Chapter 15

Jim Hollister had been a Pinkerton for three years, all of it assigned to the Union Pacific railroad between Omaha and Sacramento. He had pursued various issues over the years, but this was the first time he'd been asked to chase down a seventeen-year-old girl who had gone missing. She was eighteen years old now, actuallyt, her birthday having passed by about a week previously.

The agency, and therefore Jim Hollister, had been hired by the dowager Mrs. Maureen Hatfield, widow of the late Phillip Hatfield, who had started The Boulder Creek Provisioning Company in 1849, not far from Sutter's Mill. Mr. Hatfield ran an astute business, making particularly good use of the ships plying the Pacific coast, bringing gold seekers, and goods for his store, from South America. By the time the gold ran out some five or six years later, some five or six hundred pounds of it was safely stored in one of the first class one bank vaults ever imported into that part of the country.

Phillip Hatfield lived an excessive life, which meant he did everything to excess. He ate to excess, he drank to excess, and the only exercise he engaged in - sex - he also pursued to excess. It was the sex that killed him. Or at least that's what he was engaged in when he kicked the bucket. Fortunately, his lovely young, and very satisfied wife, knew the combination to the vault.

Maureen Lucinda Philby, the only daughter of Terrence and Margaret Philby of Denver, Colorado, met Phillip Hatfield when his carriage almost ran her down on a street in said city. Having been narrowly missed, Maureen, who was sixteen at the time, picked up a horse apple and heaved it at the carriage. Phillip was struck, both literally and figuratively, by the spunk of the girl. He was already well off, and people had already begun to kowtow to him. This girl who did not - ever - kowtow to him, won his heart. She went with him when he took off to California, where he had a feeling he might be able to turn his modest nest egg into a true fortune. He was right, as it turned out. He started in shipping, and was one of the first to hear about the gold strike at Sutter's Mill.

Maureen continued to run the business after her husband died. She never remarried, and never went back east, "having become accustomed to the weather," as she said it. When she had lofted that horse apple at Phillip, back in Denver, she'd left behind a younger brother with her parents. That brother had eventually ended up in Missouri, where she kept track of him. He was moderately successful, but not a man of means. Being childless herself, Maureen had a special interest in the only child of her brother, a little girl named Elizabeth. To that end, she sent money she said was not for her brother, but for her niece ... to "provide her with something nice now and then." When she received a wire that her brother and his wife had died from an undisclosed illness, Maureen wired back with instructions for Elizabeth, who was now her sole, living relative, and whom she had met only once, to be sent to California.

When Elizabeth failed to get off the train in Sacramento, Maureen was annoyed, but not surprised. Train travel was still a chancy thing, and train schedules often gave way to things like weather, broken tracks and who knew what else. A week later, however, when her niece was still not there, she began to inquire. It took three more weeks for the railroad to inform her that her niece's two suitcases had been located in the unclaimed luggage room, five stops down the line. She spent another two weeks in a fruitless search for information, before being advised by one of her late husband's business associates to hire a Pinkerton to go find the girl.

Jim Hollister was that Pinkerton.

His search had been pursued on the simple plan of backtracking the train, getting off at every place the train stopped, prior to where her suitcases had been found unattended and removed from the train. Then, he simply asked around about the girl. He'd quit counting after fifteen or so towns, so he had no idea what Beaverton, Nebraska represented on the list. All he knew was that he was a little more than halfway to Elizabeth's point of origin.

Thus far, his job had been boring in the extreme. He was used to that. Being a detective meant going for long, mind-numbing stretches of time with nothing interesting happening. Then there would be ten minutes of terrifying action which, if you survived, led to more days and weeks of boredom. In this case, what he expected to find, when he located young Elizabeth, was that she had gotten off the train and been swept off her feet by some man, who either had money, or talked a good line. Girls of that age were usually empty-headed, in his opinion, and likely to go off on a lark at their whim. Still, it was good pay, and he got to see the country, so he didn't mind that his search, thus far, had been unsuccessful.

When he got off the train in Beaverton, however, and told the clerk in the depot what his purpose was, that clerk's reaction made it obvious he was in the right place. What was curious was that the clerk reacted with what looked like guilt. The detective's concerns were further heightened when he saw the same thing in the town sheriff's face. He got a highly improbable story about an outhouse collapsing around the young woman, who suffered amnesia as a result. When the mayor of the town arrived at the depot, out of breath and hatless, Jim's suspicions were confirmed that something underhanded was going on.

