He shifted his weight from one boot to the other. The faint tenor of Willie’s singing slipped between the wild rye. The marshal questioned me about the race, what time I supposed I staked claim, about the fire on my homestead. Then he looked eastward toward the Browns’ homestead. “Hear tell that you’re friendly with the Browns.” His gaze curved along the creek, then northward toward Stot’s claim. He grimaced. “You sure found yourself with grum pickings for neighbors. If you’re fixing to survive winter, you’ll have to rely on all and sundry, sure enough—I just wouldn’t want you to get tangled up with some bad bugs.”
I unclenched my fingers, swept my hand down my apron. “The Browns are my friends. They’re honest, kind folk.”
He flipped open his watch, closed it. “Now, I mustn’t share information about the investigation, but—I’d be wary, Miss Hoopes. As I’ve traveled about the county, I’ve heard grumblings. Of course, I’d prefer this matter solved within the law.” He shrugged, gave a hearty, good-natured laugh. “But, unfortunately, vigilante rule reigns out here in the Wild West.” He slipped his watch into his waistcoat pocket. “So, I tell you truth, if you had witnessed anything, you wouldn’t be in trouble, see. You needn’t protect anybody.”
“I’m not protecting anyone, Mr. Canton. I didn’t witness any murders.”
His mare stepped about in the bluestem and bumped his shoulder. “Alright then.” The marshal patted his vest and flashed his teeth, cream beneath his dark mustache. “How about some of that tea then? Got any pie?”
We crossed the field and came round the shack. From his crouch beside my plow, Willie halted his whistling. He stood and wiped his hands on an oil rag. “Well howdy, Marshal.”
The three of us walked inside, and in scant moments Willie had Marshal Canton wheezing for air, his guffaws blustering through one story or another. Willie’s gaze stuttered across my posture, and he caught my eye, lifted a brow. He registered something was off. Of all the times, this wasn’t the one for him to pay attention. But I supposed it was time my big brother saw the world beyond himself.
We suffered through the niceties of tea, my heart thumping my chest, my push dagger a weight in my pocket. But there was nothing to worry. The marshal seemingly believed my tale. Instead, it appeared he suspected my neighbors. I felt altogether sick. All winter, Olive and Stot had supposed someone would be framed for the murders, while I’d foolishly believed the story would stay buried. And now my closest friends were under investigation, with vigilante bloodlust brewing and vicious outlaws roaming the countryside. Confessing to the marshal seemed to be the swiftest way to get locked up or meet a violent end—but I also couldn’t let another take the fall.
“You hear tale about that town of women, just east aways? Bethsheba?” Willie straightened the lapel of his raspberry jacquard, double-breasted waistcoat. “No men.”
I pressed against the wooden spindles of my chair. “Only women?”
“That’s the rumor.” Willie sipped whiskey, offered his flask to Marshal Canton. “Heard this one account of a male reporter come calling, and the lady mayor and lady police chief fired off their Winchesters until he fled.”
“Well, that’s nonsense if I ever done heard it.” The marshal dug at his teeth with a toothpick, other hand resting on his stomach. “Lord,women always making up stories. Well,” Marshal Canton continued, “it won’t last.”
I wanted to snap at him—but he wasn’t wrong. Out on the frontier, communities were fragile. Townsites evolved and vanished along the horizon: Just like mirages, an image sparking, then dissipating, leaving only that uncanny feeling of something misremembered. Settlements like Bethsheba just one poor choice from becoming ghost towns.
As afternoon crept on toward evening, Willie started in about other news spread across our county. And then the marshal was gone, along with Willie, the sun sliding down to simmer along the blackjacks, and I had no idea whatever to do.
Chapter Thirty-Two
When dawn broke, Cricket and I galloped toward Olive’s homestead. I scented magnolia blossoms on the breeze, but it must be an illusion. An entire season must pass on by before the huge, waxy blooms would open. There was a luster in the wildwood, like a juniper-green gemstone lost amid the bramble. I tumbled back in my past, to crawling across the curve of a gnarled magnolia bough, deep within the haven of emerald leaves. Starlight soaked the sky, the perfume of the blooms seeping about the canopy. Hours before, I’d snuck from my bed to eavesdrop on Ma and her literary society. They met once a month and fervently debated women’s rights, wandering the threads of suffrage and prohibition.We should submit to the opinions of our husbands,some of her friends would state. Ma’s skin would get mottled and all a’flushed, red splotches along her neck, her eyes blinking faster. I cherished seeing my hardworking, gospel-singing ma passionate, fighting for something that mattered to her.
At nine, I was old enough to understand that life wasn’t simple. Ma walked a line between what seemed two conflicting existences: fierce loyalty to her religion and unbounded passion for women’s rights. That night, I crept round the corner and listened as they discussed Susan B. Anthony’s recent speech.There shall never be another season of silence,my ma quoted,until women have the same rights men have on this green earth.
“It’s not enough,” Ma said to her friends. From my crouch in the hallway, an image of my ma reflected in the curve of a silver plate, her form distorted and awash with gray. “Something must be done.”
One of her friends clapped with a sharp boom and said, “Well then, let’s just take a hatchet to the bar tops, like Mrs. Carrie Nation threatens.”
Ma laughed, but I wondered—why not? So I stepped on out and asked. Ma stood, straightening her skirts. “Minnie.” She wiped her hands round the curve of her face, glanced at her friends. “You should be sleeping.”
“Why not demolish the bar if you think it should be destroyed?” Midwinter cool prickled my ankles, my cotton nightgown all a’sudden this month too small, the lace frill trailing my calves.
Ma slipped her arm round my shoulder. “I’ll walk you back to bed.”
“I’m not a child anymore.” I pulled from her. “Take Pa’s hatchet and go. I’ll distract Mr. Anders.”
And that was how I came to be crawling ’cross a gnarled magnolia bough above Mr. Anders’s saloon, in the middle of godforsaken night, preparing to distract him something fierce so Ma and her suffrage friends could slash up his saloon. I sat on the branch, ankles dangling from my white cotton nightgown, hair tied up in curl papers, and slipped my folding knife from my pocket. Like Ma, I supported women’s rights but didn’t understand why temperance mattered, how those two pieces were intertwined. I halted, my blade gleaming in the dark, unsure if I should attempt such a daring commotion. Folks always spoke that I trailed chaos behind me. But I thought my antics had reason.I’ve a plan,I had told my ma.Oh honey, I know,she’d said as she loaded a sack onto the buckboard,you always do.
Below the magnolia, Ma hunkered in the shadows with her friends, the wooden handle of Pa’s hatchet gripped in her palms. Her ashen hair was parted severely down the middle, her bun tight at the nape of herneck—but her face wasn’t hard. It was luminous. I wasn’t sure about her mission, but I sure as starfire supported my ma.
I scooted to the edge of the magnolia bough and dragged in a deep inhale. Then I slashed my dagger across my shin. I smothered a yelp. Across the path, Ma’s eyes widened. “Go,” I whispered and waved her on.
I jumped from the magnolia, slamming into the uneven soil, and started yowling something fierce. I rolled onto my side, tugged up my legs, my palm dripping blood, and just kept on screaming.
Mr. Anders shoved out the batwing saloon doors, his gray hair tufted out like a winged owl, his shotgun trained on the dark.
I howled, and Mr. Anders rushed on over, sighting me in the shadows.
“Ah, hell. Minnie Hoopes?” He cursed. “What have you got into now.”
