by Anne Avery
She caught him eyeing the chocolate creams as she turned away.
A few minutes later, as she rolled up two small paper sacks of candy, the screen door swung open and Gordon Hancock, president of Elk City State Bank, walked in.
Molly repressed a frown. No matter how little she liked the man, or how much she mistrusted his motives, she couldn’t afford to antagonize him. He had the power to refuse the occasional loan she needed to keep her business running, and he was the kind who would be vindictive if she crossed him.
Besides, he was a very profitable customer. He ordered expensive Cuban cigars by the box, bought countless trinkets and trifles to give as gifts to special bank customers, and once he’d discovered she could bring in his favorite and very expensive linen shirts, he’d ordered a dozen from her, just like that, with a promise to order a dozen more when the first showed signs of wear.
His shoes and tailored suits he bought in Denver, however. It helped, he’d once confided to her, to share the same tailor as the governor and three state senators. According to him, you never knew when that sort of connection might come in handy.
It was just her imagination that DeWitt Gavin tensed at the sight of him.
Molly put on her best storekeeper’s smile. “Mr. Hancock, good morning.”
“Mrs. Calhan. You’re looking especially lovely this fine morning.”
She ignored the compliment. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
“Of course. Got to take care of the sheriff!” He clapped Gavin on the back with the ready familiarity of an old friend. “Especially one who’s as good at his job as this fellow is, hey?”
The sheriff’s mouth thinned, but he gave a curt little nod of recognition. All he said was, “Hancock.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t join you at Jackson’s the other night,” Hancock continued, oblivious. “I hear I missed a fine show.”
“One drunk.”
“Oh, but Crazy Mike’s not just any drunk. Isn’t that so, Mrs. Calhan?”
Molly was busy toting up the sheriff’s purchases, which gave her an excuse not to reply.
“That’s a dollar-six, Sheriff,” she said. She packed the bottles into the bucket and padded them with the cleaning cloths while he counted out the coins to pay for them.
“Going to do a little housekeeping, are you, Gavin?” Hancock had a talent for sneering without being too obvious. It was one of the many things Molly disliked about him. Most people, when they wanted to sneer, made no effort to pretend they were doing something else.
“Sheriff Gavin has hired my son to sweep out his office.” She pushed down the cash register’s keys with rather more force than necessary. Kaching! “You should see the dirt the last man left!”
Outwardly, DeWitt Gavin was calm, oblivious to the insult and the rejoinder on his behalf, but Molly caught the hard glint in his eyes. He wasn’t oblivious at all, and he didn’t like Gordon Hancock.
Somehow, knowing Gavin didn’t like the banker, either, made her feel a little more secure.
“The town won’t pay for that sort of thing, you know,” Hancock warned. “The cost of cleaning the jail comes out of your pocket if you don’t do it yourself.”
“That’s what the mayor said.” The sheriff picked up his purchases, politely touched the brim of his hat. “Mrs. Calhan.”
“Sheriff.”
She couldn’t help smiling. There was something endearing about a man his size, with a gun belt strapped around his hips, toting a mop and a bucket filled with cleaning supplies.
“I’ll be over later to make sure Dickie’s done a proper job of it,” she said. “And don’t hesitate to tell me if he doesn’t do the work or starts to bother you with all his chatter.”
He smiled at that. It wasn’t a big smile, but it lit up his face. “He won’t annoy me.”
The smile vanished. He nodded at the banker. “Hancock.”
Hancock casually leaned against the counter like a man who thought it was his. “Sheriff. Good to see you.”
DeWitt Gavin was halfway out the door when she said, “Mr. Gavin?” He turned to look back at her questioningly.
“Thank you. For myself, as well as Dickie.”
He hesitated in the open doorway, then gave a curt, almost embarrassed nod. “Ma’am.”
If it hadn’t been for Hancock’s presence, Molly would have run to the window so she could watch him until he was out of sight.
Chapter Seven
It wasn’t fair, Bonnie thought. She was eleven, and Dickie was only eight, but he had a job and she didn’t. Fifty cents a week pay, too!
