She glanced again at the sign. “All right,” she said aloud, “this is it.” She had come all this way to angle for the job, and she wasn’t about to let the Territory’s habit of shabby making-do put her off. She marched up to the house’s porch and knocked on the door.
The door opened a cautious crack. She could make out a thin strip of humanity in the gap—shadowed clothing, a man’s unshaven cheek, and above it, blinking in some surprise, one squinting, wary eye.
“Good day,” Dovey said.
The man allowed the door to squeal slowly open. Tall and dark-haired, he had a face marked by a fresh pink scar that sliced from just below his ear to the middle of his cheek. But despite that roguish accessory, he had an air of youthfulness that surprised Dovey. She had expected a gray-haired old gent, not this tall, lanky boy. He stood puzzling down at Dovey from his beanpole height, waiting in silence for her to speak again.
“I’m here about the job,” she said.
The young man raised his eyebrows but did not reply.
Dovey fished the bill from her pocket and unfolded it, held it up for the man to see. “The tax-collecting job. I’m here to apply.”
Finally the man made a sound—a rough snort through his nose that stirred the bristles of his mustache. “You? Come now, Miss. I’m a busy fella. I don’t have time for joking.”
“I don’t have time for joking, either. I’m dead serious, sir. I want that job.”
He made to swing the door shut. Dovey moved quickly, jamming the pointed toe of her boot under the door’s gap; it wedged there and held, and she folded her arms beneath her breasts. She shot him her very sternest glare.
“I walked an awful long way to get here,” Dovey said. “I’m not turning around without a job.”
The man held still for a moment, watching Dovey’s face in silence, his dark eyes unreadable. Then he glanced down at her boot stuffed beneath his door. A slow smile lit his face, and he stepped back, jerking his head to indicate that she should enter.
Dovey hustled in, afraid that if she hesitated this thin, fragile opportunity might blow away on the next wind—that the door might slam in her face, and cut off her dream forever. The interior of the man’s house was neat and tidy but arranged like no proper home. A great, carved-oak desk occupied what should have been the parlor, and the narrow hall that stretched back into a darkened room was lined with filing cabinets and labeled crates.
The man ushered her to a chair opposite the desk, then seated himself smoothly. A ledger of sorts lay open before him; he picked up a pencil, made a few quick marks on his paper, then looked up at Dovey, tapping the pencil on the desk with a loud, even tick-tick-tick.
“What’s your name?” he asked. His voice was smooth but not especially deep, and carried a note of dire sobriety that gave Dovey pause. He took his ledger and his filing cabinets very seriously, she could see.
“Dovey Mason. What’s yours?”
“Cooper. Virgil Cooper. I head up the revenue department for this end of Washington Territory.”
Dovey leaned forward on her chair. “You collect on President Lincoln’s new taxes—am I right?”
“That’s correct, Miss Mason. I see you’ve kept up on the news in the papers. Girls your age don’t usually care about such things.”
You aren’t much older than “girls my age,” Mister, Dovey thought wryly. But she was careful to keep her dimpled smile on her face. “My father was a businessman back in Massachusetts. He was awful sore over the tax.”
“He’s not the only one.” Virgil Cooper braced both hands behind his head and leaned well back in his work chair. His sober expression vanished in an instant, replaced by a smug grin. The chair’s spring gave a loud squeak. “Just about every man out here in the Territory thinks he can evade the tax. I’ve seen every trick and heard every yellow fabrication you can imagine. But I get my money—every cent of it. I’m the president’s man, through and through. I believe this war is righteous, and by God, Washington Territory will do its part to fund the effort, if I’ve got any say in the matter.”
“I’m the president’s friend, too, Mr. Cooper.” Which was not, strictly speaking, true; Dovey had been only twelve years old when Lincoln was elected to his first term. In her purview, Lincoln’s presidency was simply a fixture—a thing unchangeable, the natural state of the world. But she had read his address at Gettysburg when it had run in the papers. She thought his words very fine, his sentiments ideal. She certainly held no grudges against him, and if it meant she might get the collecting job, Dovey was willing to carry a flag that read “Hurrah for Lincoln!” everywhere she went.
