True to the Law (11 page)

Cobb folded his cards, laid them on the table, and waved the pot in the direction of Ted Rush. The hardware store owner cackled gleefully as he raked in his winnings. It was all Cobb could do not to wince at the sound. The other men at the table showed their annoyance outright. Jake Davis stuck his index finger in his ear and wiggled it. Richard Allen screwed his face so hard to the left it looked as if he’d erased all the features on the right. Harry Sample from the land office had a few choice words for Ted, none of which Ted took offense to.

Cobb pushed his chair back. “I’m stepping out for a spell,” he said, getting to his feet. “Losing three hands in a row makes me think I need some fresh air.”

“Another whiskey would do you good,” Ted Rush said. “’Course, it would do us better.” This time when he cackled at his own humor, Richard Allen cuffed him on the back of the head.

Cobb abandoned the table before he cuffed Rush himself. He glanced back at the bar and gave Walt a finger salute as he stepped outside.

The saloon had an outside entrance separate from the hotel. An archway on the inside connected the establishments, but overnight guests could come and go without stepping into the saloon if they wished to avoid it. Rocking chairs lined the long porch that fronted the hotel. The saloon did not invite lingering on the wrong side of its doors.

Cobb glanced in the direction of the rocking chairs, but it was too chilly to make a seat there tempting. He elected to shake off his unrest by walking toward the center of town. He estimated he’d gone about twenty yards before a figure turned the corner from the drugstore and stepped directly into his path.

Terrence McCormick was brought up short as well. He clapped his hands together, beaming as he recognized Cobb. “How about this?” he said. “And wasn’t I just on my way to the Pennyroyal to see you. It’s providence, that’s what it is. Could be that folks are right about you. C’mon. I’ll walk with you. We can talk about this marshal business as we go.”

Chapter Four

It was not the molasses pound cake that decided Tru in favor of dining in the hotel on Wednesday evening. Plain and simple, it was Cobb Bridger. In spite of the way he regarded her as though she were a puzzle with too many missing pieces, she favored his company. It was not as if anything would—or could—come of it. She reminded herself of all the ways that spending time with Cobb was different from spending time with the last man who had wanted her to be his dinner companion. For all his scrutiny, she could allow that at least Cobb Bridger wanted to know her. Andrew Mackey III, on the other hand, thought he already did.

It was a fine distinction, but in Tru’s mind, an important one, and Mrs. Sterling would just have to accept her decision.

She waited patiently at her table for Cobb to make an appearance. She had a pot of tea to keep her company and the mirrored window to keep her amused.

* * *

Mrs. Sterling made it her mission to intercept Cobb before he reached the dining room. With Walt’s help, she was able to leave the kitchen in time to catch him coming down the stairs. She waited until he reached the landing before she returned his greeting. She knew a thing or two about giving up the high ground, and Cobb’s height already gave him a distinct advantage.

Cobb straightened the sleeves of his black wool jacket and ran his hands over the buttons of his vest. The cook made him want to present himself like a soldier for inspection. “Mrs. Sterling.”

“Mr. Bridger.” She wiped her damp hands on her apron front. “I know it’s none of my business, but that’s never stopped me from telling folks what I think. I don’t know what you have in mind for that gal in there, but she’s a good soul, and I think I’d have to cut you off at the knees if your aim is to enjoy yourself with no heed as to how she might be left the worse for it. I got the sense that when she came here she was startin’ over, leavin’ something behind that near to broke her heart. Now, that could be a fancy on my part. Her father passed on, and then that woman she worked for died, and that is surely enough to make any good heart heavy, but I’m holding on to a suspicion that there was more. Usually that means a man, and another man is never the cure for what grieves a woman in times like that.”

“What are you proposing I do, Mrs. Sterling?”

She took off her spectacles and cleaned them with one corner of her apron. “I’m not proposing you do or you don’t. I’m just sayin’, Mr. Bridger. I’m just sayin’.” She returned her gold-wired rimmed glasses to her nose and regarded Cobb over the top. “Looks to me like she’s ignoring my advice and waiting for you, but you think about whether it’s a good idea to sit with her this evening. There’s a place at the table with Mr. and Mrs. Washington.”

“The couple in the room next to mine from Denver?”

“Yes.”

Cobb regarded her with a flat expression. “Did I offend you in some way? Surely what you are suggesting is a punishment.”

“You take it as you like,” she said tartly. “I’m doing my duty.” With that, Mrs. Sterling turned on her heel with the precision of a praetorian and left the lobby for the kitchen.

