This town of Cle Elum was so uncivil that a man had asked for her hand in marriage before she’d even reached the coach house the evening before! She shuddered at the memory of his roving gaze. Thankfully, he’d been good natured about her curt refusal.
At least, according to the coachman, this was the last town she would need to stay in before she arrived at Wyldhaven this evening. She couldn’t help but be thankful that Mr. Heath’s brochure showed he had founded a civilized and respectable town as opposed to those she’d been forced to stay in for the past week on her travels west. Why, the boardwalk beneath her feet was cracked in so many places she practically had to search out where to place each step.
She arched her back and pressed her hands into the ache. Even the beds in the train cabin she’d used for the first several days of the journey had been preferable to the lumpy mattress she had slept on the evening before.
A breeze wafted to her from the open plains on the far side of town, and she crinkled her nose. Cattle. Yet another thing to be thankful for about her destination. She doubted logging would be quite as odiferous as the cattle business seemed to be.
Down the street, it appeared that not too far in the past a fire had taken out several buildings. One was still boarded up. And construction had begun on two others. Two muddy little boys darted by, rolling a wagon wheel before them. Charlotte’s heart churned. It was a Thursday morning. Shouldn’t those two little ones be in school? A smithy’s hammer banged from the building on the corner across the street, and that was where the two boys stopped. At their call, the smithy came out and set to examining the wheel. Would those two boys be attending a school this year? Did they even have a school in this town?
She searched the street but didn’t see one.
The coach was coming her way, however. And she supposed that bringing education to the waifs of Cle Elum was not her job. As she picked up her bag, she made a mental note to make sure she personally invited every Wyldhaven family with children to attend her school. There were too many families these days who didn’t see the value in education. It would fall to her to change that way of thinking. Yet one could hope that in a civilized town like Wyldhaven purported to be, there wouldn’t be a need for such convincing.
An older man in top hat, who had also been on the stage from Ellensburg with her yesterday, stopped beside her, a scantily clad woman clinging to his arm.
“Now, Mr. Waddell, don’t you be forgetting me, all right?”
“Trust me, Wanda. A man doesn’t easily forget a night like last night.”
Charlotte felt her face heat in shock, even as the woman tittered seductively.
But there was something false in the sound of it that made Charlotte look their way.
The woman swirled her finger down the older man’s chest and leaned closer to him to whisper, “Neither does a lady.”
Above his shoulder, Charlotte caught a glimpse of the woman’s face. It was flat and expressionless until she pulled away from him far enough that he could see her, and then a pretentious smile bloomed.
Charlotte swallowed and concentrated on tugging her traveling gloves more firmly into place. Why would a woman give herself to such a life if she hated it as much as evidenced by Charlotte’s glimpse of the woman’s true emotions?
Another memory flashed into her mind. The image of the woman Kent had been prodding up the stairs that fateful day in Boston. The expression that had flashed across that woman’s face just before they disappeared at the top of the stairs was clearly one of aversion. Much as she wanted to revile such women and name them home wreckers, dream crushers, life stealers, she couldn’t help but have a touch of sympathetic curiosity about what would make a woman fall so far as to give up everything, even her own body and personal happiness, just for a bit of money.
The coach pulled to a stop before them, and Charlotte was glad to see that her trunks were indeed still strapped to the top. The older man left his companion behind and held out a hand to help Charlotte climb the coach steps. Reluctantly, Charlotte accepted his assistance, but she withdrew her hand from his the first moment she possibly could, for his touch sent a shiver of revulsion through her. The man probably had an unsuspecting, faithful wife waiting for him back home!
Would that have been how her life turned out? If she hadn’t followed Kent into the city that day? If she had gone ahead and married him? Would it have been her destiny to sit at home and wait for him to return? Her lot to ignore the scent of another woman on his clothes when he arrived? Her portion to make excuses for him to her children?
How had she allowed herself to be so severely deceived by the man?
Mr. Waddell settled onto the seat across from her and laid his hat and gloves on the bench beside him. His gaze slipped over her.
Charlotte felt her eyes widen in outrage. The man was three times her age if he was a day! And he’d just left a woman of the night standing at the stage stop! Charlotte gritted her teeth. She was to be stuck with him in this stage for how long?
Chuckling, the man tilted his head into the corner of the coach and closed his eyes, seemingly unaffected by her disdain.
Charlotte eased out a tremulous breath. The fiend!
Was immorality taken so lightly in the West? Why, even Kent, when she’d confronted him, had asked her to keep her voice down. But this man, it seemed, didn’t care a whit that his indiscretions had been noted.
Oh, she needed a distraction. She dug through her reticule for her book. The day was long, and the roads grew rougher the farther they went. When they stopped for lunch, Charlotte’s eyes widened at the sight of the road they’d been traveling. The path couldn’t really be called a road at all. It was more like a stretch of ruts that had been cleared of timber.
The stage driver plunked a basket down on the ground and laid out a soiled cloth. “Have a seat.” He handed each of his two passengers a hard-boiled egg and a tomato. There was some sort of meat in the basket, but Charlotte doubted she would have the courage to try it.
