“HOLD IT!” came a shout from the rear.
Madolyn turned her attention to the speaker, who stood up, fiddling with his hat brim. “With all due respect, Miss Sinclair, I don’t rightly see how exposin’ the gentlemen who frequent Miss Goldie’s will be for the good of the town.”
Madolyn’s eyes popped. She pressed her lips together. When she dared, she scanned the crowd. Men were red-faced; a few of the women had raised their faces, only to reveal pinched lips and mottled cheeks. Oh, my, what had she done?
“I didn’t intend to expose anybody, sir. What I meant was…well, the third floor…”
Price Donnell took over. “Look at it this way, Miss Sinclair. We can’t end one war by startin’ a lot of smaller ones.”
Miss Abigail’s dictum held the opposite view, that if one were to win a war, one must be willing to engage in the battles. “Does anyone have a better solution?”
Every man eyed his neighbor.
“A different solution?” she reworded.
Still no one spoke up. One look at Goldie revealed a flush beneath the face paint and a grim set to her red lips. Goldie embarrassed? Madolyn’s ire rose another notch. The nerve of these sanctimonious men!
“When you divided this town,” she said tersely, addressing the men as a group for the first time today, “perhaps you should have taken care to provide a few necessities—such as a hotel.” To the man of them, they stared at her, uncomprehending.
“Do not insult me by pretending not to know that I live on the top floor of Goldie’s establishment.”
Every eye sought a different mark.
“Rather than diminish my respectability,” she continued, “the experience has hopefully awakened my regard for all my fellow…” Madolyn’s words trailed off, as something akin to a heat flash prickled her skin. Her gaze flew to the door. Sure enough, there he stood. Tyler Grant.
He lounged in the doorway, filling it with his broad shoulders and arrogant presence. She had seen that stance before, that insolent expression before. Her dander rose even as her body began to glow.
“Mr. Grant. To what do we owe the honor of your presence?”
Lazily he removed a twig from his mouth. He didn’t stand up straight, but continued to lounge against the door. She realized that, unlike when she had seen him earlier, he was clean. His face was scrubbed and shaven, his boots were polished, his duckins creased, and his shirt starched. She recalled Penny-Ante, the scene she had opened her door to one day last week, Penny-Ante twirling her finger in Tyler’s nude navel.
Madolyn’s knees went weak. She grasped the edge of the table, her mind far away, at the house, in her room…
“Whenever you’re finished organizin’ the destruction of my town, Maddie, I’d like a chance to talk some sense into you.”
Eight
Applause erupted in the crowded schoolroom. Maddie’s face turned the shade of a West Texas sunset in late autumn. And Tyler knew he was in deep trouble.
But damnation, she was fun to tease—so serious, so holier-than-thou. Yet, somehow he had to stop her from ruining his business, which is what he figured reuniting Buckhorn would amount to.
“Quiet,” Madolyn called over the ruckus. “Quiet. Ladies, we must finish our business before we adjourn.” But the men were already on their feet. She watched helplessly, while they congregated around Tyler, shaking his hand and clapping him on the shoulder as if he owned the town—which, of course, he did.
“We must elect a president before we adjourn.” Madolyn scanned the room. Only a few of the women sat now, all except Goldie with downcast eyes. Whipped, that’s what they were, whipped into submission by men who felt themselves superior; men, whom some had begun to term chauvinistic. Men like her brother.
Like Tyler Grant.
“Ladies…” she called again.
“Save your breath, Miss Sinclair.” Price Donnell stood at her elbow. “The job’ll fall to you, anyhow. Might as well accept that fact and get on with things.”
“I hadn’t realized there was so much work to be done here.”
“No different from any other place,” Donnell allowed.
“Except that my brother is responsible for the plight of these people.”
“You are not your brother’s keeper.”
“If not I, sir, then who?” She watched the women rise and join their husbands, not as equals, side by side, but standing back, yielding their rights as human beings. It filled Madolyn with sadness—and with anger. “If I don’t try to mend things, Mr. Donnell, who will?”
