El Dorado, California 1919
Birdie Callahan stopped on the top step of the train and scanned the crowd for her family. Those Countys are so tall, you'd think they'd stick out, she thought. Hundreds of people moved across the platform: hoisting suitcases, greeting relatives, loading boxes onto carts, shouting, waving tickets. A figure materialized at the base of the train steps. Birdie shouted with delight and jumped into his arms. "Danny!" she cried as he swung her around. Daniel County set her on her feet and laughed, "Least you could've done the past three years was grow a few inches, Birdie." She grinned fiercely and poked him in the ribs. "Ow! Still throwing punches, eh? C'mon." He held out one hand for her suitcase and took her hand with the other. "Everyone's down there at the end of the platform. Dad said to carry you if I have to, to get through this crowd." As they neared the end of the platform, the crowd began to thin. Standing together were the people who meant the world to her. Birdie ran to embrace them all.
Clark's Landing, California 1908
"Sorry to bother you, Sheriff," Jude Mead pulled up to the corral with his brother Lester and teenaged son Arvin in tow.
"What's wrong?" Brisco County asked as he tossed flakes of hay into the rack attached to the fence. The five horses in the corral shouldered each other to reach the hay.
"Two men came into town from over to Gold Creek. They said that fire we've been watchin' jumped the canyon. They said Gold Creek was burnin' when they left last night. They don't think anybody but them escaped, the fire whipped up so fast."
"Did the fire jump the river?" Brisco had watched the tall smoke plume of the distant fire for several days, worried that the wind would suddenly shift and push the fire towards Clark's Landing.
"No," Jude said. "It's movin' along the far bank, back towards the mountains. I wanted to ask if we could borrow your wagon. We'd like to get those folks in Gold Creek buried before the buzzards get 'em. Also wanna check for survivors." Jude looked nervously at the house. "I know this is a bad time for you and the missus, but we'll take good care of your wagon and team."
"Take them," Brisco said. "What else do you need?"
The three Meads looked at one another. "Shovels," Lester suggested. "Probably a pick axe. I don't know how stony it is over there. Earl over at the general store said he'd give us food and blankets to take along."
The Meads dismounted and helped County hitch the team to the buckboard. Brisco found a couple of shovels and a pickaxe in the barn and tossed them in the wagon. Arvin Mead tied his horse to the wagon and climbed aboard.
"Go on," Brisco told Jude as the man mounted his horse. "Let me get things squared away here, and I'll meet you at Gold Creek."
Mead was startled. "We can't ask you to leave now. Not after what's happened."
"Don't worry," Brisco said grimly. "Kate'll want me to go when she finds out what happened."
"I know, CJ," Brisco said as they neared Gold Creek. "It stinks." Ash swirled around them like snow, reducing the visibility to about fifty feet. He caught up with the wagon, almost missing it in the darkened air. The team was understandably jumpy. Arvin Mead was doing all he could to coax them forward.
"Talk to them, CJ. Tell them not to be afraid," County said softly. The chestnut whickered. "I know I could talk to them, but then Arvin would think I'm nuts." He urged the horse up to the team.
Arvin nodded to him. "It's like a snowstorm. I didn't know it was gonna be like this."
"Me either."
They entered Gold Creek. Or what was left of Gold Creek. Ash swirled around blackened timbers and heat radiated from the burnt hulls of buildings.
"Let's tie the horses up here," Brisco suggested, pointing to a pile of millstones dumped outside the smoldering mill. While Arvin tied the team to the millstones, Brisco dismounted, looping the reins over the saddlehorn. "Don't take off on me, okay?" he asked CJ, who harumphed uneasily. Brisco pulled a blanket from the back of the wagon and tossed it over a charred tree branch, draping it over the team's heads to give them some protection from the ash. He grabbed an armload of blankets and followed Arvin into the town.
They checked every scorched lump in the street, covering the human bodies with blankets. The ash made their eyes burn and clogged their bandanas, making it difficult to breathe. The smell of burnt flesh was nearly overwhelming. Next to a well, they found the body of woman. Brisco winced as he covered the charred dress and small booted feet with a blanket.
