Two pairs of highly polished shoes pounded into the room. “Elizabeth,” Mr. Pendleton called, as though his daughter might pop out of the wardrobe and shout ‘surprise!’
“She’s not here.” Minnie recognized the voice of Rudy Barr, Mr. Pendleton’s chief henchman.
Negative energy wafted off of the two men and made Minnie’s stomach bubble with anxiety. Without Elizabeth in the house, it was time for Minnie to leave, for her own sanity and well-being. She’d start asking around about openings in other homes.
Or...there were still the matrimonial advertisements.
She could not stay in this house, that was for certain.
“I can see she’s not here,” Mr. Pendleton spat the words out. “Stupid girl. Where could she have gone? I made sure she didn’t have any cash.”
“Wh-what about her jewelry?” Rudy offered.
Peering at the drama from beneath the dust ruffle, Minnie saw a pair of shoes turn quickly until they were toe to toe with the other pair. “No jeweler in the city would be stupid enough to buy any of the Corwin family jewels.”
“I’ll send some of my men to check, nonetheless.”
“Fine. But that still doesn’t tell us where she is. I don’t suppose you think you’ll find her just waiting outside the jewelers?”
“No, sir. But it would be a place to start. Do you have a better idea?”
Minnie felt her eyebrows raise. No one ever talked back to Mr. Pendleton, though Miss Elizabeth had been doing it more and more lately.
“All I know is that if she is not standing in the church on the first of the month, prepared to marry Neville Pettit, heads will roll. Yours first.”
“Y-yes sir, Mr. Pendleton.” Rudy’s brash demeanor diminished somewhat. Not entirely, for he could never actually be humble.
Mr. Pendleton ignored Rudy and she watched as his feet stomped around the room.
The sound of wood rattling caused Minnie to push the dust ruffle aside and dare a peek at their activities. She bit her lip to keep from crying out. Mr. Pendleton was rattling the drawers on Miss Elizabeth’s desk. The locked drawers. But, they seemed to be no match for an angry Mr. Pendleton. He was unaccustomed to not getting what he wanted, including uncooperative furniture. His fist landed hard on the top of the desk and to Minnie’s horror a shiny key fell from beneath the desk onto the floor.
Mr. Pendleton reached down and retrieved it with his fat fingers, a satisfied grin on his face. Minnie wondered if she might lose her breakfast.
She ought to duck back beneath the thin barrier of the dust ruffle but her gaze was locked on the happenings in the room.
Mr. Pendleton jammed the key into the lock of the top drawer, but he rushed and nearly bent the key in half and when he got the door open, it was empty.
Minnie slowly released a sigh.
The key was shoved into all the drawers of Miss Elizabeth’s desk and coming up with nothing. Some of the burden lifted from Minnie’s shoulders but Mr. Pendleton’s anger flamed higher. When the key stuck in the final drawer he raised his foot and kicked at the piece of furniture until the drawer broke open and a sheaf of letters fluttered to the floor.
Oh damn.
He reached down and grabbed at a few of them, ripped open the envelopes and began to read. As he did so, he muttered words and phrases, his face reddening deeper and deeper as he flipped through the letters.
“Matt Foreman. Windy River Ranch. Wyoming Territory?” He nearly screeched the last word. “She told him she’s a maid. A maid for God’s sake.”
His face puffed up and his breathing seemed to stall. He was apoplectic.
“She’s agreed to marry him. A cowboy!” He sputtered and spit then shoved the letters at his stooge, Rudy Barr. “Get her back here.”
“Yes, sir.” Rudy turned to leave.
“Wait.”
Oh, maybe he’s changed his mind, Minnie thought hopefully.
And incorrectly.
He grabbed the letters away. “I’ll go myself.”
The two men left with Mr. Pendleton bellowing down the hallway to his valet to start packing his bags.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.
Minnie laid flat on her back beneath the bed, her mind racing. She had to do something.
The question was … what?
* * *
“Please. It’s an emergency. Look at this bracelet. See all those jewels? That’s enough for ten train tickets. I just need one.”
Roy Gantry sat on the platform of the St. Louis train station reading a newspaper and doing his darndest not to lower it and watch the scene which he could hear playing out. He would not get involved. No he would not.
Today was the day he left St. Louis and headed west, to a town where he would be deputy sheriff. It was a small town and he didn’t expect to stay there long. But the west was growing and opportunities for someone young and ambitious were endless.
He’d trained to be an officer in the St. Louis police department, even spent a year working there. But it was clear there was no future for him. There were too many officers and, from what he’d observed and wished he hadn’t, there was too much corruption. Officers taking kickbacks and bribes. Planting evidence. Or losing evidence.
It was no place for him. So when he’d seen an advertisement for a deputy sheriff in the Wyoming Territory, he’d sent a letter of interest. What a shock when he received an offer of employment.
He patted his breast pocket where the letter resided. He’d be working for a man named Cal Watson, in Juniper Junction, Wyoming Territory. Cal had described the town as small but growing, where an honest man could earn an honest living.
What kind of corruption could there be in a sleepy western town? Least of all, one called Juniper Junction. He had to look it up on a map just to make sure it wasn’t a made-up name someone was using to lure the unsuspecting into danger.
He still wasn’t sure he wasn’t being
