by Yvonne Jocks
Or so the worst of the gossips surmised.
“It was terrible,” she admitted. "I felt as if people were looking at me all the time, in the store, at church. Some girls in town weren't allowed to spend time with me after that! Then the
superintendent of schools came to visit and told me that it would be better if I did not take the teaching position they had offered.
"So when Aunt Heddy mentioned that Candon had approved a second teaching position, it seemed the best thing for everybody,“ she finished. ”And here I am."
“Does your aunt know all this?”
"I don't think she knows all of it, but Papa did talk to her. You see why I must do a good job now.
You see why I can make no more mistakes."
Melissa nodded firmly. "And why Mr. Harwood did such a terrible thing, befriending you when in truth he was a—"
“A man of compromised character,” supplied Audra quickly, not wanting to face the harsh reality again so soon. Just like Peter, Jack's deception had stolen from her the comforting illusion of the person she'd thought him to be. She missed that illusory friend.
Melissa stood, tested the water, and nodded—it was not only soft and wonderfully aromatic with the herbs they'd added, but had cooled just enough to rinse out Audra's hair.
“Well, your secret is safe with me,” Melissa declared, while Audra moved her chair to the washtub and unwrapped her hair. “I'll do anything I can to help keep your reputa—Oh, my God!”
Audra should have reprimanded her for the blasphemy. But her entire being seized up as she stared in horror at the thick length of hair she had just freed from the towel. Melissa's exclamation echoed over and over in her head: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Bright yellow streaks striped her red-blond hair, like the pelt of a colorful skunk.
Chapter Eight
Teachers may under no circumstances dye their hair.
—Rules for Teachers
Recovering from the initial shock, Audra began to rub at the strange color on her hair. Hard. It made no difference, and her thumb wiped off no stains. “What is it?”
Melissa made a whimpering sound.
Perhaps it would wash out. She reached for the mason jar of her mother's precious hair soap, then eyed it with suspicion and went to the drain board for Aunt Heddy's lye soap instead. Splashing plain pump water onto the bottom length of her hair, she began to scrub.
The yellow streaks stayed. Panic tightened her throat. “What is it?”
“You used the wrong towel,” whispered Melissa.
Audra spun to face her. “What?”
“Oh, Audra, I am so sorry!”
Pulse pounding, Audra stared at her friend. “Why? What are you sorry for? What is this?”
And Melissa said in a very small voice, “It's hair dye.”
Audra stared, her legs gone weak. She tried to sit with quiet, ladylike grace but missed the chair and sat hard on the wooden floor instead. Puddles of water that she'd splashed moments before soaked, cold, through her wrapper and into her drawers. “Dye?”
“Bleach, actually. To lighten it. I—” Recognizing the uselessness of words, she stopped.
“It's against the rules for teachers to dye their hair,” said Audra dumbly.
“It was an accident,” insisted Melissa. “You used the towel I'd wrapped around my hair while the dye set, and so where your hair touched the towel... It was an accident.”
"Under no circumstances may a teacher dye her hair. Nice women do not dye their hair. Floozies dye their hair!"
Melissa's face paled, and Audra regretted the last comment. Then she looked at her garish hair and did not regret her words so much after all. She could not teach school with dyed hair. Without a position, she would be sent home in disgrace.
Panic began to sting her eyes.
“We'll dye it back,” suggested Melissa, kneeling beside Audra, touching her shoulder.
“Two wrongs do not make ...” But she was in disgrace anyway. What choice did she have? “Do you know how to do that?”
Melissa swallowed. “Ma only taught me to lighten my hair, not darken it back again.”
Hope plummeted and panic surged again. "Then what should I do? We can't go from door to door, asking people if they know how to darken hair! What sort of woman would know .. . your mother being an exception, I mean," she added awkwardly.
“My father's people came from Bavaria,” Melissa defended, taking her hand back. “He liked girls with light hair, so Ma lightened hers. Then she had to make sure I looked like her....”
