Vi—
Bad news travels fast in this territory, so I’m guessing you’ve heard about Divina. Or else I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news. First my pop and now Divina. Life is goddamn unfair sometimes. Don’t you even think about dying.
—Ruby
Ruby posts the letter at the post office and continues straight up Jefferson. She ignores catcalls from outside Judd’s, darts up Lower Gulch, and continues the back way up through town on Upper Gulch. Ruby catches her breath on the incline. She’s not as hale as usual.
At the crest of the hill, past the cemetery, Ruby turns left into the schoolyard. It’s four-thirty, and pupils have left for the day. She crosses the dirt yard toward the schoolhouse steps and stops to take another breath. She’s recovered—barely—from her three-day hangover by now, but her mouth is still cotton dry. Damn that she didn’t bring a canteen. She can’t recollect being on a bender like that, but Divina was worth it. And so was Sheldon Sloane. Although she hasn’t seen Perce yet. What will I say? And how?
“Miss Stern?” Ruby pokes her head into the one-room schoolhouse.
Margaret is sweeping with a thin straw broom, her tight bun loose at the edges.
“Mrs.…”
“For God’s sake, Margaret, call me Ruby. We are the only two respectable women in town, except for Mrs. Burton and Mrs. Dowd, poor thing, the parson’s wife. Can you imagine being married to the likes of him?”
Margaret replaces the broom and tidies her hair. “Have you come about Sam? His arithmetic is much improved.” She straightens her severe skirt. “Although his spelling could use some work.”
“Actually, it’s not about any of the boys. Not this time. It’s about Sheldon. Mr. Sloane.”
“What about Mr. Sloane?”
“It’s a delicate subject.”
Margaret cocks her head. “And?”
“It’s just that he’s, well, lonely. Troubled, he’s been, since his missus passed, and I think he has eyes for you.”
“Nonsense,” Margaret says. “If he has eyes for anyone, it’s for you. A blind ox can see that.”
“After I shot my husband? Ask yourself, what kind of rogue this side of Hell would take up with someone like me?”
“You have a point, there … Ruby.”
Ruby sits at one of the desks, her fingers tracing a line on the carved top. “I was never a good student, Margaret. Knew my McGuffey’s well enough, and could recite like nobody’s business. Was made for the stage, my pop said. We were on the road most of my growing up. So while I might not know much about book learning, I certainly recognize a good match when I see one. You and Sheldon would make a handsome pair.”
Margaret takes in a deep breath, holds it, and then lets it out in a long whistling exhale. “I … I have my sights set on another.”
“Who? Certainly not the bank manager?”
“No, no one from Jericho.”
“Ah, I see. From …?”
“Iowa. Des Moines. But it’s been two years since I’ve had a letter.” She turns toward her desk. “Although why I am telling you this is beyond me.”
Ruby rises. “Why not? I’ve had my heart broken more times than most. I wonder why we women don’t talk about it more frankly.”
“That might be easy for you to say, being more—shall we say—experienced.”
“Divina pined for my pop for her whole life and he never saw her. Really saw her. Right in front of him, she was, since he was a young man. Her whole life wasted on the love of a man she could never have. And he’s the one who missed out.”
Divina. What am I going to do without you?
Ruby stares out the schoolhouse window at the Catalinas and then pulls her attention back to Margaret.
“Now, I’m not saying we can be friends, although there’ve been unlikelier pairs. But woman-to-woman, Sheldon Sloane is as good as they come. We’ve got what? Fifty years on this earth? Sixty, if we’re lucky? Hell, we’re halfway to that now, Margaret, you and me. What prospects can I hope for? You, on the other hand, have an opportunity right in front of you that you’d be a goddamn fool to squander.”
“I’m not convinced …”
“What more evidence do you need? You’re one of only two women—me being the other—in God knows how many miles who doesn’t make a living off not being hitched.”
“Ruby!”
“Say it isn’t true, Margaret. There’s a good man out there and I’ll do whatever it takes to see he’s pinned down.”
“It’s just that …”
“What?”
“I’m still waiting for a letter.” Margaret fiddles with her hands. “Oh, I get the occasional missive from my maiden aunts in Ohio, but the one I’ve been waiting for would be postmarked Des Moines, where I first boarded as a schoolteacher in 1902.” Her eyes mist. “I remember his scrawl like it’s my own; I’ve got a receipt on onion-thin paper that creases and cracks every time I look at it.”
A receipt? That’s all? Not a note, or a letter?
