Printer in Petticoats (12 page)

Chapter Sixteen

C
ole looked up to find young Teddy MacAllister bending over his shoulder, his russet eyebrows pulled down into a frown. “Mr. Sanders?”

“Yes, what is it, son?”

“I—I got a suggestion for you. 'Bout Miss Jessamine. An' I brought you something to help.”

“What about Miss Jessamine, Ted? Nothing wrong with her printing press, is there? She got enough ink?”

“Nah, nuthin' like that. Just now she was helping me load up the
Sentinel
copies to distribute, and she was sorta snuffly, like she'd been cryin'.”

Cole surveyed the boy in silence. Jess never cried, except for the night her newspaper was firebombed. His neck prickled.

“I'll just mosey on over there and check on her,” he said.

Teddy shoved a small cardboard box onto Cole's desk. “This is for you, to take to Miss Jessamine. Like I told ya, before, 'member?”

Inside the box was a collection of dried grasshoppers. “Bugs,” Teddy explained. “It's what I give to Manette, an' I thought it'd help with Miss Jessamine.”

Cole couldn't laugh in front of the boy, but he bit the inside of his lower lip so hard he tasted blood. “Mighty thoughtful of you, Ted. I'll see it gets delivered, for sure.”

The boy grinned and raced out to mount his mare, his saddlebags laden with newspapers. Smiling, Cole watched him go larruping down the street, and then he sobered.

Jessamine was crying? Why?

He was across the street in twenty seconds. “Eli, where's Jess?”

The old man looked up from the sandwiches spread out on his workbench. “Dunno. At the restaurant, mebbe. It's past lunchtime.”

When Cole entered the restaurant, Rita glanced up, tipped her head toward the table in the far corner and headed for the coffeepot. He moved forward and turned the chair that was next to Jessamine backward then straddled it. “What's up?”

“Nothing, Cole. Why? My goodness, you look awful. Are you getting enough sleep at night?”

“Nope. But let's discuss that later. Teddy said you've been crying.”

Her red-rimmed eyes widened. “Teddy? Well, yes, I have, but how would he know that?”

“He said you were ‘snuffly' when you were loading up the newspapers. What's wrong, Jess?”

“Oh, I— It's nothing, really.”

Rita marched over and stood at his elbow, notepad poised. “You eatin' or just jawin'?”

“Coffee,” he said.

“Got a nice chicken-fried steak on the menu.”

“Just coffee.”

“Fresh apple pie, too,” the waitress persisted.

“Just one cup of coffee, Rita,” he said, his voice tightening. “Please.”

Rita went back to the kitchen, muttering under her breath. “Stubborn? Never seen two such stubborn...”

Cole hitched his chair closer. “Jess, has something happened? Somebody threaten you?”

She shook her head.

He leaned in closer. “Are you... Oh, my God, are you pregnant?”

She clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle a shocked laugh, then shook her head again. “No, I am not.” Then her eyes filled with tears.

“Jess?”

“It's this dratted election. The waiting. The rumors. The—”

“You're not pregnant,” Cole breathed. Hell's bells, he was halfway disappointed. “Teddy MacAllister was worried about you. He brought over a special gift for me to give you.”

She smiled. “Oh, that's nice. What is it?”

“A box of bugs.”

“Bugs!”

“Grasshoppers. Seems they're a love offering he takes to Jeanne and Wash Halliday's daughter, Manette.”

“Bugs,” she repeated. “Oh, how sweet.”

“You'd like a box of grasshoppers?”

She laughed. Thank God. Her eyes looked dry and so green and clear he wanted to swim around in them.

“The election is tomorrow,” he reminded her. “Voting box will be at Ness's Mercantile. Sit with me?”

“I suppose we should. Marshal Johnson is the official ballot monitor, but he'll need two witnesses.”

“I'm composing a piece about Arbuckle for when he concedes,” he said dryly.

“I'm writing a story based on Jericho's acceptance speech.”

“Should boost both our subscriptions,” Cole ventured.

“Again,” she added. “After this we'll need a new controversy to keep sales booming.”

Cole laughed. “Think maybe we can find something new to argue about?”

But she isn't pregnant
. He guessed maybe they would disagree about whether that was a relief or a disappointment.

“For pity's sake, Cole, why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I have strawberries growing out of my ears.”

He started to laugh and then choked it off. “I guess because in a lot of ways you're beginning to scare me, Jess.”

Her teacup jiggled, and she carefully disengaged her finger from the delicate curved handle. “I cannot imagine why
I
should scare
you
. You're the one sleeping with a rifle under your bed. Oh, yes, I know it's there. Eli told me.”

