Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)(54)
McCall nodded, intent on listening, then he took the envelopes, read the odd poetry, and switched to reading Rachel’s notes.
Before he was done, Wyatt came charging into the house.
When he saw Molly and Kevin sitting at the table with Agent McCall, he stopped so suddenly he skidded.
McCall whirled around. A man ready for trouble, it seemed.
“This is the agent the Pinkertons sent out, John McCall,” Molly said. “Agent McCall, this is Wyatt Hunt. He was living at the Hawkins Ranch, working foreman while I worked as Hawkins’s housekeeper.”
Wyatt blinked. “You got here that fast?”
“Wyatt Hunt.” McCall nodded brusquely. “I was told the Hunt family was at the root of this. I live in Nevada, and I work very select jobs out near Virginia City. And I get sent to cases that are near me. The code Rachel had you include in her telegram to the Pinkerton Agency was something an agent would only send through someone else. And only if they were dying. Or too badly hurt to send the wire themselves. They wired me instructions, and I came here afraid I’d find Rachel had died. She’s an old friend and a solid agent. It’s not like her to run into this kind of trouble.”
“It came from a very unexpected direction.” Wyatt stepped back into the entry, hung up his coat and hat, tossed his gloves on the floor under them, and came back in.
Molly was up pouring him coffee. He always came in deeply chilled after long hours riding his land, working his herd.
“Have you shown McCall your arm?” Wyatt asked.
McCall’s blue eyes went sharp. “What’s this?”
“Hawkins hurt her and Win. He grabbed Molly’s arm bad enough it was swollen and bruised. After a week, I’d reckon it still looks bad.”
Molly refilled everyone’s coffee cup as Wyatt told about Hawkins’s treatment of her and the connection between Hawkins, Clovis Hunt, and Randall Kingston.
“Your telegram to the agency mentioned that connection and the school. The Pinkertons notified me that the Jeffers House of Refuge for Young Men is a prison.”
“What?” Molly almost dropped the boiling hot coffeepot on Wyatt’s lap.
He dodged the pot, took it from her, and set it firmly on the stove.
“Tennessee, like a lot of states, started opening special prisons to keep the younger criminals separated from the adults. The rule had been to just toss them all in together, but it’s an ugly business putting youngsters in with adult men. Often boys who might be reformed end up as hardened criminals before they’ve served their sentences.”
“Do you know what they did? How they ended up there?” Kevin asked.
“The details are supposed to reach me in a letter. I had a whole packet of information waiting for me in Bear Claw Pass, and they’ll send more as they find it.”
McCall looked out the window at the swirling snow. “I hope it comes soon because I need to solve this and get out of here. My wife, Penny, is expecting our second child, and if I have to spend the winter on this side of the Rocky Mountains, snowed in away from her, she’s going to make me regret it for years.” Then he grinned. “The only reason she didn’t come with me is because she’s about seven months gone on a baby. She’s worked as a Pinkerton agent, too, from time to time. She enjoys tracking down bad men.”
The grin convinced Molly he wasn’t all that afraid of his wife.
“Can I study Rachel’s notes for a while? If there’s enough here, we can go arrest Hawkins, dig through his safe for the rest of his rotten poetry, and hang him high. Then I’ll send Rachel back to Chicago and go home.”
He made it sound like he could accomplish it all today. Molly was glad to keep quiet, hoping he could manage that.
McCall read Rachel’s notes quickly, taking notes himself. Then he read them again more slowly and reread the poetry from Hawkins, studying the contents of each packet.
Cheyenne and Falcon came in just as McCall set the notes aside. They stared suspiciously at the newcomer while Wyatt introduced them and caught them up on the Jeffers House of Refuge.
“It’s time to bring the sheriff in on it and arrest Hawkins,” McCall said. “We can do it tomorrow morning, and anyone who wants to ride along is welcome.”
Everyone wanted to come.
Twenty-Three
The weather, colder every day, gave everyone an appetite, so they ate supper before they continued talking about the case.
Molly set the cobbler and a stack of small bowls on the table, then she got a small pitcher of cream.
McCall ate a bite of the cobbler, closed his eyes as a look of bliss crossed his face, and sighed with delight. “My wife is a fine cook, Miss Garner. But this is the best cobbler I’ve ever had.”
“You should taste her custard,” Wyatt said. “There’s nothing else like it in this world.”
Molly smiled.
McCall ate a few more bites. “I was an experienced agent long before Rachel joined the Pinkertons. I worked with her a few times before I moved out west. We have very few women as agents, and we are protective of them. When they feared Rachel might be dead, I was closest, and they wired me and asked me to come. The telegram had a few particulars about the case, and Mr. Pinkerton himself sent a packet by the first train headed west in hopes it would arrive by the time I did. I picked it up in Bear Claw Pass before I came out to the ranch. It contained every fact they had, including the information about the Jeffers school, which was new, and the information Rachel had dug up about the other missing housekeepers. But we didn’t have the pieces of the puzzle you found, Miss Garner, or Rachel’s exact notes.”