15 FEBRUARY 8, 1905 JERICHO, ARIZONA TERRITORY

“Miss Stern?”

The schoolteacher stops, her back straight. She has a half-foot on Ruby, but is equally thin. She lowers her pointed nose into her handkerchief and coughs. “Mrs. Fortune?”

“Ruby, please.” Ruby moves closer, maybe too close.

Margaret Stern steps back. Her black hair is pulled back into a severe bun.

“Any more trouble up at the schoolhouse?”

The schoolteacher shakes her head and clips off her one-word answer. “No.”

An old mule-drawn wagon advances on the women. Dust swirls around the mules’ feet and with each step a larger cloud kicks up. As the rig gets closer, the women move quickly to the side of Jefferson Street to avoid choking on more dirt than necessary. Old Judd, the driver, steers the mules a tad too close to the women for comfort, enveloping them in dirt and dust and debris.

“Watch it, Judd!” Ruby yells.

“Sorry, ladies,” he barks. He continues down the street in a rush of brown and veers into the alley next to the livery.

“He’s not sorry,” Ruby says.

“That’s harsh, Mrs. Fortune.”

“I’ve been called every name in the book, Miss Stern. ‘Harsh’ is the least of my worries. Judd’s not the nicest fella on the block.”

Margaret looks past Ruby, as if she would rather be anywhere else than on a dusty street in Arizona Territory talking to a much-maligned innkeeper.

Ruby presses on. There must be a way to have a conversation with this woman. As she gropes for an opening, Sam comes from behind and shies up to Ruby. He shields his face from Miss Stern and dangles his readers from a strap. He hoists his lunch pail from one arm to the other. Ruby tousles his blond head.

“Virgil has been offered a position at the post office,” Ruby says. “Just two months before he was set to graduate.”

Miss Stern nods. “Now, that’s a most promising career for a boy like Virgil. I’m afraid he doesn’t have many choices. As for Sam here, he does quite well, under the circumstances.”

“What do you mean, ‘under the circumstances?’ Sam doesn’t talk, is all.”

“And what would you call that, then? Not talking?”

“He’s not mute, Miss Stern. He was learning to talk when …”

“Please don’t talk of such indelicate matters, Mrs. Fortune. Sam tries to keep up with his peers, and that’s admirable. We can’t have too many expectations from feeble-minded children.”

“Sam is not feeble-minded!” Ruby struggles not to raise her voice. “He’s as normal as any boy. And, I might add, he is learning that new American Sign Language. Have you read of it?”

“For the deaf and dumb?”

“You might rethink that phrasing, Miss Stern.”

Wink shuffles by, tips his hat. A riff of dirt cascades off the brim. “Morning, ladies. ‘All that glisters is not gold.’ That’s from …”

“Morning, Wink,” Ruby interrupts.

“My pleasure, Miss Ruby. And how’s my partner?” He bends to Sam’s eye level. “After school?” he asks.

Sam nods.

“Sam here is a clever boy,” Wink continues. “We understand one another just fine, don’t we? Who needs words?” The older man winks at the young boy and tips his beribboned hat. “Miss Ruby. Miss Stern. And young Sam.” He ambles across the road toward the livery.

“See you at supper?” Ruby yells.

“Must you yell?” Miss Stern asks.

Old Judd rounds the corner from the alley.

“Bastard!” Ruby barks at him.

Margaret Stern stiffens. “That’s no talk for a boy to hear.”

Ruby snorts. “That’s tame, Miss Stern. Everyday talk in traveling shows.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Margaret replies.

“Well, you don’t know what you’re missing.” Ruby smiles. “The horses, the trick riders, the sharpshooters, all of it. Makes a body all tingly thinking about it …”

Margaret clicks her pocket watch shut. “Come along now, Sam. Time for school. Good day, Mrs. Fortune.”

Ruby pecks Sam on the cheek and he blushes. She signs “I love you,” her thumb, pointer finger, and pinky up and third and fourth fingers down, in a subtle wave.

As Ruby crosses Jefferson, Wink stumbles on the road in front of the livery. Two men accost him as he scrambles to stand. One kicks dirt into his eyes as the other lunges for Wink’s pockets.