Arvin suddenly straightened. "Did you hear that?" he asked.
"What?"
"Sounded like a moan. Anybody out there?" Arvin shouted. "Call out so's we can find you!" Brisco stood still, eyes closed, straining to hear.
"Help," a tiny voice, echoing strangely, said.
"Where are you?" Brisco yelled.
"In the well." Both men turned and peered into the dark hole.
"You see anything?" Arvin whispered.
"No," Brisco replied. "How far down are you?" he called.
"Don't know," came the reply. "I'm holding onto the bucket."
"Bucket," Brisco murmured. The well's crossbar lay in pieces around their feet; no rope was attached to the pulley. He leaned over the edge of the well and felt his way around the stones. There. "Arvin," he said, finding a rope lodged between a crevice in the rock. "Help me pull." The boy found a spot below Brisco's hands and, bracing his feet against the well, helped County pull. The weight on the other end was reassuring.
Figures materialized in the ash. "What's goin' on?" Lester Mead said. Jude was with him, as well as several men from Clark's Landing.
"There's a child down in the well," Brisco gasped. "Help pull." Strong hands suddenly made the job easier, and soon a small wet figure appeared. Brisco shucked his coat and wrapped it around the girl as Lester chafed her arms and legs to bring some color into the child's blue skin.
"You oughta take her back to Clark's Landing," Lester said. "Have Doc look at her."
"Me?"
"You've got the fastest horse," Mead said. "We'll start burying the bodies." He glared around him. "Damn this stuff. I hope it settles soon." Lester picked up the girl and followed Brisco back to the horses. Brisco mounted CJ and Lester lifted the child to the horse's back. County reached around with his free hand and grabbed a handful of jacket to prevent the girl from falling. He clucked to CJ and turned him towards home.
On the twenty-mile trip back, Brisco tried to keep the girl talking, knowing that she could easily slide into shock. "What's your name?"
"Birdie." The girl's voice was slurred.
"Glad to meet you, Birdie. I'm Brisco. Is Birdie short for Roberta?"
"Bridget," she sighed. "My momma's Irish."
Brisco pictured the charred dress and tiny booted feet and swallowed hard. "My ma was Irish, too. Did your mother put you in the well?"
"Yes. She said that if I held onto the bucket, the fire wouldn't get me."
The falling ash gradually diminished, and the sun reappeared. Brisco had been afraid to let CJ move faster than a walk until visibility improved. Getting clotheslined by a tree branch was a problem in the swirling ash. Brisco removed his hat and beat it against his leg. His face itched; as he started to wipe it with his arm, he realized his shirt was just as gray as his face.
"So how old are you, Birdie?"
"Ten."
Brisco was startled. She was so tiny that he mistook her for a much-younger child. "You have any brothers or sisters?"
"No. Just me and Momma." Her voice was getting weaker. Brisco looked over his shoulder. Birdie was almost consumed by his coat; just the top half of her face was visible above the collar. She nodded with the motion of the horse, her eyes closed. Her skin was so pale it looked translucent.
Brisco swore, twisted in the saddle and put his arm under her armpits. He hauled her onto his lap and held her tight to his chest.
"C'mon CJ," he shouted. "GO!" The chestnut lunged forward.
Kate emerged from the house, hearing the approaching hoofbeats. Brisco and CJ were covered in ash; they looked like ghosts. Her eyes were riveted to the bundle in Brisco's arms.
"We found this little girl in a well," he said, sliding off the horse. He carried the child into the house. "She's so cold, I'm not sure she's gonna make it."
"Put her in front of the fire." As her husband complied, she pulled a blanket from the cedar chest. Kate wrapped the girl in the blanket and, sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace, pulled her onto her lap and wrapped her arms about her.
"I'm gonna get the doc," Brisco said. As he rose, he added, "She said her name is Birdie." Kate nodded.
Outside, Brisco found CJ at the trough, sucking down water. James, Will, and Daniel were staring at the horse as if CJ had just landed from another planet.
"Why're you 'n CJ all gray, Dad?" Will wanted to know.
