by Zina Abbott
Eddie Joe faced him, his arms akimbo. “First of all, that lunch is for Etta and me. Etta, this mangy lot belongs to the ranch. I could introduce you, but you’ll get to know them soon enough. Second of all, I’m not the boss. Only Boss is the boss.”
“Yeah, but Mr. Jacobson don’t like us calling him Boss. You’re the only one who can get away with it. That’s why we decided it’s only fair we call you Boss. We figured with not much going on until the dance starts we’d hang around you, kind of like we did the morning Boss took his new lady that is now his wife to church the first time.”
Eddie Joe glared at Cletus, but he held his tongue. Cletus had been one of the men with him that Sunday morning when he walked into the chapel and introduced himself to Bessie Carlson, now Bessie Jacobson, while their boss was still busy dropping Juanita off at the Catholic church. Cletus had stood outside the community church next to him when Boss finally showed up, and Eddie Joe had spoken for them all when he let Boss know they thought he had picked out a real nice lady, and they would be watching to make sure everything went well. He knew full well he had been the ringleader of the whole business that had sent Boss into such a fury he ended up ordering Eddie Joe to leave his horse behind and take the buckboard and Juanita home that afternoon while he took his Bessie someplace private to talk.
Now, he was getting a taste of his own medicine.
Eddie Joe raised a finger and shook it at Cletus. “And I’ll tell you what Boss told me that day. I am going to take my intended someplace private. PRIVATE. That means no one with us, just her and me. Now, go grab some chow at the Corner Saloon if the River Valley Inn restaurant is too rich for your blood, and I don’t want to see any of your ugly snouts until the dance.”
Beside him, Eddie Joe heard Etta quietly giggle. He looked over to see her face tipped down and her hand covering her mouth, even as her dancing eyes glanced up at him.
Eddie Joe gave Etta a quick smile before he turned back to his men. “All right, you’ve had your fun, but the show’s over. I don’t want you scaring off my intended before she has a chance to realize what a charming guy I am.” Eddie Joe gave the men a toothy grin and ignored the teasing snorts and chuckles. “Enjoy your afternoon, boys. I’ll see you at the dance.”
As soon as he saw the men turn away and walk down the road towards the bank, he took the package from Etta’s arms and settled it in the back of the wagon under the quilts. He guided her back into the mercantile to wait for him while he hauled the rest of the provisions he bought out to the buckboard. He settled her on the buckboard for the short ride to the livery.
“Do you want dinner at the River Valley Inn, Etta? I’d be happy to take you there if you prefer that to a picnic lunch. Looks like the weather is turning on us. It will be warmer than out in the open, and I doubt the men will go there.”
Etta shook her head. “I’m not used to eating in no fancy restaurant, and that’s what I was told it is. A picnic lunch suits me fine. I’ll wrap up in a quilt if I get cold.”
Eddie Joe found them a secluded spot beyond the meadow that comprised the city park. Since the sun had already disappeared behind clouds, the thick cover of tree trunks and branches served more to break the wind. After they had both eaten and the remains returned to Juanita’s basket, the drop in temperature became noticeable. Eddie Joe opened his coat and pulled Etta into its warmth with one hand while he struggled to wrap the extra quilt around the two of them with the other. Their knees scrunched up inside their cocoon, the only places they felt the cold was on the exposed skin of their faces.
Eddie Joe held Etta tight to him. “You warm enough, Etta?”
Etta nodded. “Feels right toasty in here, Eddie Joe.”
Before Eddie Joe had a consciousness of what he was doing, he reached his hand to Etta’s chin and pulled her face towards him. His quick kiss on her lips jangled through him like hitting an iron pipe on a granite boulder. As he leaned back, he waited for her reaction.
Eddie Joe took it as a good sign that she didn’t turn her head or struggle to get away from him. “You upset with me, Etta?”
“Why would I be upset with you?”
“For stealing a kiss.”
Etta leaned in and rubbed her temple against his jaw. “No, I’m not upset. I liked it.”
