Martin Greenberg - Sherlock Holmes In America

“At any rate, you’re far more likely to find him in Robertson’s than in the Marshal’s office,” he told us.

“Robertson’s?” asked Holmes.

“A sort of private club,” sniffed our host. “The fumes! We are teetotal here, you understand.”

Holmes looked troubled. “When you say fumes, Mr. Smith, do you mean alcoholic?”

“That too, I fear!” tsked Smith. “But chiefly tobacco! Quite forbidden!”

“Oh dear!” said Holmes, turning pale. “I hadn’t realized… but at any rate, Mr. Smith, we really must make the acquaintance of this officer, so may we beg you to direct us to this den of infamy. We shall steel ourselves in the name of duty.”

“I can’t corrupt a servant by sending one with you to that sort of place.” Smith shook his head. “But if you must go, I’ll draw you a map.”

When Holmes and I were admitted to the club (production of our pipes at the doorway being equivalent to an occult handshake, we discovered), I had trouble at first adjusting my eyes to the dim light within. I don’t know why I was surprised that the place was not dissimilar to an English club, or that an enquiry to the first person we happened to encounter-yet another Englishman, a Yorkshireman-brought us to Ames, who we discovered to be taller than Holmes, and wearing a frock coat that would have passed in London, but with his trousers stuffed into high riding boots. He had an aquiline face, which, again, curiously resembled that of my friend, save that his windblown tan was evident even in the subdued light. With his shoulder-length, rather greasy hair and drooping moustache, he put me in mind of some of the Afghans I’d known in my service days.

But when he spoke, his voice was pure Yankee prairie. “Glad to meet you gents,” he said, wringing our hands with that excruciating American force to which I never became accustomed. “Schmitt wired me, and I reckon I can help you ’prise Tom Dennis outen his roost, but the jurisdiction may be kind of tricky.”

“Really?” said Holmes, lighting the cigar Ames had offered him.

“You see,” the Marshal continued, “we’re in the City of Salt Lake, but also the County of Salt Lake, and of course the Territory of Utah. Now, of course I’m a Deputy United States Marshal, so I can collar the boy anywhere, theoretically.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that ‘theoretically,’” said Holmes. “This is an excellent cigar.”

“Thanks, I get ’em made special and brought through the Isthmus. The problem is that we’re also in the Country of the Saints, and President Taylor is King over Israel on the Earth, and just about every municipal, county, territorial, and federal officer is also one of Taylor’s faithful… Now, I’m not sayin’ they have divided loyalties, but there is just a bit of bad feelin’s between the Feds and the Church right now.”

“Very bad?” I asked.

“Just a tad,” he admitted. “What with Washington trying to make them give up their plural wives and their church property and all… So we’ll have to tread easy.”

“But you will help us apprehend Dennis?” Holmes asked.

“Oh, my pleasure,” Ames assured him, downing what looked like a double whisky. “Apparently, your boy is engaged in movin’ some kind of contraband between here and Wyoming.”

I must have looked a little dubious.

“Oh, it ain’t far,” he said. “It’s just over them mountains to the northeast-you must’ve noticed ’em. There’s an easy trail for a good horseman-I used to ride it myself when I was in the Pony Express with Cody and Hickock.”

This caught my attention. “Good Lord!” I cried. “You mean those chaps in the little soft-covered novels I’ve been buying in the train stations all along our route? I never dreamed they were real people.”

“Oh, they’re realer than most,” he chuckled. “Leastwise, Bill Hickock used to be-damn fool fergot to sit with his back to the wall in Deadwood, a few years back. But I guess those dime novels keep him alive, and they’re good publicity for Bill Cody-you might try ’em yourself, in your line of work, Mr. Holmes, bein’ a sort of freelancer as you are.”

Holmes made an expression of distaste. “I hope, Watson,” he told me, “that you shall never contemplate such yellow puffery in my behalf, despite your tendency to take notes. But Marshal, do I understand you to suggest that this ‘collar’ will best be fastened somewhere outside the city, along this route you mention?”

“It’d sartainly keep the paperwork simpler,” Ames chuckled. “I’d like to do ’er in one of the mountain passes better than in the middle of the desert, too… Don’t want to give ’im a long view of our approach, y’understand. What kind of riders are you gents?”

“I’m afraid the Holmeses had left off being country gentlefolk by my time,” deprecated my companion, “but I fancy I can sit a horse adequately to our purposes.”

“And horsemanship was one thing I acquired in Afghanistan besides a Jezail bullet,” I added modestly. “It was no jest riding in those mountains, either.”

“Especially when slung bottom-foremost in the saddle by your orderly!” laughed Holmes. “At least your acquaintance with our four-legged friends is not limited to the wrong end of a bookmaker’s tally-sheet!”

“Really, Holmes!” I replied. “I wouldn’t have thought that a pint of beer would make you so merry! It must be the thin air at this elevation. I’m surprised the Mormons allow this much alcohol to be served here, too.”

“Actually, they don’t,” admitted Ames, glancing about somewhat furtively as he drained another glass of his own. “It may well be that this is the sort of contraband that no-good Dennis is runnin’. Natcherly, I’m prepared to do my duty and put a stop to it, even if the rascal is performin’ a public service.”

So that, reader, is how I found myself encamped under the stars with Ames and Holmes.

“Don’t move,” hissed the motionless Holmes to the Marshal. “Watson! Have you got your service revolver?”

But I was too late. Even as I was shifting for my weapon, the snake-a spotted Massasauga rattler, we later confirmed-struck Ames’s heel, and my shot an instant later tore off its evil head, but was out of time.

The three of us knew well enough how to deal with poisonous snake bites, and I had not outgrown the habit of carrying my medical bag everywhere, so we were easily able to save his life. But there was no question now of the Marshal riding the mountain trail in pursuit of Dennis.

“It’ll be about all I can do to get back to town to the hospital, I reckon,” he lamented. “Your boy will be over the border in Wyoming by the time I can get an officer detailed to you. Damn sorry! But no doubt Dennis’ll make another contraband run sometime soon, he ’ppears to have gotten latched onto a going operation.”

Holmes did not relish a delay, and I doubted our financial benefactress would approve it, either. “Could you not describe the route to us, Marshal,” asked Holmes, “so Dr. Watson and I could secure Dennis on our own?”

Ames chewed his moustache and grimaced, either from the tourniquet we’d applied or the quandary we’d presented. “Well, the way is easy enough to see-bein’ an old Pony Express trail,” he mused. “And I s’pose I could deputize you; you ain’t Americans, but that’s never made much never-mind in this territory. But I still don’t care for it much.”

“Why not?” cried Holmes.

“You have to understand, we were cuttin’ things mighty fine to begin with. We had to wait for the dawn because this trail is so durn precipitous some places that it would be risky even for an experienced rider in the dark. And shoot! Now that the sun’s up, we’ve wasted so much time with this snake folderol that you’d have to do a Pony Express race just to catch up with Dennis before he crosses the border! And frankly, I’m fearful you gents might come to harm tryin’ to go full-out ’round these mountains, unescorted-like.”