“Damn that old man!”

“Eli cares about me, Cole. He tries his best to watch over me.”

“Eli can't protect you. I doubt he can see two yards in front of his nose.”

She bit her lip and he suppressed a groan. He knew she wasn't teasing him this time; she was worried about something. He just didn't know what. Her fond but feeble typesetter? Her newspaper circulation?
His
newspaper circulation?

Or was it
him
she was worried about?

He didn't like it when a woman worried over him. It distracted her, made her careless about things that could harm her.

He reached for the coffee mug in front of him and closed his fingers around it until his knuckles whitened. Maryann had worried about him. She hadn't liked him working late at the newspaper office, and she hadn't wanted him to continue publishing articles denouncing slavery and accusing Quantrill of the mayhem and violence he had brought to an already divided Kansas.

Cole hadn't listened to her fears, and he would regret it until the day he died. One night, while his attention had been focused on his press run, someone set fire to his house. He had been two blocks away when he saw the flickering glow in the sky.

He'd started to run.

The house had been an inferno. He'd seen Maryann in the window on the second floor, and he'd shouted for her to jump. Just as she'd climbed out onto the sill, the blazing roof had caved in on her.

He could hear her screaming, and then there had been nothing but the roar of the flames.

Even now he could hear her screaming. He shuddered at the memory and jerked himself back to the present. Sweat beaded on his face. God in heaven, he hated remembering.

He hated the fear that pooled in his belly, cold and sour; and he knew he would be a coward all his life because he couldn't let it go, couldn't move forward. His wife had been snatched from him, and he didn't want another.

He didn't like what that said about him, but he knew he was no good for Jess. She deserved better. She deserved a man who was willing to risk everything for her.

Chapter Seventeen

E
lection day dawned cold and crisp, the sky blue as forget-me-nots and so clear and cloudless it looked as if it had been painted. At the mercantile, Jess perched on a stool next to Cole and huddled close to the fire in the potbellied stove.

Federal Marshal Matt Johnson strode up and down between the aisles of men's shirts and canning supplies, rubbing his hands together and flexing his fingers. He stopped at the counter and purchased a box of cartridges for the revolver strapped around his hips.

Jess shivered. The marshal was here to oversee the election proceedings and make sure everything stayed peaceful. Cole tipped his hat back and settled himself next to the oversize molasses tin serving as the ballot box. A slit had been cut in the top for the paper ballots, printed up that morning on Cole's Ramage press. The ink was barely dry.

All day long they sat there, watching as people folded and dropped their ballots in the box, then hung around the warm stove exchanging news. The mercantile owner supplied sandwiches and coffee, but the hours dragged. Toward the end of the day, Jess could barely stop yawning.

Late that night they helped to tally the ballots. Jericho Silver won, garnering nine hundred and ninety-six votes to Conway Arbuckle's one hundred and eight, but even so, Jessamine could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. Whether it was the unusually still night or the absence of a moon or the decisive way mercantile owner Carl Ness had packed up his molasses tin ballot box and shooed the marshal and Cole and herself out of his store, she couldn't say.

What she could say without a flicker of doubt was that her nose for news hadn't stopped twitching since yesterday afternoon.

At midnight, Cole walked her back to the
Sentinel
office.

“Long day,” he said, his voice noncommittal.

“I know you've already been working a story about Arbuckle's defeat.”

“Yeah, I have my story half-written. I'll just step over to my office, finish it up and make sure it's sitting where Noralee can find it in the morning. Lock your door, Jess. I'll use the extra key Eli gave me when I come back over.”

“It's a good thing that girl worships you, Cole. You work her to death.”

“No, I don't. She likes setting type. Wouldn't be a bit surprised if she ended up running her own newspaper someday.”

Jessamine sighed. “Funny how the bug bites you, isn't it? Until Miles was killed, I never thought I'd run a newspaper, either.”

Cole touched her shoulder briefly and stepped out onto the boardwalk. He waited to hear her lock click, then went across the street to the
Lark
office.

Once inside, he swept up his handwritten pages. He had just turned toward Noralee's array of type fonts when someone grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms. He drove his elbow backward into the fleshy part of a man's belly and followed it up with a kick to his shin.

Then someone slapped a wadded-up cloth over his nose and mouth. It smelled odd, kinda sweet, but before he could rip it away, everything went black.

* * *

Jessamine was up at dawn, hoping to catch Cole before he folded up his cot. All night she'd thought about an idea for a feature, and she hurried down the stairs to tell him.

His cot was still there, the quilt neatly folded on top. But it looked as if his bed hadn't been slept in, and that was odd. Even more odd was the fact that he'd left it out in plain sight. She'd have to speak to him about that before he went to breakfast.