"The ash from the fire is flying around Gold Creek like snow," Brisco explained. He soaked his bandana, wrung it out, and wiped his face. Then he wiped down the horse's face, careful not to get ash into the chestnut's already streaming eyes. He remounted. "I've got to go get Doctor Hammond. Did you boys feed the stock?"
"Yes sir," Thirteen-year-old James said.
"Keep an eye on him," Brisco pointed at young Daniel. "'Cause your mom's lookin' after a sick girl." The boys nodded. Brisco turned the horse towards town.
"It was close," Doc Hammond said later. "If she'd been in the water any longer, she'd have died of exposure." By the time Brisco returned with the doctor, Kate had put the girl in James' bed and piled blankets on top to warm her. The child's color was returning, and the doctor was relieved to find her vital signs improving. He followed Brisco and Kate out onto the porch, out of the children's hearing.
"You found just this one survivor?"
"Yeah," Brisco answered grimly. "Unless they've brought someone else back since."
The doctor shook his head. "We can only hope those folks died quick."
After the doctor rode back to town, Brisco beat the ash from his coat and hat best he could and pulled them on. "I may not be back for a day or so," he told Kate as he saddled CJ.
"We'll be alright," she said. "Brisco?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you find her mother?"
He looked down at the stirrup in his hand. His hand was shaking. "Yeah," he said quietly, his voice cracking. "She was lying by the well."
"Oh, no." Kate stepped off the porch and came to him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him hard. Brisco wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, drawing strength from her.
"Be careful," she whispered.
His sudden laugh broke the tension. "I've already been to Hell, and now I'm going back."
Two days later, Brisco headed home. The wind had died down the next morning, allowing the men from Clark's Landing to search for bodies without ash flying about their heads. They took turns digging graves; blanket-wrapped bodies were quickly buried. At Brisco's suggestion, the crew started at one end of the town and searched each building site thoroughly before moving to the next. One of the broken millstones was pressed into service as a makeshift tombstone. After each burial, a mark was made with a piece of charcoal to keep track of the number of dead. When they finished, there were 57 marks on the millstone. The solemn crew made their way back home, depressed by the fact that the girl was the only survivor they'd found.
As Brisco drove the team into the barnyard, he was surprised to find that he suddenly had four sons. It took him a moment to realize the little red-haired boy was Birdie. Her hair was cropped short and she was wearing one of Will's hand-me-downs. James helped him unhitch the team and lead them to their stalls. CJ followed them in on his own. "Just feed them," Brisco said wearily. "We'll take the horses and wagon down to the river tomorrow and wash the lot."
The three younger children followed Brisco to the pump. Brisco pulled off his hat and plopped it onto Birdie's head. "What happened to your hair?" he asked.
"Aunt Kate cut it," she explained, tilting the hat up so she could see. "It was all burnt off on one side." There were rope burns across the side of her face and on the palms of her hands, but other than that, Birdie looked relatively unscathed, considering her recent ordeal.
Aunt Kate? Brisco was too exhausted to think about that. He handed his coat to Daniel and pulled his shirt over his head. When he asked Will to work the pump handle, he noticed his middle son had a shiner. "Were you fighting with your brothers?" he demanded.
"No sir." Will glowered at Birdie. "She socked me," he mumbled.
"She what?" Brisco looked from Birdie to Will. The girl wasn't much bigger than six-year-old Daniel, although she was the same age as Will.
The girl clenched her fists. "He told me I look like a boy!" she said defiantly. Her green eyes glittered with fire.
Brisco sighed. "One thing to remember, Will," he said wearily. "Women are touchy about their looks. C'mon, start pumping, will you?"
Will pumped while his father stuck his head under the water. Brisco gasped as the cold water ran over his head and shoulders. He finally pulled his head out and shook like a dog. The kids giggled and skipped back so they wouldn't get splashed. Brisco thought it was the best sound in the whole world. The children tagged along as he limped to the porch then ran past him into the house. Kate waited on the porch with a towel.
"I see we've got another son," Brisco said wryly, scrubbing his face with the towel.