Cobb’s eyes followed her. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do until he walked into the dining room and saw Gertrude Morrow sitting at her usual table, her face visible only in three-quarter view as she looked at the dining room reflected in the window. He thought she might have seen him. The slight lift in her chin made him think she had. Smiling with more grit than pleasure, he walked straight to the table—of Mr. and Mrs. Washington.

* * *

The main thoroughfare was largely deserted when Tru left the hotel. Lamplight illuminated windows above the storefronts where some of the owners lived with their families. Most of the businesses were dark, having closed for the evening. Light and music streamed from the town’s only other saloon. Tru gave it a wide berth because it tended to draw a rowdier crowd of young, restless cowhands than the Pennyroyal. Hurrying along, she glanced at Dr. Kent’s lighted window as she passed and saw him sitting at his desk hovering over a microscope. She thought it must be fascinating, the things that he saw.

Tru did not pause as she walked by Jennifer’s bakery. She had nothing to say to her friend that would not sound pitiful. Perhaps tomorrow, when she was in a better frame of mind, she would be able to share how Cobb Bridger had come to the dining room and acted as if he didn’t know she were there.

The few people she met on her way nodded a greeting or stopped to inquire about her health and report on their own. She spent several minutes with Mrs. Garvin hearing about the plans for Millicent’s wedding. It was no hardship to listen to the milliner’s chatter, but her enthusiasm for her subject was not contagious.

By the time Tru opened the front door to her dark home, she had given some thought as to what would occupy her after she readied for bed, and the idea of pouring a couple of fingers of whiskey and reading
Oliver Twist
was rather more inviting than not.

She set down the wrapped pound cake on the table just inside the front door and lighted an oil lamp. The small entryway was bathed in a warm, welcoming glow. Tru took off her coat, hung it up with her mittens and scarf, and carried the cake and the lamp to the kitchen where she set both on the table.

Her home was modest, much smaller than the rectory where she had lived with her father, and not much larger than a child’s playhouse when compared with Charlotte Mackey’s granite mansion on Michigan Avenue. None of that mattered. Tru felt as if she belonged here the moment she crossed the threshold.

The house was built to accommodate a family in the event that the teacher who was hired was married. Tru knew that the prevailing thought was that the teacher would be a man. Most female teachers who married ceased to work, either by their own volition or because it was a requirement of their situation that they remain single. Tru’s contract had no such requirement, but she didn’t think it mattered. She had no intention of marrying.

The certainty with which the thought came to her gave her pause. What was it that Jennifer told her yesterday? Something about intentions going to hell in a handcart. It was probably worth keeping in mind.

Tru glanced up as the floorboards creaked above her head. The house was still settling and every pop and groan of the wood drew her notice. The colder the evening, the worse it was. She left the cake behind and carried the lamp into the parlor where she set a fire in the stove. She stayed nearby long enough for the heat to penetrate her marrow and then she hurried upstairs to her bedroom to change into her nightclothes.

There were three bedrooms on the second floor but only two doors leading off the hallway from the landing. An interior door connected the smaller bedrooms, so that reaching the bedroom at the rear of the house was only possible by going through the forward room. The back bedroom had nothing in it, and the front one was furnished with a few pieces donated by Mrs. Coltrane that came from the hotel. There were no personal items. She had no use for the rooms and kept the door closed so they didn’t draw heat away from the rest of the house.

The first thing Tru did when she reached her bedroom was close the curtains. One window faced the street; the other had a bird’s-eye view of her neighbor’s roof and chimney. When there was benefit of a clear sky and moonlight, she could make out the school, Grace Church, and through an opening between the mercantile and the bank, she could see the entrance to the Pennyroyal. She was always conscious that someone could be looking back.

Tru undressed, carefully smoothing the material of her gown and checking it for stains before she hung it in the wardrobe. Her bustle was next; she fussed with its shape before putting it away. She loosened the laces on her black kid boots and pulled them off, dropping them to the floor one by one and pushing them under the bed with her foot. She sat at the vanity to remove her stockings, corset, and take down her hair, barely glancing at her reflection in the mirror as she removed the pins. She brushed her hair until it crackled, plaited it, and finally tied it off with a green grosgrain ribbon. Afterward, she exchanged her chemise and knickers for a cotton nightgown and soft flannel robe. She stepped into a pair of slippers while she belted the robe. Once she was sufficiently warm again, she poured fresh water into the bowl on the commode and washed her face and cleaned her teeth.

