by Sharon Ihle
"Libby?" came her brother's voice from the pressroom in the back. "Can you come here a minute?"
"Be right there," she called, relieved to have a few minutes to think about how to proceed from here. "Excuse me, will you, Mr. Savage? I've got to help out in the pressroom. I'm sure it won't take but a minute. Have a seat here in the parlor, won't you?"
Then, assuming he'd take her up on the offer, Libby whirled around and darted through the curtains which shielded the relatively private pressroom from visitors. Bearing down on her brother, who was bent over their newest and best piece of equipment, the Campbell County Press, she muttered, "We're up to our necks in trouble now, Jeremy,"
Raising his head out of the bowels of the machine, he asked, "For what?"
"Andrew Savage himself from the San Francisco Savages is here."
"Damnation." Grabbing a rag dampened with turpentine, Jeremy set to cleaning his hands. "What are we gonna do?"
"I only know what we're not gonna do, and that's tuck our tails between our legs and go slinking away from all that matters to us." Libby slid her fingers along the press, caressing the Savage-owned piece of equipment. "At least I did have enough sense to tell him that pa is out of the country, instead of where he really is." She paused, her throat closing over the words to shut off the pain the reminder brought with it. She didn't have a second to waste in grieving over her father, not while the newspaper he'd loved so much looked to be in such jeopardy. "The first thing we've got to do is spread the word around town about the story we made up for pa in case this Savage fellow goes poking around asking questions."
At fifteen—a full nine years younger than Libby—Jeremy still spooked easily. "But not everyone's gonna toss in with our cause. What if he goes to see Hayford over at the Sentinel? Why, he'd turn on us quicker than a cow pony on a stray if he thought it'd get the Tribune shut down."
Libby recognized the panic in his tone. With his bright rust-colored hair, freckles enough to cover two boys his size, and prominent front teeth, Jeremy even looked the part of the nervous pubescent young man he'd become in the months since their partially deaf father had stepped in front of a team of galloping horses. He walked as if his feet were suddenly too big to propel his knobby, rubber-like legs, and his long, thin arms swung awkwardly, as if powered by a pair of swivels.
But even in the throes of this most troublesome time of life, Jeremy favored their father so much it brought a tear to Libby's eye whenever she looked upon him. Wiping it away, she said, "I can't imagine why Savage would want to go see Hayford about us. I think we're safe enough if we keep a good eye on him and sweeten up his ears with a little chin music."
Jeremy frowned. "How long's he gonna be in town?"
"I don't know, but I think we'd better talk him into staying right here if we want to make sure and keep him ignorant about pa. How's the spare room look? Is it clean or is Hymie sleeping there again?"
"Far as I know, Nona let him back in the house." Their alternate pressman's troubles with his wife were legendary. "He went fishing today, so I can't say for sure."
"We'll just have to assume the room's free then." Her mind working as smoothly as the new press now, she settled on a plan. "Here's what we'll do; you run tell folks around town that we've got a fellow here from San Francisco who'd take the Tribune right out of Laramie if he knew we were running the paper alone. Most folks will go along with keeping our little secret. Just don't mention it to those you think won't. While you're doing that, I'll clean up in here a little and make a fresh bed in the spare room."
Jeremy untied his apron and tossed it on the work table. "I'll get done as fast as I can."
"Good. And when you get back, let me do most of the talking around Savage. Pretend you've got a chicken bone stuck in your throat or something."
"Shucks, Libby, I don't see why we got to go to all that trouble." He headed for the back door. "It's not like we don't know why he's here—he's come to stop you from writing those female suffering editorials, hasn't he?"
"Suffrage, and yes," she grumbled. "But we both know that I'm not going to stop writing them."
"Maybe you should. Then we could at least keep the paper for a while longer."
