Chapter 10.
Jim stood in the shade, under the spreading branches of a live oak tree, the sun's rays shifting in the movement of the leaves. He tucked some lose shredded tobacco into a square of paper and rolled it into a cigarette. He lit it and put it to his lips, reclining against a large branch. His eyes watched the people moving up and down the street. Soon the delivery wagon came and the man quickly hopped out and shoved a handful of mail into a large wooden box on a pole on the edge of the roadway. The man moved back to his wagon and, turning his horse, moved back up the dusty street toward the main road.
Jim puffed on his small cigarette, making smoke rings in the leaves. Before the paper was burned away he spotted Lucy move to the front door from inside the house. She looked behind her and then moved quickly down the front path to the mail box. As she walked, it was obvious that she held something in her left hand. Jim squinted at it and could just make out a white envelope tucked in her fingers. When she reached into the mailbox and pulled out the mail, her white envelope was carefully tucked amongst the other letters. She turned and, skipping up the path, hurried back into the house.
Jim dropped his cigarette onto the dirt and ground his heel into it. "Brat," he snarled, and stomped toward the house. He paused in the doorway, seeing the back of Lucy's dress as she passed into the Senator's office. He turned to see Artemus step out from behind a door where he had been watching the child's movements inside the hall. Jim nodded to his partner and they both moved to the office. As they reached the door, Lucy reappeared, smiling sweetly.
"Good morning," she said, smiling at the agents. She hurried between them and walked into the back of the house toward the kitchen.
Jim and Artemus had managed to smile back to her, Artemus even returned the greeting, but they both exchanged a dark look as the Senator called out from his office.
"West!" The man shouted, "Gordon! Where are you? It's happened again…" he stopped short as the two men walked in. "Oh, there you are. Good," he said, obviously shaken. He held out the opened letter, the envelope crumpled on the floor under his boots. "Here is another one! I have had enough of your incompetence! I am writing the President today to ask.."
"Sir," Jim said, interrupting the tirade. "This will be the last one. The mystery has been solved." The Senator stopped, his mouth hung open, and the letter fell from his fingers. It fluttered to the desk top where a cigar was burning and burst into flames as it touched the hot end.
"No!" Artemus exclaimed, leaping forward and grabbing the burning letter. He dropped it to the carpeted floor and stomped out the flame. Reaching down he snatched it up again and pressed it between his palms, wincing at the hot paper.
"My God, man," The Senator snapped, as Jim stared at his partner in surprise, "I have given you dozens of those. Why do you need one more?"
"Because, sir," Artemus said, "this one is very significant." He examined the letter, which remained almost fully intact. He turned and nodded, obviously relieved.
"As I was saying, Senator Harris," Jim continued, turning back to face the confused man, "It may have appeared that we were not investigating your case but we were in our own style. It's been a long week but we just needed one more letter. The mystery is solved. We need to tie up some lose ends this afternoon and will meet with you again before dinner." Jim spun on his toes and walked from the office, followed by Artemus who was still pressing the letter between his hands.
They moved into Artie's room where the letter was quickly reviewed by both agents. "This looks the same to me, Artemus," Jim growled, "right down to the same misspelled words."
Artie chuckled, taking the letter back, "Oh, this one is special, James, very special. Let's go find the author." They moved around the fireplace and down the secret passageway toward Lucy's room. Jim pressed the hidden latch on the inner doorway and released the mechanism that opened the door behind her fireplace. Stepping into the room, with Artemus at his heels, he stood, left fist on his hip, to glare down at the young girl who stood amidst the chaos of her room.
"Young lady," Jim said sternly, "we need to talk with you." Artie reached around his partner to wave the letter. "We know it's you so don't try denying it, either."
"Maybe I don't want to deny it," Lucy said, carefully looking from one man to the other, "unless you try to get me in trouble. Then you'll need proof." She folded her arms and looked back at Jim, defiance blazing in her eyes.
Artie let out a snort and laid a hand on his partner's forearm, stopping his friend from speaking. "I found this letter," he said, "on your desk earlier today. I have been in your room now a couple of times. I saw you open the fireplace in my room and sneak in, then I followed you back here. We know about the tunnel and how to unlock the doors."
"So maybe the letter was in the mail," Lucy said, "you can't say I wrote it. I just bring in the mail."
"It was on your desk this morning," Artemus said, "and I wrote my initials on the back," he added turning the paper over. The girl, and his partner, both leaned closer as he pointed to tiny letters "AG" in the lower corner. "You didn't even notice, did you? You just stuffed it in the envelope." Lucy opened her mouth to protest as he stepped to a pile of newspapers. Removing the top one and unfolding it, he said, "and the article in this letter came from this paper," pointing at a hole in the page. "Are you still going to deny this?"
