Sweetwater (20 page)

“And where did you get that information?”

“From reliable sources.” The banker gritted his teeth.

“Mr. Murphy’s daughter and mother were there. They say it was murder.”

“It would be to their advantage to say whatever would create sympathy for their situation.”

Jenny let her silence be her answer to what she considered a crude, unfeeling remark. She looked at him coolly, but went on to the next question.

“Who will benefit if the terms of Walt Whitaker’s will are not met?”

“I am not privy to all the terms of the will, but again, it’s my understanding the land will be put up for auction.”

The banker searched his memory for every bit of information he had heard about this woman. A pampered city lady, Havelshell had said, who would not last out the summer. He would bet a box of his best cigars that Havelshell was wrong. Virginia Gray was not the weak-kneed woman Havelshell painted her to be. She was pretty, she had grit, money, and influential friends back East, a tough combination to beat.

“Mr. Held, if you are finished with your assessment of me, I have a few more questions.”

The banker flushed. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I … was thinking that I had seen you someplace before.”

A small smile, not at all nice, curled the corners of her mouth.
She knew he lied.

“Have you spent time in Baltimore, Mr. Held?”

“No, I have not.”

“Well, then, I doubt we’ve met. I want to know whose herd is grazing on Stoney Creek ranch and if the owner of that herd is paying a grazing fee.”

“Mr. Havelshell is head of the Sweetwater Cattle Company. You’ll have to ask him.”

“That is not the straightforward answer I would expect from the local banker, but never mind. Did you know that Mr. Whitaker had a son?”

“I’m not surprised. Many men take their comfort with squaws when
white
women are not available.”

Jenny looked steadily at the man after the comment. Her clear green eyes were unwavering and filled with disgust.

“I had expected more of a man of your obvious education.” Her voice was cool and crisp. She stood and with an obstinate tilt to her chin looked at him as he got to his feet. “Good day, Mr. Held.” Without offering her hand, she opened the door to confront the teller who had obviously been listening. He scurried back to his stool in the teller’s cage.

Jenny was so intent on her angry thoughts when she left the bank that she had walked the two blocks to the post office in the stage station before she realized it. She chided herself for believing that the banker would be a man of integrity. He was a small-minded … jackass! She had no doubt that he was hand in glove with Havelshell.

“Well … hel … lo.” Harvey scrambled out from behind the counter when Jenny stepped inside the door of the building where the stage had stopped the day they arrived.

“This
is
the post office, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am. Two years come fall.”

“Is there mail for Miss Virginia Gray?”

“Virginia Gray? Oh, yes, ma’am. There was. Mr. Havelshell picked it up for you.” Harvey’s grin disappeared when he saw her mouth snap shut, her eyes narrow and an angry flush cover her face.

“What? You gave my mail to someone without my authorization to do so?” Anger raised her voice to near shouting. “
That
is against the law! Mail is the private property of the addressee. I’ll have you removed as postmaster.” She didn’t know if she could or not, but it sounded good when she said it.

“I … I … he said—” Harvey stammered.

“Do you take your orders from Mr. Havelshell or the Postmaster General? Get it back. Right now!” She pounded her fist on the counter. “If the seal is broken on one piece of my mail, you’ll answer to the postal authorities.”

“I … can’t … leave now.” His eyes pleaded for understanding.

“Why not? You broke the law by giving my mail to a person who is almost a total stranger to me. You can break it again by closing this office and getting it back.” Jenny knew nothing about laws regarding the mail, and evidently the postmaster knew less because he didn’t argue the point.

Attracted by the angry female voice, several men had come to stand in the doorway. Harvey spoke to one of them.

“Wesley, could ya … stay here while I to go … to Mr. Havelshell’s?”

“Reckon so.” A stoop-shouldered old man with a stained white mustache pushed his way through the door. He was plainly amused. “Get yore tail in a crack, Harvey?”

The man, whose gray head came only to Jenny’s shoulder, looked up with twinkling eyes and winked in such a manner that she couldn’t possibly be offended. If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have smiled.

“Just stay here, Wesley, and don’t mess with anythin’.”

“What is your name?” Jenny demanded as Harvey moved by her to go to the door.

“Harvey Moore.”

