Miss Phipps and the Cattle Baron (13 page)

Although Trudy was not Priscilla's daughter,
Priscilla felt a little ripple of pride. After Trudy sat down,
Priscilla said, "Sadly, the women here are not exercising that
right, and it's hurting the suffrage movement all around the
country. For example, just last year, a letter from a Wyoming woman
named Mrs. Coggswell was read in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives as an example of why enfranchising women was
pointless."

A woman standing off to the side stepped
forward, and said, "I thought you were for women voting. Now you're
telling us it's pointless."

"Oh no, no, no. I'm only using it as an
example to show how important it is for us all to exercise out
right to vote." Priscilla picked up a copy of the women's letter.
"Mrs. Coggswell's letter is long, so I'll just read these lines, in
which she wrote:
'I have talked to many women with regard as to
whether they wished to vote, and without exception, they
unanimously voted it a bore and dread election time.'
The
letter was signed, 'Respectfully, Mrs. W.M. Coggswell.' Anyone
interested can read the letter in its entirety, which is in the
first issue of
The Town Tattler
. The point is, because women
here are not voting, other state governments are using it as an
excuse to keep from enfranchising women elsewhere."

She passed the letter around the room. "It's
not only important to exercise our right to vote," she said, "but
to also vote our minds. That's the only way we can help secure for
our sisters around the country the right to vote. There's an
election for mayor of Cheyenne coming up, and that will be a
perfect time for all of us to get out and cast our votes."

A few claps started, with more picking
up.

Priscilla invited questions, which brought
many, but when those seemed to be exhausted, she motioned to Trudy,
and said," I'd like to introduce Trudy Whittington, who has
recently become interested in suffrage. She'd like to tell you a
little bit about her father, who will be running for mayor in the
upcoming election. Go ahead, Trudy."

Trudy stepped forward, and with an air of
confidence, said to the women, "My father is Lord Adam Whittington,
and he's a good man who has lived in Cheyenne for many years, and
he wants to make Cheyenne a better place for all of us to
live—"

"Young woman," a voice rose from the back of
the room. "Is Lord Whittington not a cattleman who owns one of the
mansions on 17th Street?"

"Well, yes ma'am," Trudy said.

"Then he's no better than the rest. He and
his kind send out their agents and range cowboys to threaten and
intimidate those of us who are trying to make a living off the
land. But we got our land fair and square from the government, and
they have no claim to it."

"My father would never threaten or intimidate
anyone," Trudy said, her voice growing high with emotion. "He's a
God-fearing man."

"He's a cattleman," the women shot back. "The
lot of 'em don't fear nothing."

Another woman called out, "Mabel's right.
Three weeks ago a bunch of those cowboys came ridin' in and tore
down our fence and ran their cattle over our fields, and the law
turned a blind eye on them because the lawmen are on their
side."

"Ladies, ladies," Priscilla tried to
interject, but the women were too caught up in the furor to hear
her. When the voices finally died down, the woman who'd been
addressed as Mabel stood, and said in a voice intended to be heard,
"The Homestead Act says we have to live on our places five years to
get title, so the cattlemen aim to drive us off before then so our
land will go back to the government and it'll be open rangeland
again."

"She's right," another woman called out. "Our
barn burned to the ground a couple of months back and we know it
was the dirty work of cattlemen because we're raisin' sheep and
they want us out of here. But we have just as much right, more so,
in fact than them, because we hold title to our land, whereas
they're squatters with no claim to the land they're runnin' their
cattle on 'cause it's government land."

The room burst with grumbles and guffaws and
angry words.

Mabel raised her hands to get the floor.
"Miss Phipps is right," she said. "We better get out and vote this
time around or we'll have a cattleman for mayor and it won't be
long before the whole bunch will be runnin' us out of the
territory."

A leather-faced woman stood. "They won't be
able to run us off much longer," she said, "because I heard the
menfolk saying there's a law passed early this year that says
nobody can interfere with settlers, and President Cleveland's ready
to sign an enforcement proclamation starting next year to protect
settlers moving west across public land."