“Mercy!” Ruby rushes across the street, dodging another set of wagons. “Wink!”

“Hand it over, you old swillpot,” one of the roughs says. “We know your pockets are full.”

“Take this.” The other man kicks Wink in the mid-section just as he has regained his footing. Wink goes down again. “Old man not worth a shit.”

Ruby muscles her way through the gathered crowd. “Piss off! Both of you!” The men back away. She kneels next to Wink. “You alright?”

Tom Tillis bursts out the front of the livery. “Get off my property,” he yells after the ruffians. “And don’t come back.”

The roughs slink away as the throng dissipates. Tillis strides to where Wink crouches on the ground. Wink shakes off dirt and attempts to rise again. Ruby holds his elbow to steady him and Tillis helps him stand.

“Mighty obliged, Miss Ruby, Tom.”

“Can you make it back to the inn?” Ruby asks. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Wink nods. He holds his side as he shuffles across Jefferson.

Ruby turns to the livery owner. “Got my order in?” She checks back over her shoulder to see if Wink is getting along.

Tillis slides open the livery door. “After you, Miz Fortune.”

The way he says it, Ruby hears “misfortune.”

It’s a jingle jangle of noise as soon as they enter the livery. Ruby’s eyes adjust to the darkness. Tools. A clutter of machinery. Shadows of tack, and the warm, leathery smell of saddles, harnesses, reins. Ruby breathes in sweet smells of hay, oil, wood, and manure. In the distance, she hears a man yelling. A loud thud. A horse whinnies its displeasure.

“Be right back.” Tom Tillis wipes greasy hands on a tired rag.

Ruby has never heard Tom Tillis string more than two or three words together. She waits at the grimy counter and peers around the muddle of tack and tools to the rear of the establishment, where Tom has disappeared. There’s talk that Tillis runs cheap liquor through the livery, and illegal cock fights Sunday nights. Boxing matches, too, on holidays. There’s always a steady stream of customers, Wink first among them.

Tillis reappears from the back of the building with a jug of kerosene. “Anything else, Miz Fortune?”

“Got any whiskey?”

“Freighter comes in day after tomorrow,” Tillis says.

Did Tom Tillis just utter a full sentence? Maybe, Ruby thinks, you’ve just got to get a man going on a subject he’s interested in before the dam breaks loose. Liquor is a good start. And if Ruby can save money on whiskey, why not? Less for Harvey and Mae Burton’s coffers at the general store.

“Can’t miss a freighter,” Ruby says. “I don’t know why the dead aren’t raised when wagons that size come through town, all those mules raising a ruckus.”

Ruby hefts the kerosene and hastens back to Jericho Inn. No sign of Wink, probably headed to Judd’s by now. As she enters the kitchen, she sees the hind end of Harvey Burton heading back to his store next door. Her weekly delivery is stacked on the kitchen table: flour, sugar, potatoes, lard. Pickles, tinned meats, coffee, raisins. A receipt, to add to a growing stack of them. And milk, sweating in this morning heat.

Ice is another matter. Now, wouldn’t that be something. An icebox in Jericho. Meat wouldn’t turn green before cooking and milk could last more than a day. Old Judd keeps beer cool with wet gunnysacks and sawdust. Burton does the same for dairy products. Ruby’s lucky her milk doesn’t sour, but when you have a houseful of boys, there’s no threat of that happening. She’s lucky if her supply lasts a day. Ruby places the milk jug in a dark cupboard and covers it with a cool towel. The tea she steeped this morning is cooling on the kitchen counter, if you call a sultry eighty degrees cool. Ruby pours a generous mugful and sits at the table. With enough sugar in it, it’s almost as good as laudanum. Almost. Better than anything she’s ever known is the few hours she steals away with The Preacher, once a month, at the full moon. That’s when the miners come to town to spend their wad, wallet and otherwise.

The day The Preacher showed up at her back door back in ’04 was like lightning hit. A jolt passed through Ruby’s body so urgently she thought she was having a fit. Her groin was on fire before he said his first word, that kind face with eyes that bored right through her and a smile as wide as piano.

“CAN I BOTHER YOU for a cup of water?”

Ruby turned to see a large dark-skinned man at the kitchen door. She dried her hands on her apron. “Of course, wait there.”

