Montana Dreaming

by Judy Duarte

  Not liking it didn’t change the situation. He’d worked hard for his position in the Douglas Corporation and he wasn’t going to let any of that go to waste. His plan was already in motion.

  Lisa found Matilda Matheson in the Thunder Canyon phone directory and called her to set up a visit. The woman had been warm and friendly on the phone and sounded eager to meet her.

  The following morning after her a.m. dogs were walked and fed, Lisa drove to the library, changed her clothing in the restroom and left by the rear door, wearing the only pair of trousers she owned and a hooded sweatshirt. These devious evasion tactics were getting old fast.

  Her destination was a fair distance, but she was used to walking and no one spotted her. The house she sought was a two-story blue-and-white Victorian in excellent condition. Roses climbed trellises on either side of the porch and a calico cat napped on the padded porch swing.

  Tildy was a kindly old woman with a toothy smile and soft-looking gray hair. She welcomed Lisa into her parlor and offered her a seat on the floral-cushioned sofa. Crocheted antimacassars were pinned to the arms and backs of the pieces of furniture.

  “I’m tickled pink to meet you, dear. I’ve got tea ready. It won’t be a moment.”

  Lisa glanced around, noting vintage furnishings and lamps similar in age and condition to those in her home.

  Tildy came back with tea and sugar cookies. The china was delicate rose-patterned chintz with worn gold trim.

  “I’m ever so pleased to meet Lily Divine’s great-great-granddaughter,” she said, clasping her hands together at her breast. “But I’m curious to know what brings you here.”

  “I understand your grandmother was a friend of Catherine Douglas’s.”

  “Oh, yes, dear. The two were confidantes.”

  “Emily Stanton shared some of the story with me. The part about how she and Brad came to discover the deed to the mine.”

  “That was a surprise to all of us. I’m delighted for you, dear. Those Douglases don’t need any more money and they certainly don’t deserve the mine.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, the way my grandmother told the story, Amos Douglas was a mean old coot, who beat Catherine on more than one occasion. Lily was always the one who took her in and nursed her to health.”

  Lisa tried to picture a woman in a red saloon dress sitting at Catherine Douglas’s bedside but couldn’t make the scene gel.

  “It wasn’t unusual for her to take in women who needed a safe place.”

  “And a brothel was a safe place?” Lisa asked with serious doubt.

  Tildy waved away that idea with a frown. “My grandmother said the Shady Lady was a dance hall, not a house of ill repute. Still, as a saloon it was not a place where respectable women of that day would have worked.”

  “But all the stories and the Heritage Day celebrations portray Lily as a prostitute.”

  “Makes for a far more colorful legend and a more interesting historical character that way, don’t you think?”

  Lisa recalled the face of the woman in the old photograph at the museum and the ordinary high-necked blouse and skirt she’d been wearing. She could picture that woman taking in an abused wife. “How can I know the truth from fiction?”

  “I don’t know, dear. You’re welcome to go through Catherine’s things. Emily and Brad left the trunk in my extra bedroom. It was in my attic for years before they brought it down here.”

  “Thank you, Miss Matheson. I’d like that.”

  Tildy sat in a rocker before a lace-curtained window in the quaintly decorated bedroom while Lisa looked through the contents of the enormous trunk. The fabric of the old dresses was so fragile, she feared tearing it, so she moved it aside carefully. She found a tarnished silver hand mirror, a parasol and a faded green silk purse.

  “I intend to donate these things to the historical society, but somehow I just don’t get around to calling them,” Tildy told her. “My grandmother inherited all of Catherine’s belongings, and I’ve had them since I was a young girl.” Her hand went to a brooch she wore on her flowered dress. “I’ve worn the pieces of jewelry all my life.”

  “I’m the same way with my grandmother’s things,” Lisa told her. “I’ve kept most everything.”

  “The trunk and its contents are in my will,” the old woman told her. “The foundation will get them when I’m gone.”

