The Cowboy's Crime Page 6

  “You best come in, the heat is all escaping,” Polly stood back and allowed them inside.

  The caravan was a tight squeeze for four people, especially with Polly fussing about the stove. Clark was sitting up in bed, the bench seat having been pulled out, he did not seem bothered to meet his visitors in his pyjamas. He was clutching a cup of coffee and looked surprisingly content, considering.

  The caravan was toasty, the stove puffing out a good lot of heat and warming the interior. Clara and O’Harris squeezed themselves against a wall as best they could, since the bed took up nearly all of the room and the stove dominated the rest of the space. Clark waved a hand at them.

  “Sit on the bed.”

  Clara and O’Harris descended onto the bed, perching on the end furthest from Clark. It was awkward, as they had to sit with their backs to him and look over their shoulders to talk. Polly ignored them, humming to herself as she cooked.

  “I’m glad you came back,” Clark said calmly. “I wanted to thank you for last night. I was in a pretty bad mess, but you were good to me.”

  “How are you feeling?” Clara asked him.

  Clark stared at the ceiling as he thought about her question.

  “Sort of resolved to it all,” he said. “I still feel all confused, and I am not sure why I am at this place doing a damn circus act instead of being a real cowboy, but I feel as though I have accepted it. Part of me feels this is where I am meant to be, that there is a reason I am here.”

  “I suspect that means you are tapping into your memories on an emotional level,” O’Harris said. “Which is a very good sign.”

  Clark smiled.

  “Well, I ain’t one for sitting around moping. Got to make the best of things. Polly, here, has been keeping an eye on me. I could get kinda cosy right here with her for company.”

  “Oh Clark!” Polly blushed.

  Clara was not convinced by Clark’s seeming acceptance of his recent trauma, she felt he had simply reached a point of mental exhaustion where it was easier to just take things as they were, and she did not believe it would last. You couldn’t lose over ten years of your life and simply carry on, there would be psychological conflicts at every turn.

  “We plan on discovering who did this to you,” she told Clark. “We need to make sure they don’t intend you further harm.”

  “I can handle myself,” Clark said gruffly.

  “Clark, don’t be stubborn, someone broke you last night whether you want to admit to that or not, and I don’t want them trying again,” Polly said with an expression of deep concern.

  Clark gave her a reassuring smile.

  “Anyone comes for me, I have my six-shooter ready,” he patted his pillow and Clara noticed the glint of a metal gun barrel.

  “That only helps if you remember who came for you last night,” O’Harris pointed out. “And I take it you don’t, so you have no idea who might be coming for you or why.”

  Clark looked unimpressed by this revelation. He was a doggedly self-reliant soul and he disliked having to depend on someone else to keep him safe. He did not reply to O’Harris.

  “Do you remember anything about last night?” Clara asked him, knowing it was a vain hope.

  Clark shook his head.

  “I remember standing before that carousel-thing, wondering where the heck I was and why it was so damn cold. California is never that cold, even in winter,” Clark pulled a face. “I feel like I am two people, the one I am now and the one who came over here in the first place, and I sure as hell can’t figure out what that other version of me was thinking.”

  Polly had finished with her cooking and presented Clark with a plate of beans, sausage and fried potatoes. His eyes lit up.

  “This is like what they used to serve in the Hungry Cowboy,” he said with glee.

  “I know,” beamed Polly. “You told me about it enough times.”

  There was a look between them, a subtle connection of eyes that revealed everything you needed to know about their relationship. Clark might have lost his actual memories, but his instincts were still strong, and he clearly knew that this woman was someone to hold onto, someone he loved.

  Clara wondered if such a look ever passed between her and O’Harris, and turned towards him just for a moment, giving him a shy smile. His eyes softened, returning her look and a fuzzy warmth stirred in her chest. Without a word, O’Harris reached for her hand and clutched it in his.

  “Do you want coffee?”

  Polly’s question brought Clara back to the present.

  “No, thank you,” Clara said. “I’ve never really developed the taste for it.”

