Maude March on the Run!

by Audrey Couloumbis

  I rode away feeling I had better enjoyed wanting to ride into a town than being there. At this, I was more fortunate than Maude, who didn't get to see that much.

  “Lawrence is ahead of us,” she said, consulting the map. “It's a big enough city for me to ride through unnoticed.”

  Marion said, “It's a big enough place to have its own newspaper.”

  Maude gave him the look of, So what?

  “A place with a paper has newspaper men,” he said, “who are by their nature the nosiest of people.”

  “I just thought of something,” Maude said. “Uncle Arlen could see a paper before we reach him.”

  “It didn't sound to me like he has time for newspapers,” Marion said. This didn't make us feel any easier, so we picked up the pace some. We rode around the outskirts of Lawrence. There was enough traffic on the road to scratch Maude's itch to see the inside of someplace. One woman looking at her with curiosity was all it took.

  Not long past it, we didn't have a river beside us anymore.

  No river. No trees. No clouds.

  No hope of a town in the next few miles.

  “These horses need to rest,” I said as the afternoon wore into evening. Uncle Arlen didn't think much of pushing horses hard, and I didn't care for it, either. “They're getting too tired to grab a mouthful of grass.”

  “We've done nearly thirty miles since I found you,” Marion said. “They've earned a good feed and a fair rest.”

  Thirty miles was a drop in the bucket, but I didn't say so.

  Not long after, we stopped for the night. I pulled Uncle Arlen's map out of my pocket and tried to measure out three weeks of travel on it. We ate from our supplies and tried out our new bedrolls. I suspected they were fine, as Maude fell asleep before I could ask.

  We passed three days in this manner, uneventful. Then Maude ran out of peppermints. She started to complain. We passed a place too small to boast of township but likely to have candy to sell.

  Marion wouldn't agree to go in for something we didn't need. We needed beans, but I kept quiet.

  “I don't see how it looks safer to you that Sallie can go into town to buy dimers, but I can't get a twist of peppermints.”

  “You had peppermints,” I said. “You ate them.”

  Maude showed her teeth at me, saying, “I had help.”

  I said, “Not that awful much,” for she had been eating them quietly for a time before me and Marion asked for any.

  “Here now, let's have an end to the bickering,” Marion said.

  “We aren't bickering,” Maude said with some venom.

  Marion did not give in to the peppermint argument, but Maude did not leave off wanting to go into town.

  At first I felt some satisfaction in this, for I'd always thought I ought to be the better range rider, what with everything I learned reading dimers and all.

  I had to admit, Maude had unexpectedly turned out to have more grit and gumption than I had credited her for. But I saw now that she didn't have the pluck to make it over the plains. She was probably going to turn out to be like one of those pioneers who finished the trip with glassy eyes and dull expressions, who had lost touch with something of themselves they needed.

  The moment this thought was finished, I said, “Maude has to get into a town now and again. This range-riding is not for everybody.”

  Maude shot me a look, but let the remark stand.

  Marion said, “If we were to ride a little off-trail, and come across some small burg, we might could send your uncle a telegram. Have it waiting for him at Fort Dodge.”

  “I'll do that,” Maude said.

  Marion said, “I can wire him. Tell me what you want to say.”

  “You can't leave me to stand out here in the grassland by myself,” Maude said in a more reasonable tone than she had used in some hours. “Something might get me.”

  “It would have to be something with great big teeth,” Marion said.

  Maude looked a little flattered by this.

  Not long after, we stopped beside a creek for the night. We planned the telegram over and over.

  “We have to tell him we're coming along behind him,” I said.

  “That's my worry,” Maude said. “I can't feel it's right to slow him down.”

  Marion said, “We have to warn him Macdougal's one man down. That'll keep him on the move.”

  It may have been we all slept badly for we were up early the next morning. We weren't long on the trail before Maude took up whining about going into town. She wanted to send that telegram. She wanted peppermints. She wanted to see a paper.

  I wanted to buy beans and potato hash.