At ten o'clock Noralee Ness stepped into the
Sentinel
office, her thin arms clasped across her middle. “Have you seen Mr. Sanders this morning?”

Jess removed the pencil between her teeth. “He's probably at breakfast, Noralee. We were up late last night, counting the ballots.”

“He's not at the restaurant, Miss Jessamine. I checked. And Rita said she hasn't seen him all morning.”

A jolt of fear went up Jess's spine. “Eli?” she called over her shoulder.

“I ain't seen him, neither, Jess. Musta got up real early, 'cause his cot—” He broke off with a glance at Noralee's worried face.

The girl turned puzzled brown eyes on Jess. “He was going to leave me a story to typeset this morning, about the election,” Noralee said. “But I found the pages scattered all over the floor. Should I pick them up and set the story up anyway?”

Eli and Jessamine stared at each other for a long minute.

“I'll go check the Golden Partridge, Jess,” Eli said. “See if he's celebratin' or news-gatherin' or...”

“Seems awful funny,” Noralee said with a catch in her voice. “Mr. Sanders, he always does what he says he's going to do. He said he'd have a story for me to work on this morning, and now I don't know what to do.”

Jessamine rose to her feet, her throat dry and her heart beginning to pound under her ruffled white shirtwaist. “I'm going over to the livery stable, Eli. Maybe he's out riding that Arabian of his.”

“But Miss Jessamine,” Noralee protested, “why would he be riding around on his horse today instead of writing his news stories? The
Lark
's supposed to come out tomorrow morning.”

A shard of ice dropped into Jessamine's stomach. She skipped the livery stable and instead went straight to the sheriff's office. After a tense ten minutes of wrapping her shaking hands around a cup of coffee, the deputy sheriff strode in and slapped his hat on the sheriff's paper-strewn desk.

“His horse is there, all right, Sheriff. Hasn't been ridden.”

“Sandy,” the sheriff ordered. “Ride out to Wash Halliday's place. Tell him I need him. Tell him to meet me at Marshal Johnson's.”

Jericho began checking his revolvers and Jess jumped to her feet. “What is it? What has happened?”

A strained expression crossed the sheriff's tanned face. “There's no easy way to put this, Miss Jessamine. Looks like Cole's been kidnapped.”

Chapter Eighteen

C
ole found himself tied belly-down on the back of a horse, his head aching as if a cannon had gone off inside his skull. He groaned and someone pulled the animal to a stop.

“Awake, are ya?” Well, I reckon ya kin sit up. We'll make better time that way.”

Someone jerked him off the horse, and then the hard barrel of a gun prodded him in the back. “Mount up,” the voice ordered. A swarthy man lashed his hands to the saddle horn, and another, taller man stepped over and slapped the animal's rump so it jolted forward.

Three men. Cole couldn't be sure if they were the same three he'd seen in the saloon the night of the fire, but it seemed likely. He'd thought they were all in jail.

Guess not. Or maybe Jericho had released them for lack of concrete evidence. Or maybe they had nothing to do with Arbuckle or the fire at Jess's newspaper office. He hated not knowing.

He studied the countryside around him. Mostly scrub with a copse of cottonwoods here and there. Didn't recognize it from his newspaper route or from any of his journeys around the valley on horseback. From the angle of the sun, he guessed they were heading east, into the badlands.

They rode for about three hours, then stopped to water the horses. Someone shoved a rusty canteen at him, but with his hands tied, he couldn't grasp it.

A few words of Spanish from one of the men, the fat, swarthy one, and the rope around Cole's hands was loosened. He gulped the liquid greedily, but before he handed back the canteen he managed to slip a scrap of paper out of his shirt pocket, an extra ballot from last night's election.

Hiding his motions, he tore it into tiny pieces, and when nobody was watching, he let one flutter to the ground. The rest he stuffed up his shirtsleeve. Just in time. Fat Man stomped over and retied his hands.

Who were these guys? Did they work for Arbuckle? He knew he was a thorn in the man's side because of his recent editorials. Cole just never thought he'd go this far.

He hoped to hell someone had noticed he wasn't at the
Lark
office this morning. He hoped someone would notify the sheriff, and he prayed that Jericho Silver was as good a tracker as everybody said he was.

Another three hours passed. His throat was parched and he felt dizzy with hunger. Without his hat, the sun was frying his brains. He closed his eyes and tried to think.

