“Perhaps,” Jane said without flinching under Abby’s scrutiny. “He fits my requirements perfectly.” Which wasn’t a falsehood. There wasn’t a woman in town whose requirements he wouldn’t fit perfectly, save for Abby’s mother who’d been quite vocal in her desire for a mature man.
To Jane’s surprise, jealousy didn’t flicker in Abby’s eyes. Instead, her shoulders drooped. “He’s said he intends to never marry, but I wish you luck.” She thrust out her hand.
Jane shook it. “Thank you for your honesty.” With a swish of her skirts, she strolled back across the street, head held high. She stopped in front of the barrel holding the checkerboard. “Is Abby looking at me or at the inn?”
“The inn,” answered Mr. Quimby.
Good. “Is she walking over there?”
“No, she’s unlocking the door and”—Mr. Underwood squinted as he looked to the mayor’s office—“wait, she stopped. I think she’s looking at the sign in the window about the husband auditions. Now she’s going in her office.” His gaze shifted to Jane. “I thought you wanted to marry our sheriff.”
“He was under consideration.” Jane grimaced. “Love seems to have gotten in the way.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving us now.”
The dejection in Mr. Quimby’s tone warmed Jane’s heart.
“Of course not.” She strolled around Mr. Underwood, snatched the paper, and retook her seat. “I need to find an honorable man to marry, and I can’t think of two better helpers.”
Mr. Quimby slapped his thigh. “By golly we’ll find you a good’un.”
“You may regret this,” warned Mr. Underwood.
Jane lifted the paper to hide her smile. “I already am.”
Chapter 4
One ought to look a good deal at oneself before thinking of condemning others.—Molière
Saturday, late afternoon, May 19
Like a cradle on wheels, the stagecoach slowly rolled past the plethora of canvas tents before making its way into the quiet town, drawing no one’s attention, as far as J.R. could tell through his window view. Were new arrivals to Turtle Springs now an everyday occurrence? The wooden population sign staked on the outskirts listed 223 residents of this tiny town in Wabaunsee County. Considering boarded-up buildings, that had to be a postwar number. Yet close to thirty men of all ages and sizes strolled the boardwalks on either side of the main thoroughfare, or they loitered under wooden awnings of businesses, nary a woman in sight.
The stagecoach stopped in front of the livery.
J.R. released a tired breath. Four more men to join the throng invading the town.
Ebenezer Zumwalt, the shoemaker from Nashville, leaned forward to shake J.R.’s hand. “Good luck with that article, Lockhart. I doubt you’ll have any trouble convincing the ladies here to agree to an interview.”
“I hope you’re right.” J.R. released the older gentleman’s hand. “Best wishes on opening your business.”
“The world runs faster on well-shod feet.” The deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth were as much from his tendency to smile as from sixty-two years of living. J.R. was as much impressed with the man’s handlebar mustache as his willingness to answer the sheriff’s telegram request for a shoemaker. Zumwalt had agreed to move here, knowing full well the town’s tiny population.
Zumwalt shook hands with the other two men in the coach, exchanged a few words, and then climbed down. The coach shifted with the lightening of his weight and as the driver, his shotgun, and liveryman unloaded luggage. The men bellowed orders at each other while unhitching the team in order to replace the six horses with fresh ones.
Liam Logan, the shy forty-year-old widower from Omaha, nudged his equally shy ten-year-old daughter sitting between him and J.R., who immediately felt sorry for the little redhead who looked to have as many freckles on her arms as on her face. The woman-sized bonnet drooped over her forehead.
“Your papa is blessed to have you helping him,” J.R. said, and she smiled, exposing a missing bottom tooth.
As the two left the coach, J.R. noted, except for the cloth doll Miss Beatrice carried, their belongings filled a lone carpet bag. Becoming a mail-order groom was the best opportunity for a penniless widower to improve his and his daughter’s lot in life. Desperate certainly described Liam and Beatrice Logan. They also seemed like good people. Not once had either of them complained about the open windows or the breath-taking speed at which Charlie had driven the coach over the hilly roads. Instead, they found white-cloud animals in the azure sky. J.R. didn’t need to be a gambling man to wager more than one woman in Turtle Springs would be happy to join their little family.
