“Like Americans wear,” the boy says. “The ones in books. With horses.”
“Cowboys?”
“Yes!” The little one says. “Cowboys and Indians! Like in the book Dorrit found. The brave cowboys who save the pretty girls from the savages.”
I open my mouth. Shut it. Consider. There are times in this world when I need to refrain from what I would otherwise say. And, damn it, that’s hard, especially when it’s children. I take a moment and then can’t stop myself from saying something, however careful.
“I know someone from the Americas,” I say. “And they would point out that the native people were there first. What you read in books might seem like a grand adventure, but everyone spins a story the way they want, which might not be the truth.”
“Like this.” Dorrit waves the chapbook. “It says you faint and you hardly do any work, and that’s not true.”
“Right. So, about the man who took Bobby. You say he had a funny necktie. There’s a thing cowboys wear, called a bandanna, that they tie around their neck.”
“Yes! Just like that. Men wear them sometimes for work, but his looks like the ones in the cowboy stories, and his hat is like that, too.”
I look at Annie, who shrugs. “It sounds like someone I would remember, but I haven’t seen him.”
“Because he only just started coming to the kirkyard,” Dorrit says. “We’ve only seen him a few times, and we noticed because he dresses funny. Then he tried to take Bobby.”
“What?”
The little one nods fiercely. “He tried to call Bobby away. Brought meat to lead him off. Only Bobby wouldn’t go. He didn’t like the man. We told the day watchman, but he only grumbled and said he wished the dog had gone. He said people are always trying to lead Bobby off, and the dog is too stubborn to go.”
“It is true,” Annie says. “People do try to adopt the poor thing, but he’ll have none of it.”
“When did this happen?” I ask Dorrit.
“The day before Bobby disappeared.”
Chapter Ten
Dorrit gives me everything she remembers about the man, and the others add in their recollections, but beyond the Stetson and bandanna, their memories differ. He was about twenty. No, thirty. Twenty-five? Dark hair. No, medium-brown. No, reddish-brown. Average height? A little shorter than other men. Really tall.
I note it all and mark which observations come from Dorrit, who seems most likely to be correct. In the end, though, I suspect the hat and bandanna will get us further than anything else.
Gray arrives while we’re going over the details. He removes the festering splinter, and cleans the wound, and commends the boy on his bravery, disregarding the tears shining in the child’s eyes at the pain. Then he wraps the finger and gives him fresh bandages, but Dorrit takes those, saying she’ll keep them safe, and there’s something said about his mother, a vague comment that has me thinking if she found the bandages, she might try to sell them.
These aren’t orphans or street kids, then. They have families, of a sort. My impression is that Dorrit has the best, but she lives alone with her mother, who works long hours. There’s no father in the picture. Between the mention of her mother having been a governess—which suggests she came from a good family—and her mother’s warning about “fine gentlemen,” I can make some guesses about what led to her mother doing factory work in the Old Town and raising a child alone. That is, horrifyingly, the fate of too many young women in service.
We make sure the kids get their sweets, though I’m sure Gray saved a few for himself. He also pays them for their help and asks whether we can contact them through Annie if we need more. They all readily agree. Then it’s time for us to go and find ourselves a cowboy.
“So, cowboys in Scotland,” I muse as we leave the kirkyard. “How common is that?”
Gray peers at me. “Is that, as you call it, a trick question?”
“Does it sound like one?”
He holds the gate open for me as I walk through. “There are certainly farmhands who work with highland cattle, but we do not refer to them as cowboys.” He nods. “Ah. You were asking whether they dress like American ones. They do not.”
“Actually, no. Good point, but I meant Americans in Edinburgh wearing traditional cowboy attire like Stetsons and bandannas.”
“With lariats over their shoulder? Spurs on their boots? A six-gun at their side?”
“Six guns. They come in pairs.” I pantomime drawing two guns. “Yer money or yer life.”
A passerby gives us a little more room, and Gray shakes his head.