Feeling less like a stranger in her own skin, Tru picked up
Oliver Twist
from the nightstand and the lamp from the vanity and made her way back to the parlor. The warmth from the stove invited her in. This was her favorite room. The appointments were serviceable, not fancy. All of the pieces came from townsfolk, but there was not a castoff among them. Richard Allen, owner of the lumberyard, made the lamp tables that stood on either end of the sofa. They were matched in size and design, but each was unique because of the scrap wood he salvaged to complete them. He used walnut and cherry and oak in different ways on each, making them more like fraternal twins rather than identical ones. The overstuffed armchair and sofa came from Mr. and Mrs. George Johnson, owners of the mercantile. They swore the pieces were meant for their own apartments above the store, but when they were delivered, no amount of twisting and turning would get them up the stairs. Tru was not sure she believed them, but whether by mistake or on purpose, the furniture was a generous gift.

The parlor was spacious enough to accommodate a table suitable for card playing and four chairs. The set was compliments of the mayor who took them from his station restaurant before they were scarred or damaged by passenger traffic. Besides the lamp that she always returned to the table by the door, the parlor could be warmly lighted by a lamp with a frosted red globe, another with a gold one, and a third that had purple and yellow pansies painted on the glass. Jennifer offered several times to find her lamps that matched, but Tru liked these, liked the reminder that with very little provocation, people were moved to act kindly.

The gold-and-navy area rug came from Ted Rush of the hardware store. He had no children or grandchildren in the school, but he wanted to contribute. The rug had once been in his dining room, a pure waste, he said, since he ate his meals in the kitchen or dined at the Pennyroyal.

Pastor Robbins had painted a landscape for the parlor’s one windowless wall. The rolling fields were saturated with sunlight and bright waves of Wyoming wildflowers. The hues in the columbine, Indian paintbrush, and lupine were so brilliant that they might have been the banded arcs of a rainbow. Tru had seen similar, though more modest, works hanging in the parsonage, but this piece was arguably his finest painting to date and she was delighted to have it displayed in her home for as long as he was willing to part with it.

Walter Mangold donated the drinks cabinet. He’d found it in a storage room at the back of the saloon and buffed the wood until it shone in the lamplight. He also stocked the cabinet for Tru with whiskey, ginger beer, red wine, and sherry when he could get it.

Tru opened the cabinet, removed the bottle of whiskey, and measured out two fingers thicker than her own for her glass. She waited until she was curled in her reading chair by the stove before she sipped. The whiskey was smooth on her tongue and warm all the way down. The heat in her belly was satisfying. She had another sip before she exchanged the tumbler for
Oliver Twist.
Tilting the book in the direction of the lamplight, she began to read.

She had no recollection of falling asleep, only of being jarred awake. In those first disorienting moments, Tru thought she must have dropped the book. That would explain the thump. She even started to reach for Dickens only to realize that the book still lay open in her lap.

Thump.

Tru blinked and angled her head toward the door. The
back
door. It made no sense that the sound would be coming from that direction. An animal? she wondered.

She set the book aside, uncurled her legs, and rose. When the thump came again and was closely followed by another, she recognized the rhythm. Someone was knocking. Grabbing the lamp, she hurried to the kitchen. Evelyn Stillwell from next door regularly came to this entrance, but she was usually carrying a quart of bean or vegetable soup, and she had never visited at night. Tru could only imagine that some calamity had brought Evelyn out.

Tru’s senses were sharper now than when she had awakened. She resisted throwing the door wide in the event that Evelyn was standing directly in front of it. She held up the lamp as she carefully pushed the door open.

“Evelyn? What—”

But it wasn’t her neighbor, or even her neighbor’s husband.

Cobb Bridger touched one hand to his hat and filled the silence that followed her aborted greeting with his smooth baritone and a mildly apologetic grin. “Evening, Miss Morrow.”

Tru lowered the lamp and started to pull the door closed. There was immediate resistance. Looking down, she saw the toe of Cobb’s boot was acting as a doorstop. “Remove your foot, Mr. Bridger.”

“Mr. Bridger?” When she said nothing, he shrugged. He did not remove his boot. “Don’t you want to know what I’m doing here?”

“I don’t believe I do, no. Please step back.”

He didn’t move. “I wanted to explain about earlier at the hotel.”

“You’re letting the cold in.”

“The cold will stay out here if you invite me in.”

Tru set her mouth stubbornly.