Sherlock Holmes: The American Years (30 page)

I had barely finished when Mullan stepped back and drew the revolver.

“Very clever, Mr Holmes. Stand back! All of you. I am going to finish the job, but not with poison.”

He brushed by me and began to rapidly ascend the stairs toward the general’s bedroom.

There was a single crack. Mullan dropped his gun and staggered, missed his footing, and fell backwards down the stairs.

Young Billy stood holding a smoking revolver in his hand.

I bent over Mullan.

“Why?” I demanded, seeing the light fading from his eyes.

“A . . . a pardon . . . money . . . Ireland.”

Then he was dead.

Cousin Toorish was successful in his treatment. The general survived the twenty-four hours and recovered, although I cannot say that he recovered entirely. It was in January of the following year that he died. I suspect that the poisoning helped contribute to
his demise; he was only forty-four years old. I never spoke to the man, for I left Holt City a few days later. I did not bother to find out how the body of Mullan was disposed of. There was no law in the country to speak of, so I presume it was quietly buried or even left up in a tree for the vultures to consume, which I was told was a Chiwere custom.

Holmes sat back after concluding his narrative and, without a glance at me, started to refill his pipe. His scrapbook and the newspaper from which he had cut the item had slid to the floor.

“Well, Holmes, it makes a good tale, but I’ll respect your wishes not to write it.”

“Capital of you, my dear fellow,” he said, languidly lighting his pipe.

“One thing I don’t understand.”

“Only one?” Holmes smiled skeptically.

“Mullan had served O’Neill for twelve years or so. Fought with the fellow in the American Civil War and then in this nonsensical invasion business.”

“Nonsensical?” Holmes said. “It was a plan that could have succeeded. It’s one of those ‘if only’ matters.”

“It was treason. Treason never succeeds.”

“Ah, dear Watson. ‘Treason never prospers; why, what’s the reason? For if it prospers, none dare call it treason.’ ”

“Come, Holmes, you know what I mean. Anyway, what I meant to say is why did the fellow wait all that time before he tried to assassinate O’Neill?”

“He explained in his last words, I imagine. He was offered a pardon and money and a return to Ireland to enjoy the rest of his life in return for eliminating an enemy of the state.”

“But that would mean that Dublin Castle had hired a paid assassin?” I protested.

“Or London,” admitted Holmes cheerfully.

“It’s outrageous!” I declared. “It’s not British.”

Holmes chuckled cynically.

“Poor Watson. I would have thought that you have been long enough in this vale of tears to realize that governments are capable of anything . . . whatever their nationality.”

Sherlock Holmes travels out west in Rhys Bowen’s tale, and learns a bit about the art of detecting from a Native American.

by

RHYS BOWEN

A
nd how about you, young man? You are surely not from these parts. From back east, are you?” The speaker was a woman with a severe-looking, angular face and pointed chin. She was dressed from bonnet to boots in black, giving the impression of being a witch.

Ever since the stagecoach had rumbled out of Albuquerque she had taken it upon herself to be the grand inquisitor of the other passengers, never allowing the conversation to lag. The young man she now addressed was tall and slim, with long, elegant hands and a slightly effete manner. His countenance was striking, with a hawklike nose and intelligent gray eyes. His clothes proclaimed him to be a city dweller, as did his pale countenance. No trace of buckskin or ten-gallon hat for him; rather, he wore a
stiff white collar over a long black jacket and black waistcoat, with a tasteful silver watch chain. On his feet were black highly polished shoes, their laces hidden by spats. His skin was rather pale in contrast to the weather-beaten faces around him, and he flushed a little at being the center of attention. “You are correct about the first part, madam. As you wisely note, I am not from these parts. But not from back east either. I am an Englishman.”

“I thought as much,” the woman said, with a flash of triumph in her eyes. “See, Henry, what did I tell you? An Englishman.”

“May I ask your name, sir?” The speaker was a man of the cloth, seated opposite.

“My name is Holmes. Sherlock Holmes,” the young man replied, as if it vexed him to give out this information to complete strangers who were not of his class.

“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Holmes.” The man leaned across with outstretched hand. “I am the Reverend Clay-bourne Williams and this is my good wife, Dorothy. We are traveling west to bring the Lord to the heathen.”

“So you plan to work among the Indians, do you? I admire your bravery. I understand some of the tribes are known for their ferocity,” the young Mr. Holmes said.

“There are plenty of white unbelievers in these parts, Mr. Holmes,” Mrs. Williams replied sharply. “And our duty is to them first. Would you believe that there are towns with ten saloons, with houses of ill repute and not one house of worship? The Reverend Williams and I shall have many souls to save.”

“Then I wish you good fortune,” Sherlock Holmes said. He opened the book he was carrying, hoping that this would give a hint that he had no wish to converse further. In truth, the constant
jolting and lurching of the stage was making him feel rather queasy, and the constant chattering had reached the point of being annoying. He was used to English reticence, and the ready familiarity of Americans made him uneasy. He glanced around the carriage. Apart from the missionaries, there was a big-boned man with weathered skin and the unmistakable uniform of a westerner: buckskin trousers and waistcoat and an enormous hat with curled brim. His face was now half hidden, as he had tipped the hat forward and was attempting to sleep—probably trying to escape from the chattering Mrs. Williams, Holmes decided.

