Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3)(22)

I walk slowly to Becky’s side, hands up, eyes on that gun. The clerk comes through the door and skids to a stop. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, my.”

The other clerks peer at us from across the counter, like this is a show they’ve been waiting to see.

“Mr. Brumble,” Frank says.

Yesterday’s clerk bobs his head. “Yes, sir. Present, sir.”

“Are these two . . . well, I don’t know what to call the two of them together, but for the sake of argument, we’ll say ladies. Are these two ladies the ones who came in yesterday and tried to collect property belonging to one Mr. Andrew Joyner?”

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir, they are.”

“And this gentleman here presented himself today as Mr. Andrew Joyner. You can confirm this, correct?” Frank waves his hand in the direction of another man in a starched white shirt, who immediately provides assent.

“This time last year,” Frank says, drawing the words out with obvious pleasure, “I was wagon master on the train that brought this sorry group of deceivers and reprobates west to California. Mr. Andrew Joyner was a member of our party, but he got himself killed crossing the Rocky Mountains. That boy there with the fancy suit is Henry Meeks, fresh out of college and completely ignorant of honest work. He is not Andrew Joyner. Do all of you recognize their faces now?”

The line of clerks nods, solemn as a jury.

“If any of these troublemakers makes another attempt to claim property belonging to the late Mr. Joyner—or anyone else, for that matter—you are authorized to seize them for fraud, and hold them until they can be arrested by the sheriff or his deputies.”

“Does that come from the sheriff?” asks a small, balding clerk. It’s not much defiance, but it’s some defiance, and I appreciate him for it.

But Frank says, “That comes from Mr. Hardwick,” and the clerks nod, even the balding one. We have no champions here.

Frank twirls his gun and slips it into his holster—a fancy trick I’ll have to teach myself if I get the chance. He pulls out a pocket watch and checks the time, then nods to the large gentleman guards. “I’ve got an appointment with Mr. Hardwick. Hold these folks for a couple minutes and then send them packing. Catch up to us later.”

He slips out the door, and the clerks try their best to look busy. The two guards continue to hold guns on us. Maybe we should just walk out. Would they really shoot us if we did? The fact that Dilley wants us to stay put for a spell is interesting. It means he’s a little afraid of us, of what we might do, and he wants to get away clean.

Becky is furious, but she makes no motion as if to leave. Henry is pale under his maquillage.

“You didn’t see Dilley come in this morning?” Becky asks me.

“No,” I admit. “I’m sorry.”

“Wouldn’t have made a difference,” says Large.

“We were all here before sunup, since we weren’t sure when you’d show,” adds Larger.

“Was about ready to give up, myself,” says Large.

“Frank was too, but the boss told him to wait.”

“So we waited.”

A hard knot settles in my gut. “You knew we were coming,” I say as Becky and Henry exchange an alarmed glance. “How?”

The only people who knew of our plan were in that room last night. I’ll go out on a limb and assume that neither the Major, nor any of Becky’s three children gave us away. And either Becky and Henry are the finest actors in the whole wide west, or they’re just as shocked as I am. Jefferson would never do it. That leaves only Hampton and Tom, and I can’t imagine either of them would be betray us either. Maybe the drunk in the other room eavesdropped through the walls, but we kept our voices low after his outburst.

“I never know how the boss knows what he knows,” says Large.

“He’s Mr. Hardwick,” says Larger with a shrug. “You just assume he knows everybody and everything.”

Large holsters his gun and waves toward the door. “Shoo. Get out of here. Don’t misbehave.”

Larger follows suit. “Go, and sin no more.”

Becky rises slowly and primly. Henry bolts out the door before I can say boo. We catch up to him outside beneath the veranda, where he paces in a tight circle with his hands deep in his pockets.

“Frank wasn’t going to hurt us,” Becky assures him. “He just wanted to scare us.”

“Well, he sure did that like an expert,” Henry says.

“He’s an expert bully,” I tell him. “He has loads of practice. He knows that house belongs to Becky morally, if not legally. Sometimes people are inclined to do the moral thing regardless, and a different clerk might have let us sign those papers.” I’m pretty sure the small balding fellow would have helped us if we’d been lucky enough to get him yesterday instead. “This was meant to scare all the clerks too.”

That changes Henry’s perspective a bit, and he stops circling like an anxious dog on a short leash. “So what do we do next?”

“We can still go buy the house,” I say.

Becky shakes her head. “Now that they know how much I want it, they’ll charge five times the price.”

“Or ten,” I say. “But it might be worth it just to be done with all this.”