The Cowboy Who Caught Her Eye

“J.T.,” Wilcox said, “go reserve a room at the hotel. There’s a guest on the next train that will be expecting it. Put it in the railroad’s name.”

“Yes, sir,” answered J.T., who was little more than a boy with round glasses and long brown hair, who just might be afraid of his own shadow.

Carter returned the young man’s nod, knowing Wilcox was reserving a room for him but didn’t want anyone to know that. He waited until the assistant was gone before crossing the room to shake the railroad man’s hand.

Average height and stocky, Wilcox displayed an attitude that said he expected to be listened to. “Mr. Buchanan, I presume?”

“Carter,” he answered.

“Ted,” the man offered in return. “Let’s step into my office.”

Carter followed through the thick wooden door. If the railroad had spent as much money on their passenger cars as they had this man’s office, they’d have a lot more happy travelers. Then again, maybe folks out here weren’t used to the plush cars the trains back east had. He hadn’t heard many complaints on his trip, but no one heard much over that brood of redheaded kids.

“The room I sent J.T. to reserve is for you,” Wilcox said as he walked around his big mahogany desk. “I was going to see to it during lunch, but since you hadn’t stopped in, I wondered if you’d been on the train.”

Carter questioned holding his explanation. This was the one thing he didn’t like about being a Pinkerton man. It was expected he should instantly trust his connections when on assignment, but he liked getting to know people first. In this instance, there wasn’t time. He needed to learn as much as possible, fast, to determine how—besides working there—he could watch the coming and going at the mercantile. Therefore, he’d have to give a little to get a little. “I wanted to get a feel for the town first.”

“Good idea,” Wilcox said, gesturing to a chair.

Once Carter sat, the man pulled open a drawer and handed a bill over the top of the desk.

“This is it, the only bill that’s surfaced,” the man said. “The serial numbers match those the mint confirmed were in the shipment stolen last year.”

A five. Crisp and new. Not so much as a corner bent. The numbers did match. Carter had memorized them. “In May?” he asked, verifying that’s when the bill was discovered.

“Yes. J.T. is who got it. He’d bought some things at the mercantile. The poor lad has a crush on the youngest Thorson girl, they went to school together. He showed it to me because he’d never seen a bill so new. I paid him ten dollars for it.”

Carter let a lifted brow express his thoughts.

Wilcox grinned. “The railroad paid him ten dollars for it. I recognized the serial numbers right away.” He took the bill Carter passed back across the desk and replaced it in the drawer. “J.T. thinks I just like new bills, so he’s on the lookout for more.” The man propped his elbows on his desk and laced his fingers together. “Nobody knows about the robbery, and the C&NW wants to keep it that way. Having people believe we lost that kind of money would damage our reputation. That wasn’t a passenger train. Not a single person boarded after it left Chicago, and no one got off until it arrived here. But the loss was noted in Nebraska.”

None of that was new information. Carter had read the inside report, knew how the railroad had covered the loss and tried to solve the inside caper themselves, without any luck, and now the owner wanted it completely investigated and resolved. Carter had also memorized the manifesto of passengers. Railroad men and soldiers.

“The money had been in a locked box in a private car,” Wilcox said. “The box was still there, just empty, and one man couldn’t have carried that amount out without being noticed, not with a hundred pockets. He’d have needed a carrying bag of some sort, and every man on that train was searched.”

None of this was new, and that’s what Carter needed, new information. “How’d the Thorson sisters end up owning the mercantile?”

“You’ve been there?”

He tipped his hat back a bit. “Had a cinnamon roll for lunch.”

“That’s what keeps people coming in their doors. The older sister came up with that idea.”

The way Wilcox leaned back in his chair and folded his arms said he wasn’t impressed. Carter waited, knew the man would say more.

“The Chicago and Northwestern Rail needs to own this town, Mr. Buchanan—Carter. We opened a dry-goods store three years ago, and little more than those cinnamon rolls keep people from buying everything they need from us instead of those sisters.”

“A little competition makes good business.” Normally he wouldn’t have voiced his opinion, but the situation merited it.

“Usually,” the other man answered, “but laying new lines is costly. What the railroad makes here is invested in more rails heading in all directions. Once the tracks are all constructed and C&NW trains are flowing, competition will be welcomed. Until then, it’s up to me, and now you, to see that every dollar spent in Huron flows through the railroad’s coffers.”

That wasn’t new either. Mining towns were the same. The trouble was greed. By the time the tracks were all laid, the railroad would have another reason why they needed to own everything. They always wanted more. And the man was wrong. It wasn’t up to Carter to see people spent their money with the railroad. He was a Pinkerton man. Solving a crime was his job.

“We almost had it,” Wilcox said. “Thorson’s Mercantile. The old man had never wanted a store, he was set on ranching. Raising horses for the army. Story is he found more money was to be made in selling supplies instead. We have the army’s business now, and thought after the man and his wife died the girls would close up shop. Instead they started selling those cinnamon rolls, and have kept a steady business going ever since. ‘Course, we haven’t hit them too hard—town folks like those girls, feel sorry for them, and we need to act accordingly. Keep it all undercover. You know how that is.”

Carter refrained from commenting. He did know how it was, but that wasn’t why he kept quiet. Molly Thorson was. He didn’t want to like anything about her. That snooty attitude of hers had set a frost deep in his bones, but, being an honest man, he had to admit he held a touch of respect for her. She had backbone, and finding a way to keep her doors open—fighting against the railroad—took pure gumption.

She was scared, too. He’d seen it in her eyes when he mentioned her reputation. Stolen money was a reputation killer.

All in all, every instinct Carter had told him he had to revert to his original plan. Get a job at the mercantile.

A knock sounded and Wilcox rose and walked across the room to crack open the door.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wilcox, but the hotel is full up. Seems that woman with a passel of kids that got off the 11:10 is Mick Wagner’s mail-order bride.”

An involuntary shiver raced over Carter’s shoulders.

“Seems it took up the hotel’s last three rooms just to find enough sleeping room for all of them. They’ll be there for a couple days, too. Walt Smith went to tell Mick she’s—or they’ve—arrived, but it’ll take him three days to ride out there and back.”

“Thanks, J.T.,” Wilcox said, closing the door. When he turned, he shrugged.

“How many kids did that woman have?” Carter hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

Wilcox laughed. “I couldn’t count them all, not with the way they were running around like heathens.” He shrugged again. “I didn’t know Mick ordered a bride.”

Carter’s tongue stayed put, but sympathy did cross his mind. Had to. Any man had to feel sorry for another one getting in that position. A wife and a passel of kids. All at once.

“There is a boardinghouse on the east edge of town, but the widow Reins runs it, and she’s as nosy as a coon.”

“That’s all right,” Carter said. “I’ll find a place to bed down for the night.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“By then I’ll have a job at the mercantile. It’ll come with room and board.”

Wilcox let out a cynical laugh. “Thorson’s Mercantile?”

Carter didn’t nod, but did let a tiny grin emit.

“You Pinkerton men must be brave,” Wilcox said. “Or crazy.”

Carter held his opinion on that, too.

By noon the next day he was back at the mercantile, buying another one of those cinnamon rolls. Molly Thorson wasn’t any more pleasant today than she’d been yesterday, but the rolls were just as good. Leastwise it smelled that way, he’d yet to buy and eat one.

“What do you want?” she demanded while glaring up at him from where she stood behind the counter unpacking another crate.

Nothing to do with you, he almost snapped in return. She looked about as friendly as a thunderstorm, and that was before taking in account her ugly gray dress. But a white apron covered up most of the dull color, and he had a job to do. “I’m working my way to Montana,” he said.