The Bride's Prerogative (45 page)

CHAPTER 14

L
ate Saturday afternoon, the Ladies’ Shooting Club met at its customary practice range. Libby almost skipped the extra practice session, but knowing her store could be the next place targeted by ne’er-do-wells spurred her to ask Josiah Runnels to take charge while she and Florence attended.

“This is awfully good of you,” Bitsy said to her as they climbed down from Annie’s wagon. “I know it’s hard to leave off during business hours.”

Libby put her arm around Bitsy’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “The ladies rallied around me last year when I needed help. I think it behooves us all to be ready.”

“I admit I was a little on edge last night. When Trudy said we ought to hold an extra meeting and show we can’t be scared by a bunch of tough cowpokes, well, it seemed the right thing to do.”

“I agree,” Libby said. “It makes me feel stronger when we get together to shoot.”

“Shooting is a skill every woman should learn, like plucking a chicken or making soap.” Bitsy picked up the handful of bright rags they had brought along. The orange wool Annie had donated clashed with her red bloomer costume. “Don’t like men messing up my place, though. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the wrong business.” She gave Libby a rueful smile.

“Shall we set up the targets?”

While Trudy gathered the other women for a safety review, Libby and Bitsy walked across the new green grass to fasten bits of cloth to sticks for the ladies to use as practice targets. Libby’s mind roiled with possible comments.
Of course you’re in the wrong business
, she wanted to scream. But that wouldn’t help Bitsy or their tenuous friendship.

As Bitsy worked a scrap of orange fabric into the end of a split stick, Libby said cautiously, “You’re such a good businesswoman. You’ve been on your own a long time, and you’ve made a success of it.”

“Yes, I have.” Bitsy pushed the other end of the stick into the soft earth. “Twenty years and more I’ve had my own place. Yes, twenty-three now. I came here at the height of the boom in these parts.”

“About the time my Isaac came.”

“True enough.”

They walked a few yards to the spot where the next team would aim. Libby stood up the fallen stick they’d used to hold a rag on Thursday. “Do you ever think of doing something else?” she asked.

“Not really. What else could I do? I know liquor, and I know men. Oh, I know how to turn a dollar all right. But what else could I do now? Everyone knows I’m a saloon keeper.”

“You could carry the same success into a new venture.” Libby swallowed her jitters and went on. “I was glad to see you in church Sunday.”

“Augie and the girls have been pestering me to go for months.” Bitsy shrugged. “I still don’t think I belong there.”

“Why not? God welcomes anyone who comes.” Libby expected a sharp rebuff, but Bitsy’s expression softened.

“Maybe I’ll go again. But if I go tomorrow, folks will expect me to be there every Sunday morning, and then who will set up the dining room? We were barely ready to serve dinner on time last week, and then only because Augie got up an hour early to bake his pies and biscuits.”

Libby smiled. “I’m going to come over there for dinner one of these Sundays if I can get a handsome man to escort me.”

“Naw! You wouldn’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You know why.”

A flush tingled Libby’s cheeks. It was true, she and a few others avoided the saloon, even though the chicken dinner was served without alcoholic beverages on Sunday. Many families went. She’d heard the meal complimented by her customers. But the Sunday dinner had been instituted at the Spur & Saddle after Isaac died. Libby had never felt it proper, as a single woman, to be seen there.

“I wouldn’t be embarrassed to come into your place for a meal. As I said, I’ll just have to find someone …” She eyed Bitsy thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever thought of going into the restaurant business?”

Bitsy waved a hand in dismissal. “There ain’t enough folks in Fergus to support another eatery. Miz Thistle serves three meals a day now at the boardinghouse. I think she kinda resents us offering dinner on Sunday.”

“Well you were here before she was.” Libby smiled. “Come on. One more target.”

As they set up the last one, Bitsy frowned in concentration. “You know, you’re not the first to suggest I clean up my act, so to speak, though if I do say so, my place is always clean as a whistle.”

“I’m sure it is.” Libby waited, hoping she’d continue.

Bitsy straightened and brushed her hands together. “There. All set. I think Augie would like it if I switched to another line of work. He’s not a jealous man, but he doesn’t like it when drunks come in and point guns at him.”

Libby arched her eyebrows. “You surprise me. I mean … I didn’t know.”

“About me an’ Augie?” Bitsy shrugged. “He’s been with me eight years and trying to get me to marry him for seven.”

“Really!”

“Yup.” Bitsy winked at her. “Didn’t know I could keep a secret so good, did ya?”

