The Jewel of His Heart (7 page)

“Wouldn’t mind if you’d pour me a fresh cup. I got busy, and this one is cold. The missus makes coffee, but since she brings it to me before I’m out of bed, I don’t have the heart to tell her that it’s weak.”

Juliana envisioned a devoted couple from the few remarks he’d made to her, but she’d yet to meet his wife, Sally. Juliana and Albert had quickly become friends, and she was grateful to be able to work for him. She placed the chipped enamel cup before him and proceeded to her desk with her coffee.

Suddenly shots rang out, making her jump and splatter her coffee across the desktop.

Albert sprang from his desk and jerked open the front door, and Juliana was right on his heels. “What—?”

A horse flew past them and disappeared in a cloud of dust, its rider hunkered down low over the horse’s back. Shopkeepers suddenly appeared on the sidewalks outside their storefronts.

“The bank’s been robbed!” Glenn, the barber next door, shouted.

Albert and Juliana hurried down the sidewalk to the bank, where a crowd was beginning to form. “Anyone hurt?” Albert asked.

Glenn made his way through the bank’s front door. Juliana could see past him to the banker, who was lying on the hard floor, blood oozing from his side. “Someone go fetch the doctor, and hurry before this man bleeds to death!” Someone in the crowd ran to do his bidding.

“Mac, can you hear me?” Albert knelt down next to the bleeding man. A moan was his only answer. “Do you know who did this to you?”

“I saw the man.” A scared and white-faced man peeked out from behind the teller window. “Where’s the sheriff?”

“On his way. You can give him your description.” Albert nodded to Juliana. “Get a piece of paper off that desk there and take down any information you hear.”

She hurriedly found pen and paper just as Dr. Barnum hurried through the door carrying his black satchel. He nodded in her direction. Pounding up the wooden steps behind him was the town sheriff, slightly out of breath, his silver badge displayed on his leather vest.

“Take it easy, Mac.” Dr. Barnum knelt beside the man and ripped his shirt open to reveal a bullet wound in his shoulder.

“Who in tarnation . . . ?” Sheriff Ben Wilson tried to bend his stout frame over the wounded banker as far as his protruding stomach would allow. “Who did this to you, Mac?”

Mac tried to speak, but his breathing was too ragged. Dr. Barnum tried to calm him. “Mac, you’re lucky. The bullet just missed your heart and lodged in your shoulder. You’ll be okay.” He turned to the crowd. “Can someone help me get him to my office?” Several of the men scurried forward to help.

The teller stared down in shock at his friend, his eyes stark with fear. It could easily have been him.

“Sheriff, there was only one. Older guy. I don’t recollect ever having seen him around here before.” The bank teller fingered his moustache with a shaking hand.

“Well now, exactly what did he look like?”

“Dark-haired, scruffy-looking with a beard, and kinda tall in the saddle.”

“Humph! How much did he make off with?” Albert asked.

“Near as I can tell, about $15,000.”

“Whew! That’s a bundle for sure. I need to get a posse together and hit the trail before we lose him.” The sheriff scratched his head in thought before turning to the crowd, his hand resting lightly on the gun strapped to his leg.

“How about it? I need five good men to ride with me.”

“Sheriff, I’ll go.” A man standing nearby stepped up. “Just let me get my horse and rifle.”

“Me too,” another man said. Three more rugged townsmen spoke up, and they quickly mounted their horses hitched at the post in front of the bank. Sheriff Wilson nodded to Dr. Barnum before taking the lead.

“Take care of him, Mark.” Sheriff Wilson reached over to the hitching post, untied the reins, then mounted his horse. “He’s a good man.” The posse left in a cloud of dust, choking the small crowd that stood watching.

Turning to Juliana, Dr. Barnum shook his head. “I hope they catch him.”

As he worked on the man, Juliana, with trembling fingers, busily jotted down a few notes about the incident. She felt a little queasy seeing Mac in a pool of blood. She swayed momentarily.

“Are you okay? You look a little pale.” Dr. Barnum reached out his hand to steady her elbow.

“I think so. It’s not every day I see a man bleeding.”

“Come on, Juliana. Let’s get you back to the office,” Albert said. “When I asked you to take notes, I never considered that it’d be tough for you. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

She took his arm, and they headed back to work, with Albert talking the whole distance about how it wasn’t safe around here anymore.

Before Juliana was to leave for the Ladies Social Club meeting, Dr. Barnum came striding through the door and stood before her desk. “I didn’t realize you worked here until the shooting. I came by to see if you were okay.”

“That’s sweet of you, Dr. Barnum, but really, I’m feeling fine now. It was a bit of a shock. I guess if I’m going to be a reporter, then I might as well get used to seeing all sorts of things.”

His smile was warm and affable. Juliana had never really taken a good look at the doctor, and she realized that while he was nice-looking, his countenance was serious.

“May I take you to supper sometime?”

Somehow that was not what she was expecting. She quickly filtered what this might mean. Two men in one week. Her tongue felt dry. “Well . . . I guess so.” After all, there was no parent to ask permission now. How strange it felt to be alone with no family to care one way or the other what she did with her time.

“Wonderful! How about tonight?” When she hesitated, he added, “You have to eat, don’t you?” His face softened, allowing the hard lines in his forehead to relax.

“That’s true.” Juliana saw his lips curve into a gentle smile across his clean-shaven face.

“Okay then. I’ll meet you at the hotel at 5:30, and we can go over to Maggie’s Café for some home cookin’. How does that sound?”

