The Bride's Prerogative

by Davis, Susan Page

  Isabel took a sip of her tea and swallowed before she met Gert’s gaze again. “Yes, Libby Adams and … and a girl came to the schoolhouse yesterday and again this afternoon to see the children home. Will they come every day?”

  “Someone from the club will come all week, morning and afternoon.”

  “Thank you. Perhaps I shall accept the offer of walking with them tomorrow. Of course, school recesses on Friday for a month’s vacation.”

  Gert nodded. “We’ll come anytime you need us. The sheriff has approved our schedule of checking on people in pairs. If we can help you in any way …”

  In the kitchen, Hiram’s chair scraped the floor softly, and a moment later he stood in the doorway.

  “Would you like me to fetch your pa, Miss Fennel?”

  Isabel turned her head and stared at him. Gert suppressed a smile. She could almost hear her thoughts—He talks!

  “I …”

  “It’s no trouble,” Hiram said.

  “I’m not sure where you’ll find him.” She looked down at the rug Gert had braided during her first long winter in Idaho Territory.

  “This town’s not very big. I’ll find him.”

  Gert considered jumping up and telling him how Bitsy had revealed Cyrus’s defection to the Nugget during the past few weeks but thought better of it. Hiram probably knew that, seeing as how Ethan stopped in nearly every day and told her brother all his official business.

  Hiram went silently out the back door. Stillness settled over the house. Gert sipped her tea and cast about for a new topic.

  “This shooting society,” Isabel said at last. “Can just … anyone … join?”

  Gert pulled in a sharp breath. Did that question have a right answer? After all, the club’s members included several saloon girls and the new minister’s wife; elegant Libby and slatternly Milzie. “We’re open to just about any female.”

  “And do the women supply their own firearms?”

  “Yes.” They sat in silence for a long moment, and Gert scarcely dared breathe. Was Isabel interested in joining their ranks, or was she simply probing into something she found incomprehensible?

  “I believe I should like to come next week after school is out.”

  Gert exhaled and reached deep for a smile. “You would be most welcome.”

  “I doubt Papa will approve.” Isabel frowned and set her cup on the side table. “I could buy a small gun, I daresay. They can’t be too expensive. And I’ve saved the biggest portion of my salary for more than ten years.”

  “I’m sure Mrs. Adams can help you find something suitable,” Gert murmured. Indeed, Libby had educated herself over the past few weeks, devouring catalogs from gun manufacturers. She’d told Gert ruefully that she had to limit herself to make sure she didn’t spend more time reading up on guns than she did studying the scriptures before bedtime.

  Isabel met her gaze. “And do you instruct those who’ve never …”

  “Yes, ma’am. We’re bringing all the ladies along to where they feel confident in handling their weapons.”

  “If you’re sure no one will object, then I’ll look forward to next Monday.”

  “Oh, absolutely certain. We meet at—”

  The back door burst open and Cyrus Fennel strode through the kitchen.

  “Isabel! What’s the meaning of this?”

  CHAPTER 22

  Cyrus could scarcely believe that his daughter sat in Gert Dooley’s parlor.

  “I was worried about you, Papa.” Isabel stood to face him.

  Guilt and annoyance struggled inside him, and annoyance won. After all, Isabel had gone crying for help to the woman who had set out to make a fool of him. Gert had even gotten the minister to speak out in favor of the shooting club from the pulpit. Cyrus gritted his teeth and managed to keep his voice down. “It wasn’t my intention to make you fret. We had some trouble with the harness on the stagecoach team this afternoon, and after I’d done with that, I stepped out to talk to someone.”

  “Is your business finished now?” Isabel asked. “I’m ready to go home, but it’s dark now, and I don’t wish to walk alone.”

  Was she trembling? Cyrus scowled at her. “I need to lock up the office.”

  Gert stepped forward. “Isabel saw a man hanging around the alley beside your office.”

  “So your brother told me. I’ll check to make sure no one’s lingering about.”

  Gert looked past him, and Cyrus realized Hiram had come in behind him and stood silently in the corner. The man was altogether too sneaky.