  We didn't see another town until mid-afternoon. Maude said, “There are a few small houses in the distance.” My stomach stood up to take a look, was how it felt to me.

  “All right, then,” Marion said at last. “I need to trade my horse in. It's looking a little fagged and we can't favor it.”

  “We're low on water,” Maude said, not wanting to let the thing go.

  After a time, I saw these houses stood on the fringe of a larger town. We didn't stop at any of the homesteads, not even to fill our canteens. Our faces had gone unwashed, and we couldn't be certain of the reception we would get.

  We let the horses slow to an ambling walk so they could nibble on dandelions as they found them. In this way, we gave ourselves time to sort out the kind of town it was.

  Industrious, since people had gone to the trouble of putting up little whitewashed fences with roses tumbling over them. There was corn, beans, and squash growing tepee-style in another yard.

  Prosperous, because the sow in a nearby pigpen had half a dozen little ones rooting around. As we passed another such house, Maude pointed out a sign on the gate. It read, B. GOOD & KIND. “Somebody's name, do you think?”

  I said, “Maybe the preacher lives there.”

  An older lady popped up from behind the fence. “Nope, not the preacher,” she said.

  TWENTY-TWO

  SHE'D BEEN WORKING AT SOMETHING IN THE DIRT; SHE wore gloves and held a trowel. The woman said, “I'm Beatrice Good. Bee, to my friends. My husband is Borden Kind.”

  “Oh, I'm sorry,” Maude said. “We weren't making fun. Just the sign caught my eye.”

  “It's supposed to,” Miz Good said. “It's the law this town lives by. You look hot and dusty. You want to come in and freshen up at the well?”

  “It would be a kindness,” Marion said.

  “Come in, come in,” she said. “Help yourself to the water, and you'll find a washbowl right there on a rock table. I keep a bucket with a ladle in the kitchen; I'll bring it out.”

  When she came back outside, she was followed by a man I guessed to be Borden Kind, who carried the bucket for her. He was a jolly-looking fellow, which suited his name.

  “I see Mother here has herself a couple of customers. Watch out now, or she'll have you weeding the garden while you wait for dinner.”

  “That wouldn't be a bad trade, if we had a little more time,” Maude said.

  “Can I give you good people directions to anyplace in particular?” Borden Kind said.

  “Just passing through,” Marion said.

  Maude added, “We'll be stopping to wire news of our progress to family and then moving on.”

  Borden Kind said, “Telegraph office is at the other end of town.”

  I thought he looked unusual close at Maude, but only for a moment, and he was still smiling.

  Marion didn't appear to be bothered by that look. He asked, “Seen any Indian activity in these parts?”

  “Well, now, you got Custer pushing them north, you're going to see activity,” Borden Kind said. “Before that, we didn't see much.”

  Miz Good turned Maude's attention to the many buds on a lilac bush she was proud of. Neither of them took Maude for a fellow.

  “The trail ahead generally safe?” Marion asked Borden Kind.

  “No guarantees,” he said. “I wish yo
u folks the best of luck.”

  We spent a few minutes more admiring the garden, then got on our way. We found the crossroads in the middle of town unusual cluttered for such a small place.

  A medicine wagon had set up to do business on one side of the street. I'd seen it in Independence a month or so before, being driven by a silver-haired gent, finely dressed, his hair parted in the center and swept back from his face like wings.

  Stained barn red and built like a little house on wheels, it had a wooden door on the backside and a black chimney pipe sticking out of the peaked green roof. This wagon was pulled by matched white horses, heavy as oxen, with harnesses dyed red. I would have traded off all my dimers to ride behind those horses.

  On one side of the wagon, I read:

  DR. BARNABAS ALDORADONDO'S MIRACULOUS RESTORATIVE ELIXIR This Most Potent Panacea Is a Centuries-Old Family Secret That Cures All Ills

  As we rode past now, I read around the bottom edge a printed list of ailments: “biliousness, the headake, ague, the punies, diarea, gout, dropsy, rheumatiz, warts, rash, fleas, the shakes, consum—”

  Maude brought her horse to a stop as a woman with two children in tow stepped off the boardwalk. One side of the wagon let down to make a shelf, and that shelf was filled with bottles of every color and shape.