Juliana nodded. “I’ll be there.”

Juliana saw Albert watching her, and he nodded his head in approval.

“I’ll be waiting. And please, could you call me Mark?”

Juliana nodded, and Mark tipped his bowler hat and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

It was a short walk to church, and Juliana walked past simple clapboard houses, whitewashed to match the fences, with her notebook tucked closely to her chest. The afternoon air was light and breezy and lifted her spirits. She let herself into the church vestibule that smelled of lemon and beeswax, apparently used to polish the dark wood pews and gleaming floors. Several ladies sat in the first two pews, and a stout lady with a round face and big blue eyes stood in front of them, laughing.

The chatter and laughing slowly died down as the women turned in the pews to see why their speaker had paused. Juliana felt her face flush with embarrassment.

“Please excuse the intrusion, ladies. I’m Juliana Brady from the
Lewistown Gazette
. I’d like to sit in on your meeting and write about your latest project.”

“We weren’t told of this.” A plain, bony-nosed woman rose from her seat, visibly agitated. The lady who was sitting next to her reached out and touched the woman on the arm. “You weren’t invited.” She pushed her friend’s hand off her sleeve.

“I—” Juliana sputtered.

The stout lady with the twinkling eyes walked toward Juliana, extending her hand. “I’m Helen Brown. We’d be delighted to fill you in on our club’s activities.” Her hand was soft and cool to Juliana’s touch.

“But—” the plain woman began, but Helen shushed her. The others twittered in undertones and watched with interest.

“Albert did speak to me about creating a column that would be great advertising for our community endeavors. I just failed to mention it today in my haste to get started.” Helen smiled at Juliana. “He did not tell me, however, that he had hired a woman to work for him at the paper.”

“And such a young one too. Are you sure you can spell?” The plain woman looked down her bony nose at Juliana. “I’m Cynthia Hood, and this is Margaret Spencer—we all call her Miss Margaret—and her two daughters, Louise and Natalie.” She indicated the other ladies clustered nearby, who nodded toward Juliana. Louise was slightly taller than her sister and wore an olive dress with leg-of-mutton sleeves, which ended tightly at her thin wrists with a tiny row of pearl buttons. Her sister wore a robin’s-egg-blue dress with a matching bolero trimmed in tan velvet. The only adornment on each sister was a small string of pearls.

“And this is Esther White.” Cynthia gestured toward a middle-aged lady decked out in black
peau de soie
and matching vest edged in lace jabots. Diamond drops hung from her ears and flashed in her rings on her hands. Juliana wasn’t sure she’d ever seen someone dressed so finely.

Juliana nodded at the group. “How do you do?”

Natalie took Juliana’s hand. “I’m glad you’re here. Now maybe we’ll be taken seriously.” She laughed.

Juliana liked her immediately. “I’m not sure about that,” she said. “I confess this is my first real assignment.”

“It’ll be better than the write-up we normally get, coming from another woman.” Louise chuckled. “Women’s social issues are really not Albert’s forte.”

“Marion Stockton is visibly absent today with who knows what. She is always prying into other people’s affairs and neglects her own.” Cynthia cocked her head sideways, making a
tsk
sound to indicate her displeasure at Marion’s absence.

“Now, Cynthia, we don’t want to give Juliana a bad impression of us by speaking unkindly of Marion,” Miss Margaret said.

Esther added her two cents’ worth. “Well, you know as well as the rest of us that what she said is true. She is just not dependable!”

Juliana bit her tongue. Should she say something? Tell them Marion was her good friend? Or just let them make complete fools of themselves?

“Please. Have a seat here next to me.” Louise patted the wooden pew as she scooted to one side. Juliana took a seat between Louise and Miss Margaret, who was clearly the oldest one there. Her thin gray hair, though wound into a chignon, had strayed from its pins. She smelled of rose water and wore a beautiful embroidered white collar that was clearly old. Her watery, gray eyes smiled back at Juliana over her wire spectacles as she leaned over.

“Never mind Esther and Cynthia. They believe themselves to be above everyone else.” The old lady patted her hand affectionately, and Juliana felt an instant kinship.

“Thank you, Miss Margaret.” Juliana proceeded to open her notebook, clearly aware of the looks Esther and Cynthia cast in her direction. Juliana heard Esther whisper, “Didn’t she used to do the miners’ wash on the edge of town?”

Cynthia nudged her friend in the ribs. “Shh . . . she’ll hear you.”

Helen cleared her throat. “Ladies, we need to get started on the meeting and talk about our latest project.”

Juliana felt entirely out of place. She would force herself to focus on what Helen was saying and forget about the snide remarks. Why did she think for one minute that by having a job at the paper, she would instantly make new friends? Helen seemed a friendly person and outgoing. She was probably middle-aged, though quite different from what Juliana was used to when she considered that her mother would have been about the same age. But apparently not all the women were as friendly as Helen and Miss Margaret.

“As I was saying, one of the most important things we can do for the future of our town is give our children a good education. But more importantly, we all know that down at the miners’ camp, children are running around and playing like hoodlums without the benefit of a school.”

Juliana’s heart lurched at the mention of the miners’ camp. Most of the children were little urchins who worked for their parents as they passed through to the next mining camp.

“What do you suggest we do?” Louise was the first one to respond, her big brown eyes conveying concern.

“We don’t have the money to start a school, much less pay for a teacher’s salary.” Esther leaned forward, her head cocked, to stress her point.

Natalie jumped up from her seat. “I think a school is an excellent idea! But how will we raise the money?”