The Wyoming Debt Read online

And she was right. Maddie was always a woman with a mind of her own, and over the years, there were disagreements and loud arguments about many things, but she never acted foolishly again, or gave him cause to fear for her life or safety. The whipping in the barn was both her first, and her last.

  Except, of course, for what Maddie liked to call the “grown up” spankings that gradually became a part of their lives. It was something Maddie seemed to want and even need, now and then, a need Will was more than pleased to accommodate. A need that more often than not led to the kind of fierce lovemaking that astonished both of them in its intensity. He smiled as he remembered the blush on Maddie’s face when she first tried to broach the subject, and his own bewilderment when he didn’t understand what she was getting at. Not at first, anyway. Not until he recalled an encounter he’d had years earlier, with a lady named Violet. Even back then, it had taken a conversation with his old friend, Daniel, to clear up his confusion.

  He and Daniel had been out of the army for less than three months, at that point, and heading home in a leisurely fashion. In the four years of fighting in the U.S. Cavalry, womanly companionship had been sadly lacking, and now, with money to spend and time to waste, the two friends had made it their practice to stop now and then in a likely town and partake of whatever female hospitality they could find. Most of the ladies they met were of the professional variety, of course, who worked the saloons and gambling halls along the trail west, but that didn’t present a problem for two healthy young men who had been without what the ladies had to sell for a very long time. When they met a couple of especially attractive ladies, in fact, the two friends sometimes stayed in town for a week at a time.

  Will had forgotten the name of Daniel’s lady, but his own lady friend was called Violet, a name she had apparently chosen because she dressed exclusively in that color, from the purple ostrich feather she wore in her elaborately coiffed hair to her purple, French-cut corset, and the purple mesh tights that encased her spectacularly long, well-shaped legs. Violet was a reliably good-natured companion, with an insatiable appetite for certain innovative acts of fornication that had made her a popular and highly recommended favorite. One morning, though, Will mentioned to Daniel that Violet had seemed a bit cranky and argumentative the previous night. Although Daniel and Will were the same age, Daniel had spent considerably more time pursuing women than his best friend, and consequently, his expertise in that regard was extensive.

  “Kinda pouty, or something,” Will explained, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Like a little kid throwing a tantrum. And hard to get along with, too. It was like she was looking for a fight, or maybe just trying to get my goat. When I asked if she was feeling sick to her stomach or something, she called me a half-wit and threw one of those damned, high-heeled purple slippers of hers at my head.” He pointed to a small cut above his left eye.

  Daniel smiled. “And what did you do, when the dear lady threw a shoe at your head, my friend?”

  Will shrugged. “What could I do? I crawled out of bed, grabbed my pants, and spent the rest of the night sleeping in a chair in the hall. I tried your room, but from what I could hear through the door, I figured you wouldn’t appreciate company, right then.”

  “You’re an idiot, my boy, but since you’re such a pleasant fellow, as well as an idiot, allow me to explain. What happened last night was that you missed a golden opportunity to make the lady happy, improve her disposition, and expand your own horizons at the same time. The lovely Violet wanted something specific from you, and you, being an idiot, disappointed her by not obliging.”

  “Obliging her!” Will exclaimed. “Hell, we’d already done it four times that day. If I was paying her by the poke and not by the week, I’d be broke as a stone, already.”

  “You miss the point. The lady was behaving like an insufferable brat, and you permitted it,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah, so what was I supposed to do?” Will grumbled. “Paddle her behind?”

  Daniel slapped his friend on the back. “Congratulations. Maybe you’re not a complete idiot, after all.”

  Will stared. “For God’s sake, Daniel, you can’t just go around hitting a woman. Even on her behind.”

  “Ah, but yes you can, dear boy, if the lady asks you to. And that’s exactly what dear Violet was asking, and then virtually begging you to do–to administer a sound spanking to her undeniably attractive bottom. It’s a not uncommon request, and if you had spent more of your time in the company of sophisticated women, and less time in the company of a lot of malodorous cows, you would have realized it, and accommodated her wishes–and enjoyed yourself immensely at the same time, I might add.”

