Maude March on the Run! (14 page)

I stopped reading and looked right away to see where this paper came from—Wichita. I thought, Well, that's good; due south of us, and right where Marion claimed we were going to anyway. I went on reading.

I didn't think it made a bad story. There wasn't nothing but rough behavior being complained of. Worse happened on many a Saturday night.

I almost felt it was too bad we couldn't tell the right side of today's events and read of them later.

I'd more and more come to realize that a story as reported in the newspaper could be so far removed from what really happened that the tale might just as well have come over the clothesline.

I went inside with every intention of asking for a copy of this paper. I thought it might ease Maude's mind. I noticed a smaller article to run on the back of that page.

Dang. Something more about Maude. I stood long enough to read it.

This fellow who bragged about being curious hadn't looked hard for the truth, if no one told him Maude didn't have a younger brother, but a sister.

Still, it lifted my heart to see a mention made of me, and then sank it, as the full meaning of this came home to me. Maude, whether she was dressed as man or woman, wasn't in the least disguised by traveling with a boy.

I was made to think how often it happened in life something appeared before my eyes for no other apparent reason
than as a message meant especially for me. I was noticing how I never appreciated this fact unless the news was good.

I didn't want to ask for the paper anymore, even one more than a week old. I figured, who would buy an old paper, except someone who had an unusual interest?

I
HAD THE BROOMTAIL MAUDE ON MY MIND AS I RODE
out of town, and the fresh knowledge we were a hot topic— somewhere.

Not only that, I was afraid Maude was right; these newspaper articles about her—us—might move west faster than we could. What we needed was a big bank robbery to bump us off the page. Where was Jesse James when we needed him?

Lost in these thoughts, it came as something of a shock to me to see Maude stood talking in a friendly manner to the two people in front of that medicine peddler's wagon.

I rode halfway past them before Maude waved a “come here.” So I let my horse saunter on over, much like I didn't know her any better than I knew them. Like my heart wasn't beating faster.

Maude said, “This is my sister, Sallie.”

I didn't know what to say to this. It amazed me to hear Maude introduce me as a girl; we had let people think I was a boy for so many months, I just naturally thought she'd expect me to go on being one.

“Sallie, I've taken a job with Dr. Aldoradondo and his
missus—Rebecca, she says to call her that. They're going west to Fort Dodge. We'll have a few dollars in our pocket when we get
home.
”

I heard the way she said “home,” she was letting me know she had told them a story I was to fit into. My heart was beating fast; I couldn't think about a story right then.

“My wife has been my right arm in this business,” the doctor said, the same silver-haired gent I'd seen before. He used that hearty voice he'd used for selling the elixir—he sounded like he was talking with the help of a bellows. “But we're getting on in years.”

His wife beside him wasn't so showy. She looked older in a way that he didn't. Her hair was pure white, and her cheeks were softly wrinkled. She smiled at me, and from somewhere inside myself, I mustered up one of my own.

“Thanking you for your offer, Dr. Aldoradondo,” I said. “I'd like to talk to my sister alone for a minute, if you don't mind.”

I didn't wait for a reply but rode past the horse end of that wagon and then some. Any minute now there would be a new story to hit the papers, one that would truly place Maude right about here. Maude and her little brother.

“I know what you're going to say, Sallie,” Maude said in a fierce whisper as she came to stand beside my horse. “But don't take it up with me. Marion overheard the missus, Rebecca, say she was looking for a hand and told her he knew of four.”

“You stood still for that?”

“He told her it was unseemly for me to be traveling un-chaperoned with the likes of him.”

“You should have whomped him,” I said. “Made it clear to the missus there was a good case of unseemly going around.”

“I wish I'd thought of it,” Maude said. “I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.”

“Where is he?”

Maude said, “He'll ride ahead of us at some distance until he's sure it's working out. Then he'll wait for us at the Cottonwood River crossing.”

“But why?”

“I'll be disguised,” Maude said with that impatience all big sisters master. “I must get out of boy clothes, now that sheriff has seen me dressed this way. You said yourself my hair is long enough to pull back, and I can hide its color entirely with the right hat.”

“You make it sound like you've thought it through,” I said, meaning I could see she'd made up her mind.

“It's only for a few days,” Maude said. “Soon the towns will be few and far between, and we'll be able to make good time on the open prairie.”

“Why'd you go and tell them I'm a girl?”

“I don't know why I told them, Sallie. I just felt like it would be good to have one truthful thing to say.”

I understood that feeling and felt more inclined to forgive her. But I wasn't yet ready to give in. I said, “If you're selling elixirs, what am I doing?”

Maude looked bewildered and said, “What do you want to do?”