Across from him was a younger man, also in western garb. A cowboy, Holmes deduced, because his clothes were imbued with the smell of horse. He had answered the questions Mrs. Williams peppered at him with no more than a “yes, ma’am” or “no, ma’am,” but from these monosyllables Holmes understood that he worked on a ranch outside Tucson, where the stage was bound, and had returned to Texas for the funeral of his father. The final passenger was a young woman, simply dressed in calico, who had revealed herself under Mrs. Williams’s questioning to be a Miss Buckley from Ohio, traveling west to take up the position of schoolteacher in a hamlet called Phoenix. She had a pleasant, innocent face and Holmes studied her with interest. Not a bad little ankle peeping out from under those skirts, either.

“And what brings you to America, Mr. Holmes?” Mrs. Williams’s strident voice brought him back from his contemplation. “And to this part of America in particular? Out to make your fortune prospecting for gold, are you?”

“No, indeed, madam.” The young man smiled. “I gather that I’m a little too late for the gold rush in California, although I
understand there are still fortunes to be made in the mountains of Nevada. But I do not see myself up to my thighs in icy water, swinging a pickax in the hope of finding a few grams of gold. In truth, I am here to broaden my experience of the world. I am recently come down from Oxford University and have yet to decide upon a profession.”

“Have you an inclination as to where your talents lie?” the clergyman asked.

Holmes shook his head. “I have been studying the sciences and am much drawn to chemistry. My father has been trying to push me into medicine, but I do not think I have the patience to minister to the sick. And frankly I have no wish to spend my days in a dingy research laboratory.”

“A man of action then, are you?” the clergyman asked, grabbing onto the strap as the coach bounced over a particularly rough part of the track.

“I rather see myself as a true Renaissance man, sir, with no wish to be bound to one thing. Frankly I enjoy opera as much as science. Sometimes playing my violin brings me more pleasure than staring at a petri dish. But I have little love for social formalities. I have been staying with family friends in Boston and had a great desire to see more of your magnificent country before I returned home, especially the so-called Wild West.”

“You’ll find it wild enough, I’ll warrant.” The big man pushed his hat back upon his head and sat up. “From here onward it may be officially part of the United States, but don’t count on any law or order. The order of the gun rules out here. The order of the strongest. And then there’s the Indian tribes. None of them can be
trusted an inch. So my advice to you, young man, is to watch your back, and buy yourself a Colt.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Holmes said uneasily. “But my plan is just to pass through this territory, make my way to California, and then take the train back to the East Coast. I don’t anticipate too much excitement along the way. In fact the biggest challenge may well be not to bite my tongue as I try to speak through the confounded lurching of this coach.”

“It is terrible, isn’t it?” the young schoolteacher said, then blushed shyly as the passengers looked at her. “The coach seems to be traveling awfully fast.”

“It has many miles to cover before dark,” the big man said, “and this is all Indian territory. Not a place to linger.”

“Do you think we are in danger of being attacked?” the young woman asked, her eyes open very wide.

“I doubt it. They know the Wells Fargo coach is no threat to them.”

“God willing, we’ll be in Tucson by tomorrow night,” Mrs. Williams said.

Conversation lapsed. It grew stuffy inside the compartment, but the copious dust made it impossible to open the windows. The young woman had her handkerchief up to her mouth. Holmes stared out of the window at a rocky, featureless landscape. In the distance there were occasional glimpses of far-off mountain ranges, but nearby all was dreary and desolate, with just an occasional low shrub breaking the monotony of the rocky surface. No sign of birds or animals. No end in sight.

They stopped along the way at trading posts and occasional
hamlets to change horses and allow the passengers to stretch their stiff limbs. Each stop revealed a landscape more dreary than the last, and Holmes began to have serious misgivings about his decision to take this route. Why had he thought that the West would be dramatic and in some way glamorous? Even the Indians he glimpsed, hanging around the trading posts, were dirty, dispirited creatures, far from the image Holmes had conjured of proud, bronzed warriors on horseback.

“So what will Tucson be like?” he asked as they set off again after one of these brief halts.

“Tucson’s a nice enough little oasis,” the big man said. “Ranching community, green meadows, streams. Better than this, anyway. Of course it’s the territorial capital now, but don’t expect too much of it. Just a small presidio and a few stores and saloons. You won’t find anything fancy this side of the West Coast, and then you’ll have to travel all the way up to San Francisco before you come to a real city.”

“Now there’s a true den of vice—San Francisco,” Mrs. Williams said, nodding sagely to her husband. “From what I hear there is depravity on every corner. Opium dens, houses of ill repute—shocking.” She shuddered as if a physical chill had passed through her.

“Don’t distress yourself, my dear,” the Reverend Williams said. “I shall not be subjecting you to the horrors of San Francisco.”

Passengers overnighted in a one-horse town called Lordsburg and set off again next morning. Spirits were considerably lighter as they knew that they’d be in Tucson by nightfall, with, they hoped, a civilized hostelry, clean bed, and good food awaiting them. In midafternoon a sandstorm blew up, causing the drivers to rein in
the horses and proceed slowly. When the coach lurched to a stop, the travelers thought at first that nothing was amiss. Then they heard the sound of a gunshot and the door was wrenched roughly open. A tall man was standing there, his hat pulled well down over his eyes and the rest of his face covered by a red bandana.