She frowned at the scanty meal cupped in each palm. There didn’t seem to be a place to sit that wouldn’t muddy her dress, so she chose to remain standing.
She bit into her tomato and scanned the forest around them. Other than the sounds of the two men rather noisily consuming their own provisions, everything was silent. Would there really be a lovely little piece of New England at the end of this journey? A town with cobblestone streets and stone cottages? One with streetlamps and flowerpots abloom with color on each corner? She had to admit that if she hadn’t seen the depictions on the brochure with her own eyes she would be in serious doubt about her destination right now. Everything out in these parts seemed so rough, and rugged, and unattractive.
All too soon the coachman urged them back to the carriage. Thankfully, Mr. Waddell seemed to have finally registered her pique and taken it to heart, for he’d hardly given her a second glance all day. Charlotte’s other consolation was that this was her last day of the trip. Tonight she would sleep in a comfortable bed in what would be her own cottage, at least for the duration of the school year.
As the afternoon wore on, the road grew even worse, if that was possible. Charlotte massaged her fingers into the aching muscles of her jaw. She realized it had been clenched for most of the day. As much as they’d been jostling she might lose a tooth before arriving in what was promised to be an idyllic replica of New England.
The coachman thumped on the roof of the carriage. “Wyldhaven just over the next ridge!”
A sigh of relief slipped free. Even the man across from her seemed to relax slightly at the call.
Whap! A gash tore through the carriage’s sidewall. A gaping, splintered hole exploded through the roof. Half a moment later, the loud reverberations of a gunshot rent the air!
“Whoa!” the driver yelled.
Before the coach even came to a full stop, Charlotte had cowered against the floor and curled her arms around her head. Across from her the older man had also lunged to
the floor. He yanked the cushion off his seat, folded it in half, and then pinned it with his carpetbag to the side of the carriage, where the bullets seemed to be emanating from. He curled his body into as tight of a ball as he could behind the flimsy barrier.
Charlotte scrambled to follow his example.
For a moment they lay in silence, the only sounds cutting through the stillness, the sharp puffs of their breaths.
Then the zing of another bullet shot above the coach.
Charlotte flinched, though she already lay coiled so tightly it could hardly have been counted as a movement at all.
Her reticule, pinned beneath her cheek, rustled, and she was reminded of the brochure it contained.
Charlotte would have snorted if the unladylike propensity hadn’t been so thoroughly expunged from her at finishing school. If this welcoming committee was standard fair for Mr. Heath’s town, she would be on the first wagon bound in an eastward direction this very afternoon!
Except… Disappointment curled through her. Was she to be a failure not only at finding a man who could remain faithful, but at making her own way in the world also? Retreat might sound heavenly right about now, but it would prove true Mother and Father’s concern that she might not be cut out for life in the “Wild West.” Going back would also mean dealing with Kent, and she’d almost rather face this hail of bullets than face him.
Still, if this was what life in the West was like on a daily basis, she just might have to swallow her pride and crawl back home with her tail between her legs. Providing she lived that long.
The report of another shot made her stomach pitch.
The coach jostled, and she heard a soft thud on the back side of the carriage, then footsteps darting away and the crash of underbrush.
Perfect. The coachman had just abandoned them!
Hadn’t one of the positions Mr. Heath so proudly proclaimed he’d already filled in Wyldhaven been that of sheriff?
Where’s your sheriff now, Mr. Heath? She was certainly going to have a few complaints to lodge with the sheriff about the way citizens were welcomed to the town he was employed to keep safe!
If he was like any of the men in her life lately, he was probably entertaining himself with some bawdy house woman right about now. Charlotte pressed her lips together. The bitter thought didn’t make her like herself all that much. That wasn’t the kind of person she wanted to be, always suspicious and suspecting people of doing wrong. After all, there were good men in the world. Father was a prime example of that.
Still… She couldn’t deny that having just one of those good men show up right about now wouldn’t hurt her feelings any.
She angled her gaze up to the bullet hole torn in the sidewall of the stagecoach just above her head. Wouldn’t Miss Gidden be aghast to see her now, sprawled on the floor of the stagecoach in such an unladylike fashion, and with her skirts all a mess from dust and dirt, and her hat likely askew. Yet somehow acting the lady had been the furthest thing from her mind when the bullets had started flying!
From outside a deep, gravelly voice called, “We know you’re in there, Waddell. Why don’t you come on down and face us like a real man would?”
Charlotte’s gaze darted across the interior of the coach to her fellow passenger. The older man’s top hat had fallen between them. One of his gloves remained on the bench behind him. The other had somehow become draped over his shoulder, as though a malnourished ghoul clutched at him from beyond the grave. And his shock of white hair stood from the peak of his rather pointy head like the comb of a rooster.
He met her look and pressed one finger to his thickly whiskered lips.
Charlotte nearly rolled her eyes. As if she planned on calling out.
He inched closer to the side of the carriage, lifting his head above his makeshift barrier for the first time since the ordeal had begun. He pressed one bloodshot eye to a bullet hole, peering into the field next to the road. He looked first in one direction, then craned around to study a different angle.
Charlotte couldn’t help but contemplate that the man had to be slightly crazy. Because she felt certain that any movement the men outside might witness would draw another hail of bullets.
