Undaunted Spirit

by Jane Peart

  Mindy asked, “Did things go well at Byron’s house?”

  “There were such a great many books that I thought it would be useless to try to go through them in such a short time as I have. I packed a few things, some photographs, for instance, and some other things my mother would like to have. I think I may come back here on my next business trip and plan to spend a few days, or even a week, to do a complete inventory and make definite deposition.” He paused. “In the meantime, Miss McClaren, why don’t you take advantage of Byron’s fine library? He has all the classics and other books I’m sure you’d find interesting. I know he would like that.”

  “That is most kind of you. I may well take you up on your offer.”

  They stopped on the way out of the dining room, and he complimented Mrs. Busby on the meal. “It was the best meal I’ve had since coming west.” She beamed.

  He walked with Mindy to the door of her little parlor. He held out his hand, smiling. “Sometimes, in his letters, my uncle exaggerated—the writer in him, I suppose. However, he did not exaggerate in your case. Good night, Miss McClaren, thank you for your help. It’s been a real pleasure.”

  “For me, too, Mr. Day. I hope you have a good trip home. Let me know if and when you plan to be back in Coarse Gold.”

  “That I will surely do, I promise.”

  As she undressed and got ready for bed, Mindy thought over the evening. It had been pleasant—one of the pleasantest she had spent in a long time. She had missed conversation with an intelligent, interesting person. It reminded her of some of the talks she and Byron had had together, and she missed the editor all over again. His nephew was very like him. Too bad he was leaving town. It might be nice to get to know him better. Maybe, if he did return to Coarse Gold . . . but then you never know. People said things, made plans but sometimes they didn’t work out.

  * * *

  PART 3

  * * *

  Chapter 22

  After her first excitement, Mindy realized that taking over the editorship of the Gazette was far more difficult than she had ever imagined. She worked all hours. She came in some mornings just as it was getting light and stayed late, working by the flickering oil lamp at her desk. It seemed she had no other life but running the newspaper. Now, she had to do everything: sign up advertisers, layout copy, write articles and editorials, oversee the finished copy, help run the press, see the pages inserted and the paper folded, ready to deliver. She kept saying the paper needed more help. But where could she get it? Who could she find to take some of the more menial jobs that never seemed to get done? Coarse Gold was a miners’ town. That’s where the money was, and everyone was trying to find it up in the hills.

  Although Mindy took great pride in what she was accomplishing almost single-handedly, it was taking its toll. By Thursday evening she was so tired she practically swayed on her feet with fatigue. Often, it was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other to make her way down the street back to her room. There she would fall, utterly exhausted, onto her bed.

  She kept telling herself it was worth it. Dreams didn’t come cheap. By Monday she was ready to start the next week’s grinding pace again. The real reward was that she had proved something to herself—and to those who thought Byron had made a mistake, trusting a woman to run a newspaper.

  The price she was paying, however, narrowed her life considerably. She didn’t have time now to stop and chat with people if she was out to get a story, which was almost always. She didn’t have time to nurture friendships that would have been helpful to her, nor to make new friends. Life was distilled to work.

  About two months after Byron’s death, late one afternoon, Mindy was working at her desk when she had heard unusually loud noises from outside. She cocked her head, then went back to work, too busy to pay much attention. The noise suddenly swelled frighteningly. It sounded like the roar of a train hurtling down the track head-on. Mindy frowned and got to her feet. The shouting was too loud to ignore. She left her desk and went through the newsroom, out to the front porch. She saw people running, rushing down the street toward the sheriff’s office and jail. She went down a couple of steps, grabbing the arm of a young boy passing by. “What’s going on?”

  “A hangin’,” he yelled, tugging his sleeve from her grasp.

  “But the sheriff’s out of town.” She said. She knew because Taylor had come by to tell her good-bye the other day, reminding her wistfully that they hadn’t had any time together in weeks. “Sheriff Bradford’s gone—,” she repeated, but the boy paid no attention. He pulled away and kept running.

