by Paty Jager
“Yeah, especially since the post office disappeared!” yelled a man. A rumble of agreement came from the crowd.
Darcy had been in town when the gap between the livery and mercantile appeared one morning. The miners of Upper Creek had become tired of walking down to Galena for their mail and decided to move the post office to their camp.
Being accident-prone, her heart and sympathies went out to the town.
“What makes you think I could keep order in a town buzzing with gold?” She wondered at his sanity asking what he presumed was a young man, whose head barely came to the middle of most men’s chests, to be a marshal.
Sure, she’d run away from the whore house her uncle sold her to after their parents died of diphtheria and helped Jeremy escape the cruelty of their uncle. Getting them back together hadn’t been easy, but they were together and she’d fight anyone who tried to separate them either by good intentions or force. She’d bumbled through the best she could, keeping them fed and clothed, however, she wasn’t one to take the welfare of a town into her hands.
In the few days they’d been in town, houses and tents had popped up along the middle fork of the Day River overnight. Freight wagons and pack trains pulled through the town several times a day, unloading and loading to move on to the next mining town.
“The way this young man can handle a gun, I say he’s the perfect person for the job.” Craven smiled and pointed to the gun she had yet to pay for.
Jeremy winked at Mr. Craven. “Darce is bashful about his shooting abilities and we,” Jeremy cleared his throat, “he’d be honored to become a lawman.” He stretched to his full height of five feet and placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “How much does it pay?”
“Jeremy!” Darcy grabbed hold of his ear and dragged him down the street. “We’ll discuss it and get back to you,” she hollered to the crowd over her brother’s screeching.
She pulled him down an alley between the assayer’s office and the livery. Building debris, packing crates, and piles of soiled animal bedding littered the alley. The smell of horses, wet hay, and dung permeated the air. Darcy kicked at wood shavings beside a crate and stubbed her toe. Pain shot through her foot. Frustrated, she plopped her backside down on a wooden box and grabbed her foot as she glared at her dimwitted brother.
“You know I can’t shoot! That guy just got in the way.” She rubbed her foot and glanced out toward the street. “I can’t be a marshal of any town let alone one with bank robbers popping out of banks.”
A hand rested on her shoulder. Darcy looked up at her brother’s solemn face.
“I’ll help you,” he said with such conviction, she didn’t laugh at his childish innocence. They’d done everything together. Faced their parent’s death, faced their vengeful uncle, and survived on their own. Why shouldn’t he think the two of them could face down outlaws?
“And I’m hungry.” His young eyes beseeched her. “Maybe the town provides meals to the marshal. They did in Wilsonville. Remember?” He rubbed his stomach. His was as empty as hers and she was ready to do just about anything for a piece of bread.
“Please, Darce, I haven’t had anything decent to eat in a week.”
She cringed. He did need a stable place to live for a while and food in his belly at night when he went to bed. She looked at Jeremy’s pants riding low on his hips, still not touching the tops of his shoes.
“The mayor gives me the willies. He’s not what he seems.” She hoped to prey on her brother’s distrust of males in authority.
“You weren’t too honest telling him you were only fifteen.” Her brother’s arched eyebrow reminded her of their father. Her face heated with shame. She had lied.
“Do I look like a nineteen year-old-male?” She stared him in the face. “I don’t have any whiskers, I’m too thin. It’s easier to pass myself off as younger.”
“Why don’t you stop hiding behind them clothes? You’re old enough now to be taken serious as a woman.”
“You remember what he said. ‘Girl you’re so gangly and uncoordinated no man’ll ever want you for a wife’. Then he sold me to that woman.” Her stomach curdled thinking how her uncle had taken their money and promised her parents he would take care of them only to sell her and enslave Jeremy. Then the bastard had starved his nephew.
“What he done wasn’t right. But he was wrong about you, too.” Jeremy’s stomach growled. He looked apologetically at her and shrugged.