He smiled, made it appear that he had swallowed all their bullshit, and asked if he could talk to Miss Philby, who everyone in town was calling Millie, for some reason.

He was taken to a one-room school house, where a dangerous looking girl dressed in buckskin appeared to be an armed guard, stationed by the door of the building.

That was when things stopped being boring for Jim Hollister.

"Miss Philby, my name is James Hollister, and your aunt hired me to come find you."

"Aunt Maureen?" asked Millie, her eyes wide.

"You remember her?" Jim stared at her intently.

"I remembered her name, but that's all," said Millie. "Just Maureen."

"How is it you got injured?" asked Hollister.

"It was an accident," said Millie.

"What happened?"

"Well, I'm not sure. I don't remember anything of it. I woke up in Bob's office -"

"Bob is... ?" asked Hollister, interrupting.

"Doctor Fisk," said Millie, flushing. This man had dark, penetrating eyes, like he was able to see deep inside her. She wondered if he could see that she and Bob had been intimate.

"Go on," he said.

"Well, I woke up there. He was stitching me up and -"

"I was led to understand that all you got was a bump on the head," interrupted Hollister again.

"Oh lord no," she said, blinking. "I almost died. Bob said he had to..." She stopped, flushing even darker. "He had to go to extraordinary lengths to save me."

"All this from an outhouse ... collapsing ... around you," said Jim.

"I assume so," said Millie.

"Didn't it ever occur to you to ask for more details about this ... accident?"

"Well ... no ... I suppose it didn't. I mean people were so nice to me ... giving me a job and a place to live and all that..."

"And it didn't seem odd to you that a town like this would welcome a stranger, with only one dress to her name, feeding her and clothing her?"

"Is it odd?" asked Millie. "I don't know!" She was clearly flustered.

"I'm sorry. Clearly you've been through a traumatic experience. But you appear to be healthy enough. I'll telegraph your aunt and ask for instructions, but I suspect she'll want me to take you back to Sacramento."

"Oh," said Millie, whose mind was whirling. She'd spent hours wondering who she was ... wondering what her "real" life was like. Now that she appeared to be finding the answers, she was suddenly less than eager to find out. If she went to Sacramento, she obviously wouldn't see Bob again. That made an ache in her middle that made her want to groan.

"I'll get us adjacent rooms in the hotel until we hear from your aunt," said Hollister.

"But I have a house!" objected Millie.

"I'd like to see it," said the detective.

"Can it wait until after school? I need to get back to the children."

"Miss Philby, while you don't remember your past, I can assure you, you are no teacher. Your aunt is a wealthy woman, who I understand sent money back east to provide for your education. I believe she intended to offer you the opportunity to come to California, where she was going to sponsor your coming out celebration, but your parents died before she was ready to issue that invitation."

"Oh." Millie was at a loss. None of this information was ringing a bell.

"My parents are dead?" She felt badly because she didn't feel ... badly ... about that.

"They were taken by illness, shortly before you started your journey west." He clapped his hands sharply, once, which caused Millie to flinch. "But these are all things your aunt should be telling you. If you insist, you may return to your classroom. Perhaps you can make preparations for someone else to take over the instructional duties. Then I will inspect your lodgings. Meanwhile, I'll get a preliminary report on the wire." He turned and walked by the little gaggle of townspeople who had stood off to one side - at Detective Hollister's request - while he spoke with Millie alone.

Mayor Robinson approached the woman he now knew was named Elizabeth Philby.

"What did he say?" asked the man, anxiously.

"Apparently I'm to be taken to California," said Millie, her mind still whirling. She looked off at the retreating man who had just kicked the embers of the banked fire that was her life. "As if I'm some sort of luggage," she added under her breath.

She looked around for Bob. She had expected him to come, since Boots had taken off at a run as soon as the Pinkerton man had started barking orders left and right. But he was nowhere to be seen. When she went back into the school room, the children left the windows they had all been straining to see out of, and crowded around her, all speaking at once.

It took her several minutes to quiet them down.

Millie said goodbye to the children with tears in her eyes. Amy Hawkins, also weeping openly, stood beside her, having been appointed by Millie to be the temporary schoolmarm until ... she didn't know what. Jim Hollister stood at the back of the room, pointedly separate from Boots, who also stood with arms folded. It was fairly obvious that neither cared for the other.