Her head spun at the thought of such wealth.
It didn’t help to know that he’d just spend every penny he could on dime novels and licorice whips, while here she was with not a dime to her name and almost dead with envy of Fanny Simpson and her fancy new lace collar.
Worse, last night at dinner he’d made a point of rubbing it in. Mother had been so preoccupied that she hadn’t even noticed. Not, that is, Bonnie thought darkly, until Dickie had goaded her to the point that she’d had to pinch him, just to keep him in his place.
At his squawk, Mother had finally roused enough to notice what was going on, but instead of punishing Dickie, who was the cause of it all, she’d said, “Bonnie! Stop picking on your little brother. If you can’t act more your age, you can do the dishes all by yourself tonight.” And then Dickie had made a face, and she’d made the mistake of making one right back, and they’d both ended with extra chores.
It really, really, really wasn’t fair!
Frustrated, Bonnie kicked at a pebble and sent it spinning. She was supposed to be home starting lunch soon, but right now she wouldn’t mind going hungry if it meant Dickie went hungry, too. It just wasn’t fair.
She kicked another pebble. This one hit the edge of a hitching post, ricocheted under the boardwalk in front of the Elk City Courier and Print Shop, and roused an indignant yowl from a startled cat. The cat shot out from under the boardwalk, raced across the alley, and dived under the boardwalk in front of Potter’s Pharmacy.
Guilt-stricken, Bonnie hurried after it. She crouched to peer under the walk. The cat, a scrawny stray, cowered against the back close to the corner of the building.
“Here, kitty, kitty,” she called softly. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Here kitty.”
The cat snarled and arched its back, ready to fight. Its tail had fluffed to three times its normal size.
Bonnie moved around to the back of the walk, right at the corner of the pharmacy. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”
The cat spat, swiped at her, claws bared, then shot out from under the boardwalk like a Fourth of July rocket and disappeared down the street.
“Well, poop,” said Bonnie, slumping down on the stubby grass at the side of the building.
Nothing was going right and it just wasn’t fair.
The screen door to the pharmacy creaked open. Bonnie tensed, then sank down into the shadows under the walk. The last thing she needed was for one of her mother’s friends to spot her and give her a lecture about how young ladies weren’t supposed to be crawling around under the boardwalks.
Footsteps echoed on the planking, followed by the slap of the screen door closing. When the footsteps turned her way, Bonnie slid under the walk, heedless of the scolding she’d get when her mother saw the dirt on her dress.
“I was that shocked. I can’t tell you how shocked I was.”
“You don’t need to tell me, Emmy Lou. I can just imagine!”
The first voice obviously belonged to Mrs. Trainer. Bonnie couldn’t identify the owner of the second. Not Mrs. Thompson, anyway. Mother said those two ladies never talked to each other but what they got in was a quarrel, and from the eager note in these ladies’ voices, they were a long way from quarreling. She daren’t risk looking for fear of being seen.
The footsteps clunked across the boards over her head.
“There she was,” Mrs. Trainer continued, voice thick
with smug satisfaction, “first thing this morning, in the jail with her boy. I couldn’t help but worry. You know how she lets those kids of hers run wild and boys, especially, will get into trouble if you don’t watch them. I can’t help but wonder what it was that had her down at the jail so early.”
“Well if you can’t guess, Emmy Lou,” the second voice said, “I certainly can! Elizabeth Andersen told me she saw Molly Calhan and the sheriff together right after. The two of them were as good as walking arm in arm, she said, and him not one full week in town! Imagine!”
“I’d just as soon not!” said Mrs. Trainer.
Which meant, Bonnie thought sourly, that she was picturing all sorts of whatever wickednesses it was that grown-ups got into, and enjoying the thought of every one. And if what she thought up wasn’t bad enough, Mrs. Trainer would probably make up something worse, and then she’d tell everybody she saw about it, just as if it were the truth.
She might be only eleven, but Bonnie knew a tall-tale teller when she heard one. Hadn’t she had to put up with Dickie and his wild stories all these years?
