In Need of a Good Wife (36 page)

“Heavens, Sheriff—this is a pretty small town. And there’s only one person in it as conniving as she is.”

He held up his hand. “I won’t hear disparagement of Mrs. Gibson. I won’t hear it. She is a fine, upstanding woman—
citizen
of this county.”

“Oh, my,” Clara said, folding her hands in her lap. Another man with nothing but cobwebs between his ears at the sight of a beautiful woman.

There was the sound of a horse outside and the sheriff went to the door. A few minutes later he came back holding an old man by the elbow and helping him step unsteadily over the threshold. “Judge Tharp, this here is the accused.”

The judge squinted in Clara’s general direction, his rheumy eyes clouded and useless. “Ma’am,” he said, lifting his hat to the empty coat tree that stood behind Clara. The sheriff helped him into a chair.

“Where is everybody?” the judge asked. He was a portly, red-faced man and he wore a rumpled jacket with old food crusted on the lapel. He cleared his throat with a sudden violence that made the sheriff jump.

“They should be along shortly, Your Honor.”

“Nothing starts on time any more. This country is going straight to perdition. Don’t you agree, Mrs. Bixby?”

“Yes, I do,” Clara said.

The judge slammed his fist down on the table for emphasis. “That’s right.” He turned his head and looked at the room out of the far corner of his left eye. “And why in the Sam Hill have you got the chairs arranged thusly, Brooks? Do you think this is some kind of theater?”

The sheriff’s eyes darted around. “We’re expecting some members of the community, Your Honor.”

“No, we are not. It will be myself, the accused, the accusers, and the witness—that’s it. This is not a trial.” Clara felt relieved that she hadn’t told anyone—Elsa, the mayor—about the hearing. Though they were sure to have heard about it somehow.

The sheriff hesitated. “And
I
may stay, of course?”

The judge turned the corner of his functioning eye on the sheriff . He cleared his throat again, and the sound was like a cross between a cough and a gunshot. “I suppose. If you keep your trap shut.” Clara tried to hide her amusement with this exchange.

Bill Albright and Walter Luft arrived next and settled into the chairs opposite Clara, but both of them refused to look her in the eye. Bill was a fine-looking man, Clara thought, with a respectable job. Why didn’t he just give all this up, go find another girl to marry in Omaha or Chicago or Cheyenne? He couldn’t really have been in
love
with Cynthia Ruley after so short a time writing letters—could he? And even if he was, what sort of a justification was
love
? Why did we allow love—fickle, mysterious, fleeting—to be the explanation for such bad behavior as was on display here today in this tavern? Or was it all just about their pride?

Jeremiah Drake arrived then and took the chair next to the other two men. Clara hadn’t seen him since the night the mayor almost strangled him to death in the tavern. He pursed his lips and stared down at his hands folded in his lap.

The phlegm bedeviling the judge was on the move again and he cleared his throat once more. It was the only sound in the tavern, aside from the sheriff ’s fidgeting. For some reason he refused to sit down. He stood by the door, waiting for Rowena, Clara supposed, with his hat in his right hand, then in his left, with his right boot crossed over his left and his hand on his hip. He shifted his weight from one side to the other, as if he were stretching out his legs after a day’s ride. The judge pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and stretched the chain to its limit, pulling it close to his eye.

Clara had decided that morning while she dressed in her room that she would not be going to jail merely to appease the wounded pride of these foolish men. If she were guilty, it would be another thing altogether. But Clara knew for certain she had done nothing wrong, save holding on to a naïve belief that the young women in Manhattan City would be true to their word, that people would do their duty
because
it was a duty. Clara had tried her whole life to be a good person and she had succeeded, though it seemed she was being punished for it every time she turned around. But Clara was strong too. She was much stronger than George, she saw now. He couldn’t endure, but Clara would. If the judge was convinced by Rowena’s testimony today, or, more likely, if the judge was as entranced by her looks as the rest of these men had been, and declared that the county would organize a trial, Clara would get herself on the next train to Anywhere before the judge could swing his leg over his horse’s back. Mrs. Healy already had agreed to lend her the money for the ticket.

