Much Ado About Madams

by Jacquie Rogers

  “Yes, sir.” She thought he might even be amenable to the cause. “I need to know where they’re meeting.”

  “I hadn’t heard anything about it. When is this meeting?”

  “Now. Where would a meeting of that nature most likely be held?”

  “Masonic Temple, maybe, or over at the Idaho Hotel.”

  “It’s not at the hotel. We already asked.”

  He scratched his jaw. “No, wouldn’t be at the Mason’s. None of the bars, either. Might be at the schoolhouse or the church. We’ll check the school first.”

  On the way there, the editor took out his notebook and fetched the pencil from over his ear. “Just who will be at this meeting, Mrs.—”

  “Miss. I’m Miss Lucinda Sharpe from St. Joseph, Missouri. The meeting is to be led by none other than Susan B. Anthony, whom I’ve heard speak a few times. What an intelligent woman!”

  “Miss Anthony’s here in town and I didn’t know it?” He shook his head. “Not possible.”

  “What do you mean, not possible?”

  “I have news spotters at the Idaho Hotel, which is also the stage stop. Someone of Miss Anthony’s import would not have disembarked without my knowledge.”

  “Maybe she didn’t identify herself.”

  “Any single woman would have been brought to my attention. There’s a shortage of respectable ladies in these parts. In fact, single ladies are the most welcome news of all. Sells papers.”

  Lucinda stopped walking and Reese bumped into her, then held her for a moment to steady her.

  “So you’re saying there’s no suffragist meeting?”

  The editor pivoted and headed back to the newspaper office. “Nope, and I have a paper to get out.”

  Tears welled in Lucinda’s eyes but she refused to let them spill. She stood, watching the newspaperman walk away.

  Reese put his hand on her back. “Let’s get some breakfast. If we get the errands done by noon, we have plenty of time to get back home, barring another landslide.”

  * * * * *

  They ate breakfast in the restaurant between the butcher shop and the bath house, but Lucinda had little appetite.

  “So Fannie flummoxed me.”

  Reese’s appetite wasn’t affected at all. “I’d say so.”

  “I can’t imagine why she’d do such a thing.”

  “I’d say we did exactly what she wanted us to do.”

  Lucinda gasped, “You mean—”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” He cleaned up the last bits on his plate and leaned back, calling for the check. “Remember the picnic with Sadie?”

  “Yes, that didn’t end very well.”

  “It ended just as they planned.” He paid the waitress. “Want to come with me on my errands or wait in the hotel?”

  She needed to do some thinking, but after spending months in Dickshooter, she wasn’t about to waste a single moment in the city. Besides, she needed to stay busy to keep from working herself into a lather. “I’ll go with you. I have a little shopping to do.”

  The first stop was the bank. Much to her delight, the teller was a woman!

  “May I help you?”

  Reese stepped up to the window. “Morning, Miss Gardner.”

  “Mr. McAdams, what can I do for you today?”

  Just then, an energetic woman about Lucinda’s age bustled in. She had dark hair peeking out from her bonnet and one glove was dangling at her fingertips.

  “Iris! Wells Fargo brought a whole shipment of dime novels, including the new Honey Beaulieu, Lady Detective!” Then she stopped short and put her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

  Miss Gardner frowned and cleared her throat. “That’s quite all right, Daisy.” Lucinda hid a smile, because obviously the teller didn’t approve at all. To Reese, Miss Gardner said, “Please excuse my sister. She’s...exuberant.”

  Lucinda would have liked to make friends with Daisy Gardner, but it was doubtful they’d be back to Silver City anytime soon.

  “Do any stores sell ready-made dresses here?” she asked Daisy.

  “Yes, but you’d have to ask my sister about that. I live in Oreana and we make all our own clothes. My father owns the mercantile there.”

  “But he allows Miss Gardner to live here?”

  “Iris has her own way in life. She wants to be a banker, and there you have it. Me, I think banking would be horribly boring.”

  “You’d rather marry and have children?”

