The Man from Stone Creek

Maddie felt heat surge up her neck to pulse along her cheekbones, and her ears burned. “If you lay a hand on him again,” she said, “I will have you dismissed.”

He smiled slightly. “Then I guess we do understand each other. You’re welcome to try to get rid of me, Miss Chancelor, but if what I saw in that schoolyard a little while ago is typical, I’d say I’m just the kind of teacher this town needs.”

“You don’t look like a schoolmaster,” Maddie said.

“And you don’t look like a storekeeper,” Mr. O’Ballivan retorted. “I guess appearances can be deceiving.”

Maddie resisted an impulse to pat her hair, which tended to be unruly and was forever coming down from its pins. “What does a storekeeper look like?” she retorted.

“What does a schoolmaster look like?” he countered.

Maddie sighed and glanced hopefully toward the door, wishing the man would leave and stop taking up all the room in her store. “If you have no further business here, Mr. O’Ballivan—”

“It happens that I do,” he said, and she knew by the light in his eyes that he enjoyed baiting her. “I’d like to collect my mail. You are the postmistress, aren’t you?”

Letters and packages came into Haven once a week, on the stagecoach, which had been and gone by four o’clock that afternoon. Busy with Mrs. Burke’s order, which she had promised to deliver personally after closing, she’d told the driver to put the mail in the back room and promptly forgotten all about it.

“Yes,” Maddie said. “I am the postmistress. But I haven’t had a chance to do any sorting.”

“There should be a parcel addressed to me,” O’Ballivan told her, and showed no sign of moving away from the counter, let alone leaving the premises.

Maddie glanced at the large, loud-ticking clock on the far wall, above the display window. “I’m about to close for the day.”

Again, that slow, thoughtful smile. “Well, then,” Sam O’Ballivan said, “if you’ll just point me to that parcel, I’ll be on my way.”

Maddie sighed. “I’ll get it for you,” she conceded, and turned away.

“It’s bound to be too heavy,” he argued, and came right around the end of the counter without so much as a by-your-leave. “Just show me where it is.”

Impatient, Maddie tossed aside the curtain covering the entrance to the back of the store and gestured toward the corner where the mail had been stowed. Sure enough, there was a very large box wrapped in brown paper and tied with heavy string.

Mr. O’Ballivan lifted it with one hand, tilted it slightly so she could see the large, slanted letters on the face of the package: S. O’Ballivan, c/o General Delivery, Haven, Arizona Territory.

He’d saved her the awkwardness of asking for proof that the parcel belonged to him before releasing it, but Maddie wasn’t grateful. She just wanted him gone, so she could close the store, tally the books and deliver Mrs. Burke’s groceries. She wanted the place to expand to its normal size, so she could breathe.

“Obliged,” he said, pausing in the front doorway to don his hat again. He tugged lightly at the brim.

“Goodbye, Mr. O’Ballivan,” Maddie said pointedly, right on his heels. She put one hand on the door lock, eager to latch it behind him.

He shifted the parcel from one hand to the other, as easily as if it were a basket of eggs. “Until next time,” he said, and touched his hat brim again.

Maddie, already moving to shut the door, frowned. “Do you receive a lot of mail?”

“No,” Mr. O’Ballivan replied, “but I expect we’ll have a few more rounds over your brother.”

Maddie gave the door a shove and latched it.

Mr. O’Ballivan smiled at her through the glass.

She wrenched down the shade.

As she turned away, she was certain she heard him laugh.

* * *

BACK IN HIS ROOM behind the schoolhouse, Sam built a fire in the stove, ladled water into the coffeepot that came with the place, along with the last of Tom Singleton’s stash of ground beans, and set the concoction on to boil.

If Miss Maddie Chancelor hadn’t run him off so quickly, he’d have had time to lay in a few staples. As things stood, he’d need to take his supper at the saloon and bring the leftovers home for breakfast.

After school let out tomorrow, he’d go back to the mercantile.

Like as not, Miss Maddie wouldn’t be all that glad to see him.

Sam smiled at the thought and turned his attention to the parcel. He’d packed the books himself, before starting the trip down from Stone Creek, and taken them to the stagecoach office for shipping. Now, he looked forward to putting up his feet when he got back from taking his meal, and reading until the lamp ran low on kerosene.

Of course, he’d have to shake Maddie’s image loose from his mind before he’d be able to concentrate worth a damn.