  “Hiram, we should go check on Mrs. Adams,” Gert said. “After what happened last week, I don’t like the thought of a man loitering about beneath her windows when she’s alone.”

  Hiram nodded.

  “Well, Isabel, gather your things, and we’ll head out.” Cyrus looked at Gert and forced himself to do the right thing. “Thank you for helping her, Miss Dooley. And if you’d like, Isabel and I can check on Mrs. Adams.”

  “Yes,” Isabel said, “and I’ll tell her that I’ll come around Saturday and look at those handguns she has for sale.”

  “What did you say?” Cyrus reared back and stared at his daughter.

  “I’m joining Miss Dooley’s shooting club, Papa. If you’re going to be out evenings all the time, I need to know how to handle a gun.”

  Cyrus swung his arm back. “How dare—”

  Gert pushed between them. “It’s not my club. All the ladies together have made it a success, and now we’re working with the sheriff to keep the town a little safer. To protect women and children from violence.” She spit out the last word and glared at him.

  Cyrus’s head spun. He hadn’t had that much to drink tonight, but the room seemed to sway nonetheless. “Isabel!” He looked around and focused on her with difficulty. “I forbid you to join that society.”

  Isabel straightened her shoulders. “Papa, you always used to come home in the evening. Since Mama died, you’ve stayed in town a couple of evenings a week. Fine. But if you’re going to make the Nugget your regular stopping place all week long and leave me alone at the ranch, then I need a way to protect myself. I will go to the shooting club.”

  She wrapped her shawl closer and stepped toward the front door. Cyrus’s head felt as though it would explode. Never had his daughter defied him. Never! She’d grown from a sweet little girl into an awkward, plain young woman, and now suddenly she was more than thirty years old and a virago bent on humiliating him. No wonder she’d never had any serious suitors.

  Isabel stepped toward the door, and Hiram scooted around to open it.

  “Come, Papa,” she said over her shoulder. “We’d best get over to the office and lock it up.” She looked back at Gert. “And we’ll go around and knock on Mrs. Adams’s back door. Thank you for the tea.”

  “You’re welcome,” Gert replied. “I expect I’ll see you both in church.”

  Cyrus stumbled down the front steps and followed Isabel toward the street, fuming. A dozen retorts fluttered into his foggy brain, but when he turned to look back, Hiram had closed the door.

  “I didn’t mean to call her Trudy, but it slipped out, and she got all ruffled and feisty.” Ethan leaned his crossed arms on the fence of Hiram’s corral. The moon shone down on Crinkles, Hoss, and Scout as they lazily picked mouthfuls of hay from the pile Hiram had thrown out for them.

  “She doesn’t seem mad at you now,” Hiram noted, sticking a straw in the corner of his mouth.

  “No, she got over it quick. I think it surprised her, and I promised I’d never say it again, but I need to be careful.”

  “How’s that?” Hiram’s gray blue eyes showed just beneath his hat brim.

  “So’s she won’t get mad again.”

  “Huh.”

  Ethan loved Friday nights in June. The warm breeze flowed over them. The town lay peaceful, though he’d stroll around to the Nugget and the Spur & Saddle in an hour or so, just to make sure things stayed calm. Behind them, Gert clattere
d about in the kitchen, washing up the supper dishes.

  “I sort of started thinking about her as Trudy.” Ethan put one foot up on the bottom rail of the fence and waited for Hiram to comment. When his friend remained silent, chewing his straw and watching the horses, he added, “Shouldn’t have done that. Now it’s getting hard to think of her as Gert, and when I talk to her, I want to say Trudy.”

  “My fault.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Shouldn’t have told you.”

  Ethan sighed. “I’ve known you both a long time.”

  Hiram grunted.

  “And sometimes I thought how hard she has it and how she ought to have things a little easier. Face it: life’s hard on a woman out here. They work all the time, and for what? A lot of sorrow for most of ‘em.”

  Hiram pushed his hat back and looked over at him. “That why you never got married? ‘Cause you didn’t want to offer a woman a life of hard work and little to show for it?”

