No Place for a Lady

by Vivian Vaughan

  “I should have had Clements drive us over in the carriage.”

  Madolyn tugged Goldie into the road. “The exercise will be good for us. Miss Abigail always says walking clears the mind.”

  “If that’s true,” Goldie conceded, “by the time you get to the schoolhouse, you will have recognized the error of your thinkin’.”

  “Goldie!”

  “This Miss Abigail of yours?” Goldie asked after a while. “What would she say about me? About us…teamin’ up?”

  Madolyn considered the question. “I don’t know,” she responded, forthrightly, as was her nature. Nothing was to be gained by beating around the bush, she had learned. “But it really doesn’t matter. In the past week, I’ve learned that some things that are right in the city, lack substance here in the West. Mr. Grant was right, this is indeed a harsh world for women. I don’t see that it’s much easier on men, though, judging from the depths to which Morley has sunk.”

  Madolyn set a brisk pace, with the excuse that they would be late to the meeting if they didn’t hurry. In truth, she was reluctant to be seen walking across town in the company of the local madam.

  Reluctant and ashamed of the fact. Goldie had treated her with nothing but respect, and regardless of the woman’s occupation, she was a woman in need. Madolyn had pledged her life to helping women in need. Then they passed the first saloon, and several men called greetings.

  “Afternoon, Goldie!”

  “Afternoon, Miz Sinclair.”

  Madolyn trained her gaze on the road ahead, as though she were both deaf and blind. Goldie, however, waved between bouts of moping her forehead with a damp handkerchief.

  “Maybe I should’ve agreed to hold the meetin’ at the house,” she wheezed, breathing hard.

  “The schoolhouse is quite a distance off,” Madolyn acknowledged. To which Goldie harrumphed.

  “Far side of town. Farthest buildin’ away from my place.”

  “Farthest?”

  “By design. Separatin’ whores and schoolchildren ranks high priority even in a town this size.”

  “Perhaps we should have held the first meeting in between, then. There’s the church…”

  “I’ll take the schoolhouse, Maddie. You have a lot to learn about this ol’ world.”

  Madolyn smiled. A feeling of satisfaction suffused her, when she recalled the week just past and all the things she had learned. “I’d say I’ve gotten off to a pretty good start.”

  A short time later, she realized that the ground was rumbling, had been for some time. “Is that the train?” Her breath came short, but not from the walk, now. “Oh, my, I forgot all about the train.” A curious sort of gloom settled over her.

  “That rumblin’ you feel ain’t no train, honey.”

  “What is it?”

  They approached the main road, which had run down the center of Buckhorn before the town was divided. It crossed the railroad tracks near the depots and headed out of town in a north-south direction.

  At the intersection, Goldie stopped, directed her attention south. “That’s cattle. A whole herd of ’em.”

  Madolyn followed Goldie’s gaze. A hundred yards or so to the south, the road made a sharp turn west. A vaquero with a bandanna secured over the lower part of his face sat his horse at the apex of the bend. Madolyn stood immobile, mesmerized in turn by the vaquero’s courage and seeming stupidity, for he whooped and waved his sombrero at the herd of stampeding cattle. At the last possible moment before running down both man and horse, the cattle turned. In no time, the roadway was filled with them, and the air with dust and noise—thundering hooves, clattering horns, whoops and shouts from the vaquero.

  She had never seen so many cows in her life—and in town, for heaven’s sake. Two more vaqueros emerged in the melee of cattle, their hats pulled low; bandannas covered their faces.

  Incomprehensible as it seemed, bandits and cattle now filled the roadway. “What are they doing?” She gripped her parasol, knowing without being told that open or closed, it offered no protection against such a disaster.

  “Come on, Maddie. Get out of the road.” Shouting as she went, Goldie dashed to safety.

  Madolyn turned to see the herd headed straight for her. With no more time lost to hesitation, she leaped for the closest barrier she could see, a graduated adobe fence. Attaining the lower section, she scrambled higher.

