Chapter 1
Being the foggy remembrances of Jim Horatio Watson, M. D., retired medical officer the Union Army.
In which I begin my medical profession, discover the hell that is war, separate from my place of birth, travel west, find a new place to hang my shingle, meet a very bizarre man, and discover the body of Parson Brown.
1.
In the year of 1860, I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine from Boston University. Fresh with plans of opening my practice in the comfort of the outskirts of Worchester Mass, I found my plans quickly derailed by the pressing events of the times. I had no more attempted to stem the worst of my celebratory hang-over from the night’s wild imbroglio than I discovered a pressing note from my college dean informing me that this year’s cohort was going to pressed into the skirmishes with our southern states.
I had assumed as many of us at the time that my services would be used in the hospitals in the rear supporting our young men and that after an appropriate show of strength the south would forget their foolishness and bow to the powerhouse that was the north.
I was sorely mistaken. My time over the next five years was grueling, exhausting and often bordered on the barbaric. Medicine was practiced with the barest amount of supplies and support. We were moved closer and closer to the front of the action that often I feared that we were the true advancing arm of President Lincoln and General Grant’s plans.
During the time I saw a great toll taken on the men and boys of the north and the south. The casualties were horrific. The tents we set up were quickly packed up at a moment’s notice as one flank of the war moved into our “waiting rooms”.
Amputation was king. Staunching head wounds ran afoul second. Soldiers were moved from the field, to the tents and if the good lord permitted back into the battlefields. At times the muddy floors were awash in blood. The idea of sterilization for the operating “galley” was given up entirely. We took our time while nurses waved scalpels over braziers and we pored some General Grant’s finest over the implements to kill what germs we could before we killed any of the enlisted men.
As the years dragged on, we treated our men as they advanced and those southern stragglers who were attempting to escape the fray. Blue or grey their blood rained the same red. As the third year approached all of our spirits were as strained as ether on gauze. We knew we were in a noble fight, but the witnessing of aftermath the battering of men into pulp does take a toll on a man.
For my part, I supposed myself to be oddly charmed. I had been in the skirmishes for the worst of it, lost any number of friends, colleagues, and nurses and had come out fairly unscathed. I had buried my share of patients in the fields we left behind us, and continued onward, ever onward into the next crimson horizon.
That was until Antidam. September 17th, 1862. We faced General Lee’s men on the shores and the barrage of weaponry was relentless. At the time we had all but thought there were no more men on either side to be lost as there were almost no more men left standing. The day began with anxious revelry and ended with a dirge like taps. And it ended my long streak of surviving this all unharmed.
Stepping away from the surgical tent about dusk my skin as pale as my thoughts a bullet ripped through my leg. I stood there for what felt eternity as the pain registered and then pounded its way into my body. I looked wordlessly to my assistant and watched in dismay as his face exploded from a round that caught him full in his eye. The look that he gave as he toppled haunts me some evenings still. I looked again to my leg – the wound had started to scream again or perhaps that was me.
I looked to the fields and saw the shooter that had hit me. I tried to point at him to god knows who and then the world around me ceased.
I woke again to screams. This time they were not my own. I was in the galley of one of the post-operative tents. Around me the men were bandaged and bleeding. The stench of flesh from amputation’s staunching wafted to my nostrils. As best I could, I reached down to my own leg. Fearing the worst but given cold comfort when I discovered my leg was still there. And next to my bed, beside the leg was a well-carved cane.
The wound had been severe but not life threatening. But as my recovery went on I discovered that I could no longer stand on my own without support. The ache from the wound sliced into my brain and destroyed my ability to ever spend the day’s hours over a surgery table.
With this new reality the northern army in its great wisdom pronounced me a free man. I was able to return to my home, my plans, and my family.
And so, for a brief time I did just that. I and my trusty cane returned to the belly of the beast that was Boston. I went from opportunity to bar stools in a blinding whirlwind.
I found I could no longer take refuge in the quiet Georgian Manse that my parents maintained as at night the pain from my leg cut deep into my sleep and found soft service in my dreams.
After a month my father sat me down and informed me that my stepmother could no longer sleep through my midnight thrashings. He felt bad, but he felt resolute that it was time for me to move on. And so, he pressed a wad of bills into my hands, my severance pay from living under his roof and he bade me well.
“This is not much, but it can give you a start. You’re still a young man and there are years ahead of you.” Yes, years ahead of me as there were for many of my military counterparts who were seeing the turn in the war but not the lessening of the body count.
I took the money dumbfounded. And sought solace in a bottle of bourbon and the streets of Boston.