"Well," Lucy said, "I might have done it. So what? No one cares what I do." She threw herself on her bed and covered her face with her arms. "I hate this place! I was only writing those letters to add some excitement. I stopped a while ago because it was getting boring but then you two came and it was exciting again." She sat up, looking at them, her cheeks flushed, "you two were so much fun to watch as you searched the house for clues and kept interviewing everyone. It was hysterical! I just had to start writing more letters!" She flopped back down onto the bed, "so don't be mad at me. It's your own fault for making a mountain out of a mole hill!"
Jim looked at the ceiling and counted quietly, backwards, from ten, as he stretched his arm in front of him and flexing his shoulders. Artie sighed heavily next to him, stuffing the letter into a pocket.
"All right, Lucy," Jim said quietly, taking a deep breath, "This is what we're going to do." He walked over and sat on the corner of her bed. Artie pulled out the child's desk chair and sat carefully. "I have learned a lot playing this game with you. I was looking for a killer; I jumped to conclusions when I should have looked for facts. So that's a plus. And," he paused, thinking, "You, having caused us to come here, may have helped stop a more serious crime from happening so that is also a good thing."
The girl sat up, listening to his voice," what other bad thing has happened?"
"It didn't happen," Jim corrected, "or hasn't yet. But what do we do with you?" He turned to Artie and winked, "is that prison for children still out in the desert?"
"Oh, well, Jim," Artie said, instantly catching on to Jim's idea, "you can hardly think of sending her to that hell hole in the Mohave Desert. She would die in a matter of months."
"This is serious, Artemus," Jim argued, "and it's the only prison for children. What else can we do with her? We can't leave her here to continue to write letters."
"What if I promised to stop," she said quietly, watching the agents more nervously now. Her smile was gone and her face was getting red.
Jim and Artie both turned to stare hard at her. Artie asked quietly, "where would you like to live, if you didn't live here?"
The girl blurted out, "at a school in New York City! I found one that takes girls my age. And I could ride the trains back with Elizabeth and Zyphelia after Christmas!" She slouched again, "but I haven't asked my mother yet. I don't think she'll let me go."
"If we can talk your mother into letting you go to this school," Artie said slowly, "would you go and stop writing these letters?" The girl nodded. "Good, because we don't want to have to send such a bright young lady to prison." The men stood and waited for her to slip off the bed. She stood between them, looking up at them.
"Can we surprise my mother from the tunnels?" She grinned as Artie smiled back.
"Sure, why not," Artie agreed, "she wouldn't believe us if she didn't see it first."
Jim nodded but added, "I will knock on her door from the main hallway. You two can sneak through the tunnels." He paused, and looked down at Lucy, "do you think your mother will speak to us this afternoon? She seems to be in her room a lot. I don't want to interrupt her."
"Oh, she won't care," Lucy said, "she is just reading." Lucy moved quickly to pull at her fireplace. Opening the tunnel again, she and Artemus slipped into the shadows and Jim moved out the door, "Race you!" Lucy shouted as the fireplace slid closed.
Later, in the suite….
"I don't want you two to feel disappointed," Mrs. Harris said, "but this is an easy solution to the problem, don't you think?" She smiled at the two agents who were sitting on padded dining chairs in the sunroom, just beyond her bedroom. The group had just finished tea, after Lucy had confessed to her role in the mystery of the threatening letters. In fact, once started, it had been difficult for the adults to stop her from talking. "Or will your boss expect someone to be arrested and brought to prison?"
"They even said there was a prison for children," Lucy blurted out, giggling now behind her hand as Artemus reached out to gently pinch her arm, making her squeal.
"Our supervisor realizes that not all missions we are sent on have the same result," Jim said, "sometimes we end the threat without apprehending the perpetrator. In this instance, we will report it as solved and the criminal turned from a life of crime to a life of serving others for good." He winked at Lucy and she dissolved into giggles again. "However I am more worried about what to tell Senator Harris. I am hoping he will be content with the knowledge that the threat is now gone and not to reappear," he added, looking at the child, "right, young lady?" The girl nodded vigorously. "He is a busy man and this will also keep the matter more private."
"What do you mean, more private," the woman said. She nervously rubbed her stomach and the men wondered again if she was suffering from an illness that kept her inside all day.
"If we had arrested someone," Artemus said, "such as a real criminal, instead of a budding drama queen, there would have been a trial. And involving a Senator, the trial would have been in the newspapers."
"Especially one with such a clever plot," Jim added. "But with no arrest, there is no trial, and there is no publicity."