“Mr. Moore, I’ll be in the mercantile. Bring my mail there.
All
of it. And never give my mail to anyone unless you have written permission from me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Head up, back straight, Jenny marched past the group of gawkers on the porch and headed up the street toward the mercantile.
Was everyone in this town a dimwit?

Two women in calico dresses and sunbonnets came toward her as she stepped up onto the walk fronting the store. Each of them was carrying a basket on her arm. As they approached they moved over and stopped in front of Jenny.

“Yo’re the Indian teacher, ain’t ya?” The older of the two had a hard, weathered face.

“Yes. I’m Virginia Gray.”

“Ain’t ya got no shame a’tall?”

Before Jenny could gather her wits to answer, the other woman demanded:

“Are ya a Christian woman?”

“I try to be.”

“If ya air, what’er ya doin’ out there with them heathens with no menfolk about? I ain’t knowin’ what folks do in them big cities, but out here no
decent
woman is goin’ to do such and have herself talked about.”

Jenny stifled the retort that came to her mind. Instead, she smiled sweetly—too sweetly, if the women were at all observant.

“I’m a God-fearing woman, ma’am. I’m doing the Lord’s work by helping to place the feet of those poor misguided
heathens
on the path of righteousness. They, too, are God’s children.”

“It ain’t right that them Indian kids has a teacher and ours don’t.”

“You don’t have a teacher here in Sweetwater? I’m surprised to hear it. This is such a lovely little town, I’d think any number of teachers would want to come and settle here.” Jenny gave no indication of the contempt she felt for the attitude of these women.

“They want to come all right! They just ain’t got the grit to stay. ’Sides all they send is sissy-pants know-it-alls that ain’t got sense enough to pound sand down a rathole.” The woman let out a snort of disgust.

“Humm …” Jenny put her finger to her cheek as if in deep study. “You do have a problem. Well. It’s quite a distance to Stoney Creek, but your children are welcome to attend classes there.” She smiled brightly, ignoring the horrified looks that came over their faces.

“Ah …” The older woman almost strangled. “Ya think we’d let our younguns go to school with savages? Nosiree bobtail!”

“I’d not let ya teach my younguns if ya come to town after ya been hobnobbin’ like ya been doin’ with them red-skin devils. A woman what ain’t got no shame ain’t got no place ’round decent younguns.”

“And a woman who doesn’t have the brains of a … goose, shouldn’t be allowed to produce, ah … younguns. Good day, ladies.” Jenny stepped around them.

“Well, I never!”

“What’d she mean?”

“I ain’t knowin’, but she ain’t better be gettin’ so smarty with me.”

Jenny heard the remarks of outrage as she strode down the walk and into the store. Her head was beginning to throb. She could hardly wait to load her family back in the wagon and go … home.

She made her way through the maze of barrels, crates and tables piled with goods. She had never seen such a jumbled assortment—dress goods and bonnets next to shovels and barrels of chains and dried apples.

“Here’s Jenny.” Cassandra and Beatrice each had a stick of candy “Compliments of—” Cassandra waved the stick toward the man behind the counter. “He wasn’t going to fill our order until he saw the money, but I told him that you were one of the richest women in Baltimore.”

“Cassandra! I declare!”

Jenny glanced at the clerk. “I’m far from being the richest woman in Baltimore. But if you need to be assured that we can pay before you load the goods in the wagon, check with Mr. Held at the bank. Just don’t ever expect us to trade with you again.”

“No, ma’am. I’d not do that. It was … just … well, the amount the lady asked for—” The clerk’s Adam’s apple was jumping up and down, and his worried eyes were swinging back and forth between Jenny, Granny and an amused Colleen, who leaned against the table holding the dress goods.

“Granny, may I speak with you and Colleen privately for a moment?” Jenny led the way to the other side of the store.

“Every place I’ve been I’m met with hostility. I don’t want to come back here for a long, long time. Let’s double up on all the basic supplies if we have to hire a dray wagon to take them to Stoney Creek.”

“That ort to make the little runt happy,” Colleen said dryly.

“Was he rude to you?”

“Not after Cass told him how rich ya were. He ’bout peed his drawers.” Colleen grinned.

Jenny sighed. “That girl!”

