Pepperville, Texas, Early 1880s
Cassandra Bixby paused from setting type for the newspaper
to glance at the clock hanging over her desk. Pride and
excitement bubbled inside her. In a few minutes, the bank
would open its doors. She would be there to deposit her life
savings into Aunt Louise's account.
Gerald Nash, owner and editor of the Pepperville Times,
halted at the door of his private office. He was
fortyish with hazel eyes and brown hair that was beginning
to recede slightly. He was industrious and energetic, which
accounted for his trim build. He had suffered a broken nose
sometime in the past. Plus he had a slick red indentation
above his left eyebrow and a half-moon scar on the underside
of his jaw.
Cassie wondered how he'd come to have them but she'd never
asked.
He glanced curiously at Cassie and frowned. "Is
something wrong? You've been watching the clock for a half
hour."
"No." She pivoted to face him as she wiped the ink
off her hands. "Everything is right today. I'm paying
off my long-standing debt to Aunt Louise, soon as the bank
opens. I've been pinching pennies for years. Since tomorrow
is her birthday, it's going to be my gift to her."
"Very commendable," Gerald said approvingly.
"But Louise doesn't seem the kind of woman who would
expect compensation."
"She isn't, but she made all sorts of personal
concessions and sacrifices to fetch me from an unpleasant
situation after my parents died. She raised me as her own
and paid for my schooling back East. I don't know why she
decided to move from Hillsdale to set up another restaurant
here, but that had to be another expense. I want to pay her
what I owe."
Cassie glanced at the clock again. "I'll take my pouch
to the bank but I shouldn't be gone but a few minutes."
"Save me a trip and take my deposits with you," he
requested.
While Gerald strode back into his office to retrieve the
collected money from newspaper sales, Cassie scooped up her
bulging purse. The black cat that had adopted her when she
moved to town bounded off the windowsill and hopped onto her
desk. He rubbed himself against her arm until she petted him.
"Aunt Louise is definitely going to remember her
thirty-seventh birthday," Cassie told Maxwell the
tomcat. "Besides repaying my debt, we're having a
city-wide surprise party at the restaurant. Not to mention
the tribute recognizing her as the only female business
owner in town."
Maxwell purred in reply. Cassie, who advocated women's
rights and social reform, was proud of her aunt's
as-sertiveness and accomplishments. In fact, Aunt Louise's
modern philosophies and progressive thinking had molded
Cassie into the woman she'd become.
"Here you go." Gerald dropped the hefty pouch in her
hand then winked at her. "Thanks to your
thought-provoking articles, our circulation has increased.
So have profits. I'm glad Louise talked me into hiring you.
Best decision I ever made."
Cassie beamed at the compliment as she rubbed Maxwell behind
his half-bitten-off ear. She remembered arriving in town six
weeks earlier to help Aunt Louise at Bixby Café. When
she applied for this job, Gerald hadn't been particularly
enthusiastic or receptive.
Cassie had returned to the café, discouraged by
Gerald's reply: Give me time to think it over. I'll be
in touch when I decide.
Louise Bixby—assertive, grab-the-bull-by-the-horns
kind of woman that she was—had marched next door to
the newspaper office to plead Cassie's case. She returned
thirty minutes later to announce that Gerald had thought it
over and decided a female assistant was exactly what he needed.
Cassie hadn't been privy to that conversation but she was
thrilled with her new job. That was yet another example of
Aunt Louise's dedication to seeing Cassie make a promising
start in her chosen career.
Cassie shrugged into her coat to ward off the chill of the
windy spring day, then headed for the door. Maxwell trailed
along behind her. "I'll finish setting type when I
return," she promised Gerald.
"Better your nimble fingers than mine." Gerald
propped his shoulder against the office door then wiggled
the two stiff fingers on his right hand—she hadn't
asked how he'd come by that injury, either. "You're
twice as fast as I am. Another reason why I should have
hired you without a moment's hesitation." He smiled
guiltily. "But I made the mistake of thinking that as
young and attractive as you are, you couldn't
possibly…"
When his voice trailed off Cassie arched a blond brow.
"Couldn't possibly have a brain in my head? I swear,
that is the very attitude my kindred spirits are trying to
dispel while crusading for the right to vote so we can have
a voice in the legislature."
Gerald chuckled as he flung up both hands in supplication.
"No need to lecture me. I've seen the error of my ways.