  “You’re crazy,” Will growled.

  His friend only smiled.

  Later that evening, when Violet’s mood remained pouty, Will finally decided to take Daniel’s advice. He gave Violet the only kind of spanking he knew much about–the kind he’d endured himself, as a boy–an over the knee spanking with a wooden hairbrush. As he pulled the lady across his lap and began to lower her purple satin drawers, though, he was also preparing himself for the onslaught of obscenities and hurled shoes he fully expected to follow. But nothing of that kind happened. Violet simply squirmed and made a few weak whimpers of protest, then settled in for a long, hard paddling that she apparently found delicious, and later, rewarded very generously.

  Years afterward, Will would discover that even an innocent, well-brought up young bride like Maddie could secretly long for this same kind of lusty, over the knee walloping, and respond to it in pretty much the same way as Violet had.

  * * * *

  A few minutes later, still smiling at his memories of Maddie, Will drifted to sleep, and slumbered dreamlessly until morning, his sleep undisturbed by the noise of the storm that blew through just after midnight, or by the even louder commotion just down the street from Delia’s Boarding House. Arabella Peppmueller’s pretty new sales clerk was being dragged off to jail, kicking, screaming, and turning the damp night air blue with unladylike profanities.

  * * * *

  Chapter Three

  Will woke early the following morning, got out of bed with a wide yawn and stretched his arms over his head, refreshed after a peaceful night and eager to get going. With any luck, he could have Ben shod and be on the road within an hour or a bit more. It was a four or five-hour ride back to the ranch, even if the trail wasn’t muddy after last night’s thunderstorm. Hoping to find that the blacksmith had returned to his shop, he dressed quickly, and hurried downstairs to take care of his bill for the room.

  While blacksmith Jim Farnum went about shaping and fitting the iron shoe to Ben’s large hoof, the two men chatted amiably about the heat, the much-needed rain, and about the errand that had taken Farnum out of town the day before.

  “Axle was broke right though,” he complained, “and they was expectin’ me to fix the blamed thing right where it was, half in a ditch, and sittin’ on a slant like it was. I told ‘em all straight off it’d have to be towed in. Judge Feeney was on the stage, like always, this time of month, and he come on into town with me so’s he could get his court business done. Billy, though–that’s the driver? He’s still sittin’ out there in the heat, cussin’ his fool head off. Said the company don’t allow him to abandon company property, like he was a damn ship captain or somethin’. I promised to rig somethin’ up and get back out there later today, but he was still mad as a hornet when the Judge and me climbed in my wagon and drove off. Hope there’s nobody lookin’ to catch the westbound, though. Even when I get the danged thing hauled into the shop, it’s gonna take me a couple days to get her rollin’ again. Hell of a way to travel in this heat and dust, if you ask me. I’d stay to home or walk to where I was goin’ before I’d ride in that blasted sweatbox.”

  An hour later, having sympathized with Farnum’s problems longer than he’d wanted to, Will finally walked out of the smithy, leading Ben. He paused for a moment to lift the horse’s front leg and check the new
shoe, and when he found it well filed and snug, he put his foot in the stirrup, swung up into the saddle–and heard a loud rip. The left sleeve of his worn work shirt had torn, from shoulder to elbow. Will swore. Still, the shirt was old, and overdue to be replaced, so with a resigned sigh, he rode on down the street toward Peppmueller’s. As long as he was in town, he might just as well get himself a new shirt. If he was thinking about seeing Peppmueller’s new sales clerk while he was shopping, it wasn’t a conscious thought. While he was there, he could pick up a couple of other small gifts–some yard goods for Hannah maybe, and a new set of checkers for Caleb, and maybe a can of pipe tobacco for Gideon.

  Will had no idea what he was about to wander into, and how the events of this warm day were going to alter his life. Without knowing it, he was about to intrude upon the trial of accused thief and embezzler, Catherine Alexandra Reynolds.

