AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s not a widely known fact,” Phinton Kulp replied, and this was also true.
“Then what’s it to you?” she asked him flatly.
“Nothing at all. It’s as you said before, ‘A lady has to eat. ’ But there must be a less dangerous way for a woman of your notoriety to keep herself in skirts and furs. ” He retreated several inches, giving her both more breathing room and yet, cause for a little more worry.
“My state of employment is no concern of yours,” she told him.
And he said, “You’re right. But you can’t blame me for being curious, and you might want to treat interested strangers with less defensiveness. Pinkerton has operatives and informants from coast to coast, you know; and it won’t serve your purposes very well to send them trundling off to their seats, as if they’re naughty children caught under the tree before Christmastime. There are networks in place, alliances and allegiances to be balanced. Not everyone loves the Pinkerton name—even among those who sometimes serve it. ”
She guessed, “You’re no operative. ”
“At this time, you are correct. But I’m still a useful man to know—even Mr. Pinkerton will tell you that, if you ask him. ”
“How convenient for you, that he isn’t present to interrogate on the subject. ”
“On the contrary, I’d be pleased to see him, if only to see you set at ease with his reassurances. It must be difficult,” he said, keeping his voice low and now adding a bit of warning to it—a dash of sinister seasoning that Maria filed away for future reference. “Being a woman of your reputation, traveling alone, working in a man’s field in which you have absolutely no experience. ”
“It isn’t so different from spying,” she insisted.
“From one point of view, I suppose not,” he agreed. “But between North and South you had only one enemy. Adversaries and cohorts might have doubled their roles, or blurred them, but at the end of the day you had only one authority to thwart and dodge. Wearing a Pinkerton shield, you’ll find things are more complicated. Pinkerton wages dozens of tiny wars, all at once, all across the territories. Working for him…it’s a dangerous calling, if you could call it that. ”
“That sounds like a threat. ”
“It’s no such thing,” he promised. “Only an observation buttressed by a friendly suggestion, proposed by a concerned traveler who knows a little too well how hard this road is for a man—much less a magnolia like yourself. ”
She snorted, and while making a show of making herself more comfortable, she reached for the derringer she always kept loaded in her smallest bag. “And toting secrets under threat of jail and hanging—that was a day at the park, picking flowers. Now if I may be so bold as to offer you a bit of advice, Mr. Kulp, then here you have it: There are people in this world who steadfastly refuse to understand anything unless it’s couched in terms of violence. In my experience, it is most expedient to simply accommodate them. ”
“Expedient?”
“You may as well communicate in the language they best understand. ”
Neither his spectacles nor his fist could hide the sly expression he assumed when he replied, “Does that mean you intend to shoot me, the very moment you get your hand wrapped around the gun in your bag?”
“I intend to think about it. And you clearly think you’re quite clever, anticipating me like that, but I think it only makes you moderately well read. ”
“Both of the biographical pieces I’ve seen on the subject of the South’s most notorious spy did mention that you never travel unarmed, it’s true. And let me assure you, I don’t plan to press my luck on the point. ”
Without bothering to note the gratuitous flattery, much less address it, she asked, “Does that mean you’re ready to leave me alone?”
“It means,” he said, removing the spectacles and wiping them on a handkerchief he pulled from a pocket, “That I’m reasonably satisfied that Pinkerton knows what he’s doing, and I’ll pass the word along. ”
“Pass word…to whom?”
He didn’t answer, except to gather himself up and stretch, and begin a sideways shuffle back into the aisle. Then he said, “I hope your flight is a pleasant one, Belle Boyd, and send my regards to Mr. Rice when you see him. ” He pinched the front of his hat in a tiny gesture that barely passed for a tip, and he returned to his spot at the front of the seating area without another word.
Maria almost called out after Phinton Kulp with demands for explanations, but doing so would’ve openly declared that he’d rattled her so she restrained herself. She settled back in the seat, drawing her shoulders away from the cold wall and window; and she kept her hand inside the purse—on the single-shot back-up plan that had saved her more than once before.
And between her bouts of uncertainty, her concerns about her fellow passengers, and the idle second thoughts that perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea after all, she slept off and on.
All the way to Jefferson City.
5
Halliway Barebones swore on a stack of gold-paged Bibles that his hotel was booked to the hilt, with nary a room to spare for his three visitors. He apologized to the point of groveling, and pointed them towards a ramshackle, three-story establishment a few blocks away. According to Barebones, they shouldn’t meet any trouble—for Indians, Chinamen, and free Negroes were routinely served there without incident, and the hotel owner was correct on that point.
The accommodations were not first class, but they were not last class either; and although Hainey knew good and well that Barebones had been lying when he professed no vacancy, he didn’t make half the stink about it that he might have, given different circumstances. The captain was exhausted beyond words, and more to the point, Simeon and Lamar were half dead on their feet. Hainey might push h
imself past the bounds of reason, health, and good sense, but he couldn’t impose any further obligation on his men.