But still…Her mother? And the sheriff?
The women’s footsteps on the steps leading off that section of boardwalk brought her attention back to the present.
“She certainly hasn’t wasted any time, has she?” Mrs. Trainer said.
“Maybe she was afraid Louisa Merton would cut her out.”
“Louisa? Not a chance. Though she was talking about him…”
The women’s voices faded into the distance.
As soon as she was sure she wouldn’t be spotted, Bonnie slid out from under the walk. A good shaking and a few slaps at the back of her skirts was enough to get rid of the worst of the dust, but nothing served to dislodge the doubts those two old biddies had planted in her mind.
Her mother and the sheriff? Surely not! Mother had just gone to the jail so Dickie could get the job of sweeping out.
Hadn’t she?
The questions dogged her all the way home.
“Four candles and a bar of Pearson’s best soap, please, Molly. A jar of carbolic salve. Small size. And a roll of twine.” Dora Beidlebaum frowned at the list in her hand. “Now did I mean hankies,” she murmured, puzzled, “or hairpiece?”
Molly craned to see. It was hard enough reading Dora’s cramped handwriting when it was right side up. “Could that be hairpins?”
Dora brightened. “Of course! That’s it! Trust you to know just what I needed. I’ll take two packets, if you have them, please.”
“Certainly.” Molly was already headed toward the far end of the counter to collect the twine and the salve.
She was bent over, fishing the roll of twine from a drawer when Dora said in the most innocent of tones, “I heard you had your son in at the jail this morning.”
Molly jerked upright so fast she dropped the twine. “Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, here and about,” Dora said with spurious innocence. “I hope he’s not in any trouble. Is he?”
“No,” Molly said curtly, bending again to retrieve the twine. “He’s not in any trouble. Four candles, didn’t you say?”
“That’s right. And the Pearson’s soap.” A moment’s pause until she was occupied in climbing the step ladder to fetch the candles from their box on a high shelf, then Dora added, “So what were you doing in the sheriff’s office?”
Molly squeezed the candle box so hard she bent the edge. “Business.” She climbed down, slapped the candles on the counter in front of her customer, and went off in the other direction to retrieve the hair pins.
“What kind of business?” Dora persisted, leaning across the counter so she could watch Molly’s every move.
“Private business,” said Molly repressively.
Dora mulled that one over for a minute, then tittered. “With your son along? Though maybe that’s wise because he is awfully good-looking, isn’t he? I couldn’t help noticing, you know.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Molly, deliberately misunderstanding. “As his mother, I suppose I’m partial, but I do think my little Dickie is quite a handsome boy. Like his father.”
She shoved the drawer that held the different packets of hairpins back in with more force than was absolutely necessary.
Another titter. “I meant the sheriff’s good-looking. Even Thelma said so, and she never pays attention to things like that, you know.”
“Neither do I.”
If Dora heard the frost in her voice, she gave no sign of it.
“Now, Molly,” she said coyly. “Don’t tell fibs. You know you noticed. We all did.”
“Did you?” said Molly, even more repressively.
Dora nodded. “And no matter what Emmy Lou says, we all think he’d be a fine catch for you.”
Only long practice at ignoring the nosey parkers of Elk City prevented Molly from saying something that would cost her a customer and be repeated over every cup of tea in town for a week.
“There’s your pins,” she said. “Will there be anything else?”
Dora frowned at the pile of goods in front of her, then consulted her list. “The soap?”
“Soap,” said Molly. She’d forgotten the soap. “It’s on that table behind you.”
Too bad you couldn’t wash out some people’s brains the way you could a small boy’s mouth.
“I wouldn’t worry about the divorce if I were you,” Dora assured her, retrieving the desired item. “These things happen, you know, and it really is time you were thinking about marrying again.”
“That will be a dollar-eleven, Mrs. Beidlebaum,” Molly said coldly, tossing the woman’s purchases into the string bag she’d brought.
Dora’s eyebrows shot upward. “So much? Are you sure?”