Now I support women's suffrage wholeheartedly. Your aunt
would pound me over the head with a rolling pin if I
didn't."
"I suspect you're right." She frowned pensively as
she studied her distinguished-looking but battle-scarred
boss. He and Aunt Louise seemed to be friends, besides
owning businesses that stood side-by-side. She wondered…
Gerald flicked his wrist dismissively. "When you look at
me like that, it makes me nervous. You're making a
monumental trip to the bank. Remember? Get to it, Cassie."
Cassie snapped to attention and discarded her thoughts of a
budding romance between her boss and her aunt. She buttoned
her coat and strode outside to cross town square. Which was,
in actuality, a circle. An octagonal-shaped courthouse sat
in the middle of the surrounding lawn. Nearby, steam rose
from the hot mineral spring that gurgled from the rocky
hillside, one of the many springs found in the area.
Local businesses encircled the park. Streets jutted off like
spokes on a wagon wheel. Cassie wasn't sure why the founding
family of Pepperville had laid out the town lots in peculiar
shapes, but it made the town unique.
Her thoughts trailed off as she passed a whiskered old
man—Wilbur Knox was his name. He sat on a bench beside
the steaming springs, soaking both feet in a small tub.
"Mornin', Mizz Bixby," he mumbled as he readjusted
his tattered clothing.
"Good morning to you, sir. Your gout and arthritis must
be bothering you today," she replied. "Sorry to see
that."
"Read your newspaper article about that Morris woman
stirring up trouble in Wyoming—"
"She wasn't making trouble—" Cassie tried to
interrupt but Wilbur talked over her.
"—by giving women the right to vote. Don't sound
like a good idea to me," he said candidly.
Cassie watched Wilbur limp over to the steamy spring to heat
up his basin of mineral water. "If you were a woman you
might think it was a grand idea."
"Well, the legislature voted it down in '76 so that's
that. Besides, you're too darn pretty to bother with
suffrage campaigns. You need a man to support you instead of
working at the newspaper office. Don't know what Gerald was
thinking when he hired a woman."
Cassie gnashed her teeth and reminded herself that scads of
small-minded males from the older generation resisted the
thought of women gaining equality. In Cassie's opinion, the
Western frontier was fertile ground for modern thinking and
social reform. Here, women could hold jobs that were frowned
upon and considered men's work in the East. The frontier
lifestyle demanded men and women work together to establish
farms, ranches and businesses.
Single women and widows could own property but married women
were denied ownership in many states. Because of Spanish
influence, women in Texas retained more rights than in the
East where English tradition reigned supreme. But Texas had
yet to grant women voting privileges that allowed them a
voice to improve their lives and establish social reform.
Cassie frowned thoughtfully, wondering if Aunt Louise had
settled in Texas so she could acquire the property for her
two-year-old restaurant and the café she'd opened in
Hillsdale before starting her business in Pepperville.
As for Cassie, she'd had difficulty getting her foot in the
journalistic door after she'd finished her education in
Boston. If her boss at the magazine office hadn't taken ill
with influenza—he had required a month of bed rest to
recuperate—she might not have had a chance to step
into his shoes and subsequently be recognized as a serious
journalist.
When Cassie discarded her wandering thoughts, she heard
Wilbur make another comment about women staying in their
proper places at home. She considered telling the hidebound
old coot to soak his head instead of his feet in the mineral
springs, but she clamped down on her tongue. She refused to
let Wilbur spoil her grand mood. Starting today, she was
free of the burden of obligation she felt to her aunt.
Louise would have a tidy nest egg and Cassie could begin
saving to purchase her own home rather than living at the
boardinghouse.
With Maxwell beside her, she hiked across the park encircle
by a hotel, butcher shop, general store, opera house,
bakery, the Bixby Café and several other thriving
businesses. Excitement built inside her as she approached
the bank. Forcing Max to wait outside, she took her place in
line behind two men who were dressed like the trail drovers
who passed through in the spring and fall, delivering cattle
herds to the railhead in Dodge City.
Pepperville was close enough to the Chisholm Trail to
accommodate drovers and cowboys who restocked supplies and
wet their whistles at the local saloons on the northwest
side of town—away from the more respectable businesses
that lined the circular park. The cowboys also paid visits
to the red-light district that Cassie would like to close down.