  Me and Marion pulled up to wait for Maude as people moved into the street as a crowd. A fellow I guessed to be Dr. Aldoradondo stood inside the wagon, behind the shelf, talking fast and smooth.

  “Ladies, do you wake up each morning feeling weary and dispirited?” he said in a voice deep and rich and just a touch bitter. “Do you fall into bed at night, your mind filled with the cares of the day, your body too weary to sleep?”

  He gave them a moment to think on their misery, then added, “Here you have before you certain relief from your aches and pains, the cure of your ills. Yours for only one silver dollar.” His fingers were spread across the bottle tops.

  From my horse, I could see the bottles themselves were a wonder. Many were colored like jewels, and others were shaped like tigers or lilies, some were twisted or dimpled.

  “What condition do you need to treat, madam?” he was saying. “I have just the thing here, take one spoonful in the morning, one in the evening, and none in between.”

  Ruby red for rheumatism. Cobalt blue for the ague. A weak green if the person suffered loose bowels. A dark brown if they were trying to encourage loose bowels.

  Maude rode over to us at a slow walk. “Let's split up here,” Marion said to her, “where no one is taking any notice. Then meet out the other side of town.” He turned down an alley, following a sign to the livery.

  Maude rode on, to send a wire off to Uncle Arlen.

  I tied my horse to the rail in front of the general store.

  I couldn't help the nagging feeling I had that we ought to be in a hurry, and I made my choices quickly. Pickled eggs and biscuits and chicken in gravy. I trusted this last because I could see the chopped-off chicken feet right there in the waste box.

  I bought cornmeal and fatback as well, and added peppermints to the order at the last. I bought a second twist, but I wouldn't tell Maude I had them until she needed them, for she could go through them at a good rate.

  The headline that made me pick up the paper was this:

  MAUDE MARCH KILLS AGAIN

  Wormwood, Texas, is a dusty little town that sees little excitement. Until this morning, when Mad Maude and her gang of Fearless Marauders hit the First Community Bank of Wormwood.

  The teller didn't hand over the money Quickly Enough and was shot dead with greater ease than most of us swat a mosquito. After many months of laying low Mad Maude is back and she is Mad as a Hornet.

  I couldn't understand why the newspaper people didn't wonder how Maude had got to Texas in only a few days; there wasn't a word about that. Not that I wanted them hot on our tails here in Kansas. But it wasn't good news that Maude was being blamed for another murder.

  I turned over a sheet to look at the smaller headlines on the other side. I saw this:RANGE WAR RAGES, and in the small print the words “Colorado Territory” stood out.

  At this point the storekeep walked over and said to me, “If you ain't buying it, fold it up the way you found it. This ain't no reading room, and I'm not in the business of selling used items.”

  I did as he said, but as I eased the crease in the page, I spotted another headline that made me grin: WYOMING TERR. TO GIVE WOMEN THE VOTE. Now, Aunt Ruthie would love to have lived to see that.

  The storekeep cleared his throat noisily, and over the edge of the page, I saw him glaring at me. I thought about buying the paper outright, for he could have nothing to say then.

  But the Aunt Ruthie in me rose up and said to me, why buy the paper if it doesn't have the news I'm looking for? I set the paper aside.

  I headed out of the store, lugging our provisions and thinking fond thoughts of chicken in gravy. It struck me Maude had something when she said my stomach ran my brain.

  TWENTY-THREE

  AS I STEPPED OUTSIDE, A BIG BOY RAN PAST ME, NEARLY knocking me flat. I gave a shout after him and then regretted it, for I didn't mean to draw attention to myself.

  But it didn't matter, for he kept on running fast, carrying a fluttering sheet of paper in his hand. He ran across the street and into a doorway further along the boardwalk.

