by Debra Samms
"And how to clean up," added Mrs. Frost.
"We could start this afternoon," said Mrs. Mitchell. "Bring up a few at a time, and begin to show them how to dance and how to dress and how to behave."
"I'd settle for having them swim in the river first," said Mrs. Frost, shuddering. "Fully clothed."
Molly grinned. "Do you think the men would do it? Come up here and let us teach them, I mean?"
Mrs. Mitchell shook her head. "I don't know. But I can ask my husband to tell them they've got to participate – that they've got to give it a chance."
"Have your husband tell them," said Molly, again pacing slowly across the porch, "that unless they give these women a chance, no saloon girls will be allowed in the town. Ever. I'll ask my husband to back him up on that."
"But – won't the men just leave, if they don't get what they want?"
"They could. Eventually, they would. But I'm told that this camp pays better than any other and at any rate, it would take a while to bring in fancy women for the saloons. The men have nothing to lose by simply coming to our little dance to meet young ladies who are here right now." Molly smiled. "And I agree with you, Mrs. Frost. This time – no food!"
***
That very afternoon, Sheriff William Strong and Mr. Carl Mitchell walked up the road from the camp to the main street above. Each had a shotgun resting on his shoulder. In front of them walked six men from the camp, trudging morosely up the hill as though they were going to their own executions.
Once on the main road, they made their way past the Sliding Belle Hotel and Saloon and sauntered by the Skidder Saloon. When they reached the Frost Mercantile, the six men all stopped in the road and turned to glower at Mrs. Strong and Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Frost where they stood up on the wooden walkway in front of the store.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," called Molly. "Thank you for coming up here. I'm sure our husbands told you that there is to be a dance up here next Sunday afternoon, that you might get a better chance to know more of the ladies who've come out here to consider marriage with you."
This time, all the men simply looked incredulous. "Dance?" one of them said, and spat into the dirt of the street. "You can't be serious."
"They are quite serious," said Sheriff Strong, hefting the shotgun against his shoulder.
"I expect as many men as possible to come up here for it," added Mr. Mitchell. "We need some order in this camp. Nothing better for that than wives."
"You can't force us to marry," said one of the men, with a very hard look.
"Or dance like a bunch of nancies!"
"No. I can't force you to do any of that," growled Mr. Mitchell. "But I can tell you how tired I am of dealing with drunkards and gamblers. With men who would rather fight with each other instead of work. And I'll be glad to tell about how if all of you refuse to marry, we'll just bring in men who are already married and make it a condition of employment."
At that, Mr. Mitchell pulled himself up even straighter. "I'll even pay a little extra to a man who brings in a wife. It would be worth it against all the lost hours the bachelor men spend fighting and drinking and gambling."
But the men in the road only looked more disgusted at that. "If we can't find wives, what makes you think any other logger could?"
"He's right," said another one. "Loggers are loggers. Most of them are bachelors for the same reason we are: Because women don't really want tough men, no matter what they say."
"They want us to change, but aren't about to change themselves. Nothing fair about that!"
"You said they came out here to marry loggers, didn't you? Well, we've kept our end of the bargain. We're willing to marry them and take care of them. But they want nothing to do with us."
"Yeah. They've made it clear that they're too good for men like us."
"If they're serious, why can't they just line up and let us see 'em? We'll pick the one we want, marry them, and take them to our tents. Why are they making so much trouble about this? It ain't us!"
The six men turned and started to head back down towards the camp. "Oh, wait. Wait!" pleaded Molly. "We are only trying to help you. These women are here right now. They want to meet you – to get to know you. I promise you, they do want to marry you!"
But the men only kept on going, heading back down the road to the camp. "We've had enough of this marriage business," one of them called back over his shoulder. "Come down and tell us when the saloon girls get here!"
***
Later that evening, inside the Frost Mercantile and standing among the shelves filled with canned goods and near the barrels of flour and sugar and coffee that sat along the wall, Molly and the other leaders of Sawyerville gathered together for one last meeting to try to decide what should be done about the forty brides.
"I am at a loss. I will readily admit it," said Molly. "We cannot persuade the women to make allowances for these men, and in any case the men refuse to make allowances for the women. Neither side will give an inch to the other."
Mrs. Mitchell looked at her own husband, and at Mr. Frost. "Isn't there anything either of you can do? As their boss? Can't you talk to them, advise them, as married men yourselves?"
Mr. Mitchell only shook his head. "I can't force a man to marry if he doesn't want to. I already offered to pay extra for married men. It's not worth it to them."
Mr. Frost almost laughed. "Those men think nothing of me. I'm only a storekeeper. They are loggers. They barely consider me to be a man at all."
Mrs. Frost sat up at that, but then looked at Sheriff Strong. "What about you? Can you not enforce decent behavior among these men?"
The sheriff sighed. "I can't arrest them for drinking, ma'am. Or fighting. Or stinking."
The three women nodded, and then they all sat in silence for a time.
