The Cactus Creek Challenge (32 page)

She frowned. “What do you mean? Ben’s got great insight. He forestalls trouble before it has a chance to even get started most times.”

His chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You’re right, when it comes to protecting his town, Ben’s instincts are the best. But I was referring to his blindness in another quarter. His mother and I are waiting for him to wake up to the notion that there’s a perfectly beautiful and sweet girl right under his nose who has been in love with him for a long time.”

Heat swirled up her cheeks and into her ears, and she swallowed, unable to look him in the eye. He knew? And Mrs. Wilder, too? Who else knew her secret?

“Don’t worry. I don’t think it’s common knowledge. I could have a word with Ben if you’d like.”

“Oh no, don’t do that.” She clutched his arm. “It has to come from him, be his idea …” She’d just die if his parents shoved her at him. What pure torture to wonder if he ever really cared about her or just courted her to please his folks.

“All right, I won’t say anything, but when it comes to women, my sons are singularly dense.”

One of the horses whinnied, kicking up its heels. “About the gold. You need to talk to Ben, but as a councilman, I think I’ll have to advocate for you and my son swapping back your jobs until the gold is picked up.”

Cassie sighed. “That’s what I thought you’d say. And I know that’s what my father will say, too.”

“It isn’t a failure, Cassie. It’s only practical. You’ve done a splendid job thus far, and your precautions when it came to protecting the gold were top-notch. The council will see that the voting public is aware of the circumstances when it comes to choosing a winner at the Challenge Ball.”

Nodding, she tried to shove aside her disappointment. The month was almost up, and not only was she going to have to admit defeat when it came to being a sheriff, but it looked increasingly as if she was going to have to admit defeat when it came to winning Ben’s affection.

“I’ll talk to Ben after school is out for the day.”

Pierce and the twins helped Ben move the teacher’s desk to the side of the platform to clear a space. The Monday afternoon sun slanted through the open schoolhouse windows, and a sweet spring breeze, freshened by a morning rain shower, passed through the room, bringing the scent of nourished grass.

“Pair up with somebody around your own size, boys with boys and girls with girls.”

The kids snapped to obey him, eager for this lesson that he’d been promising them all week. Easy and relaxed, he was confident that this was one subject on which he could be considered an authority. As the youngest of three boys, he’d had plenty of experience.

“Self-defense is something you should all know so you can take care of yourselves. Particularly you girls. A little information and practice could make all the difference if you’re ever confronted with trouble. What I’m going to teach you today has nothing to do with playing fair or fighting honorably. It’s about protecting yourself and playing dirty if necessary. You need to use every advantage you can, be crafty and wily, and bide your time, waiting for the perfect opening.”

Eager faces nodded.

“Come here, Thomas.” He motioned to one of the older boys. “I’ll demonstrate with you, and then you can practice, slowly.” Ben gave a warning glare. “We’re not going to go full speed, because somebody is sure to get hurt if we do. Anyway, there isn’t enough room in here for real scrapping, and we don’t want to break anything.” He took Thomas by the right wrist. “Now, suppose someone grabs you by the wrist. What are you going to do?”

Thomas wrenched his arm back and forth, but Ben held him easily.

“Are you stuck?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody have any ideas?”

Pierce nodded. “Grab his thumb or one of his fingers and yank it back.”

“Excellent. All you need is a little opening to escape, and if you can wrench his finger, he’ll loosen his grasp. But there is something else you can do that is almost guaranteed to get you free.”

“Twist around so his arm is behind his back?”

“That might work if you’re fast enough and strong enough. But there’s something else you can do.”

“I know!” Quincy fisted his skinny hands and mimicked a roundhouse followed by a jab kick. “Punch him or kick him in the goolies.”

“Well,” Ben laughed, “I was going to say kick him on the inside of his knee, but that would work, too.”

“Excuse me?” an outraged voice cut through the room.

Heads swiveled to the door where a bald little man with wire-rimmed glasses stood. He wore a checked suit that said ‘city fellow’ and held a sheaf of papers to his chest.

