Much Ado About Madams

by Jacquie Rogers

  “Remember the sheriff came here the other day, wanting to talk to him,” Trinket reminded.

  “You leave that sheriff alone,” warned Fannie. “You’re setting yourself up for some hurt if you mess around with a lawman.”

  Trinket huffed up. “Back off, Fannie. I ain’t taking up with no lawman and you know it. I just said that maybe the sheriff s’pects Reese of stealing those cattle.”

  Fannie’s headache grew and she rubbed her temples. “Sadie, get me a sup of laudanum. I have a headache. And you ladies get to your rooms and go to sleep. We don’t have to talk about this now—Reese’s out of town for a few days.”

  “Aw, Fannie,” protested Chrissy. “We need to make a plan.”

  “In the morning,” Fannie insisted. “Not before. Now get out of here and let me get some sleep.” She blew out her lantern but the light changed little. The whores left and the last one shut the door. Ten in the morning was too early for a decent whore to be awake.

  Silence. Fannie sighed. Silence and sleep, that’s what she needed, but her eyelids wouldn’t cooperate. What if the women were right? They probably were, since the sheriff had come to the Comfort Palace to talk to Reese about the rustling problem.

  “Reese ain’t no cattle rustler,” she grumbled. Where the hell was Sadie and the laudanum? She pressed her pillow onto her forehead to relieve the building pressure.

  A few minutes later, Sadie walked in without knocking and handed Fannie a steaming hot cup. “Here’s some doctored-up tea. You ain’t had no laudanum for the better part of a month, now, and I won’t give you no more. It just ain’t good for you.”

  Fannie had to agree. It had seemed like she needed it for some little ache or pain every single day, and she kept needing more of it to do the job. Sadie had talked her out of using it, saying she thought that the laudanum itself was causing her misery. The first few days without it she’d been sick as a dog, but since then, she’d felt better than she had in years—since the day Stuart McAdams introduced her to it.

  “Did you know that Charley is Reese’s new foreman?” Sadie asked.

  “No.” And she didn’t care right then, either. Fanny took a sip of tea and let it trickle down her throat. It must have been half whiskey because it was the strongest, smoothest tea she’d ever had.

  “Well, he is.”

  “Hurrah. Now would you leave me and my headache alone?”

  Sadie didn’t budge an inch. “Did you know that Charley used to be a preacher-man?”

  Fannie sighed. “Ain’t you just a bag full of facts.” She didn’t want to be ornery to Sadie, but the woman sure as hell wasn’t getting the hint to leave. “Why are you so interested in Charley?”

  “Oh,” Sadie shrugged, “no reason, other than he’ll be eating here ever now and again.” Sadie sounded almost too aloof. “You just drink that tea down. It’ll cure what ails you.”

  Strong as it was, Fannie had no doubts about its medicinal value. She took a bigger sip. “So he’ll be bugging you and the girls, is that your problem?”

  “He ain’t no problem,” Sadie was quick to reply. “He ain’t no problem at all. It’s just that he’ll know if Reese is missing any cattle, and I can chum up to him, sortta, and, well, find out things.”

  Fannie’d never known Sadie to chum up with anyone, let alone a grizzled old cowhand like Charley. The man never cracked a smile and was as tight-lipped as a nun in a whorehouse. She finished off the tea and handed the cup to Sadie. “Thanks.”

  “Glad to help,” Sadie said as she took the teacup.

  Finally, she had some quiet, but not peace. She simply had to find a way to make Reese and Miss Sharpe fall in love, and she had to time it with the completion of the whores’ lessons. Reese didn’t know it, but all the women had been saving their money. Each night they gave half their earnings to Fannie, and they all had three or four hundred dollars—Felicia had almost six hundred—plenty enough to start themselves new lives. Once their learning was done, they’d be ready to go out on their own.

  She worried about Holly, though, because she didn’t get much money serving drinks. Maybe the others would pitch in fifty bucks or so. Yup, they’d probably do that.

  If only Reese and Miss Sharpe would fall in love and get married, everything would work out fine, but those two were mighty damned stubborn. Both of them put together couldn’t out-stubborn her, though.

