Free The Case of the Deadly Desperados by Caroline Lawrence

Walt knocked an old lady’s prayer book from her hand he would most likely chop off your nose. Imagine what he would do if you accused him of bloody murder. Why, he would whittle us both up for kindling!”
    â€œBut it is a Scoop, Dan,” said Sam Clemens. “A veritable, bona fide Scoop.”
    Dan De Quille looked at me. “What is your name?”
    â€œP.K.,” I said. “Though my foster ma used to call me Pinky. That is short for Pinkerton.”
    â€œP.K., are you certain Walt does not know you witnessed this crime?”
    I said, “I am sure. He is after me because he wants that Letter and he suspects I have it. He does not know I witnessed the crime and he does not know what I look like. But he knows I sometimes go by the name of Pinky and he knows that I am twelve years old. That is why I am in disguise.”
    Dan De Quille turned to Sam Clemens & said, “If we print that article, then Walt will know that P.K. was a witness. We may as well sign this poor child’s death certificate right here and now.”

Ledger Sheet 17
    DAN DE QUILLE PUT ON HIS HAT. “I am going to tell the Marshal to ride down to Temperance and tell people there not to start another war with the Paiutes. Sam, will you stay here with P.K.? The Marshal might want to question him before he leaves. But don’t you print anything until I say so.”
    He hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.
    I looked at Sam Clemens & he looked at me.
    Then he heaved a deep sigh & sat down. “Well,” he said, “as my hopes of a Scoop have been dashed upon the rocks of Prudence, I may as well try to salvage something from this wreck. Tell me about yourself. How does a pint-sized half Indian like you come to be living with a Methodist preacher and his wife?”
    â€œMy original ma was Lakota, which some people call Sioux,” I said. “She was sent away from her tribe for taking up with a fur trapper when she was fourteen. Later she met my pa. She liked his buttons and his beard. She fell pregnant with me and when she felt her time coming she crouched down behind a bush and out I popped. It was outside a town called Hard Luck near Mount Disappointment in the Black Hills. She named me Glares from a Bush because she said I never smiled nor cried, but just glared up at her like an evil maggot.”
    Sam Clemens chuckled. “Glares from a Bush,” he said. “Good name. What was your ma’s name? Was it something romantic, like Malaeska or Little Doe?”
    â€œHer name was Squats on a Stump,” I said.
    Sam Clemens grinned. “And your pa?”
    â€œHis name was Pinkerton.”
    Sam Clemens took the foul-smelling pipe out of his mouth. “Allan Pinkerton? Wasn’t he the man who saved President Lincoln’s life last year?”
    I nodded. “He has a famous Detective Agency based out of Chicago.”
    â€œAnd he’s your pa?”
    I shook my head. “My pa was his elder brother Robert. He was a detective, too.”
    I took the Pinkerton RailRoad Detective Button out of my medicine bag and held it out.
    Sam Clemens put his pipe back in his mouth & took the button & studied it. “Pinkerton RailRoad Detective,” he read, & then handed it back. “I didn’t know Pinkerton had an elder brother,” he said.
    I said, “Pa stayed with us for a while and then he vamoosed. I don’t even remember what he looks like. After that, my ma was left to fend for herself. In the summers we trapped animals & in the winter we lived in towns & she made Indian medicines for sick people. Then one day about two years ago she got it in her head to set out for the Washoe. I am not sure where that is.”
    â€œThat is here,” said Sam Clemens. “It is the name of a tribe of Indians who live in the basin valley between here and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So your ma wanted to cash in on the Silver Boom?”
    â€œI am not