Mary Alice let out a squeak, and every child bolted for their desks, leaving Ben on the platform alone. The students sat ramrod straight, feet together, eyes forward, hands in their laps. Mary Alice sent Ben a stricken look.

“Excuse me, but did you just instruct these children to kick a man in the … er … oh my …” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “What sort of chaos is this? Who are you, and where is Miss Bucknell?”

Ben propped his hip on the corner of the desk and crossed his arms. “Who are you and why do you want to know?” He sized the fellow up, seeing nothing to be afraid of and not caring for his fussy, indignant manner.

The short man drew himself up to his full height, his narrow moustache twitching. “I, sir, am Mr. Stoltzfus, the superintendent of schools for this district and Miss Bucknell’s boss. I repeat my question: Where is Miss Bucknell?”

“Well, I reckon she’s down at the jail where she’s supposed to be this time of day.” He deliberately swung his leg, letting his boot heel clunk against the desk.

“She’s in jail?” His eyes rounded like half dollars behind his spectacles. “Whatever for?” The handkerchief took another tour of his pate.

“I said she’s down
at
the jail. This is Cactus Creek’s Challenge month. I’m Sheriff Ben Wilder, and for one more week, I’m the schoolteacher and Miss Bucknell is the acting sheriff.”

He scowled, as if shocked anything had ever happened on earth without his prior knowledge and permission. “This is most irregular. Are you an experienced and licensed teacher, sir?”

The twins snickered, but a look from Ben quelled them. “Not what you’d call licensed exactly, but I’m getting experience every day. And I’m more than competent to teach these kids what we’ve been learning.”

Mr. Stotlzfus stepped farther into the classroom, his piercing eyes sweeping over the half-finished yucca baskets, and the stuffed and mounted coyote on the teacher’s desk, and finally coming to rest on the snakeskin tacked out and drying on a slab of wood hanging over the blackboard.

“What sort of teaching are you doing? When I arrived, it seemed as if you were instructing the children in hand-to-hand combat. No one was in their desk, and chaos seemed to be the modus operandi.”

Ben shrugged. “I’m teaching them things they need to know if they’re going to live out here on the prairie. Self-defense is part of that. It might look a little chaotic to you, but I had things under control.”

“And how do you fit in these self-defense lessons with the curriculum prescribed by the school district? Or do you bother? I don’t see a single grammar or arithmetic book in sight.”

“Oh, we don’t need to know that stuff.” Ulysses turned in his seat and rubbed his nose with his thumb. “All that poetry and nonsense is for women and weak sisters. Mr. Wilder said so.” Mr. Stoltzfus’s mouth dropped open, and for a moment he reminded Ben of a catfish thrown on a riverbank. “Did you say such a thing?”

Ben scratched his ear, his chest prickling, feeling like a little kid caught playing hooky. Had he really said that? “It’s not that they don’t need to know how to read and write and figure and the like, but I might’ve said something about the poetry and the deportment and stuff that won’t help them a lick when it comes to surviving on the high plains. Miss Bucknell can teach them the ciphering and spelling, and I’ll teach them other things.”

Cactus spines broke out all over Mr. Stotlzfus’s attitude. “This is most irregular. Miss Bucknell had no authority to turn her school over to the likes of a Luddite such as yourself.”

“What’s a Luddite?” Quincy asked.

Ben wondered the same thing but refused to show his ignorance by asking. “I decided to bring in a little extra to the curriculum—survival skills, plant and animal study, and the like.”

Ulysses popped up out of his desk, nodding. “He taught us how to track and how to do surveillance and how to clean and load a gun. Next week we’re going to go hunting and fishing and cook a whole meal over a campfire, and maybe we’ll even do some target shooting or make bows and arrows.” His blue eyes gleamed, and he talked with his hands, pantomiming shooting an arrow. “He learned us some Comanche words and how to skin a snake and how to make baskets and bags like the Indians do. It’s been the most fun school ever, cuz we shoved all our books in our desks and haven’t had a smidgen of homework since Mr. Wilder took over.”