  Fannie smiled and drifted to sleep.

  * * * * *

  “Class!” Lucinda tried again to get the ladies’ attention. “Class, please quiet down and be seated!”

  Something had them abuzz, but finally they complied.

  “Today, we’ll learn about voting. You, as women of Idaho Territory, have the duty—no, the privilege—to insist on the right to vote. It is your responsibility to learn all you can about our government and its public servants, and to vote knowledgeably when we finally succeed. Your vote is your future. No matter what’s happened to the past, only your future counts. Voting is freedom.”

  “Hell, our votes wouldn’t count none,” disagreed Trinket.

  “Ah, but they would, especially when you find an issue dear to your hearts and campaign to promote it. And please don’t curse.”

  Petunia—or Patricia—raised her hand. “What’s your issue, then? You want suffrage. Well, if we got the right to vote, then you don’t got an issue.”

  “I don’t have an issue,” Lucinda corrected.

  “That’s what I said. So why do you want to vote?”

  “There’s more than one issue. I haven’t researched local politics yet, so I don’t know what’s on the ballot this year.” Lucinda expounded upon the responsibilities of being a voting citizen. She hoped the ladies would become a little more enthusiastic about the whole idea. Many women had worked hard to achieve suffrage in Wyoming, and many more were working tirelessly around the country to get the right to vote elsewhere.

  She tried to work the voting procedures into the arithmetic lesson, showing how a candidate could win in one town, lose in another, and still win the county race.

  Chrissy’s hand shot up. “So if you count the cattle on one spread, and then count another rancher’s cattle, you could tell if one man has been rustling the other’s cows?”

  The noise level raised as the ladies started to whisper among themselves again.

  “Well, yes, if you knew how many each rancher had...”

  “Not if the rustler hid ‘em somewheres else,” Trinket pointed out. “I hear tell that when the Judds’ cattle was run off, one of the hands heard the rustlers call their boss ‘Charley.’ They ain’t no ranch owner around these parts named Charley.”

  Lucinda wished the ladies wouldn’t discuss unladylike topics, but at least they were developing their deductive reasoning skills.

  “Only Reese’s foreman,” volunteered Sadie. “A little cantankerous, but a good enough fellow for a cowpuncher.”

  The room went silent. The ladies stared at Sadie, who sagged in her chair looking like she wanted to disappear altogether.

  Fannie stood and addressed the class. “All right, ladies.” Lucinda was glad that Fannie remembered not to call them whores. “Which one of you whores knows a Charley besides Sadie?”

  “I ain’t no whore,” protested Sadie as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I cook for whores.”

  “Class!” Lucinda reprimanded. “We do not use the word whores.”

  “Who knows a Charley?” Fannie repeated again, unrepentant toward either Lucinda or Sadie.

  No one said a word.

  Felicia spoke up for the first time. “That makes it sound like Reese is behind all those shenanigans.”

  “It sure as hell don’t look too good,” Petunia admitted.

  “No cursing!” Lucinda interjected.

  Seven women glared at her. Well, piffle, at least they shouldn’t curse during class time, even if she’d just about given up trying to keep them from cursing elsewhere. She knew she needed to get the class ba
ck on track.

  “Fannie, please be seated and we’ll continue with the lesson.”

  Fannie shook her head. “We’re having a lesson on detective work right now, Miss Sharpe.” She turned and addressed the class. “What are we gonna do to keep Reese from being suspicioned? Like Petunia here said, it don’t look too good for him, ‘specially if the sheriff finds out about this here mystery Charley.”

  “We do up nearly every man in these parts. Ain’t nothing we can’t find out using the bait under our skirts,” Chrissy pointed out.

  “True,” added Felicia. “But it would also be nice if Trinket could do the sheriff once or twice to find out what he knows.”

  Trinket jumped to her feet. “No!”

  The ladies gaped at her vehemence.

  She seemed to reconsider. “I guess I could...well, I guess I could talk to him.”

  Felicia snorted out a laugh. “Oh, he’s one of those dirty talkers who can’t get his pistol cocked, huh?”

  The women tittered.

  Trinket jutted out her chin and glowered at Felicia. “I certainly wouldn’t know. I—I don’t do lawmen.”