  * * * *

  For, while Will had been sleeping, Alex had been busy preparing her escape. The westbound Wells Fargo stage that came through every Wednesday usually pulled into town around nine in the morning, and left an hour and a half later, after the team had been fed and watered. Big Dooley was little more than a mail drop, and there was rarely a passenger to be let off or picked up. Alex had already selected a spot two miles outside of town, where she could wait in the brush for the coach’s arrival. Her earlier experience with stagecoach drivers suggested to her that she should make her traveling costume as alluring as possible, featuring a snug bodice with a deeply plunging neckline. When the stage passed by, she would simply wave it down, exchange a few charmingly flirtatious remarks with the driver, and beg him to overlook, just this once, the company’s silly rules about unscheduled pickups. After a dramatically reduced, off-the-books fare had been arranged, she would be safely on her way.

  After setting to one side the red satin dress she had selected as her traveling costume, Alex had managed to cram everything else she currently owned (along with everything she’d recently stolen) into one very large canvas bag, which she then tied inexpertly onto the swayed back of the unhealthy looking ten-dollar horse she’d purchased from the local livery stable. While she knew next to nothing about horses, Alex suspected that the man at the livery stable was as dishonest as she was. The animal looked depressed and ill-fed, and sagged in places that didn’t seem normal for a horse to sag.

  The storm had ended, and she was behind the store, poking about in the rubbish bin for something to stand on that would enable her to get on the horse’s wet back, when two burly men came around the corner and strode down the darkened alleyway toward her. Just behind them, waddling through ankle deep mud, Arabella Peppmueller was trying gamely to keep up with the two men while holding her skirts out of the muck at the same time. Arabella’s hair was dripping in her eyes and her heavy face was red with heat and exhaustion. She was waving a rag mop in the air, a price tag still dangling from its handle.

  “That’s her!” Arabella screeched, brandishing the mop and jabbing it in her former sales clerk’s direction. “Get a good hold on the little whore before she runs off with my money, damn it!”

  The alley was fenced–a dead end that opened to the street–and a frantic glance around made it dismally clear to Alex that she had no chance at all of escape. If she was very lucky, and the two brawny deputies stepped between her and her enraged former employer, she might get out of the alley without being beaten to a pulp with a mop. One thing was certain, though. She wasn’t going to California on the morning stage.

  She spent an uncomfortable night seated on a splintery pickle barrel, while chained to the store’s cast-iron potbelly stove. Obviously unwilling to trust her hired henchmen to keep a sharp enough watch over their bedraggled captive, Mrs. Peppmueller sat nearby in her rocking chair, mop in hand, bemoaning her painfully swollen feet and hurling insults. Early the following morning, a deputy arrived to explain that in an incredible stroke of good luck, the circuit riding judge was already in town, and would be on the scene very soon, after refreshing himself with a quick morning beverage over at the Yellow Dog.

  Two hours later, however, when Will Cameron opened the store’s front door and stepped inside, the accused, the plaintiff, witnesses, and duly sworn deputies were still waiting for the judge to make an appearance. The first thing Will saw was the new sales clerk, sitting glumly in a straight-backed chair. She was handcuffed, with both her feet securely tied to the chair rungs. The red satin dress she was wearing was damp and badly wrinkled, and her hair was in serious need of combing. In the bright, morning light, Will noticed that the dark hair he’d admired on his earlier visit was actually multi-colored.

  Arabella’s slow-witted spouse, Augustus, sat nearby. His spectacles were fogging in the morning heat as he guarded the prisoner with an ancient squirrel rifle. Mrs. Peppmueller was in her customary rocker with her feet up, fanning herself and complaining, as usual. Cameron leaned against the counter and tapped Mr. Peppmueller on the arm.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Not real sure,” Gus replied with a shrug of his thin shoulders. “All I know is ain’t slept a wink all night, and Arabella says I’m to shoot the sales clerk if she tries to get off that chair.”

  “Why don’t you put the gun down, now, Gus,” Will suggested affably, “before you shoot off your own balls. I’ll keep an eye on the prisoner. She doesn’t look real dangerous, all trussed up like that.”

  When Gus complied and handed the weapon to Will, he went to his wife’s side, and began rubbing her back. Will set the shotgun down on the counter, and pushed it out of the prisoner’s reach–just in case.