“You need food. We need a place to stay.” She mulled the facts over in her mind.
The town called to her heart from the first day they arrived. She was tired of moving from place to place. Galena felt like home. She sighed. Maybe they could do the job. If anything came up, she’d send out a posse and stay in town. They shouldn’t question her wanting to stay and protect the town while a posse went off after outlaws.
“I guess it can’t hurt to give it a try. If it don’t work, we can always cut out during the night with no harm to anyone,” she said, reluctantly accepting the idea.
Jeremy pivoted on one foot and bolted back down the alley yelling at the top of his lungs, “We accept! We accept!”
Darcy ran a hand over her face. She looked toward the street where Jeremy disappeared. A man a few years older than herself leaned against the corner of the building. He wasn’t dressed like a miner. A long, heavy coat hung open, revealing a lean body and a holstered gun slung low on narrow hips. Dark curls stuck out from under a gray cavalry hat. A red bandana hung loose around his neck. He stared straight at her, his face expressionless, his dark eyes probing.
Her cheeks warmed under his gaze. She ducked her head, hiding behind her narrow brim. No man or boy, other than the mayor, had ever looked so closely at her. She dressed like a boy to make traveling about easier. She’d never let anyone know she was a woman. There seemed to be only one place for someone of her gender and young years to end up and she’d been there. She would never set foot in a bordello again. She’d been lucky to escape before having to submit her body to a man.
Her fists clenched and unclenched. She couldn’t trust any male other than Jeremy knowing her truth. Persuading people she could be a marshal shouldn’t be that hard.
She snorted. Blazes, she’d been pretending her whole life. Pretending she was tough, pretending she knew everything. She’d fooled Jeremy so far, so it shouldn’t be too hard to fool a town that didn’t know her.
The man still stood at the corner, watching. A shiver shook her body. Why wasn’t he moving on? She wasn’t that interesting. The only way to get to the main street was to go by him. God only knew what Jeremy was telling Mr. Craven. She ducked her head and hurried past the stranger, refusing to look at him.
*****
Gil Halsey had followed the shooter and young boy to the alley. The boy had hurried out like his britches were on fire, yelling at the top of his lungs. He’d looked down right pleased with himself. But the shooter looked less than happy with the outcome. He watched the young man stand up and hurry past him to join the crowd gathered around Tobias Craven.
The shooting was too convenient.
Gil had heard the cries and hurried out of the saloon in time to see the robber fall. The expression on the shooter’s face told it all. The young man hadn’t meant to hit the robber. Gil settled his hat tighter on his head and ambled along to see about the hubbub around Craven.
The shooter and boy were in the middle of the crowd. The youngest had a smile stretched from ear to ear. The older boy looked out of place. Like he wanted to be down at the creek fishing or tossing rocks at the outhouse behind the saloon. But as Craven talked, the older boy started to take on a more confident stance, though he kept his face shadowed by his hat brim.
Craven raised his hands. He jabbed at the air with a stub of a cigar between his short, fat fingers.
“I’m proud to announce we have a new marshal,” Craven bellowed to the crowd and pulled the young man forward. “I’d like you all to meet Marshal Duncan.”
&nb
sp; Gil frowned. The shooter raised his arms and ducked his head enough to allow the brim of his cap to hide all of his face but a confident smile.
“What we need a lawman for?” someone in the crowd hollered. “The last one didn’t stick around.”
“He got gold fever.” Craven patted the new marshal on the back. “I don’t think we have to worry about that with this one.”
“I still sez we can handle our own problems,” a short, stocky man said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd.
“Now Bill,” Craven smiled at the man, “aren’t you forgetting the fact them thieving miners from Upper Creek slithered down here and stole our post office?”
The crowd shuffled and murmured.
“By employing a law officer, he can go up to those scoundrels and get our post office back. They had no right to come stealing in here under the dark of night and take our building. If we’d had a marshal, they wouldn’t have had the guts to do it.”