  Lisa didn’t know how to respond, so she smiled and nodded. Catherine had kept several journals, and she read the first few entries in one.

  “You may borrow those if you like. I’m sure there’s mention of Lily.”

  Lisa ran her hand across the aged and cracked leather cover of the book she held. “I’ll be very careful with them.”

  “I know you will, dear.” Tildy wrapped the journals in tissue paper and placed them in a small bag for Lisa to carry.

  After another cup of tea and more of the best cookies she’d ever eaten, Lisa thanked Tildy and left her house. On the walk back to the library she experienced a wash of anger that those stories of Lily’s supposed profession had been propagated over the years. Because of another woman’s hypothetical lack of moral character, Lisa had been looked down on her whole life—when all along that could have been one big lie!

  If there was a way to absolve Lily’s name, she was going to try to find it.

  The back door of the library was locked when she arrived, so she had to walk around front to get to her Blazer. Only one news van remained, and the driver appeared to be napping. Lisa started the engine and drove away without a tail.

  She felt blissfully unencumbered when she stopped and took care of her afternoon pets, then drove home.

  She let herself in and the dogs licked her senseless, then danced around yipping until she put leashes on them and took them out for a walk. The driver of a news van spotted her on her return and drove slowly alongside. “I’m reporting you to the police,” she called. “I have a restraining order!”

  The van dropped back and she hurried on to the house.

  That evening she curled up on the sofa with one of the journals and read it from the beginning. It had been written during an early time in Catherine’s life, and there was no mention of Lily. The second book, however, mentioned Lily a few times, referring to her home as a refuge. The dates of the entries were sporadic, and Lisa had the impression that Catherine had left out much of the true happenings of her life.

  Emily had given Lisa her phone number, and Lisa called it now, only to get a recording. Emily and Brad had done extensive research in looking for the mine owner, and perhaps she had discovered more than Lisa had thought to ask about.

  She left a message, then tried to distract herself by baking brownies. Her grandmother’s recipes were some of her dearest treasures, and these brownies especially reminded her of the warmth and comfort she’d received in this home during her formative years. Lisa poured herself a glass of milk and ate the brownies warm.

  Emily might not return her call for hours or perhaps not even until the next day. She dusted the china hutch and sideboard in the dining room, admiring the dishes and thinking how similar her grandmother’s things were to Tildy’s. She still missed her grandmother, even though she’d been gone several years. Having her things was a comfort, just as the house was her link to family. Maybe part of the reason she was so curious about Lily was because she craved a family connection.

  Later, as she was washing up the baking dishes, the phone rang.

  “Hi, Lisa, it’s Emily. I got your message.”

  “Thanks for calling. I have a couple of questions and I thought you could help me find answers.”

  “If I can, sure.”

  “I went to see Tildy today.”

  “She’s a sweetheart, isn’t she?”

  “And the cookies are to die for.”

  Emily chuckled.

  “She doesn’t believe Lily Divine ran a whorehouse. Her grandmother told her differently.”

  “I got that i
mpression, too. Of course, there’s no official documentation to prove it one way or the other.”

  Lisa propped the phone under her chin and dried a spatula. “I guess prostitutes didn’t exactly apply for a license to practice, did they?”

  “It was a lucrative business back then. The saloons supported the city. In fact, the law often accepted payment to simply look aside.”

  Lisa thought about that. “And the lawmen probably frequented the places.”

  “Likely. It was a western mining town. Saloon owners got rich off the miners.”

  “Did you learn anything else about Lily?”

  “Brad and I searched all the papers in the archives in the town-hall basement.”

  “That must have been fun.”

  “Actually it wasn’t so bad. Lily’s name came up a lot in later years, when she was Lily Harding. She was married to the town sheriff.”

  That news surprised Lisa. She leaned back against the counter. “I thought that was probably another tall tale.”

  “No. She was married to Nathaniel Harding, who by many accounts brought law and order to Thunder Canyon. Lily herself was a voice ahead of her time, speaking out for women’s rights and later in their quest for the vote.”