Even as she spoke, Tyler began to wend his way toward her. He worked the crowd like a politician—grinning, shaking hands, slapping men on the shoulders.
The men looked sheepish; the women hung their heads. Unhappy that he caught them plotting against him, Madolyn knew. When he came within earshot, she learned to what depths this man would stoop to defeat her, as he greeted citizen after citizen in much the same manner.
“Good to see you out, Miz Crane. How’s that gout?”
“Better, Mr. Grant, since I’ve been usin’ that ointment you sent by.”
“Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it.” Tyler moved through the crowd.
“Miz Jasper, how’s that leg of little Huey’s?”
“Mendin’, Mr. Grant. Thank you kindly.”
“We should have a doctor arrivin’ on the next train or two. I sent word off to several of the state’s newspapers—Austin Statesman, San Antonio Light, and a couple of others.”
“Bless you, Mr. Grant.”
“Don’t bless me for doin’ my job, Miz Jasper. It’s my town, my responsibility.” By the time he moved on, Hattie Jasper was practically drooling in his wake. Tyler stopped at the next man.
“Jedediah, Morley ever let you use that bull of ours? No? Tell you what, I’ve got one over in the railroad trap you might want to take a look at. See what you think. If you like what you see, take him on out to your place. I can hold off sellin’ him till next time.”
Jedediah pumped Tyler’s hand; gratitude oozed from his pores. Madolyn felt sick. Then Tyler was beside her. But after no more than a skimming glance, his attention was diverted to the schoolmarm.
“Miss Loretta, you receive that new set of Britannicas?”
“Yes, Mr. Grant. Thank you so much. The children are already benefiting.”
Madolyn watched, dumbfounded, while Tyler withdrew a roll of bills from his pocket and began to count them off.
“Summer’s comin’ up fast,” he told Loretta. “Might as well settle up now so you can have travel money. Didn’t I hear somethin’ about you spendin’ the summer with your folks in St. Louis?”
“That’s right.” Loretta folded the money without counting it and stuffed it inside her black reticule. “Thank you, Mr. Grant, you’re always so thoughtful.”
Tyler favored Madolyn with a satisfied smile, then turned back to the schoolmarm with a concerned expression. “Just be sure you come back to us, Miss Loretta. Buck’s children need you.”
Madolyn’s indignation rose to new heights. Leave it to a man to play politics with every important issue. Anxious to escape, she glanced down the aisle to see Goldie sashay out the door. Even Goldie was defecting! Retrieving her parasol, Madolyn followed. The meeting had been a dismal failure, dismal. And, as usual, men were to blame. Their plan was as clear as a bright summer day. They had accompanied their wives with the express purpose of running the show themselves, and they succeeded.
But as she made her way toward the door, Madolyn’s systematic brain began to work. Plans took form. She must get the women alone. The lesson learned today was that they must meet in secrecy or under false pretenses, in order to prevent the men from interfering.
Madolyn had always hated that part of working for women’s rights. In order to accomplish the smallest gain, she was often required to lie, or as she preferred to think of it, fabricate, to use all the creative powers she had been born with and a few she dredged up from who knew where. Mis
s Abigail had complimented her more than once on her inventiveness.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Miss Abigail would say, and although the saying wasn’t original with the suffragette, it fitted the occasion.
Nevertheless, from time to time Madolyn had been afflicted by pangs of remorse for having lied to her fellow man. At such times, however, she only had to visualize how dismal the women’s lives would have been had she stuck to the literal truth. The guileful performance she had witnessed from Tyler Grant today proved that no lie would be too harsh, no fabrication too original.
Price Donnell stood in the doorway when she approached. His derby was tipped back on his head, and he stroked his blond mustache in a contemplative manner. Reaching him, she strove to control the rage that caterwauled inside her.
There was work to be done in Buckhorn, Texas. She had known that when she agreed to organize this meeting. Although she had known from the outset not to expect smooth sailing, she hadn’t expected the men to interfere so openly, or Tyler to mount such a blatant counterattack. Neither should have come as a surprise. Certainly not as a disappointment.