  Polly turned her asking look to O’Harris and he readily agreed to a cup. Clara roused herself back to her task at hand.

  “It’s not the best breakfast talk, but I wonder if either of you recognise this knife,” Clara held her hand out to O’Harris and he produced the blade from his coat.

  He had cleaned it up and there was no trace of horse blood on the shiny steel. It was a double-edged blade, with a stocky handle. The wood and leather of the grip was black and there was a faint decoration on the hilt. It was worn and hard to see, but it might have been a crude eagle flying with wings outstretched.

  Clara placed the knife on the bed before Clark and he stopped eating the instant he saw it.

  “Well I never,” he reached out for the blade and examined the handle with great care. “Now, I never thought to see that again.”

  “You recognise it?” Clara asked.

  “This is the knife of Mad-Jack MacMahon,” Clark explained. “Mad-Jack was an outlaw of some repute and his name was not ironic. That fella had one heck of a screw loose. Some people say he was actually shot in the head when he was a young man and was never quite the same since. He was one of my first bounties.”

  “You did a lot of bounty hunting?” O’Harris asked.

  Clark put the knife back on the bed.

  “Yep, I was pretty good at it too. I was a quick draw and that was half the battle. Most of these fellows were crude sons of…” Clark remembered his company and did not finish the sentence. “They were more show than finesse. Mad-Jack was a fine example. Oh, he terrorised the homesteaders with his antics, scared them to death with his threats of violence. Cut off ears and fingers, that sort of thing, but really he was just a rough thug. I took him down with a single shot.”

  “You killed him?” Clara stared at the knife, suddenly seeing motive for revenge.

  “Nah,” Clark had gone back to his breakfast. “I winged him in his right shoulder. Couldn’t shoot after that. His gang abandoned him quicker than you can say hog-tied and I took him in to the nearest sheriff and collected my reward.”

  “Could he be looking for revenge?” Clara suggested. “Maybe he thinks you owe him?”

  “Look here, if he had turned up in my tent last night, I would have known his face a mile off and shot first, asked questions later,” Clark said firmly. “In any case, he’s dead. Broke out of that poxy, rundown jail I left him in two days after I claimed the reward and left for the hills. Last I heard he died of something he caught from a whore, several years after I claimed my bounty. He ain’t coming after me.”

  “But someone with his knife did,” Clara nudged the knife, bringing it back to Clark’s attention. “Maybe someone who cared about Mad-Jack wants revenge?”

  Clark snorted.

  “There weren’t anyone who cared about Mad-Jack. They say he murdered his daddy, defiled his sister and broke his mammy’s heart. No one in this world gave enough of a damn about him to want to avenge his death. In any case, all I did was shoot him in the shoulder.”

  “Then why is his knife here?” Clara said.

  Clark shrugged.

  “Heck if I know.”

  Clara was not prepared to take the appearance of the knife as a coincidence. It meant something to the killer and presumably they thought it would have significance to Clark, which was why they used it. Of course, they could n
ot have anticipated that Clark would lose his memories in shock and thus have no idea of the importance of the knife. Clara imagined that if the attacker was aware of this, they would probably be very upset.

  “This knife means something,” Clara picked up the blade. “Is there anyone else at the funfair who knows about Mad-Jack?”

  Clara looked to Polly for her answer, but the woman just shrugged.

  “All right, well I am going to see Maven and see if he knows anything more,” Clara rose from the bed, pausing as she moved to the door. “Just how many bounties have you collected, Clark?”

  The gunslinger wrinkled his brow as he did the maths.

  “Got to be at least twenty,” he said.

  Clara nodded her head.

  That gave them at least twenty potential reasons for revenge.

  Chapter Eight

  Llewellyn Maven had the largest caravan on the site, and it stood apart from the funfair, as if on its own estate. The grass immediately before the caravan was circled by a temporary fence made from chicken wire and spindly metal posts, creating a garden that divided Maven further from the outside world. Here was a man who desired privacy and liked respect for his personal space.

