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“No guns.”
—
Humble’s hotels were jam-packed, and the rooming houses were stifling, but Texas Walt had rustled up clean rooms above a stable. They sluiced off the dust of the long, hot day in horse troughs and headed back to the Toppling Derrick where, earlier, Bell had tipped generously to guarantee a table for supper.
They passed the fairground on the way. The suffragist rally had dispersed, and a crowd of the oil field hands camping there was carousing under tarpaulins that sheltered a board-on-barrels saloon. Off to one side, Bell spotted a familiar-looking wall tent pitched beside a buckboard wagon. A black iron pot was suspended over a cook fire.
“Walt, you may be dining alone.”
Drawing near the tent, he heard her typewriter clattering. He knocked on the post. She kept typing like a Gatling gun. But the canvas flew open and out stepped a slim young woman with short, wispy chestnut hair, bright eyes, and a brighter smile. Her voice rang.
“If you’re not Isaac Bell, my sister’s famed descriptive powers have deserted her.”
She thrust out her hand.
“Nellie Matters. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
Bell swept his hat off his head, took her delicate fingers in his, and stepped close. When he had seen Nellie through binoculars, he had thought of her features as less fine than her sister’s. But with only inches between them, her resemblance to Edna was stronger. She had the same gray-green eyes, the same silken hair, the same beautiful nose. All that seemed magnified were her expressive eyebrows and fuller lips.
“I was hoping you would return to earth,” he said.
“Only briefly.”
The typing stopped. Edna called, “Invite him to supper.”
“Does he like varmint stew?”
“It’s not varmint stew. It’s jackrabbit.”
“I love jackrabbit,” said Bell. “One of you must be quite a shot.”
Nellie laughed. “Not exactly. Edna blasted them with her .410. We’ll be cracking teeth on buckshot.”
Edna emerged from the tent, and Bell’s first thought was that Nellie was gorgeous, an utterly beautiful woman, but there was something about Edna—her stillness and her steady gaze—that blocked the breath in his throat.
She said, “We’ll chew carefully. How are you, Mr. Bell?”
“Happy to see you. What brings you to Humble?”
“Same thing that brought you, I’d imagine. C. C. Gustafson.”
“Are you reporting for the Derrick?”
She did not answer directly, saying instead that C. C. Gustafson was a good friend and an important source for her research.
Nellie asked whether he was investigating the shooting.
“Mr. Gustafson doesn’t remember much.”
Edna said, “His memory is returning. He told me that the day before he was shot he had heard that Big Pete Straub arrived on the train.”
Nellie laughed. “Mr. Bell, you really ought to hire my sister to assist in your investigation.”
Bell kept to himself that Gustafson had already told him that and said, “I reckon Edna’s too busy—and far too expensive—but what a nice coincidence you find yourselves here together.”
“We often travel together,” said Nellie. “Particularly to places like this where a woman’s better off not alone.” A nod indicated the tarpaulin saloon, where the men were getting loud. “Two women are somewhat m
ore formidable than one girl on her own, don’t you think?”