"All right, then," Molly finally said. "I say we should go ahead and hold the dance this Sunday afternoon. I'd wager that at least some of the men will come, out of curiosity if nothing else."
"I think Mrs. Strong is right," said Mrs. Mitchell. "I don't think they'll be able to resist seeing all of the women out in the street and offering to dance."
"Sheriff Strong, can you post guards on that afternoon?" asked Mrs. Frost.
He smiled. "I can. And I will. We'll keep order. Only a few men at a time will be allowed to come up here. But the rest will be up to the women."
Molly felt her hopes rising again. "If it goes at all well – even if all they do is stand around and look at each other – then perhaps we can have a dance every week. I am sure that both the women and the men will warm up to one another very soon. They have to. They must!"
Mrs. Mitchell nodded in agreement. "We can only keep trying. Ten of the women have left already."
"That's right," said Molly. "If no marriages can be made, the rest of the women will leave, too. Then there will be nothing but saloon girls and trollops here in Sawyerville – and no families. We can't let that happen. We can't!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A few days later, on a cloudy afternoon in early June, all forty of the prospective brides who'd come from Manchester gathered together on the walkway and in the street in front of the Frost Mercantile. Sitting at one end of the walkway were three musicians: Mr. Frost with a violin, the man who owned the Sliding Belle with a wooden flute, and one of the cooks from the logging camp with a small drum.
"It's not much, but it will do," said Molly to Mrs. Mitchell, nodding towards the musicians. "I'm just glad to have them."
"And not a crumb of food in sight!" said Mrs. Mitchell.
"Let's hope it helps. Oh – " Molly looked up towards the end of the street. "Here they come."
She could not help but step back, and then get up onto the wooden walkway with the other women, as the crowd of men came sauntering up the dirt street. There were at least twenty of them. It was a good turnout but Molly could see in an instant that they were all just as dirty and greasy as ever, despite efforts by William and by Mr. Mitchell to have
them at least bathe in the river and put on clean clothes before coming up here for the dance.
The women all shrank back onto the walkway until they were pressed against the building's front wall, and then stood there watching the men. In return, the men stared in cold silence at the women.
Molly knew she would have to do something quickly. She signaled to Mr. Frost – "The Waltz of the Swans, please – " and took a deep breath as the three men managed a simple version of the music on their flute and drum and violin.
No one moved. With a quick glance at her husband – who stood guard with a shotgun – Molly smiled and stepped up to the nearest man.
"Bradley Fisher," she said, with her nicest smile. "I remember you from the tea."
His cold blue eyes shifted to her as he looked down, and he grunted. But that was all.
She tried again as the lovely music played and the young women on the porch began swaying a little in time to the lilting notes. "Mr. Fisher. Would you allow me to show you the waltz? It is quite simple. The women enjoy it very much. Here – "
Molly held out her arms, but Fisher only backed up a step. "No. I don't dance." With that, he turned around and walked back to the other men, spitting into the road for good measure.
The music continued. To Molly's dismay, the men gathered together on the far side of the road, pulled out small flasks from their pockets, and proceeded to take nice long drinks from them. "Sheriff closed all the saloons for today," one of them said, raising the flask to her.
Molly could only close her eyes. She knew this was about to go very bad, very fast. And sure enough, in a few minutes all twenty of the men, now fortified with whatever had been in those flasks, began grabbing each other's hands and galumphing around in a poor imitation of the waltz while they all laughed uproariously.
That was enough for the women. They all began filing down the walkway and then edging along the street until the reach the end of it. Soon they were all hurrying up the switchback that led to the high road, where the homes and the boarding house sat.
"No. No! Oh, wait – please, wait!" But even as she hurried after the women, Molly knew it was a lost cause. These men were simply going to sabotage any attempt to have them get to know these women, much less marry them.
They couldn't even be bothered to wash.
Her temper rising, Molly turned around again and faced the laughing, dancing, drunken group of men.
"You! All of you!" she cried, pacing back and forth in front of the men so that they were forced to look at her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw William walk closer, carrying his shotgun, but then he paused a few steps back and simply listened as she gave the loggers a piece of her mind.
"I don't understand why none of you will even try!" she shouted at them. "These women have come all the way across the continent solely for you! But you will do nothing to put them at ease, or welcome them in any way. They will not stay for long if you cannot be moved to treat them as ladies. They will be gone, and what will you do then? Marry the saloon girls who are sure to follow?"
"Of course not!" shouted one of the men.
"That's the best thing about saloon girls and fancy women. You don't marry them!" shouted the man next to him, and all the rest of them roared with laughter.
"He's right!" yelled another one. "Why are you blaming us? None of those fine little eastern things will so much as come near us."
"We think you should send them back and try again with another batch."
"Yeah – a nice big batch of soiled doves!" And all the men just laughed and laughed, even as Molly closed her eyes.
There was nothing more she could do. And nobody else seemed to have any ideas, either. She left the group of men and started to walk over to her husband where he stood in the street near the mercantile, grateful beyond measure that she'd been so fortunate as to meet William when she had. Molly turned her face away as she walked, not wanting anyone to see the tears that were starting down her face.