  “Heavens, no! I want to be a detective, but don’t tell anyone. It’s most unladylike and my mother is not in favor of such endeavors at all. Do you enjoy married life?”

  Lucinda laughed. “I’m a schoolteacher. Mr. McAdams escorted me here to attend a suffragist meeting, but apparently there was none, so what does any woman in the throes of disappointment do? Shop.”

  “A schoolteacher, huh? I don’t think I could stand being cooped up in a room with a bunch of snarfling kids.”

  Thinking of her students, some of whom had far worse habits than snarfling, she said, “It’s not so bad, and you get summers off. At least I can live my own life and not have to answer to any man.”

  Daisy leaned close and whispered, “Mr. McAdams is quite handsome, and he seems quite smitten with you.”

  If she only knew. In a way, Lucinda wanted him to be smitten with her, but that would just complicate already complicated matters. “We’re only friends.”

  “That’s a start!”

  Reese finished his business and they left the bank. Lucinda packed her trunk, then visited several stores to shop for small gifts for each of the Comfort Palace ladies. Meantime, Reese purchased supplies for the winter and settled the repair bill with the blacksmith and the livery.

  They checked out of the hotel, with the same clerk eying her as if she were a fallen woman, which didn’t help her turmoil at all since now she was.

  “Repairs are done and they’re harnessing the team now,” Reese told her. “We’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

  She still saw red every time she thought of Fannie and her hoax, but Lucinda had made a commitment to teach the ladies, and she would not renege. “I’ll change to my traveling clothes and ask the maid to fill the picnic basket.”

  By the time her order was filled, he’d pulled the wagon in front of the hotel and the bellboy loaded her trunk and Reese’s valise.

  The long, rugged ride back to Dickshooter held little appeal, other than she would be sitting close to Reese for half the day. Even that was a mixed blessing.

  She must guard her heart.

  * * * * *

  Reese guided the wagon out of town toward Dickshooter, hoping for no unpleasant surprises along the way. In this country, a man never knew what he’d be facing from one minute to the next. The most dangerous of all perils sat right next to him, back straight, her hands in her braced on the seat to keep her from jostling overmuch.

  A few minutes outside of Silver City, he pulled the team to a halt and hopped down.

  Lucinda’s tense gaze flicked all around. “Why are we stopping here?”

  “Too many varmints out there—four-legged, two-legged, and some with no legs at all.” He fetched his pistol and holster from the valise, and put his rifle in the scabbard on the driver’s seat, then climbed back up and took the ribbons. “Better to be ready.”

  The autumn sun heated the high mountain desert and within an hour they’d both doffed their jackets. Lucinda sported a new pair of leather gloves and a bonnet with a brim, both much more appropriate for traveling in rough country than what she’d worn before.

  Things needed said to her. For some reason, his voice box didn’t want to say them. A rousing fight with ten men would be less daunting. Finally, he screwed up his courage.

  “You and me, we better get married.”

  “Out of the question.” Her denial, quick and brisk, shocked him. While he was no prize, and half his parentage shamed him, he expected she’d want to marry after making love. Didn’t a
ll women?

  “There could be a bun in the oven.”

  “And maybe not.”

  “Would you quit being so stubborn? We can’t stay away from each other. I’ve wanted to kiss you every time I see you since the first time we met. You feel the same, since you got the juices flowing for what happened last night, so don’t deny it.”

  She didn’t say a word, but gazed straight ahead as she did when she had already made a decision. He planned to change her mind.

  “I’ll sell the Comfort Palace to Gus and have the twins help me build a cabin on the ranch.”

  “You don’t have your herd established yet.” Her dismissive tone annoyed him. “Don’t you need the income from the brothel to buy cattle?”

  “For your information, Miss Schoolmarm Sharpe, I have never taken a nickel from that business. Not one nickel. The twins and Gus are on my payroll, not the Comfort Palace’s. I buy all the Comfort Palace supplies with my cattle brokering business. The women don’t know it, but they keep every penny they make. All the women’s money is accounted for, and anytime they want to leave, I’ll give it to them.”