“But the work isn’t easy, Miss Mason. Tax collecting is … well, it can be dangerous.” He gestured toward his scar. “Got that when a man pulled a knife on me. He didn’t want to pay his share.”
Dovey gazed at Virgil’s scar, unruffled. “I’m quick enough to dodge knives. And anyway, who’d think to pull a knife on a girl like me?”
Virgil stroked his chin, scratching thoughtfully at his dark whiskers. “You don’t seem too put off by the danger.”
“I’ve faced danger before. I know I’m just a little slip of a thing, but believe me, Mr. Cooper, I’ve come through trials that would give a man as big as you pause.”
Dovey remembered Clifford—how he had tossed her aside so casually, slamming her body against the alley’s brick wall—and suppressed a shiver. She wouldn’t have come through that particular trial at all, if not for Sophronia’s sudden appearance. But what Virgil Cooper didn’t know was better kept concealed.
The tax collector gave a rough chuckle. “You know, Miss Mason, I have a mind to try you out. The truth is, I haven’t had a single man apply for the job, anyhow.”
“You haven’t?”
“Not a one.” Virgil shrugged. “Income tax isn’t the most popular way to spend a buck among the scoundrels of Seattle. No man wants to get in his friends’ bad graces by knocking on their doors and demanding the collection. And there’s enough logging work up in the hills that any fella who wants a respectable job can find one real easy. It’s put me in a bind, I can tell you. I’m going to fall behind in my quotas if I don’t get another collector on board soon.”
Dovey bit her lip. It wouldn’t do to put Virgil off now with an ill-timed grin of triumph.
“And,” the man went on, “I think you may present some advantage.”
“Advantage? What do you mean?”
“Like you said, who’s going to pull a knife on you? An unassuming, pretty little angel like yourself—you come riding up, smiling that sweet smile while demanding the tax, and you might put a man so off his guard that he pays up before he even thinks to get ornery.”
Dovey nearly jumped up out of her chair. “I’ll do it! When can I start?”
“Not so fast.” Virgil chuckled. “Can you fire a gun?”
Her stomach sank and she felt a prickle of heat creep up her neck. A gun? Dovey had never held a gun in her life, let alone fired one. But she couldn’t let the money slip away now—seventy-five a month!
She nodded wordlessly. Virgil’s chuckle flowered into gut-busting laughter.
“No, you can’t, but never mind. It’s a skill that can be learned. Come on.”
He rose from the desk and led her through the long, dark hall with its ranks of file cabinets. She followed him through the dim adjoining room—a small table and a narrow cot stood against one wall, and Dovey presumed the place served for Virgil’s living quarters. He opened a door below a narrow band of transom windows that glowed golden in the afternoon light. Dovey followed him out onto the house’s rear porch, overlooking the horses in their corral and the sunlit stretch of a clearing, half reclaimed by thin saplings.
Virgil headed out into the clearing. “Wait here,” he told Dovey, then strode some dozen paces away, stooped toward the grass, and straightened with a rusty tin can. He set it carefully on a tree stump and made his way back to Dovey.
“Here.” Virgil fiddle
d with something behind his back, then produced a gun, seemingly from nowhere.
Dovey’s first instinct was to lean cautiously away from the thing. She hadn’t seen it on Virgil’s person, and reasoned that he must have kept it stuffed in the back of his trousers, under the tail of his plaid-flannel shirt. Might he have other weapons squirreled away in his clothes?
“Go on,” he said, “take it.”
A note of impatience had crept into his voice. Dovey didn’t want to give the man any reason to rethink his plan now. She stepped up smartly and took the gun from Virgil’s hand, wrapping her dainty fingers around its smooth wooden handle as if she knew exactly what she was doing. The gun was heavy. The long projection of its muzzle and the fat cylinder were a dull, coppery gray. The barrel was engraved with the image of a stagecoach, pulled by running horses.
“That’s a Colt Pocket Navy,” Virgil said proudly. “The latest and the greatest in firearms. Go ahead—shoot that can off the stump.”
Dovey swallowed hard. The gun trembled in her hand; its handle was slick with sweat. She extended her arm, hoping she was aiming the thing more or less in the direction of the can, and braced herself for the thunder of its discharge. She squinted her eyes nearly shut, squeezed the trigger, and … nothing. The trigger did not so much as give beneath the pressure of Dovey’s finger. In the corral, the horses went on placidly munching their grain. Sparrows twittered in the uninterrupted quiet of the clearing.