After what the boy and Singleton had said, he’d expected someone entirely different. An aging, mean-eyed spinster with warts, maybe. Or a rough-edged Calamity Jane sort of woman, brawny enough to do a man’s work.

The real Maddie had come as quite a surprise, with her slender figure and thick, reddish-brown hair, ready to tumble down over her back and shoulders at the slightest provocation. She couldn’t have been much past twenty-five, and while that probably qualified her as an old maid, it was a pure wonder to him that some lonely bachelor hadn’t tumbled right into those rum-colored eyes and snatched her up a long time ago. Women such as her were few and far between, this far west of the Mississippi, and generally had their choice of men.

Her temperament was on the cussed side, it was true, but there was fire in her; he’d felt the heat the moment he’d stepped into the mercantile and locked eyes with her.

He smiled again as he opened the stove door and stuck in another chunk of wood, hoping to get the coffee perking sooner and wondering how long it would be before the lady organized a campaign to send the new schoolmaster down the road.

Satisfied that the stove was doing the best it could, Sam opened the box to unpack his books. Except for his horse, Dionysus, grazing on sweet hay up in the high country while a lame leg mended, he treasured these worn and oft-read volumes more than anything else he owned. Some were warped by damp weather and creek water, having traveled miles in his saddlebags, while others had been scarred by sparks from forgotten campfires.

All of them were old friends, and Sam handled them tenderly as he silently welcomed each one to a new home. When he got time, he’d find a plank of wood somewhere and put up a shelf they could stand on. In the meantime, they made good company, sitting right there on the table.

He’d attended to the gelding earlier, staking it on a long line in the tall grass behind the schoolhouse, where a little stream made its crooked way from hither to yon, and stowed his tack in the woodshed. Now, as twilight thickened around the walls and purpled the windowpanes, he lit a lamp and used his shirttail to wipe out the blue metal mug he carried with him whenever he left the ranch.

He’d just poured coffee when a light knock sounded at the back door.

Sam arched an eyebrow and checked to make sure his .45 was within easy reach, there on the rickety table next to the bed. He wasn’t expecting anybody.

“Mr. O’Ballivan?” a female voice called, thin as a shred of frayed ribbon. “Are you to home?”

Curious, Sam opened the door.

The woman stood in a dim wash of moonlight, holding a basket and smiling up at him. Since no proper lady would have come calling on an unmarried man, especially after dark, he wasn’t surprised by her skimpy attire. She was a dance hall girl.

She laughed at his expression. “I brung you some vittles,” she said, and shoved the basket at him. “Compliments of Miss Oralee Pringle, over to the Rattlesnake Saloon. She said to tell you welcome to Haven, and be sure to pay us a visit first chance you get. I don’t reckon I ought to come in?”

Sam cleared his throat, accepted the basket. It felt warm in his hands and smelled deliciously of fresh-baked bread and fried chicken. His stomach growled. “I don’t suppose you ought to,” he agreed, at a loss. “But thank you, Miss—?”

The response was a coy smile. “My name is Bird of Paradise,” she said, “but you can call me Bird.”

Sam frowned. Behind that mask of powder and kohl was the face of a schoolgirl. “How old are you?”

“Old enough,” Bird replied lightly, waggling her fingers at him over one bare shoulder as she turned to go.

Sam opened his mouth, closed it again.

Bird disappeared into the darkness.

He stood in the doorway, staring after her for a long time. He’d pay a call on Oralee Pringle first chance he got, he decided, but he had more in mind than returning the basket.

CHAPTER TWO

ESTEBAN VIERRA waited until well after nightfall before crossing the river from the Mexican side; he prided himself on his ability to move freely in the darkness, like a cat. Leaving his horse to graze on the bank, he made his way through the cottonwoods and thistly underbrush to the schoolhouse, pausing to admire the Ranger’s mount. The click of a pistol cylinder, somewhere behind him, made him freeze.

It stung him, this chink in his prowess, and he felt more irritation than fear.

“Hold your hands out from your sides,” a voice instructed.

Vierra obeyed calmly. “O’Ballivan?” he asked.

He heard the revolver slide back into the holster with a deftness that spoke volumes about the man at his back. “Yes.”

He turned. “That’s a fine horse,” he said cordially. “I hope it’s fast.”