“Ride shotgun,” I said.

“I've lost a dress size; my hair is falling out and may never see its true color again,” Maude said, and the scariest part was,
she wasn't yelling. “I don't want to go back to anyplace where the mattress is wet and the soles of my boots crickle as I walk over the sticky floor. I have only a shred of sanity left. Do you think you could just do what I ask of you, at least when they're within earshot?”

“I guess so,” I said, but Maude would not settle at that.

“I want to look like we're just ordinary girls.”

“You want a great deal,” I said to her.

M
AUDE SHOWED HER WORKING DRESS TO THE MISSUS,
who promptly started looking for a dress she considered more suitable. I figured she meant cleaner. She did have a trunk with a great many dresses in it.

Also, Maude carried water inside to take a spit bath.

While they were busy with this, Dr. Aldoradondo stripped off his fancy jacket and shiny red vest. I helped him see to watering the horses and putting a little hay in front of them.

I'd hung the sack of foodstuffs from Maude's saddle before coming into town, and it was gone now. Maude must've given it to Marion. He would eat well tonight, I knew that much.

“Where'd you get such big horses?” I asked the doctor. The broad backs of these animals outsized Uncle Arlen's big bay.

“They're a special breed for working, better than oxen for speed, but equal to oxen for pulling strength.”

A simple question didn't need so much of a voice to answer it. He didn't notice his manner put me off a little. He checked the felts on the team's harnesses and made sure nothing was rubbing them any which way.

I didn't want to look any less careful, so I pulled the
saddles off our horses and rubbed them down. The doctor put a little back into this, which I appreciated, seeing he didn't have to do anything for my horse, by rights.

I had not mentioned to Maude the worry that we would find less water ahead of us. The lack of rain lately didn't appear to trouble the doctor. The rain barrels were nearly empty, and I pointed this out.

“We'll get water from the town well before we go,” Dr. Aldoradondo said in an offhand way.

Where we stood, tracks made deep marks in shifting powdery dust. Maybe he hadn't noticed this because he wasn't striking out on any great stretch of land that didn't promise a well. But the creeks were low.

“I'll get the water,” I said, for I was sure the well would be covered after dark. It made me feel a sight better to pour a couple of buckets of water into those rain barrels.

“I see you're a hard worker,” he said. “Hard workers make a success of themselves in this world.”

“Not always,” I said. “Or my Aunt Ruthie wouldn't have been behind in her house payments when she died.”

“Ah,” he said to this. And after a moment, “You have the right of it. Luck plays a hand in most endeavors.”

“Endeavors?”

“The effort we make,” he said. “Some efforts don't play out well if the luck isn't with us.”

“That's it exactly,” I said. He wasn't so bad, after all.

But he had meant for this talk to lead up to something, and after another sashay or two, he got his point in. “You could be working alongside your sister, if you care to.”

“How's that?”

He showed me a basket with a neck strap affixed to it so it could be worn, leaving a person's hands free. When he talked up his goods to the ladies, he wanted me outside in the street hawking small items that could be sold for a nickel or a dime.

“Why do you sell sundries if your business is medicine?” I asked him outright.

“Some customers are just naturally leery of buying something for the first time,” he said. “A first small purchase of something they trust can change their minds.”

I nodded. I would do it. I didn't care to be eating for free.

In the evening, when the customers were men, I would have an assortment of envelopes of tobacco for chewing or smoking, rolling paper, and the like. The pricing, he told me, was set so there was little need to make change, just shove the coins or bills in my apron pocket.

I ignored the mention of an apron pocket.

Truth to tell, there was some excitement in this for me.

I liked the feel of money in my hands. It never mattered to me that I would hand it over to Uncle Arlen or, now, to the Aldoradondos. It was the doings of business I liked, the question of how much to pay or to sell for, not the keeping.

I knew someone had come across Borden Kind by now and heard the story he had to tell. While me and the doctor talked, and then as we waited for Maude and the missus to finish the work they were about, I watched for any sign of the law, or anyone else hurrying about. I saw nothing to alarm me.

Maude came out of that wagon and, under the sunburn, her cheeks were lit up like Christmas. She wore a dark blue dress that rustled when she moved. The skirt spilled ruffles down the back and had some spangles besides.

“Sequins,” the missus called them. Her tone had a bit of Aunt Ruthie in it, giving me to know there was nothing wrong with them.

I don't suppose there was anything wrong with them except I'd never seen my sister wearing them. I'd had half an idea Maude might get to work inside the wagon. I saw now they wanted her to stand in the street and do her best to attract attention. That was the business they were in.

“She has to cover her hair,” I said, giving in on the spangles and going to what really mattered.