That was all the encouragement Eddie Joe needed. He wriggled his hand around and turned her face towards his again. The next kiss was longer and far more thorough. As much as he felt caught up in his own sensations, a part of him realized she not only was not resisting him, but she seemed just as eager to share their kiss. All too soon, Eddie Joe knew he had to come up for air. The last thing he wanted to do was move so fast he gave Etta the impression he was after her for the wrong reason.
Eddie Joe looked beyond the rough shelter. “Etta, it’s starting to snow. I need to get you back to the boarding house. Maybe we can talk a little more in the parlor before I leave you to your supper and come back to pick you up for the dance.” Eddie Joe gave her one more quick kiss before he reluctantly rose to his feet and helped Etta up. The two folded the quilts and between them carried their picnic supplies over to the livery to leave them in the buckboard.
As they walked back to the boarding house, Etta pulled her shawl up over her head to protect it from the snow. Eddie Joe reached for her waist and pulled her against him as they walked. “I really like your hair, Etta. Sorry I messed it up back there.”
Etta liked walking next to Eddie Joe. She liked the feel of his arm around her and his body next to hers. She liked that he was taller than she was but not real tall. She liked he was built thin and wiry, not bulky with bulging muscles. She never said so to him in her letters or after they met in person, but after Buford, big men frightened her. She especially liked how Eddie Joe’s kisses had messed up her hair.
Etta turned and looked up at Eddie Joe’s face with a grin big enough to match one of his. “The hair will fix. I figure I can find someone to help me with it before supper.”
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CHAPTER 15
~o0o~
Giddy with excitement as she sat down to supper, Etta pushed her food around on her plate. After days of feeling hungry, she once again could not eat. However, the reason this time was not lack of available food but anticipation of going to the harvest dance with a man who made her heart feel like it might burst with happiness. He not only seemed to like her, but he had kissed her—more than once.
She hoped he liked her well enough to ask her to marry him. She hoped he had not just been trying out her kisses to see if she might be worth keeping.
Tonight would probably decide him. If he planned to marry her, he would need to let the pastor of the church know in the morning so they could set a time to get married. At least she already had the dress and would be wearing it to the church.
After supper, Etta carried her dishes into the kitchen before she went to her room to freshen up for the dance. She felt tempted to stay there while she waited. If Eddie Joe didn’t come for her, it would be far less embarrassing if no one saw her. However, staying in her room meant a trek up the stairs for Clara Howard after a long day of taking care of her boarders and preparing food for the dance. She would take her shawl and wait in the guest parlor.
The others were gone, leaving only her, Mrs. Howard and, as far as she knew, Sarah Brown in the building. Sarah had said she was going for a short time—she owed a man who had helped her a dance—but she would not stay long. Since Clara Howard was busy in the kitchen when the knock came on the door, Etta took a deep breath and answered it herself, hoping it was Eddie Joe.
Etta smiled wide. Eddie Joe had come for her. Like her, he still wore what he had on that afternoon except he had added a silky kerchief around his neck. She called out to Clara she was leaving, closed the door behind her and took his arm.
Eddie Joe grabbed the hand on his arm with his other one. “Careful, Etta. Some of that snow we had this afternoon mel
ted before the sun went down, and now it’s freezing again. The steps were a touch icy.”
Etta allowed Eddie Joe to help her down the stairs. She sighed with relief that the school building was not any farther away from the boarding house than it was considering all she had to hold off the cold was her wool dress and petticoat as well as the shawl.
Etta’s mouth gaped in amazement at the clusters of lanterns placed on the ground in front of the school. Some were lit, and some were not. All waited to provide light to their owners as they made their way home from the dance that night.
Through the doorway, Etta heard the strains of music being played on a fiddle. It was a lively tune. She realized it had been many years since she had learned a few dances while she was still in school. After her pa took sick, there was no time for dances or anything frivolous. She hoped she would remember the steps well enough to dance with Eddie Joe.