"A son?" Kate looked startled, then relaxed. "Oh. I guess she does look like a boy."
"Is she okay?"
"She's fine." Kate lowered her voice. "We sat down and had a little talk. I told her what happened to her mother." She didn't tell Brisco that she'd had a similar talk with the boys two days ago concerning the baby.
Brisco frowned. "How'd she take it?"
"I think she suspected it while she was in the well. I'm sure she'll have some bad days, but right now, she's just taking things as they come." Kate laughed. "She's like a bright flame in the midst of the boys."
Brisco sighed. "I saw Will's black eye."
"Are you hungry?" Kate asked, brushing the wet hair off his forehead.
"No," Brisco said. "Just tired." He rolled his shoulders. "And sore. We had to dig fifty-some graves."
"Birdie was the only survivor?"
"Yeah." They entered the house. Brisco walked back to the bedroom, slumped down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. Kate stopped in the kitchen for a moment to tell the children to go outside and play quietly. She found Brisco sprawled on the bed, already asleep. She pulled the blankets over him, kissed his forehead, and shut the bedroom door on her way out.
The next morning, Brisco hitched the team to the wagon. He tossed some buckets, scrub brushes, and CJ's ash-covered saddle in the back. The kids climbed into the wagon while Brisco helped Kate to the seat. James followed, riding CJ bareback. They traveled down to the ford in the river. Brisco put Daniel and Birdie to work scrubbing tack in the shallows. Will and Kate tossed buckets of water at the wagon to wash off the ash. James helped Brisco wash the horses.
Will started it. He sloshed a bucket of water a little too enthusiastically over the wagon and drenched his mother. Kate yelped in surprise, then filled her bucket and chased the boy around the wagon. Will scurried under the buckboard to escape. Kate spotted James washing CJ and tossed the water in his direction. "Mom!" he sputtered, laughing. He pointed to the draft horse and mouthed GET DAD. Brisco looked over the back of the Belgian he was washing and got Kate's next bucketload in the face. In a few moments, everyone was splashing everyone else, laughing and shrieking.
"This is wonderful," Kate stretched luxuriously. She and Brisco lay in the grass, Kate's head resting on her husband's stomach. The horses were rolling in the grass above the ford. The kids were still splashing in the river. Brisco was twining a lock of her hair around his finger.
"I think we should adopt Birdie."
"I think we already have."
"No Brisco, I mean legally. And it's not just because our own daughter died."
Kate had felt something was wrong a week before the baby was due. The child inside her womb seemed to be slowly detaching itself from her. She didn't say anything to Brisco; he'd hovered anxiously through each of her pregnancies.
When their daughter was stillborn, Kate had been curiously relieved. Brisco had been pole-axed. He spent the next few days doing his chores in a trance. Kate had finally snapped at him in exasperation. "Brisco, you think too much! It was an act of God. There was absolutely nothing you could have done differently that would have made her live. You have to accept that! There are three young boys and a town out there that depend on you to be strong. I need you to be strong. Can you do that for me?" He'd stared at her, his eyes dark pools of pain. But he'd nodded. And he'd tried. "I can check to see if Birdie has any living relatives," Brisco said. It was a wonderful feeling, lying in the sun with Kate. The last few days had taught Brisco to appreciate what he had. He chuckled. "I can always teach Will to duck."
El Dorado 1919
"Wow," Birdie whistled in appreciation at the car. "When'd you get this?"
"We've had it about a year," Brisco said as he held the door and helped Kate into the Ford. Birdie couldn't get over how much grayer her adopted parents had become.
"This is the guy who's always looking for the 'coming thing'," Kate teased. "And he's the last person in Clark's Landing to get an automobile."
Brisco grinned as he helped Birdie into the car. "They don't listen when I swear at them like horses do," he explained.
"Do you still have the team?"
"Yeah," Brisco climbed into the back with Kate and Birdie. Will sat in the front seat, Daniel slid behind the wheel. "We could start a profitable little side business pulling cars out of the mud."