  There was a wooden gate inserted precariously into the fence. Clara raised the latch and was about to step through, when she heard a suspicious deep rumbling sound, followed by a white blur charging out from under the caravan straight towards her. The furious ball of white growled and barked, proving to be an aging terrier with more attitude than teeth. Clara stared down at it as it leapt ineffectually at the gate and snapped at her as if it was the most vicious creature on the planet.

  The commotion roused Maven and he appeared at his front door in his shirt sleeves, holding a cup of tea very daintily in one hand. He looked annoyed when he first emerged, and his expression did not improve when he saw Clara.

  “Ted, that’s enough,” he informed the irate terrier, who completely ignored him.

  “Quite the guard dog,” Clara smiled in Maven’s direction. “Should I be concerned about my ankles?”

  “Ted! Come on now!” Maven slapped his leg with his free hand to distract the dog, when that failed, he disappeared briefly inside and then emerged with a slice of raw bacon.

  With a remarkable reaction time, Ted’s nose twitched, and he stopped his belligerent gate bashing to turn and charge towards his master. He snatched the bacon from Maven’s fingers with one impressive leap and then disappeared back under the caravan.

  “That will keep him busy a while,” Maven wiped his fingers on his trousers. “He doesn’t have the jaws these days to chew quickly.”

  Clara entered the garden and walked to the caravan, hearing a faint grumbling from beneath it and a token growl in her direction. She wondered what would happen when she had to leave again, and Ted had finished his bacon.

  Maven’s caravan was luxurious compared to Clark’s. It had a sitting area at the front with a permanent table, and the bed was at the far end, currently heaped up with blankets. A stove perched between and there was a cupboard fixed to the walls and floor, presumably containing crockery and food. Maven did not opt for decorating his walls as Clark did, there were no photographs or prints, everything was rather bare, though a couple of embroidered cushions livened up the benches.

  Maven slipped onto a bench and returned to a plate of breakfast he had left there. Just like Clark, Maven had no qualms about having his breakfast around lunchtime.

  “Well?” He demanded of Clara, slicing into a charred sausage.

  Clara aimed not to be offended by his tone, but she did not like being spoken to so bluntly.

  “Well, what? Mr Maven? Do you expect me to have resolved this case already?”

  Maven glared at her.

  “You are here for some reason, what is it? Will Clark perform tonight?”

  “Captain O’Harris is working with him,” Clara said calmly. “Clark seems to have accepted his situation and is desiring to make the best of it. You will have to give him time, though.”

  “I don’t have time. People want to see the American gunslinger,” Maven griped. “And that is what I intend to give them.”

  Clara had no interest in arguing with him over the matter.

  “I wanted to talk about Clark’s past, about possible reasons for him being attacked last night.”

  “He wasn’t attacked last night, his horse was,” Maven said, shoving sausage into his mouth. “Maybe we need to look and see if the horse had enemies?”

  Clara was starting to lose her patience, but she managed to keep her tone even and polite when she responded.

  “The attack on the horse was an attack on Clark, and we both know that Mr Maven, we have had this conversation already. Someone either wants to harm Clark or harm your funfair by upsetting one of your top acts. Personally, I favour the first solution.”

  Clara produced the knife from her handbag and placed it on the table before Maven. It was a big knife, the sort a hunting man might use and seeing it produced from a woman’s handbag had a mollifying effect on Maven.

  He stared at the vicious blade, his fork poised over his scrambled egg, but unable to move. Unlike Clark who was comfortable around weapons, who was so used to guns and knives the blade had not even registered as something sinister, Maven was not familiar with such articles of violence. The knife made it plain what nastiness had been intended last night and that a dangerous person had been roaming the funfair.

  “You might want a word with your security boys about keeping an eye on Clark,” Clara suggested. “According to him, this knife once belonged to a man called Mad-Jack MacMahon, a vicious outlaw. Clark captured him, took him to the sheriff, and collected a bounty on the man’s head. Mad-Jack is now deceased, but it could be that someone wants revenge for Clark’s involvement in his capture.”

