Ernestine was devoted to teaching and inspiring young minds. So much so, one day she realized she was pushing thirty and did not have a husband or a family or any of the trappings that went with them. That bothered her, but not nearly as much as the realization that there was a great big wide world out there she had seen precious little of. Connecticut and New York were the only places she had been.
So when by pure chance Ernestine saw in the newspaper that Dodge City was in need of a schoolmarm, she wrote them that very evening. She listed her credentials and cited her experience and threw in a comment about how much she would love to teach there, and much to her amazement, without requiring that she prove her mettle, she was accepted. Later she learned she was the first teacher to reply, and they were in such dire need, they accepted her right away. Still later she learned she was the only teacher who wrote them.
Now here Ernestine was, teaching school on the frontier. She had to admit Dodge was rougher than she expected it would be. She always thought the stories about frontier life were exaggerated. It could not possibly be as bad as everyone claimed or no one would live there. But Dodge was everything ever written about it, and more. A bustling hotbed of greed, lust, and violence. Oh, there were plenty of churchgoing folk, plenty of fine people who would not harm the proverbial fly, but there were also plenty who would. Plenty who liked the wild side and all its trimmings.
Ernestine stopped grading papers and put down her pencil. She was stiff from so much sitting. Rising, she moved to the small mirror above the basin where the children were required to wash their hands after playtime. Ernestine was a stickler for clean hands. Clean hands meant clean books and clean papers turned in.
Staring at her reflection, Ernestine was reminded of a remark her brother once made. “You are a broomstick in a dress, sis.” He had not meant to be cruel. They were talking about how different they were. Her brother, Dearborn, could stand to lose a hundred pounds and that still would not be enough. She, on the other hand, truly was a broomstick. A broomstick with fine brown hair she always wore in a bun. A broomstick with a pointed chin and a beak of a nose and high cheekbones. She had a high forehead, too. Her eyes, she thought, were her best feature. A light shade of brown, almost tawny, but they alone could not redeem her. She was plain, hideously plain. No wonder she never had a beau. No wonder she would spend her days as a spinster.
Ernestine’s thin lips compressed. She must stop thinking like that, she scolded herself, and attend to her responsibilities. That was the secret to happiness. Forget personal woes and focus on the job. Just the job.
Ernestine turned to go back to her desk and drew up short, dumfounded to behold a man standing in the schoolhouse doorway. She had left it open to admit the evening breeze. “My word!” she blurted. “You gave me a start!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to.”
Ernestine regained her composure. Clasping her hands, she walked down the row of desks. “May I help you?”
He was standing sideways to her. With his small stature, his features made Ernestine think of a mouse. His dusty buckskins smelled of sweat and were in need of washing. “I am hoping you can, yes, ma’am,” he said quietly, wringing his hat. “I wouldn’t want to bother you, though.”
“What is it that you want, exactly?” Ernestine politely asked. “Do you have a child you would like to enroll?”
The man turned red, bright, embarrassed red. “Good Lord, ma’am, no,” he bleated. “I ain’t even married.”
“Am not,” Ernestine said.
“Ma’am?”
“You should not use ain’t. You should say, ‘I am not married.’ We must set an example for the children.”
“But there’s just you and me here, ma’am.”
“Even so, we must be vigilant against bad habits, Mr.—?” Ernestine stopped and waited.
“Jeeter, ma’am. You can call me Jeeter.” He held out his hand and in doing so turned to face her and the sunlight flashed on the pearl handles of a revolver at his hip.
“I trust you were not aware I do not permit guns anywhere near my school,” Ernestine said sternly.
“No, ma’am, I wasn’t.”
“Guns are the devil’s playthings. Remove it and go put it in your saddlebags and we can continue our conversation, Mr. Jeeter,” Ernestine directed. “That is your horse, I take it, by the pump?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is, and no, ma’am, I can’t. And Jeeter is my first name, not my last, so you don’t need the Mr.”
Ernestine did not know quite what to make of him. He was polite, and had friendly eyes, but he seemed scared of her, and his English was atrocious. “I do not understand. Why can’t you take off your pistol?”
The mousy man sighed and said almost sadly, “My last name is Frost, ma’am. I am Jeeter Frost.”
Ernestine had the impression he thought the name should mean something to her. “Mr. Frost, then. I ask again, why can’t you take off your pistol?”
“I like being alive and I have me a heap of enemies who would like me feeding worms.”
“I am afraid I do not quite fathom what you are getting at, Mr. Frost,” Ernestine said.
“You have never heard of me, then?”
“Should I?”
“Folks talk about me some. I guess because they have nothing better to talk about. Or maybe it’s me being partway somebody. Not that I ever meant to be. Throw a little lead and suddenly you are.”
“Excuse me?” Ernestine was beginning to think he was one of those eccentric characters who hung about Dodge, like the man who wore a rabbit coat and carried a carrot everywhere.
“I’ve dabbled in gore, ma’am. Once you do, you are branded for life. I’ve never hired out my trigger finger, you understand. I haven’t gone that far. But I can’t seem to get away from it.”
“You are speaking in riddles, Mr. Frost,” Ernestine chided. “Speak plainly if you want me to understand.”
“I kill people, ma’am.”
“You?” Ernestine smiled. The notion of this timid mouse of a man harming anyone was preposterous.
“The man-killer from Missouri, they call me, even though I’m not from Missouri. But that’s why you need to keep my visit to yourself. I killed the Blight brothers and folks are liable to make a fuss over it.”
Ernestine began to think he was serious. She had not read the newspaper the day before, but she seemed to recall hearing mention of a shooting. “What does a man like you want with me?” she asked. Images washed over her, of him pulling his gun and having his way with her, and she grew uncomfortably warm.
“I want for you to teach me to read.”
Chapter 8
Chester and Winifred were in their rocking chairs under the overhang in front of the saloon. They rocked and drank and gazed at the dusty haze to the south. It was the middle of the afternoon. Seamus Glickman had left the afternoon before, anxious to get back to Dodge before dark.
“So much for your brainstorm,” Win said. “All that trouble you had Anderson go to building those coffins and Placido painting those signs on the livery, and for what?”
“It was Adolphina’s idea, not mine,” Chester responded after first glancing at the general store to ensure that she could not possibly hear him.
“They should have come by now, if they are coming at all. The story was bound to be in yesterday’s newspaper.”
“The shootings, yes,” Chester said. “But not the rest of it. Glickman promised to spread the word, but something like that takes time. Today’s paper will likely have it.”
“Those bodies will start to stink by tomorrow,” Win remarked.
“We can stand a few days of stink if we have to,” Chester said. “Why do you think I had them put in the livery?”