"Six months ago," Kate said. "Daniel and two of his friends tried to take the car out on an old lumber road and broke an axle. When Brisco saw them hauling the car back to the farm with the team, he laughed so hard that I was certain he'd have a stroke."
"Where's James?" Birdie wanted to know.
"He'll be here tonight," Will said from the front seat. "Dan and I are coming back for him."
"Big city San Franciso lawyer, huh?"
"He certainly got the head for it," Brisco said. "He's working on a big lawsuit against one of the mines up north."
Birdie leaned over the back of the seat. "So what are you doing?" she asked Will. The scars on the side of his face weren't near as bad as Kate had led her to believe from her letters. He'd spent three horrifying months in the trenches near the end of the war and was damn lucky to be alive. A phosphorous bomb had nearly blinded him; he needed glasses now to correct his blurred vision.
"I thought about being sheriff," Will said, straightfaced. "But the old guy won't give it up." His father smacked him playfully on the back of his head. "I'm working for Uncle Bowler. Also doing a lot of prospecting up in the Sierras. I'm thinking about going to a mine engineering school over in Colorado."
"I'm workin' with Dad," Daniel said. "As a deputy."
"Clark's Landing suddenly having a crime spree?" Birdie asked Brisco.
"He's comedy relief," he explained. "At least until he goes to college in the fall."
They sat around the table at home, laughing and talking. Daniel was in the midst of a hilarious story about helping his father get two unconscious drunks from the saloon to the jail when Brisco quietly left the table and went outside. The rest of the family seemed unconcerned.
"What's wrong?" Birdie whispered to Kate.
"His leg's bothering him. He's just going out for a stretch."
Later, after Daniel and Will left to get James, Birdie went to the porch with cups of coffee. She could smell the Brisco's cigar, but she couldn't make out his form in the dark. "Aunt Kate sent me out with coffee," Birdie said, straining to see. "Where are you?" She heard Brisco's low laugh.
"Hold still a sec," he said. Brisco struck a match and lit the lantern on the porch rail. The porch suddenly glowed with warm orange light. "Thanks," he said as he accepted the coffee.
"You know," Birdie laughed lightly. "Every time I smell cigar smoke, I think of you."
"My dad used to smoke a pipe." Brisco smiled wistfully. "For years after he died, I'd smell someone's pipe tobacco in a saloon or on the street, and I'd look around, certain he'd be there." He took a pull on the cigar and blew smoke towards the ceiling. "So are you going to tell me about your adventures being a spy?" he asked softly.
Birdie froze. How could he know? She kept her face neutral, knowing Brisco was a sharp poker player and could easily spot a bluff. "A spy?" she laughed, pretending to be surprised. "What do you mean?"
"Don't lie to me, Bridget," Brisco stared at her, his voice low and deadly. "I know you've been doing."
Birdie was stunned. She could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Brisco had called her by her given name. "What makes you think I'm a spy?" she asked carefully.
He looked out at the lightning flashing above the distant mountains. "Let's just say I read between the lines of your letters. You should never have asked us to start calling you Birdie County. That made me suspicious right off."
Birdie let out the breath she'd been holding. "I had this perverse little fear that I'd be killed and you would never find out what happened to me. I thought that it would be easier if I took on your name. There's still people in the government that remember you and your father."
Brisco snorted. "The last time the government remembered me, it put me and Bowler in front of a firing squad. I sure hope you don't give away all your secrets that easily," he added. "Or you'll find yourself in the same spot."
"You're different," Birdie said. "I owe you."
"You paid that debt the first week you came to live with us, Birdie. When are you going to get that through your head? Just answer me one thing. How is it that we put you on the train to New York to school and next thing we know, you're in London?"