“Well, no, I didn’t.” Libby opened her mouth again and then closed it. She was dying to ask Bitsy why she didn’t marry Augie if he was so keen on it. The muscular, bald bartender seemed like a reliable man, and he’d shown more than once that he would protect Bitsy and work hard to help her succeed. Libby had always figured he was a loyal employee whom Bitsy paid well to tend bar and run out rowdies. No more. Now she’d discovered that he cooked the succulent meals people raved about and secretly wooed his boss. Quite a character, Augie Moore.

Bitsy smiled. “Looks like the teams are ready to shoot, Miz Adams. Let’s git on over there. And you come by any Sunday. I promise you won’t be embarrassed.”

“I’m sure I won’t, Bitsy.”

“Nope. No risky paintings in my place. And my girls are good girls.”

“Papa, I heard something today that disturbs me.” Isabel set the platter of pork roast down on the table and faced her father, determined not to let him evade her questions.

“What was that?” He spread his napkin in his lap and waited for her to take her seat.

“That those wild cowboys who started trouble at the Spur & Saddle last Friday evening live on your property. People are saying it was one of your tenants that Sheriff Chapman shot.”

Her father speared a baked potato and put it on his plate, then reached for the dish of mashed squash.

“Is it true, Papa?” She sat down and cut slices of meat for both of them.

Papa cut his potato open and smeared a generous slab of butter over the steaming pulp. “The men in the saloon weren’t tenants. They were employees of a tenant.”

She watched him cut his meat, certain there was more to the story than he revealed.

He stopped chewing and fixed his gaze on her. “Who are these people that you gossip so much with, anyway?”

Heat climbed from her collar to her hairline. “It seems everyone in town is talking about it.”

“Yes, but it’s those shooting club women you got it from, isn’t it? I tried to tell Charles Walker last year that it meant trouble, letting women get together and shoot guns instead of tending their families like they’d ought.”

“Well, Mayor Walker would be dead if it weren’t for the shooting club. And maybe you, too.”

Her father’s whole face drooped. She felt a pang of guilt, reminding him that his friend had been injured so badly he’d had to step down as mayor last summer. Walker had only recently resumed his activity at the feed store. But the truth could not be denied—without the patrols taken on by the women in time of crisis, the town of Fergus would have seen more murders.

They ate supper in gloomy silence. Isabel wondered how long she could endure this dreary existence. Uncle Kenton’s appearance had brought new anxiety, and she had not forgotten about the hole behind the barn.

Since her mother’s death, life at the ranch had become nearly unbearable. Only her teaching position and the new friendships she’d made through the shooting club kept her going. She’d nearly given up her girlhood dreams of marriage and a family of her own. She blamed that on her plain looks and living outside town, where she didn’t get to know the other young people. Fergus hadn’t even had a minister or regular church services until last July.

No suitors had ever approached her father for permission to court her. There’d been a day when she longed only for one man, but she’d never told anyone. Griffin Bane, the big, bearded blacksmith, though not as educated and refined as might be desired, had captured her heart long ago. If only he knew it. But she didn’t expect him ever to ride out to the ranch to call on her.

“What’s the matter now?” Her father stared at her with those cold gray eyes.

She realized she had let out a plaintive sigh. “Nothing, Papa. Would you like more pork?”

CHAPTER 15

O
n Thursday afternoon, Trudy and Libby rode on horseback to the shooting club site. They’d started out early so they could set up new targets as a surprise for the women—animal shapes that Myra Harper had painted on muslin. Trudy had sewn them into bags and stuffed them with hay, so now the ladies would be able to shoot at a hare or a coyote or even a pronghorn for practice.

When they arrived, they ground tied Trudy’s horse, Crinkles, and Hiram’s laconic gelding, Hoss, who suffered Libby to ride him on occasion. Each horse was burdened with two of the bulky new targets, and they stood still while the women removed them.

“I’m glad I was able to get four done,” Trudy said. “Each team will have one this way.”

“The ladies will be so pleased.” Libby helped her prop the first one up with sticks. “What’s Rose up to these days?”

“Working on her quilt and cooking everything she thinks Hiram will like.”

“Oh dear. At least it saves you some work if she does the cooking.”

“Ha. Did I say she does the dishes afterward?” Trudy scowled as she prepared to hammer the stick into the ground. “That woman can dirty more dishes making a cake than the folks at the boardinghouse use in a week. Why, I might have to come over to the emporium and buy more dishes just so she can have enough to make an apple pandowdy.”

Libby smiled, but she didn’t feel any jollity. “She still won’t come to the club?”