That they did, fired her determination.
“Doesn’t look like things got off to too good a start, Miss Sinclair,” Donnell asserted.
Let the lies commence, she thought. “On the contrary, Mr. Donnell. I am very pleased with our first meeting. Organizational meetings never run smoothly. I’m not certain how many articles we can count on for our first edition, though. Other than my own, of course, which I shall deliver to you first thing in the morning.”
The newspaper editor looked bemused, but she deliberately tried to think the best of him. He was, after all, a willing ally. “What topic have you chosen?” he wanted to know.
“I haven’t decided. Rest assured, it will stir the souls of those in this divided town who would hinder progress.”
Donnell grinned. “I look forward to reading it then, Miss Sinclair, I certainly—” The newspaperman’s reply was cut short when Tyler approached and took his hand.
“Donnell! What you doin’ alignin’ yourself with these rabble-rousers?”
Tyler’s tone was jocular, but his words sped to the heart of Madolyn’s anger. Grabbing her skirts in both hands, she stomped down the steps and across the swept yard, only to be brought up short before she reached the road.
“Maddie, wait up.”
“I’ll thank you to unhand me, Mr. Grant.”
“We need to have a little talk. Once I explain my side—”
“Once you talk some sense into me?”
Tyler held fast.
“Rabble-rouser, my eye!” Madolyn was so mad she didn’t realize he was leading her toward a wagon hitched at the pole rail until he attempted to lift her up to the seat. The nerve of him! Glancing about for help, she spied Goldie, who was already a block down the street.
“Goldie!” she called. “Wait for me.”
The madam stopped just as Tyler grabbed Madolyn around the waist and swung her onto the wagon seat.
“Stay,” he ordered, when she started to scramble down. “Stay right there, Maddie.”
Madolyn stayed, although she didn’t look on it as obeying Tyler’s command. She had no desire to create more of a scene.
“Goldie,” she called again. “We’ll pick you up.”
But they didn’t. Reaching the crossroads, Tyler turned away from the house. “You don’t mind, do you, Goldie?”
Goldie waved a rose-red mitted hand and grinned broadly. “No way, Tyler.”
“Men!” Flouncing as far away from his broad shoulders as she could on the short wagon seat, Madolyn thrust open her parasol. Tyler ducked to keep from being jabbed by the ribs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everything!”
“Everythin’?”
“Everything bad, negative, hateful—”
“Whoa, now, Maddie. I can see where you might have your dander up at me, but condemnin’ the whole human race—”
“Male race.”
“Male race, then. I don’t know what men ever did to you—”
“You saw them in there. Bullying their wives.”
“Now, be fair about it. I didn’t see one man bully his wife an’ neither did you.”
“Perhaps not physically, but those poor women know their places. They didn’t dare speak up. Their husbands came along to speak for them. How many years of marriage does it take for a woman to learn her place, Mr. Grant?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“And you played right into their hands. Don’t deny it.”
“I don’t deny it. You started this shootin’ match; am I not allowed to defend myself?”
“Defend yourself?”
“And my town.”
“Your town?”
“Thanks to your brother, yes, Buck, Texas, is my town.”
“I see. That’s why you were so solicitous back there. Bringing in a doctor? Providing encyclopedias for the school, paying the teacher, providing a bull for…for—” Madolyn stopped short when she realized the direction she was headed.
“For what, Maddie?”
Stiffening her spine, Madolyn gripped the edge of the seat with her free hand. How did she always manage to put herself at a disadvantage with this man?
“What were you sayin’, Maddie?”
“The topics of conversation in this barbaric land are…are…” Madolyn’s words drifted off when she realized they had left the town behind.
The road they followed wound up the side of a hill, ever higher. When she peered from beneath her parasol, she had to look straight up to see the top. Rolly’s words came back. Don’t know of an unmarried lady in either town who’d turn down an offer to ride out into the country with Tyler Grant. Out into the country?