  Fannie cleared her throat and the ladies were silenced. Lucinda wished she could earn the ladies’ respect as Fannie had.

  After a moment of poignant quiet, Fannie gave her decree. “Trinket, talk to the sheriff and find out what he knows. The rest of you, use all the tricks in the book to find out what the hell’s going on around here. I find it awful interesting that we ain’t had a lick of this sort of trouble in all the years we been here, and in just one damned week we get talk of rustling and Hannibal Hank rides in besides. If we ain’t careful, we’re liable to be working for Hank till we kick the bucket from the clap.”

  The ladies muttered their agreement. Trinket looked even grouchier than usual.

  “We got four days,” Fannie went on. “Reese is out on business—Silver City. And Hank’s gone up to try to skunk some poor miner in Montana—”

  “Maybe one of ‘em can deposit some lead into him,” Felicia interrupted.

  “I doubt it,” Fannie replied. “He’s managed to sidestep lead poisoning this long. Let’s find out all we can. You can write it down on your slates for tomorrow.”

  The ladies all stood and started filing out the door.

  “Class time is over,” Lucinda announced to her departing students, as if she’d been in any sort of control. “Do your sums I gave you for tomorrow.” But she doubted if a single one of them heard her. The sums would probably have to wait.

  Lucinda sat down at Reese’s desk to prepare for the next day’s classes. The Palace wouldn’t open for another hour yet, so she could see the ladies coming and going, dressed down for business, picking up their spare sheets and filling their butter dishes.

  Even though some of the ladies had been reluctant to accept change and were convinced they could never raise themselves above that of a soiled dove, they seemed to be taking more control over their fates. They certainly insisted on solving the rustling problem and clearing their boss.

  Reese. She tried not to think about him. He unsettled her in ways that ladies simply shouldn’t be unsettled. She’d been disappointed when Fannie announced he’d be gone for a while. Lucinda knew he was attracted to her, although it was most certainly only the shallow physical attraction men had for anything in a skirt. But she’d felt pretty in the dress Trinket had given her, and even prettier when he caught her from falling down the stairs.

  Her face flushed hot. Suffragists didn’t need any man. Especially that man—one who used women for his own financial gain, even if those women seemed to adore him. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t prevent the warm buzz whirling around deep inside when the wonderful feeling of his strong arms wrapped around her invaded her mind.

  No matter his calling—a brothel owner and all—she had a hard time with the notion of him being a cattle rustler. She’d never seen him say a harsh word to any of the ladies and he was a hard-working sort. If she had met him in downtown St. Joseph, she’d have thought he was just another cattle rancher.

  Of course, people had seemed to like Hannibal Hank and Fast Hands Stuart, too. She frowned. No, it wasn’t the same. Those two pursued pleasure and money to the exclusion of all else. Reese didn’t frequent the brothel—the ladies had made that clear to her from the day she’d arrived. He’d even hired her to teach the ladies to read and write.

  Reese McAdams made no sense to her at all. It would be so much simpler if he were ugly and mean. But he sure wasn’t.

  She sighed. He definitely was not.

  Chapter 9

  Lucinda sat in Reese’s office idly flipping through the history book she had been holding for fifteen minutes without having read a single word. She liked sitting in his office chair almost as much as she had wanted him to kiss her when she’d scalded her hand. The very thought made her jump to her feet, clutching the book to her breast.

  On the subject of the loathsome male species, she still needed to talk to Midas about Chrissy. Lucinda had been mortified when she’d struggled through the fires of hell to talk about it to him the first time, only to find out she’d been talking to Titus. Not one thing had gone according to plan since she’d left St. Joseph.

  At least her students were progressing well, even though they were all at least a decade older than she’d expected. Trinket, struggling as she did, had passed the test on the third-grade primer. Lucinda still worried about Chrissy, though.

  At that moment, she heard Trinket’s voice in the parlor.

  “You wanna come upstairs, Sheriff?’

  Lucinda peeked out the doorway to see Trinket wrapped around the sheriff in a most indecent posture. She made a note to talk to the ladies about that. Respectable ladies did not make themselves so . . . well, so available.