He made a mental note to check on the Logans following the husband auditions. Joy and pathos described them well.
The fourth man sat across from J.R., unmoving still.
William Dixon stared out the window, a deep furrow in his brow, his affable mood replaced with this saturnine one.
Unlike the Logans, who sparingly answered J.R.’s myriad questions, Dixon had been verbose during today’s long drive from Topeka. Twenty-nine. Orphan since the age of nineteen. Hailed from Lebanon, Tennessee. Threadbare suit. Finished his war-interrupted degree from Cumberland School of Law. Twin brother Vincent died a Confederate prisoner-of-war at Camp Douglas in Chicago, Illinois. Of all Dixon’s war stories, J.R. itched to write about how fellow Confederates had invited Dixon to join them in burning Cumberland University for no other reason than because it had been barracks to colored Union soldiers. What caused Dixon to refuse? J.R.’s question was never answered.
Pathos, yes, but where does one find joy in that story? Mrs. Hale didn’t have to be present for J.R. to hear her editorial rejoinder.
“Something on your mind?” he asked Dixon.
“Doesn’t seem right.”
“What doesn’t?”
Dixon turned away from the window to meet J.R.’s gaze. “Auditioning to be a husband.”
“Consider it as a job interview,” J.R. suggested. “Being a husband is work.”
“You ever been married?”
J.R. shook his head.
“Me, neither.” Dixon let out a sigh … or maybe a groan. “Engaged?”
“Almost.” Feeling pity for the man, J.R. added, “Her parents didn’t approve. She married a lieutenant in the Philadelphia Brigade. He died at Gettysburg, and by Christmas of ’63, she’d married a banker twice her age. Last I heard they had three children.”
“Gents,” came a gruff voice.
J.R. looked to where Charlie the driver stood, holding the door with one hand and pocket watch with the other. “Sorry to dally,” J.R. said while noting the Colt revolvers on Charlie’s hips and rifle strapped to his back. Knives in boots? J.R. didn’t doubt it. “Could you recommend lodgings?”
“You could see if there’s room at the Tumble Inn.”
“How apropos,” muttered J.R. before climbing out.
He walked around the stage with Dixon in step. Two main streets divided the town into quadrants. The main street, though, was wide enough for a wagon to turn around. Every one of the businesses was brown and dirty. The houses scattered about had been white-washed, some more recent than others. At one time, it’d had been a pretty little town. Diagonally across from the livery was their destination and, presumably, where the Logans had already taken a room. Several men, though, clustered next to the hitching posts in front of a three-story building with a TUMBLE INN sign. Paint peeling and windows looking none too clean, the inn had seen better days.
After paying the liveryman to keep watch on his and, upon his insistence, Dixon’s trunks until they found lodging, J.R. struck out across the street. The group of men turned to look their way. Their gazes narrowed. To size up additional competition? In his tan three-piece suit and matching Derby, J.R. was well aware how he didn’t look like a man suited to life on the plains. Certainly not life in a tent.
“Evening, gentlemen. J.R. Lockhart of Philadelphia.” He shook hands with th
e nearest man. “I’m here doing a story on the husband auditions.” He shook a few more hands.
“You aren’t here to get a woman?” said a younger man wearing a Union cap.
“No, I am not.” J.R. looked at each man in turn to assure them of his truthfulness. “I’m passing through on my way to Sacramento.”
The door to the inn opened.
Every man in J.R.’s line of sight looked in that direction. An attractive blond exited, wearing a navy-blue dress plainer than any of the ones in the fashion plates Godey’s published. Two steps behind the blond was the sheriff.
“Abby,” he said, “hear me out.”
She shook her head. “How we wish to hold the auditions is our decision to make. Do what you were hired to do,” she ordered and continued walking, passing J.R. and the group of men at the hitching post.
The sheriff followed. “Slow down.”