It was strangely quiet in the road outside the tavern. An occasional horse passed—which caused the sheriff’s ears to perk, caused him to shift his weight once again, despite the fact that Rowena would be arriving on foot. But something was missing. With a flash, Clara realized what it was: the hoppers had gone silent. Perhaps they had finally run out of food.

After a half hour had passed, the judge slammed his fist down on the table and glared at all of them through the corner of his eye. “Sheriff, where
is
your witness?”

Rowena was walking down the road with a small case containing the money and her Bible—she had decided to leave behind the trunk and most of her clothes, as well as the former Mrs. Gibson’s pearls, of course—when a possibility for atonement struck her so hard it almost knocked her down. It was big, it was good, and, oh, it was
awful
.

Rowena shook her head. There was no way she was going to do it. She would rather lie down in the dusty road in her one dress and wait for a horse to run her over. She would rather scrub Eliza Rourke’s kitchen floor with all of Manhattan society assembled to watch. She would rather pull the five Gibson children to her bosom and sing them a sweet lullaby. No way. Nohow.

Rowena stamped the heel of her boot into the dust, once, then several times, harder and harder. She made that growl-squeal that the Gibson children had learned to fear, then balled her hands into fists and pounded them against her thighs. But despite how she thrashed and raged, the certainty, the inevitability of what she would do wouldn’t go away.

She stood in the lane that curved toward the main road between the Methodist church and the town hall. They would be assembled in the tavern together; in fact, they would be there now waiting for Rowena to arrive. She had only so much time before they dispersed or sent someone to look for her.

First she went to the log house, her shoulders squared. Everyone in town knew what those women were. Rowena saw them from time to time, walking to the train or picking up a package from Baumann’s store. She was in no way naïve about the needs of men or the ubiquity of women who would make a living satisfying them. It was only that their dresses were far finer than any belonging to the legitimate women in town. It hardly seemed fair.

Rowena raised her hand and knocked on the heavy oak door. She felt suddenly nervous, afraid of what she might encounter inside. Before she could retreat the door swung open, revealing an old woman.

“Oh,” the woman said, straightening up and drawing her mouth into a line. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Rowena said, pushing past her into the parlor.

“Excuse me, madam,” the woman said, spinning around on her heel. The door slipped from her hand and closed. “I don’t believe I invited you in. What’s your business here?”

The question hung in the air for a long moment as Rowena stared around the parlor, her mouth hanging open like a trout’s. Silk upholstery and mahogany furniture. Velvet drapes. A stone hearth with silver candlesticks.

“I don’t
believe
it,” Rowena said.

“Now listen here, madam. I’m very sorry if you think your husband’s been coming here, but you’ll have to take that up with him. We don’t get involved in—”

Rowena laughed. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

The woman gave Rowena a confused look. “Well, yes. You can imagine unhappy wives call on us from time to time.”

Rowena waved her hand. “I couldn’t care less about what my husband does—he’s no longer my husband, anyway. I was only thinking I’d like to live here.”

“Oh, I see,” the woman said, nodding. “I misunderstood. If you’d like to come back this evening to speak with one of our regular girls, she can tell you about how much our proprietor charges the girls to rent a room and—”

Rowena’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Oh, no—that’s not what I meant either. But I would like to talk with … one of the girls, as you say.”

“Now? It’s so early in the day. They are resting.”

“I would be so grateful if you could wake one for me. I promise you have no cause for worry.”

The woman peered at her a moment longer, then nodded. “Wait here.”

She walked down the hallway. Rowena felt nervous again, like her presence here and her purpose were ridiculous. A few minutes later the old woman came back followed by a dark-haired woman with bright green eyes. She didn’t smile.

“My name is Mariah,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Mrs. Mo— Mrs. Gib—” She sighed. “I’m Rowena. I wonder if we might speak in private.”

The young woman nodded. “Come on.” Rowena followed her back to her room, trying not to notice the mussed bedclothes and undergarments strewn over the back of her chair and the door of the armoire. She found herself wondering just how much money Mariah’s services brought in.