  “You found articles in the Nugget that told about that?”

  “We did.”

  “I think I’m going to go look through them myself.”

  “That’s a good idea. We weren’t really searching for Lily’s history, so there may have been information we overlooked.”

  “Thanks, Emily.”

  “Anytime. How are things going?”

  “What? You don’t know? I thought my menu and routine were public knowledge.”

  Emily laughed. I know about the pizza, but I was actually wondering about you. Are you handling all this?”

  “It’s pretty awful. I can’t go anywhere without cameras following. I’m my own reality show and I’m boring. I did make some awesome brownies tonight.”

  “They’ll find something else to interest them soon and you’ll be old news.”

  “Not soon enough for me. Thanks again.”

  “Oh,” Emily added, “one more thing I just thought of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There’s an elderly woman who lives out on the western edge of town, past Elk. Almost to the Douglas property.”

  “Emelda Ross,” Lisa said. “She reads to the children at the library.”

  “That’s her,” Emily said. “You’ve met her?”

  “Used to go to story time when I was a kid. My mother took me.”

  “Well, anyway, she has stories about the early days of Thunder Canyon that just don’t quit. She was quite entertaining when I spoke with her. She might know more about Lily.”

  “Maybe I’ll go see her. Thanks.” Lisa hung up and glanced at the clock. It was too late to go visiting, but she would make a trip out to the Ross house soon.

  They’d caught on. The next morning Lisa opened the back door at the library, and farther down the alley two reporters who’d been leaning against the fenders of their vehicles grabbed cameras and aimed the lenses at her.

  “Come on, people! There has to be something going on somewhere that’s more interesting than this.” She went back inside and stood in the hall a moment.

  She changed plans and walked out the front door and down Main. She didn’t turn to look behind her, but she knew the vans were back there. All the buildings along Main Street sat side by side with covered boardwalks. When she reached Town Hall, the receptionist, a woman with black hair and a white streak over one temple, recognized her and accompanied her to the records in the basement. She showed her the basic layout and how to get started finding newspaper articles.

  For a couple of hours Lisa scanned microfiche of the Thunder Canyon Nugget. More than once Lily had spent the night in jail for refusing to turn a woman over to her husband or father. Most of those incidents had been before Nathaniel Harding became sheriff, Lisa noted. There was only one account of the sheriff actually locking up the woman he would marry. One story told of a fire that had ravaged a property Lily owned, and there was mention of an auction Lily held to raise money for a fatherless family.

  Again Lisa thought of the woman she’d seen in the black-and-white photograph. Confident had been her overall impression of Lily. Assured of her purpose. Comfortable with her life choices. There was no doubt she’d owned and run a saloon. In fact, according to announcements in the Nugget, numerous town meetings had been held in her establishment.

  Lily’d held her own in a time when women were considered inferior. Nothing inferior about Lily Divine. She’d raised her head high and marched to her own tune.

  Lisa marched to her own tune, as well, but it was a quiet melody, written to blend into the surrounding sounds. She’d spent her whole life trying to be invisible.

  She hated attention, and why was that? Was she inferior to others in some respect? Looks? Money? Yes. Yes.

  Well, she had money now. Or at least she would have. Bernadine was rushing the paperwork. The Douglases had established an account to hold future profits from sales of ore from the Queen of Hearts, and the names were already being changed on that account. The thought of being responsible for a prospective million dollars or more plus employees and all that this inheritance entailed made her feel ill. She definitely needed all the help she could get.

  Lisa walked out the front door of Town Hall and spotted the news vans. She was disgusted with herself for hiding because she felt inferior. She could hide because she didn’t want the publicity, but feeling inferior was wrong.

  Instead of heading back for her Blazer, she headed west on Main until she came to the Hitching Post. Old Town had been restored and reconstructed to look like the 1800s town it had once been, and true to the bar and restaurant’s name, split-rail hitching posts lined the boardwalk.