Uncaring, Audra stared at her long, damp, skunky hair. Dyed! Not only would she be sent home in disgrace, but everyone in Sheridan would see their doubts about her confirmed.
And after she had tried so hard ...
Only when she felt a wail of despair building in her chest did Audra recognize how uselessly she was behaving. She tried to breathe more deeply, to calm herself. She'd never been the kind of woman who sat on the floor crying about her fate—not for long, anyhow—and did not intend to start now. She came from stronger stock than that..
She was a rancher's daughter. If her father could face rustlers and stampedes, surely she could somehow face this.
“Beet juice,” she said, her voice lower now and barely breaking. “Beet juice stains anything; perhaps it will help.”
“I'll find you some beets,” assured Melissa, scrambling to her feet. "We'll fix this, Audra. I promise
—we'll fix this!" Audra closed her eyes and wished she felt so confident.
Jack should probably have left town already, but he wasn't sure Ferris could run the mercantile alone just yet. It wasn't the fellow's ability to limp around that concerned him, either, but the amount of laudanum Ham was downing.
“You might ought to go easy on that stuff,” Jack suggested more than once, only to be told to mind his own damned business.
At the rate Hamilton was going, Candon's mercantile would be Jack's business—literal y. And he didn't want it. He enjoyed the companionship, but he was no storekeeper; he was a gambler. Half the town knew it. Why not move on to Fort Worth and let Handy Jack return?
Still, he hated to leave Ferris alone like this. And Jack couldn't figure out who to ask to watch out for him except maybe the minister. His skin crawled at the very thought of talking to the reverend, much less inviting the fellow to butt in on Hamilton's self-chosen path to misery.
In the meantime, he served more customers than Ferris himself did, played poker at night, and, what with the schoolmarm not showing up once, hardly noticed that a week had passed.
Then, Saturday, Audra's pal Melissa showed up and bought nothing but a tin of beets.
“Everything all right?” asked Jack, counting out her change and pretending not to notice her damp hair or poorly belted dress. Most ladies wouldn't sweep their porch without first belting their dresses, much less hike into town that way.
“Me?” Her voice sounded higher than normal. “I'm fine. Why would you think—” She stopped herself. “I shouldn't talk to you,” she reminded him, and left.
“You're bad for business,” noted Ferris from the corner.
Business is doing just dandy,“ Jack shot back, ”I'm not the one alienating folks with my sour disposition." Ferris had even had some kind of words with their laundress, serious enough that her cousin delivered the clothes all week.
Hamilton took a swig of laudanum and said nothing.
Not an hour later, Melissa was back and needing walnuts.
“I believe we have some,” said Jack, leading her to the proper bin and scooping shells into a small sack. “Beets and walnuts? Sounds like an odd recipe you ladies are cooking up.”
Even odder that they planned it so poorly as to make two trips to the mercantile in one afternoon.
Plenty of folks came by the store every few days, to check mail or trade news, but most didn't shop but once every week or two.
“It's not a— Never you mind,” insist
ed Melissa, and made her purchase. She was short a penny, and Jack fronted it to her. As soon as she left, she broke into a run toward the teacherage.
“Now that is mysterious,” Jack mused aloud. “Aren't those gals alone this weekend?”
“You leave those girls be,” warned Ferris.
Jack folded his arms and scowled at the man. "And here I thought I'd head right down there and invite myself to tea. Thank you kindly for helpin' me see the error of my ways."
“They're none of your concern.”
“I believe I was here when Miss Garrison informed me of just that.” Although, for someone who ought not concern him, she surely had stayed on his mind a good deal of late. especially that last afternoon when she'd lit into him. He remembered with almost painful clarity the warmth of her dress under his hand, the fire in her eyes, the way her lips had parted in silent, instinctive invitation, when he had leaned closer to ...
