She ran her hands over its familiar structure. “It’s really quite plain compared to some of the ones owned by the vaqueros.”
“So, it’s Mexican?”
“Yes. My aunt and uncle gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday. What do you think, Anna?”
“It’s really pretty.”
Colt removed the top on the second crate and she and Anna made short work of the packing. Inside was tortilla flour, a variety of dried chilies, spices of all kinds, bags of black beans, yards of beautiful fabric that could be used for anything from drapes to reupholstering chairs, her favorite rolling pin, and a large tin of orange oil for her hair. And at the bottom, two letters, one from her Aunt Eddy, the other from Portia. Regan wiped away her tears.
Anna asked with concern, “Why are you crying, Mama?”
“Because I’m happy and because I miss my family so much.”
Anna looked to her father for help.
“I’m okay, Anna. It’s just that everything here reminds me of them. Don’t worry.” Regan gave her a kiss. “Maybe in the spring, we can all go to Arizona or they can come here. I wrote them all about you.”
“You did?”
“And I know they’re anxious to meet you.” She looked to Colt. “You too, good doctor.”
“Looking forward to meeting them as well.”
“Anna, let’s take all this to the kitchen and put it away. Tomorrow we make tortillas!”
Later, after Anna was asleep and Colt was in his study reading about a medical convention he planned to attend, Regan sat at the dining room table to read the letters and the telegram she’d received. She opened the telegram first and was surprised to see that it was from her Uncle Andrew in San Francisco. It read: Regan. Received query from banker Arnold Cale. Accused you, a colored woman—his words—of pretending to be my niece. Wanted you arrested. Sent him back very sharp reply. Any problems going forward let me know. Love, Uncle A.
So, Cale hadn’t believed her, to the point that he wanted to turn her over to the law. In a way she understood his suspicion, she was a Colored woman but due to slavery there were many mixed raced families in the country. She’d spent a considerable amount of coin at Miller’s store. Did he think she’d stolen it? She could only imagine his face when he received her uncle’s reply. She thought tomorrow might be a good day to visit the esteemed banker and ask if he’d prefer she place her money elsewhere.
She then turned to her letters. The one from her Aunt Eddy was a short note that sent her love, and a request that Regan let her know if she needed anything else. She also sent assurances that she and Uncle Rhine were doing well and that they missed her. But it was Portia’s letter that gave her pause:
Dear Sister Mine,
I hope you and your doctor are well. Kent and I are doing fine. We’re having a house built on Mr. Blanchard’s land, and I can’t wait for it to be finished so we can move in and make it our home. How are you? I hope this adventure you set out on has borne fruit and your doctor adores you. Kent and I combined our honeymoon in San Francisco with the Colored Women’s Suffrage meeting we were planning before you left for Wyoming and it was a grand affair. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper spoke and she was a rousing articulate force of nature. We jumped to our feet more times than I can count to applaud her stirring words. On a more disturbing note, I saw our mother while in the city as well. She looked me in the face, startled, and walked by me as if she’d never seen me before. I was heartbroken. I’ve no idea if she lives there or was visiting. Aunt Eddy was incensed by Corinne’s snub and is hiring a Pinkerton to ferret that out. I know you said you consider Corinne dead to you but I believe that you, like me, long to at least speak with her. I will let you know if anything comes of this. In the meantime, know that I love you and miss you. Please write to me soon. Portia.
Regan read the part about Corinne again and sighed.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up into Colt’s concerned eyes. “My sister saw our mother in San Francisco.”
“And?”
“Although Corinne recognized her, she walked past Portia as if she didn’t.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“My aunt plans to hire a Pinkerton to find her, but I don’t agree with that. Corinne made her choice. She didn’t want us. We’ll carry that hurt for the rest of our lives, but arranging a meeting with her as Portia wants won’t change anything, at least not for me. Aunt Eddy gave us enough love for three lifetimes. I don’t need Corinne.”
He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Other than that, is your sister and her new husband well?”
She nodded. “They’re having a house built.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I am. I’m just sad that Corinne broke Portia’s heart again. I don’t know why my sister doesn’t accept the situation and move on.”
“Maybe she’s hoping for a reconciliation.”
“You’re probably right, but it isn’t going to happen. That she treated Portia like a stranger shows what she thinks of us. There will be no reconciliation.” Regan rose to her feet and slipped her arms around his waist and he hugged her tight. She didn’t need Corinne. She had his love, Anna’s love, and the love of her family in Arizona. “Thank you for loving me,” she whispered.
“Always.” He lifted her chin and said firmly but gently, “Always.”
She fit herself against him again. Content.
Chapter Sixteen
The next afternoon, Regan went to pick up Anna from school and saw the children outside playing tag while Dovie Denby, Colleen Enright, and Lucretia Watson stood talking with the teacher, Mr. Adams. He was a tall, string bean of a man with dark collar-length hair and a dour face centered by a long thin nose. As Regan walked over to join them, she noted his tersely set features and wondered what the conversation might be about.
“Today’s my last day of teaching here, Mrs. Lee.”
Regan paused and scanned the women’s unhappy faces. “May I ask why?”