  Two cars were parked in front, and she glanced at her watch, noting it wasn’t yet the lunch hour. The place was popular and would probably fill up with locals soon.

  Her stomach fluttered as she opened the door and entered the building with unexpected awe. The Hitching Post had been here for forty years in its current form and sixty-plus years before the remodeling. Her great-great-grandmother had stood on these very floors and walked the same rooms and lived and slept in the attached house next door.

  The floors were scarred wood, the varnished pine walls darkened over the years. Lanterns, tin signs, spurs and all number of western memorabilia hung from nails and dangled in the doorways. How many of these walls and items had Lily touched?

  No one stood near the counter at the front, and Lisa could see the bar from the entrance. The sound of a slow ballad droned from a jukebox in the corner. Two silver-haired men played checkers at a table and a stocky, middle-aged man in a white shirt stacked glasses behind the bar.

  Lisa recognized the enormous polished cherrywood bar from the photograph and approached. The piece was hopelessly scarred and several grooves had been worn deep in the wood, but it was still impressive. Behind the bar, in a place of prominence between mirrors and shelves of glasses and rows of liquor bottles, was the painting she’d come to see.

  The place didn’t get a whole lot of sunlight, which had probably aided in preserving the portrait. It was bigger than she’d anticipated, but every bit as…provocative.

  Clearly the same Lily Divine that she’d seen in the photograph was depicted in the artist’s rendition. Reclining on her side, the woman faced the artist. If Lisa wasn’t mistaken, Lily’s curly dark hair had the same auburn highlights as her own, and similar ringlets framed her face. The similarity was as surprising as it was exciting. What other characteristics did they share?

  This Lily had probably been in her twenties and was depicted adorned with…pearls. Period. Lisa definitely wore more clothing.

  The woman wasn’t the well-rounded type Lisa’d seen in nude paintings in art-history books, although she obviously had what it took in a
ll the right places. No wonder Lisa’d been asked how she compared to Lily Divine. The chick was stacked.

  Her breasts were clearly visible through a gauzy black veil that draped over one shoulder, and Victoria’s Secret would have signed this woman in a heartbeat. The material gathered over her hip and discreetly shaded her pubic area.

  Lily’s legs were long and shapely, and strands of pearls circled each ankle. Lily Divine was a hottie.

  “This your first look at the Shady Lady?”

  “What?” Lisa glanced at the bartender who’d approached. “Oh, yes.”

  “We got postcards we sell to the tourists if you wanna buy one.” He pointed to a rack on the counter by an ice machine. “A dollar. Want one?”

  “Sure, thanks.” She opened her purse.

  He placed a postcard on the bar. “What’ll you have to drink?”

  “Um.” She glanced at the card and then around the interior of the room, orienting herself. “Do you have root beer?”

  He shook his head. “Cola.”

  “Diet?”

  “Sure thing.” He prepared her a glass of soda and set it on a cocktail napkin. “Two fifty with the postcard.”

  She paid him, and he gave her another look, recognition dawning. “Say, aren’t you…?”

  Lisa’s cheeks warmed and she busied herself placing the picture in her purse.

  The man snapped his fingers. “You’re the heiress.” His eyebrows shot up. “The gal who inherited the gold mine!”

  She acknowledged his observation with a nod and the bravest smile she could come up with. “That’s me.”

  “Then you’re—” He stopped and pointed up at the painting. “You’re the Shady Lady’s kin.”

  She looked back up at the portrait. It had hung there for generations. No sense getting embarrassed about it now. She was after all linked through history to this establishment. “That’s right.”

  “Well…congratulations.”

  She nodded her thanks and he moved away. Lisa sipped her soft drink while she studied the portrait. What a fascinating woman Lily had been. She’d been known down through the years as the Shady Lady, though there wasn’t much proof that she’d been a prostitute. Actually this painting seemed to be the only tie to her not-so-proper past.