Virgil threw back his head, bellowing with laughter. “You’ve got a dead eye, Miss Mason!”
“Oh, I think you’re a rat, Virgil Cooper! Don’t be so damn mean!”
He reined in his mirth with real effort. The scar under his ear had flushed red with the force of his hilarity. Dovey glared at him in sullen silence.
“All right, all right,” he gasped. “I’m sorry. Here; let me show you how it’s done.”
He stepped close, guiding her hand with his own as he showed her how to balance the gun’s weight, how to peer through one eye down the barrel and line up the posts of its sights, just so. When he showed her how to pull back the hammer, his thumb brushed her own softly, and Dovey reveled in the secret current of heat that coursed along her veins.
“Now,” he said softly, “fire.”
The roar of the gun was louder than Dovey could have believed. It kicked violently, nearly tearing itself from her hand. Her arm flew up into the air with the force of the shot, but she snapped it down quickly, aiming toward the stump, ready to fire again. The can was gone. The bitter odor of sulfur and heat hung heavy in the air.
Virgil doffed his hat and applauded, just as if Dovey had given a grand show on an opera stage. “By golly, that’ll do the trick!”
“It was a pure accident,” Dovey said. “That I hit the can, I mean. I don’t think I’m a very good shot yet.”
“Not yet, but I guess you don’t need to be. A cute little thing like you with a loud, bucking Colt—that’ll bring in the revenue! And bring it in even faster if you can’t quite manage to shoot straight. Tell me you can ride a horse astride, and you’ve got the job. At least for a few weeks, to see how it goes.”
“I can ride,” Dovey said. She couldn’t—she hadn’t sat a horse any more often than she’d fired a gun. But she could learn. For seventy-five dollars a month, she’d set her mind to learn any damn skill Virgil Cooper wanted.
Dovey’s stomach was empty and grumbling by the time she returned to the cribs. The lowering sun was just beginning to cast its rosy tinge along the belly of the clouds, and the evening air nipped sharply. Dovey hoped she wasn’t too late to catch her new friends and relay the news of her good fortune before they settled into their night’s work.
She walked along the plank-sided warehouse that stood opposite the cribs, watching the bright-painted doors of the narrow shacks, hoping for a glimpse of a friendly face. Men had begun to arrive from the lumberyard and the docks, stinking with the sweat of their day’s labor. A few of them approached Dovey and inquired after her price, but she only shook her head distractedly, and they wandered away again in disappointment.
Finally, a door painted as red as an apple swung open, and a man sauntered away. Haypenny stepped out after him, fussing with the drape of her skirt and patting her great, rounded crown of yellow hair.
“Penny!” Dovey called to her from across the street.
Penny hitched up her hem and hurried to Dovey’s side.
“You’ll never believe,” Dovey said, breathless. “I’ve landed the job!”
“Collecting taxes? You must be joking.”
“I’m all in truth,” she promised. “The job is mine—for now, at any rate. He’ll give me two weeks to see how I do, and if I—”
“Who’ll give you two weeks?”
“Virgil.” Dovey’s blush was sudden and disconcerting—not an event she had prepared for. “That is to say, Mr. Cooper—the head collector. He … he runs the Revenue Service, and he showed me how to fire a gun.”
Ruby had wandered over in the midst of Dovey’s explanation. She assessed Dovey’s flaming cheeks and the glint in her eye—a sparkle Dovey knew was surely there, even without a mirror to confirm it—and passed Haypenny a sly, teasing smile. “Looks like our Mercer girl has found a husband after all.”
“Never,” Dovey said—perhaps too forcefully. “I won’t marry—not ever. Especially once I start up my fancy house. Whatever cut I take from you girls will be mine alone. I don’t want any man meddling with my business.” She paused, toying with the collar of her dress, remembering the feel of Virgil’s hand on her own as he’d taught her the use of the gun. “Though Virgil is awfully handsome,” she added quietly.
“I’m happy for you, Dovey,” Haypenny said. “It’s real sweet to have a dream, and to see it come together.”