  The sheriff made an interesting low growl, quite similar to that of Reese during the kiss that didn’t happen. She flushed hot again. Piffle! She vowed not to think about that again—again. Her solemn vows hadn’t been too reliable as of late.

  “No, I don’t,” the sheriff told Trinket.

  She batted her eyelids again. “What’s the matter—you broke?”

  He pushed Trinket away to arm’s length. “I’m not going upstairs with you, Trinket. Not now, not ever. I just want you to come outside and talk to me.”

  Trinket glanced quickly at Fannie, then looked at Sheriff Tucker again. She licked her lips and lowered her eyes in a practiced seductive fashion. “You’d have to pay for my time,” she said in a sultry voice.

  He tilted his head slightly and looked her right in the eye. “No, Trinket. It’s not business hours. You’re on your own time and if you want to talk to a friend, come outside with me. If you want a poke for pay, get a man with no heart, but leave me alone.” With that, he started to leave.

  Trinket grabbed his hand. “Please!” Her eyes wide and her color high, she looked quite frantic. Lucinda knew how she felt. Exactly.

  Tucker turned back to Trinket and put his hat on. “Are you coming outside with me, or not?” He held out his hand.

  She took it, but didn’t move. She looked like a frightened little girl. He gently stroked her hand like he would have petted a puppy that’d just lost its mother. She took a step forward. He placed her hand in the crook of his arm and they walked out the front door together.

  Lucinda stared at the closed door. She knew that somehow, something remarkable had happened.

  “If that ain’t the damnedest, blamedest thing you ever saw.” She jumped at Fannie’s voice, and wondered why she sounded so incredulous.

  “That she wanted him to go upstairs, but he wanted to go outside?” Lucinda asked.

  Fannie shook her head. “Nope. What’s plumb amazing is that she went outside. I don’t believe she’s ever went outside except to the privy.”

  “Gone,” Lucinda corrected.

  “Yup, I believe so. She’s a goner all right. We’ll all have to deal with another broken heart
inside a week or so. Damn!”

  Lucinda had never heard of a healthy person staying inside all the time. “Why does she stay inside?”

  “Hard to say. All’s I know is, she don’t never go outside. She plumb went into fits when she had to come here in an open wagon instead of a stagecoach. We had to dose her with laudanum.” Fannie moved the curtain a bit and peeked out the window. “Damn, talk about honey on a turd sandwich. That doggoned sheriff done put his duster on the dirt for her to sit on, and she’s sitting there like that Virgin Queen of yours waiting fer her mint julep.” She snapped the curtain back into place and turned away, frowning.

  “I doubt that Queen Elizabeth drank mint juleps,” Lucinda said.

  “I’m glad I ain’t queen, then.”

  Lucinda’s curiosity got the better of her, and even though she knew spying was highly improper, she lifted the curtain and peeked out the window. The picture she saw fit Fannie’s description exactly. So what were Sheriff Tucker’s intentions? If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought he was courting Trinket—Trina, rather—but she found it highly unlikely that a man of the law would align himself with a lady of the evening. Chances were, he thought he could get information about the cattle rustling problem from her, especially if he truly thought Reese to be the culprit.

  Fannie’s observation that they should be prepared to heal a broken heart seemed correct as well. Trina looked at the sheriff as though he were Romeo, and he treated her like a china doll. Lucinda’s obligation was to protect Trina’s pride and build her confidence. Neither of those things could happen if Sheriff Tucker tromped all over her most tender feelings.

  * * * * *

  Reese reined Buster to a stop in front of the dressmaker’s shop. He’d made it to Silver City in short order, thanks to the best horse in Owyhee County. He dismounted and patted the old boy’s nose before he tied him to the hitching post and walked into the shop before he lost his nerve.

  He’d rather take a horsewhipping than go to these silly women’s shops, but when a man had seven women—now eight—to take care of, there wasn’t a hell of a lot of choice. The schoolmarm wanted a dress. What for, he had no idea. She looked perfectly fine to him no matter what she wore, but he had to admit, he especially liked to see her wearing his britches—a sight he doubted he’d ever see again.