Miss Phipps and the Cattle Baron (23 page)

"A beautiful old shoe that I'm certain would
fit me quite perfectly."

"If you mean our lifestyles, we are miles
apart in fitting them together—"

"I'm not talking about our lifestyles," Adam
said. "I'm talking about the way a woman fits a man when she's
fresh out of a tub of warm water, and he's fully aroused, and he
carries her to bed and they come together. I'm certain we'd be a
perfect fit. And the fact that no man discovered you before I came
along is their loss and my gain. You fill me with joy. You make me
a better man. And you are desirable in a way that no other woman
has ever been for me."

Before Priscilla could argue against his
points and belittle herself, as she had a penchant for doing, he
took her in his arms and kissed her soundly. And she threw her arms
around him and kissed him back. Kissed him with eagerness and
zeal.

Stemming his desires, Adam broke the kiss and
looked around to see if anyone was watching and saw several members
of the Stock Grower's Association staring at them. It made no
difference to him what they thought of him, but they could cause
trouble for Priscilla if they had a mind to. Priscilla looked in
the direction of his gaze, and said, "Who are they?"

"Just some cattlemen."

"They're glaring at us. Surely they don't
think I'm a threat in any way. I'm simply a woman putting out a
single page paper. A silly little scandal sheet, as you pointed
out."

"Don't worry about them," Adam said. "And I
apologize for calling
The Town Tattler
that. I was angry and
I didn't mean it. You've done well by yourself. It seems the women
here, including my mother, view it as the Gospel."

"Have you read it?" Priscilla asked.

"Well... no," Adam admitted.

Priscilla pinned him with a pair of
challenging hazel eyes. "Are you not interested in what I've put
together? Or what Trudy has written?"

Adam looked at her, contrite. "Yes, but I've
been so busy preparing my campaign speech that I haven 't had
time."

"Then I suggest you take the time," Priscilla
said, miffed. "There could be something in it that gives those men
over there a reason to be suspicious and hostile towards me."

"I'll read it when I get a chance," Adam
said. "Meanwhile, I'd better get ready to deliver my speech, but
I'll come by your place tonight. We have some long overdo business
to tend to."

"No, we don't," Priscilla said. "I'll hear
your speech, but before I'll feel confident that you've truly
changed your views on things that matter to me, some time will have
to pass." She looked beyond him, and her face darkened.

Adam turned and saw the outspoken woman from
the Town Tattler
meeting who'd defended Priscilla against
him the night he arrived during the meeting. The look on the
woman's face said it all. "I'd better leave you," he said. "That
women is shooting visual daggers at us."

"Yes," Priscilla replied, "she most certainly
is."

As soon as Adam disappeared into the crowd,
Priscilla went to stake out a spot from which to watch him deliver
his speech. She hoped he'd be convincing, because she wanted a
reason to respect him and love him and have him come to her and
bring to fruition the images of his words. As she looked over the
crowd she saw, some distance from the speaker's platform, a
grouping of what were obviously homesteaders and farmers, all
dressed in their best, yet falling far short of the latest in
fashions. But closer in, the gathering of people were clearly
cattlemen and their wives and families.

She waited while several candidates gave
their presentations—empty words designed to sway the voters. Then
the platform cleared, and as attendants had done before each
speaker, they rearranged the chairs on the platform behind the
podium in preparation for family members. After the attendants
stepped down, Lady Whittington and Adam's children, including
Trudy, paraded in, stepped onto the platform and sat in the chairs
behind where Adam would stand. On the ground, and off to one side,
was the covey of young women, waiting in eager anticipation. Each
one, Priscilla was certain, fashioned herself becoming Lady Adam
Whittington. But when she'd noticed Adam with them earlier, he'd
shown no sign of interest in any of them.

As Priscilla contemplated the women, while
waiting for Adam to step onto the platform, the outspoken woman
from
the Town Tattler
meeting, who she'd seen watching her
and Adam earlier, walked up to stand beside her, and said in a
hostile tone, "You're one of them, cozyin' up to Lord Whittington
like you did, talkin' out of both sides of your face."

"I am not one of them," Priscilla insisted.
"Lord Whittington and I are just friends."