Mariah sat down on the bed and gestured toward the bench in front of the vanity. Rowena sat down.

“I won’t take up too much of your time,” she said. She opened the latch on her case and drew out a small bundle. “I was wondering if you might be interested in purchasing this.”

Mariah took it from her and unwrapped it. Inside was Eliza Rourke’s diamond brooch, gleaming against the red cloth. “It’s beautiful,” Mariah said.

Rowena nodded.

“But why would you think that I would want to buy it?”

“I don’t know that you do,” Rowena said. “But I need to sell it. And there isn’t anyone else in town who would have a use for it. Or keep quiet about where she got it.”

Mariah twisted up her mouth. “How much do you want for it?”

Rowena told her the price. Mariah kept her expression absolutely still and Rowena knew from this that the woman understood she was asking far less than what the piece was worth. If nothing else, Mariah had to be shrewd in matters of business. “You could resell it in Cheyenne,” Rowena said.

Mariah shrugged. “Maybe I’ll keep it.” She went over to the vanity and opened the bottom drawer, then pulled a stack of banknotes from the jewelry box and handed them to Rowena. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you around, then,” she said.

“No, you won’t,” Rowena said. “But I hope you enjoy the brooch.”

She left the log house and walked east down the main road where the butcher stop stood and passed around to the back of the building, careful not to linger in front of the small side window where Daniel might see her and have his nose rubbed in the fact of her leaving.

She moved between the scrubby yard and the train tracks, averting her eyes and nose from the pile of carcasses and parts too far gone to be useful. Daniel would bury them at the end of the day. It seemed even the hoppers knew better than to eat from that poisoned meal. Their reverberation was noticeably absent from the whole main road. Perhaps they had gathered somewhere west of town, in a field that had some green thing left in it. They had come to Destination when it suited them and taken everything they wanted without so much as a thought about who might miss the things they took. Rowena felt a sickening sense of recognition in that behavior. Next door to the butcher shop was Baumann’s general store, and after that the depot. Its two back doors were open wide, twine looped between the door handles and the iron boot scrapers on either side of the entrance to keep the doors from slamming closed in the wind.

Rowena went inside. Stuart Moran stood with the newspaper spread on the counter. He was eating a small peach so soft it was more liquid than solid. The juice dripped down his forearm from wrist to elbow, where he had pushed up the cuff of his shirt. He licked it off, the half-devoured fruit held aloft in his palm, its dark pit lodged in the deep pink center. She couldn’t blame him for the uncouth act. The perfume of the fruit seemed to fill the entire depot. Whatever this desiccated and dusty and abandoned place was, that peach seemed to be its antithesis: luscious with flavor and color, vivid and sweet and relentlessly alive.

“Where did you
get
that?” Rowena asked.

Stuart blushed at the mess he had made, then wiped his wet chin on his sleeve. “They came in on yesterday’s train. From Illinois. They don’t have the drought there. Wessendorff’s got them over at his store, but I have a couple extra. Would you like one?”

“Yes, please,” she said, though she had meant to decline the offer. He handed it to her and she held it to her nose with her eyes closed. The peach smelled heavenly. All of a sudden Rowena felt she was going to begin to cry.

“Hey,” Stuart said, watching her. “Ain’t you supposed to be over at the tavern for the—”

“Oh, but you wouldn’t gossip, would you? You wouldn’t speak about things that don’t concern you?” The wave of emotion passed. Rowena kept her voice sweet, like the peach, but her eyes were as hard as pits, her brows stern and flat. If this nuisance of a man had a notion of making trouble for her, God help him.

“No, ma’am,” he lied. “I would not.”

“Well,” Rowena said. “That
is
a relief, for I was afraid you were about to do just that.” She fixed him with a stare that made his head sink into his collar.

“No, ma’am,” Stuart said again, his eyes skittering this way and that.

“Very well. Now. I’m here to see about the eastbound train.”

He peered curiously at her. “Well, that one has been delayed, Mrs. Gibson. An engine blown just east of Julesburg. We had the telegram this morning.”

Rowena sighed. It
had
to be today. She had to go
today
.