“I swear I’ll sing every night,” Eliza promised. “And school is only for the summer. Please, Uncle, it’s the only thing I’ve ever asked you to do for me.”
“And if I don’t?” he challenged.
“I won’t sing.” The tiny thread of determination was garnering strength, and Eliza spoke her words with stiffening resolve.
“Only if it doesn’t affect your singing,” Ira said, sufficiently staggered by the thought of losing the money Eliza brought in to own himself beaten.
“Thank you, Uncle,” Eliza said, giving him an impulsive kiss on the cheek. “I promise you won’t regret it. She gathered up her cape and hurried from the room, leaving Ira to wonder what had brought about this change in his niece.
“Miss Smallwood?”
Eliza nearly jumped out of her skin. She spun about to find herself looking up into Cord Stedman’s smiling face, and she was suddenly so addle-brained she could only stare at him in confusion. Each detail of his appearance was burned into her brain, yet every time she saw him, his physical magnetism stunned and bewildered her as completely as it had that first day by the creek. She didn’t know why she should be so breathless—she had only covered half the distance from the saloon to the Baylises’ store—but she felt like she needed to sit down.
“I wanted to thank you for the other night,” she muttered absently. The warmth in his eyes caused her heart to flutter so badly she was in danger of losing her train of thought. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there”
“Nothing much, but they won’t bother you again.”
“No,” she said lowering her eyes. “Not after what you did.”
“They’re just boys,” Cord told her, as though it explained everything. “They don’t know how to treat a lady.”
“Maybe they don’t think a woman who sings in a saloon is a lady. I know Lavinia’s not.”
“You shouldn’t know anything about women like that,” Cord said, a dark expression settling over his face.
“I don’t really, but I can’t help but guess some things.”
“What are you doing going to her place?” Cord demanded with a spurt of anger.
“Lucy helps me dress. I don’t know anybody else except Mrs. Baylis.”
“There has to be some way to keep you out of that place. Lucy may be a good soul, but the less said about Lavinia the better.”
Cord lapsed into thought and Eliza gazed up at him in beatific bewilderment. It was so difficult to believe anyone would take an interest in her, she’d nearly talked herself into believing she’d imagined the other night, but here he was worrying about her again. No girl could have ever been as happy as she was just now.
“You have a mighty pretty voice, but you shouldn’t be singing in a saloon either.” Eliza flushed with pleasure.
“I have to. At last Uncle Ira has a chance to make a go of something, and I can’t let him fail because of me.”
“He’ll make money without you.”
“But not as much, and he has set his heart on having the biggest saloon in Buffalo. This is the first time he’s asked me to do anything except keep house. I owe him something for taking care of me all these years.”
“You’re mighty loyal.”
“I promised Aunt Sarah I’d take care of him. Besides, I don’t have any other family.”
“Don’t you have any men friends?” She was too busy blushing to notice the increased gravity in his expression.
“Men don’t like plain girls, and it’s hard to look pretty in a faded dress with dirt on your nose and perspiration on your forehead.”
“You look pretty to me,” Cord said softly. “I thought so before I ever saw you in that red dress.”
“I don’t like to wear it,” she confessed, “but Uncle and Lavinia said I must.”
“It suits the occasion, but you’re made for sunlight and open air.” Eliza thought she would burst with pleasure.
“Maybe, but I’ll probably go on singing until there’s no one in all of Wyoming who ever wants to hear me again.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No, but Uncle hasn’t been able to settle down to anything since Aunt Sarah and Grant died. Maybe if the saloon is a success, he’ll be happier.”
“Isn’t there something you want for yourself, not to please your uncle or make money?” Eliza didn’t answer immediately, but Cord could tell from the guarded look in her eyes he’d touched a soft spot. “There is, isn’t mere? Won’t you tell me?”
“You’ll laugh,” she said reluctantly. “Uncle says I’m a great fool to even think of it.”
“You know I never agree with your uncle.”
Eliza was betrayed into a smile. “Okay, but only if you promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“I want to be a teacher.” She paused, expecting some sign of disapproval, but when he just stood there waiting, she had the courage to continue.
“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. Mama was a teacher before she married Papa, and so was Aunt Sarah. She taught Grant and me.”
“Have you taught before?”
“No,” she confessed, “and I imagine it will be quite a shock at first, but I’m sure the children will learn to mind and I’ll soon know what to do.” Cord doubted children could be made to mind so readily, but he didn’t say so.
“Buffalo doesn’t have a teacher, and they don’t have a schoolhouse eider,” she told him. “The children want to learn. They just need someone to teach them.”
“Have you talked to anyone about this?”
“No, but I’m determined to …” Eliza suddenly ducked into an open door leaving Cord alone in the street. “It’s Uncle,” she whispered urgently from the doorway. “He’s coming this way.”
“But surely—”
“He must not see us together. Please keep walking.”
“I shouldn’t-”
“Please!” she begged, and Cord reluctantly resumed walking toward the little man Eliza was so anxious to avoid. But he swore to himself one day Eliza would walk at his side without fear.