“The council won’t increase my salary, so I agreed to an offer from a school in Cheyenne.”
Regan was saddened by the news. She didn’t know how the other children felt but Anna enjoyed having him as a teacher. “Is there anything we can do to change your mind?”
He shook his head. “I sent my acceptance last evening. I don’t like leaving the children this way, but my services are worth more than the pennies Paradise pays me.”
Regan remembered being told about the council’s miserly attitude towards the school at the ladies club meeting.
Dovie said, “Thank you for putting up with Wallace Jr.”
He smiled. “Your son’s a handful but very smart. Keep his mind occupied. He’ll go far one day.”
“Do the children know?” Regan asked.
“They do and look how terribly broken up they are.”
Watching the lively, ongoing game of tag the women chuckled. Lucky the dog, barking and running, appeared the saddest of all.
Lucretia said, “Thanks for teaching our children. The council may not appreciate you, but I certainly do.”
Regan and the others agreed.
He smiled softly. “You’re very kind. I hope the council will come to its senses and pay your next teacher fairly. I need to get going. Lots to do. Good-bye, ladies.” And he went inside the schoolhouse.
Lucretia asked, “Now what?”
Dovie said, “I’m going to the council meeting this evening and give those men a piece of my mind. How do they expect to grow this town with no schoolteacher? I’m sure Glenda will have something to say about this as well. I’ll let her know when I get home.”
“Can anyone attend the meetings?” Regan asked.
“Yes,” Lucretia replied. “I’m going to go, too. You should join us, Regan.”
“I will.”
They looked to Colleen, who replied, “I’ll see what my evening brings. Felicity’s going to grow up and be so pretty, more education
isn’t going to matter. She’ll have no problem finding a husband.”
Regan stared as if she’d grown three heads.
Dovie’s jaw dropped for a moment. After shaking her head in apparent disbelief, she said, “Lucretia and Regan, I’ll see you later.” She called to her son and walked to her wagon.
Regan closed her own mouth and wanted to lecture Colleen on how the world was changing, the strides women were making, and what new opportunities their daughters might access in the next decade, but didn’t. It wasn’t her place. Instead, she, like Dovie, offered her good-byes, called Anna, and drove home.
Colt was there when they arrived. While Anna went to her room to change out of her school clothes, Regan told him about Mr. Adams’s departure.
He sighed. “That’s too bad. He’s the third one we’ve lost in the past two years.”
“Dovie and Lucretia are going to the council meeting this evening to try and convince them to pay a new teacher more. I decided to join them. Surely they can be made to see reason.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. Cale and the others are notoriously shortsighted.”
“I’d thought about taking Anna, so she can see how government works, but decided she would probably be bored and who knows how long the meeting might take.”
“Until next week if Cale and Miller start pontificating.”
“Who’s on the council besides them?”
“The undertaker Lyman Beck, rancher Randolph Nelson who also heads up the Republicans, and Heath Leary.”
“I don’t think I’ve met him.”
“You haven’t. He’s a gambler. Owns the Irish Rose, the saloon behind Miller’s store.”
That was surprising.
“You go to the meeting, Anna and I will stay here. Maybe we’ll ride over and see Spring.”
The meeting was held at the bank. When Regan entered she was reminded of the court hearing and the part she didn’t get to play, but put it out of her mind as her eyes swept the room. She recognized Arnold Cale, Chauncey Miller, and undertaker Lyman Beck. The man seated next to Beck had a sun-lined, weathered face that said rancher, so she assumed him to be Republican Randolph Nelson. To Nelson’s right sat one of the handsomest men she’d ever seen. Jet-black hair, eyes that matched. The smart tailored suit and frilled white shirt were the attire of a gambler. The smile he shot her was one that had been stealing women’s hearts since the day he was born. Not wanting to be caught by whatever web he was spinning, she spotted Dovie, Lucretia, and Glenda seated near the front of the room and went to join them.
Glenda said, “It’s good seeing you again, Regan.”
Shaking off the effects of the gambler, she replied, “Same here.” She glanced around. Other than her new friends there were only four people in the room—all men. “Where’s everyone?” she asked.
“These meetings are never well-attended,” Lucretia explained.
“Unless there’s something sensational like last year’s proposal to keep the Chinese from moving in,” Dovie added bitterly.
“Did it pass?”
“No,” Glenda said. “It was tabled, but other towns are weighing similar measures.”
Regan thought back on the man she’d purchased the fans from the day of the court hearing and wondered where he lived. The local papers out of Cheyenne and Laramie were filled with slur-laden headlines and inflammatory editorials accusing the Chinese of stealing jobs from the Territory’s White miners. Rather than spew their anger at the Union Pacific Railroad for hiring them, it was directed at the Chinese workers instead.
Arnold Cale’s voice brought her back. “Let’s get this meeting under way.”
What followed was a dry recitation by Council Vice President Chauncey Miller on what transpired at last month’s meeting: a proposal to raise money for a town hall that was tabled; a proposal to allow Miller and Leary to expand their buildings that was approved. A proposal to give schoolteacher Kerry Adams a raise in pay that was denied.