Near two years later, much of the money was gone, some from the cost of drink and some from my purchase of passage to a settlement venture into Wyoming. “The west!”
When or how I had made this purchase was a haze but with most of my nest egg having flown the coop I had little choice but to follow Horace Greely’s advice.
And so, I went west.
The tale of that journey will be shared at another time.
Right now, my thoughts turn toward the events that lead me to the surroundings of Johnson County and my introduction to a man that changed my life in more ways than that rebel’s bullet ever did.
2.
There is a dustiness to a glass of whisky poured at the ass end of the afternoon when by all rights one should not be in the only saloon on the only “street” of Johnson County, Wyoming. It is a lonely drink. It is a sour drink. It is a welcome drink.
I found myself staring at such a drink at the end of my fifth day in the settlement under the hills. I had traveled near cross country to be as far from the war and my family as my meager income would allow. I had picked this destination in a bar not quite unlike this in Boston one night as I realized my prospects were thin and my blood alcohol was high.
I left the relative comfort of relatives to seek my way in the world or perhaps to hide myself from it. I had imagined that a place such as this was as far as a man can go from his past kith and kin and as I looked up from my drink ready to have it serve its purpose I discovered I couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Jim!” A voice shouted over the palaver of the hoi polloi. A voice that was unnervingly familiar. “Jim Watson! Hoary Christ in Heaven is that you?” A barrel-chested man emerged from the shadows of the card tables. Before I had a chance to down my dusty dram the barrel-chested man came into the light.
“Saunders. Private Saunders?”
Before me was one of my aides in many of the early years of my service. Saunders had grown a reputation as a bit of a weasel. He could find things for us. When medical supplies ran slow he had ways of making sure we were the next stop on the train schedule. When you need a bottle of bourbon, and we were in a dry town, he had an in at an Inn.When someone ended a card game a little short, he was there with a side loan. At a price.
Oh, yes, always at a price.
He was much changed by the years and his distance from the battlefield. When I knew him then he was spry, and slight with a look of desperate anxiety. Now before me was a stout man with bearing and stature of success. The look of a man who might front an old acquaintance a drink. Before he could take another step, I downed my drink, slapped it on the counter and reached out my hand for clasping.
“None of that!”
Saunders grasped me a bearish hug that sent my cane flying. When he put me down I reached out to the bar top for support. Saunders quick as a rat spotted the cane, scooped it up, and proffered it back to me.
“Well, that’s new?”
Saunders glanced a quick look to the bartender and signaled for another round.
The drinks were delivered with well-met grace.
We raised our shots to the sky and down them quick as a rabbit.
“Saunders! What are you doing here of all places?”
Saunders reached to his jacket and brushed it open to reveal on his vest a small tintype badge.
“I’m a Pinkerton!”
For the rest of the evening Sunders unspooled his tale. He had been discharged just after Antidam also. There had been a strange incident in the night involving a patrol dog and a few ladies from the town. Saunders was given a much less than honorable discharge and was happy to turn and run as far as he could. His military training traveled faster than his reputation and Saunders found himself hired by the Pinkerton Agency to work as security for the Assay Offices in Bend, Montana.
Things went well and soon he found himself travelling on assignments, riding stagecoaches, travelling in payroll trains, and occasionally resting in far off saloons such as the one we were in.
When he finished I gave him the much-edited version of my own trajectory. I used the cane for punctuating salient points and then slapped my hand down to the bar to mark my conclusion. I reached for the shot glass but discovered it was empty.
“Another?” I asked. I honestly reached for my wallet but slowly giving Saunders the chance as besting me.
“Mine again!”
He pointed the two poor empties and they were off and filled for us.
These we sipped slowly, relishing the end of the day and the end of our tales.
“So, here I am in the furthest backwater part of Wyoming, thinking I would never see any of the old past and here you are. This is great! You’ll have to show me around!”
With that he paused for the first time since we had reunited.
“I actually have been here for a few months but I am leaving soon…”
He scratched his massive expanse. He let out a sigh.
“Listen…” He turned to look the bar over. “I might have a proposition for you. Something that might be good for you, might not though, but it might help me out of a spot.”
I edged forward with my stool.
“Is it legal?”
“Are you crazy! That part of my life is far behind me.” He looked around. “Well sort of far.”
He licked his lips for his next pause.
“Listen, you are new here, right?”
I nodded.
“I can’t imagine you have any set lodgings yet?”
“No, I have been staying above the saloon here looking for a place. Why?”
“Well, perhaps we can help each other out.”
He scratched again. Lice?
“I have a room, just at the edge of the town here. I rented it for the next few months. I can’t get out of it at this point. And perhaps you can take it….”
