Daisies In The Wind (13 page)

Every citizen in the room knew that. So they
hunkered down in their seats, clapped their gazes intently on the
tall figure at the podium, and listened.

“Seems like some people at this meeting—maybe
most people—have made up their minds about our newest citizen
already,” Wolf said, his cool glance sweeping the room as he spoke,
resting for a moment on each sober face. “If it were up to some
folks here,” he went on, with a purposeful glance at Myrtle, “we’d
just take a vote about running Miss Rebeccah Rawlings out of town,
and then do it. Right?”

“Better safe than sorry, don’t you think,
Wolf?” Waylon Pritchard called out, still smarting from the
set-down the arrogant Miss Rawlings had delivered to him after her
arrival in town.

Wolf studied him, his expression
unreadable.

“If you really want to be safe rather than
sorry, Waylon, I reckon I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t we
just string the lady up right now, tonight, and be done with it?
That way we’ll be sure as sure can be that she can’t cause any
trouble for us, the good, law-abiding citizens of Powder
Creek.”

Waylon swallowed, his thick Adam’s apple
bobbing up and down. “I didn’t say we ought to do that,” he
protested.

Across the room Coral sat beside Molly Duke,
listening intently. When Waylon glanced uncertainly over to catch
her eye, she threw him a look of disgust.

“Hold on, now, Wolf,” Ernest Duke broke in
again, getting laboriously to his feet. He strode up to the podium,
unable to keep silent a moment longer. “No one said anything about
stringing anyone up. We all know there’s no cause for
that—leastways not yet—”

“Maybe this town isn’t looking for a sheriff
to uphold the law. Maybe what folks want is a vigilante leader,”
Wolf interrupted. “Someone who’ll stand by whenever the good people
of Powder Creek feel like taking the law into their own hands.
Someone who’ll do whatever is popular. If that’s the case, you
folks had better find yourself another man. I’m stepping down and
moving on. Because that’s not the kind of town I want to live in,
or raise my son in, or serve.”

“Don’t be hasty, there, Wolf,” the mayor
exclaimed as frantic conversation sprang up throughout the
assembly. “No one said anything about vigilantes—”

“Mayor,” Caitlin broke in from the back row,
“this meeting is all about vigilante justice, and you know it. I
thought the Montana Territory—and especially Powder Creek—had moved
beyond those days. What do we have a sheriff for, and a jail, and a
judge coming through once a month regular, if every time some
nincompoop feels worried about a stranger, the whole town turns
into a lynching party? Stuff and nonsense! No wonder Wolf is ready
to resign.”

Doc Wilson waved his hand in the air. “I
agree with Wolf and Caitlin. Do we want vigilante groups running
our town, or do we want the law? Wolf Bodine is the law. And until
this Rawlings woman does something wrong, it seems to me, the law
can’t touch her. And neither can we.”

“Are you saying that we should just sit
around and wait for her to rob the bank or the mill payroll or the
stage? Or to run down some innocent child while fleeing the
law—just like her pa and his gang did?” Myrtle countered, stamping
her foot.

“I say we wait and see what’s going to happen
and trust our sheriff to look out for keeping the peace and
preserving law and order in this town,” Doc Wilson responded,
glaring at her, his eyes fierce brown specks above his handlebar
mustache. “So far as I know, the woman has done nothing wrong.”

“You’re right, Doc,” Caitlin answered,
wagging a finger in the air. “And if having a disreputable parent
is cause for being branded dishonest, then a lot of folks in this
town could be in a heap of trouble.” She popped to her feet. “Why,
Simon Jones, wasn’t your father thrown in jail about three times
every week for being drunk and disturbing the peace?” she demanded
of a short, bandy-legged rancher, who flushed a deep crimson.
“Well, you turned out just the opposite, didn’t you? No one here’s
ever seen you touch a drop or step a peep out of line. And that’s
sure to your credit. And you, Myrtle, didn’t we hear tell that your
pa was accused of jumping a claim over at Last Chance Gulch in
sixty-four?”

“Nothing was ever proved!”

