9

SATURDAY, JUNE 9, 1906

Hattie sat in the tree outside her bedroom window, her hips wedged into the angle where sturdy branch met trunk, her feet braced against a lower limb. She wasn’t invisible if one knew where to look. But for the moment at least she was hidden from view, which was her primary objective. She wanted to be alone.

Last night should have been a highlight in her life. She’d graduated high school, second in her class, in the Buchannan hotel ballroom. She’d worn a new white gown with pale yellow ribbons, and Augusta had arranged Hattie’s hair in a Gibson Girl that had actually stayed up for the entire evening, a feat she never accomplished on her own.

Next week while Aunt Augusta and Mirabel embarked on a two-month trip to San Francisco, Hattie was moving out to the ranch, her favorite place in the world, to stay with Jake, her favorite person in the world, and Jane-Ellen, who was seven months pregnant.

Originally, she’d been scheduled to accompany her aunt on the trip, but on April 18 an earthquake leveled a large part of the California city and Augusta canceled Hattie’s ticket. Augusta had family there and felt she might be of assistance. She didn’t feel the need, however, to possibly endanger her ward.

Hattie much preferred staying at the ranch anyway. This would probably be her last unencumbered summer. In the fall, she was leaving for Seattle Normal School to learn to be a teacher. All year she had been looking forward to the opportunity to experience life in a big city.

Everything should be bully, as President Roosevelt was fond of saying.

Well, it was easier to be bully when you were the youngest president in American history, popular, and loved for your rough-and-tumble crusade. Less easy was living in a small town that labeled you the resident bad-girl trouble maker. Hattie drummed her heels on the branch supporting them, sending a shower of bark filtering through the leaves to sprinkle the lawn below. She didn’t understand how she’d come to acquire her reputation; it just seemed to start dogging her footsteps the instant she’d set foot in town.

Fine, sometimes she wasn’t as tactful as she should be, but she was constantly working to correct the fault. And she did have a tendency to argue, occasionally quite loudly, and to point out some of the inequities in this town. And, yes, her hair was red. But, for goodness’ sake, she had no control over that. The way people talked about it, however, one would think she’d intentionally chosen it for the sole purpose of irritating them. Nobody in their right mind would ever choose to be a redhead. If God had offered her the choice, she would have said, Make me blond and refined like Jane-Ellen. Or brunette like Alice Roosevelt, who is my absolute idol. But, please, God, whatever You do, please please please don’t give me red hair.

God had clearly not consulted her, so therefore she had no control over the color. Sure didn’t stop the town from talking about it as if it were the major contributor to her character, however, and there wasn’t a blessed thing she could do except hold her head high.

But now they were saying she was loose? How on earth had they come to that conclusion? True, her ex–best friend was a boy. But she was half a year from turning nineteen—an age in this town equated with spinsterhood for unwed young women—and she had never even been properly kissed!

Tiny pebbles flew past her and rattled against her bedroom window. Peering down through the branches, she watched through narrowed eyes as Moses scooped up another handful and tossed them at the second story. Carefully, she drew as far into the sheltering screen of leaves as she could go.

“Hattie!” Moses hissed in a stage whisper. “I know you’re up there. C’mon out and talk to me.”

She kept quiet, hoping he’d give up and go away. But after waiting a few moments for a reply, he tossed another handful of pebbles, which bounced off her windowpane. “Hattie!”

“Oh, for . . .” She leaned down. “Go away!”

Moses tipped his head back and peered up at her. “There you are! Still mad at me, huh?”

“Yes! Git.”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Agilely, he climbed the tree until he was perched on an adjacent limb. Brawny arm looped around the trunk, feet braced on the branches below, he gazed down at her solemnly. Moses had grown considerably over the past few years and was both taller and more strapping than most full-grown men in Mattawa, so he occupied a sizable area. “I came to apologize and I’m gonna do it. I’m sorry about last night, Hattie. I let you down badly.”

She eyed him coldly. “Do tell.”

“C’mon, Hat. I said I was sorry.”

“Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?” If eyes could flash lightning bolts, Hattie knew hers would be doing so. “By all means, then, I forgive you. After all, I realize you were quite bowled over by Florence-May Jordan’s big blue eyes. Heavens, why should I have expected you to stick up for me when she and Barbara Norton were tearing my reputation to shreds in front of you? It’s not as though you and I are friends or anything.”