“I’ve a long way to go. It will take a few years, I suppose, to earn all the capital I’ll need. But I’m excited, girls—really thrilled! For the first time in my life, I feel there’s a future ahead of me—one that’s worth dreaming about. Oh, girls, I can’t wait to write my mother and tell her I have a job!”
“How is your mother doing?” Penny asked.
Despite the girl’s rough exterior, she had a warm and tender heart. Dovey had learned the truth of that over the past few days of their camaraderie. Penny’s own mother had died of consumption some years back, leaving her only daughter to fend for herself. Penny had sworn she would pray for Dovey’s mother every night until she was well again. Dovey felt sure the Lord would listen to the petition of a prostitute just as surely as the prayers of a hoity-toity city lady; the offer had touched her deeply.
“I just had a letter from Mother this morning,” Dovey said. “She says she’s feeling just about as well as she did before the boys went off to war. She likes Boston, and her cousin is good company. She was cross that I’d gone off to Seattle, but she said she understands well enough. There just weren’t any prospects left in Massachusetts—and Marion Stilton didn’t count. Besides, as practical as Mother is, she’d rather see me married for love than for money. But the war has taken so many young men. It seems no girl has hope of a good marriage in the eastern states—not anymore!”
“Do you think your mother will fancy you working?” Ruby asked. “And as a tax collector, to boot! Won’t it be a miserable disgrace in her eyes?”
“Maybe,” Dovey replied. “But she’ll just have to reconcile herself. I’m my own woman now; I make my own way in the world. I’m the only one who ought to say what’s a disgrace for Dovey Mason and what isn’t, don’t you think?”
Ruby smiled—a rare event—and opened her mouth to say something. But words and smile both died on her tongue. She stared beyond Dovey’s shoulder. “Look out,” she muttered, “here comes a storm.”
Dovey turned. Gathering dusk shrouded the city in purple, deepening the shadows that crossed the warehouses and alleys with bars of indigo. A pale figure cut through that twilight landscape, her skirt swinging in a furious, staccato
rhythm.
“Somebody’s wife, no doubt,” Penny said. “Or somebody’s sweetheart. Looks like she’s itching for a fight, too. Hope her man wasn’t one of my gentleman callers.”
Dovey stifled a groan. “That’s nobody’s wife.”
When Sophronia recognized Dovey, standing at an alley corner in her blue pagoda dress, flanked by two trollops and displayed like a bonbon on a glass plate, her stride faltered. Even at a distance, Dovey could see Sophronia’s quiver of outrage. Her gut clenched, and she made herself stand firm and resolute as Sophronia hurried forward again. When she reached the corner, her face was paler than usual, her lips trembling with the angry words she barely managed to check.
“You look mad as hell,” Dovey told her sweetly.
“Mrs. Harris is beside herself with worry for you, Dovey—beside herself! I’d ask how you could be so inconsiderate, but you’ve shown yourself just as loathsome more times than I can count already.”
Haypenny squinted at Sophronia, then turned a slow, disbelieving look on Dovey. “You know this bitch, Dovey?”
The insult caused Sophronia to inhale so forcefully that Dovey thought her hat might be sucked right off her head in the ensuing gale. “I know her, all right,” she said.
Sophronia rounded on her. “Where were you? What on Earth were you doing, away so long?”
“I was out looking for work.”
Sophronia’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. She sized up Penny and Ruby with one cold, sweeping glare. “I’ll just wager you were looking for work, too. But you can give up that idea right now, Dovey—do you hear me? Right now! You didn’t come to Seattle to become one of them.”
That final word, laden so thoroughly with all the dismissive scorn in Sophronia’s heart, made Penny and Ruby bristle like cats squaring up for a fight.
Penny took one menacing step toward Sophronia. “You better watch what you say around me, you screwed-up, putty-faced sop.”
Sophronia gaped at the girl, then twitched her skirt and huffed. Evidently she found it more prudent to ignore Haypenny than to lob one of her high-minded lectures on morality against the painted and perfumed bulwark of this fallen woman. “Come, Dovey. You’re going home now. And you’ll stay there, like a proper young lady.”
Mercer Girls Page 21