“Of course!”
“Wait! It isn’t all puppy dogs and pasties. There is another boarder and he….”
He signaled for a last round.
“He’s a bit of an odd feller. A photographer. At least that’s what he says is his trade. He has a lot of equipment, and uses the extra room for developing. I can’t say I have ever seen him take pictures… but… well… maybe you can take on my share until you get settled?”
“That would be incredible!”
“You haven’t met him yet.”
3.
The next morning, I found myself a little worse for wear and tear but heading towards the edge of the last few buildings on the main road. The sun had rendered the day in bright screaming yellows and browns. The dirt below my feet felt as if it had given up on trying to settle into the earth and was just there to be blown away by the next ill-wind or tramping stranger.
I had put on my boots that I had purchased at the start of the week. The dry goods seller said they were as close to my size as we were going to see until winter supplies came in. I had a bit of extra cloth shoved in the front but I could feel the blisters on my good foot and grimaced with each step.
Hudson House.
I had no idea at the time how much this ramshackle two-story dwelling would figure into my future. At this point my memories of it are bittersweet. I can still see the structure caving in on itself from the fire. But that was more than a decade or so into the future.
That morning, it was Shangri-La and a pigsty battling out to see who would stand at the end.
Saunders was sitting on the porch picking his teeth with what appeared to be a hunting knife. He was determined in his efforts. So much so that I was almost directly upon him before he seemed to realize I was approaching.
“Jim…” He sheathed the knife in vest housing. When his jacket closed It disappeared.
“That was some night!” He stood up dusted off the street from his pants.
“He’s not in directly but I can show you aroun’ to see what you think.”
What I thought was I had little or no choices. This was going to be my abode for the foreseeable future.
Saunders lead the way to the second floor. On the hallway there were two main doors. One marked A and the other B.
“You both will share this side. There is a…”
The door swung open to reveal a great room that was cluttered with furniture, photography equipment, and old burnished stove.
Saunders waived to the left. “Three rooms here. This is my old one those two belong to Sherlock.”
“Sherlock? What sort of name is that?”
“Haven’t a clue. Odd feller, odd name. Family thing I wonder?”
On the wall next to Sherlock’s door there were a collection of photographs. Some with chalk or grease pen circles and arrows. One had a clear Exclamation Point over on the one of the subject’s faces. Another was covered with Question Marks. Grizzly scenes. Corpses on table mid dissection, what appeared to be crime scenes, and odd portraits done with no beauty, but they were impossible to look away from.
“He’s a photographer… Where does sell his…?”
“Some to our local paper. Some he says to a publisher in the east.”
“That’s the saloon keep isn’t it?”
I pointed to one of a scraggly man with a lazy left eye. His bread was patchy. His mouth was open in a drawl more than a smile. The backdrop was the saloon wall. The details of bullet holes could be seen in the patterns of the wood. The overall impression was that of a bumbler, a ne’er-do-well.
“That’s Lestrade. He is also what passes for law here. He’s fine. Not too much to count on if the chips go really sour, but he will do in a pinch.” The voice came out of the closed rooms. The door opened and Sherlock Holmes stepped into the main room.
First impressions. There is so much said about these. I don’t know now if my memory of Sherlock’s first appearance is tainted by the shock of him surprising us or tainted by the shadow of the future Holmes I grew to know.
But let me begin.
Before me, a man stood framed inadequately by the doorway. He was tall, lanky, downright scrawny. He has somewhat the odd scarecrow in his demeanor and physicality. He filled his clothes with little sense of style or sense at all. He had a pronounced nose and two dark peering eyes. He stepped into the room a took it in with his view.
From his stature he called to mind our recently past president. Perhaps more in his death than his life. He seemed to be a frail man, but that was a false perception on my part. He was more of mountain cat, perhaps long between meals, but never off his game.
For lack of a better notion I proffered my hand in greeting. It floated… unnoticed?
“Saunders. I am to assume that you are leaving Hudson House and Dr. Watson here is meant to be your replacement.”
“I am Doctor Watson.”
I stammered it out before realizing he knew my name?
“I think that much has already been established.”
“Have we met?”
Sherlock moved into the room and shuffled through Saunders’ day bag lying on the table.
“Not formally but I have been aware of your presence for the last few days.”
Sherlock pulled out and old magnifying glass from Saunders’ pack.
“This is mine. You do remember I leant it to you. Not gave it.”
Saunders adjusted himself as he stood and nodded his head. In just the briefest of flashes I could see the look of Private Saunders caught before his superiors in a most uncomfortable picadillo.