O’Ballivan’s expression was grim, his craggy features defined by the play of light and shadow. “What are you doing here? My instructions were to meet you tomorrow night, on the other side of the river.”

Vierra smiled. “I got curious,” he said.

The Ranger parted with the briefest of grins, his teeth flashing white in the gloom. “You could have got dead,” he replied. “And if you’ve no better sense than to come prowling around another man’s horse in the night, this whole plan might need some review.”

“Don’t you trust me?” Vierra asked, his aggrieved tone at some variance with his easy smile.

“I don’t know you from Adam’s Aunt Bessie,” O’Ballivan responded, one hand still resting lightly on the butt of his revolver. “Of course I don’t trust you.”

“That could be a problem. Maybe we ought to get better acquainted.”

O’Ballivan looked him over. “Maybe,” he said cautiously. “You’re Mexican. How is it that you don’t have an accent?”

Vierra shrugged. “I think in Spanish,” he said. “And I do have an accent. I borrowed yours.”

“What do you know about these outlaws we’re after?” O’Ballivan asked after a long and pensive silence.

“Ah,” Vierra said, folding his arms. “You just said you don’t trust me. Why should I trust you?”

“I don’t reckon you do,” O’Ballivan observed dryly.

Vierra was pleased. Here was a worthy opponent, a rare phenomenon in his experience, one he could spar with. “I have been offered a very large reward, in gold, if I bring these banditos back to certain anxious rancheros in my country,” he said. Often, he’d discovered, a superficial truth was the most effective means of deception. It made most people complacent.

Of course, O’Ballivan clearly wasn’t most people.

“They’ve done plenty on this side of the border,” the Ranger said. “My orders are to turn them in to a certain federal judge in Tucson.”

“Two men, working toward the same end, but with very different objectives,” Vierra allowed, still smiling. “Tell me—are the Americanos offering a bounty? Is that why you are doing this?”

O’Ballivan shook his head. “A man I respect asked me to track the murdering bastards down and bring them in, dead or alive. That’s payment enough for me.”

Vierra spread his hands. “Then there is no misunderstanding,” he said.

“No misunderstanding at all,” O’Ballivan agreed. “Good night, Señor Vierra.”

“You will be at the meeting place tomorrow night? The cantina in Refugio?”

O’Ballivan, turning to go, paused to look back over one brawny shoulder and nod. “Tomorrow night,” he confirmed, and moved toward the schoolhouse.

Vierra watched him out of sight, then gave a low whistle through his teeth. The Ranger’s horse came to him, and he stroked its fine neck with one hand before retreating into the darkness.

* * *

SAM ASSESSED HIS CROP of pupils as they filed obediently into the schoolroom the next morning and took their places without a word or a glance in his direction.

Terran Chancelor’s presence surprised him a little; he’d half expected Maddie to undertake the remainder of her brother’s education personally, if only to keep him safe from the fiendish new schoolteacher. But here he was, faced scrubbed, hair brushed, hands folded, sitting square in the middle at the front table.

There were four girls, of varying ages, the youngest barely larger than a china doll he’d seen once in a store window, the eldest nearly grown and already taking his measure as husband material, unless he missed his guess. The two in between, eight or nine years old by his estimate, looked enough alike to be sisters.

The boys added up to nine, and they, too, ranged from near babyhood to strapping.

When they were settled, Sam turned to the blackboard and picked up a nubbin of chalk. “My name,” he told them, “is Sam O’Ballivan.” On the board he signed his name the way he always did.

SO’B.

A few snickers rose, as expected.

Sam faced the gathering, careful to keep his expression sober.

The blond boy sitting next to Terran was still grinning.

“Your name?” Sam inquired.

“Ben Donagher,” the lad replied.

“You’re amused, Mr. Donagher?”

Donagher’s grin widened. “Well, it’s just that SOB means—”

Sam pointed the bit of chalk at him. “Yes?”

“Son of a bitch,” the boy said.

Sam nodded. “You’d do well to remember that,” he replied.

Donagher flushed and lowered his gaze.

Terran gave his seatmate a subtle jab of the elbow.

“You have something to add, Mr. Chancelor?” Sam wanted to know.

More giggles, mostly stifled.

“No, sir,” Terran said, but his eyes glittered and it was clearly all he could do not to laugh.

Sam put down the chalk and rested a hip on the edge of his desk. “When I arrived yesterday,” he began, “there was an incident under way. Mr. Chancelor had the misfortune to be caught, but I’ve got a pretty good idea who else was involved.”