She'd wanted that kiss. The more he remembered it, the more certain he felt. But hell, if the gal wanted to rob herself of the joys in life, it wasn't his damned business.
Still, when young Melissa returned for a third visit, he'd been waiting for her. This time she came straight to him and, in a low voice, said, “I have to talk to you.”
“I thought you weren't talking to me.”
“In private.”
Jack took a step back from her. As soon as he found someone to nursemaid Hamilton, he meant to leave this burg. Compromising a local schoolgirl would in no way help him do that, unless it led to him being tarred, feathered, and ridden out on a rail. "You being a lady and all, how 'bout you say what you need to where Ferris can keep watch."
It amused him to think how Audra would have approved of his suggestion.
Melissa, however, leaned nearer him, murder in her eyes. "Charlie and Ned are on the porch.
There's nobody to see us go but Mr. Ferris, and you can keep him from telling. Threaten him or pay him or something. But I've got to see you in private"
And, bold as that, she marched into the back room.
Hamilton arched his eyebrows at Jack.
Jack narrowed his own eyes at Ham, then followed Audra's pupil into the back room—at least, into the doorway. He didn't step al the way in until Melissa said, “Audra needs your help.”
Then he not only pulled the curtain, he took the girl's arm and swept her into a far corner. "What was that?"
“Audra is in trouble and she needs your help.” Melissa took a deep breath, obviously distressed.
Jack noticed that she wore gloves, unnecessary for a nicely crisp day like today and unusual except on Sunday. One of her wrists looked purple over the edge of the white material.
Had someone bruised her? Had someone hurt Audra?
His voice came out sounding dangerous. “What's wrong?”
“We need to find a ...” The girl hesitated, looked at her hands, and self-consciously pulled the glove a little higher.
“Spit it out.”
She took a deep breath. “We need a sporting woman.”
Jack blinked at her, unable to reconcile her request with his fears.
She stared stubbornly back up at him.
He shook his head, then ran a splayed hand through his hair. "I don't think you realize what you just said. Now what is it, exactly, that you gals need?" The only thing that kept him from laughing was how upset she looked, so upset that, if it weren't nearly impossible, he'd have thought she knew what she was truly saying.
Then she said it again. “A sporting woman. A ... a soiled dove.”
He stared.
“A daughter of sin,” she tried, increasingly desperate, and he held up a hand.
“I've figured that part out,” he assured her. But it made no sense. He could think of one reason anyone needed a whore, and that applied only to men. Mostly. Although actually, he had heard tell of some woman who were surprisingly drawn ...
The idea made him blush, and Jack Harwood did not blush easily. Those stories were plumb crazy.
And even if they weren't, this was Audra they were talking about!
Melissa shifted her weight impatiently. "You're the only person I could think of who might know any,“ she explained. ”Being a scoundrel and all."
“What would either you or Miss Garrison need with a—a sporting woman?” he demanded,
defaulting to her euphemism of choice. Some of his annoyance at being lumped in with prostitutes and outlaws and such came out in his tone.
Melissa set her jaw stubbornly. “I can't tell you.”
Well, he knew how to trump that. “Then I can't help you.”
“But you've got to! Audra's very reputation is at stake! She—” The girl looked away, obviously working out how much she would have to tell him. "Something has happened to her, and she has to fix it before her aunt gets home and finds out or she'll be ruined. The only person we can think of who might know how to ... to fix this ... is a woman of loose morals. Since you have loose morals, I thought you'd know someone you could send over."
Somewhere in the middle of her speech, Jack figured it out— and he wished he had not. Audra was such an innocent, virginal little thing. But it was the only way any of this made sense.
She was in trouble, her reputation on the line.
She had to fix it before her aunt came home and found out.
Only a whore would know how to deal with it.
She'd seemed pure as a nun since she got to town, as far as he knew—but then, she'd been in town for only a week or so longer than he. The very fact that she'd left her home to come live with her aunt, where nobody knew her, just added more fat to the fire. And what had she said when he had tried to tell her that fear of making mistakes was worse than mistakes themselves?