Trudy hoisted herself on top of the copy
table and stood.
"You don't understand,"
she said, trying to
talk over the heated voices. "My father won't let anyone run you
off. He's a member of the Cheyenne Club and he knows all the
cattlemen around here and he'll make sure they don't do any of the
things you said. Because he's a law abiding man, he'll also see
that no one bothers any of you. That's why he should be elected
mayor."

A wiry woman with a ruddy complexion called
out, "He's not one of us, girl, he's one of them, and don't you
forget it. I'm sorry he's your pa, but that's the way it is. All I
have to say is, our votes mean something, so it's up to us to get
out and vote. We won't be going against out husbands either,
because they're the ones fighting off the cattlemen."

"Please! You just don't understand!"
Trudy hollered.
"You're all wrong!"

"We understand alright," a short plump woman
with a round face said. "You and your pa and all the rest of them
cattle people are the ones who don't understand. We're hard working
folks who gave up everything we owned to come west and claim our
land, and we did it by crossing the plains in wagon trains in the
heat of summer with barely enough food and water to survive. We ate
dust the whole way, and around every bend we didn't know if Indians
were waiting to kill us. Some of us got sick on the way. Others
died. But we didn't know then that our worse enemies were not the
heat, or the Indians, or the lack of food and water. They was the
cattlemen who aim to run us off our land. Go home, girl. Go back to
your mansion on 17th Street. You don't belong here among us."

Mabel shot to her feet. "I say we all do like
Josephine Hoffman and have our husbands put ads in
The Town
Tattler
. Miss Phipps is doing us a real service, spreading the
word for women to vote. It's the only way we'll be sure that the
likes of Lord Whittington or his kind don't get elected." Hands
clapped and eager voices rose in agreement.

Priscilla couldn't believe the way things had
taken a turn. Although she hadn't intended to take a stance,
tonight's meeting clearly put her on the side of the homesteaders,
especially if these women's husbands started taking out ads. And if
what the women said about the cattlemen were true, and there was no
reason to believe the women lied, Adam, having one of the larger
herds in the territory, would be one of them.

But she didn't want to think about that right
now. All she wanted to think of was being with Adam tonight and all
the titillating things he intended to do when they were alone and
naked in the bedroom suite, with the big bathtub filled with warm
water.

Imagining the meeting over and Adam striding
through the doorway to take her away, she glanced at the door, and
to her mortification, saw him standing just inside. Wearing jeans
and a buckskin shirt, and looking like he'd just come riding in off
the range, he stood glaring at her, eyes narrowed, hat clasped
between tense fingers.

She didn't have to wonder how long he'd been
standing there or how much he'd heard to know what he was thinking.
The hard, cold look in his eyes said it all.

CHAPTER SIX

'She gives her orders and has her way

as absolutely as her father did.'

—
Spanish ambassador De
Feria, in 1559

"Trudy!"
Adam said in a commanding
voice, bringing all conversation to a halt. "Get in your buggy and
go home immediately."

"Yes, Father," Trudy said, obediently.
Lowering herself from the table, Trudy pressed her way between the
women and scurried past her father.

Adam said nothing more, just stood, arms
folded, staring at Priscilla.

Amid the rustle of voices, Mabel cupped her
hand around a woman's ear and said, in a hushed tone, "That's him.
Lord Whittington."

"The one who's running for mayor?" the other
women said, her voice quiet, but audible to others around her.

Mabel nodded. "He's the one. Probably here to
start trouble. I wouldn't want to be in Miss Phipps shoes right
now. He's madder'n a hornet."

"He's that alright," the other women said.
"I'm leaving before there's trouble." The woman turned, slipped
past Adam and left, followed by several others.

"Please," Priscilla called after them, while
also addressing the remaining women in the room. "You folks don't
need to run off. I'd like to talk about the kinds of ads we can
offer."

She glared at Adam, who stood immobile as a
wooden Indian. He had no right standing there, glowering at her
like he was ready to chew nails and spit them at her. It was her
meeting, her readers, her building. She had not taken a political
stance, and he had no justification for the way he was behaving.
But it did make her wonder if he'd been a party to any of the acts
of violence against the homesteaders that had been brought up at
the meeting. From the lethal look on his face, she could imagine
him being capable of it.