The woman let out a short guffaw. "I saw him
kiss you and you kiss him back. You can't think a man like him is
after you. He's either sweet talkin' you to get you in bed or to
keep you from writing bad things in your paper about him and them
cattlemen. Take a long look in the mirror, woman. Ask yourself what
a man like him would want with you. He'll string you along 'til he
gets what he wants. And it's not you for his wife he's after, and
don't you forget it."

The woman ambled off, leaving Priscilla to
face the whole hideous truth. And the truth was, Adam wanted to be
mayor so he could set into place rules that would run the
homesteaders out of the territory, and he was primed to give a
speech designed to put her on his side, in any way he could,
because he needed the women's votes to get there. And she was the
key to that.

Deciding it was pointless to hear what he had
to say, she turned and pressed her way through the crowd to where
her Rover stood waiting, and started back to town.

CHAPTER TEN

'Do not tell secrets to those whose faith
and

silence you have not already tested.'

—
Elizabeth I to Erik, King
of Sweden, in 1561.

Priscilla intercepted Adam as he was leaving
the Cheyenne Club—an impressive two-story building with a
wrap-around porch and ornate, double-glass front doors with
polished brass fittings—and said, "Adam, can I speak with you for a
moment?"

Adam looked at her, puzzled. They hadn't
spoken since the picnic over a week before. She knew he was busy
with the campaign. Still, she wondered why he hadn't come by, if
only to talk to her...

...take a long look in the mirror.. ask
yourself what a man like him would want with you...

And there was no question. Adam had been
trying to get her into bed, though not without encouragement on her
part. But now she had other matters to occupy her mind, and further
doubts about Adam and the cattlemen with whom he had just parted
company.

Although she hadn't heard his speech at the
fairgrounds, she'd heard others talking about it, and from what she
could tell, he'd said everything she would have expected a man to
say in order to get the votes of the homesteaders and their wives.
Especially the wives. He'd appealed to their protective instincts,
trying to convince them that with him as mayor, he'd work
tirelessly to bring peace between the cattlemen and the
homesteaders. Then he'd outlined all the things he'd mentioned to
her, none of which she truly believed.

"What is this about?" he asked in a clipped
dry tone, his gaze shifting between her and the woman standing
beside her.

"This is Jeanette Jamison," Priscilla said.
"You need to hear what she has to say. It's about a friend of hers,
a woman who has a quarter-section claim between Horse Creek and the
Sweetwater river." Priscilla eyed Adam, and although he said
nothing, the guarded look on his face told her he knew exactly who
she was talking about. "Cattlemen are trying to drive the woman off
her land by claiming she's rustling cattle." She nudged the woman.
"Go ahead, Jeanette. Tell Lord Whittington what you told me about
Ella Watson."

Adam glanced back at the Cheyenne Club, where
several men stood on the porch, watching them intently, then he
returned to Priscilla, and said, "Baseless Rumors are being
circulated that cattlemen are harassing many people, including Miss
Watson, but most of them are just that. Baseless. I suggest you
stay out of it." He started to walk off.

Priscilla reached out and grabbed his arm.
"This is not a baseless rumor, Adam. This woman has a first-hand
account of an incident where Ella Watson was threatened by a member
of the stock grower's association. You need to listen to what she
has to say."

"Ella Watson is suspected of cattle
rustling," Adam said. "Her claim sits in the middle of prime
grazing land, and cattle have been disappearing from the herds
ranging there and turning up among her stock."

"But that's not true," Priscilla insisted.
"She's being accused of stealing cattle, but she has papers for
every animal she owns. If you'll listen to what Miss Jamison has to
say, you'll know that the woman is being threatened, not because
she's stealing cattle, but because her claim is in the middle of
prime grazing land. Accusing her of cattle rustling is an excuse to
hang her and take her land."

"I know the men in the stock grower's
association and they don't go around falsely accusing people of
stealing cattle," Adam said with firm conviction. "Besides, no
one's going to hang a woman." He glanced around again, and when
Priscilla looked in the direction of his gaze, she saw several more
men standing on the porch of the Cheyenne Club, all eyes on
them.