It wasn't that Libby hadn't thought of that, or ignored the risk she took with every mention of the fight for equality. For her, it wasn't a matter of choice. That was her rock and hard place—the rock being her father's newspaper, the hard place, the promise she'd made to her mother as she lay dying the morning after Jeremy was born. Harriet Powers, a "Lucy Stoner" who'd kept her own name after marrying Libby's father, had fought long, hard battles in the name of equality, and had instilled that same sense of pride in her daughter. It was that, and the promise that she would carry the suffrage torch in both the Powers and Justice names that made this an impossible situation. As far as Libby was concerned, there was no point in having a newspaper if she couldn't spread the word of the cause.
"You know I can't stop writing my equal rights articles—I just have to figure out a way to make Andrew Savage think I'm going to stop."
And to do that, Libby realized with no small amount of anxiety, she would have to work much harder at keeping both her temper and her reckless tongue under control.
* * *
In the parlor, William Donovan ignored the Justice woman's offer to make himself at home on one of the chairs. Instead, he paced, as amused as he was puzzled by the odd and rather laughable position he found himself tangled up in.
Just yesterday, he'd been on the last leg of a marathon, winner-take-all poker game in a private car coupled to the train from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. That car, as far as Donovan knew, was still rolling on toward Cheyenne, and then to who knew where. But its owner, one Andrew Savage of the Nob Hill Savage clan, had been caught cheating, shot by a disgruntled gambler, and then dumped off a high bridge somewhere in the towering Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
Donovan had never met Savage until he bought into the 'game on wheels,' and hadn't gotten to know him well during the relatively short time they were together, but he hadn't liked him well enough to grieve his passing. Savage ran a dirty game. And that, in Donovan's humble opinion, was the same as horse-thieving or murder. The crooked gambler had died owing Donovan several hundred dollars, however. To make matters worse, Savage had bought in on credit, leaving not so much as an IOU behind for Donovan to collect what was due him.
So he had taken the dead man's satchel hoping to find some hidden cash to help recoup at least part of his losses. It amused him roundly to think the sassy editor of the newspaper thought him to be Andrew Savage simply because he'd carried the leather bag into her offices.
Chuckling to himself, Donovan strolled around the small reception area noting the framed photos and newspaper clippings nailed to the walls of the room. Most were articles about the suffrage movement and photos of Lucy Stone and Susan B. Anthony with her cohorts, including the Laramie favorite, Esther Morris. These were scattered among awards, photos of headlines from both the San Francisco and Laramie Tribunes, and a letter of commendation from R. T. Savage himself, complimenting Mr. Justice on his years of fine reporting and editorials. Donovan paused to check the date on the commendation. It was less than a year old.
Puzzled all over again, he continued his pacing. Once he'd retired to his compartment aboard the train, he'd gone through the satchel only to make the sad discovery that Savage did not keep extra funds in the little bag. During the rest of the train ride to Laramie, Donovan had perused the letters of censure from the publishing company to the Laramie Tribune and had noted the company's displeasure with the little paper regarding its editorial content. Why had the Tribune gone astray so soon after receiving such a fine compliment from the parent company?
Liberty Justice came to mind in a flash. Donovan guessed that Jeremiah Justice had been out of the country for close to six months, the time frame during which the condemning letters from Savage Publishing had been written. Recalling the fires
burning in the young woman's coffee-brown eyes as she spoke of the newspaper and how much it meant to her, Donovan glanced toward the curtains where she'd disappeared. A sassy little gal, that one, and quirky too, he decided, recalling her manner of dress.
Over her plain white blouse, she wore a buckskin vest with a matching skirt which wasn't a skirt at all, but wide-legged trousers. And they barely reached her ankles. She looked more suited to the range than the offices of a newspaper. Even though the lower part of her legs were decently hidden from view by her footgear, he'd noticed as she whisked into the back room that she wore boots fashioned of rough rawhide like an area cowboy might wear. On top of all that, she'd covered her head and a good deal of her face with the most ungodly hat Donovan had ever seen in his life.
Made of straw, the bonnet was plainly decorated with only a butter-colored ribbon circling the crown and a single sunflower at the center. The hat's wide, curving brim, however, had become a storage bin for a tape measure, a magnifying glass, an assortment of pencils, and a pair of spectacles, if memory served. It also sported a couple of scorch-marks—cigarette burns? Whatever, she was an original, one of a kind gal, for sure.