Gil watched Craven puff up and scan the crowd. He smiled and thrust his arms out as though to embrace everyone gathered around. “Do this for your post office!”
The crowd applauded and cheered.
The new marshal stood in the shadow of the man speaking, his slender body nearly hidden from view behind the older man. The top of his head barely came to Craven’s shoulder, and the mayor wasn’t a tall man. Nope, the marshal wasn’t built like any Gil had come across. He didn’t look like a very good prospect for a law enforcer. Why had Craven hired on such a young man for marshal?
Shaking his head at the situation, Gil headed to the saloon where he’d struck up a conversation with a pretty dance hall girl before all the commotion took place.
He stopped and looked toward the man crumpled in the street by the bank. The body looked bigger than the man he followed to this town. It wouldn’t surprise him to find Pete had been with the gang who attempted the robbery.
Gil pushed his hat back on his head and looked at the body. The boss wouldn’t take kindly to hearing his son was gunned down by a boy. Would bringing back Pete’s body cost him his job?
He ambled over to the man sprawled in the dirt. Gil lifted the head and looked him over. It wasn’t Pete. Relief flowed through his body like a shot of good whiskey. But the man looked a little like the guy he’d seen Pete with before he disappeared.
The man groaned.
Gil rolled him over. The bullet had only gone through his shoulder. The fall from the horse must have knocked him out.
“Is there a doctor in this town?” Gil called, untying the bandana from around his throat and pressing it to the robber’s wound to stop the flow of blood. A few of the merchants wandered out and stared down at the man.
“Aren’t any of you going to help?” Gil asked as they all headed back to their businesses.
“He tried to steal our money, why should we help him?”
One of the merchants narrowed his eyes. “He a friend of yours?” They all glared at him, waiting for his answer.
“No, but you can’t let him lay here and bleed to death. He needs patched up and thrown in jail.” Gil hooked the robber’s arm around his neck. “Where can I take him for medical help?”
A couple of men pointed. Gil followed their pointing hands and groaned. A large house sat on the hill north of town.
He carried the man up the side street. After the robber got patched up and locked in jail, he’d hang around and wait for the rest of the gang to come get him. Then he’d get Pete. Save him the time of following every trail to a dead end.
Gil dropped the unconscious man off at the house of Mrs. Danforth and headed to the saloon. A messenger would be sent to inform him when the robber was ready to go to jail.
He entered the saloon and leaned against the bar, wrapping his hand around the glass of whiskey the bartender put in front of him.
Miners and merchants filed back into the saloon to discuss the new marshal and wonder at the hasty decision of Tobias Craven. But no one would go against the biggest landowner in Galena. Gil shook his head and wondered if Craven knew what he’d done hiring a greenhorn young man like the marshal.
*****
Darcy followed Mr. Craven up the street to the jail. Jeremy skipped as he walked alongside of her, his eyes danced with excitement. She smiled at him and straightened her back. Mr. Craven had given her the rifle. He said they could stay in the quarters over the jail and get their meals at the hotel. It had turned out to be the best job they’d ever had. She grinned, three meals a day and a place to sleep, just to sit in a chair and look important. Maybe being a marshal wasn’t that tough.
Entering the jail, a shiver of doubt snaked down her backbone. A large, wooden door with a small window made of metal bars stood open. She had a good look at the small room with two hard, wood beds. Gulping, she looked around at the sparsely furnished office. How would she throw grown men into the musty cell and lock them up? She looked at the rotund, flabby man beside her. I couldn’t even roll him in and lock the door.
Dread began to gnaw at her euphoria of having a place to live and food to eat. She scanned the wood walls. Her gaze stopped at the wanted posters on the wall beside the window. Her heart jumped into her throat. Could she do this job? Could she act like a marshal?
Jeremy scampered inside the building. He jumped on the cots in the cell and ran his hands over the rifles on a rack along the wall. He appeared delighted with their surroundings. She tried to let his enthusiasm seep through her doubts. Craven had to go. She and Jeremy needed to talk.