“No, it wasn’t, but I hear folks sure
whispered a lot. Still, that didn’t stop you from becoming one of
our leading citizens. Why, you’re head of the town social committee
and a very important member of the school board. Which reminds me,
I think you should be spending more time thinking about who’s going
to teach our children this winter than worrying your head over some
young woman all alone in the world who so far ain’t caused a peep
of trouble—except to kill that no-good Scoop Parmalee, who was
trying to rob the stagecoach. Only yesterday folks were admiring
her, but today, because we know her name, half the town wants to
run her out of the Territory. Makes me ashamed to be a citizen of
Powder Creek!”

Everyone started talking at once, arguing,
gesturing, raising their voices to be heard over the growing din.
Myrtle Lee Anderson, furious at the turn of events and the shift in
mood begun by the sheriff’s comments, not to mention the low blow
Caitlin had inflicted by bringing up the despicable and completely
ridiculous charges against her very own father, grabbed up the
gavel and began to pound on the podium.

“Well, maybe we’ve got no call
yet
to be sending that outlaw’s daughter hightailing it out of town,
but I’ll eat a rattlesnake before I consent to considering her for
the schoolteacher’s position, which Caitlin Bodine wants to
do!”

At this another silence fell over the
room.

“That true, Caitlin?” Abigail Pritchard
inquired, her wide brow puckered with concern. “I’ve got nothing
personal against the girl, you understand, not so far as anything
I’ve heard here tonight, but to consider her as the new teacher
...”

Wolf took command of the meeting once more,
holding up a hand for silence, and getting it. “I telegraphed some
inquiries back east about Miss Rawlings, and I think you folks
might be interested in hearing what I found out. Are you?”

A chorus of voices shouting “Hell, yes”
followed. Wolf nodded and waited until the room had quieted again.
Surveying the faces fixed expectantly upon him, most of them
frowning or thoughtful, all of them concerned, he noticed a
stranger seated on the far right of the back row. A young man,
perhaps in his twenties, black-haired and clean-shaved, dressed in
a finely cut dark suit and handsome derby. Briefly Wolf wondered
what the man was doing here at the meeting. Being a stranger, not a
citizen, he therefore had no stake in the discussion.

Taking in the man’s neat attire and quiet
demeanor, Wolf surmised that perhaps he had heard talk of it in the
saloon and decided to see what all the commotion was about.

He could be a gambler, Wolf decided. But the
dark-haired young man didn’t have the typical slick oiliness and
darting eyes of many frontier gamblers Wolf had met. Still, though
he watched the proceedings quietly, his hands folded in his lap,
Wolf’s shrewd gaze detected something bright and exuberant gleaming
in his eyes, something that would bear watching.

The room had grown as quiet as it ever would.
Rain began to pelt the hotel windows. The storm in all its fury
would be here soon.

Wolf raised his voice so that he could be
heard over the rain and wind. “It is a fact that there’s nothing
known about Rebeccah Rawlings to make anyone suspect she’s
dishonest—setting aside the name of her father. But there are a few
more facts I’ve learned about her, folks—facts which might make
some think she could be a damned fine schoolteacher, just what
Powder Creek needs. She attended a fancy private school called Miss
Elizabeth Wright’s Academy for Young Ladies. It’s in Boston. And
she graduated with honors and earned a teaching certificate.
According to the school’s records, Miss Rawlings excelled at
literature, history, and music, and she is more than competent in
mathematics and geography. Moreover she’s had two years teaching
experience at the academy, and that’s two more years than that
brand-new untried teacher we last hired had—the one who turned tail
and ran after the holdup attempt.”

“But can she be trusted with our children?”
Emily Brady asked, worrying at her lower lip. Her son, Joey, was
Billy Bodine’s best friend, and she wanted to support Wolf and
Caitlin, but it was her niece, Lottie Mason, who’d been run down by
the Rawlings gang, and Emily Brady was still deeply affected by
that tragedy. “We don’t know what kind of a young woman she is,
after all. A teacher must set an example of high moral values, as
well as educate the youngsters. She must have a trustworthy
character.”

“I spent the better part of a day with her
yesterday, and she struck me as a fine young lady,” Caitlin
responded, meeting Emily’s worried gaze directly. “Of course that’s
just my opinion. For heaven’s sake, why doesn’t the school-board
committee interview her and see for themselves? Then they can make
a recommendation.”