Eddie Joe offered to take her shawl to the upstairs classroom where most of the women were leaving their coats and hats. Etta declined. In spite of it being customary to wear a hat in public, she had decided to not risk messing up her hair by putting on the muslin bonnet her mother had sent with her. As for the shawl, even with the heat generated by the press of so many bodies in the same room, she decided to wear it rather than risk getting cold.
As they stood in the doorway between the foyer and the schoolroom where a dance was in progress, Etta studied the raised platform to the right in the far corner of the room. To the left in the other corner was the teacher’s desk that this night served as the table for the punch bowls and cups. Tables lined along the left side of the room held a variety of dessert food for refreshments.
Etta looked over to her companion when she noticed him shifting uncomfortably on his feet. “Anything wrong, Eddie Joe?”
“Not really. It’s just I never really learned how to dance. I can’t take you out on the floor to a number like this one.”
Etta smiled at him. “Suits me fine. I can’t dance much myself. Maybe we can try when they play something slow. All we have to do then is just move our feet a little.”
Her hand clutched tightly to Eddie Joe’s arm, the couple slowly made their way along the wall on the right of the room. When they arrived in the center, Eddie Joe smiled when he looked at the food tables and noticed his men had joined many of the townspeople getting desserts. He felt a sense of relief at the sight of them. If they were at the community dance, it meant there was a good chance he would not need to drag them out of the bordello the next day.
The pair turned as a man who identified himself as Royce Bainbridge, one of the owners of the Prosperity Mine, replaced the fiddler on the platform. After he said his piece, he was followed by the town mayor. When they finished and the fiddler resumed the platform, Eddie Joe leaned over and whispered in Etta’s ear. “I’ll tell you how small Monarch Bend is. We don’t have a town mayor or our own marshal or deputy sheriff. My boss is one of the bigger ranchers in the area, and if there’s a problem with rustlers, we handle it ourselves. But, anything else, we have to have the sheriff from Jubilee Springs come out.”
After time passed, the fiddler began a slow tune. Eddie Joe turned to Etta. “This one’s slow. Want to chance it?” At Etta’s nod, they joined in the dancing.
Eddie Joe knew with the ratio of men to women being what it was, his luck would soon run out. Sure enough, eventually one of the men from town approached and asked him if he could dance with Etta. After a nod from Etta, he relinquished her hand. However, his eyes never left her. It had better be an innocent dance only, because no one was going to get his Etta away from him. The man brought her back with a thank you, and soon she was asked by another to dance. Reluctantly, Eddie Joe let her go. When she returned, she pointed out the tall woman wearing the fancy ball gown as the one who had given her the blue dress she wore. He smiled while she told the tale of how she had received it and altered it, but a part of his brain chastised him for not insisting when they had been in the mercantile that afternoon she buy fabric to make herself a couple more everyday dresses.
Eddie Joe asked if she wanted some refreshments before they were all gone. After she admitted she had been too nervous to eat much supper, he started her around the room towards the food tables. They had almost arrived when another man asked Etta to dance.
Suppressing a sigh, Etta turned to Eddie Joe. “I’ll dance with him and be right back. Then we can eat. You go ahead and get you a plate.”
The tune was a bit faster than what she was used to, and Etta apologized more than once that she didn’t know the steps. The man whose name she had already forgotten smiled at her and said it was not that important, that he just enjoyed being able to dance with a woman.
The man asked her if she was one of the brides that came to marry the miners. Etta replied that she was a bride, but she had been sent for by one of the men from a ranch close by and planned to marry him. She felt uneasy and turned away from the man when he responded with a piercing look. Fortunately for her, the dance soon ended. Etta blew a stray lock that had escaped her comb away from her eyes as they turned for him to return her to Eddie Joe.
The next thing Etta knew, someone grabbed her arm and jerked her towards the dance floor. She turned to stare into the florid face of one of the men who had been hovering around the punch bowl area. It was obvious he was well on his way to being inebriated. A flashback of a drunk Buford in a fit of meanness coming at her coursed through her mind, and she automatically pulled away from the man. She lifted her free arm to protect her face.