  Ethan eyed him in surprise. Hiram seldom asked personal questions. “Well …”

  His friend shrugged and looked away. “We’re talking about my little sister.”

  “Are we?” Ethan asked.

  “I thought we were.”

  Ethan considered that. Was this entire conversation about Trudy? He’d thought they were talking about frontier women in general, with Trudy as an example.

  Gert. He meant Gert.

  “I s’pose it is, partly. And partly because I never …” Hiram swung around and looked at him with his eyebrows arched.

  “I never felt worthy,” Ethan said.

  Hiram settled back down against the fence again, chewing and looking. Finally he threw the straw aside. “How’s that?”

  “Well … when a man offers a woman marriage, he’s offering her his name and his property and his reputation.”

  “At least.”

  Ethan nodded. They agreed on that. Hiram had given the whole package to Violet.

  “So he’d want to be sure he could offer something worthwhile. And … well, I don’t feel I’ve got it.”

  Hiram sighed. “Are we talking about Gert now, or are you just philosophizing about what a crackbrained cowpoke you are?”

  Ethan stood up straight. “Aw, Hi, I never thought seriously about … No. No, I’m not talking about Tru—about Gert. Just, you know, life in the territory.”

  “All right then. Just checking. Because if you were getting all addlepated over Trudy—”

  “Gert. Her name is Gert.”

  “Right. But if you were getting addlepated over her, she’d be Trudy to you, wouldn’t she?”

  Ethan hesitated only an instant. “Fair enough.”

  Hiram nodded. “So. You’re saying you’re no better than a dirt clod, so far as your prospects for being a husband.”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “I couldn’t agree more, but I’m afraid our reasons would be different.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Hiram shook his head. “Tell me why you’re disqualified from settling down and being a family man, and don’t give me this ‘hard life for women’ malarkey. Their lives will be hard enough out here, whether you marry one of ‘em or not.”

  “That’s true, I guess.” Ethan glanced toward the kitchen door. He could sure use a cup of coffee right about now, but this wasn’t a conversation to have where Trudy could hear. Or Gert. Either one of them. He shook his head to clear it. “When I went away with the militia, I was young and idealistic. I was set to protect the settlers and save the territory. And to put those Indians on the reservation and make ‘em stay there.”

  Hiram gazed off over the corral, but Ethan could tell he was listening.

  “You know, my pappy tried to tell me there’d be days I wished I didn’t go. Hi, there was things that happened…. I get all worked up just thinking about it, all this time later.”

  “Some things never get better.”

  “You got that right. But I’m telling you, if I’da known! The first skirmish I was in, over by Silver City—that went all right. I don’t know as I even shot any Indians. I kept loading and firing, and … well, after a while, we’d won. But later on, after the excitement died down and we got out into the hills, chasing after them and half freezing to death and the other half starving, it wasn’t nearly so palatable. The Sheepeaters were the worst. It was war, and I knew that meant there’d be some bloodshed, but it’s a whole lot different when you get pinned down on a mountainside and the Indians set fire to the mountain below you.”

  “You never told me that.”

  Ethan shook his head. “We clawed our way out, but it’s something you never forget. And it didn’t make us feel like showing mercy when we finally caught up to ‘em.” Ethan pulled his hat off and threw it on the ground. He was shaking all over, even though it was warm. “Some things just ain’t right, no matter which side you’re on.”

  “I’m sorry, Eth. I saw a big change in you when you came back, and I knew you took it hard, but …”

  Ethan let out a long, slow breath and stooped to retrieve his hat. “Is something wrong with me to feel so strong about it seven years later?”

  “No. There’s nothing wrong with you.” Hiram’s hand came down on his shoulder. “I expect you’ve gone before the Lord about all that.”

  “Many, many times.”

  “Well …” Hiram sighed. “If you did anything wrong, He’s forgiven you. You do know that?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “God doesn’t lie. He says He’ll forgive us. He does.”