The smallest girl raised her hand eagerly. “I didn’t do nothin’, Mr. SOB,” she spouted. “I went straight home, because my mama said she’d thrash my behind if the chickens didn’t get fed.”

Laughter erupted. Sam bit the inside of his lip, so he wouldn’t smile, and waited it out. “Mr. O’Ballivan,” he corrected.

Tears welled in the little girl’s eyes; she seemed to shrink, as if trying to fold in on herself until she disappeared entirely.

“Violet’s a tit-baby,” somebody said.

“She makes water in her bloomers,” added another voice.

“Her papa got hisself hanged for horse thieving.”

Sam scanned the room. “Enough,” he said quietly.

The resulting silence was profound.

He went to where Violet huddled at the far end of the back table and crouched beside her. A tear slid down her cheek and puddled on the slate resting in her lap. Up close, he noticed that her calico dress was faded and thin with wear, and she smelled pungently of urine, wood smoke and general neglect.

Sam laid a tentative hand on her small, bony back. “When you want to use the outhouse, Violet,” he said, “you don’t have to raise your hand for permission. You just get right up and go.”

Violet nodded miserably, unable to lift her head. “Mr. Singleton made me wait,” she whispered.

Sam patted her awkwardly on one small, hunched shoulder and straightened to address the rest of the class. “I will not countenance bullying,” he said. “Ask Mr. Chancelor if you don’t believe me.”

Terran flushed vividly, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead, but no one made a sound.

“Now,” Sam said, “let’s get down to business. How many of you know how to read and write?”

* * *

IT WAS THREE FORTY-FIVE by the big clock on the mercantile wall when Sam O’Ballivan strode in. Maddie felt his presence, even before she stole a glance to confirm it. She drew a deep breath and smiled at Undine Donagher, who had come to town to order ready-made dresses from the catalog.

There were no other customers; folks tended to stay clear of the store when the Donaghers stopped by, which was often, since they owned the establishment.

“Maybe this silk would do,” Maddie suggested warmly.

Undine, the pretty and youthful wife of Mungo Donagher, a grizzled old rancher who probably tallied his land holdings in counties instead of acres, was someone Maddie dreaded rather than welcomed, even though Undine invariably spent a great deal of money when she went on a buying tangent. Because Mungo liked to keep the accounts straight, he made all his purchases like any other customer would.

Undine turned to look at Sam and her petulant expression went coquettish. Mungo, occupying himself with a display of rifles, seemed to sense the shift of his wife’s attention and turned, frowning, to watch the exchange.

Undine tugged at her white gloves, with their rows of tiny pearl buttons, and smiled, ignoring her husband. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said, and walked right over to Mr. O’Ballivan as if they’d encountered each other at a soiree. “I’d have remembered anybody as handsome as you are.”

Sam nodded with solemn cordiality, a flush darkening his neck, and took a box from the stack next to the door. “Howdy,” he said, and his gaze skittered to Maddie.

She realized that her mouth was open, and closed it again, but not quickly enough, she saw, to fool Mr. O’Ballivan. The flicker in his eyes told her he’d registered her disapproval of Undine’s bold behavior and found it amusing.

Recovering her manners, Maddie said, “Mrs. Donagher, this is Mr. O’Ballivan, the new schoolmaster.”

Before she could introduce Mungo, he stepped between Undine and Mr. O’Ballivan, extending a work-roughened, pawlike hand in greeting. His manner was one of blustery goodwill, but Maddie wasn’t fooled, and neither, apparently, was Mr. O’Ballivan. A muscle bunched in his jaw even as he shook Mungo’s hand.

Undine, her flirtation thwarted, pushed out her lower lip and retreated to the counter, where she and Maddie had been poring over the catalog.

“You look like you might just be able to handle that bunch over to the schoolhouse,” Mungo boomed, apparently determined to keep the conversation going. “One of those whelps is mine. Name’s Ben. He gives you any trouble, you just haul him off to the woodshed and tan his hide.”

A motion at the window drew Maddie’s eyes, and she saw her brother peering through the glass. When he spotted Sam O’Ballivan, he recoiled visibly and hurried off down the sidewalk.

“I don’t make much use of the woodshed,” O’Ballivan said.