Chances were he wasn't going to survive this. He'd bet whoever these guys were they had orders to take him out to some remote canyon and kill him, probably because of something he'd printed in his newspaper. Somehow he didn't mind the idea of dying; what he hated was the thought of never seeing Jess again, never hearing her laugh or watching her lips turn rosy when she caught them between her teeth.

He closed his eyes. He'd known for some while he'd have a hard time not being around her. It had never occurred to him he wouldn't have a chance to say goodbye.

Each time they stopped to water the horses, Cole managed to let another bit of paper drop unnoticed onto the ground. He'd give anything for a pencil so he could scratch a message to Jess.

But what message?

He thought of a thousand things he'd give his right arm to tell her. Right at the top of the list was
I love you
. Then he'd tell her to take over the
Lark
. Or maybe she'd know instinctively that he would want her to have it.

He gritted his teeth at the thought he might never see her again, and his throat closed into a tight knot.

Another stop to rest the horses and another slip of paper fluttered out of his sleeve. By now they were picking their way uphill, into a rocky canyon. Even if he could twist around far enough to deck one of them, or grab him to use as a hostage, he knew the other two would gun him down before he could take a breath.

Arbuckle would burn in hell for this. And if he laid a hand on Jess...

Sweat slicked the back of Cole's neck. He couldn't help her. He couldn't do a damn thing to change the outcome of this day. He'd never felt more helpless in his life.

The wind knifed through him, and he tried to pray.

* * *

Jessamine sat Noralee down and stuffed a type stick into her hand. “I will finish Cole's articles. You set the type. We're going to get his Friday edition of the
Lark
out on time.”

Eli patted the girl's narrow shoulder with a gnarled, ink-stained hand. “Don't you fret none, Noralee. Sheriff Silver and the marshal and Wash Halliday rode out an hour ago, and there's no better trackers than them three. They'll bring Cole back.”

Jess tried hard to believe the old man, tried not to think about where Cole might be or what he was enduring. It squeezed all the air out of her lungs and made her vision blur. After another hour at his desk, she jerked to her feet and then immediately sat back down.

She felt like screaming, but she forced her pencil back and forth over the pad in front of her and tried to think like Cole. How would he phrase this sentence? What emphasis would he want?

“I'm going over to the Golden Partridge,” she announced suddenly. “That was part of Cole's news beat, and I'm going to cover it for him.”

“Jess, you cain't—”

“Oh, yes, I can, Eli. Just you watch me.” She'd be darned if she would let Cole's newspaper miss a deadline. She slipped her notepad into her skirt pocket, along with the derringer Cole had given her, marched down the sidewalk to the saloon and pushed her way through the batwing doors.

Her first step inside the dim saloon was greeted with dead silence. Then a male voice yelled, “Hey, you can't come in here! No ladies allowed.”

“Maybe I'm not a lady,” Jess shot back. “You ever think of that?”

She advanced to the bar and caught the bartender's eye. “I'll have a cup of hot tea.”

“He's right, Miss Jessamine,” he said. “Women aren't allowed in here.”

“Listen, Mr. O'Reilly.” She lowered her voice and leaned across the gleaming mahogany bar toward him. “Something has happened to Cole Sanders. I'm here to find out any information you might have, and I'm not leaving until I have it.”

The barkeep shifted his rotund body toward her. “Miss Jessamine, you look like you need a shot of something a whole lot stronger than tea.”

“I do, and that is a fact. But not until I find out what I want to know. The sheriff and Marshal Johnson have ridden out, along with Wash Halliday. Have you any idea who they're chasing?”

“Wish I did, Miss Jessamine. Haven't been any strangers in town since the night your office burned, and I heard later that Sheriff Silver arrested some men, but he wasn't sure they were the ones that did it.”

“Maybe there are more? Have you any idea who they are? Who they work for?” This last was a shot in the dark. She'd bet her mother's emerald brooch Conway Arbuckle was involved, but it wouldn't hurt to fish.

The bartender shrugged.

“Tom,” she whispered. “Help me. Please.”

O'Reilly grabbed a bottle and a shot glass, filled it and set it in front of her. “Arbuckle's holed up at Lucy's place, just outside town. You wouldn't know it, 'cause it's a...well, a place you wouldn't know. Anyway, I hear he's madder'n a wet hornet about losing the election. Might be he blames Cole.”

Jess downed the whiskey in one gulp and choked as the fiery liquor burned its way down her throat.

“Thanks, Tom,” she rasped. “Put the drink on Cole's tab.”

Arbuckle.
That snake.

Back out on the boardwalk, she headed for Lucy's place. Oh, yes, she knew where it was. Rosie Greywolf had told her.