  “Good morning,” he said, addressing Alex. “What’s going on here is probably none of my business, but you look like you could use a friend. My name is Will Cameron. You waited on me yesterday? Marbles, and some ribbons?”

  Alex nodded. “I remember you.”

  “Is there something I can get you? Some water, maybe, or …”

  “You wouldn’t happen to have the key for these on you, would you?” she inquired irritably, holding out her manacled wrists.

  Will shook his head, trying not to smile. “Sorry, Miss, I can’t help you, there. Do you mind my asking how you got in this fix?”

  Alex glared at him. “I’m absolutely innocent,” she growled, “of everything. All I did was borrow a little money from her.” She gave a vicious nod in Mrs. Peppmueller’s direction.

  Cameron chuckled. “Well, now I know you’re lying. Arabella Peppmueller’s probably got the first nickel she ever made, and she sure as hell doesn’t go around lending money to employees. They’re lucky just to get paid. Actually, I’m trying to picture anyone asking to borrow money from her.”

  “I didn’t exactly ask,” Alex replied sweetly.

  He grinned. “I see. Well, in that case, your goose is pretty well cooked. Arabella hates a thief.

  I think it’s the competition sets her teeth on edge. She’s always kind of hogged most of the cheating and stealing that gets done around here. If you’ve helped yourself to anything of Arabella Peppmueller’s, you’re likely to get strung up, for sure. The circuit judge is her brother-in-law, married to her twin sister, a kind of robust lady named Ardis. How much did you ‘borrow’?”

  Alex sighed. “One hundred and twelve dollars. And thirty-four cents.”

  Will gave a low whistle. “My advice would be to just give it back. Old Arabella likes her revenge, but she purely loves cash. Just be sure you hightail it out of town once she gets her money. The lady bears a real long grudge.”

  Alex groaned. “But, I haven’t got it.”

  “Where the devil did you spend that kind of money in place like Big Dooley?” Will asked, genuinely puzzled. Peppmueller’s is the only real store in town. You got a weakness for gambling or low women?”

  Alex swore. “One of these scum-sucking pigs claiming to be a deputies took it from me after I was arrested, but nobody will believe me.”

  He laughed. “You got robbed of
what you stole? It’s a sort of a tough world, isn’t it? You’ll have to find yourself a job and pay old Arabella back. Of course, with the kind of interest she’ll want, you’ll be ninety-eight years old before you’re paid up.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “Work?”

  “Yeah, you know what work is, don’t you. You do something useful, and then they pay you for it? Of course, now that I think about it, your stock around here’s probably not too high, about now. Still, you’re a good-looking woman, if you don’t mind my saying so. Harve Yarnell, over at the Yellow Dog, might take you on.”

  Alex blushed. “You surely can’t believe I’d look for work in a … in a place like that.”

  “I didn’t mean … Maybe you could run a table, or …”

  Alex shook her violently. “No! I can’t, Mr …?”

  “Cameron. Will Cameron.”

  “Well, Mr. Will Cameron,” she said haughtily. “I’d appreciate it if you kept your suggestions to yourself. Gambling is not one of my talents. Nor is …”

  He glanced down at the rumpled red dress. After a restless night on the floor, the dress had slipped off her shoulders, and now displayed most of what she had to display, but Will elected not to pursue the discussion about what her talents might be. “Too bad you can’t cook and clean, do some laundry, things like that. There’s a big saloon and hotel over at Henley–more like a whore … excuse me, more like a boarding house for ladies who …” He stopped. “Anyway, I hear they can always use a maid or a cook.”

  She leveled an icy look at him. “As it happens, I am an excellent laundress, iron flawlessly, and before I fell upon hard times, I served in both those capacities in some of the finest homes in the East. My cooking and my baking are legendary. I also sew an expert hand, keep a spotless house, play the spinet exceptionally well, and read and write in fluent French. I have no intention of working in a bawdy house, Mr. Cameron, or a saloon. I am more suited to being a tutor, or perhaps a school teacher.”