Horse With No Name

HORSE WITH NO NAME

A Town Called Horse
Mystery

Alexandra Amor

Copyright © 2016 Alexandra
Amor

All rights reserved. Except for the
use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in
whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other
means is forbidden without the express permission of the
author.

This is a work of fiction. All
names, characters, and settings are fiction. Any resemblance to
actual events, names, locales, organizations, or persons living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords ISBN:
978-0-9952006-3-0

A Fat Head Publishing
Book

For Lorraine

Table of Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Your Free
Mystery

About the
Author

Acknowledgements

Also by this
author

One

Millie Jones’ hand was
like a vice around Constable Jack Merrick’s wrist. Julia understood
how he felt; her own wrist was being crushed by Millie’s other
claw.

The schoolhouse where Julia worked was
doubling as a dance hall this evening because it was the only
building in town that could hold most of the inhabitants at once.
This was Julia's first dance in Horse since she'd arrived six weeks
earlier. She was having a lively chat with one of her student's
parents when the mayor's wife, Millicent Jones, dragged Constable
Jack Merrick over.

“Come on now, you two,” Millie said. “Don’t
be shy. Have a dance with each other. That’s why we’re here.”

Merrick looked at Julia with a mixture of
terror and mortification in his eyes. She had never seen the big
policeman look afraid of anything, and here he was being reduced to
a quivering mess by the suggestion of a dance.

“I’m a terrible dancer,” he said to Julia,
almost pleading.

Julia didn’t get a chance to let him off the
hook.

“Nonsense!” Millie shrilled, “It’s a wee
country dance. You’ll have no trouble, Constable.” Though Millie
never lifted a hand unless she had to, she seemed to have the
strength of three men; she managed to pull Julia and Merrick
together by their arms and push them toward the dance floor.

As they reached the floor Merrick
self-consciously wiped his palms on his trousers and then held them
out to Julia. His expression was pained. “I apologize in advance,”
he said, “I wasn’t being modest before. I really am an awful
dancer.”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine.” Julia smiled at
him reassuringly and took his hands.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. His movements
were stiff and awkward, and he obviously wasn't familiar with the
waltz. She could hear him counting under his breath, which made her
want to laugh. They moved around the floor, occasionally bumping
into other couples. Merrick apologized each time, and then returned
his gaze to watching his feet. Julia had never seen him blush
before; now, his face was red like a fresh tomato. She felt sorry
for him.

They made it through, and with only minor
damage to Julia's toes. She was relieved when the song came to an
end, and she could see in Merrick’s face that whatever relief she
felt, his was probably ten times greater.

“Thank you, Merrick,” she said. “That was
lovely.”

He smiled for the first time in many minutes.
“You’re a poor liar,” he said.

Sadly, this moment of connection was lost
almost immediately. When they left the floor, Millie was there
waiting for them, her eyes shiny with purpose.

“I was right. You two make such a handsome
couple. Go again. Go on." She made shooing motions with her hands,
trying to turn Julia and Merrick around.

"I'm a bit out of breath, Mrs. Jones," Julia
said. "I think I'll take a break."

"Nonsense," Millie said, undeterred and most
definitely immune to picking up on subtle social signals. "You're
young! Get back out there and enjoy yourself." She grabbed Merrick
by the elbow and once again tried to drag him toward Julia, but she
might as well have tried dragging an oak through the forest by its
branches.

When Julia glanced at Merrick, there was
something akin to sorrow in his eyes. She briefly wondered if he
was missing his wife. And so she tried to let him off the hook.
Unfortunately her good intentions didn't make it all the way to her
tongue. "Thank you for the dance, Constable Merrick. I'll let you
go. I'm sure you have other things to attend to." As soon as the
words were out of her mouth, she realized they sounded ungrateful
and curt, and as though she didn't want to dance with him again.
Which wasn’t true.

Hurt flared briefly in the man's eyes, and
then was gone and replaced by the cool, professional demeanor she
so often saw in them. He made a small bob of his head, "As you
wish, Miss Thom." He pulled his arm out of Millie's raptor grasp
and walked away.

"Stupid, stupid woman." Julia wasn’t sure if
she was cursing herself or Mrs. Jones as she lifted her skirt and
trudged down the front steps of the schoolhouse.

She reached the ground and spun on the heel
of one buttoned boot to walk back the length of the building to the
outhouse that was positioned several yards beyond the schoolhouse,
among some young birch trees.

Night had landed with a thump. She hardly
noticed the sparkly blanket of stars above her head as she strode
along the path. The darkness was so absolute that her eyes might as
well have been closed, although that didn't matter. She walked this
path several times a day and did it without thinking. Her feet
followed the route without instruction.

