by Anne Avery
“And that’s when Mike shot the piano?”
“Yup. Blewee! Jus’ like that! An’ that really made the sheriff mad.”
“He got mad because of a piano?”
“Musta been, ’cause he didn’t do nothin’ when Crazy Mike shot at him. But then Mike shoots the piano an’ wham!”
Dickie let out the breath he’d been holding on a long sigh of delight. He’d known from the minute he saw him that the sheriff was the kind of man that heroes were made of, but he hadn’t expected to have his judgment proved right so quickly, or so marvelously well.
“Didn’t nobody else try an’ get in the fight?” one of the other boys demanded, clearly hoping for more.
“There was a few others thinkin’ about it,” said Tom. “You know, Fat Sam and Gimpy Joe and them. Four or five, anyway. But they took one look at how the sheriff had laid out ol’ Mike so quick, and they snuck outta there like whupped puppies.”
“Whupped puppies? Really?”
A collective sigh of delight and envy escaped Tom’s audience.
“Whupped puppies,” breathed Dickie, awed.
Dickie shared the tale over lunch that afternoon.
“An then ol’ Mike, he got off about a dozen shots, bam, bam, bam!” A spoon wasn’t much of a substitute for a gun, but a fellow had to make do with what was available. “Bullets flyin’ everywhere. Tom says he didn’t hardly know which way to run, so he just dived under a table and stayed there. Tom says the sheriff never even blinked. Just like Deadwood Dick, he said, or maybe Jesse James.”
“Put your spoon on your plate, where it belongs.” His mother frowned. “You know I don’t like you listening to those tall tales that Tom Seiffert tells.”
“But what happened then?” Bonnie demanded.
“Well, then, see, some of the other miners came at him. Dozen, maybe more.”
Bonnie, ever the stickler for accuracy, frowned. “How many exactly? Didn’t Tom say?”
Dickie gave his sister a superior look. “He was too busy dodgin’ bullets and fists to waste time countin’. But it was lots.”
“I’d have counted, if I’d been there,” Bonnie said.
“Bet you wouldn’t’ve!”
“Bet I would!”
“No, sir! You’d’ve been screamin’ an’—”
“Would not!”
“Would, too!”
“Children!”
One glance at their mother’s face was enough. They guiltily subsided.
“We do not quarrel at the table. In fact, we do not quarrel ever. If you can’t discuss a topic calmly and rationally, then you don’t discuss it at all.” She frowned, first at Dickie, then at Bonnie. “Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Bonnie, glaring at her plate.
“Yes’m,” Dickie mumbled.
The minute she looked away, Bonnie made a horrible face at him. Dickie made a worse one right back. And stuck out his tongue for good measure.
If their mother noticed, she gave no sign of it. She was frowning at her bowl of soup and for a moment seemed to have forgotten they were there. She tugged at the edge of the tablecloth, cleared her throat, and said, “So then what happened?”
Dickie tried to remember where he’d left off in his tale. It was kind of hard, because Bonnie had distracted him and the details Tom had shared were getting a little blurred. Fortunately, he’d read enough to know exactly how these things were supposed to play out.
“Well, so then there’s all these big, big miners comin’ at him, see, so the sheriff, he ducks when the first one swings. And then he hits the next guy, an’ the next. Wham! Pow!”
“And then what happened?” Bonnie insisted when his imagination ran out of steam.
“And then nothin’. That was it. The sheriff won an’ Tom, he says most those miners spent the night in the town jail.”
“All of them?” Bonnie demanded. “In the jail?”
“It’s no more than they deserved,” said their mother. She abruptly shoved back from the table. “You two hurry up. I have to be back at the store at one and there’s still the dishes to wash.”
“Heard there was some trouble at Jackson’s Saloon last night,” Emmy Lou Trainer said a couple hours later, rather more loudly than was necessary.
She’d come in for a packet of pins and a bottle of blueing, or so she said. Everyone present—and there were a great deal more people than could usually be found in Calhan’s on a Saturday afternoon—knew what had really brought her into the store: exactly the same thing that had brought them.