Unless… Surely they wouldn’t shoot at a woman? And it was obvious their disgruntlement wasn’t with her, because they were calling Mr. Waddell’s name.
Another bullet whined overhead.
Charlotte cringed and thought fondly of the litter-laden streets of the commercial district back home where she could be, even now, preparing her lessons without so much as a whiff of gunpowder in the air.
Well, this was certainly a fine mess she’d found herself in! But it was no more than Mother had direly warned her about in the last days before her departure. For when Mother had noted that her warnings about wild Indians had taken no effect, she’d changed tactics and started talking about all the outlaw gangs she’d heard about over the years. Charlotte had dismissed the stories out of hand. Those were the types of things that happened in uncivilized towns, not towns like the one Mr. Heath had promised his to be.
Charlotte gritted her teeth. She hated the thought of admitting that Mother had been right. But she hated even more the thought that she’d traveled all this way only to die on the threshold of her destination. She was thirsty! And tired! And she hadn’t traveled thousands of miles squashed between ill-groomed and ill-mannered men to be killed in a volley of lead only moments before she might experience the joy of a hot bath once more. Wyldhaven was just over the next rise, and she meant to get there.
She needed to set her mind to coming up with a plan. She had students to teach, and hot baths to take, and drat if her temper wasn’t starting to get the best of her!
Her mind went once more to Mr. Heath’s promises. Stone cottages and picket-fenced yards, a new millinery shop and students eager to learn. All these things he had averred. Not one word had been said about the potential drawbacks of Wyldhaven’s welcoming committee!
What should she do? She couldn’t think with her mouth so parched! What she wouldn’t give for a good cup of tea right about now.
That did it. “Don’t shoot!” she called.
Across the coach, Mr. Waddell jolted so high off the floor one might have thought she’d jabbed him with a hatpin.
Charlotte ignored him and fought her skirts until she could gain her feet. “I’m coming out! I’m the new schoolteacher for Wyldhaven, and if you shoot me, you’re going to have to deal with Mr. Zebulon Heath himself.” She prayed these hooligans didn’t know that man would still be back east for several weeks yet.
Heart pounding in her throat, she cringed and waited for a bullet to end her thirst, but all around hung nothing but silence. Slowly, she eased open the door of the stagecoach and thrust her empty hands into the breezy August air, then carefully peered outside.
“I’m coming down now, and I’ll thank you not to put any holes in my brand-new day dress, gentlemen.”
She threw in that last word as an afterthought. Gentlemen indeed. There was nothing gentlemanly about this lot, and that was of a certainty.
From his prone position behind the log just inside the forest, Reagan Callahan almost cursed. This was a complication he hadn’t seen coming! He could hear the brush all around him rustling and knew the men of his posse were all probably wondering what to do now, as well.
Blast it! Why hadn’t Zeb wired ahead that the teacher was coming? As far as he knew, no one in town even knew Zeb had hired a teacher!
But there she was, big as life. Well…not so big—a tiny little thing with the craziest feather contraption atop her head that he’d ever seen. And she was standing right smack in the center of a feud betwixt members of the most dangerous outlaw gang in this area.
Everything they’d planned had been rolling along just as smooth as butter until that schoolmarm had stepped off the stage a second ago. She was bound to be taken hostage by one side or the other if she didn’t get herself out of there and right quick.
As though the very thought had conjured the action, Waddell leapt from the coach and wrapped one arm around the schoolmarm’s neck. So he had been aboard.
The lady squeaked rather loudly, but Reagan would give her points for not falling all to pieces like he’d halfway suspected a woman of her obvious station and privilege might have.
Reagan clenched his fist.
Using her as a shield, Waddell pressed the muzzle of his six-shooter to her temple. “You all just listen up real good now.” Waddell’s eyes darted around wildly. “I’m going to climb on the back of one of the stage horses, and I’m going to ride on out of here, nice and peaceful like. I’m not going to hold it against you, Horace, that you rounded up the boys and brought them here to bushwhack me—especially on account of my double-crossing you like I did. But lest you want this here pretty slip of a gal to be left along the trail one piece at a time, I suggest you all back off and just let me go on about my business.”
“Aw, blazes, Waddell. We just want our money back! Whyn’t you let that teacher lady go and just split the money with us fair and square? Then we can all go our separate ways with none o’ us holdin’ no grudges ’ginst t’other.”
The schoolteacher nodded rather vigorously for having a pistol pressed to her head, feathers swaying. “Yes, I think the man has a very reasonable solution to this whole misunderstanding!” Her voice was amazingly calm, despite the agitation revealed by her movements.
“Just one problem, boys.” Waddell slapped a feather out of his face and dragged the lady toward the horses.
Don Brass, the stage driver who had plunged off the seat and disappeared into the brush a moment ago, now peered out from behind a tree on the other side of the gully, rifle in hand. Reagan would have admired the man if he wasn’t so concerned about the safety of his own men.
Beside him, Joe shuffled in the brush. “He starts shooting, and one of us is likely to get hit.”
Not a Sparrow Falls (Wyldhaven Book 1) Page 5