Moses flushed painfully from collarbone to hairline. “Oh shit,” he whispered, and peered at her hopefully, waiting for her to exclaim, Why, Moses Marks, I’m gonna tell your mama.

But she remained silent, regarding him levelly with hurt and angry eyes.

It was the hurt that really killed him, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t have a good excuse, Hattie. Hell, I don’t even have a weak one. I was flattered by Florence-May’s attentions. And when she said those things about you, it made me mad, but I opted not to defend you because I was afraid it would ruin my chances of walking her home from the Commencement Ball. I’ve been dreamin’ of stealing a kiss from that girl for the past six months.”

“That’s another thing!” Hattie snapped. “Florence-May Jordan has lived in this town for less than a year, and everybody just loves her to death. I’ve lived here for seven years, yet all of a sudden everybody’s saying Hattie Taylor’s ‘no better than she should be.’”

“Well, maybe if you wore your damn corset once in a while—”

“What?!” Hattie snapped erect on her tree limb.

“Your corset, girl.” Moses knew he was all red-faced again, this time with embarrassment, but he refused to look away. “Your figure is, it’s . . . well, hell, it’s lush. And the men in this town are noticing.”

“Corsets,” Hattie said with restrained vehemence, “are nothing more than—”

“Yeah, yeah; heard it before,” Moses interrupted, “‘one more instance of man perpetuating the myth of female subservience.’ Well, in this case, girl, your failure to strap down what is a truly spectacular figure is giving every man in town ideas about you!”

Hattie looked genuinely baffled by the idea. “But I’m not pretty like Florence-May or—”

“What you are,” he interrupted her, “is something a helluva lot more . . . exciting. You aren’t pretty in the way currently popular, no. But men notice you. And women notice their men noticing. Your coloring is flamboyant, your posture is excellent, some say your mouth is downright wicked, and you’re bold, Hattie, in both appearance and speech. If you’re smart, you’ll start lacing up your whalebone like every other decent woman in town. ’Cause, girl, men are getting an eyeful, watching you bouncin’ and swayin’, and they like the experience of feeling real flesh beneath your dress when they dance with you. They’re starting to entertain notions.”

“What sort of notions?”

“They’re wondering what it would be like to help you warm up a cool set of sheets. I’ve heard them in my father’s barbershop, talking about you.”

“How dare they!” she screeched, shifting her weight on the branch with such agitation, she nearly fell out of the tree. Clinging to the trunk, she bristled with righteous indignation.

“Settle down, Hat. They’re just wondering. No one’s ever actually claimed to know you.” She realized from the uncomfortable way he failed to meet her eyes that Moses was speaking in the biblical sense. A heat wave of rage and humiliation pulsed in her chest, her cheeks, her forehead.

“How truly magnanimous of them,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Partly, I suppose,” Moses said, “that’s due to the realization if word ever got back to Jake, he’d kill them.”

“How about the fact it simply isn’t true?”

“Come on, Hattie, when has that ever stopped this town from talking?” Moses scratched his head and looked as if he wished he’d never started this conversation. “You know how Mattawa loves its gossip. You can’t take it personally.”

“Can’t take it per— Oh no, I mustn’t do that. It’s only my reputation being ripped to shreds by a pack of lies, after all.” She stared at him incredulously. “Moses, you cannot get more personal than that!”

“Well, the way you flirt with everything in pants,” he roared in response, “sure as hell isn’t helping your cause any!”

“What in tarnation is all this shouting going on?” Mirabel poked her head out Hattie’s bedroom window. “Hattie Taylor, you get out of that tree this instant! And you, Moses Marks, present yourself at the front door like a civilized young man.” She leveled him with a steely gaze. “And that best not have been a curse I heard you yelling, sonny. You may have grown into a giant, but you’re not too big for me to wash your mouth out with soap. Hattie, come in here at once!” She disappeared back into the bedroom.

“Meet me at the door,” Moses whispered, beginning to climb down the tree.

