Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith Page B

until I’d described those gals’ every hair, tooth, and dimple ten times over. When I finally hauled myself up into my bunk, my jaw was throbbing from overwork.
    As the other hands settled in for the night, I tried to make use of the quiet and dark that settled over the bunkhouse to focus my thoughts. I meant to puzzle out the meaning behind Old Red’s remark, but that
focus
I was aiming for kept straying elsewhere—onto Lady Clara. I’d worked so hard to construct her image for the boys, it was now burned into my brain like a brand. After a while, I stopped fooling myself. The only thinking I was going to do just then was about her. I affixed my mind to the lady’s likeness in my last waking moments, hoping she would do me the kindness of visiting me in my dreams.
    Whether she did or she didn’t I don’t know, since I can never recall what I’ve been dreaming if I’m startled awake. And that’s exactly what happened the next morning.
    Just after dawn, I was jolted from my slumber by the sound of gunfire.

Thirteen
THE DUDE
    Or, The VR Gains a Hand More Fit for Kid Gloves
    T all John’s bunk was closest to the door, so he had his head poked outside before the gunshot’s echo had even died away.
    â€œWho or what in the hell is that?” he said.
    In a flash, five more bodies were pressed up against the doorway. What we saw outside was straight out of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.
    By the nearest corral was the most prettified cowboy I’d ever laid eyes on. His knee-high boots were sky blue with white stars. Tucked neatly into the boot tops was a pair of fringed buckskin trousers around which was slung at the waist a jet-black two-gun holster. Above that the man wore a buckskin pullover with an eagle done in red and blue beads across the back. Around his neck was a red silk bandanna and on his head a tall-domed ten-gallon hat so pure white it looked like a snowcap atop some distant, rainbow-streaked mountain.
    And in his hand was a shiny silver peacemaker, smoke still slithering from the barrel. There seemed to be nothing around for the fellow to be shooting, and after a moment it became clear that’s exactly whathis target was—nothing. He held up the gun and stared at it, in apparent surprise that such doodads would make loud noises and emit fire and fumes and nuggets of lead.
    As the man’s profile came into view, Tall John, Swivel-Eye, and myself chuckled in chorus.
    â€œI’ll be damned,” I said. “That’s Young Brackwell.”
    â€œHe’s gussied up more than a twenty-dollar whore,” Anytime said.
    â€œWhat kind of stock you think a hand like that would work?” Tall John asked. “Poodles?”
    â€œI’d like to see his saddle,” Swivel-Eye added. “I bet it’s purple velvet stuffed with swan feathers.”
    â€œToo bloody right,” Crazymouth threw in, “ ‘e’s a Christmas caboose served as bangers and mash, and no one what knows ‘is bum from his ooh-me-little-thumb is apt to be fooled by it.”
    A silence followed while we tried to dig the meaning out of this remark. But the man who spoke next didn’t offer a translation or yet another funny aimed at Brackwell.
    â€œStrange that Uly and his boys ain’t takin’ note of this,” my brother said. He was looking at the McPhersons’ bunkhouse, the doorway of which was surprisingly free of giggling cowboys.
    â€œI don’t think they’re around,” Swivel-Eye said. “I heard ‘em up and about extra early. Sounded like the whole gaggle pulled out half an hour ago.”
    Old Red cocked an eyebrow at me, the meaning of which I didn’t grasp until he hopped into his britches, walked out of the bunkhouse, and headed for Brackwell.
    When the cat’s away
. . ., he’d been saying.
    I sighed and set off after him, dressing myself on the run. Once it had been