“Where are you taking me?”
“To see my town.”
She cast a worried glance back the way they had come. “We’ve left it behind.”
“There’s a place up here where you can get a better view, especially at sunset.”
“Sunset?”
“Put that parasol away and you’ll see. There’s no sun left to defend against, Maddie. And I’m not much of a menace.”
She wasn’t convinced of that, not by a long shot, but she slammed her parasol closed. The moment it was secured, Tyler took it and tossed it to the wagon bed behind them.
He winked. “Just to be on the safe side.”
Madolyn glanced around, wary, her nervousness increasing now that they were alone. When Tyler pulled the team off the road, she froze. And when he rounded the wagon and offered his hand, she balked.
“Come on,” he encouraged. “There’s a great spot over yonder where you can look out over the town while I explain my position.”
“I know your position in this town, thank you. You own it.” Emotions warred inside her. She was angry with him, furious. But heaven help her, if, halfway up the mountain Goldie’s advice hadn’t come back in a rush. That slow heat had begun to glow inside her much earlier—the moment she saw him standing in the schoolhouse door. By now it had now increased in intensity until she felt like she might melt. The throb of her heart echoed up and down her spine. For the life of her she couldn’t stop it, no more than she could stop the hum in her ears. She shouldn’t get out of the wagon. She shouldn’t…
In spite of her best intentions, she placed a gloved hand in his offered one and allowed him to assist her. Once on the ground, she had the presence of mind to withdraw her hand promptly, though she dared not look him in the eye, lest he read her perfidious thoughts.
Why was it, she reasoned, that when Goldie suggested such a thing as enjoying Tyler’s company, Madolyn hadn’t been offended or even taken aback—well, not after thinking it over? It had actually seemed like a sound idea. But now, alone with him, all she wanted to do was run down the hillside.
Not that Goldie’s suggestion didn’t still hold a curious sort of appeal. Unfortunatel
y it did. Similarly, she supposed, one of criminal predilection was drawn to robbing banks or holding up stagecoaches. However, the allure of the dastardly pursuit notwithstanding, she certainly intended to hold her wicked self in check. Especially after the episode at the schoolhouse, where Tyler had shown his true stripes.
To that end, holding her wicked self in check, the moment Tyler’s hand touched the small of her back, she scurried away. Of course, she did so without meditation, therefore, she wasn’t careful where she planted her feet, and as a result one foot skidded off a rock and the other flew out from under her.
“Whoa, now, Maddie.” Tyler’s drawl was infuriatingly mirthful, but his hands were firm when he caught her around the waist, lifted her in the air, and set her down on a stone slab.
He even ignored her little mishap, which surprised her. Generally, he jumped at every chance to make fun of her. Instead, he hunkered down beside her, balancing on the balls of his feet, arms crossed over duck-clad knees. Not touching her, but close, so close she could hear his breath rise and fall; so close she inhaled his scent—fresh, clean, bay rum, and something else, something she couldn’t put a name to, something peculiar only to him, in her experience, anyway. It set her heart to pounding as nothing ever had.
“Look down there, Maddie,” he encouraged. “Tell me that town is barbaric, uncivilized.”
They sat halfway up the side of an almost-barren hill on a gray limestone slab that had fallen from the cliff in ages past. Here and there gray-green tufted plants sprouted through the rocks; a few of the tufts sported towering spikes that were topped by clusters of waxy white blossoms. The white stood in stark relief against the weathered landscape.
She willed her emotions to steady, her brain to clear. She tried to focus on the anger she felt for this man, anger that to her horror steadily ebbed. Tyler sat quietly by her side.
Below them the town was enveloped in a fiery scene that looked like it could have come straight out of Dante’s Inferno. The setting sun streaked the adobe buildings a dozen different shades of red. Black shadows slithered out of alleys and across broad expanses of unpaved roads. One, the main artery down which Tyler had driven his cattle, connected the two towns north and south; the railroad ran east and west through the middle of the scene, separating the towns—or joining them. It all depended on one’s point of view.
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