  Cattle crowded the roadway now, brushing the low yard fences on either side. Then suddenly, before she could jump to the relative safety of the yard beyond, an arm grabbed her from behind and hauled her up against the flanks of a horse. Terror pounded in her head, in concert with the thundering hooves. Horse and rider bounded past the fence and came to a jarring halt in the side road.

  “What the hell are you doin’, runnin’ into a herd of cattle? Haven’t you ever seen cows before?”

  Tyler’s voice was gruff. He held her up against his hip as if she were no more than a sack of potatoes or something. She took a moment to savor the glow that spread through her fright.

  “That herd of cattle ran into me,” she retorted. “And yes, I have seen cows before.” Although she had to admit never so many at one time. “Where I come from cows don’t band together and charge down the street, running everyone down like they—”

  While the herd thundered past, Tyler managed to shift Madolyn across the saddle in front of him. “Is that so?”

  At the change in his tone, she stopped talking and looked him in the face. Using the hand in which he held the reins, he tugged the bandanna off his mouth, exposing clean skin, in contrast to the dust that caked his upper face and the portion of his forehead uncovered by his Stetson. He looked sinister now, with his mask of dirt.

  He’s going to kiss me, she thought. Right here in the middle of this dusty street, with cattle and vaqueros rushing past. To avoid such a catastrophe, she started talking. “Those are the cows? You got them back from the Rurales?”

  He nodded, grinning. “But they didn’t just band together. Took a lot of help from the boys an’ me.”

  His warm eyes focused on her lips. She struggled to free herself because it was the thing to do, not because she wanted be set free. “I have to go, really. I’ll be late.”

  “Late?”

  Something foreign mixed with the dust and Goldie’s rose fragrance; it clogged her throat.

  “Late for what?”

  “I, uh…” An innate sense of self-preservation tied her tongue. The pressure of his hand increased on her back; his face dipped.

  “Really,” she said hastily, attempting to wriggle off the horse. “I’m late already.”

  He hauled her closer. “Late for what, Maddie?”

  She glanced across the street in time to see the last of the cattle clear the crossroads. A couple of vaqueros tagged along behind, quietly now, no whooping or waving of hats.

  Dust began to settle. Goldie watched from the other side with an amused expression. Oh, my, Madolyn thought, recalling the madam’s advice.

  “Goldie, wait. I’m coming.” She struggled in earnest. “Set me down, sir.”

  “Not until you tell me what you’re late for.”

  Calling forth willpower she wasn’t sure she possessed, she met him eye to eye. Then with glee, she informed him, “The first meeting of the Buck-Horn Reunited Society.”

  “The what?”

  She smiled. “It’s our organizational meeting, Mr. Grant. They can’t start without me. Kindly set me down.”

  “Damnation!”

  Madolyn scooted to the ground, skirted in front of him, and joined Goldie in the crossroads. The madam let go an ear-splitting whoop.

  “Welcome home, Tyler, hon!”

  Tyler pushed his hat back and wiped his forehead with his sleeve. His eyes widened in mock astonishment. “That you, Goldie? Hell, I didn’t recognize you wearin’ all those, uh, feathers.”

  Watching the exchange, Madolyn thought again about Goldie’s advice and heat rushed up her neck. Her cheeks
burned. She took Goldie by the arm, turned the madam away from the gawking Mr. Grant, and fairly pulled her down the street.

  “Where’s the meetin’?” Tyler called after them.

  “Ignore him,” Madolyn ordered. But she couldn’t ignore him. His presence followed her down the road like a soft cloud.

  “Schoolhouse,” Goldie tossed back over her shoulder.

  “Soon’s I bed these critters down in the railroad trap, I’ll join you.”

  Madolyn turned in her tracks. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Why, Maddie, how could you, a fair-minded woman, exclude me? I own the town, case you forgot.”

  “As if anyone could forget after that show of power.”

  “Show of power? What…?” But Madolyn was already leading the madam down the street.