The mayor looked out at the women and said, “I’m assuming you ladies are here to tell us again how wrongheaded we are for not approving the raise?”
Dovie stood. “Yes, and to ask who on the council is going to teach our children now that Kerry Adams is taking a teaching position in Cheyenne?”
Regan noted Nelson’s shocked face. “When’s he leaving?”
“Today was his last day.”
His jaw tightened. “Did you know about this?” he asked Cale.
Cale fidgeted a bit. “He mentioned that he might be, but I thought he was bluffing.”
“He was a good man.”
Dovie agreed. “He was. So, now what?”
Before anyone could respond, Glenda stood and asked, “How is Paradise supposed to attract the people needed to use this new town hall you’re so fired up about building when you don’t have a school?”
Miller said, “Who said you need a school to build a town?”
“Schools bring families, Chauncey. Families build towns. And stores.”
His eyes blazed but Glenda didn’t appear the least bit intimidated.
Her husband said, “Now, Glenda, let’s not be disrespectful.”
“I’m not being disrespectful by speaking what everyone already knows, Arnold.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Dovie cut him off. “This is not a difficult decision, gentlemen. Either you want Paradise to prosper or you don’t. And if you don’t, I’ll be moving my business and son to a place that does.”
“Hold on,” the gambler said in a distinct Irish brogue. “I’ll not have you moving away from me, Boudicca.”
Dovie hissed, “You don’t get a say in what I do, Heath Leary.”
“So you keep telling me, love.”
Dovie blew out an exasperated breath.
Regan had no idea who or what a Boudicca was but she was caught by Leary’s affectionate tone and the way the two gazed at each other as if they were the only people in the room. A curious Regan turned to Lucretia who leaned over and whispered, “He’s real sweet on our Dovie. She’s sweet on him, too, but won’t admit it.”
Undertaker Lyman Beck spoke for the first time. “I must admit, I voted no on the raise. I didn’t see why we needed to pay Adams more. I only went to the third grade and I’ve done pretty good for myself. However, I’ve been telling my daughter what a nice town we have, hoping she’ll move here from Indiana, but she has three children. She won’t come now if we don’t have a teacher.”
Dovie said, “And neither will anyone else with little ones.”
Cale asked the men seated around the room, “What do you think?”
One with a beard that rivaled Odell’s replied, “How do the ladies propose we pay a new teacher what they think he’d be worth? Council shouldn’t be asking folks with no children to do it.”
Lucretia turned around in her seat. “Ed Sterling, you have five grandchildren in Cheyenne. Why’d your daughter Lindy and your son-in-law move away from here?”
He grumbled, “We didn’t have a schoolteacher.”
“Exactly. It’s why most of my children moved away, too. Between my children and yours, the town lost good tax-paying families because Paradise won’t offer steady learning.”
Glenda added, “The Territorial government is begging people to settle here so we can gain statehood, but miserly decisions like this will continue to hold us back.”
“Miserly!” Miller snapped. “Arnold, send your wife home. I’ll not be insulted this way.”
Glenda countered, “But you can insult me by asking my husband to send me home? I’m not a child, Chauncey.”
Her husband wheedled, “Glenda, please be civil.”
Arms folded, she sat back in her seat and seethed.
Cale said, “My apologies, Chauncey.”
Glenda snapped, “Don’t you dare apologize for me, Arnold Cale, I’m not your child either.”
He turned beet red.
Regan had no idea the Paradise women were so forceful.
r /> Making a point of avoiding his wife’s glare, Cale said, “I propose that if you ladies can get fifty people in town to sign a petition to pay a teacher more than we paid Adams, the council will take it under consideration.”
Dovie replied sarcastically, “If we get the signatures you’ll consider it? Why not be truthful and simply say you aren’t going to act on this because that’s what you mean.”
Leary weighed in, “Boudicca, if you get the signatures, the council will act, not just consider. You have my word.”
Dovie didn’t appear convinced, so he repeated, “You have my word.”
Regan wondered who she had to bribe to learn the story behind Dovie and the Irish gambler.
Nelson added, “You ladies have my word, too. There’s going to be a territorial college opening next year. If the legislature believes education is important, we should follow their lead. In fact, I’ll help gather signatures.”
Miller stared angrily. The mayor threw up his hands.
Regan wondered why even require the signatures if that was the case, but she supposed it was a way for the council to save face.
Lucretia asked, “And in the meantime, who’ll teach our children?”
When no one answered, Regan stood. “I will.”
All eyes turned her way.
A confused Nelson looked her up and down. “And you are?”
“Regan Carmichael Lee. Dr. Colton Lee’s wife.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“Same here.” Regan began having second thoughts almost immediately. She’d never taught school a day in her life, and wondered if she’d ever learn to control her impulsive nature.
Miller asked derisively, “What makes you think you’re qualified?”
“The completion certificate I earned at Oberlin College,” she returned flatly.
Leary eyed her with smiling wonder. “Have you ever taught school, Mrs. Lee?”
“No.”
Beck asked, “How much do you want to be paid?”
“Nothing.”
The men stared. The women smiled.
“I’ll start as soon as the ladies and I look into what the classroom needs.”