Page 11 of The Pursuit of Elena Bradford

11

Kirby yawned as he made his way from the hotel kitchen where he’d charmed one of the maids into bringing him a plate of eggs and bacon. He’d had no desire to go to the dining area at the assigned breakfasting time.

All the young, pretty girls would be sleeping in after the dance the same as he wished he could do. And while he might consider charming one of the older ladies breakfasting at this early hour into parting with some of her money to have him by her side, he had more appealing choices in mind to try first.

Elena Bradford, with those fetching eyes and her love of art, seemed extra glad whenever he invited her to dance. Another potential target, Madeline Southworth, lacked beauty and grace, but she wore a continual blush and clung to him when they danced. She did have an attentive father who might make Kirby’s pursuit of his daughter difficult. Worse, he struggled to imagine the development of the slightest attraction for her. Elena was another matter. She drew his interest.

If he did plan to do right for whichever woman he convinced to marry him—and he did—a chance for affection for the girl would be best. Else the years he pledged to a wife would be long and tedious and perhaps make it hard to keep his marital promises.

He was to do Madeline’s portrait this very afternoon. Alone with her by the lake, he might see more to admire about her than a rich father. Elena’s rich father would not be a stumbling block on a romantic path since he had passed on. He had obviously left them well off in order for them to come to a place like Graham Springs not for a week but for the summer.

He would need to win the mother over. It could be she had yet to forgive him for the way his painting had poked her on the stagecoach or worse, that her daughter had ignored her commands and climbed down from the coach to walk with him after the runaway crisis was averted.

One thing at a time. Right now, he needed to make sure to stay on Dr. Graham’s good side. That was why at sunrise he was packing his easel and art supplies with him toward the firing range. He had missed a few days sketching those in the Boone Rifle Club, and the good doctor had let him know that wasn’t acceptable. He was to be available all through the day with his paints and pencils to capture the likenesses of the guests.

If he thought finding beauty in every lady’s face he painted tiresome, doing the same with men past their prime but wanting to believe that wasn’t true was considerably worse. At least he had no problem with the portrait of Christopher Columbus Graham. His white hair and beard showed he was nearing sixty, but he was the picture of health with the body of a man much younger. He had to be his own best advertisement for his mineral water here at the Springs. Perhaps Kirby should ignore the unpleasant taste and drink more of the water.

Angry voices suddenly rose from a grove of trees along the pathway in front of him. Not the doctor’s voice taking a worker to task. Two men. Kirby stopped and stepped off the path behind a pine tree as the voices grew louder.

“We had a deal. Time to pay up.” The man’s words weren’t shouted but spoken with cold determination. “Or else.”

“Don’t you threaten me.” The other voice was loud with rage. “I owe you nothing. Nothing, you hear?”

“I beg to differ, and I will be paid one way or another. If not...” The first man let his voice trail off.

“I’m not frightened of you.”

“That could be a mistake on your part.” The man sounded as if he spoke of nothing more important than the weather. After a moment of silence in which Kirby imagined he could hear both men breathing, the voice went on. “You have a lovely daughter.”

A strangled oath was followed by the sound of a scuffle. Kirby turned away from the tree to find a different path to the rifle range. He had learned years ago to see nothing and hear nothing in a conflict that was of no concern to him.

Nevertheless, once he was on the firing range with men milling around before starting to practice their shooting abilities, he did watch to see if he could determine which two he’d overheard. A man might not want to be involved in the scuffle, but information could sometimes be turned to one’s advantage. Kirby wasn’t above storing away those sorts of nuggets whether he ever used them or not.

He set up his easel a little distance from where the men lined up to fire their rifles and got his paints ready. From much practice, he could turn out a reasonable likeness of the scene before him in a few strokes of his brush.

Kirby’s eyes sharpened as a man came out of the trees, adjusted his hat, and tugged down his vest as he moved toward the other men. After a few steps in the open, he glanced back at the trees and then walked faster. He was younger than most at the firing range. Kirby had heard he was related to Dr. Graham in some way. A nephew or cousin. A couple of mornings earlier, he had grunted a brusque refusal to Kirby’s offer to paint his likeness. No one else emerged from the trees behind him.

“Where you been, Sanderson?” one of the men asked when the man reached the rifle range. “Sleeping in this morning, were you?”

Sanderson shrugged with a grin. “Shooting isn’t the only sport to occupy a man in this place.”

His voice was that of the man making the threats. Kirby gave him a closer look.

“Uh-oh. I’m thinking you might have been hitting the shuttlecock over the net with some pretty young thing before the dew dried on the battledore court.”

“Do I look like a man who would play and tell?”

That brought some laughter from the men around them.

“Here, here, men.” Dr. Graham silenced them. “Enough of that. We’re here to practice our shooting. Later you can finesse your aim of romancing the ladies.”

The doctor looked over at Kirby. “Our artist is here if any of you would like to strike a pose for him.”

The man who had poked at Sanderson changed targets to Kirby. “Hey, artist man. Can you operate anything other than a paintbrush?”

“It seems to be my weapon of choice.” Kirby waved the brush at him.

