Amanda told her what she wanted done. “I need it in a hurry.” Scooter had agreed to open up the office and see that their prisoner had breakfast, but she didn’t feel right about leaving her deputy alone for long.
“I’ll have it done in no time.”
“Mama…” Amanda’s voice broke. “Is Papa…”
She heard Mama’s intake of breath. “He’s worried about you and fears for your safety. As do I.”
“I’ll be careful, Mama, I promise.”
Mama shook her head. “Fighting crime is no job for a woman.”
“Mama, please…I want you to be proud of me. Proud of what I’m trying to do.”
“I am proud of you. Proud of all my daughters. But this…” Mama shook her head. “This is not what I raised you for.” Mama looked about to say something more but instead left with the skirt flung over her arm. The door closed behind her, but not soon enough to hide her tears.
Mama’s tears affected Amanda more than Papa’s bluster, though both reactions rose from the same concern for her welfare.
Josie ran her hand across Amanda’s back. “You can’t blame Mama for being worried. Papa too. We’re all worried about you. That’s because we love you.”
“I know.” Amanda blinked back the burning in her eyes. Sheriffs don’t cry.
Meg sighed in sympathy. “None of us will think poorly of you if you resign.”
“I can’t do that. You know I’m not a quitter.”
“We all know that,” Meg said. “You faced a lynch mob and escorted a murderer to jail. That’s more than most of our male sheriffs have done.”
Stopping a hanging was the least of it. She also kept the prisoner from escaping, but that would only worry her family more. Best not to mention it.
“Alleged murderer,” she said instead and pulled a plain white shirtwaist out of a drawer. Did Mr. Rennick really kill that man? He claimed he hadn’t, but didn’t all guilty men lie? And wouldn’t a wrongly accused man want to stay and clear his name instead of trying to escape?
“Alleged or not, it was still a brave thing you did.” Meg looked pale and had declined Mama’s offer of coffee or tea. It sure did look like she might be having morning sickness. If Josie noticed, she didn’t say anything.
“Weren’t you scared?” Meg asked.
“Of course I was scared.” She held up the shirtwaist. “What do you think of this?” she asked, anxious to change the subject. “All I need is a vest.” A dark vest would show off her shiny badge.
Meg frowned. “Only men wear vests.”
“And some believe that only men can be sheriffs. I aim to prove them wrong.” She stared at herself in the cheval mirror. A hat. She needed a hat, and none of the fancy ones she’d designed would do.
With a flurry of activity, she pulled the hat boxes from atop the tall wardrobe. Where was it? She’d worn the black wide-brimmed Stetson only once. Wouldn’t you know it was in the last box she checked? She placed it on her head and whirled about to face the mirror.
It was perfect…almost. She glanced around, and her gaze fell on her grandmother’s photograph. She plucked a red quill from a vase and stuck it in the hatband. Red was her grandmother’s favorite color, and the feather once adorned the very first hat Grandmama had made for her. It was her grandmother who instilled in her the love of hat making.
She stared at herself. A hat’s like a woman, her grandmother liked to say. A good one gets better with age. A cheap one only gets old.
She whirled to face her sisters. “What do you think?” she asked. “Do I or do I not look like the country’s best female sheriff?”
* * *
Dressed in her newly bifurcated skirt, Amanda rode into town and tried to ignore the disapproving stares and shouted insults that greeted her at every turn.
“We don’t want no female sheriff!” someone yelled as she passed a surprisingly large crowd on the corner of Main and First.
“Yeah,” added another. “Go home where you belong.”
“She ain’t got no home. That’s ’cuz no man will marry her!”
Amanda bit back the retort that flew to her lips. A graduate of Miss Brackett’s Training School for Volunteer Workers of the Suffrage Campaign, she had been taught to respond to public scorn with grace and charm, but never had it been so hard to do.