That attitude came to the fore when Hollister tried to take Millie's elbow as she was leaving. Boots, who was in an emotional uproar over what all this meant - something she didn't know yet - was feeling territorial about her friend. She basically forced her body between the two, taking Millie's arm herself, and looked at the Pinkerton.

"You can go off and do whatever it is you boys do when you're not needed. I need to talk to my friend ... private like."

"I was hired to find her," Hollister started, but was then interrupted by Boots.

"An' you did. Good job of it too. Only took you what ... mebbe three months? But it's a big country an all, and she didn't leave a whole lot of sign behind."

"I was also hired to see to her safety once she was found," said Hollister.

"An' I been seein' to her safety for the last three months. Without pay, I might add. You kin just run along. When I'm done jawin' with her I'll let you know and you kin take over guardin' her or whatever it is you think needs doin'."

Jim tried going official on her. "Look, this is Pinkerton business now. You need to butt out, girly ... if that's what you are -" He stopped, wide-eyed as her pistol was suddenly out of her holster, cocked and pressed against the second button of his vest.

"Millie is my friend," said Boots, her voice level. "I don't have to butt out of anything."

The Pinkertons didn't hire faint-hearted operatives, and that became clear now. "Her name isn't Millie," he said, his voice just as level. "It's Elizabeth Philby."

Boots probably would have made a good Pinkerton, assuming they weren't so misogynous as to refuse to hire women.

"Elizabeth Philby is my friend," she said in the same voice. "I don't have to butt out of anything."

"Both of you stop!" barked Millie. She looked at the man. "You are welcome to keep an eye on me, as long as you don't interfere with the few friends I have in this world at present." She looked at Boots. "He's just doing his job. Put that gun away and don't play with him again."

"Play!" objected the Pinkerton.

Millie waved a hand in irritation. "She wouldn't have shot you. Not just for calling her 'girly'." She turned back to Boots. "Where's Bob? Why didn't he come back with you?"

"That's the doctor, right?" asked Hollister. "Why do you need to talk to him? Are you ill?"

Boots, who had put her pistol back, turned to look at the man. "Were you hired to stick your nose into her business too?"

Hollister wasn't deterred. "The way I see it, protecting her means looking out for her interests. And I'm a little worried about her interests and her ... friends ... seeing as how the story I've been getting about how she came to be here has holes in it wide enough to run a locomotive through. I'm not buying that an outhouse collapsed around her and almost killed her."

"'Course it didn't," sniffed Boots. "It was the bein' dragged half a mile inside the outhouse that done the damage."

"And why is it that you're the first person in this whole fucking town to mention that little fact?" asked Hollister heatedly.

"Prob'ly 'cause you asked the wrong people," snorted Boots. "Lemme guess. You asked the mayor."

"I did," said Jim. "Actually, he came and found me, once he learned I was inquiring about Miss Philby."

"Lots of people all eager to talk to a big time Pinkerton detective, huh?" said Boots, grinning. "I bet folks just fall all over theirselves to be helpful to you boys. That happen a lot?"

Jim Hollister was no fool. He knew people had been serving him up a plate of bullshit. But here was the first person who appeared to be willing to tell the truth about things. And they weren't on the best of terms. Further, it was looking more and more like she wasn't quite the provincial, empty-headed female he'd assumed her to be.

"How about we start over ... Boots, is it? My name is Jim Hollister, and I appreciate you taking good care of Miss Philby in the time it took me to find her."

"Nice try, bucko," said Boots, but at least now she smiled. "Yer still the same man you was a minute ago."

"Yes, but now we're on the same side," said Jim, also smiling.

"Now that you two are fast friends, may we go?" asked Millie, frowning. "Boots, you never answered my question. Where's Bob?"

"I found him. He told me what to tell you. I had to write it down," said Boots. "I didn't understand some of the words." She pulled a scrap of paper from the possibles bag tied around her waist and unfolded it. She read laboriously: "In light of the fact she has now been identified, I don't feel like my presence would illuminate the situation any better than it already is." She looked at Millie. "What's that mean?"

"It means," said Millie, changing directions and lengthening her stride, "that he knows Mr. Hollister here has been fed a line of bull, and doesn't want to be put on the spot and be required to disagree with the town fathers."