“Weapon?” the man laughed.

Kirby thought it might be pleasurable to use the weapons of his hands to knock the man flat. He was short with a paunch straining the fabric of his shirt. Perkins. That was his name. Bertram Perkins. He had to be forty or more with the appearance of a man who had never had to work a day in his life. No growing up on a farm for him. Inherited wealth.

With an easy smile, Kirby said, “You know what they say. The pen is mightier than the sword.”

That seemed to throw down the gauntlet to Perkins. He lifted up on his toes to stare at Kirby. “Tell you what, man. Let’s have a shooting match. Just the two of us, and we’ll see what is mightier.”

“Sorry, but I don’t have a rifle. Just this brush.”

“I have an extra rifle. We want to see what you can do with a man’s weapon.” Perkins looked around at the other men. “Maybe some of you others want to get in on the action.” He brought his gaze back to Kirby. “We can sweeten it with a little wager.”

“Couldn’t do that.” Kirby shook his head. “My pockets are too empty to risk losing a wager to a shooting champion like you.”

He really couldn’t recall seeing the man shoot on the other mornings he’d been at the firing range. Looking as if he couldn’t walk to the outhouse and back without getting out of breath had no bearing on whether he could sight in a target. Even so, Kirby knew better than to bet money he didn’t have.

He took a look over at Sanderson. Maybe that was what had happened between him and the man he was threatening in the trees. A bad wager. But he had said “deal.” What kind of deal could make the man subtly threaten a young woman? Maybe he should mention what he’d overheard to Dr. Graham, but in his experience, talebearers nearly always came out the worse for their efforts to keep the peace. Especially when the tale was about a relative.

Sanderson had moved to the back of the group, appearing uninterested in whether Perkins could goad Kirby into taking up the challenge or not.

Kirby waited for Dr. Graham to put a stop to the man’s nonsense, but he kept his silence and watched as if amused.

“Tell you what,” Perkins offered. “You win, I’ll give you a fiver. I win, you paint my portrait for nothing.”

The men around him whistled. One of them said, “Wow, Perkins. Your pockets are going to be lighter if you lose.”

“No chance of that.” Perkins turned back to Kirby. “So? You game?”

“I would do your portrait for nothing anyway,” Kirby said.

“Then it’s a can’t-lose opportunity for you. And these others”—Perkins glanced around again—“these others can do some wagering on their own. Make things interesting if they can find anybody willing to take a bet picking a painter over a rifleman.” The scorn was plain in the man’s voice.

When Kirby didn’t take him up on the offer right away, he went on. “Unless you’re afraid of being humiliated.”

Kirby put down his paintbrush and moved away from his easel. “Do I get to choose which rifle?”

“He’s onto you, Perkins. Worried you know one of your rifles is apt to be off,” one of the men said. “Didn’t you say that old flintlock of yours needs the barrel cleaned out?”

“Those are fighting words, Haskell.” Perkins flared up. “I don’t need to cheat to beat a man who makes his living with a paintbrush.”

Dr. Graham moved forward to take control. “To make the contest fair, you can use two of my rifles.” He looked straight at Kirby. “How long since you’ve done any shooting?”

“A while. But some things you don’t forget how to do.”

“True.” The doctor studied him a moment. “But a man’s skills can get rusty without practice.”

“I suppose that will give Mr. Perkins an advantage, but it will be a pleasure having the opportunity to shoot one of your rifles.”

Kirby tried to read the doctor’s face. Did the man want him to back out or maybe make sure Perkins, the paying guest, won? He wasn’t going to back out. Not now. As for who won, Perkins winning might have nothing to do with Kirby trying to miss the targets. As he told the doctor, he hadn’t done any offhand rifle shooting for a while.

But besides learning how to drive a team of horses on that trip out west, he’d done plenty of shooting. Not with guns as fine as Dr. Graham’s, but he’d watched the men loading and shooting when he was sketching on the other mornings he’d been at the shooting range. He had confidence he could hit the metal targets on at least a couple of shots.

When he’d seen men enter into a challenge with one another, they loaded and shot four times, or tried to, in a two-minute time frame. That was where practice truly mattered. A man needed to have economy of movement while loading.

The details were arranged. Somebody was picked as timer. Another man would watch the targets, a row of five metal circles hanging down from a horizontal pole.

Perkins balked at using one of Dr. Graham’s rifles. “A man knows his own gun. It’s nothing to do with me if this artist man hasn’t one of his own.”

“What say you, Mr. Frazier?” Dr. Graham asked.

“Makes no difference to me.” Kirby took the rifle Graham held out to him. A finer piece than he had ever handled. With one hand under the midpoint of the gun, he held it out to let it sweetly balance in the air. He stroked the wooden stock and hefted it to his shoulder to sight down the barrel. Win or lose, a man could enjoy the moment.

“Wagers all set,” Dr. Graham announced.

Kirby looked around. He couldn’t believe anybody had put money on him as a winner. They must be wagering on how many he’d miss. Didn’t matter to him. As Perkins had said when he insisted on the challenge, he had nothing to lose.