CHAPTER 9

Rain began after midnight and fell incessantly through dawn. Isabel’s father drove her to school in the wagon. The schoolroom was cold, and she decided to keep her cloak on for a while. When it was too chilly, the children couldn’t concentrate on their lessons. They never worked sums quickly if their hands were cold.

The door crashed open behind her, and Will Ingram bounced in.

“Morning, Teacher.”

“Good morning, William. Please close the door more gently than you opened it.”

“Yes ma’am. My ma said to come early and see if you wanted a fire built in the stove this morning.”

“Yes, please. I was just going to do that, but you may have the task.” She went to her desk and arranged her books and lesson notes.

Will puttered about at the stove and went out for a minute to bring in an armful of wood from the shed.

“Not much wood left,” he said when he came in. Water dripped off his clothes, and he left wet footprints from the door to the potbellied stove halfway along one wall of the large room.

“Thank you. I’ll inform the school board. I expect they thought we were done needing a fire this spring.”

The other children filtered in by twos and threes. Most days they stayed outside until she rang her bell, but on days of rain or extreme cold, they were allowed to enter the schoolroom as soon as they arrived. All knew the rule, however, that they must remain quiet.

At precisely eight o’clock, Isabel stood and rang her handbell softly. “Good morning, students.”

“Good morning, Miss Fennel,” they chorused.

She opened the school day by taking the roll, offering prayer, and reading a psalm. Then began the round of arithmetic classes. At the blackboard, she set problems for the older children to work while she drilled addition and subtraction up to tens with the two first graders. No second graders attended the Fergus school this year, and the third and fourth grades had only one pupil each. She generally called them together for their arithmetic.

She erased the older children’s problems from the chalkboard and began to write two examples each for Julie Harper and Paul Storrey. Behind her, the stove door creaked open. Will must be adding fuel to the fire, though the classroom had warmed up nicely. She thought she heard a whisper. Isabel turned around with a stick of chalk in one hand and her open arithmetic book in the other. Will was sliding into his seat beside Nathan Landry.

Pow! Bang!

Girls screamed and jumped up, knocking books and slates from their desks. Isabel’s chalk flew from her hand, and the book tumbled to the floor. Children scrambled in a tangle of pantalets and fallen benches away from the stove.

Pow!

The older boys had remained in their seats. Will held one hand across his mouth, Isabel’s brief impression of his expression was not horror, but rather an ill-hidden smirk. The girls continued to shriek. Six-year-old Millie Pooler wailed. Her classmate Ben Rollins, whose seat was near the stove, appeared to have wet his pants.

“Children! Calm yourselves.”

The room stilled. Julie Harper caught a prolonged sob and hiccupped.

Isabel glared at Will. His gaze met hers, and he dropped his hand to his side and sobered. “Want me to check the stove, ma’am?”

“No William. I think you’ve done enough for today. You will go straight home and tell your father what you’ve done.” She looked at the watch pinned to her bodice. “I shall come around to see your parents this afternoon, and I shall ask them what time you reached home. If you have not arrived there by nine-twenty, I shall ask them to increase whatever punishment they have meted out for this act of yours.”

“But—”

“Go. Now. Anything you wish to say to me may be said this afternoon at your home.”

He held her gaze only a moment longer then lowered his chin. “Yes ma’am.” He walked slowly toward the cloakroom, and a few seconds later the outer door slammed behind him.

Isabel surveyed her class. “Children, pick up the mess and resume your seats, please.” She walked to Ben and touched his shoulder. “Ben, you may be excused. Tell your mother I said you may return to school after you change your clothes.”

Ben hung his head. His eyes full of tears, he murmured, “Yes ma’am,” and headed for the door.

Before going back to the blackboard, Isabel eyed the stove. When it cooled off, she would examine the contents, but she thought she knew what she would find.

“No one is to go near the stove,” she said firmly. Stooping, she retrieved her arithmetic book.

“Here’s the man you want to ask,” Libby said, nodding toward the door. Hiram Dooley had just entered the emporium, letting in a chilly draft. He stopped on the rag mat and wiped his boots, but rainwater dripped off his hat brim onto the floor as he looked downward.

“Yes, a good idea,” Isabel said.