Molly’s response was a narrow-eyed look that sent Dora scrambling for her purse. She didn’t wait for Molly to finish ringing up the sale, just picked up her bag and headed toward the door.
“Scandalous, the price of things these days,” she muttered, bustling away. “Simply scandalous.”
It was only after Dora disappeared past the front window that Molly realized she’d dug grooves into the wood counter with her fingernails.
“It’s not fair,” Bonnie said as she set the table for supper. “It’s just not fair.”
“What’s not fair?” Molly asked, distracted. The heat from the stove had turned the kitchen into an oven in its own right. She shouldn’t have bought so large a roast, but the butcher, whose wife still owed her six dollars and thirty-seven cents for a living room suite she’d ordered special, had given her a good price for it. The thought of having enough leftovers so she wouldn’t have to cook for a couple of days had been too tempting to resist.
“Dickie having a job before me,” Bonnie grumbled. “It’s not fair.”
Molly glanced at her daughter, startled by the surly tone. Bonnie was usually the cheeriest and most willing to please of children. She never complained of anything.
“I didn’t know you wanted a job,” she said, desperately trying to think of something that would be suitable for a girl Bonnie’s age. “There’s Mrs. Donnagan, who just had a baby, and—”
“I don’t want a girl’s job,” Bonnie retorted, disgusted. “Besides, with all her brats, Mrs. Donnagan would make me work a lot harder than Dickie is, and she wouldn’t pay me fifty cents for it, either!”
Molly sighed. She should have realized this might happen. “You couldn’t work in the jail, you know. It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Is it proper for Dickie to be there? He’s only eight and I’m eleven. Twelve come August. Remember?”
Twelve? Her Bonnie was going to be twelve?
“I remember,” she lied.
“Besides, I heard Mrs. Trainer and some other lady talking, and they didn’t think it was right for Dickie to be working there, either. And that’s not all.” Bonnie’s chin had an unfamiliar, mulish set to it. “They said you were walking arm in arm with the sheriff. And they la
ughed about it.” Her brows dipped in a disapproving scowl. “You know how Mrs. Trainer laughs.”
Molly knew, and she felt a hard, angry twisting in the pit of her stomach at the thought that her daughter had heard it.
Before she could collect her wits to respond, the sound of footsteps on her back steps diverted her attention. She easily recognized Dickie’s light, quick tread. It needed only a second longer to identify the heavier, more measured tread that followed.
Her son charged into the kitchen with all the energy of a fizzing firecracker. DeWitt Gavin was two steps behind and looked as if he’d rather have been a lot farther than that. At the sight of her, he stopped dead in the doorway, then hastily dragged his hat off.
“Mrs. Calhan,” he said. “Miss Bonnie.”
Bonnie frowned at him, then at Dickie, then at the plates she was setting on the table. “Hello.”
Molly stared, too surprised at seeing DeWitt Gavin in her kitchen to think of anything except that it seemed so right to have him there. “Good evening, Sheriff.”
With an effort, she wrenched her gaze away and turned to her son. The bottom of her stomach fell away with a lurch.
“Dickie! What in the world? How—?”
The neat, scrubbed little boy she’d left in the sheriff’s office that morning was now a grimy, disheveled ragamuffin. He’d pulled a button off the right shoulder of his overalls, his hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed in a week, and there were smudges of dirt on his cheek and chin that no day of hard cleaning should have produced.
“I finished cleaning the jail!” he announced with a triumphant grin. “Even the windows! And then guess what? I got another job!”
“Did you?” Molly glanced at the sheriff. Guilt was branded on his face and evident in the nervous way he clutched his hat.
He swallowed. “I’m real sorry about that. I didn’t—”
“At Drury’s!” said Dickie.
“Drury’s?” Molly groped for a chair. “Drury’s saloon?”
“Dickie!” Bonnie stared, aghast. “You didn’t!”
“I did!”
“Did not! You couldn’t!”
“Did, too! An’ Frank paid me ten whole cents to do it, too!” Triumphant, he dug into his pockets and pulled out a handful of coins. “See?”