She turned from the staring eyes of the men,
and said to Adam, "You keep looking around at those men. Are you
worried that they know who Miss Jamison is, and might already know
what she has to say?"

"Look, I know all about the Watson woman and
what's going on in that so-called roadhouse of Jim Averell's."

"Then you're a victim of lies that are being
circulated," Priscilla said. "If your stockmen friends are innocent
of all wrongdoing in regards to Miss Watson, they should be eager
to listen to what Miss Jamison has to say, and then set things
straight."

"Like I said before, stay out of it," Adam
said. "Any information Miss Jamison has should go directly to the
sheriff. That's all I intend to say about it."

When he started off again, Priscilla grabbed
his arm, and said, "Do not walk away from me, Adam. I'm not through
yet. You told me to let you know when I finally figured out if you
were in there among the cattlemen in their attacks on the
homesteaders. Well, if you walk away from me now, without listening
to what Miss Jamison has to say, I'll take it as your answer, and
we will have no further contact."

The muscles in Adam's jaws bunched. "I'll
listen, but you have no idea what you're doing... who you're
dealing with, going against the stock grower's association. They're
fed up with cattle rustlers, and anyone who sides with them will be
a target."

"But we're not siding with cattle rustlers,"
Priscilla insisted. "Ella Watson has papers for all of her animals,
but when she offered to show them to the cattlemen who've been
threatening her, they refused to look at them and rode off. They
want her land and they'll stop at nothing to take it from her. If
you don't believe me, listen to what Miss Jamison has to say."
Priscilla turned to Jeanette Jamison. "Go ahead, tell Lord
Whittington what you told me. Start at the beginning."

Jeanette Jamison twisted a handkerchief
between her fingers as she began to tell the story. "After Ella
divorced her husband she moved around and ended up in Rawlins,
where she worked in the Rawlins House Hotel to earn her keep. I was
working there too, and we became friends. That's where Ella met Jim
Averell. He told her about land next to his that she could
homestead, so she went to work for Mr. Averell as a cook at his
roadhouse, made her claim, and built a cabin." Jeanette looked
anxiously at the men standing on the porch of the Cheyenne Club

Seeming reluctant to continue, Priscilla
said, "Go ahead. Tell him the rest." She glanced over at the men,
and added, "Maybe its time those men heard the truth."

Jeanette turned anxious eyes on Adam, and
said in a hushed voice that would strain the ears of the men, "Ella
said that—" her eyes darted to the gathering of men "—one of the
gentlemen in the stockmen's association approached her about buying
her claim. He's angry because Ella's land's in the middle of his
best grazing land and it cuts him off from the water he's been
using. When she refused to sell, the newspaper that's owned by the
stock growers association started running false stories about her,
claiming she's a cattle rustler and a prostitute. Yesterday Ella
found a skull and crossbones outside her door."

"If you'll excuse us, Miss Jamison," Adam
said, taking Priscilla's arm, "I'd like to speak with Miss Phipps
alone." He pulled Priscilla out of hearing range of both the woman
and the men at the Cheyenne Club, and said, "You don't know that
this woman's telling you the truth. You don't know either of the
woman, do you?"

"Well, no," Priscilla admitted.

"Then how can you be certain the newspaper's
printing false stories? Your paper prints erroneous stories based
on hearsay all the time. I know, because my mother follows your
gossip column. But what you're about to jump into is not an
exchange of barbs between women with petty grievances. You'll be
firing shots at men with money and power. If there's any truth to
what the woman's saying, you'll be their next target. If the
woman's story has no basis, you'll stir up a hornet's nest. Either
way, your paper will be shut down. I'm warning you not to get
involved in this."

"You're warning me?" Priscilla twisted her
arm from Adam's grasp. "You're beginning to sound exactly the way
the women at my town meeting described you." She let out a short
snort of disgust. "But then, that's not so surprising since you are
one of them, maybe not threatening anyone, but like all the other
cattlemen around here you want the homesteaders to go back where
they came from, and you won't be satisfied until every last one of
them have been driven off their land. Well, I happen to be on the
opposite side from you, and
The Town Tattler
will feature
Ella Watson's account of what happened as soon as I have a chance
to go out there and listen to what she has to say."