Mrs. Harris nodded, "I am sure my husband will be quite satisfied with this conclusion. He is nervous about going to Washington soon and leaving the ranch. There have been a lot of preparations going on to make sure the work continues in his absence. The foreman has to be very trustworthy and all the workers without reproach. Any scandal at home is reflected badly on work in the Senate."
Jim shot a glance to his partner, "We have also been investigating some of the workers here. One in particular that we were concerned with," he paused, trying to decide how to communicate his concern without upsetting the mother. "What can you tell us about the young man named Roger Lane, Jr.? Zylphia also calls him McKenzie?"
Lucy leaped to her feet and rushed to her mother's knees, "you know, mother," she said eagerly, "the boy who wants to marry Zylphia."
"Oh," Mrs. Harris said, "that young man." Her mouth turned into a hard line. "Yes, he was so pleasant at first to the girls, showing them the area, when we first moved here. It was good for them to meet people their own age. But then Zylphia said he began writing her letters about how they would be married and when she inherited the ranch, they would run it together. She said she explained to him that she did not want to live here and preferred the city. I am afraid the young man doesn't like to take no for an answer and has been pestering her. She told me that she even started telling everyone that she was adopted and could not inherit, just to convince this young man to stop making plans." The two agents exchanged a look at that comment. Mrs. Harris continued to smile but her eyes were worried, "but I am sure it will all blow over as they get older. He is a good hand with the horses and is hired by many local ranches to break the young stallions. And the girls will be going back to school after Christmas this weekend," she added, patting Lucy's head, "and now you will be going with them."
"I am hoping," Jim continued slowly, "to stay here at the ranch to watch over the workers for a few more days. We are gathering more information and tying up some lose ends"
"Of course, Mister West," Mrs. Harris said, looking at both agents, "both of you, please stay as long as you wish. On Christmas Eve we will be having a large party with all the local landowners. You will want to meet them." And she smiled down at the child, "and then everyone will be leaving me. I will feel alone but that's what happens when children grow up to be young adults." She rubbed again onto her stomach as Lucy reached up to hug her around the waist.
Jim and Artie rose, saying their thanks and moving to the door. Lucy blurted out behind them, "and Mr. West is going to keep the wild black horse that McKenzie couldn't break!"
The woman rose slowly to her feet, a worried look in her face. She glanced from Jim's face to his right arm, a plaster cast from elbow to wrist and in a sling. "But that can't be true?" She asked, "That horse is so dangerous that none of the men will attempt to ride it anymore. They've all refused. And you have only one arm?"
Jim grinned, seeing his partner roll his eyes, "well I have never broken a horse before so I thought it would be interesting to try. And it gives me a reason to be around the wranglers, talking with them."
"Well, sir, I wish you luck," Mrs. Harris said.
Later that day, in the corral…
Jim stormed through the gate into the corral, seeing the black horse again tied to the post out in the hot sun. The men, the usual group of five, fell back from him as he raged. "I told you idiots to water and feed this horse! And what are you doing instead? Beating it again? Keeping it from water?"
"But that's how we do it!" One man argued, waving a coiled whip in the air for emphasis, "Especially with a dangerous horse like this one. You have to weaken the animal so it knows who the boss is! You have no idea what you are doing by…" The man's argument was cut short by Jim's left hook. His fist connected with the man's mouth, sending him flying backwards into the dirt. The whip dropped onto the ground, tangling in the other men's boot heels as they scrambled to get away from Jim's fist.
"Out!" Jim snarled, shoving another man backwards and grabbing up the whip. "All of you get out of here and don't come back!" The men moved quickly to the open gate, pushing each other in their haste to leave, as the last man, bleeding from his mouth staggered to his feet. Jim saw the movement and grabbed the man by the shoulder, pushing him towards the opening. "This isn't how this works!" He released the man, only to kick him in the rear end, sending him sprawling into his friends. He threw the whip at them, entangling the men as it uncoiled in the air. "This isn't how any of this works!" He stood, feet wide, left fist on his hip, glaring at each man, daring anyone to say anything back. The men stayed silent and one slowly closed the gate.
Jim turned to the horse, which had quietly stood nearby watching, the dark ears turning occasionally. "Hey, big fella," Jim said, running a hand down the animal's neck. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, talking slowly. "You and I are going to do this a different way. Friends work together; they don't hit each other or starve each other. What do you say to that?" He patted the horse's face and the animal whinnied softly, rubbing its nose against his chest. "You and I are going to be best friends." He pulled a piece of carrot out of his coat pocket and held it out to the horse. The animal sniffed it and took it from his open palm, chewing contentedly as Jim rubbed its nose. "It's just you and me now," he whispered.