Boots moved up beside her friend. "And what does that mean?"

Millie stopped suddenly and turned to face Boots. "How, exactly did I get hurt?" she asked.

Boots blinked. "Nobody ever told you?"

"No Boots, they did not."

"Oh. Well, three boys - that would be Ben, Chauncy and Mikey - wanted to play a prank on somebody, so they waited until you was in the outhouse and then threw a rope around it, so's they could tip it over. They had the rope tied to Mikey's saddle horn, but the horse got spooked and ran half a mile, draggin' the outhouse - and you inside it."

"Ben, Chauncy and Michael? In my class at school?" Millie gaped.

"The very ones," said Boots.

"Now I get it," said Jim. "They're worried about a lawsuit."

"A lawsuit?" asked Millie.

"Your aunt is a wealthy woman, and is an influential person in California politics," said Hollister. "She has gone to great expense to find you."

"But this is Nebraska," said Boots, proud that she got it right this time.

"Yes," said Jim. "But trust me. Mrs. Hatfield can make significant trouble for the town, if she has a mind to."

"Why?" asked Millie. "These people took care of me. The doctor saved my life! They gave me a way to support myself ... a place to live!"

"And they did all this when one message on the telegraph would have alerted people up and down the line where you were. Had we known all this, you could have been rescued months ago."

"Now wait just a damn minute!" said Boots. "I sort of think 'rescued' is a bit strong. It's not like she was bein' held captive."

"They hid her," said Hollister. "They hid her because they were afraid that the town would be held responsible for her injuries."

Boots' brow wrinkled as she thought about what Hollister had said. "Well, that does sound like Henry Robinson," she snorted. "I got to admit that."

"What now?" asked Millie.

"I'll need to file an updated report," said Hollister. "As I said earlier, I expect to get a message telling me to escort you to California."

"I see," said Millie. She started off again, with a long, almost angry stride.

"Where are you going?" asked Hollister. "I thought this house they gave you was over that way." He pointed.

"She's goin' to see Doc," said Boots, knowingly.

"Why?" asked Jim.

"Well, I've only known her for three months," said Boots, striding beside the detective. "But she's the best friend I ever had, and based on that, I expect Doc's in a mite of trouble and she's on her way to inform him of it."

"Why would she be angry with the doctor?"

"Because he abandoned her to your tender mercies," said Boots, grinning.

Millie had said she wanted privacy. Boots and Hollister stayed out in the surgery, while Millie took Bob back to his living area. There was no door, though, and within a minute, Boots was urging Hollister outside.

"Sounds like they're married," said Jim.

"They are somewhat sweet on each other," admitted Boots.

"Is it serious?" he asked, wondering how he was going to explain this to his employer.

"Not so's anybody would notice," said Boots. By that, she meant that no one had seen them kissing ... or doing other things.

"Good," said Hollister. "A ... romance ... could complicate things."

"He's a good man," said Boots. "And she's a smart woman. We all knew she was high bred, just by how she acted. He kept remindin' her of that, and kept tellin' her somebody would come lookin' fer her sooner or later."

"I see," said Hollister, who didn't see at all. Miss Philby was a good looking woman. Any man who had a chance to get something from her would try. He would have, so he assumed any other man would have too. Maybe that's what she was so upset about. Now that she had found out she was somebody important, she was berating the man who had soiled her. But that wasn't really his business. His mission was to find her, report, and then do whatever his employer demanded of him.

With that in mind, he told Boots he'd be back, and went to find the station master to send another telegraph message.

Millie wasn't berating Bob for soiling her. She was taking her frustrations out on him. She had grown to depend on his support, and when she was stressed by events, and his support wasn't there, she got frustrated. He was smart enough to understand that, and let her vent. He had already half steeled himself to losing her, once he found out the Pinkerton man was looking for her. The Pinkertons didn't come cheap, so he knew he had been right all along. Somebody important had been looking for her. They wouldn't let her stay here, now that they'd found her.

Millie's anger slowly seeped out of her, to be replaced by the dread of the unknown. She, too, was aware that her aunt would be expecting her to complete her trip. That she had no memory of her aunt meant she wasn't eager to leave the only things familiar to her and leap into new environs. And she was aware that the special thing she'd found with Bob was now going to disappear as well. She mourned for her loss, whether she knew it or not, and in advance of the actual loss itself.