  Ethan nodded. “I’ve just felt so … I don’t know…. Not just dirty. Corrupted. It wouldn’t be fitting to tell a woman about the things I saw and did, but how can you live with another person and not tell them about things you think about so often?”

  Hiram leaned on the fence again and spoke slowly. “I’m not saying it’s a small thing, but if that’s what’s kept you from thinking of having a family … well, the right woman would understand and overlook the past, particularly knowing you’d confessed to the Lord.”

  “I s’pose.”

  “Oh, she would,” Hiram said.

  Ethan got the feeling he wasn’t talking about a hypothetical right woman.

  “Well,” he said. They stood in silence for a moment.

  The back door of the house opened, and Trudy called, “Hey, you two, your coffee’s like to go bitter it’s been simmering so long.”

  Hiram nudged him, and they walked toward the house together.

  CHAPTER 23

  Thank you for going with me.” Apphia Benton handled the reins capably as Gert settled onto the wagon seat beside her.

  “I missed Milzie, too, at the club on Thursday. I hope someone’s checked in on her, but I’m afraid we have to communicate in person until we all get telephones out here.” Gert puffed out a breath.

  “You told me she’s been faithful at the meetings,” Apphia said.

  “Perfectly. I believe it’s been good for her—and the rest of us, too. A lot of the members never see another woman for weeks at a time.”

  At the end of Main Street, Apphia clucked to the horse. The bay gelding loaned to them by Griffin Bane stepped out in a smart trot. Gert looked up at the sun. They’d be back in town before noon, and she could do her usual Saturday cleaning.

  “I haven’t been all the way out this road since last fall. It’s looking dry already, and we’ve barely passed the summer solstice.”

  “Yes, it has been dry,” Apphia said. “I wondered if you usually have more rain this time of year.”

  “Some years.” Gert pointed to a low house nestled between the brown hills. “That’s the Landrys’ place. You know Emmaline.”

  “Yes. Her whole family came to services last Sunday. I was so pleased.”

  “It surprised me, too. I didn’t expect Micah to bring them.”

  “Well, I hope to get Milzie into church as well,” Apphia said. “We had such a
good visit on Monday. But then she didn’t come Thursday….”

  Gert eyed her carefully. Could she have truly enjoyed serving tea to Milzie? Just the thought of inviting Milzie inside the Dooley house made her shudder. The smell would take as long to get rid of as the smoke stench in the emporium. Gert’s limited acquaintance with the Bentons had raised her opinion of the clergy. Both Apphia and her husband seemed to have tender hearts toward the poor and the needy.

  “I worry about her, too.” Though her own concern might not be so pure-hearted as Apphia’s, Gert spoke sincerely. She’d actually missed Milzie’s snaggletoothed smile, and the three charges she’d prepared for the Hawken Thursday morning still rested in her saddlebag. “That’s the Robinsons’ house,” she said a few minutes later. “I see Lyman out working his garden. Do you want to stop?”

  “Perhaps on the way home. I confess I’m anxious about Milzie.”

  “That’s fine.” Gert waved to Mr. Robinson. He lifted his head as the wagon passed and waved his hat.

  “How old are they?” Apphia asked.

  “Both in their sixties, I’d say. They have a wagon and a mule, but the trip into town is a major undertaking for them. I don’t know as they’d do it on a day they couldn’t shop, too.”

  “That’s a major drawback in the congregation. The parishioners are so scattered. My husband and I have tried to get around to all those who’ve come to services so far, but we’ve several ranches to visit yet.”

  “Milzie’s is the last one out here,” Gert said. “It’s around that bluff, probably a good half mile from the Robinsons’. Maybe a mile. And they can’t see each other’s houses, so I don’t know as the flagpole idea would work too well for Milzie. We couldn’t expect her to climb up the hill every morning. Although her husband’s mine is above the cabin.”

  “She told me about Frank’s passing.” Apphia shook her head. “I’m not sure how that woman has survived the years alone out here.”

  They rounded the hill that stuck out, blocking their view, and Gert looked forward, seeking the roofline of the cabin. Something didn’t look quite right. She caught her breath and seized Apphia’s wrist.