Ruby poured a large glass of water from a pitcher and opened the screen. “Here you go, Mr…”

“Go by The Preacher,” the man said, as he took the glass from Ruby and swallowed it in one long gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, his bulky forearm tensing. “I’m mighty obliged, ma’am.”

Ruby stood rooted in the doorway. Now this was a damn fine-looking man, even if he could use a bath. She pictured him naked in her bathhouse, his arms, his legs, his torso, his …

“You wouldn’t be hungry, too?” she asked. Ruby was viscerally hungry for something else. How can I make him stay?

The man stammered. “Why, that’s awfully kind of you, ma’am. It has been awhile since my last meal. But I couldn’t impose on you.”

Of all the doors in Jericho, why hers? Oh, hell, Ruby, don’t ask questions. Just talk.

“Oh, hell about imposing. Sit here and I’ll make a plate up.” Ruby took the last of the supper fixings, the ones she usually reserved for Wink, and heaped on a slice of Ruby Pie. She balanced the plate as she re-opened the screen door. The man had not yet sat. She handed it to the stranger, their fingers brushing. Ruby’s drawers were clammy.

“Please, sit.”

The stranger ate quietly, murmuring mmm-hmm, yes, ma’am, mmm-hmm. Ruby stood in the doorway, watching the sky bleed red.

When the man finished, he stood again. “What’s a woman making the best damn pie in all creation doing in a town like this?” He proffered the plate, and their fingers brushed again.

“That’s a long story, Preacher Man.”

“Know of any work around here?”

“The Silver Tip is always hiring.” Ruby craned her neck toward the Santa Catalinas. “Good wages, too.”

“I’d stay in this town just for another slice of that pie.”

Ruby touched the man’s sleeve. “You come back anytime. I’ve always got pie.”

The Preacher is all Ruby can think about most days, and every night, too, as she settles into her narrow bed alone. If only he were here, his hands, his hair, his face, that sweet mole on his cheek, those long, strong, stocky legs around her. Two weeks, he’ll knock at her window, three raps followed by one loud one. Ruby has the date circled in red on her calendar.

The first night they squirreled in Ruby’s room was all her doing. It was the third time The Preacher had come for pie on a miner’s holiday. That night, even before The Preacher had time to ask, Ruby yanked him into the kitchen and kissed him. Without a word, she led him to her bedroom and closed the door. He stood without moving as Ruby unbuttoned her blouse. She let slip to the floor her blouse and camisole, and stood before him naked from the waist up. She then slipped off her skirt and undid the drawstring on her bloomers. Still he did not move.

“I don’t know if I can do this, ma’am.”

“You damn well can. And will.” Ruby took The Preacher’s large hand and put it to her breast.

“I never …”

“Shush up.” Ruby didn’t break eye contact as she undressed the man and led him to her bed, and there they made love in the wild creases of the night.

They nestled in silence until Ruby broke the spell. She reached toward The Preacher’s kind face and held his cheek in the cup of her hand. “How did you come by the name Preacher, anyhow?”

The Preacher ran his fingers through Ruby’s hair. “Maybe eight I was when my pap first called me that.” He cocked his head for a second. “Maybe earlier. Mam, too, and then all the others, and after awhile, I hardly knew my own name.”

“Which is?”

“Percival George Washington, Jr.”

“That’s a mouthful.”

“Don’t I know it. But ask me about Scripture.” He shifted to cradle Ruby. “I bet you won’t stump me.”

“List the Ten Commandments.”

“In order? ‘I am the Lord Thy God, Thou shalt have no other gods before me; Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image; Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain …’”

“Well, I broke that one a long time ago.”

“Don’t you know your Scripture, Ruby?”

“Never had much use for it. Seems God Himself dealt me a rotten hand.”

“Like no husband?”

“Oh, I had a husband alright. Bad blood, that one. Lied like a dog. Swindled his partners. Sold opium under cover. Knocked me senseless more times than I can count. Worse thing, though, is he whupped my boys.” Ruby tensed. “Not just whupped them. Beat them senseless. Maybe Clayton and even Fletcher deserved the belt, but Virgil? Sam? In the end, that’s what made me do it, Willie thrashing Sam.”

“Did what?”