The funniest thing was that, had she let him get a word in edgewise, she would have realized that he was not Andrew Savage, but William Donovan—known, at his own insistence, simply as Donovan.
Instead of worrying about losing her newspaper, as she undoubtedly was doing at this very moment, "Lippy," as he'd begun to think of her, would then also have known that he'd only stopped by the Tribune to inform the editor that Andrew Savage had been killed on his way to Laramie. And, although he was none too proud of himself, Donovan had to admit that she probably would have made yet another discovery on the heels of learning his true identity—that he'd taken it upon himself to deliver this news in the hopes of receiving some kind of reward for returning the dead man's personal belongings. Something in the neighborhood of the three hundred dollars he figured the Savage family still owed him.
Since it didn't take a genius to figure out that a reward, if indeed he was entitled to one, wouldn't be coming from this end of Savage Publishing, Donovan decided that he couldn't let the young woman go on thinking he'd come to ruin her. Lifting the pass-through in the counter, he started for the curtains leading to the back room when a triangular block of wood caught his eye, delaying him. He picked up the item, read the name and title burned into the pine, then, chuckling to himself, tucked it into his jacket pocket.
Letting the sassy newspaperwoman off the hook didn't mean he couldn't tweak her nose a time or two.
Chapter 2
Back in the pressroom, Libby had just finished cleaning up the spare room and was fluttering around the shelves and machinery, slapping at every exposed surface she passed with her feather duster. More likely than not, Andrew Savage would expect a tour of the newspaper offices, and she didn't want even so much as a speck of lint to weaken her cause. All she wanted to do was impress him with the way she ran the paper. She'd just dropped to her knees to check the underside of the press, when his silken voice reached her from behind.
"Why, my dear Miss Justice, I hope you're not going to all this trouble on my account."
On hands and knees, Libby spun around in the direction of his voice and promptly banged the side of her head against the press. Her hat went flying, spilling her pencils and, she noticed as they skipped across the floor lens-side down, her blasted missing spectacles.
Ignoring them and the other scattered items, she scrambled to her feet and turned to him. "Oh, Mr.Savage—it's you." She quickly reminded herself to keep her temper under control, as she brushed a few lengths of tousled hair from her eyes. "You startled me."
"Sorry, ma'am." A sense of guilt prodding him, Donovan joined her by the press and studied her as she caught her breath. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."
She blushed, looking vulnerable for a moment, even attractive. He'd pretty much dismissed the newspaperwoman as a spinsterish, bookish type—a female who dressed in buckskins simply because she didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of catching a man, no matter what she wore. But now that he'd taken a good look at her without that outrageous hat covering up most of her face, Donovan had to admit that she wasn't quite as homely as he'd assumed. Her dark eyes were bigger somehow, doe-like and naive—a direct contrast to her runaway tongue. The hair that he'd mistakenly assumed was brown, turned out to be auburn, the color you might see reflected off the back of a sleek chestnut colt at sundown. Although she was still pretty rough around the edges, the sight of that burnished curl caressing her smooth though freckled cheek was an unexpected display of femininity. And it made Donovan's pulse leap.
"Are you all right?" he asked, clearing his suddenly husky throat. "It sounded like you rapped the side of your head pretty hard."
"It's nothing." Laughing, she touched the bruise he'd noticed earlier. "As you can see, I'm always banging into something around here."
Donovan thought of pointing out the obvious: If she were actually to wear the glasses now lying on the floor a few feet away, she could probably cut her "accidents" down at least by half. But he abandoned the subject, figuring female vanity might have something to do with her not wearing the glasses.
Instead, he gave into the urge to tease her a little.
Reaching for the item in his pocket, he held it up between them, and asked, "Is this you?"
Libby glanced at the nameplate—the one that proclaimed her as the editor of the Laramie Tribune. "Oh, yes, it is, but as I mentioned earlier, I'm just substituting for my father."