Nods all around followed this suggestion.
Some doubters still shook their heads, but Culley Pritchard said,
“Makes sense. Personally I say give the girl a chance. Why don’t we
take a vote?”

Wolf banged the gavel. “All in favor of the
school-board committee interviewing Miss Rebeccah Rawlings for the
teacher’s position, say Aye!”

“Aye!” came a resounding chorus, immediately
followed by a clap of thunder.

“All against, say No!”

“No!” shouted out fewer than a dozen voices,
Myrtle Lee Anderson’s strident one chief among them.

The slim stranger in the back row slipped out
of the room.

Wolf noted his departure, then returned his
gaze to the assembly. “Motion passed. Let’s everyone get home to
our families before this storm takes hold.”

In less time than it takes to hitch a wagon
the room was emptied. Only Wolf and Caitlin remained. “Nice work,
son. I’m proud of you.”

Wolf stared a moment at the silver badge on
the table before pinning it back onto his vest. “You’re the one who
swayed them,” he told her. “I don’t think Miss Rawlings will have
any trouble convincing the board that she’d make a fine teacher—if
she chooses to do it.”

Wolf saw again that sensuous, fine-boned face
with the upturned violet eyes and wide, generous mouth. He
remembered her graceful carriage, her sweeping black hair, and the
full, rounded breasts, which had been so temptingly outlined by her
nightgown. And he again heard her voice, low-timbred and velvety, a
voice that heated a man’s blood. He had a hunch that Rebeccah
Rawlings could be quite sweetly persuasive if she chose to be.
Misgivings ate at him as he led Caitlin out of the hotel and into
the wagon beneath a tumbling silver rain.

He only hoped that they both hadn’t made a
big mistake in defending Rebeccah Rawlings so strenuously to the
town.

What did they really know about her? She was
pretty, a damn good shot, independent, and closemouthed. He
frowned. And damn stubborn to boot.

But remembering that stoic pride, the rigid
insistence on not being beholden to anyone, and the pain in her
eyes when he’d told her some folks might not want her in Powder
Creek, Wolf sensed there was a great deal more going on inside Miss
Rebeccah Rawlings than she let on.

But it was none of his business, he reminded
himself. He couldn’t afford to waste his time thinking about a
woman who was no good for him, or for Billy, a woman who seemed to
carry along her own special parcel of trouble. He’d had one like
that before, and lived to regret it. No matter how attractive or
intriguing Rebeccah Rawlings might be, Wolf had no intention of
allowing himself to fall into the same she-trap twice. Whatever it
took, he would steer clear of any woman marked Trouble.

* * *

Billy Bodine glanced apprehensively at the
ominous sky. It was thick with clouds and growing blacker by the
moment. Anyone could see that a bad storm was brewing, and the
sudden slash of blue-white lightning, followed closely by an
explosion of thunder, almost made him turn back.

Guilt stabbed at him, as well as trepidation.
Pa and Gramma thought he was at home tonight. They had warned him
about the storm and instructed him to keep an eye on the house and
barn and to do the spelling lesson Caitlin had asked Mary Adams to
write up for him. Gramma was particular about education, and it was
driving her plumb crazy that there was no teacher in Powder Creek,
so she made up lessons for him now and again, just to keep his
brain sharp, she said.

But Joey had dared him to come along spying
on the lady outlaw living on the Peastone place. Joey’d said that
if Billy didn’t come with him, he was a yellow-livered chicken.

He’d had no choice!

Still Billy had waited a while, done his
spelling, wrestled briefly with his conscience, and then at last
saddled up Blue. He’d called Sam to heel and ridden off in the
direction of the Peastone ranch, determined to find out what that
Rebeccah Rawlings was really up to. Then he could tell his father
all about it and show Joey that he was no chicken. But Billy hadn’t
counted on the storm, at least not on it blowing up quite so
quickly and ferociously as it did.

He met Joey near a rise covered with
bluestem, less than a quarter of a mile from the Peastone cabin.
Spruce trees and tamaracks shook all around them beneath the
gathering wind and eerie gray-yellow light. Tumbleweed and dust
blew every which way.

“You ready?” the other boy challenged. Joey
Brady was a year older than Billy, taller and stockier, with curly,
carrot-colored hair, a good-natured, freckled face, and ears that
stuck out like an elf’s.