She'd said no, it was not. As if she knew.
“My God . . .” he said softly, a hollow place in his chest where he'd thought his heart was.
Audra Garrison was with child. She'd caught herself a baby ... and she was looking to get rid of it before anybody found out.
“My God,” he repeated.
Melissa stomped her foot. “Can you help us or not?”
“I. . .” He knew of no whores in the immediate area—with no saloons, prostitutes had to keep an even lower profile than gamblers. But he'd never seen a frontier community without someone servicing the needs of its men, maybe a widow, or someone from the poor side of town.
He cleared his throat. “I'll see what I can do.”
“Good.” She walked to the curtain, then paused. “Be discreet,” she warned, aiming a finger at him.
“We don't need Widow Cribb hearing about us inviting shady characters over while she was gone.”
Again Jack felt a jolt of annoyance. Odd, since she was right. Although if Audra was truly in the family way, she'd hardly be one to...
But no, he'd seen enough of life to know that the woman was not always at fault in that. "I will be the soul of discretion."
“Good. And hurry.” She peeked past the curtain, making sure nobody watched, then vanished through it, only to almost immediately pull the curtain back again. “One more thing.”
Jack stared at her, still in shock.
“I'd like to buy some brown shoe polish, but I need to put it on credit.”
“It's on the house,” he assured her faintly.
She stared at him.
He translated. “Free.” That, she understood, and she vanished into the mercantile proper.
Jack watched the curtain swing back into place and felt ill. No wonder the poor gal had been so desperate to follow the rules; she knew she'd broken a big one and feared nature's consequences.
And there he'd stood, preaching at her— preaching—to try making some mistakes. He'd forgotten that women paid a higher price for their mistakes than menfolk did. And now .. .
In a saloon outside Abilene, he'd seen a prostitute die from attempting an abortion herself. No way in hell would Jack let that happen to Audra Garrison. If he had t
o, he'd find a local "sporting woman." But he hadn't worked here for weeks without learning the mercantile's stock, even items ladies like Audra or Melissa wouldn't know to request.
especially since Ferris kept them discreetly here in the storeroom, where nobody would come upon them by accident.
Jack went to the shelf that held patent medicines, specifically those cures not discussed in polite society, some of which could even be confiscated as “items for immoral purpose.” The only boxes he knew well had an incongruous but respectable picture of Queen Victoria on the side—crepe rubber condoms. Ever since Abilene, Jack had no desire to sow his wild oats in fertile fields. Beside those sat bottles of Cupidene Vitalizer: Manhood Restored, and even— yes. A bottle labeled Dr. Wade's Cure for Interrupted Menstruation.
Jack felt somehow unclean just picking the thing up. But if Audra needed help, this was safer than anything a whore could do to her . . . wasn't it? Includes cathartic powders! the label read. It didn't say anything about beets, walnuts, or ... shoe polish.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Jack slipped the bottle into his coat pocket and stepped out into the mercantile proper. Ferris Hamilton, standing by the counter, scowled at him. Apparently they'd had a customer, and the poor fellow'd had to take care of things on his own.
“Glad to see you're up-and about,” said Jack. “I'm going out.”
“Where?”
“Wherever I want.” Then he paused, checking the store for customers. He leaned closer to Hamilton. “Where would a fellow go to find a woman amenable for sport?”
Ham seemed unamused.
“I'm thinking . . . Grapevine?” The railroad went through Grapevine, after all, though it would be a long ride to get there. “Mosier Valley?” A poor community like that might—
Hamilton said, “Get the hell out of here, Harwood.”
“I'm just asking—”
“Well, go ask somewhere else. And stay the hell away from Mosier Valley.”
If Jack had not been in such a hurry, he would have pursued that further. But he had weightier issues on his mind. He had to find a discreet route to the teacherage.
Audra was in trouble. He'd do what he could to help her.