Suddenly there was another commotion from the other end of the street – shouting and bellowing and the sound of twigs and branches breaking, like a herd of horses stampeding through the forest.
Molly looked up towards the west. Oh, my dear God – now what?
All forty of the women were already back up on the high road at the Ladies' House and safely out of the way. But then Molly could see that all the noise up ahead was coming from the hillside that ran up from the camp to the far end of the street. It looked like half the men in the campsite were crashing up that same hill towards the road, yelling as they went.
Right then the twenty men in front of her all left off laughing and carousing and turned to look at where their fellow loggers were running and shouting.
"Hey! Supply wagons are here!"
"And they've got women on them!"
"Women?"
"Yes! More women! That's what all the boys are yelling about!"
"Hope they're a sight more friendly than the ones we've got!"
"Well, they couldn't be any worse!"
And at that, all twenty of them took off running down the dirt road to the west to join the rest of the men and meet the supply wagon train.
"What could they possibly be talking about?" asked Molly, as the other two women came over to join her and William. "More women arriving? How is that possible?"
"We aren't expecting any more women!" said Mrs. Frost.
Mrs. Mitchell grabbed Molly's arm. "Oh, no – you don't suppose – could it be that a crowd of saloon girls got wind of what's happening here, and just decided to come out here on their own?"
Molly suddenly felt as though she'd been kicked in the stomach, but tried not to show it. "I don't know what else it could be," she said. "If it is saloon girls come to work here, then that will spell the end of trying to arrange marriages in this place. There will be no more need for brides."
"And the ones already here will simply go back east at the first possible moment," said Mrs. Frost.
Molly and the other two women started walking down the main road, heading towards the west. She knew that all three of their husbands were following them and that they had shotguns and pistols in hand.
Soon the first of the four covered wagons rolled into sight. The teams of mules broke into a lumbering trot as they got closer to the livery stable, where they knew they would be fed and allowed to rest. But the last wagon suddenly slowed as a crowd of men swarmed around it and forced it to a stop.
There was an uproar of shouting and yelling from the men – and a few female screams. The mules fought and plunged as the men crowded around them and grabbed at their bridles. Molly could see William and Mr. Mitchell trying to push past the men and get to the back of the wagon, where most of the crowd was concentrated.
Then a shotgun blast rang out. And then another. Molly screamed and crouched down, and so did the women beside her.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
After a moment she peered up again to see that the men had fallen back somewhat – but not before they'd ripped the heavy cover down from the supply wagon. And standing up in the back of the wagon, holding shotguns and pistols and clubs and even a saber, were women. Five women. Cool and calm and placing one foot on the side boards of the wagon while aiming their weapons down at the men.
"That's better," said the tall, thin woman with the shotgun, stepping back and pointing it upwards. "Looks like nobody taught any of you timber rats how to treat ladies."
"Or how to wash," said the shorter one with the saber who stood beside her.
"You're sure right about that, Ruby," said a third woman, also with a shotgun. "They all stink worse than the bilges in that whaling ship."
The other two, each armed with a pistol, stood together on the other side of the wagon.
The tall woman with the shotgun called out to the driver of the mule team. "Larry! Get on up. I think they'll behave themselves now."
But before the wagon could move forward, a few of the men in the back of the crowd
shoved the others out of their way and came up to the side – but then stopped suddenly.
"Damn," one man said to another. "Look at 'em!"
"No kidding," marveled another, glancing from one woman to the next.
"I never saw such homely women!" cried a third.
"Me neither," said the first man. "But you know what that means, don't you?"
"What? We're sending them back right now?"
"No! Ugly women are always a lot more friendly than those stuck-up pretty ones. The ugly ones are grateful for any attention they get!"
Two of the men started to climb up on the wagon wheel. One of them grabbed for Ruby's skirt, but she raised her saber and set the point right at his neck – and then, before the man could move, another of the women – Hattie – walked over, placed one booted foot on his shoulder, and pushed hard. The men all roared with laughter as their friend fell backward over the wheel and crashed to the ground.
The second man reached up for Hattie. The tall woman simply turned her shotgun around and hit him in the jaw so hard with the stock that he fell to the ground and lay there unconscious.
"Anybody else wanna show some stupid?" called the tall woman with the shotgun, looking around. "How's it going over on that side, Eulalie?"
"We only had to knock down three of them, Maeve," called Eulalie over her shoulder. "I got one with the shotgun butt. Jemima got two with her stick."
"Disappointed I didn't get to shoot one," said Jemima.
"Give it time," said Maeve, and both of them nodded.
Molly finally managed to push her way through the crowd and got to the side of the wagon where the tall woman, Maeve, stood beside her two friends. "Hello, there," said Molly. "I'm Mrs. Strong. This is my husband, Sheriff William Strong."
William touched his hat, even as he kept his shotgun aimed in the direction of the men. "Welcome to Sawyerville, ladies," he said.
"Huh. Some welcome," said Maeve. "But I guess I've seen worse."