“My mistake.” He took the bag back from Sherlock. Then leaned it back to him.
“Did you want to look any further?”
“I have already searched it from seam to seam.”
Before I could awkwardly lower my hand, Holmes took it in a firm grasp. He looked me over in a keen way. His eyes took me in as a scientific inventory then his eyes rested on mine. I felt naked for the moment.
“An ex-military man. The Union of course. Well-chosen on your part. Though that was more a matter of random geographic chance than political leanings. Wounded in the war. Perhaps Gettysburg…” he looked at my eyes… “No Antidam. Thank you for the correction.”
“I said nothing!”
“But your eyes said everything!”
From his room Saunders shouted. “Don’t! Don’t EVER! Play cards with the man!”
Saunders returned from his room with a large valise and a well-traveled case.
“I see you have been through these also?” He set the bags by the doors. “He doesn’t exactly cheat but he has an odd way of knowing what cards you are holding.”
“They won’t let me play in the saloon anymore. I am not so much insulted as put out finically. It did help pay the bills.”
“And does your photography keep you afloat?” I looked at the man and tried my own game of his cold stare.
He laughed it off.
“No, my brother sends me a monthly allotment, enough to keep body and soul apart and more importantly brother from brother.”
The comment hung there as uncomfortable as a horse thief’s body from a maple tree. I looked the room over to abort the pregnant pause and spotted a violin? “You play?”
“On occasion.”
Saunders guffawed and returned to his room for his other effects.
“The town cur howls at midnight to join him, or stop him in his efforts. If you are a lover of music. I am afraid I may be doing you a huge mis service.”
“I don’t mind.” I picked up the violin, in a roomful of dust and clutter its polish shone.
Sherlock took the instrument from me and returned it by the music stand.
“Italian made. Fine craftsmanship, much unlike the things you might hear caterwauling at the Lame Pony.
Sherlock looked Saunders over and then returned to me.
“Dr. James Watson.”
“Jim!”
“Of course… you have been in town mayhaps five days. You are staying in the floors above the Lame Pony and you are here to take over young Saunders squat?”
“Yes, amazing… I don’t know how you knew?”
“Oh, please it is a small town, and news here travels like dysentery.”
He glanced at my cane.
“Of course not. And you probably have few choices other than these rooms. Mrs. Hudson keeps a fine boarding house. The best in all of the county. At this point the only one in the county. And you probably have grown tired of the rooms above the saloon. Though not its whisky…”
“I…”
Sunders pulled his satchel to the doorway. He made noise enough and dust enough to mark the movement. “You’ll soon discover Holmes here is a master at play. He likes his little tricks. Tell you things about you that bamboozle you at first.”
Saunders reached into his breast pocket and glanced at his watch.
“They’re all parlor tricks. I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t what got him chased out of the east and into our little peace o heaven here under the big sky.”
“Parlor tricks!” Sherlock reached over and took Saunders watch. “You’ve been cheating at cards again. You found yourself a little ahead just in time for the stage. You...” Holmes turned the watch over in his hands and lifted up in the air, “ Lost the picture that was once kept in the spring load here?” Sherlock watched the man squirm, “Not lost! But taken back!”
Sherlock handed the watch back. “There is no tale so sad as that of the lost claim as to that of lost love. Was she aware of your affections?”
“you’ve no right to ask these questions? And who has been talking to you?”
Saunder preferred the watch back into a chest pocket. His hand rested there for the assurance of its presence.
“Parlor tricks! And Falderol! You had best keep your life a secret round this one Jim. My appoligies on this arrancement.”
Suanders fled to his room and returned with his last bags. “I will be gone for a fortnight, but back again to check on you when I return Jim.
He shook my hand but not as strong as the night before. It seemed an enternity but then he offered it to Sherlock.
“Well Saunders,” Sherlock took his hand, “It has been an experience that I am certain we are both pleased has passed.”
And with that Saunders left Hudson House and pushed past Sherlock pushing him out of his way.
Sherlock looked to me, “You can move your effects in this afternoon.”
“Yes, there is not much, a few books, assundries and such. I travel light. I think I have put my past behind me with as little attachments as possible.”
Sherlock turned again to me. “Except the cane, a gift I see.”
“How the Devil did you know that?”
Sherlock laughed. “Simple parlor games f mine. You see I think of myself of a grand observer of life. I take things in and look at them each way.” He picked up the magnifying glass. Turned it in his hands. “Look at the world through a lense sharply to see what its little details can tell us.” He reached out for the cane. “My I?”
I gave it over and leaned against a couch to steady myself.
Sherlock took the cane and pulled up the glass. Searching it over.