“Nope. Too mannish, she says. She thinks all the men in town are going to swarm around her because she’s too delicate to pick up a gun.”

“Oh.” Libby swallowed hard as Trudy pounded in the stake. “I … thought she was only interested in Hiram.”

“That doesn’t keep her from harping on what a bad example I am and how uncouth western women have become. She’s sure the men of Fergus would like their women to act feminine for a change.” Trudy shrugged. “Between her nagging and Hiram’s complaining, I don’t much enjoy sticking to home these days.”

“Hiram’s …”

“He thinks I ought to be able to get Rose to leave him alone. Don’t ask me how. She’s got him running as scared as a rabbit that stumbled on a timber wolf rendezvous.”

“Really?” Libby couldn’t explain the warm feeling that washed over her, but she smiled as they carried the remaining targets to the next spot.

“She keeps wanting to change things in the house. She asked him if he wouldn’t like Violet’s sampler better between the windows instead of beside the door. Or if he wouldn’t like her to make him a new blue shirt for Sundays, to bring out the blue in his eyes. Yesterday she went up in the attic and got into the trunk full of Violet’s things. She said at the supper table she wanted to shorten one of Violet’s skirts for herself.”

“What did Hiram say?”

“He wasn’t happy. But Rose said that since I hadn’t made use of her sister’s things in ten years, why shouldn’t she? And Hiram gave in.”

“Did you want the skirt?”

“No. It’s taffeta, and I’m not a taffeta-wearing woman.”

Libby smiled. “You would look lovely in the right taffeta dress. Though I can’t for the life of me think where you’d wear it in Fergus. How is Hiram’s hand?”

“Better, I think. He was working on Lyman Robinson’s musket last evening.” Trudy slipped a stick inside the cloth bag of a coyote target and stood it up. “Pound that in m’dear. But be ladylike about it.”

Libby laughed and raised the hammer. “I’ll be delicate, I promise. Watch your thumbs, though.”

When they finished situating the last target, Trudy wiped her brow. “It’s getting right warm today.”

“Summer will be here before you know it.” Libby eyed her cautiously. “So what does your brother do when you’re here at the club?”

“Goes wandering all over town to keep out of Rose’s range.”

“Ha!” Libby clapped her hand over her mouth after her unmannerly laugh. “Oh dear, forgive me.”

“What is there to forgive? Hiram actually asked me this afternoon if there wasn’t some way I could steer her off toward some other gent so she’d leave him alone.”

“Say, that might not be a bad idea,” Libby said. The more she considered it, the better she liked it. She studied Trudy. “I mean, if Hiram doesn’t see the need to marry, why should he let a woman pester him?”

“Hiram’s not against marriage. He wouldn’t have married Violet in the first place if he were.” Trudy’s eyebrows drew together. “I think it’s more that he doesn’t want someone else deciding for him when he’ll like a woman—or which woman he’ll like.”

Libby nodded. “Yes. Do you think …”

“What?”

“That he’s finished his grieving? I know I still ache sometimes when I think of Isaac. And if someone else came along and told me it was time to be done with it and move on, I might resent their interference.”

Trudy’s face grew somber. “Hiram’s grieved long and hard. I can’t really say whether he’s done or not.”

Libby looked off toward the mountains. “I didn’t mean to suggest he’d ever forget about Violet, but I think there does come a time for most folks when they realize … well, that God’s left them here after their loved one went, and there’s probably a reason for that. It makes you ready to open your eyes a little wider and try something new. Not a new marriage, necessarily, but
something.”

“Yes. But Rose won’t be that something for Hi. So a distraction for Rose might be just the thing.”

“Do you think so?”

“Well, he’s the one who said it first.” Trudy tugged at her bonnet strings. “Maybe the shooting club could come up with a plan that would set her off in a different direction.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. We have some very imaginative ladies in the club. Surely if we put our heads together …”

“Well, I don’t know. Hiram probably wouldn’t like it if every woman in town was in on it. He doesn’t like everybody else knowing his business, you know?”

“Hmm. What if you and I and one or two others attacked the problem?”

Trudy nodded slowly. “But not Mrs. Benton.”

“Oh?”

“Not that there’s anything wrong with the plan, but the preacher’s wife might see it as …”

“Underhanded?”

“Well, do you think it’s wrong to try to do a little matchmaking for the sake of someone you love?” Trudy studied her with somber blue gray eyes.

“Not wrong, but perhaps it would be best to keep Apphia out of it. That way, if anything backfires, she can tell her husband honestly that she knew nothing about it. How about Bitsy?”