Maddie’s temper heated. No, she thought. You just hang innocent children upside down in the well by their feet and scare the life out of them.

Mungo laughed, fairly rattling the canned goods on the shelves. It was not a friendly sound; Mungo Donagher was not a friendly man. In fact, most people feared him, along with his three older sons, who were, in Maddie’s opinion, little better than criminals. She stayed close to the shotgun when any of them were in the store.

“I hope you’re a better man than poor Tom Singleton,” Mungo said. “Those snot-nosed little devils stampeded right over him. Thought he might toughen up, but he didn’t.”

Maddie glanced at Undine, saw a faint blush rise in the woman’s cheeks and the slightest tightening around the mouth. She wondered about that, but only briefly, because the exchange between Sam O’Ballivan and the patriarch was building up steam.

“Yes,” O’Ballivan agreed mildly, selecting a cake of yellow soap from those on offer and dropping it into the box in the curve of his left arm, moving on, and then going back for another. This time, he chose the fancy, scented kind, French-milled and wrapped in pretty paper. It cost the earth, and Maddie’s curiosity was piqued again. “I saw the evidence of that yesterday. I’ll need two pounds of coffee, Miss Chancelor. A pound of sugar, too.” He proceeded to add tins of peaches, tomatoes and green beans to his purchases.

“A man’s got no business teaching if he can’t ride herd on a few brats.” Mungo thundered on. “’Course it’s usually a woman’s job. Teaching school, I mean. My older boys always favored a schoolmarm.”

I’ll just bet they did, Maddie thought, watching Sam O’Ballivan closely while trying to pretend she’d barely noticed him at all.

O’Ballivan didn’t answer. Occupied with his shopping, he reached down for a shaving brush, then a razor, then tooth powder. Maddie wondered, as she had from the first moment of their acquaintance, why a man like that would want to spend his days writing on a blackboard in a border town like Haven. He must have felt confined in the schoolhouse, a place hardly big enough to accommodate the width of his shoulders, and his skin was weathered, as if he’d spent much of his life outdoors.

Maddie knew the salary allotted to the teacher was paltry, since she attended school board meetings, and besides, Mungo was right. Most teachers were female. Mr. Singleton had been an exception, hired after his predecessor eloped with a medicine peddler three weeks into the school term. And now here was Sam O’Ballivan, who looked more like a hired gunslinger than anything else.

“I guess you didn’t hear me say most teachers are female,” Mungo said, sounding less jovial now as O’Ballivan set the box on the counter and proceeded to examine a large copper washtub hanging on the wall.

“Oh, I heard you, all right,” he replied, hoisting the tub down from its peg. “It just didn’t seem like the sort of remark that called for an answer.”

The air fairly crackled.

Maddie debated whether or not she ought to stipulate that she didn’t sell on credit, since the tub was one of the most expensive items she carried, but she didn’t want to be the next one to speak.

Meanwhile, Undine had recovered her aplomb. “We’d be honored to have you come to our place for supper, Mr. O’Ballivan,” she said. Mungo turned to glower at her, but she went right on ignoring him.

Sam set the tub on the counter. “I accept,” he said.

Mungo seemed taken aback, and Maddie was a little surprised herself. A mite irritated, too, though she couldn’t have said why.

Undine batted her thick lashes and posed, as if for a daguerreotypist about to take her likeness. “Would tonight be too soon?”

“Unfortunately,” Sam said, “I have a prior commitment.”

Undine was the image of sweet disappointment. “Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow will be fine,” Sam replied.

Maddie risked a sidelong peek at Mungo, who looked as if his thick head of white hair might be about to fly upward and stick to the ceiling. Was O’Ballivan such a fool that he didn’t know where he wasn’t welcome? Or was he simply unable to resist Undine Donagher’s undeniable charms?

“Seven o’clock, then,” Undine chimed, twinkling. “The ranch house is five miles east of here, along the river trail.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll be there,” he said.

“Bring Miss Chancelor here along with you,” Mungo added. It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order, thrust into the exchange like a fist.

Maddie opened her mouth to protest.

“That’s a fine idea,” Sam replied before she could get a word out.

Undine’s face fell. Mungo took a hard grip on her elbow and ushered her toward the door. “I’ll send a ranch hand back for the goods we bought,” the rancher announced without turning his head.

“I was just being neighborly,” Undine was heard to say as Mungo fairly hurled her outside.