“Thank you, sir. We’ll settle in now.” Darcy shoved Craven out the door and sat down in the chair behind the desk. She stared at Jeremy.
“What have you gotten me into?” It was easier to put all the blame on Jeremy than admit she wanted food and a place to sleep as badly as he did.
“Huh?” Jeremy stopped running and looked at her.
“How am I supposed to lock up grown men in there?” She pointed to the cell. “How am I to keep peace in this town when I’m smaller than most of the women?” She yanked open a desk drawer. The momentum caused something to slide to the front. She pulled out a metal star. It was as big as the palm of her hand and cold. She traced the raised letters with a hesitant finger as her heart hammered in her chest. What man had worn this before? Could she do the job?
“Jeremy, my feet don’t even reach the floor when I sit in this chair.” She looked at her brother. What had she done?
“You’re supposed to lean back and put your feet on the desk. Remember Sheriff Tucker in Wilsonville when we was brought to him after you dumped that barrel of pickles over at the mercantile?”
Her frustration mounted at his memory of the events. “I didn’t knock that barrel over. Some little kid was hiding behind the barrel and knocked it over when he ran out after another kid.” She swung her feet, heavy boots and all, onto the desk. They landed with a loud thud. The spring on the chair twanged, throwing her forward and shoving the chair against the wall behind the desk. Her chin hit the desktop, clanging her teeth together as her body was thrown into the kneehole of the desk.
Her head started to clear when a soft, deep voice by the door said, “I’d like to speak to the marshal.”
Chapter 2
Darcy rubbed her chin and stifled a groan as she stared under the desk to see who belonged to the voice. A pair of dirty, pointed-toed boots with jangling spurs approached. Jeremy scampered around to the front of the desk, stopping the man before he could peek over the top and spy her.
“The marshal just stepped out. Let’s talk outside. He don’t like visitors when he ain’t around,” Jeremy said, dragging the man to the front door and onto the wooden planks in front of the building.
Darcy cursed under her breath, then thanked her brother for his quick thinking as she pulled herself off the hard floor. The marshal’s badge dropped out of her hand. The metal star clattered on the planking at her feet. Her head and knees throbbed. She rubbed them as she peered out the door to see who asked
for the marshal.
Her heart stopped. The profile matched the man from the alley. He leaned close to Jeremy, listening intently.
She bent over, picked up the badge, and pinned it to her shirt before slipping out the back door. The over-sized boots dragged and knocked together as she ran down the alley behind several buildings. Darcy stopped, sucked in air, and walked through the spot where the post office had once stood. She stepped into the street and scanned the wagons lumbering by and the people walking along in front of the buildings.
Most folk appeared to be miners and prostitutes. They all smiled and went about their business in a congenial manner. A few pinch-faced wives’ of merchants hurried along the street as though they smelled something bad and wanted to get away from it. Darcy’d met this type of woman before. They weren’t a whole lot of fun. She liked to think her mother wouldn’t have walked around acting like she was better than others.
She ambled toward the jail in no hurry to get anywhere in particular, even though her curiosity about the man talking with Jeremy had her feet itching to hurry. Darcy stepped onto the planks thrown on the ground in front of the mercantile.
The board tipped up, and her body slanted backwards. She slapped her other foot down half-way up the board to keep it from hitting her in the face. The sound echoed up and down the street. The man with Jeremy looked her way. She smiled sheepishly and stomped on the boards. “Yep, set good ‘n’ flat,” she uttered, to no one in particular.
The man watched her approach from under the brim of his sweat-stained hat. Darcy straightened her back and tried to swagger like she’d seen older men do when they thought people watched.
“Hey, Darce!” Jeremy hollered, swinging his arm like there was an acre between them instead of a building.
“Yeah?” She stopped a few feet from her brother and the man.
Just far enough back she didn’t have to tip her head too much to look into his face. She didn’t need her hat falling off now.