"I understand that, but your name—is it Liberty Ann Justice?" She nodded, and he laughed out loud. "Does that mean you're Liberty Ann Justice for all, ma'am, or just for a special few?"
Libby's mouth dropped open. "A few? Why, Mr. Savage—I don't know what to say."
"A rarity for you, I'm sure." His smirk as wry as the words, Donovan set the nameplate down on the shiny surface of the press and offered a half-hearted apology. "I guess a cheeky comment like that could be taken a lot of ways, ma'am. Pardon my missing manners. I must have left them back in San Francisco."
"Yes, well, you're excused... I guess." She paused to give a little, nervous laugh. "You know, I have to be honest. You sure aren't what I was expecting, not coming from the esteemed Savage family and all."
If not for that remark, and what it implied about his breeding—or lack of it—Donovan might have cleared the air right then and there, told her his real name and occupation, and gotten the hell out of town. If not for that remark, Miss Liberty Ann Justice might have gone on about her business with hardly a dent put into her day. As it was, she'd inadvertently given him a reason to tease her a little longer—and something to occupy his time until the next train to San Francisco came by.
"I'd like to know just what you mean by that, my dear Miss Justice," he began sternly. "Or may I call you Libby?"
"Libby is fine. Just fine." She gulped. "And I didn't mean a thing, really I didn't."
"Yes, well..." Donovan gripped his hands behind his back, as if deep in thought. "If you've any hope of keeping this paper open, you're going to have to change your rather impudent attitude. I will not tolerate sass from one of my employees."
"Of course not, nor should you," she said quickly, tossing in just the hint of a curtsy. "I don't know what's come over me today. Please forgive me if I've been rude."
Suddenly she seemed so small and fragile standing there that Donovan almost had a change of heart. But then he saw the fires burning in her dark, dark eyes, a fighting spirit—that and a haughty glare she couldn't quite hide. Libby Justice wasn't humbled or even sorry for insulting him. If anything, she was laughing behind his back. Looking forward to the battle, he not only went ahead with the charade, but thought of a way to improve upon the previous plan.
Leaning in close, but not touching any part of her, Donovan captured her in his gaze. "I'm having a hard time believing that was a sincere apology. I'm t
hinking that maybe you're just teasing me a little, and that you don't really care what happens to the Tribune."
"Oh, but I do care, I do. I'll do anything to keep this paper going. I swear I will."
"Anything?" Donovan made a purposefully lazy perusal of her mouth before adding in a deep voice, "Just exactly what do you have in mind?"
Although her eyes widened for just a second, making him wonder if she didn't know exactly what he'd been suggesting, Libby wasted no time showing him what she had in mind. Either she was a most rare creature, indeed—a female impervious to his charms—or she hadn't the first idea what he'd been insinuating. In any case, the moment the words were out of his mouth, she launched an all out effort to see that his needs were met. Most of them, anyway.
All spunk and fire, the sassy newspaperwoman whisked him through a surprisingly interesting tour of the pressroom, showed him her outdated photography equipment, and then ushered him into the private editor's office, where he now sat with his feet propped up high on the desk. He was smoking a cheroot she'd dug up from God knew where—it tasted old and looked like a piece of dried-up buffalo flop—and sipping from a bottle of cherry brandy Libby had pulled out of the desk drawer. Her father's favorite, she'd said. Any minute now, he expected her to return to the office, drop to her knees and insist on shining his shoes. At which time, Donovan thought, settling into the role of a publishing scion with relative ease, he would probably take her up on the offer.
Being a "member" of the wealthy Savage clan had its rewards beyond the comforts he was already enjoying. Libby had even insisted that he spend the night at her home in the spare room, a gesture which had touched him so, he'd impulsively asked her to join him for supper this evening. Considering that he usually got out of the game while he was still ahead, no matter what the stakes, Donovan wasn't so sure the invitation wasn't more reckless than impulsive, but he shrugged his doubts away.