The man yanked her back towards the center of the dance floor, sending her arm out to her side to help her keep her balance. The scowl on his face advertised his resentment towards the way she reacted to him. “Where you going, pretty lady? It’s my turn to dance with you.”
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CHAPTER 16
~o0o~
Etta’s eyes widened, and her breathing escalated into gulps of air. Where was Eddie Joe? She heard the first few chords of the dance music and stammered out her excuse. “I’m sorry, but this tune is too fast. I don’t know how to do this dance. I was on my way to the food table.”
The man changed directions and dragged her along with him. “You want refreshments, I got just the thing. It’ll help loosen you up so maybe you’ll be more hospitable.” He grabbed a cup and poured some of the apple cider punch into it before handing it to her.
Etta took a sniff and held the cup away from her. “No thank you. This is more than hard cider. It’s got liquor added.”
Etta’s unwelcome host snatched the cup free of her and held her hand away while he tried to force the cup to her lips. “Quit being so snooty, woman. You think you’re too good to drink with us miners?”
A hand from someone behind Etta reached past her and knocked the cup to the floor. Etta tensed up as an arm circled her waist until she looked over and realized Eddie Joe stood next to her and it was his arm holding her close to him.
His eyes tight and chin jutting forward, Eddie Joe leaned towards the obnoxious drunk. “The lady told you no. She said it real nice. You need to learn to take no for an answer.”
The inebriated miner, almost the same height as Eddie Joe, stepped forward, a scowl on his face. “Shove off, cowboy. She’s with me.”
“She was never with you, miner. She’s with me. I sent for her.”
“And how do you figure that? If women like her were around these parts, the miners wouldn’t need to write off for wives to come here.”
“I wrote to her, same as the miners. After several letters, I sent for her. She’s with me.”
The music stopped, and the room quieted as his words sank in. The man Etta had danced with earlier spoke up. “I told you she said she came to marry a cowboy. I thought the miners were supposed to get all the wives before anyone else got theirs.” His words started a low grumble echoing through the room.
Eddie Joe sensed more than h
eard several men move up next to him. His peripheral vision confirmed that the men from the ranch had joined him to cover his back. He gently released Etta and shoved her behind him. His wall of men parted to let her through. Next, they closed in tight to separate her from the miners they faced.
The drunk, his face red with rage, raised a finger towards Eddie Joe. “She’s not yours. She belongs to a miner. My brother’s been waiting for months. No cowboy’s getting a woman while there’re still miners waiting for their women.” Mumbles of agreement rumbled among the other miners.
Cletus leaned forward and spoke low in Eddie Joe’s ear. “We’re outnumbered here, Boss, and our firepower is in the livery since we were told we couldn’t bring guns into the dance. You want me to send one of the men for them?”
Just as quiet, Eddie Joe answered. “Not yet, Cletus. There are too many women present. We’re still just talking.”
Cletus stepped back. Eddie Joe straightened to his full height and raised his voice. “Look, you men. I have nothing against you, and I’m certainly not trying to claim anyone who is intended for one of the miners. But when I was in town over Independence Day and spoke with Mrs. Millard, she assured me that while she was searching for the right women to be wives for those of you who want one, she could also search for the right woman for me. I’m sorry if she hasn’t finished finding wives for all of you who put in for one, but it just so happened she found the one for me. You’re not snatching her away like she’s a heifer at auction you want to buy.”
A voice from the back called out. “I say that bridal agency woman is taking too long to find the women. The miners should get all the brides first and make the cowboys wait.”
A second voice boomed through the room. “What’s going on here? Everyone settle down.” A man Eddie Joe recognized as Royce Bainbridge muscled his way through the crowd of men facing off against each other. He shook his head with disgust at the sight of the drunk standing toe to toe with Eddie Joe. “Herbert Price, I should have guessed if there was trouble you’d be right in the middle of it. What’s this all about?”