“No, I need to see what Reverend Smith needs while”—was all J.R. heard before they crossed the dirt-packed street.
He looked back to the inn. More women were filing out. All ages. All sizes. The dated styles of their gowns the only consistency. Over thirty women exited the inn. Within moments, men approached, clamoring for attention.
“I should’ve arrived sooner,” Dixon said, and J.R. noticed his coach mate was the only other man still standing at the hitching post.
“Nothing’s stopping you from talking to one of them.”
Dixon said nothing. Like a man who’d had the fight beaten out of him, he strolled to the inn.
J.R. withdrew a notebook and a stubby pencil from inside his waistcoat. He jotted down the names of everyone he’d met and key details, along with a list of people to talk with tomorrow. The first being the sheriff, and then he’d find the mayor. Find out who the blond is. Follow up with Logans, he added, Zumwalt shoemaker, and Dixon lawyer. After a glance to the blue-and-gold horizon, J.R. withdrew his pocket watch. Almost seven. He’d wager there was about forty-five minutes before sunset. Pocketing his watch, pencil, and notebook, he looked around. The streets had emptied. The door to the inn had closed, and lamplight glowed in windows on every floor. No sense milling about. He may as well try to book a room inside and—
A woman’s scream pierced the silence.
J.R. took off running east in the direction of the sound. He passed several businesses, most of them boarded up.
“I repeat,” a sweet voice said, “let her go.”
J.R. stopped at an alley between a business and a prim, one-story house. Halfway down the alley, a woman with raven hair stood with her back to him, her hands on the hips of her shiny green-check dress, her attention on the man pinning a weeping blond against the wall of the butcher shop.
A second man stood next to the couple, glaring at the raven-haired woman. “An’ if we don’t?”
“This town has rules against molesting women,” she replied, and J.R. would swear she was smiling. “It is in your best interest to do as I’ve requested.”
The man laughed, and his friend did, too, which only made the blond cry more.
“Calm your britches, missy,” said the second man. “We just wanna little kiss from your friend like she gave the sheriff.”
“I baked a cake!” the woman abruptly yelled.
“What—”
With another earsplitting scream of “Cake,” the woman lunged forward, knocking him backward. He managed to grasp her left arm. Using the heel of her right palm, she struck up, under his nose. He released her arm and cursed. Palm flat, she jabbed her hand into the base of his throat. He choked. She then thrust her foot into the side of his knee. Nose bleeding, the man crumbled to the ground.
She stepped to the side, out of his reach. “Now please release Miss Foster.”
Hurling curses about her injun blood, the other man did as she requested.
The blond dashed to her friend. “Oh Jane, I—”
“Madeline,” the woman ordered as she ripped the bottom ruffle off her petticoat, “find Sheriff Ingram and tell him where to find us.”
“I don’t know where he is.”
The woman sighed loudly. “Go to Doc Carter’s. Abby wanted to see if he was going to plaster Reverend Smith’s leg or leave it in a splint. And don’t you tell anyone—anyone—how I helped you.”
“I won’t. Stop looking at me like that! I won’t tell a soul.” The blond looked to the two men. “What about them?”
J.R. stepped into the alley. “I’ll keep them from running off.”
The blond took one look at him then lifted the front of her skirts and darted past.
The raven-haired woman turned her head enough to see him over her shoulder. Her dark-eyed gaze traveled the length of his body, obviously noting with disappointment his lack of weaponry. Lips pursed, she offered him the torn fabric. “Use this to tie”—she nodded to the man standing—“that one’s hands behind his back. Use the other end to do the same to his colleague. Tight, please.” And then for a reason J.R. was sure he ought to take offense to, she added, “Like a noose.”
Four minutes. That’s how long had passed since J.R. finished binding the two men back-to-back with the most secure knots he’d ever made. Miss Warrior Princess stood there, utterly quiet, with the serene expression of a woman selecting a ribbon to match her newest gown. February’s issue of Harper’s Weekly had featured an amusing short story about a pretty Cherokee maiden who’d impressed Louis-Philippe, the Duke of Orléans and later the King of France, with the coquettishness of her manners.