  I noticed that medicine wagon moving on. It went past me down the street, heading out of town in the same direction I would go. I told myself when I passed it I would ride to the side of it I hadn't yet read, for the ailments held a kind of fascination for me.

  I had nearly done with tying my purchases to the saddle when the boy came back outside. Borden Kind put his head out of the same doorway. He took no notice of me. He called the boy, then walked out to meet him halfway. I saw a star on Kind's vest catch the light.

  He was a lawman. The weight of it near took my breath away. Another fellow came from two doors down to stand with them. I could hear none of what Borden Kind said at this distance, but the two men went back inside, and the boy went running along the boardwalk on that side of the street.

  I looked all around for Maude or Marion. We were agreed to meet outside of town, but that didn't rule out one of them might be nearby.

  I didn't see them, nor Maude's horse, and I rode for the alley where Marion had turned. I didn't like to see lawmen in a hurry.

  I reminded myself there could be a dozen things happening to stir them up. Only I couldn't stop thinking of the look Borden Kind gave Maude. I had allowed myself to be fooled into thinking it was nothing because it was gone in a moment.

  Marion came out of the alley at a good clip, scattering like chickens three women who were crossing the street. He wasn't on a fresh horse.

  When he pulled up alongside me, I said, “Borden Kind is the law.”

  “He and a deputy grabbed her,” Marion said. “This is going to work the same way as before. You go in crying.”

  “He won't believe me,” I said. “He knows who Maude is.”

  “I'm not interested in changing his mind,” Marion said. “I want to get the drop on him.”

  “Do we know there's a back door?”

  “They'll have some way of getting to the outhouse without the whole town knowing when.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But we aren't going to shoot anybody, are we?”

  “I'd rather not,” Marion said, and lifted slightly the coil of rope over his saddle horn.

  “Let's all stick together when we ride out of here,” I said. “Where's Maude's horse?”

  “Hard telling,” Marion said in the tone of one more piece of bad luck.

  “What about your horse? Why didn't you trade it?”

  “I couldn't find a piece of horseflesh to match him. From where I stood at the corral I had a good view of your sister's mishap.”

  “You might could try again,” I said. He would be better off on a fresh horse if we had to outrun a posse.

/>   He shook his head. “This is it. What we're on. I have to round up your sister's horse right quick.”

  “I'll go to the jail, and you come in when you're ready.”

  “Naw, you wait outside somewhere till you see me with the horse,” he said. “What we don't need is for me to get arrested, and there you'll be right inside the jailhouse, and we don't have another card up our sleeve.”

  He was right, and I did as he said. I didn't know what I would do as the last card up our sleeve. I began to plan for it, though, and what I planned was to ring the church bell. If the entire town turned out to see what was the matter, maybe I could double around and open up the jailhouse doors.

  I didn't want to bet on such a middling plan.

  I hid in the alley across the street and some down from the jailhouse. It gave me a view, but like as not, I wouldn't be seen if someone looked out the window.

  Here sat the smallest jailhouse I'd ever taken notice of. The good side of this was to think it might be that much easier to get Maude out. I tied my potato sack more securely. I didn't want to lose it during the gallop.

  This might could be a second chance at making Maude's side of this story known. But a lot of things would have to be working in Maude's favor to see things come out right at the end; that bothered me. For it did also occur to me we might have gotten in and out of this town without incident.

  I might could have said to myself, If only we hadn't stopped to read a sign at just the hour when the sheriff had gone home for a spell. But we had stopped, and Maude herself had pointed that sign out to me. I'd come to think of this as something Maude and Aunt Ruthie had in common, a gift for being in the right place at the wrong time.

  I could see little traffic in and out of the sheriff's office, and no fuss at all. Surprising, considering they had just captured Mad Maude. Fortunate, since me and Marion were about to test our jail-breaking skills again.

  I rode out to meet him when I saw him coming down the street with Maude's sorrel reined in behind him. “Good. She likes that horse,” I said. “She wouldn't be happy to lose it.”