  Mindy’s heart began to pump heavily. A hanging? She didn’t know of any trial that had taken place in the last week or any sentences for a hanging. Taylor had come by before leaving to pick up a prisoner to be tried for cattle rustling under Judge Moltry’s jurisdiction. The ranch from which they were stolen was on the outskirts of Coarse Gold. So who could have given a verdict to hang someone—and for what crime?

  Mindy ran down the rest of the steps and found herself in the middle of the throng, pushed and shoved along the street by the crowd, moving like a mighty tide to the jailhouse. Already a large group had gathered there. She tried to elbow her way to the front, but the bodies were too tightly packed for her to get through. Her hairpins had fallen out and her hair was trailing down her neck. She gathered it with both hands and pushed it back. She tried standing on tip-toe so she could see over the heads and shoulders of people blocking her view.

  The din around her was deafening. She jerked the sleeve of a man standing next to her and raised her voice to be heard over the crowd. “Who is it?”

  He turned and looked down at her. “A drifter. Caught red-handed trying to get away with a horse from the livery stable. But they nabbed him. He’s gonna git what’s comin’ to him. Seems folks know him from way back. He’s a no-good.”

  “But Sheriff Bradford’s out of town,” Mindy protested. “They can’t hang a man without a hearing.” But her informant wasn’t listening. He had joined in the jeering and yelling that was rising like a flood.

  Fierce indignation welled up in Mindy. They couldn’t do this. They couldn’t take the law into their own hands. This was primitive, uncivilized behavior. It belonged to the past, to vigilante days, not the enlightened present—Not now when there was law. This was criminal.

  The noise all around her rose as in one dreadful shout. The roar of the crowd drowned out any protests, if there were any other than her own. Then a terrible hush fell. Voices died down into a rumble. Then a kind of hoarse echo of muttering as people in front began to break away, leaving, scattering in small groups.

  Little by little the crowd thinned, but Mindy remained standing there as if rooted to the ground. Now that she could see straight ahead, she saw a dangling body swinging against the darkening sky. Her stomach lurched and she turned away.

  Shocked and miserable, she staggered back to the newspaper office. At the steps she felt a wave of nausea sweep over her. She stumbled to the side of the building and was sick.

  She never knew how long she sat alone in the newsroom at her desk, shaking with impotent rage at what had happened in the town she had come to love. That people would be capable of such malicious lawlessness in this peaceful community stunned her. She felt helpless and hopeless, paralyzed by what she had observed. The image of the hanged man would be etched forever on her mind.

  Slowly she drew a piece of paper in front of her, dipped her pen in the inkwell, and began to write with a passionate fury. “YOU CALL YOURSELVES MEN?” She wrote. Then she underlined it, marking for Pete that the headline should be set in bold type. Thursday’s edition would bear evidence of her shame, guilt, and indictment of the town for the obscene act she had witnessed.

  On Friday the newspaper office was empty. Pete and Tim had long since gone. Mindy was alone. She had not felt like going back to her room. There, the loneliness would seem even greater.

  At six it was already dark. The single light
from the oil lamp on Mindy’s desk illuminated her reflection in the opaque rectangle of the front window facing the street.

  Mindy knew she had to rid herself somehow of the creeping depression. She longed to get back her old enthusiasm for her work. She did not like the feeling of alien ation she now saw among the people she had worked so hard to make friends. Suspicion, resentment, and worse—hostility and anger. It hadn’t been easy getting them to accept her even when Byron was alive. It had been even more difficult for them to respect her as an editor. But now, why was she being vilified for standing up for decency? For exercising Christian values?

  In the months since Byron’s death she had felt more confident all the time. Now she wondered if she had assumed too much by taking her bold stands and separating herself from the prevailing sentiment of the community of which she wanted to be a part.

