“Did the new hats come in, Mr. Bowman?” Meg asked.
“They did indeed, direct from New Orleans. I hope you find one you like. What with the war and all, we probably won’t be getting any more for a while,” Bowman said.
Revelation watched as Meg picked one of the hats up and put it on. Meg walked over to the mirror and examined herself. When she saw Revelation’s reflection in the mirror, looking at her, she turned toward Revelation. “And just what are
Revelation looked away quickly.
“Meg!” Mrs. Murback scolded. “Be quiet.”
Revelation felt a small sense of consolation that Meg’s mother had called her down for such a curt remark. But her satisfaction was short-lived because of what Mrs. Murback said next.
“You know better than to talk to the likes of her. Any woman who would wear men’s trousers is nothing but trash.”
Turning toward Revelation, Meg stuck her tongue out, then hurried away quickly to join her mother, who was examining the latest shipment of ribbons.
With her cheeks flaming in embarrassment and suppressed anger, Revelation held up the three pair of trousers.
“Put these on my bill, will you, Mr. Bowman?”
“Be glad to,” Bowman answered.
Both Murback women were quiet until Revelation left the store, then Mrs. Murback spoke up.
“Ira, for the life of me, I don’t know how you can stand to do business with trash like the Scattergoods,” she said.
“They are good customers,” Bowman replied.
“They’ve never given me a moment’s trouble and they’ve always paid their bills on time.”
“They’re cattle thieves,” Mrs. Murback said.
“Nobody has ever proven that.”
“Nobody has to prove it. Everyone knows it. Besides, none of the Scattergoods went to war.”
“We have several who didn’t go to war,” Bowman reminded them. “Including James Cason.” He looked pointedly at Meg.
“I have informed Mr. Cason that I want nothing to do with a man who would not do his duty,” Meg said.
“Well, if you ask me, they are all slackers. But the Scattergoods are the worst of the lot,” Mrs. Murback said. “If, God forbid, my son Abner doesn’t come back, it’s going to be awfully hard to see healthy young men walking around without a scratch on them.”
“Still, you can’t hold it against Revelation because her brothers didn’t go off to fight in the war,” Bowman suggested.
“I don’t know why I can’t. She is clearly the worst of the lot, and I’ve no doubt whatsoever that she wouldn’t have gone if she had been a man. I just don’t see how you can do business with them.”
“I don’t have to like everyone I do business with,” Bowman said. “But as long as I do business with the public, seems to me like I have an obligation to serve everyone.”
Revelation Scattergood was one of five children. She was twenty years old, her brothers Matthew and Mark were twenty-three and twenty-two respectively. Luke and John, the twins, were twenty-one. Revelation’s mother died when Revelation was only newborn, leaving Ebeneezer Scattergood to raise his brood alone.
“He didn’t raise them,” someone once said, when another had commented on how difficult it must’ve been for Ebeneezer to raise five children on his own. “Hell, he just let them young’uns grow up like weeds. They’re just as tough and just as mean as weeds, too. And the girl? She ain’t a bit different; she’s as tough as any of her brothers.”
“Who can blame her? I reckon if you lived with a bunch like that, you’d probably try and survive any way you could.”
After Revelation left Bowman’s Mercantile, she stopped at the shoe store where she bought a pair of boots, then at the apothecary to pick up a nostrum for Luke’s toothache. It wasn’t until she returned to the livery where she had left the buckboard that she heard the liveryman, Michael Thornton, talking with Ian McMurtry about the upcoming cattle drive to Dakota.
“The four of ’em is takin’ a herd of near three thousand cows all the way to Dakota, is what I hear,” Thornton said.
“Sure now, an’ who would be so crazy as to do such a thing?” McMurtry asked. McMurtry was in the freighting business, and he owned half a dozen freight wagons that he kept parked at the livery.
“James Cason is the one puttin’ it together, I understand. And of course, whenever you see James, you gotta figure Bob Ferguson is goin’ to be with ’im. Them two boys been friends since they was just just little fellas, what with Dusty Ferguson bein’ Garrison Ferguson’s foreman all these years. Billy Swan, and Duke Faglier is the other two.”
“Duke Faglier, you say. And would that be the lad that works for you?”
“He did work for me. He give me his notice last Friday.”
“He’s a good worker, that lad.”
“Very good, very dependable,” Thornton said. “And quiet, too, the kind of quiet that makes a body wonder just what is goin’ on in that head of his. But he never was any trouble. I’m goin’ to hate losin’ him.”
“Sure an’ they must be payin’ him pretty good for him to give up steady work.”
“He told me he was getting two hundred fifty head give to him as his share.”
“Did he now? Two hundred and fifty cows you say?” McMurtry said. “Aye, that would be enough to turn the head of any ambitious lad.”
“Duke said they told him cows is bringin’ fifty dollars a head up in Dakota,” Thornton said.
McMurtry whistled. “Fifty dollars a head? My, ’tis a king’s ransom, that is. But if you ask me, they’ll not get the job done. They’ve more’n a thousand miles to go, and it’ll take ’em a good three months, even if they can keep the herd together, which I don’t think they can. ’Tis more of a task than four wee lads can handle, I’m thinkin’.”
Thornton looked around then and was startled to see Revelation standing there.
“My word, Revelation, why didn’t you say something? Here I was just gabbing away, and you’re here for your buckboard.”
“That’s all right, Mr. Thornton,” Revelation said. “I’m in no particular hurry. What do I owe you?”
“Well, your team has been fed and watered. Twenty-five cents ought to do it. You want me to bring it around for you?”
“No, I’ll get it, thank you,” Revelation said, handing him a quarter from her coin purse.
Thornton and McMurtry watched Revelation as she strolled across the wagon yard toward her team and buckboard.
“You know, with her fair hair and green eyes, she could be a colleen from the old sod, that’s for sure. And ’tis a fair lass she might well be, if only she would dress like one,” McMurtry said.
“Perhaps, but that’s not anything we’re going to ever see,” he said.
“Too bad. If the poor lass looked a wee bit more like a woman, I’m thinkin’ she could get herself a husband. I’m believing the women would be a mite easier on her if she had a man of her own.”
Thornton laughed. “Anyone who would marry her would have to tame her first, and I don’t think the man has been born who can do that. Did you see what she did to Cleetus Mon roe that time?”
“Sure, Michael, an’ aren’t you for remem berin’ that I was standin’ right by your side when it happened?”
McMurtry’s declaration that he had witnessed it did not deter Thornton from telling what he considered to be a good story.
“Ol’ Cleetus got it in his mind that he was goin’ to take her britches off, to see if she really was a woman under there,” Thornton began. “But she got away from him, then grabbed a whip and pret’ near cut him to ribbons. He was on the ground, all covered up, cryin’ and beg-gin’ for mercy before she stopped.”
“Aye, and prayin’ to the Mother of our Lord to save him, and him not even being Catholic,” McMurtry