  He waited for her to fully understand what he’d said. She was quiet for a long time, several minutes at least.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because a man doesn’t go around telling everyone his business. Besides, I didn’t want the whores to think they weren’t welcome. Where else would they go?”

  “Why do you care where they go?”

  “Most of them were innocents ruined by someone I’m not too proud of. It’s up to me to make sure they’re safe now.”

  “Who ruined them and what do you have to do with it?”

  Did he really want to bare his soul? No, but neither did he want his child growing up being teased and taunted by his classmates.

  “My father was Stuart McAdams. They called him Fast Hands Stuart.”

  * * * * *

  If Reese had stuck a knife in Lucinda’s heart, she couldn’t have felt more pain. Fast Hands Stuart, the man her mother had been accused of murdering. A gang of vigilantes had lynched her for it with out a trial. No one had minded since her mother was just a whore. Whores had fewer rights than a stray dog.

  “Marrying you is out of the question.”

  But Reese was nothing like his father—didn’t look like him and certainly didn’t act like him. Still, there was bad blood. Even more importantly, he’d eventually learn that her mother had killed his father, or at least accused of it. No one knew for sure what really happened. He needed killing, though, and if her mother had managed to murder a man nearly twice her size, Lucinda couldn’t blame her for it.

  Telling Reese about it this very moment tempted Lucinda, but if she did, then he’d know she wasn’t a respectable schoolteacher at all—she was the daughter of one of his father’s whores. She didn’t even know who her father was, although her mother had said her father was an honorable man. How he could be honorable and leave a woman and her baby to the wolves, Lucinda couldn’t reconcile, but her mother held to it until the day she died.

  Reese gave her a package, small but heavy, wrapped in a blue cloth. “I bought something for you.”

  He probably felt the need to give her a gift after she’d thrown herself at him. She handed the box back. “I can’t accept it.”

  “It’s not a gift—it’s something you need.” He pushed it back in her hands. “Open it.”

  Removal of the blue cloth revealed a finely polished wooden box. It looked expensive. “I shouldn’t.”

  “You should. Open it.”

  She opened the lid to find a pistol nested in maroon velvet.

  “This goes with it.” Reese dug into his pocket and gave her a smaller box. “Ammo. I’ll load it for you when we stop, but don’t shoot it until I’ve had a chance to show you how.”

  “Fannie has one like this.”

  “All of the women do. I bought them each one when I got here and found out my hotel was actually a brothel. But all women need protection, not just whores.”

  “That’s such a harsh word.” She picked up the gun. The grip was a little large for her hand but she could still hold it firmly while reaching the trigger.

  “Painted ladies, then, although they don’t wear much paint.” He pushed her hand so the derringer pointed away from the wagon. “Always be mindful, whether loaded or not, and never point at anything you don’t intend to shoot.”

  “I know how to load it but I’ve never shot one.”

  He looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “Is that so? I wouldn’t think you’d have much opportunity at Miss Hattie’s School for the Refinement of Young Ladies to fool around with guns.”

  She hadn’t, but she’d loaded her mother’s pistol several times. “My mother taught me.”

  “You must’ve been young.”

  “Yes.” Lucinda couldn’t say a word more without him finding out who she was. Luckily, he didn’t press.

  “Load it now, then, and keep it on your person any time you step outside the Comfort Palace.”

  She loaded the pistol and tucked it into her shawl. They hadn’t had a single run-in with any sort of varmint so his sudden preoccupation with her safety seemed unwarranted.

  Two hours later, they’d made it through the heavily rutted road and were on the side of the mountain, only this time she was on the outside looking down. If she dared, which she didn’t. She inched closer to Reese. No matter whether she’d vowed to keep her distance or not, she felt a whole lot better knowing he could hold her if they hit a bump and bounced her off the wagon.

  Luckily, she wasn’t prone to carriage sickness. Heights, she could do without, and her eyes would be firmly closed when they crossed the landslide area.