  Her editorial had been fiery. Written in the heat of her disgust and outrage, she had not tested its content with anyone. Even Pete had raised his eyebrows a little when she gave it to him to set. But justice was justice. Taking the law into their own hands was wrong. Yet lines had been drawn about her speaking out against them.

  Now self-doubt plagued her. Had she acted too hastily, too impulsively? No, unconsciously Mindy banged her small fist on the desktop. She knew she was right. She had confronted all of them, even those who had just stood by silently while a man was hung without a trial. She had demanded they search their consciences. Compassion for another human being was what she had demanded of them. Fairness, that’s all.

  Even Taylor, when he returned, was reticent. As a lawman, of course, he deplored the hanging. But he didn’t wholeheartedly support her taking on the whole town. It was the first time anything had come between them to disturb the pleasant companionship they shared and the possibility, at least in Taylor’s mind, that it might develop into something deeper. He didn’t tell her, but she knew even the people who weren’t happy about what had taken place in his absence had complained about the editorial. She could imagine the whispers: “Who does she think she is?” “A woman don’t have no business being a newspaper editor.”

  If she had been a man, would it have been the same? Mindy didn’t think so. While some might consider her brave—a fearless crusader for any man’s right to a trial, no matter what his past—Mindy knew there were others who felt just as strongly opposite, calling her a meddling woman poking her nose where didn’t belong. After all, everyone said Janus McCabe was a known rustler and horse thief.

  All at once Mindy felt a tingling along her scalp. Her whole body seemed to quiver to alertness, brace. Then she heard the crash and the shattering of glass as a rock was hurled through the front window, sending splinters flying everywhere.

  The next day she still felt shaky, in spite of Taylor’s adamant assurance he would catch the culprit. Taylor had arrived at the newspaper office within minutes after the window was shattered. People in the street had heard it and ran to get him at Mrs. Busby’s. He still had his napkin tucked into his belt as he had rushed over from the dining room where he had been eating supper. He had his hand on his holster ready to draw his gun as he rushed into the newspaper office, demanding, “You all right, Mindy?”

  She was leaning against her desk, her knees weak and wobbly, unable to speak. He came over to where she was and put a hand awkwardly on her shoulder.

  “Yes, I’m all right.” She nodded and tried to take a deep breath.

  He stood patting her comfortingly while looking around the newsroom. “Wait a minute,” he said and took a few steps over to the window, his boots crunching on the broken shards on the floor. Then he bent down and picked up a sizeable rock. A piece of paper was tied to it wrapped with a frayed string of twine. He examined it, then told Mindy, “Something’s printed on it. Can’t make it out,” but his face was flushed an angry red.

  Mindy held out her hand for it. “Here let me see it, maybe I can.”

  Taylor shook his head, his mouth folded grimly. “No Mindy. From what I can see, it ain’t fittin’ for a lady to read.” “Don’t be silly, Taylor. If it’s about me I want to see it. Maybe we can tell who did this.”

  Taylor shook his head again. “This is sheriff’s property, evidence. You have to be a deputy to view evidence at the scene of a crime.”

  Even though frustrated, Mindy had to suppress a smile. Although it might be Lawman Bradford asserting his authority, she knew actually it was something else. Taylor’s inherent gentility prevented him showing Mindy the derogatory note—even though she was the newspaper’s editor and this was quite a story. As far as Taylor was concerned, Mindy was first a lady, to be protected.

  In spite of her show of calm, the incident had shaken Mindy badly. For the next few days, she started at the slightest sound and had to curb her tendency to look over her shoulder when she went in or out of the newspaper office. She was especially nervous if required to stay late for some reason. It didn’t matter that she told herself not to be afraid, that nobody would dare really harm her. She had lost some of her innocence and knew she would never get it back. Had it been worth speaking her mind so forcibly in the editorial? Just as she had felt in the disastrous aftermath of her Dixie Dillon exposé of the housemaids living conditions in Woodhaven, she was still glad she’d done it. If they ran her out of town . . . well, maybe that was the price she had to pay.