Molly bit her tongue and bent to dig a packet of pins out of the drawer where they were kept. There were so many people in the store they were tripping over each other, but nobody was buying much of anything. All they wanted was to talk about the sheriff and Crazy Mike and that stupid piano.
She’d heard all she wanted to about all three of them. Last night she’d scarcely slept for thinking of how empty and echoing the house seemed, and of how the sheriff had looked, standing alone in that open doorway, staring at the stars. This morning, common sense had prevailed. She wasn’t going to waste time thinking of DeWitt Gavin and his exploits.
That resolution would be a lot easier to keep, however, if others would tend to their business at least half as much as she tried to tend to hers.
“I told the town council, didn’t I?” Emmy Lou continued, raising her voice a little more. “Don’t get a sheriff that doesn’t know the town, I said. That little incident last night just goes to prove I was right. Scarce one full day in town and there’s that new sheriff the council hired, brawling in Jackson’s while a madman shoots it up. Mr. Trainer wouldn’t have stood for it. He—”
“Would have been hiding under a table pretending he didn’t hear anything at all,” muttered Thelma Thompson under her breath.
Thelma had been trying to talk Molly down on the price of some blue ribbons to go with the Sheppard’s plaid she’d bought the day before, but without success. Being balked on a bargain was making her peevish and eager for a fight.
“…would have seen right off that trouble was brewing!” So far as Molly could tell, Emmy Lou hadn’t paused for breath. “After all, he’s been here long enough to know which troublemakers to watch out for. Especially when they’re drinking. Let men like that get a little liquor in them and there’s just no telling what they’ll do.”
“Huh!” said Thelma, a little louder this time. “Since when did that ever stop you from telling it?”
Emmy Lou bristled. “I beg your pardon?”
Old man Fetzer, who was pretending to inspect a coffee grinder, perked up at the prospect of a catfight.
Molly slapped the packet of pins on the counter. “What kind of blueing did you want, Emmy Lou? The powdered? Or the one in a bottle?”
“The powdered,” Emmy Lou said, glaring at Thelma. “I’ll have you know that my Zacharius—”
“Large or small?”
“Small. My Zacharius would never—no, make that large—he’d never have let things get out of hand like that. Imagine! Letting that man shoot the piano!”
“What’s so bad about shooting the piano?” Thelma demanded, the ribbon entirely forgotten. “It isn’t as if we ever borrowed it for church services any more. Not since we got our own, anyways.”
“Blew it to smithereens. That’s what I heard,” Mr. Fetzer said with satisfaction.
Emmy Lou cast them both a fulminating glance, then turned to the room at large where she had all the audience her soul could want. By now, no one was even pretending to shop.
“It’s not just the piano, you know,” she said. “It’s the fact that the town council hired a perfect stranger for sheriff—a divorced stranger, I might add!—and what’s the first thing that happens?”
“Here’s your blueing, Emmy Lou. Will that be all?”
She might as well have talked to the wall. No mere box of laundry blueing could stop Emmy Lou Trainer in full cry.
“Why, a shoot-’e
m-up brawl in the worst dive in Elk City, that’s what happens!” Emmy Lou threw her hands wide, inviting the others to share her outrage.
“Not a brawl,” Davey Zellerhoff objected from over in men’s haberdashery. “I heard there was a few shots fired and only two miners in the fight. For sure not enough to count as a brawl.”
“Half a dozen shots or more, and nobody knows how many in the fight,” said Harry Nickerson, who’d left the livery stable to take care of itself for “a minute or two” a good half hour ago. “And they shot Jackson’s chandelier, too! And the bar! I heard there was spilt whiskey all over the place!”
The news of the spilled whiskey brought frowns from all the menfolk present.
“Eleven shots,” piped up Dora Beidlebaum, happily abandoning her perusal of the cookbooks. “My neighbor was there and he said eleven shots, besides the ones to the piano. And four miners and the sheriff having it out, right there in the saloon.”
“It’s a wonder no one was hurt!” said someone at the back of the store.