A crowd of women flocked in front of the sheriff’s office, blocking the boardwalk in both directions. Sighing, Amanda tugged on the reins of her pony and reminded herself of Miss Brackett’s teachings. Grace and charm, grace and charm, grace and charm…
Dismounting, she tied her horse to the hitching post and stomped onto the boardwalk. The heck with grace. Charm too. Glaring at the small gathering, she braced herself for battle. Before she could speak, the women burst into applause, startling her.
The banker’s wife, Mrs. Mooney, signaled for quiet. Round as a boardinghouse cat, she never missed an opportunity to mention her social position, to which she gave more credence than anyone else. On her head sat a heliotrope monstrosity with feathers sticking out like the arms of a windmill. Anyone stepping too close was liable to get poked in the eye.
“As the bank president’s wife, I thought it only right that we give a proper welcome to our new sheriff,” she said, fluttering her ring-laden hands.
Surprised and more than a little gratified, Amanda smiled. “Why, thank you, Mrs. Mooney. That’s mighty kind of you.”
The noisy welcome brought Scooter running out of the office.
“Meet my new deputy,” Amanda said.
This brought another round of applause. Not used to so much attention, Scooter’s face turned red as a barn.
T-Bone’s wife, Claudia, checked Amanda over from head to toe. Her orange-red hair had been tortured into sausage curls and her rounded body shoehorned into a frock two sizes too small. Worse, she insisted upon wearing an unflattering pale-yellow hat tilted in such a way as to allow her curls to fall unhampered at the back of the head.
“Well, what do you know?” Claudia drawled. “If you don’t look official.”
Amanda smiled and turned a full circle so that they could see her entire outfit. Mama had done a bang-up job of turning the skirt into a divided one. She’d altered the tan leather vest that no longer fit Papa, and it provided a perfect finish to her uniform. With Josie’s help, they had even managed to adjust the belt holding up the holster so her gun settled at her side where it belonged, rather than at her knees.
Everyone oohed and aahed. Two more ladies joined the group. One of them lifted the hem of her skirt above the six-inch limit set by town ordinance as she stepped onto the boardwalk.
“Aren’t you at least a little upset that your husband lost the election to a woman?” someone asked the butcher’s wife.
“Heck, no!” Claudia replied, her sausage curls shaking. “I’ve got no bone to pick with Amanda.” Her little butcher joke brought gales of laughter from the crowd.
Ordering everyone to be quiet, Mrs. Mooney turned to Amanda. “We are here today to offer our services.”
“Your services?” Amanda’s mind whirled. “Oh, you mean you want to join my new women’s suffragist group.”
“Suffragist group?” Mrs. Mooney stared down her considerable nose. Righteous indignation was emphasized by the quivering feathers on her hat. “Certainly not. We have more important things to worry about than voting. We want to be your posse.”
“My posse?” Goodness gracious, Amanda hadn’t even thought about putting together her own posse. Did she need one? She hadn’t a clue how to track down the bad guys and certainly would need help. Since the women looked dead serious, she studied them each in turn. They ranged in age from the early twenties to mid to late sixties.
The ever-present knitting needles sticking out of Mrs. Perl’s rucksack gave Amanda pause, as did the low-cut dress and obscenely rouge
d face of good-time gal Goldie. If poor taste was a crime, half the women in town were deserving of arrest.
“You do know that a posse’s job is to go after outlaws?” Amanda asked tactfully, not wishing to hurt their feelings. Recalling the town ordinance that forbade women of uncertain chastity from being out after dark, she added, “Sometimes even at night.”
“We know what the job entails,” Ellie-May Walker said, hands on her ample hips. “And since the men of this town can’t seem to do the job, it’s up to us women.”
“Hear, hear,” Mrs. Granby said, illegally popping open her parasol and jeopardizing the well-being of the town’s horse population. In less than five minutes, not one but two laws had been broken—three if blocking the boardwalk was counted. No wonder the other sheriffs didn’t have time to concentrate on real crimes.