“Bitsy’s idea of the right man for Rose might not measure up to ours.”

“True.” Libby looked up at the sound of hoofbeats. “Here comes Starr. Looks like she’s alone today.”

The young woman cantered up on her husband’s pinto with her dark hair tumbling down her back below her sunbonnet.

“Hello!” Starr pulled the mare to a halt near Crinkles and Hoss and leaped down. “Am I early?”

“The others will be here soon,” Libby said.

“Where’s Jessie?” Trudy asked.

“Oh, she’s staying home with Hester today. I think our little gal’s got the croup.”

“That’s too bad. But it was nice of your mother-in-law to stay with her and let you get out.” Trudy looked over at Libby and raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, look! Are we going to shoot at those?” Starr had spotted the animal targets and strode toward them.

“Aren’t they delightful?” Libby asked, walking after her. “Myra painted them, and Trudy stitched and stuffed them.”

“I think they’re absolutely darling. May my team shoot the bear?”

Trudy smiled. “I don’t see why not.”

Libby halted beside the young woman as she examined Myra’s handiwork. “Starr, since we have a few moments alone, Trudy and I wanted to get your opinion on a matter.”

“Oh?” Starr turned toward her eagerly. “I’ll do anything for the club, if it’s not too time-consuming. Arthur doesn’t like me to be gone from the ranch for hours and hours.”

“We just need to ask you something,” Libby said.

“Yes,” Trudy added. “It concerns my brother.”

Starr looked from her to Libby, clearly intrigued. “I can’t imagine what it could be, so you’ll have to tell me.”

Trudy cleared her throat. “Well, as you know, my sister-in-law has been visiting us for the past couple of weeks. Her visit has presented a …”

“An interesting challenge,” Libby said quickly.

“If you mean how she follows Mr. Dooley around all the time and stares at him in church—” Starr laughed at Trudy’s abashed expression.

“That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” Libby admitted. “Is it that obvious?”

“About as obvious as the new red and gold sign at the Nugget.”

Trudy expelled her breath and shook her head.

“Whyn’t they put some clothes on that woman?” Starr asked.

“I’ll inform the town council that a resident raised an objection to the Nugget’s new sign,” Libby said. She knew it was too early to give up on the plan to help Hiram, and she refused to be sidetracked by the Nugget’s lurid sign, though she’d already complained privately about it to Mayor Nash. “Perhaps it’s just as obvious to you that Mr. Dooley does not return Mrs. Caplinger’s regard. Not that he disdains her, you understand, but he’s just not … not in the same frame of mind she seems to be in.”

“He doesn’t want to marry her.”

“Er, yes.” Libby glanced at Trudy to see if Starr’s bluntness had upset her. Trudy’s mouth sagged, and she kicked at a clump of grass.

“So what do you want to ask me?” Starr’s brown eyes twinkled.

“We had a thought.” Libby smiled gently. “Not that we generally try to manipulate people’s lives, of course …”

“Of course not.” Starr waited, obviously enjoying the conversation.

“It occurred to us that if Rose were distracted, that is, if her attention were deflected onto another gentleman—one on whom she could fix her affections …”

“And one who doesn’t mind,” Trudy said with a scowl. “One who doesn’t feel like running and hiding every time he sees her coming, which is pretty often if she’s staying at your house.”

“I see.” Starr blinked and inhaled. “Let me contemplate the problem.”

“Oh dear, I’m afraid Annie and the others are here.” Libby looked toward the road, where the Harpers’ team was approaching with the wagon full of petticoats and firearms.

“Maybe we can talk about this later,” Trudy said. “My brother doesn’t want to be the object of gossip.”

“Griffin Bane,” Starr said.

Libby and Trudy both stared at her.

“Of course!” Libby grinned at Trudy, though she felt a flicker of protest on Isabel’s behalf.

“Griff is the perfect man for the job,” Starr insisted.

“I don’t know.” Trudy scrunched up her face. “If he hasn’t found a wife all these years, what makes you think we can wish one on him?”

“My dear, you make him sound ancient.” Libby pressed her arm as the wagon drew nearer. “He’s my age, which isn’t much beyond Rose’s years. And trust me, he’s lonely.”

“That’s the important thing,” Starr said. “Trudy, if you get Ethan to whisper a hint in his ear, and if Libby mentions his manly good looks to Rose and tells her what a thrifty and diligent businessman he is …”

“Yes,” said Libby. “If we do that, I’ll warrant we’ll soon see some stares beaming in a different direction during church.”

Starr giggled. “I think it would work!”