Chapter 7
Ella Baylis was not entirely pleased to find Cord Stedman on her front porch. He had acted pretty highhanded on more than one occasion, and some people were reluctant to stop and chat with him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked bluntly. “If you want Ed, he’s still at the store.”
Cord grinned and Ella understood why women rarely spoke unfavorably of him. “I’d like to come in if you’d let me.”
“Come on. I’m not afraid of you.”
“I didn’t expect you would be, but you’d have no cause to be afraid of me anyway.”
“Sit down. I’ll get a crick in my neck if I keep looking up at you. What’s on your mind?”
“Building a schoolhouse.”
Ella was not usually caught off balance, but that was such an unexpected response she half turned around before settling into her own chair. “You got a passel of misbegotten brats you want taught to read?”
Cord’s eyebrows moved close together and the eyes began to retreat behind their barrier.
“Now don’t start glaring at me like a hawk at a prairie chicken. That was meant to be a joke, but I’ll apologize for it nonetheless.”
Cord’s smile reappeared. “Miss Smallwood, the young lady who sings at the Sweetwater—”
“I know who she is,” Ella said, interrupting.
“—wants to teach, but she says Buffalo doesn’t have a schoolhouse.”
“Since when did you get interested in educating children?”
“I’m not.”
“In the teacher maybe?”
“Well, it’s got to be that, doesn’t it?”
“You believe in straight talking, don’t you?”
“It saves trouble.”
“I say you’re asking for trouble. Her uncle has been talking, and it seems you figure large in his conversation, but not high in his opinion
.”
“I’m not one to go looking for trouble, but I don’t run from it eider.”
“I didn’t imagine you would, or go around it when you want something eider,” Ella replied thoughtfully, “but that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here. I don’t run this town and I can’t build a schoolhouse.”
“You know who can. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get some men to put up the building if you get the county to provide the money.”
“As well as permission to do it in the town’s name?”
“That too, but I don’t plan to wait on the town. My boys can put up a school on my land easier than asking people here to help, but that won’t answer as well as one built with town backing.”
“What about opposition?”
“I hadn’t figured on anything more than a little foot-dragging. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“About lifting those feet and making them move faster?”
“Yes, ma’am. You might say that.”
Ella enjoyed a rumbling laugh. “I like you,” she stated unexpectedly. “I don’t know why I wouldn’t, what with those broad shoulders and smoldering eyes the girls talk so silly about, but you get right to the heart of things without any shilly-shallying and oiling up to people.”
Cord shifted uneasily under the burden of praise. “People generally know when you’re lying.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t stop them. Which brings me to ask how you propose to enlist everyone’s help.”
“I was hoping you could do that for me, ma’am. Being on the outside here, I’m not the one to go asking for favors, especially if it means having to come up with money.”
“True, though it shouldn’t be hard. The women are desperate to find a teacher. If they knew there was one already here, they’d have their husbands here before sundown.”
“And the town council? I don’t like to push everything off on you, but—”
“Gentlemanly of you, but I’ll get Ed to do that. All stick with the wives. Despite all their talking and posturing, there’s not a man who won’t move the faster for a little prodding.”
Cord’s open and friendly eyes made him look amazingly attractive, and Ella wondered how Eliza felt about this surprising young man.
“Now that brings us back to you.” she said.
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“What do you expect to get out of this? You needn’t try sweet-talking me into thinking you’re out to build good relations with the homesteaders and merchants. I’m not a fool. And whatever reason you have to think Eliza Smallwood will welcome this intervention, her uncle is liable to refuse to allow her to have anything to do with it if he thinks you’re behind it.”
“I was hoping you could front this whole thing so he wouldn’t have to know I had anything to do with it.”
“And Eliza?”
“She’s not one to make trouble.”
“Nor know how to handle it once it’s stirred up. You can bet your last maverick Ira Smallwood will make her life miserable if he discovers your hand in this.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I don’t think he will.”
“Why not? He’s completely selfish.”
“I had a little talk with him,” Cord said with a deprecating smile, “and explained he ought to take better care of his niece if he didn’t want someone else to do the job for him.”
Ella stared; you never could tell about these quiet ones. Here was a great big lump of a man never showing the slightest interest in any of the women only too anxious to throw themselves at him. But let a shy, schoolteacher type show up, and he not only takes the trouble to see to her welfare, he decides it’s time Buffalo has a schoolhouse and wastes no time in seeing it gets one. And all the while no one is supposed to know he has anything to do with it. Rather clever, this cowboy, and clearly determined to get what he wants.
“I’ll take on your project, but I never knew a good deed that didn’t lead to a lot of bother and aggravation. How soon do you want this schoolhouse?”
“Would the end of the week be too soon?”
Ella gaped.
“I don’t see any sense in putting off things,” he explained.
“No, and the sooner we give Eliza a chance to get started the better,” Ella said, faint but recovering. “You leave things to me.”
“The boys and I will be willing to help.”