Ruby disentangled herself and propped her head with her hand. She faced The Preacher, hair and sheets disheveled. “I killed him.”

Percival George Washington, Jr. whistled. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“You ever do anything you aren’t proud of, Preacher Man?”

“Ah, Ruby Girl, that’s a question no man can answer in the negative.”

Ruby burrowed her nose into The Preacher’s chest and inhaled his warm, musky smell.

“Want to tell me more?” he asked.

“Everything. And nothing.”

“Can’t order you to tell me. But I’m listening.”

They talked until dawn, and would have talked longer, but Ruby knew from the start if he was found with her, he’d be strung up in a minute, so she bundled him out the back door before anyone else awoke. When he comes to town now, The Preacher stays put in Ruby’s room with the door fastened shut and curtains drawn closed. Ruby comes to him after the washing up is done, long after the sky shifts from orange to salmon to amethyst to grey, chameleon-like. The risk is worth it, loving this fine, the likes Ruby has never known, tender and tough rolled into one, and closest to heaven she’ll ever come and she knows it.

RUBY REFILLS HER MUG AND nudges open the front door. Tonight, brewing clouds. Slanting rain. Chance of snow, even. The mercury has plummeted. And now a raging stream has turned Jefferson Street into a gully washer caroming toward the coach road. Stray dogs disappear down side streets like thieves. Even though it’s not the worst that Ruby’s seen, it’s foolhardy to attempt to cross Jefferson during a flash flood. Animals, grown men even, have been swept to their deaths in the trying of it.

The only person out tonight is Dog Webber, editor of the Courier-Journal. Webber picks his way across the side street, his trousers wet to the calf and a hand on his hat. He’s quick and wiry, not tall, but fast. He disappears into Judd’s Tavern, his second home.

Webber’s Courier-Journal was one of the first newspapers in Arizona Territory to feature photographs to accompany news stories. Maverick, that newspaperman. And sharp as a whip. Some say Dog was reared by wild animals, that’s how he got his name. Others say he came from Kentucky after killing a man. It’s not a fragile country, the farther west you go. Everyone’s got a story. Story is he sold The Wickenburg Miner for pennies on the dollar back in ’93 after a nasty dustup. Seems someone didn’t like an editorial he wrote about ex-slaves having rights like the common man and Webber got out of town faster than a cat with his tail afire instead of staring down a worse fate. What he got was Jericho, which he calls “Hellicho.”

Ruby sits in a rocker on the wide front porch of Jericho Inn, the mutt Roger at her feet. The rain hasn’t abated at all. She scrapes her plate, the last crumbs of piecrust caught up with her fingers. She pets Roger and he licks her hand clean. She could exist on pie. Big Sue could attest to that, Ruby showing up every night for second helpings when the carnival traveled through the Colorado and Texas and the desert southwest, eighteen wagons rolling on toward the next nickel. Her tummy used to protrude over her skirt, like her lip would do, especially when she was mad, which was more often than a scorpion stings. She has tried to tamp down her anger over the years, but oh boy can it rear up in a hurry.

Ruby’s still got a sweet tooth, too, but you’d never know it from the looks of her. Weighs a hundred pounds with clothes on, slip of a thing. She’s famous for her Ruby Pie, although it’s never the same pie twice, a mixture of nuts and currants and dried fruit mixed up with enough brown sugar your teeth could rot.

After President Roosevelt raved about it in ’03 on one of his swings through the western territories, Dog Webber asked for the recipe and aimed to print it in the Courier-Journal. But Ruby thought better of it, seeing as she never knows how it will turn out. Too much brown sugar, the filling is grainy. No currants? Not as tart. Stove too hot, you’re going to have a burnt crust once in a while.

For three days and two nights, Jericho treated the president like American royalty. Tom Tillis pulled out all the stops, outfitted his best buggy, and took the president all over the mining district himself, at no charge.

Rumors ran wild about why Roosevelt was in town. No one came to Jericho without good reason, and more times than not, it wasn’t for polite conversation. Truth is, at the height of the rush, there was nowhere else in hundreds of miles with opportunity quite like Arizona Territory’s Catalina Mining District. Gold, silver, copper, and every color, shape, and size of hard rock gems in between. Ruby knew exactly why the president had come calling, even if the papers painted it differently. The lure was just too great. Like a woman, but with hard edges.