“Amen, sister,” Mrs. Wellmaker said. Married to the minister of the Two-Time Community Church, her virtuous white felt hat hardly seemed to belong to the dowdy red-and-purple dress that circled her like a lampshade.
Mrs. Mooney inclined her head. “As the bank president’s wife, I say we go after those bandits and show them we mean business.”
Amanda wasn’t sure what kind of business the motley group was ready for, but it sure didn’t look like law enforcement. Some were married; some, widowed. Miss Cynthia Read had never wed, though it wasn’t from lack of trying. She didn’t bother with feathers. Instead, an entire stuffed dove perched atop the rounded crown of her hat—a fad Amanda utterly opposed. If the style caught on, the entire bird population would be endangered.
A retired schoolmarm, Miss Read had perfected the impressive stare that Amanda remembered from her youth and could still make grown men shake in their boots.
The youngest woman was Becky-Sue Harris, who giggled at the slightest provocation. True to form, she let out a high-pitched squeal that made Amanda flinch. A pretty girl with auburn hair and blue eyes, she looked closer to fifteen than twenty-one, and the poke bonnet tied beneath her chin was partly to blame.
“Oh, this is so exciting,” she said and giggled. Next to her, Scooter got all red in the face again and laughed too.
“Do any of you know how to fire a weapon?” Amanda asked. It seemed as good a place as any to start.
The women looked at each other, but only the gun shop owner’s wife, Ellie-May, raised her hand. “I’ve got me a shotgun, and I know how to use it.”
That was music to Amanda’s ears. “All right, Ellie-May, you’re in. As for the rest of you, you need to get yourselves a weapon and learn how to shoot.”
Ellie-May lifted her chin. “I’ll see that my husband gives you all discounts.”
“That would be most helpful,” Amanda said. “There’s also the matter of clothes.” She pointed to her own divided skirt. Strangely enough, she felt more comfortable in her new no-nonsense attire than she’d ever felt in long ruffled dresses or fashionable traveling suits.
“As my posse, you will all need to be able to move quickly and freely. You also need sturdy footwear so you can run.”
Mrs. Perl gasped. A stout woman with a stack of quivering chins, she was the only one not wearing a hat. Instead, a lacy scarf was arranged over her thin brown hair like a crocheted doily on the arm of an upholstered chair. “Run? But that’s so…unladylike.”
Amanda scoffed. “We’re not catching gentlemen; we’re catching criminals who probably wouldn’t know a lady from a mule.” Had they known that she had knocked a man unconscious last night with the butt of her gun, they would no doubt be shocked. “It’s hard work, and we must dress accordingly.”
The women stared down at their own dainty shoes and then studied Amanda’s sensible boots and split skirt.
“Soon as you’re ready, I’ll swear you in,” Amanda said. If the need for more practical clothes didn’t discourage them, perhaps the necessity of shooting lessons would.
Solemn heads bobbed up and down, but any hope of them grasping the seriousness of their undertaking was dashed the moment Becky-Sue squealed, “Oh my! This is so much fun. I can hardly wait to get started.”
Mrs. Perl tittered and waved her knitting needles. “My son won’t believe it. He thinks I’m a doddering old fool. Wait till he hears I’m actually working with the sheriff.” She lowered her voice to a loud whisper. “Of course, when I write to him, I won’t mention that it’s a woman sheriff.”
This brought appreciative laughter all around.
Mrs. Mooney, as usual, took charge. “I think we’ve done enough jawing for the day. I say we get started! We have much work to accomplish, and there’s no time to lose.”
The women departed, walking in groups of twos and threes. They headed for Walker’s Gun Shop, cackling like a bunch of old hens. Watching them, Amanda’s reservations increased.
Even Scooter looked worried, his usual grin replaced by a frown.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think Grandpappy was right. Getting a bunch of possums up the same tree is near impossible.”
Fourteen
Seated behind the sheriff’s desk moments later, Amanda pressed her hand on the scarred wood surface and willed her stomach to stop churning. She couldn’t make head or tail out of the jumble of papers the last sheriff left behind and finally ended up tossing the whole mess into the waste basket.