"I stumbled into it completely by accident. I was at a dance given by the school. It was too warm inside, so I went outside for some air. I overheard two men talking about the war. I couldn't move without giving myself away, so I stayed put. They were talking about killing the Prime Minister of England so the country would flounder and lose the war. I was curious, so I followed them when they left. I found out where they lived. I went to the New York Police, and they told me they didn't give a damn about the Prime Minister." Birdie smiled at the memory. "I couldn't invoke the name of Brisco County like I could here." She caught Brisco's smile out of the corner of her eye. "I didn't know what to do, who to warn. I slept on it, and in the morning it hit me: the British Embassy. I made an appointment with the ambassador and told him what I'd overheard and where I'd tracked the conspirators. He thanked me politely and said that he'd look into it. Several days later, I read in the newspaper where two men suspected of being Fascists were arrested. The police found them in their apartment, making bombs. They had detailed information regarding the schedules of the President, the Prime Minister, and several key figures in Congress and in Parliament. Through interrogation, the police learned where to find their cohorts in London."
"Then what happened?" Brisco asked.
"I thought that was it. Until I received a visit from the ambassador. With him was a man he introduced as the chief of British Intelligence. They told me I'd shown great initiative, and without my help, important government officials might have been assassinated. Then they asked me to come and work for them."
"My assignment was to spy on an Englishman suspected of being a German sympathizer. I hired on as a household maid." Birdie smiled. "Actually, using the name County as an alias turned out to be a smart move. I told them my parents had emigrated to the States and that I'd come back to care for a sick granny. After she died, I came to work at Thistleheath to get enough money for ship's fare back to America. Your letters really helped my cover. I know whoever read them thought I was legit."
Brisco looked surprised. "They read your letters?"
Birdie nodded. "Someone did. I never did find out who. I would put a pencil mark next to the ribbon I tied around the bundle and every so often, the ribbon would be moved. Whoever did it must have thought I was legit." Brisco shook his head in amazement.
"I found that rich people don't consider servants as human. They talk in your presence and they don't seem to realize that you've heard every word they've said." Birdie grinned wickedly. "It's amazing the information you pick up scrubbing floors."
Brisco was curious. "Were you successful?"
"I was able to find out how sensitive information was being leaked to the Germans. When I learned that Will had enlisted, it made me all the more determined to stop the traitor. The thought of Will coming home in a box," a sob choked off her voice.
Brisco put his hand over hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze. "I'm just glad that Daniel was too young." he said quietly. "It would have destroyed him." Birdie agreed: happy-go-lucky Daniel would never have survived the horrors of the war.
"Care to take a walk with me?" Brisco asked, eyeing the lightning. "I need to get the horses in the barn before it rains."
Birdie rose and took the arm he offered. "Does your leg hurt a lot?"
"Hardly at all." Brisco picked up the lantern. "Well, only when it's gonna rain. Did Kate tell you about Will's missal?"
"No."
"The day Will left for France, Kate gave him a small missal. She stuck it in his breast pocket and jokingly told him not to get a hole in it. When he came home, Kate asked him about the missal. Will said it was in his stuff somewhere. A few days later, she asked him again and he changed the subject. It got to be a game with her. She'd ask and Will would make some excuse. I told Kate to leave it be: obviously Will had lost the missal and didn't want to hurt her feelings."
"James came home for a visit, and we were sitting down for dinner when Kate started in again. Will left the table, went back to his room for the missal, and tossed it onto the table." Brisco grimaced. "There was a slug imbedded in it."
"Oh, poor Kate. She'll never forgive herself."
"Dad," Will pleaded, regretting his rash act as soon as his mother ran to her room in tears.
Brisco rose to follow her. "She provoked you," he said simply. He didn't see his sons' startled expressions when they realized that he was taking Will's side in the matter.
Daniel finally broke the silence after Brisco left. "Bet that hurt," he said, pointing to the missal.
Will rubbed the spot over his heart and grimaced, remembering the pain. "Like getting kicked by a mule."
"What about Will?" Birdie asked.
Brisco sobered. "He was having a hard time adjusting to normal life, so I gave him a mare I'd just bought and told him to go spend time in the mountains. Then I told the mare to make sure Will didn't do anything stupid. There she is," he said as they neared the corral. A pretty buckskin put her head over the fence and nosed Brisco's shirt.
"I can't believe you bought a buckskin," Birdie laughed. "I thought you were partial to chestnuts."
"She looked at me with those big eyes and I was a goner."