Ruby clears her throat. “Were you ever intimate with this Mr. Whatever-His-Name-Is?”
“Heavens, no. His name was Calhoun. Robert Calhoun. He was the superintendent.”
“Married?”
Margaret nods. “But his wife was frail. He paid me a good amount of attention.”
“Be that as it may, Margaret, two years without a letter says more than any letter might say.”
“I’ve heard that mail is often delayed. Or lost.”
“Make all the excuses in the world, Margaret. If someone wants to find you, they will go to the ends of the earth to do so. And a married man? No. No letter on his behalf is coming to Jericho. Ever.”
Margaret sinks on to a hard bench and hangs her head. “I’ve known since the day I left Iowa that there’d never be a letter. The two I wrote him were never answered. But I never gave up hoping he’d change his mind.”
“Look around. Make the best of it. Sheldon Sloane is the best horse you could ever bet on. I daresay you would grow to enjoy his company, in and out of the bedroom.”
Margaret’s face reddens.
“It’s true, Margaret. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it. More than once.” She feels her cheeks heating up with the lie. She’s been with Sheldon three nights in a row. “But I’ve got to be true to myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“My heart belongs to someone else. Someone I’ll never have. Sounds like Shakespeare, doesn’t it? Not that I couldn’t grow to love Sheldon, but it would be under the wrong pretenses. Being with a good man but in love with another. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“I wonder if I’m in love with Mr. Calhoun or the idea of it.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“I couldn’t. Not before marriage, anyway,” Margaret stammers.
“Really, Margaret. It’s 1905. No one’s going to tar and feather you.” Ruby puts her hand on Margaret’s shoulder. The schoolteacher tenses at the touch. Ruby doesn’t remove her hand. “If you can look at yourself in the mirror every morning, regardless of what you’ve done or felt or said, and you can live with yourself, you’re the only one you have to account to. No one else. Except God, if you believe that horseshit.”
“Don’t you believe?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to. I just can’t trust in a God who looks the other way while someone knocks the life out of you, or your kids. So I stopped believing a long time ago.”
“Maybe you’re stronger because of it, what you went through …”
“Oh, I’m stronger alright, Margaret. Just don’t know why I had to learn it that way.” Ruby opens her arms. “Come here.” Ruby gathers Margaret into an embrace. Margaret softens and sighs. Light slants into the classroom, dust motes hovering in the air. Ruby rubs Margaret’s back in slow, deliberate strokes. After a full minute, Ruby releases her grasp and smiles up at Margaret, a full half-foot taller. “See, that wasn’t hard, was it?” Margaret dabs her eyes with her sleeve, shakes her head, no.
“Just wait, Margaret. There’s heaven on this earth waiting a few blocks down the hill, in scuffed boots and with an even more scuffed heart. Like yours.”
Ruby hurries downhill past tailor, bakery, laundry. Tavern, tavern, tavern. Nods and gossip, dirt and dung. Ruby. Sheriff. Fine day. It is. Outside Judd’s, Willa, sweeping the boardwalk, a large bruise on her forearm.
Ruby stops. “Damn it, Willa. Again? Why the hell do you stay with that bastard?”
Willa pauses, rests on the broom handle. “Ruby.”
“Did you hear me?”
“What choice do I have? Married to him. And I’m not as handy with a pistol as you are.”
“You can divorce him.”
“I don’t want to divorce.”
“He’ll never change, Willa.”
Willa shrugs.
“Do you have family? Anywhere you can go?” Ruby asks. She realizes she doesn’t know the half about people she sees every day.
Willa shakes her head. “Even if I did, I still love the old bastard.”
Ruby glances inside Judd’s. Is that Penny behind the bar? “That girl there?” Ruby asks. “Have you hired her on?”
Willa turns to look inside the tavern. “Penny? Yes, she’s helping out. Judd’s taken a shine to her.”
Ruby touches Willa’s arm. “Think about what I’ve said, Willa. There’s life after. After the bruises, I mean. And tell Penny that Ruby wants to talk to her.”
THAT NIGHT, RUBY CAN’T SLEEP. She argues with herself until she’s done with words. She dresses, pulls on her boots, and steals out the back door. Halfway across Washington Street, between Burton’s and the sheriff’s office, Ruby almost turns around. But she doesn’t. She avoids a couple of roughs well past sobriety, rounds the back of the jail, and stands outside Sheldon’s room until her heart almost knocks on the door by itself.
After three short raps, Sheldon opens the latch. He pulls Ruby in and shuts the door behind them.