Old man Fetzer cackled happily and gave the coffee grinder an extra spin. “Wonder is old Mike ain’t kill’t someone afore now. I seen ’im in a drunk and I’m here t’tell you it ain’t a purty sight.”
Molly had a sudden mental picture of DeWitt Gavin sprawled lifeless on the floor, bright-red blood staining his broad chest. The thought made her feel queasily light-headed. She gripped the edge of the counter, fighting against nausea.
Thelma eyed her, frowning. “You all right, Molly? You look almighty pale of a sudden.”
Before Molly could get a word out, the screen door swung open and the sheriff himself walked in. A stifling silence fell over the store.
The man who, according to which tale you listened to, had faced a hail of bullets and a roomful of drunken bullies without flinching, stopped dead in the doorway. A lesser man would have turned and fled. DeWitt Gavin, however, was the stuff of heroes.
He set his jaw, squared his shoulders, then politely tugged at the brim of his hat. “Ladies.”
Only the meanest faultfinder would claim there was a little more white to his eyes than there ought to have been.
Emmy Lou’s mouth pinched tight shut.
Thelma grinned. “Sheriff. Good to see your hide’s still in one piece.”
He said something indistinguishable at the back of his throat and nodded to the men, who solemnly nodded back.
The air in the room was so thick you could have ladled it out for soup.
Molly swallowed against a mouth gone suddenly dry. “Good afternoon, Sheriff.”
“Ma’am.” With a wary glance at the silently disapproving Emmy Lou, he sidled over to the counter.
And then he just stood there, staring at her.
Embarrassed, she told herself. Tongue-tied to find himself in a roomful of people who’d obviously been talking about him.
Which didn’t stop her from feeling a strange, half-forgotten heat work its way through her like a warm breeze after a long, cold, bitter winter.
It was Mr. Fetzer, craning his scrawny, wattled neck to get a better look, that reminded her of their audience.
“Can I help you, Sheriff?” she said.
DeWitt Gavin cleared his throat and looked away, toward the back of the store. “I need a bucket.”
“A bucket,” said Molly blankly. He was even bigger than she remembered. Much, much bigger.
“Yes, ma’am. For the jail.”
She had a sudden vision of herself cradled against that broad chest, sheltered in those strong arms. The vision was dangerously close to what she’d imagined in all those sleep-robbing dreams she’d suffered through last night. What little air was left in her lungs slipped out with a throat-tightening squeak.
His gaze swung back to her. Molly forced herself to breathe.
His eyes were definitely more piercing than she remembered.
“A tin bucket,” he said. “With a handle?”
“Of course.” She forced herself to smile. “They’re here at the back. If you’ll just follow me…?”
She had to come out around the counter, which brought her so close she could easily have touched him. She was almost positive the hem of her skirt brushed against his trouser leg. It troubled her she’d even noticed. If he had, he gave no sign of it.
The combined gazes of a dozen curious townsfolk kept them company all the way to the back of the store where the buckets were stacked against the wall. Blindly, she snatched up several samples. Their tinny clatter covered the sound of her own pounding heart.
“We have several sizes. The ten-quart size here is forty-six cents.” She thrust one at him and almost dropped two others.
The rolled wood handle spun off the tips of his fingers, sending the bucket crashing to the floor. They both froze.
“Need any help back there?” Mr. Fetzer’s sly offer drew appreciative snickers from the crowd.
Molly stiffened. The heat in her cheeks was reaching dangerous proportions.
She held up another bucket. “This one’s fifty-four cents. This is sixty-five.”
This close to him, air seemed in dangerously short supply. She held up the largest, breathless. “And this one’s twenty quarts for eighty cents.”
DeWitt Gavin stooped to retrieve the one he’d dropped. “This’ll do fine.”
“Great,” said Molly. She stared, fascinated, as his hand slid into his pants pocket. The tops of his knuckles were raw, as if they’d recently connected with something rough. Something like a miner’s unshaven jaw.
“Fifty-four you said?” He pulled out a badly crumpled dollar bill.
Molly stared at his open palm, caught by the image of her hand resting in that big, strong, eminently masculine one. “What?”
