WEARING MY DISGUISE of a cinched-in corset & puffy hoopskirt & dark-blue spectacles & black wig & bonnet & three-inch heels, it took me nearly five minutes to travel one block. Tapping my walking stick lightly left & right, I tottered along the uneven boardwalks & muddy streets. I kept gasping for air; my corset was making it hard to breathe. Also a chilly breeze was getting up under my skirt because the combination of stiff crinoline and ladies’ patent extension steel-spring hoops made it like a balloon. I was glad I was wearing long underwear.

The wig muffled my hearing and the black poke bonnet was like the blinkers some horses wear. I could only see a blue-tinted tunnel before me. As I was crossing Musser Street, I almost got run down by a six-horse Concord stage. The driver cursed me in language unfit for publication, but apologized when he spotted my white-painted bamboo cane.

When at last I reached a smooth sandstone sidewalk, I heaved a sigh of relief. But I had not gone a dozen paces when I was nearly trampled by a crowd of cigar-smoking men coming from the other direction. They were laughing & talking in loud voices.

My yelp of alarm was genuine & must have been convincing. Immediately, one of the men came to my rescue while the others turned to watch with interest.

This was not what I wanted. I had hoped to stay invisible. I had hoped my blindness would make people shy away from me.

The man who rescued me was short & stocky with shoulder-length gray hair & bright black eyes.

“Why, madam!” he cried. “We nearly knocked you over. Can you ever forgive us? How can we make it up to you?”

I made my voice kind of whispery. “Thank you, kind sir,” I said. “I am looking for a body of men called the Legislature.”

“A body of men!” cried one wag behind me. “She’s looking for a body of men! I reckon you have found a body of men right here.” Behind me I heard a chorus of guffaws, but my escort shushed them.

“You have found the Legislature!” said the gray-haired man. “It meets right here in this fine sandstone building to hammer out new laws for the Territory.”

I almost turned to look at the building that I had been aiming for but passed right by. Then I remembered I was supposed to be blind.

The man was still talking. “I am about to deliver a speech. Please, may I escort you?” Without waiting for my reply he tucked my gloved hand into the crook of his elbow. “Do you not have a protector or chaperone?”

I used my whispery voice to say, “The Lord is my protector and my chaperone, too. I have come to pray and intercede for the Legislature.” This was the clever Reply I had prepared earlier.

“Prayer and intercession!” he exclaimed. “What a noble enterprise! There are several other devout Ladies who come along each day. I will introduce you to them tomorrow, but today you must sit beside me in the guise of a personal angel sent to aid me.”

Two of his followers sprang forward to open the double doors of the Great Basin Hotel for us.

“May I ask your name?” said the gray-haired man.

I said, “My name is Mrs. Consuela Clever. I am a blind widow woman from Dayton. I am boarding at Mrs. Murphy’s.”

“Enchanted,” he said, and lifted my gloved hand to his mouth.

“May I ask your name?” I said in my breathy Blind Widow Woman voice.

At this the herd of men burst out laughing again.

“Pardon their rudeness,” said my rescuer. “They laugh because I am well-known to most people hereabouts.” He gave a little bow, which I could not see as I was “blind.”

“My name is James W. Nye,” he said. “I am the Governor of this expanse of sagebrush and alkali known as Nevada Territory. This here is my Secretary, Mr. Orion Clemens. The legislators and many citizens have all gathered in one room and I am about to address them. Let us mount these here stairs,” he added helpfully.

I nearly fainted. I was being escorted to the Legislature by the Governor of the Territory and his Secretary. They helped me up the stairs & onto a landing where we turned right & passed through another doorway into a big room full of people & cigar smoke & an excited babble.

As soon as we entered, the babble ceased. Through my blue-tinted spectacles I could see there were about four or five hundred people crammed in there: women in hoopskirts and hatless men sitting at desks arranged in curved rows like the frown lines on a judge’s forehead. Facing those desks was a raised platform with a table and three chairs upon it. Below and in front of this dais was a table with reporters facing the crowd. Every head had turned & every tongue was silent. I reckoned all of Carson City was in that room. Maybe all of Nevada Territory.

And they were all staring at me.

I tottered on my high shoes & nearly fell, but the Governor steadied me and held me up.

“I am fine,” I gasped. “Let me stay back here with the other ladies.”

“I will not hear of it,” he whispered into the ear region of my bonnet. “You must sit right beside me so I can benefit from your prayer and intercession at close range.”

As we proceeded down a central alley between the desks in their semicircles, all the men stared openmouthed and their heads followed us as the Governor of the Territory guided me up the stairs and right up onto the platform where everybody could plainly see me.

“Sit here,” he said, and pushed me gently down onto a chair.

I gasped. For as I sat down, one of the balled-up socks in my corset migrated north. I clutched my shawl closer around me and hoped the populace of Carson City would not notice that one of my bosoms was now higher than the other.

I felt queasy. Also breathless.

My bid to remain anonymous and to Blend into the Background was proving to be a spectacular failure. I was sitting beside the Governor with the Eyes of the Territory upon me.

BANG!

I nearly jumped out of my ladies’ patent extension steel-spring hoops when a man banged a wooden gavel.

“Ladies, gentlemen, legislators and reporters,” cried the man who had banged. “His Excellency Governor James W. Nye will now give his annual address!”

The thunderous applause was so loud that it hurt my ears even through a muffling wig and bonnet.

Beside me, the Governor stood up & plonked a great sheaf of papers onto the table.

With a terrible sinking feeling I realized that the unbound tome before him was the speech he intended to read.

I thought, “We will be here for three hours, maybe four.”

Then I thought, “Oh no. I think my other sock has just migrated.”

And finally, “Can anything else go wrong?”

Before me the clouds of cigar smoke momentarily dispersed. Near the back of the room where people were standing, I noticed a tall & handsome man dressed all in black apart from a white shirt.

It was my friend Poker Face Jace: the man I had come to spy on.

And like everybody else in that large room, he was looking straight at me.