Upon seeing a cockroach skitter from behind the wicker basket, she shuddered. Next to Austin’s new palace-like lockup and jailor’s quarters, Two-Time’s jailhouse was not worth a tinker’s curse. Amanda had seen cleaner pigsties.
“You okay, Sheriff?”
Scooter looked so concerned about her welfare that she straightened her back and forced a reassuring smile. If only she could control her quivering nerves…
“I’m fine.” She ran her palm over the desk. The now-cleared surface gave her a false sense of control. “I just need time to get a handle on the job.”
“Like Grandpappy always said, a good leader governs a nation as he would cook fish. I guess you could say the same for a town.”
Amanda pinched the spot between her eyebrows. She didn’t want to discourage him by admitting she’d never cooked a fish in her life. “Any problems?” She slanted her head toward the jail cells in back to indicate the sole prisoner, Mr. Rennick.
“Nope. But he keeps asking for you.”
“Guess I better see what he wants.” She hesitated. “Is he all right? His head?”
“Looked all right to me,” Scooter said.
“What time does he have to go before the judge?”
“Well, now, that’s a problem,” Scooter said. “Lynch was called out of town and doesn’t know when he’ll be back.”
She grimaced. Rennick had already proven to be a difficult prisoner, and now she was stuck with him.
Just as she started to rise from her desk, the door flew open, and in walked Mayor Troutman. He looked even more beleaguered than he had the night before. His bow tie was askew, and his derby tipped to the side.
She lowered herself back into her seat. “What happened to you?”
“What happened?” He mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “I spent the morning defending your honor, that’s what.”
She blinked. “My hon—”
“The town council held an emergency meeting this morning to discuss the problem.”
Scooter frowned. “What problem?”
“What problem?” Troutman thundered, his mustache quivering. “Why, the sheriff being a woman, of course.”
“And did they come up with a solution?” she asked wryly.
“Unfortunately not!”
“I guess that means I’ll just have to remain a woman,” she said, winking at her deputy, who grinned back.
“Yes, and that’s why the council decided to call for your resignation.”
She leaned back in her
chair. A high tolerance for criticism had served her well in the past. Bucking society required a tough exterior and a firm belief in what she was doing. But nothing she’d done prior compared to the task she’d taken on now.
“Tell them to keep calling, ’cause I’m not going anywhere. I intend to clean up this town like I was elected to do.” Like Scooter’s siblings and cousins elected her to do.
“The council isn’t gonna like that.”
Her resolve increased. “Are they aware that I saved a suspect from a lynch mob?”
“Oh, they’re aware of it, ma’am. But some think you did the town no favor.”
“I’m sure Mr. Rennick would disagree.”
Troutman rubbed his whiskered chin, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “Here’s the thing,” he said, abruptly changing tactics. He continued in a voice clearly meant to appeal to her more rational side. “No man is willing to take orders from a woman. No disrespect intended, mind you. It’s the way things have been for thousands of years, and we see no reason to upset the applecart. That means you won’t be able to find anyone willing to assist you. Without a deputy or even a posse to back you up, you haven’t got a chance of bringing law and order to this town.”
“I’ve already got a deputy,” she said. Dressed in his usual overalls and slouch hat, Scooter looked as much a deputy sheriff as a duck resembled a dog. Better not mention her posse till she’d seen how the ladies made out.
Scooter grabbed the mayor’s hand in that overzealous way of his. He jerked it up and down as if trying to squeeze the last drop of water out of an old rusty pump. “Deputy Sheriff Hobson, at your service.”
Looking startled, the mayor pulled his hand away and reared back as if he’d just been bitten by a rattler. “He’s a baker’s son and a loafer. You’d be better off hiring a goat.”
Amanda’s temper flared. It was bad enough that people voiced derogatory comments about her, but she wasn’t about to let anyone disparage Scooter.
A Match Made in Texas Page 8