“Mr. Dooley, may we have a word with you?” Libby called.

Hiram looked up with widened eyes as though shocked that a woman would speak to him. He glanced down at the small puddle on the floor, as if he suspected that prompted the attention they gave him.

“Don’t worry about that, Hiram. Folks have been tracking in mud all day, and a little more water won’t hurt. I intend to mop the whole floor this evening after closing.”

He slid out of his slicker and hung it on one of the hooks near the door, then walked toward the counter, eyeing Libby and the schoolmarm cautiously.

“What can I do for you ladies?”

Libby smiled, hoping to put him at ease. A quiet man who always seemed a little on edge around women other than his sister, Hiram had become one of her favorite neighbors. Since the start of the shooting club, she’d furthered her acquaintance with both Dooleys, and she liked what she found beneath his self-effacing exterior.

“Miss Fennel was just telling me about a prank one of her students pulled today. It seems while she had her back turned, one of the boys tossed a few cartridges into the school stove.”

Hiram frowned. “The boy ought to know better.”

Isabel nodded, her pale blue eyes snapping. “So I told his father twenty minutes ago. Mr. Ingram assured me he will deal with the boy, but he also said something I had to wonder about. Mr. Dooley, is it true that putting a bullet in a stove is not dangerous? Mr. Ingram seemed to think it was a harmless joke his son played.”

Hiram rubbed the side of his neck thoughtfully. “Well now, I expect it set off the powder charge and made a pretty big bang, depending on what caliber shells you’re talking about.”

Isabel winced. “I confess it frightened me. It scared us all and put the classroom in an uproar.”

“Which is just what Will Ingram wanted,” Libby said.

“I suppose so.”

“Well ma’am, it’s like this,” Hiram said. “The powder would make a big boom, for certain, and the cartridge case would move, but it would stop when it hit the side of the stove’s firebox. Not being confined in the chamber of a gun, it wouldn’t shoot off so hard or go in a particular direction. I reckon the blast was a lot of noise without much force behind it, and the lead bullet pretty much stayed put inside the stove.”

“I suppose that’s a good thing,” Isabel said gravely. “I’m glad to know there wasn’t as much danger to the children as I at first feared. But it certainly disrupted the class.”

“It’s a bad trick to pull,” Hiram said. “And you never know. If the stove door weren’t shut tight … well, we could imagine circumstances where it could result in tragedy.”

“Yes,” Libby said. “If another child went over and opened the stove door, for instance, just before the powder caught.”

“True.” Hiram set his lips together in a tight line.

“Mr. Ingram will probably tan his backside,” Libby said.

“I hope he does.” Isabel colored slightly. “Perhaps as his teacher, I shouldn’t admit that, but Will has been a handful this spring. It took an extreme situation like this for me to go directly to his father. And I’m not sure yet that one of the other boys didn’t supply the bullets. Mr. Ingram agreed to get the entire story out of him. But I’m glad to know there was little danger to the other children. Thank you, Mr. Dooley.”

He nodded.

Libby had been keeping an eye on the other customers browsing throughout the store. Laura Storrey looked her way from the section where kitchen utensils hung on a pegboard. Libby glanced at Isabel and Hiram. “Can I get either of you anything? I see Mrs. Storrey looking my way as though she’d like assistance.”

“I just came for a can of cinnamon for Trudy, but I can find it, thank you.” Hiram gave the cinnamon the same sober nod other people would give a coffin, but Libby remembered when he had been more lighthearted. She was sure that the gentle gunsmith needed only the right circumstances to banish his gloomy aspect. Of course, the arrival of the widowed sister-in-law he so disliked hadn’t helped. As she hurried to assist Mrs. Storrey, she resolved to add his name to her prayer list. It might seem frivolous to some, but to Libby it made perfect sense to pray that another person’s dejected spirits be lifted.

The rough benches in the old haberdashery building filled quickly on Sunday morning. More than half of Fergus’s one hundred–plus residents had signed the church’s new constitution and become members. The holdouts lay low on Sundays, and some slunk into the saloons after sundown.

Hiram looked about with satisfaction while Rose engaged Trudy in a whispered conversation. He hoped they’d build a proper church this summer. Mayor Nash had already spoken to him about leading the building crew.