  Loretta James met them at the schoolhouse door. Five years younger than Madolyn’s thirty, Loretta had become good friends with Madolyn during the past week while they planned the new society’s organization, and Loretta tutored Madolyn in Spanish.

  From Saint Louis, Loretta had been forthright about her reasons for coming west to teach school. “To catch a husband. Oh, I don’t mean to sound unscrupulous about it. But isn’t that the reason every woman comes west, to tame a cowboy?”

  Madolyn had not been as forthright with the schoolmarm. “I’ve come to tame a wayward brother,” she hedged, sidestepping the issue in a manner that was unlike her.

  She needed Loretta’s help, she rationalized, and Loretta had already balked at including the town madam in their plans. How would she feel about an avowed spinster?

  “I was getting worried,” Loretta whispered now, casting her unusually large black eyes toward Goldie.

  “We ran into a little trouble. But we are here and ready to roll up our sleeves. Loretta, meet Goldie.”

  Madolyn had argued for using Goldie’s real name, Mable Thorndecker, but Goldie wouldn’t hear of it.

  “This is business. I’ll use my business name. Ain’t gonna change any of those women’s minds about me, no-how.”

  To Madolyn’s relief, Loretta extended her hand, shook Goldie’s rose-red mitt, then drew the two of them into the room.

  A crowd had already gathered.

  Goldie balked at the door. “They’ve come to see me.”

  “No, they haven’t,” Madolyn whispered. “They’re here for the same reason you are—to save this town.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Come on.” Madolyn prodded Goldie through the crowd like a mother with a recalcitrant child. She didn’t stop until they reached the front of the room, where Loretta had saved two front-row seats for them.

  The silent room seemed to hum with energy. Madolyn was in her element. Her pulse pounded. She was good at organizing people to fight for causes, and she knew it. She thrived on such work. But on this day when she rose to face the crowd, she was momentarily taken aback. Beside every woman sat a man—her husband.

  Parson Willard Arndt had accompanied his wife Francis; Owen Jasper, mercantile owner, sat beside his wife, Hattie; saloonkeeper Victor Crane, had come with his Camilla; not even Price Donnell’s bookkeeper, Inez Bradford, had been able to escape her husband, Bill.

  Every pine bench in the schoolhouse was filled, and a good half those in attendance were men—the men of this community who supported Tyler and opposed reunification.

  She inhaled a deep breath and tried to think it was for the best. After all, the businessmen were the ones suffering, whether they admitted it or not. “I apologize for being late,” she told the group. “The owner of this fair city chose this particular day to drive his cattle through the center of town.” She brushed off a patch of dirt. “Goldie and I seem to be the worst for it.”

  Price Donnell had set up his tripod front and center, from a position where he could get shots of both the gathering and of the speaker. Madolyn blushed to think she might be headline news for two weeks running. Oh, well, if it was good for the cause.

  The paper the week before hadn’t been nearly the disaster she had feared. For one thing, the photograph was so grainy the lettering on Goldie’s sign wasn’t legible. Then, too, Mr. Donnell’s camera obviously wasn’t equipped to handle both sunlight and shadows, for the faces of those gathered on the porch were obliterated by the deep black shadows of the porch.

  Not that anyone who saw the picture would doubt for one moment where the photograph had been taken or who the subjects were. And in case one happened to forget that the House of Negotiable Love was the only three-story frame house in all of Buck, Texas, the caption named the house and each individual in the photograph—prostitute, madam, and spinster, alike.

  “Since this is an organizational meeting,” she began, “our first order of business should be to elect officers.”

  “Reckon you’ll have to be the president, Miss Sinclair, since none of the rest of us’ve given thought to reconnectin’ the towns.” The speaker sat in the rear, a man she didn’t recognize.

  Madolyn perused him, while trying to decide how best to continue. Hecklers were not new to her. Far from it. But the men in this room not only had businesses to consider, they held control over their wives. She could not openly offend them and hope to meet the society’s objective. On the off chance that she could gain their support, she addressed the heckler.

  “Many of you are more qualified than I, from the standpoint of being familiar with the town, its history, and its needs.”