Roosevelt called Jericho “swimming,” although Ruby thought that an odd moniker for a place dry as a desert. What pleased her most was Roosevelt asked for an extra slice of her pie. “The best I’ve ever tasted,” he said, as he proffered his plate. Who’s to argue with someone who’s been to the far corners of the earth? Europe, Egypt, the Holy Land, Cuba? Roosevelt could have stayed in Oracle where Buffalo Bill Cody stays when he’s in town, but there was the President of the United States in goddamn Jericho asking for a second slice of Ruby Pie.

“So how can you be sure it will turn out, if you don’t have a recipe?” Dog asked.

“My secret,” Ruby said. “Not in the habit of using recipes anyhow, Dog. Except special ones, Divina’s Lemon Tarts, Big Sue’s Indian Pudding, ones I’ve clipped out of magazines. I just use what I’ve got, nothing more, nothing less. And hope every time that it turns out.”

Ruby copied out the recipe for Roosevelt in her neat hand, sweeps of letters and fancy curlicues in the right places. Roosevelt said he’d have the chefs at The White House make it for him—every night, he said—and Ruby swelled at the saying of it.

“Though it won’t be half as good as eating it right here in Jericho,” Roosevelt said. “Which is why I’ll be back.” He pocketed the recipe and tapped his chest pocket.

RUBY PIE

2-1/2 c. shelled pecans or other nuts, currants, and dried fruit

5 T. melted butter

1½ c. brown sugar

1 T. flour

2 t. vanilla

½ t. salt

3 large eggs, whisked

Set pecans over warm piecrust. Whisk melted butter, brown sugar, and flour until thick. Add vanilla, salt, and eggs. Pour over nuts. Bake until golden and bubbly. Serve warm or cold.

Ruby hasn’t shared the recipe since, not even to Dog Webber. Over the years, it’s become one of her best weapons. Keeps travelers coming back. Which means she can get to needed repairs, one pie at a time.

First up is re-drilling the well. Bad water Ruby can disguise with lemons. But the dirty dishwater she’s pulling of late is downright unpalatable and lemons scarce. Ten feet down she might need to go, maybe twelve. It’s a crapshoot finding water in the desert. So what if it means a few more steps to haul water. If it tastes better, and the well is more reliable, it’s worth the extra work involved. Someday, she’ll have faucets like The Mountain View Hotel in Oracle or in New York. Someday, that’s one of her favorite words.

Next, a new paint job, off-white, cream almost, not the dingy brown the previous owners thought sensible, or maybe it was white and dust took over and never let go. It’ll take who-knows-how-many gallons of paint brought up from Tucson to paint the roadhouse, and it’s not happening this year, not on her budget.

The back porch is in the direst need of shoring up. Just this morning, Ruby heard a coyote digging under the entryway. When she hollered, the animal darted away, its skinny rear loping off into the desert. She got a shot off with her rifle, more to send it on its way than to hit it. Not that she’s shy about shooting coyotes, mind you, she just didn’t want to deal with the mess. She’s shot her share of coyotes and mad dogs. Big cats, too. But never stray kittens. Other people might drown them or shut them up under the house where they screech their way to the other side of breathing but Ruby’s got a soft spot for them as long as they never come into the hotel, no matter what Virgil says.

And then there’s the matter of a piano. Every hotel lobby from St. Louis to San Francisco has a piano. Even if a piano sat there in all its glory, topped with a frill of lace, oil lamp, tintype, and gee-gaw, it would shout in no uncertain terms that Ruby Fortune, innkeeper, can compete with any other hotel in this corner of the world.

But that’s months—and many more pies—away. Ruby gets up and heads back to the kitchen, the middle of another week of drudgery: cook, clean, wash, repeat. A heap of dishes spills over the sink and onto the drain board. Ruby is bone-tired tonight, can hardly keep her eyes open. She throws a dishtowel over the dirty plates, cups, flatware, and pots and closes the kitchen closet with her hip. Don’t worry your knuckles, Ruby. Tomorrow and its drudge, drudge, drudgery will come quick enough.

She falls into bed, exhausted, red boots still on.