  For all the cold looks and the obvious shunning by people who turned away at her approach, Mindy was determined to confront the coward who had thrown the rock and smashed the newspaper window. Reminding herself of Byron’s oft repeated remark, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” Mindy sat down to use the weapon she knew best.

  Scripture was always a powerful way to attack wrongdoers, so she indicated a headline for her retaliatory editorial: “HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN CAST THE FIRST STONE,” she wrote with the same fluidity of the first one.

  If my sin is calling an action a sin and a spade a spade, then I’m guilty. In my opinion, that is an editor’s duty. To bring to the attention of a community something corrosive in its midst that, if unchecked, unhealed, will eventually destroy our town. We are progressive, right-thinking people. We employ the Golden Rule. We believe in the basic principles for which our country stands: Liberty, Justice, Equality. Every man is entitled to a trial. That is the law of our land. When rabble-rousers overstep this right, they are committing a crime—a sin if you will—and endangering their own lives should fate ever bring them into a similar situation. Circumstantial evidence is not enough. The Bible requires the testimony of at least two witnesses. Why didn’t anyone speak up for the poor wretch that lawbreakers hung? Was there no one brave enough to do so? Whoever he was, he was a human being like the rest of us. Unknown to us he had a mother who will weep and mourn for him. Perhaps a wife and children. We will never know. We did not give him a chance. And this town will carry the burden of guilt and shame for this lawless act. Because I live here and work here and have come to know and consider many of you my friends, I beg you to pledge with me that never again will such a shameful act be done in the name of so-called justice.

  When Pete read it before setting it in type, he gave Mindy a wry grin. “That’s tellin’ ’em,” he drawled. Mindy felt gratified, because Pete was a miser with compliments.

  The next week after the paper came out and was circulated, Mindy was conscious of some approving nods and some tentative smiles as she walked down the street. A bunch of early wildflowers appeared on her desk when she came back from lunch, and several commending letters to the editor trickled in over the next few days.

  Mindy had the definite feeling that the town had taken a good hard look at itself, given itself a shake, squared its shoulders, and faced the future with a renewed determination to make itself proud again. More than that, she felt she had gained some new respect, if not agreement—at least that she was a force to be reckoned with.

  The following week, Mindy was just cleaning up some copy one afternoon when she heard a d
eep, familiar voice , “Good day to you, Miss McClaren.”

  Her head jerked up and she half rose from her desk, “Wade!” Then not wanting to seem too glad to see him, she sat back down and tried to assume a casual air. How dare he saunter in so nonchalantly as if nothing had happened between them at New Year’s? Well, she could be just as cool as he. “What brings you back in town?” She shuffled some papers as if busy and not particularly interested in his answer. But the edginess in her voice showed her irritation. “Oh, this and that,” he said casually. “Heard you had a mite of trouble since I’ve been gone. Was anyone hurt?”

  “No, I was here by myself and no one was hurt.”

  He swore softly under his breath. “Why’d you take that kind of risk? There are a lot of hotheads around here; once they get boozed up, they’re just looking to pick a fight.”

  “Against a defenseless woman?” she scoffed. “Takes some kind of man to do that!”

  “Maybe the same kind of man who strings somebody up without the law.”

  Mindy raised her eyebrows and shrugged, but did not comment.

  Wade came closer, put both hands on her desk and leaned forward. “Well, you must admit you took a chance.”

  “Of telling the truth?”

  “I just don’t see it as a woman’s place to tell men what they should or should not do.”

  “I didn’t realize decency and justice belonged exclusively to men. Women are just as affected by vigilantism and injustice as men. And they have just as much right to speak out against wrong-doing when they see it.”

  Wade stepped back, held up both hands as if to protect himself. “Well, if you aren’t a spitfire-of-an-editor for sure.”

  Mindy flung down her pencil and stood up.