  “I say we put off votin’, till we decide whether we can pull this thing off, sayin’ we want to do it a’tall.” The suggestion came from a man she had never met, but knew by sight, Victor Crane, saloonkeeper. Before she could respond, Owen Jasper, mercantile owner, spoke up.

  “Victor’s right. Even if we wanted to do what you’re askin’, I don’t see how we could be successful, short of shootin’ both the principals in this little fight.”

  Every man in the room laughed. Madolyn blanched. Shoot Morley and Tyler? At this point, she might offer to pull the trigger.

  “I assure you, such drastic measures will not be necessary, Mr. Crane.” Another man, unfamiliar to her, pursued the topic.

  “What I’m wonderin’, is how you figure on reunitin’ the town, long as them two heathens continue to fight like two coons in a sack?”

  “You have a point, of course, Mr., uh…”

  “Melrose, ma’am. Pete Melrose, hostler.”

  Mr. Melrose obviously had no wife, or else he had left her home to tend house. Madolyn reached deep inside and drew forth courage. As long as she stood at the front of the room, she remained in control.

  “We have several avenues open to us, Mr. Melrose. I have spoken with Mr. Donnell about printing extra editions of the newspaper to distribute in Horn.”

  “Who you figure on gettin’ to do your deliverin’?”

  “Mr. Cryer and Mr. Rolly.”

  A buzz spread through the room. What it meant, she had no idea.

  “What good’ll gettin’ the newspaper out do?” questioned another male voice.

  Obviously the men intended to do nothing but nettle her. Since she had little to lose, Madolyn decided to address the women directly, but when she attempted to catch a female eye or two, one by one the women dropped their heads. Despair threatened. She fought for control.

  “The newspaper is our method of communicating with one another and with those on the other side of the tracks,” she explained. “Anyone who is so inclined will be allowed to write articles, calling on all citizens to unite in this effort. We shall espouse the benefits of reunification; print personal accounts of what the division has cost citizens on both sides; delineate the process by which we will attain our lofty goal; and create a general air of camaraderie that will be impossible for my brother and Mr. Grant to ignore. As I said earlier, they are but two among many. Both towns belong to the United States of America; America is still free; a democracy. If worse comes to worst, we shall call in the federal authorities. Buckhorn was fo
rmally organized as a single unit; I have already checked on that. No matter what Morley or Mr. Grant did, their action did not revoke the charter.”

  “You’d call in the troops?” an unidentified male challenged.

  “Not I,” she retorted. “This is a community effort. I was asked to organize an endeavor from which the whole town will benefit. I, sir, shan’t be around to reap the rewards. But to answer your question, hopefully, it will not come down to calling in federal troops.”

  Madolyn glanced over the gathering, taking in the belligerent male eyes and the bowed heads of their wives. “Since most of you ladies must get home in time to prepare supper, shall we continue with our business?” Madolyn spread her notes on Loretta’s desk. “The officers we must elect today are president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer—”

  “Treasurer?” the parson inquired. “What do we need with a treasurer? We haven’t got any money.”

  “True,” Madolyn acknowledged. “But we should keep track of the cost of things, regardless of who foots the bills.”

  “Bills?” echoed a chorus of male voices.

  “There won’t be many expenses,” she stressed. “Things like paper and paint for signs…”

  “Forget about a treasurer,” Owen Jasper directed. “Whatever we need, we’ll donate ourselves.”

  “If that’s the way you want it,” Madolyn succumbed. “No treasurer. But we will need committees. A committee to fold and distribute newspapers on both sides of the town; a committee to keep the citizens informed of changes or marches or meetings…”

  “Meetings? Where would we meet? I mean both sides together? Folks don’t cross back and forth.”

  Madolyn perused the crowd. That was one question she had come prepared to answer. She had the solution, the only solution. But she had not planned to speak her mind to a roomful of men. She eyed Goldie. “What about your place?”

  “My place?”

  “You said it’s the only place on either side of the tracks where…I mean…”