  “Do you think the road will be all right?”

  “Yes, we haven’t had any rain, and when we crossed the last time, I didn’t see any movement.”

  She didn’t want to ask what he meant by movement. The whole notion scared her.

  “How long until we get there?”

  “Home? Or to the landslide?”

  “The latter.”

  “Just around the bend.” He chuckled. “I can’t decide if you’re scared of the cliff or whether you decided you like me after all.”

  “The former.”

  “I guess I’ll have to take you on mountain roads more often, then.”

  The road around the bend proved to be more dangerous than he thought, when Hannibal Hank and two scruffy looking men sat on their horses, waiting.

  Reese pulled the team to a stop. “Stay calm, Lucinda.”

  Right. She was sitting next to the cliff to nowhere, couldn’t go back, and they faced three men with guns pointing at them. “You stay calm. I reserve the right to become hysterical.”

  Hank chewed on his cigar, probably wanting to let her panic build. If so, he’d made an astute call because her insides roiled like a butter churn.

  “I’ll do the talking,” Reese whispered. “You get out of here at the first opportunity.”

  As if she’d hop off the side. But she nodded.

  “You know what I want, McAdams,” Hank called.

  “No, as a matter of fact, I don’t.”

  “Hand over the little lady and I’ll let you go on your way.”

  Lucinda sucked in a deep breath. “I can’t.” She refused to get off the wagon as long as the wagon teetered on the side of a cliff.

  “You won’t. Hop over the seat and get behind the wagon.”

  “You try it in long skirts and button shoes.”

  “Woman, for once would you not argue?”

  Hank leaned on his saddle horn and cocked his gun. “I hope you’re enjoying your little conversation there, but I’m an impatient man.”

  The one of the horses in the team pawed the ground and Lucinda wasn’t prone to waiting any longer, either. She pulled out her new Baby Russian and fired, the gun nearly leaping out of her hand and her heart jumping with it. But she clamped down tight
and fired three more times. The second shot uprooted a sagebrush plant that rolled down and nearly tripped the horse to Hank’s right, the third shot shattered a rock, and the fourth shot blew off the other man’s hat.

  “Get the hell outta here!” one of the thugs hollered. They each let loose with a shot, then turned tail and ran. Reese grabbed his rifle and fired one round before the two men rode around the bend. Hank fired one shot and left at a full gallop, too. Reese ejected, the casing flipped out and burned her arm. He inserted another cartridge and shot again.

  “Reload,” he growled at her, and he did the same, then pulled out his pistol and checked it. “When we pull around the mountain, they’ll be waiting.”

  “I’m not getting off this wagon.”

  “I reckon not.” Reese got off and inched past the horses, removed the sagebrush and threw it over the side. When he got back on, he picked up the ribbons, released the brake, and hollered at the horses to get going.

  Lucinda gripped the seat with one hand and held her pistol with the other. “It’s a long way down.”

  “You’d be six feet down if you’d been shot.” She knew it—she’d saved the day and he was angry with her.

  “I’m not going anywhere with Hannibal Hank. Not ever.”

  She shuddered but gazed straight ahead.

  Reese must have sensed her discomfort. “You can sit closer to me. Keep your gun handy. If I need any bushes shot, I’ll let you know.”

  * * * * *

  Shots rang out and Reese had no idea what they were heading into, but he had no choice other than to continue on. The steep mountain road flattened out on wide open range in a few hundred yards and it sounded like that’s where the conflict was taking place.

  Lucinda leaned into him even without the cliff. He knew how she felt, maybe more so because he’d seen a lot more battle than she had. Heart pumping, his eyes and body on alert, he pulled the wagon to a stop.

  “Get in the back and crawl under the tarp.”

  Lucinda shot him a horrified glare. “In the dark, with the spiders?”

  “There’s big two-legged spiders out here with rifles. Now get in and stay there.”

  To his amazement, she complied. “I don’t like your idea at all.”