“Fifty-four cents, right?”
She drew in a shaking breath. “Forty-six,” she said, and turned away to drop the other three buckets back where they belonged, clank, clank, clank.
The noise didn’t quite cover up the sound of more snickering.
Molly turned back to find his hand still stretched toward her.
“You don’t want me to bill the mayor?” she said, strangely reluctant to take the money from his hand.
He shook his head. “I’ll be the one that’s using it.”
She had no choice. Taking care not to touch him, she plucked the bill from his palm. As she headed back to her place behind the counter, she was conscious of Emmy Lou and Thelma watching them, expressions sharp with disapproval on the one hand, and avid speculation on the other.
Everyone else pretended to be fascinated by whatever object was closest to hand. Molly wasn’t fooled. Davey Zellerhof was a bachelor with absolutely no use for the babies’ nightcaps he was frowning over, and Harry Nickerson had as much use for that music box he was eyeing as his horses had for hats.
Her hand fisted around DeWitt Gavin’s crumpled dollar. They were nothing but a pack of prying busybodies. The minute the sheriff was gone she’d send them about their business so quick their heads would spin.
With every step he took behind her, she could feel the floor give a little, then spring back.
Molly slid behind the counter, but before she could ring up the sale on the cash register, the sheriff was pulling the screen door open. “Ma’am,” he said, with a quick nod in her direction. “Ladies.”
By the time the screen door swung shut behind him, the only thing left in the doorway was sunshine.
Old Mr. Fetzer scuttled over to the front window, craning to watch the sheriff until he was out of sight. He gave a snorting little cackle. “Moves awfully fast for such a big feller, don’t he?”
Davey Zellerhof tossed aside the nightcap he held. “I’m beginning to think you might be right after all, Harry. He’s big enough to take on half a dozen fellows if he wanted.”
“Four,” said Harry Nickerson, abandoning the music box and heading for the door. “It was four. That’s what Billie Jenkins said.”
“First time in my life I
ever felt inclined to believe old Billie,” Davey said, thoughtfully following Harry out.
One by one, reluctantly, the other customers followed suit until only Thelma and Emmy Lou and Mr. Fetzer were left.
It was as she turned to deal with them that Molly realized she still had DeWitt Gavin’s crumpled dollar in her hand. She hadn’t even rung up his purchase, and now she would have to chase him down to return the fifty-six cents she owed him.
She wasn’t sure if it was annoyance, or a leaping excitement at the excuse to see DeWitt Gavin again that made her palms sweat suddenly. She shoved the bill deep into her pocket, then surreptitiously wiped her palm on her skirt.
“Now then, Emmy Lou,” she said, forcing her attention back to business. “Pins and blueing. That’s it, unless you want something more.”
Emmy Lou glanced at the blueing, then frowned. “That’s powdered blueing, Molly. You know I always use the liquid kind.”
Molly drew a steadying breath. “Large or small?” she said from between gritted teeth.
“Large. No, small. Small will do me fine.”
“Take the large,” Thelma said helpfully. “I was thinking your mister’s shirts were looking just a bit dingy, last time I saw him.”
“If you weren’t blind as a bat, Thelma Thompson, you’d see that Mr. Trainer’s shirts are white as an angel’s wings.”
“Good-lookin’ feller, the sheriff,” said Mr. Fetzer, companionably propping an elbow on the counter. “Wouldn’t you say he was good-lookin’, Missus Calhan?”
The diversion worked. Emmy Lou and Thelma’s heads snapped around to study her reaction. Molly would have preferred their quarreling.
She forced a teasing smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Not bad, Mr. Fetzer,” she said. “Not bad. But not near so handsome as you.”
That brought a wheezy guffaw. “If I were twenty years younger—”
“You’d still be too old,” snapped Emmy Lou. She pulled out her coin purse. “How much do I owe you, Molly?”
“That’s twenty-two cents, total,” Molly replied, deliberately adding two cents for the aggravation. She’d had all the customers she could take for one day. Even the prospect of driving off the only one who’d bought anything didn’t daunt her.