Agency. My uncle Allan Pinkerton founded it and I hope to find my father there, also. But first I want to learn to be a good Detective. And to do that I need to learn about people. They confound me.”

  Cheeya gave a little snort of sympathy and turned his head a little, as if to say, “Me, too.”

  I said, “There is a Mississippi gambler, name of Poker Face Jace. He has been showing me how to understand people. What he is teaching me is worth all the gold and silver in the Comstock. He saved my life a couple of times, too. That is why we are going to Carson,” I added. “He might be in danger and I do not want to lose him.”

  Cheeya snuffled sympathetically, even though he had never met Poker Face Jace.

  I patted Cheeya on the non-mane side of his neck. I liked that Buckskin pony. I was happy riding him.

  After a while I noticed the wasteland getting marshy, with little reeds and sheets of standing water reflecting the blue sky above. The air smelled more brackish than sagebrushy. A line of cottonwood trees showed we were close to water, maybe a bend of the Carson River.

  I was carefully riding around the wet bits, for I did not know how deep the water was, when Cheeya came to a jolting halt that nearly tossed me over his neck. As I pulled myself upright, I felt a strange sensation.

  My pony’s forelegs were sinking down.

  Quicksand! I had ridden Cheeya right into quicksand!

  I tried to rein him back but it was too late. I felt his muscles tighten and relax a few times. His nostrils flared. He twisted his head on his neck so I could see the whites of his rolling eyes. His forelegs were now sunk up to the knees.

  Thinking quickly, I dived off his back and landed on my stomach. Quicksand will not suck you under as it does in them dime novels. But it can hold a man or an animal fast, and if nobody comes to help, you can starve.

  I wormed forward and uncinched his saddle and pulled it off so he would not be weighed down. I managed to toss it behind me, onto solid ground. I tossed the saddle wallets, too. When I turned back, I saw Cheeya’s forelegs were now buried almost up to his chest. His hindquarters were on dry land so that he was tipped forward, as if kneeling in prayer. As I spoke calming words in Lakota, I could feel the water seeping into my woolen coat and soaking my best trowsers.