Birdie stroked the soft nose. "What's her name?"
"Dixie."
Was it the lantern light playing tricks with Birdie's eyes, or did her adopted father look embarrassed? "Did she help Will?"
Brisco grinned. "She did indeed. Will spent a month away and damned if he didn't find a silver vein as wide as his arm." He shook his head in disbelief. "I thought those hills were played out years ago. He got Bowler to help him stake a claim." Brisco shook his head again. "I don't know what Bowler said to him," Brisco commented. "But I'm grateful. Will's an entirely different person now." Thunder boomed nearby. "C'mon," he called to the horses. "Time to go in." Brisco walked into the barn and opened the door to the corral. Four chestnuts and one buckskin pushed their way inside. Brisco leaned out of the barn door. "Max!" he called. "Get in here!" A fifth chestnut stuck his head in the door and grumped.
"Because if you stay outside, your gonna be a fried horse." Max nearly knocked Brisco over trying to get inside. "I thought you'd see it my way," Brisco said as he shut the barn door. He cut the strings on a bale of hay and divided it between the horses. "So what are you going to do now?" he asked Birdie. "Go back to London?"
"No," she said. "I've been offered a job here with the Treasury Department, looking for counterfeiters."
"Are you going to take it?" Brisco asked, concerned. "There's some nasty characters in that business. They'd cut their own mother's throat for twenty bucks."
"Do you think I can't protect myself?" Birdie demanded, her famous temper rising.
Brisco held both hands up to placate her. "James, Will, and Daniel are at almost a foot taller than you and deathly afraid of your fists. I'm sure you can protect yourself. When you adopted us, you adopted two famous County traits: nosiness and a habit for getting into trouble."
"I rather enjoyed being a spy." Birdie was almost ashamed to admit the truth.
"Of course you did," Brisco surprised her by agreeing. "Being able to pull something off like that gives a rush that few things can match."
Birdie stared at him. "You are the last person I'd have thought would say that."
Her adopted father grinned wolfishly. "How do you think I infiltrated John Bly's gang in the first place? One thing, though. If you're going to work here in California, you'd better change your name back to Callahan. The name County will just get you in trouble." Brisco took Birdie's hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. "I hate saying that. I kinda liked you being a County."
"I think of myself as a County," Birdie said. "Does that help?"
"Yeah," Brisco replied, smiling. "I guess if you're determined to go through with this, you'd better pick out another bead."
Birdie stopped in her tracks. "I'm sorry?" Did she hear him correctly? Brisco reached into his pocket and pulled out a rosary. Its silver and green beads caught the lantern light. Birdie was startled. "Since when have you become religious?" she asked. She knew that Brisco went to church, but she'd suspected for years that he only did because Kate made him.
"It's not what you think. I've had this for a long time. My mother brought it with her from Ireland, and I've carried it since she died. When you kids started leaving home, I assigned each one of you a bead. Every day I finger each bead and think of each of you getting through the day safely."
Birdie was moved by his concern. "I'm touched that you would do that for us, but isn't that sacrilegious?"
Brisco shrugged. "I can't see God being upset about a father worrying about his children. But you and Will are going to have to have new beads." He laid the rosary across his open palm and showed her the first ten beads. The second and third beads of the first set were smaller than the rest, having been worn down by anxious rubbing.
"Is this one Daniel's?" Birdie asked, pointing to the fourth bead. "Yes." "Then can I be the fifth bead?" "Okay. Will can have the sixth one." Brisco put the rosary back in his pocket. Headlights appeared as the first raindrops fell. "There's the boys," Brisco said with obvious relief as they hurried to the porch. "And just in time." Birdie stood on tiptoe and planted a kiss on Brisco's cheek. "Thank you," she said. "What for?" he wondered. "For being my father." Brisco smiled and put his arm around her. "It's been a privilege," he said. "But be careful, will you? I only have so many beads on that rosary." Birdie laughed. "Yes, sir." Daniel pulled the car up close to the house as it began to rain harder. Birdie and Brisco waited at the top of the steps to greet the boys as they piled out of the car and ran for the porch.