“You see life has a way of leaving marks on an object. In the west life wears its elements into a man leaving a pst history that can be read if one looks closely.
He threw the cane back to me.“Much like Saunders watch. If you looked closely you can see the slight markings of our local pawn shopman on it. A mark for each time it has been left there and a cross for each time it has been returned. Saunders has been in money trouble as of late. That is why he has syou taking over his commitment here. But suddenly he has the fortune enough to regain his watch before his travels. The fresh cross mark lets me know he has been to our pawn offices.”
Sherlock motioned to facing chairs and we sat.
“I have had the opportunity to glance at Saunder’s watch before and therefore was able to spot the missing factor of the portrait of a young lady. And now its absence. From that the inference of a love gone sour. She did not look like his dear old mum.”
“Astounding!”
“The most common place’ Life leaves it marks and I read them.”
“Like my cane? You knew it was a gift?”
“I look at your garb now. Shoes a size too large, an old vest that has seen more than a few nights sleeping across a desk. Worn creases just at your chest height. Your trousers are well made – east coast proper. The dust and wear from your boots will be harsh on them. They will be lost out here in our little town. All of these things well-made but not spectacular. But your cane…”
He looked at it again. “To call it well made would be an insult to its craftsman. The enamel band, fine ash stock, the well worn but sturdy handle. These are the tale of care in its choice, expense in its purchase, and dare I say purpose in its presence. This was the gift of a woman that meant quite a bit to you, though you meant more to her. You use it now to steady your way in this world, but. Abit more thatn that.”
Sherlock’s stare into my eyes felt like a small attack.
“I have made you uncomfortable. Not my intention, but the unfortunate mark that I leave on this word.”
There was a noise down from the first floor. A brusk man’s voice countered by a woman’s stern demands.
He handed me back my cane.
“Are you quite able to get about much on it?”
“Yes, why?”
There was more clatter as passage was made up the wooden stairs.
“I believe my services are going to be called for.” He reached over to a large camera. “And perhaps your medical expertise might come in handy this morning.”
The door opened and Lestrade, breathing far too heavy for the small effort of the stairs paused at the door.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade gasped in and tried to hold himself in the door jamb. “I see you are ready with your camera… and you have company?”
Sherlock grabbed a tripod it was fixed to a unique harness, he slung it to his back.
“Lestrade, is there any need of hurry or has poor Parson Brown delivered his last sermonette?”
Lestrade moved from the door frame to a chair.
“How did you hear? I can’t imagine who coulda told you? The good Parson is dead. Stabbed! Through his gut! A terrible thing… But how did you hear?”
“It is not what I heard but what I did not hear.”
Sherlock went to the mantle and wound an ornate shelf clock.
He glanced to me, “More parlor tricks.” He dusted the glass.
“It is now 9:45. I have been up since dawn and have noticed two distinct things.”
Sherlock moved to the window and pulled back the curtains. In the street a small gathering of the town’s elders peppered the courtyard of the church.
“At exactly 9:00 am I became aware of a certain stillness in the trees near Saint Luke’s. You can still see a flock of starlings in the top branches. And, most importantly I did not hear the morning bells call to services.”
Sherlock adjusted his pack.
“A most welcome break from the clatter, but a curious one too. My assumption was something has befallen our man of the cloth, and that crowd below,” pointing to the smattering of elders, “Confirmed that fetless faithful will remain unsaved this morning.”
Chapter 2
In which we learn more about the Parson, a proper tour of town is made, Lestrade asks for further help, and Watson purchases a gun.
We made our way to the churchyard. Lestarde in the lead. As we approached to gaggle of faithful outside the church he engaged them and did his best to send them on their way.
“This church has a troubled history in the own.” Sherlock looked over the town proper.
There was one main street that had set up with the requirements for a settlement to face the cold winter coming. A dry goods, store, delevieries came by coach, a smith’s shop from which you could hear the clatter of hammer against anvil, the saloon, never empty, a two-floor building looming against the flattened horizon, a assay’s office, a combination post office, bank, and pawn shop, and Falfinger and Whiting’s gun shop.
There was no sheriff’s office yet. Lestrade split his days from the saloon to taking care of local matters as they came up. Justice was handled as required. This was a town with a boot hill for those that over stayed their welcome here.
Sherlock looked to the bell tower of Saint Luke’s He seemed to be measuring something in his mind. Then as if he realized he was down the wrong path shook his head and looked to the tree of birds near the tower.
Lestrade took one of the elder women in a caring embrace. He whispered something in her ears. She moaned and the shivered visibly before breaking away from Lestrade