Libby had stopped halfway up the center aisle to speak to Vashti and Goldie, the two girls who worked at the Spur & Saddle. He found it hard to take his eyes off Libby. Her golden hair picked up rays of sunlight that reached in through the front windows. She always radiated a sweet spirit, and he couldn’t think of a kinder, more competent woman. She’d done a lot for Trudy this past year by befriending her and prompting her to organize the shooting club for the women.

As he gazed at Libby, she straightened and glanced his way. Hiram’s chest tightened as he realized she’d caught him staring. But she only smiled, that gentle, thoughtful smile he’d come to admire. He allowed himself to answer it and give a half nod, remembering his conversation with her and Isabel just a few days ago. He’d managed to keep from making a fool of himself then, largely due to the serious topic and Isabel’s presence. Libby turned to find her seat, and he lowered his gaze to his hands, thankful that Rose hadn’t noticed the silent exchange.

All the men Hiram considered friends sat in the benches facing the podium—Ethan, Griff, Peter, Josiah Runnels, and many others besides. He could only think of two women in town who weren’t at church, aside from outlying ranchers’ wives. That would be Bitsy Shepard and the new girl at the Nugget. He didn’t even know her name, but her arrival on the stagecoach had drawn everyone’s attention. She wore a fur stole over a dress with no shoulders. Or at least that’s what Griff had told him. Hiram hadn’t gone over to the stage stop to get a peek. But Ted Hire hadn’t wasted much time replacing the bar girl who’d been arrested last summer; that was certain.

Rose, who sat between Hiram and Trudy, chose that moment to leap to her feet. “Oh, Mr. Fennel. So nice to see you again.”

Hiram automatically rose. He’d been taught since childhood to stand when a lady stood. Cyrus had paused at the end of the bench, beyond Trudy. Rose gushed like a schoolgirl and allowed him to shake her hand.

“I trust you’ve recovered from your arduous journey, Mrs. Caplinger.”

“Yes, I believe I have. This mountain air is quite invigorating.”

Cyrus smiled at her. Hiram didn’t like the way his gaze darted to Rose’s figure. He felt the blood infuse his cheeks and wondered for an instant whether a man could be embarrassed for another when the other man should be ashamed and wasn’t. It was an interesting train of thought, but a flash of color as the door opened again distracted him from it.

He wished he were standing beside Trudy, without Rose and her poufy dress between them. He’d have nudged Trudy to be certain she noticed the new arrivals.

Augie Moore, the bartender (and some said the cook for the Sunday chicken dinner) at the Spur & Saddle had just entered, which was not unusual. In the crook of his left arm, he cradled his black leather Bible. In the crook of his right arm lay Bitsy Shepard’s bejeweled hand.

Bitsy hung back a little, but Augie tugged her gently forward. The dyed feathers on her cobalt blue hat bobbed. At the next-to-last bench, Augie stepped aside and let her enter the row ahead of him. They sat down next to Ralph and Laura Storrey. Bitsy kept her chin down, but Hiram could see her dark eyes flicking back and forth beneath the net veil of her hat. Her dress, black with touches of bright blue on the sleeves and bodice, would have been as modest as Trudy’s if it had contained about a half yard more fabric. Still, for Bitsy, it was quite ladylike.

The real shock was her presence in a church meeting. Trudy and the other shooting club members had invited Bitsy for months, but except for one time last summer, she’d always said no. What had changed her mind?

Pastor Benton stepped up to the pulpit, and Cyrus moved quickly down the aisle to his seat beside Isabel. As their guest settled her skirts about her, Hiram met Trudy’s gaze over Rose’s head. Trudy’s grayish eyes sparkled with the reflected blue of her Sunday dress. Hiram could tell from her suppressed energy that she’d seen Bitsy come in. Months of prayers answered—that’s what Trudy’s look said. He nodded and resumed his seat. Now maybe they could turn their prayers to the family problem and seek guidance for what they should do with Rose.

She leaned toward him and murmured near his ear, “I declare, some folks’ mothers never taught them how to dress appropriately for church services, did they?”

Hiram pretended he hadn’t heard and hoped no one else had.