Mabel moved to stand beside her, fixed her
gaze on Adam, and said, "If you make trouble for Miss Phipps, Lord
Whittington, you'd better be ready to take on a whole mob of women
because we're all behind her. She's opened our eyes to things like
exercising our right to vote, and we know now we can use that to
keep men like you from getting elected and running us off." Three
other women crowded around Priscilla to stare at Adam.

Priscilla glanced around at the women, and
said, "It's alright, ladies. I'm sure Lord Whittington isn't here
to cause trouble. In fact, he was just leaving."

Adam didn't budge. Nor did he respond. He
just continued to stand and glare at Priscilla. Several more women
left, and before long, only Edith, Libby, Mary Kate, Abigail and
the women standing with Priscilla remained. Deciding that Adam was
there to stay until the room cleared, she said to the women, "I'll
be having another meeting next week, so we can continue then. Thank
you all for coming, and I look forward to discussing with your
husbands the kinds of ads they want to place in
The Town
Tattler
. And don't forget to bring recipes and stories and bits
and pieces for the Tattler column. Not outright gossip, but mainly
what everyone is doing, and who they are doing it with."

After a brief leave-taking, all of the women
were gone, leaving Priscilla to face Adam's wrath. But she was
angry too. Planting her hands on her hips, she said, "You have no
right coming in here, driving those women away. They were here on
my invitation, and it was a meeting open only to women."

Adam unfolded his arms, but made no move
toward her, as he said, "I came to tell you I was back, and what I
found was my daughter on a table, yelling at a mob of angry women
who'd like to see me run out of town on a rail, and you promoting
the idea by saying nothing."

"You were not here when I gave my
presentation about the importance of voting," Priscilla countered.
"What you heard when you came in was women exchanging information
about what the cattlemen have been doing to intimidate them. I only
intended to alert the women to the need to get out and vote."

Adam shut the door so hard it made Priscilla
jump with a start.
"And you bloody well got your point
across!"
he bellowed.
"Before you're through, every blooming
woman in the territory will be out there voting against
me!"

Priscilla refused to be intimidated by Adam's
loud words and bad-tempered behavior. "If they vote against you,
it's their right. I'm not responsible for the way they vote.
Besides, the meeting was open to all women, not just the
homesteaders wives. The fact that no cattlemen's wives showed up is
not my fault. But maybe it's best they didn't because they might
have learned the truth about what their husbands' agents and range
cowboys are up to while their husbands are doing whatever it is
they do behind the closed doors to the private rooms of the
Cheyenne Club."

The muscles rippled up from Adam's clenched
jaws as he pointed to the closed door and yelled
, "You believed
every damn thing those women said!"

Priscilla glared at him. "You do not need to
shout, Adam. My hearing is quite sound. And I had no reason to
believe any of the women lied. Why would a woman claim that
cattlemen cut their fence and ran cattle across their fields if
they didn't?"

"Because cattlemen are being blamed for
things they don't do, and women like you believe it and keep the
trumped-up stories going." Adam's voice rose to a shout again, as
he added,
"Next you'll probably print it all up in your silly
little scandal sheet!"

Priscilla was so mad, she felt as if her eyes
were bulging when shook her clenched fist at Adam, and shouted,
"So now The Town Tattler's nothing but a silly little scandal
sheet!
Well, Mr. High-and-Mighty-Cattle-Baron, we'll soon see
which newspaper the folks around here buy. And since
The Town
Tattler
is a scandal sheet, I might as well print the gossip
about what really goes on in those private rooms in the Cheyenne
Club. I've heard a whole range of talk... men entertaining women
who are not their wives, high-stake gambling when gambling's
supposed to be forbidden. With luck, and a little snooping, I might
even be able to include the men's names in the account. I imagine
your cattlemen's wives would be more than happy to tell all about
their rival's husbands. In fact, I can almost guarantee it. Now, if
you'll excuse me, I'd like to get on with the next edition of my
scandal sheet. You found your way in, you can find your way
out."