Millie Jones' interference tonight irritated
Julia, but more than that she was angry at herself for hurting her
new friend, Jack Merrick, albeit unintentionally. A small part of
her recognized as well, though she was loathe to admit it, that
Merrick affected her more than she was comfortable with.

Since she had arrived in Horse, her
relationship with the tall and stoic police constable had been
fraught with tension. She, with a quick mind and a judge for a
father, had been denied her dream of attending law school. But this
hadn't prevented her from getting embroiled in a little mystery
involving one of her students a few weeks earlier. Constable
Merrick had initially been reluctant to accept Julia's help, but
eventually surrendered, as one does to the tide or the seasons. He
recognized that fighting her would probably only cause him
suffering. They’d reached a mutual detente and recently even seemed
to be approaching something like an uneasy friendship. Now, though,
she was afraid she’d destroyed whatever goodwill had been building
between them.

She swung the outhouse door open and stepped
inside, turning to latch it behind her. The chiding continued while
she attended to her business, and then also as she closed the door
behind her and began the walk back to the school. The music had
started up again inside the building. It floated out of the open
front door and swirled around her in the yard.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that
she almost slammed into a man standing on the path. "Oh, excuse
me," Julia said and stopped, expecting him to step to the side and
leave the path to her.

"You're Miss Thom, aren't you?" the man said.
The strong smell of whisky reached Julia's nose.

She took a better look at his face, his
features murky in the dim-to-non-existent light. Without answering
his question, she said, "Who are you?"

"Hear that, Bill?" the man said, with a
mocking tone in his voice, "This little gem wants to know who we
are."

Julia jumped slightly, suddenly realizing
there was another man standing at her right elbow, so close she
could hear him breathing. Even so, she refused to yield. "Excuse
me," she said again, "I'd like to pass."

"Be my guest," the first man said, remaining
stock still, standing on the path.

She couldn't step to her right because of the
second man there. And she couldn't step to her left as the path at
this point in its journey hugged tightly against a large maple tree
before arching out again in a lazy curve. Julia wondered if these
men had chosen this spot to wait for her deliberately. Of course
they did, idiot, she chastised herself.

As any woman would do in this circumstance,
Julia felt herself beginning to panic but worked hard to stay calm.
She knew any sound she made would not be heard by anyone in the
school; the building was still fifteen yards away. As well, the din
of chatter, music and laughter had only increased as the evening
progressed. Julia could scream herself hoarse and never be
heard.

She could try to push through the men, though
she expected that was exactly what they wanted. And the thought of
touching either of them made her skin crawl.

So she did the only thing she could think of
and took a quick step back and then tried to swiftly move around
the second man. They had anticipated this, of course. Both men
reached out as she moved and each grabbed one of her arms.

Julia froze and mustered her best school
mistress voice. "Let me go."

The first man, clearly the leader of the
team, laughed quietly and put his face right up to hers. He looked
at her the way a cat looks at a mouse it has trapped. Squeezing her
arm tightly he growled, "Not a chance now, Lassie. You're mine." He
held up the glinting blade of a knife, the razor sharp kind you use
to gut animals. With one finger he stroked the hair collected in a
bun at the back of her neck.

His compatriot snorted and spat a wad of
chewing tobacco onto the ground.

Julia pulled and struggled, trying to break
free, but her arms were held fast.

The first man kept his lips close to Julia's
cheek. "This'll teach you, teacher lady, to go out all by yerself."
His breath smelled of the whisky she had noticed a moment ago, and
also of something sour.

First Man pulled back slightly. Glancing
quickly over his shoulder, he checked the path behind him and then
jerked his head at his partner. "Quickly now," he said. And then to
Julia, "If you make one sound I will cut that pretty face of yours
all to pieces." He nodded once. "No foolin'."

Julia believed him.

Both men began to walk, pulling Julia with
them, forcing her to walk backwards, toward the outhouse. They held
her arms so tightly and moved so swiftly that they were basically
carrying her. Julia glanced left and right hoping to see the flash
of a match or some other sign that someone, anyone, was outside,
but there was nothing. The men veered off the path and pulled Julia
around the outhouse, into the cluster of trees at the very back of
the school property.

The two men were utterly silent.

Julia tried kicking out at their legs, but
they dodged the path of her flailing feet, and gripped her more
tightly.

If she had thought it dark before, the
darkness in the trees took things to another level. The lingering
leaves blocked out any light from the stars and moon, and the
shadows thrown by the tree trunks and branches were weighted with
fear.

The journey into the trees took only seconds,
though to Julia it seemed much longer than that.

The knife that First Man held continued to
glimmer beside her throat despite the lack of light. The men,
without saying anything to one another began to slow. They had
chosen their spot.