She'd wanted to write several scathing editorials about the
brothels, but the city council was in favor of keeping them
open. Gerald had suggested that she pick her battles and
begin with the enlightenment of women. He insisted that
trying to shut down the saloons and brothels would be as bad
as stirring up a nest of angry wasps. That, he said, would
be bad for her health and for his business
and livelihood.
"What do you mean I can't withdraw cash?" the drover
at the front of the line demanded, jostling Cassie from her
pensive musings. "This is a bank, isn't it? I put money
in here last fall when I brought my herd through. Now I need
to restock supplies."
The scrawny teller in his late thirties, whose pointy nose
and shifty eyes always reminded Cassie of a rodent, stared
at the man through his thick wire-rimmed glasses. "I'm
sorry, sir, but withdrawals that size take at least a day.
If you could return tomorrow—"
"I plan to stock the wagons and be on the trail
tomorrow," the drover interrupted gruffly. He shook his
finger in Millard Stewart's face. "The money better be
here bright and early in the morning. Otherwise, the bank
owner and I are going to butt heads!"
The agitated customer lurched around and stamped off.
The second trail drover heard the same story from the teller
and he issued a few threats of his own before he stalked
out. A cold draft swept through the bank before he slammed
the door with enough force to rattle the pane-glass windows.
Cassie waited impatiently while Gladys Truman, a plump
elderly widow with a face like a wrinkled peach, deposited a
small amount of money into her account. Cassie knew the
white-haired woman had difficulty making ends meet and took
in mending for extra money. Cassie and Aunt Louise took
their clothing to Gladys, even if they could have tended the
tasks themselves. Other kindhearted citizens did the same.
"You keep up those editorials to encourage women to
speak out for their rights," Gladys said as she turned
away from the teller's window. "My husband, God save his
close-minded soul, considered me his servant and his
property. You wouldn't believe how many times I was tempted
to stitch his mouth shut so I could tell him, without
interruption, what I thought of his backward ideas. This
state has given black males the right to vote. Why not
women, too?"
"I couldn't agree more," Cassie replied with a smile.
She liked Gladys Truman. A lot. She seemed to be enjoying
her independence and widowhood more than her confining
marriage. According to Aunt Louise, there had been no love
lost between the Trumans. Their families had arranged the
union and the couple simply tolerated each other.
In Cassie's opinion, marriage benefited men more than women
and love rarely entered into the equation. Her parents were
the exception. They had cared for and respected each other.
Unlike the bickering that went on while Cassie lived with
her mother's sister and her family for five endless years
after her parents' tragic death in a carriage accident.
Five years of hell and the loss of her inheritance, Cassie
mused bitterly. There was no telling what would have become
of her if Aunt Louise—her father's younger
sister—hadn't stormed in to retrieve her, despite the
personal risk of traveling north during the war between the
states. She had whisked Cassie off to Texas to care and
provide for her.
"May I help you, Mizz Bixby?" the teller asked,
drawing her from her wandering thoughts.
Cassie retrieved her pouch from her purse and set it on the
counter. "I want to deposit these banknotes in Louise
Bixby's account." She set Gerald's leather poke beside
the heaping pouch. "This money goes in the newspaper
account—"
Her voice dried up when a gust of cold air blasted through
the bank. The door crashed against the wall and a collective
gasp of alarm erupted behind her. Cassie glanced over her
shoulder to see two men, dressed in long canvas dusters and
sombreros, toting double-barrel shotguns.
They had covered their heads with black hoods. Cheesecloth
inserts concealed the color of their eyes and shapes of
their mouths. Both men towered over the customers like burly
giants. They must have weighed at least three hundred pounds
each. The chink of the large rowels on their silver
spurs sounded like a death knell in the grim silence.
They motioned with the barrels of their shotguns, forcing
customers to line up against the wall and raise their hands
over their heads.
"That goes for you, too, señorita," the nearest
bank robber said in a muffled voice.
Everything inside Cassie rebelled against the terse command
delivered with the heavy Spanish accent. No! No! No!
This was her big day. She was repaying her loan so
she'd feel truly independent for the first time in her life!
She had scrimped and sacrificed to collect this money. Plus,
she was responsible for the profits Gerald had asked her to
deposit in his account.
"Señorita…" The hombre's gruff voice
held dangerous warning. He loomed over her like a
thundercloud. "Do not cross us. My compadre is
trigger-happy."