The house sat on a back street lined with maple trees. It was painted white with dark blue trim, but it looked run-down. The front porch planks were beginning to warp, and what had once been a flower garden looked withered and so bedraggled she wished she had a bucket of water to dump on the struggling plants.

She walked up onto the porch, took a steadying breath and pounded her fist on the door. No answer. She pounded again and kept pounding until a white-faced woman with frizzy red hair yanked it open. She was dressed only in a dirty chemise and a torn petticoat.

The woman took one look at Jessamine and retreated into the interior of the house. Arbuckle's “other wife,” no doubt. She looked terrified.

Jessamine clenched her fists and stepped forward. “Arbuckle?” she shouted.

“Ah, the nosy newspaper lady,” a strident voice returned from somewhere. “Go away.”

“I'm not going away until you talk to me.” She stepped inside, noting the drawn curtains and the clothing strewn over a dingy sofa in the front parlor. She guessed the snake was packing to leave.

“Arbuckle, I want to talk to you!”

Something rustled from behind the tall wardrobe against the far wall, and that told Jess where he was. She drew out her pistol, cocked it and stepped around the corner of the tall piece of furniture.

Arbuckle's head jerked up and he glared at her with rheumy eyes.

Jess lifted the pistol and aimed it at his chest. “You are a lying, cheating rabbit of a man, and if you don't tell me where Cole Sanders is, I'll kill you.”

“Oh, God, don't shoot!” He peered at her face. “Nah, you wouldn't do that,” he drawled. “Would you?”

“Oh, no? Try me.” She took a step closer and watched his bravado crumble. His thick arms lifted into the air.

“Where is Cole Sanders?”

“I dunno.”

“You lying skunk, tell me!”

“I would if I could, Miss Lassiter. But, God's truth, I don't know.”

“I don't believe you.”

“You gotta believe me,” he whined. “Sure, I hired a couple of men to kidnap him, but—”

“The same men you hired to torch my office?” She wondered why her voice wasn't shaky, or why the hand gripping her derringer was steady. Maybe it was the whiskey she'd downed at the Golden Partridge.

“Well, it might be,” Arbuckle conceded. “Could be it was the same fellas. Isn't gonna help knowing that now, is it?”

“It might.”

“Good God, Miss Lassiter, could you lower your weapon?”

“No, I could not. Now tell me the truth.”

Arbuckle looked right, and then left, over his shoulder, as if he was afraid of being overheard. “Well, after the election, I told some men to take Sanders out and... Miss Lassiter, for the love of God, you aren't gonna shoot me, are you?”

“That depends,” she replied. “Keep talking.”

“Don't kill me,” he pleaded. “I'll tell you. I'll do anything you say.”

“Then march, Mr. Arbuckle. Out of this house and up the street to the jail. I'll be right behind you with my pistol aimed at your cowardly back.”

“You've got no right to have me arrested!”

“Oh, yes, I do. I think you had my newspaper office burned. And if Cole Sanders is found—” she could scarcely bear to say the word “—dead, you will be held as an accessory to murder. Now march!”

Arbuckle stumbled along the street, Jessamine a pace behind him, her pistol steady and her stride determined. Townspeople they met along the way shrank into storefronts and doorways as they passed.

At the jail, the deputy leaped up from the paper-littered desk. “Miss Jessamine?”

“Sandy, lock up Mr. Arbuckle until they find Cole Sanders. And if they don't find him...” Her voice choked off. “Then throw away the key.”

Sandy snapped a pair of handcuffs onto Arbuckle's thick wrists and led him away. When she heard the jail-cell door clang shut, she slipped the derringer's safety on, stowed the weapon in her skirt pocket and fainted dead away.

* * *

Federal Marshal Matt Johnson pointed to another scrap of white paper that had blown up against a spiky coyote bush. “Been following this trail for half a day, Jericho. You got a plan?”

“Yeah. Wait till dark.”

“He might be dead by then. Chances are these men are wanted in half a dozen territories. They might not wait.”

“They'll wait.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I figure they haven't been paid yet,” the sheriff said. “So they'll keep Cole alive until whoever hired them arrives with the money.”

“Maybe,” the marshal said, doubt coloring his voice.

Wash Halliday kicked at a stone. “And maybe not.”

Without speaking, the three men remounted and rode another mile.

“Be dark in an hour,” Matt finally said.

“Yeah,” Jericho agreed, eyeing the position of the sun. “Let's split up. Surround that canyon up yonder and wait.”

“You figure it's Arbuckle, don't you, Jericho?”

“I do. And in exactly fifteen days I'll be in a position to deal out some justice.”

“What about now?” Wash wondered aloud.

“Now I'm still the sheriff. Let's dismount and start crawling.”