“If’n it’s what ya want,” Granny said. “We’ll make the little runt happy.”

Back at the counter Granny issued orders like a drill sergeant.

“We want two hundred pounds of flour … in tins.”

The clerk looked quickly at Jenny, then spoke to Granny.

“Ma’am, it comes in double canvas sacks, but I can sell you a large tin.”

“With a order this big, ya can give us the tin.” She waited until he nodded his head before she continued. “Hundred-pound sack a sugar, fifty pounds a coffee beans, fifty pounds salt, twenty pounds a black tea, tin a soda, three gallon jugs vinegar, fifty-pound bag cornmeal—”

Jenny moved away from the counter as the clerk scurried to fill the order. With Cassandra’s help, she picked up every slate, reader, speller and any books she could use in the classroom and piled them on a separate table.

“Colleen, help me pick out some dress goods for the girls. Oh, I wonder if he has one of Mr. Singer’s sewing machines.”

Ten minutes later she was interrupted by Harvey Moore, the postmaster coming into the store.

“Miss …? Ah, here’s your mail.”

Jenny took the three envelopes. “Are you sure this is all you gave to Mr. Havelshell?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Three letters.”

Jenny took a paper and a pencil from her bag. She wrote her name on the paper and gave it to the postmaster.

“This is my signature. Don’t give my mail to anyone unless they have a note from me. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He hesitated and Jenny felt a little sorry for him, but not enough to tell him what he wanted to hear until he asked.

“Ya’ll not … report me? I’d … lose my job.”

“I’ll not report you this time. I would hope that from now on you would take your responsibilities more seriously.”

“I will. I certainly will.” He scurried out the door.

Jenny examined the canned goods they were buying to make sure the lids on the cans were not sealed with lead. A chemist back in Baltimore had told her about the danger of lead poisoning.

“Do you have medicated paper?” she asked the flustered clerk and watched his face redden.

“Yes, ma’am. Comes in packets of five hundred sheets for a dollar.” He avoided looking at her.

“Back East Gayetty’s Medicated Paper sells for fifty cents for five hundred sheets.”

“Well … ah … we don’t have much call for it—”

“Really?” Jenny wrinkled her nose. “We’ll take six packets.”

“Margaret and Charles used that,” Cassandra said aside to Colleen. “They made me and Beatrice use pages out of a catalog.”

By the time the shopping was complete. Beatrice was tired and whining for something to eat. Granny was also tired and Colleen moved a stool out from behind the counter for her to sit on.

When Jenny asked Cassandra to check the addition on the bill, the clerk appeared to be insulted. His indignation turned to embarrassment when she found an error.

“If beans are seven cents a pound why did you charge us two dollars and fifteen cents for thirty pounds?”

“This,” Jenny said indicating the pile of books, slates and strings of counting beads, “is to go on a separate bill. Mr. Havelshell does have an account here, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Charge it to his account.”

“But—”

“Charge it to his account,” Jenny said firmly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ll get the wagon.” Colleen left the store grinning broadly.

With the supplies loaded, the girls sitting in the back, each happily licking a candy stick, Jenny helped Granny up onto the wagon seat. She climbed up and Colleen took up the reins. Jenny had just settled herself on the seat beside Granny when she saw Trell coming toward them on horseback.

She felt a wild fluttering in the region of her heart, and a smile hovered about her lips. She opened her mouth to call a greeting when she noticed that he had eyes only for
Colleen!
He came alongside the wagon, tipped his hat,
winked
at … Colleen and rode on.

Jenny was stunned!

Being snubbed by the man, who just a few days before had held her in his arms and kissed her, cut her to the quick.

“Wasn’t that Mr. McCall?” Granny asked.

Both Jenny and Colleen seemed incapable of speech.

“It looked like him, but it wasn’t him,” Cassandra declared.

“What do you mean?” Jenny’s mind stumbled.

“That man wasn’t Trell.”

“I’ve got eyes. I can see perfectly clearly. It was
him
.”

“Sure as shootin’ looked like him,” Colleen said tersely.

“It … wasn’t … him,” the child insisted.

“I say it was. But suit yourself. There’s no changing your mind once you’ve made it up.” In her disappointment, Jenny spoke more sharply than she’d ever spoken to either of her sisters.