  Clara avoided mentioning that Mad-Jack had escaped not long after his run in with Clark, and that wanting revenge for his capture seemed a somewhat uncertain motive.

  “One of Mad-Jack’s friends is lurking about my funfair?” Maven said uneasily, the knife had focused his attention beautifully.

  “I don’t know,” Clara admitted. “But someone with a lot of anger, and a lot of strength, shoved this into the skull of poor Gung-Ho.”

  Maven pulled a face. Maybe he was thinking of the aged terrier under his caravan and how he would feel if someone killed his dog to get at him. He couldn’t bring himself to touch the knife, all he could do was stare at it. Slowly he put down his fork, his appetite gone.

  “Clark remembers Mad-Jack?”

  “His memory lapse is only for his time in England,” Clara explained. “My guess would be he blocked out all memories that were associated with Gung-Ho and went back to a time before he even owned the horse.”

  “Slightly dramatic,” Maven muttered.

  “Shock is a funny thing,” Clara replied. “Let’s face it, it can kill a person. Now, what I am curious about is why Clark left America. Maybe the answer to this mystery lies there.”

  Maven shook his head.

  “You seem to think he talked to me about that. I just hired him to be a gunslinger.”

  “When did you hire him?” Clara asked.

  Maven scratched at his temple.

  “It was during the war. I think maybe 1915 or 16. That was a tricky time for us all. Lots of the men who worked with the fair either signed up or were called up. The rest of us had to get along as best we could. We were a pack of old men and women, trying to bring a little joy and distraction to the folks we performed for.”

  Clara did not ask why Maven had not been called up for the war. He would have been within the age bracket, but that was not her concern and she did not want to interrupt his story.

  “Anyway, I was rather desperate for acts when I came across this cowboy in the docklands of Liverpool. He was shooting bottles for pennies. Getting people to bet on what he could or could not do. I watched him for a bit and realised he was good, very goo
d. Far better than a dockside begging act. So, I asked him what he was about in England, he said he was looking for work but was struggling to find anything that suited his skills – not many bounties or cattle herds to round up over here.

  “I told him I ran a funfair and was looking for a man like him. I needed something different to bring in the visitors, especially with everyone feeling so pinched with the war. He agreed, as long as he could bring his horse. I said that was not a problem and so he joined us.”

  “He was lucky Gung-Ho was not snatched for the war effort,” Clara said, recalling how many horses disappeared to the Front, never to be seen again. So many stables had been seriously depleted by the war, so many hearts broken as cherished steeds and carthorses were purloined for the carnage.

  “Gung-Ho was never going to make it as a war horse,” Maven laughed softly to himself. “The beast had a back problem so he could not be ridden. He performed tricks Clark had taught him. Could count and carry a gun in his mouth. He was more like a dog than a horse to that man.”

  “Did Clark tell you why he had come to England at a time of such turbulence?”

  “I already told you, I knew nothing about his personal life,” Maven had turned sullen. “What did I care why the man was in this country? He just was.”

  Clara knew she was going to get nowhere with Maven. He was either determined not to speak about Clark beyond unimportant facts, or he didn’t know anything. Both options were likely.

  “What about among the funfair staff? Is there anyone who knows Clark well and could tell me anything?”

  “You’ve already met Polly, I think,” Maven gave a sniff. “She certainly knows Clark personally.”

  Clara did not like the edge to Maven’s tone. There was something unsettling about his emphasis, something not nice.

  “She knows no more about his past than you,” Clara told him sternly. “What about people who Clark would consider friends?”

  Maven shrugged.

  “I am not the best person to ask, I don’t keep track of those things, though, if I was going to suggest anyone it would be our coffee seller David. He was always talking to Clark and making him his favourite coffee,” Maven pulled a face. “David is Jewish, you know. I don’t hold prejudices, not prudent in my line of work and I certainly employ a diverse range of folk, but he is a Jew from Poland and there is something just a little sinister about him.”