“I think you’ve said enough,” Hattie replied stiffly. His comment about her flirtatiousness wasn’t untrue, but it hurt all the same to hear him say it. She had begun flirting outrageously this year, for it was the one area in which she’d found acceptance. The girls in their social circle had taken a dislike to her from her first day in school. The boys hadn’t, however, so naturally she’d found it easier to talk to them. As she’d matured, it had seemed a natural progression to take it a step further into harmless flirtations. But once again, it appeared her actions had backfired, embroiling her up to her lily-white, lightly freckled neck in trouble.

“C’mon, Hattie, meet me at the door,” Moses implored from the ground, craning his neck to look upward. “I smuggled us a copy of the Police Gazette from Dad’s shop.” Pulling the tail of his shirt out of his pants, he flashed the paper tucked into his waistband.

When her long, narrow nose remained up, he became indignant. “Fine, then. Be that way. It’s not me spreading stories about you. Heck, except for last night, I’ve stuck up for you plenty, and it isn’t fair to punish me for what others are saying.” But unable to sustain his anger, he cajoled, “Hat?”

Moses watched her edge over to the house and angle headfirst through the window. “C’mon,” he called. “I’ll rent us a tandem bike from Armstrong’s Livery and we can ride out to the country for a while. Whataya say?”

He glimpsed a flash of ankle when her round hips and long legs slithered over the windowsill as she disappeared into her room, and he exhaled gustily. Jeez, she was stubborn!

But a moment later her head poked back out the window. Bracing her hands on the windowsill, she leaned out. “Five minutes,” she said and pulled back inside.

“I know what I should do,” Hattie said a short while later as the two of them approached the livery stable. “I should make an appointment with Doc Fielding and then take out a full-page ad in the Clarion.” She tugged on the stable doors. “I’ll have them run a document with his signature on it and an official seal prominently displayed, kind of like our diplomas. It’ll say, ‘This is to verify Dr. Fielding has examined Miss Hattie Witherspoon Taylor and found her to be an intact maiden of sterling virtue.’ That would put a damper on all the talk.”

As they stepped from daylight into the dim interior of the livery, Hattie bumped into someone. “Excuse me,” she apologized. Then, recognizing Aunt Augusta’s lawyer as her eyes adjusted, she added politely, “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Lord.”

His hands, which had reached out to steady her, tightened momentarily as Roger Lord coolly eyed her from head to toe. Then he released her and tipped his hat. “Miss Taylor.” He stepped out of the livery into the sunshine flooding the stable courtyard and strode away.

“That man is the handsomest specimen I have ever seen,” Hattie murmured as she watched his departure. “But for some reason he forever makes my blood run cold.” Moses didn’t reply, and she turned to look at him.

He was staring at her in horror. “Jeez, Hattie, are you plumb crazy?”

“I can’t help it, Moses, he gives me the shivers.”

“Forget Lord. I’m talking about this ad business! Jake would probably take a buggy whip to your backside, and Mattawa? Shit, girl, the townspeople would run you out of town on a rail.” He glared at her. “Tarred and feathered.”

“Why, Moses Marks, I’m gonna tell your—”

“Shut up, Hattie!” he roared and grabbed her arm none too gently, dragging her out of Armstrong the blacksmith’s earshot. Moses shook her impatiently. “Jesus, girl, you don’t have the sense you were born with!”

“I disagree. The examination would prove conclusively . . .”

“Arrgh!” Clutching handfuls of his pale hair, he tugged viciously. With exaggerated patience, he said through clenched teeth, “Nice . . . girls . . . do not . . . discuss . . . Unmentionable Subjects . . . with any man. And . . . they . . . never . . . ever . . . take . . . out . . . full-page ads in the MATTAWA CLARION!” He shouted the paper’s name into her face, his nose a scant inch from hers.

“All right, all right,” she replied sulkily, stepping back and putting some distance between herself and his anger. “Don’t get your tail in a twist. It was merely a thought.”

“I have never heard such horse-pucky in my life.” He stalked away, still muttering, and Hattie went out into the livery yard.

Criminy. If he was going to act all unreasonable and huffy, he could just handle the bicycle transaction by himself. She found a spot in a circle of sunlight, sat down, and, turning her face up to the sun, closed her eyes.