With each new revelation, the superintendent grew paler and tighter strung. “This is disastrous. Wasting the county’s money and time, not to mention these children’s education. Miss Bucknell will certainly hear from me, and she’ll be lucky if she keeps her position. I don’t know what she was thinking. Look at this mess. No discipline, no structure, and no one in charge. From what I can see here, you encourage the children to speak without permission, to roam the classroom freely, and to ignore the basic building blocks of their education.”

“Hey, now”—Ben held up his hands—“what we’re working on here isn’t any of Miss Bucknell’s doing. I’m the one who changed the curriculum, and I can do it because it’s the Cactus Creek Challenge.” When Cassie found out about this, she was going to kill him and bury his body out on the Staked Plains where he’d never be found.

The short man’s twenty-after-eight moustache twitched, and red suffused his cheeks. “I have no knowledge of this so-called Challenge, but I do have authority over this school and Miss Bucknell’s employment. She’s been most derelict in her duties as these children’s teacher, and she shall be brought to answer for it.”

Getting dressed down when he didn’t feel he’d done anything wrong didn’t sit well with Ben, especially if that dressing down was taking place in front of twelve pairs of inquisitive little eyes. He straightened and motioned toward the door. “Mr. Stoltzfus, maybe we should discuss this in private.”

“There is nothing to discuss. You will clear all this … wilderness refuse … out of this classroom, and you will teach the subjects the school district has directed—and
only
those subjects. These children will be taught in a disciplined and orderly manner, and Miss Bucknell will answer for leaving her charges in the care of an uneducated ruffian with no more notion about education than he has about propriety.” He took a deep breath as if taking a firm hold on his temper. “I will return to this school in one week, and I will expect not only order to have been restored, but an exhibition of the children’s progress in the way of a formal program of recitation and demonstration. If they have not satisfied my requirements, Miss Bucknell will be asked to leave the school.” He straightened his tie, swept the room with a supercilious glare, and turned on his heel, slamming the door behind himself.

Nobody moved, but the kids slid sidelong glances at one another and at Ben. The breeze ruffled the yucca leaves, skittering them across the floor, and Ben took a good look at the classroom, comparing it to how it looked his first day. It was a
little
untidy, but it certainly didn’t deserve the ticking off he’d received.

Mary Alice’s hand went up. “Mr. Wilder, what are we going to do?”

Good question. He rubbed his palm on the back of his neck. He couldn’t let Cassie get fired over something he did.

“I guess we’re going to prepare a program to satisfy Mr. Stoltzfus that you’re all smart as little foxes.” Though he had no idea how to go about such a thing. Recitation and demonstration? Recite what? Demonstrate what? “Any of you ever done a school exhibition before?”

Mary Alice nodded. “We do them at the end of every school year, but this one will be a month or so early if he’s coming next week.”

“So, you think we can pull one together?”

Their uncertain looks at one another did little to bolster his confidence.

No doubt about it, Cassie was going to kill him dead as a poleaxed steer.

H
e said what?” Cassie dropped into the desk chair and put her head into her hands.

“Basically that he didn’t approve of my teaching methods and that you’d be lucky to keep your job if the kids didn’t put on a show for him next week.” Ben smacked his hat against his thigh before pitching it toward the hooks on the jailhouse wall. It bounced off and hit the floor. “That about sums up my day.”

“It’s about to get even better.” The empty feeling in Cassie’s stomach stretched and grew. Fired from her teaching job on top of everything else?

“How so?” He glanced toward the cells. “And is there any word from Fort Benefactor?”

“There’s still no sign of the envoy from the fort to pick up this stupid gold. Jigger and I have been alone for almost a week now, ever since the corporal left to rejoin his unit. I talked to your father, and he says it’s time to call off the Challenge, at least as far as you and I are concerned.” Failure tugged her shoulders down, and she had to force herself to look him in the eye, dreading any sign of gloating on his part.