Despite how true the author had claimed the story to be, J.R. knew this maiden would find the story more degrading than humorous.
And yet she had been at the inn with the other ladies. Why would a woman as beautiful and fascinating and able to drop a man to his knees as this one want to participate in the husband interviews? He couldn’t imagine she had a need to participate. If the quality of her clothes were any indication, she wasn’t destitute. Nor could he imagine any of the other women in town wanting to compete against her staggering beauty.
Dark eyes, almost as ebony as her hair. Prominent cheekbones. That peculiar tint of complexion found only in one of mixed blood. Comparatively, she must view him somewhere near the vicinity of bleached linen.
Vanquish! Charge! Free the captives of the night—
To her army railed the queen of liberty, the queen of light.
“J.R. Lockhart,” he said, snapping closed the lid to his watch, “of Philadelphia.”
No response.
“I’m a journalist, author, occasional poet.”
No response.
“I write—well, I wrote for Godey’s Lady’s Book.”
She did nothing but stand there and massage the heel of her right palm.
“I’m on my way to Sacramento to write for a newspaper there.”
Her mouth pinched in at the corners like one did when tolerating an annoyance. She looked at the street and sighed. And that’s when he knew. She wasn’t irritated.
She was bored.
And not merely with him. She was bored with her life, the reason she was participating in the husband auditions. Did she actually want a husband, or was she merely looking to be entertained by the process? If the latter, he didn’t fault her. He understood. Life in a 223-people town couldn’t offer many amusements. Not like Philadelphia did. Yet life in the country’s second-largest city had bored him.
Go west, young man was a more viable option for the man—or woman—seeking adventure than war.
J.R. tucked the watch in the pocket of his waistcoat. “Have you found one you like?”
She gave him an odd look.
“Potential husband,” he supplied.
Her lips parted … and then her head tilted as she studied him. As she really looked at him. And then, when he’d given up on any response, she said, “Why do you want to know?”
“I’m writing a story on the husband advertisement.”
She resumed massaging her palm. “So this is an in
terview?”
“If you want it to be.”
“I don’t.”
The two miscreants on the ground shuffled to face J.R. “You can interview me,” said the one without the bloody nose.
“He’s not interviewing either of you,” came an angry voice.
J.R. turned to the man with a six-shooter on his right hip, a gold star on his chest, and a scowl on his face. The blond standing next to him, and wearing a matching scowl, was the very one the sheriff had followed out of the inn. Unlike the other blond, whose flaxen hair was the same vanilla shade as J.R.’s hair, this one had locks the color of a wheat field.
She looked at J.R. with interest, yet instead of introducing herself, said, “Jane, what happened?”
“That one”—she pointed at the man without the bloody nose—“thought himself above following the rules posted about town. After he accosted Madeline Foster, I nicely explained to him how ladies are to be respected.”
“I see. What did the other one do to earn a bloody nose?”
“His face—”
“She broke it!” he wailed.
“—was in the way of my hand,” she finished as if the man hadn’t even spoken.
Unlike the sheriff, the blond didn’t seem the least bit surprised or shocked. She looked at J.R. “Did you witness the … accosting?”
“Wait right there!” The man without the bloody nose scooted his hindquarters and legs in order to face the blond and the sheriff. “I didn’t do any accosting. I was doing nothing but responding to the lady’s flirtations.”
“I’ve heard enough.” The sheriff grabbed both men by the arms and hauled them to their feet. He led them away, explaining how they could pay a hefty fine and leave town.
The blond walked over to J.R. “Miss Abigail Melton, acting mayor.”
“J.R. Lockhart,” he said, shaking her hand.
Her hazel eyes glinted with amusement as she looked up at him. “Welcome to Turtle Springs, Mr. Lockhart. The sign-up for the husband auditions is my office.”
“I’m not here for the interviews. Not here to participate,” he amended. “I’m a journalist, formerly of Godey’s Lady’s Book. I’m here to write a story about the advertisement.”
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