“I hope you won’t take offense, but it might be best if you didn’t. There’s a lot of bad feeling toward big ranchers, if not you directly, and I’d just as soon not be a party to causing any ruckus.”
“That’s okay with me, ma’am, but it’s not all I came for.”
“You got something else in your craw?” Ella’s curiosity was aroused.
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“Then out with it. I never thought you’d be bashful over anything.”
“It isn’t that I’m bashful exactly, but I’m afraid you might say I’ve overstepped my limits. You might even be so displeased you’d withdraw your offer to help with the schoolhouse.”
“I can’t imagine what you can be thinking of that’s so terrible, but as the schoolhouse is a benefit to the town, I’ll try and keep an open mind.”
“It’s about Miss Smallwood going to Lavinia Pruitt’s every night.” Ella’s look of amiability began to frost over. “It’s not fitting for a nice girl to know about women like that, much less talk to them and know what goes on in that place.”
Ella thawed completely. “I’ve told Ira Smallwood a dozen times if I’ve told him once he should be ashamed of himself, but he never listens,” she said.
“That’s because he doesn’t have another choice. Eliza won’t stop singing, so that’s not the way out either. The only solution I see is for some decent woman to keep her belongings for her.” A weaker man than Cord would have begun to study the carpet or the wallpaper, but he heroically engaged Ella’s baleful glare.
“Are you saying I should allow Eliza to bring those disgraceful clothes into my house and help her get herself up to look like some Hell-bound harlot?” she demanded, her ample bosom swelling with indignation.
“No. I’m asking if you won’t help a young lady who has no place to go but a whorehouse and no one to see after her but a madam.”
“Phew! When you go after something, you use your teeth.”
Then you’ll help her?”
“How can I refuse when you put it like that?”
“I never thought you would.”
“Cord Stedman, you’re a conniving devil. I never met a man in my life with more gall, and any female who allows you to lend her a hand, much less talk to you for as long as five minutes, is weak in the head.”
“I sure do appreciate all the trouble you’re taking,” Cord said with a broad smile that made Ella’s knees weak.
“Get out of this house before you talk me into something that’ll cause trouble between me and Mr. Baylis. I’ve given my word, so I’ll keep it, but don’t let that fool you into thinking I’m grateful for your visit, because I’m not. And to think I didn’t go see Anna Maude because she’s such a complaining female. Let that be a lesson to you, Ella Baylis. The Lord visits plagues on them that seek to evade their Christian duty.”
“Is that how you see me, as a plague?”
That’s a nice word compared to what I’m liable to call you unless things works out a sight better than I expect. Now you get out of here and go look after your cows. Come back in a week or two and we’ll see what progress I’ve made.”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Lavinia shouted crossly in answer to the imperious knocking at her front door; the brightly colored robe she threw over her shoulders did little to conceal her straining bosom and deep cleavage. “Of course you girls are too busy to do a small thing like open a door,” she remarked caustically to three scantily clad young women lounging in the sitting room, waiting for the first customers of the afternoon.
Lavinia flung
open the door with a jerk. “We ain’t open—”
Then cover yourself up. Nobody would ever guess it to look at you.” Ella Baylis was at the door, and if one could judge by the fire in her eyes and her flaring nostrils, there was at least one dragon in her pedigree.
“What are you doing here?” gasped Lavinia.
“Let me in and I’ll tell you,” Ella stated, and marched past Lavinia without waiting for an invitation. “I bet you wouldn’t keep a man waiting on your stoop.” Ella came to a halt about a half-dozen steps into the hall and turned slowly, her widening eyes taking in every detail of the gaudily decorated interior. “I came for Eliza Smallwood’s things. It’s a disgrace for a respectable girl to know about this place, much less come here every night.”
“If you think you can come in here and insult me—”
“I would if I would lower myself to speak to you,” Ella stated somewhat illogically. “Give me Eliza’s things without a lot of bother, and I’ll never set foot in this place again.”
“Polly,” Lavinia called up the stairs with a shriek that was nearly impossible to identify as human. “Have Lucy bundle up Eliza’s things and bring them to the front hall. And step on it.”
“Make sure she doesn’t forget anything. I don’t want to have to come back here again.”
“Get everything!” screeched Lavinia, before turning on Ella. “Now get out before I throw you out.”
“It’d take more than you to move me from any place I wanted, to stay,” Ella snorted contemptuously. “I’m not leaving until every piece of that child’s clothes has passed through that door ahead of me.”
“To hear you talk, you’d think we had the plague.”
“You’re the plague. If Eliza would take my advice, she’d burn anything that came out of this pesthole. Stand aside. Now that I’m here, I might as well see what a carious looks like.” She started down the hall, looking into one empty parlor after another, Lavinia following helplessly in her wake. “Sodom and Gomorrah can’t be anything to this place,” Ella said in wonder. But her eyes positively bulged from her head when they came to rest on the three girls.
“Hussies!” she exclaimed, indignation, condemnation, and consternation ringing in her tone. “You should be ashamed to get out of your bathtub without more on your bodies.”
Wicked Wyoming Nights Page 7