Excerpt of Polite Enemies by JoAnn Smith Ainsworth

" Chapter 1

Buffalo, Wyoming, 1895

Ida Louise Osterbach glanced up from slopping the hogs to see two rough looking men on the dirt lane leading to her farmhouse. They rode at a steady clip in the crisp spring air—like men with a purpose.

The way they sat their saddles was unfamiliar. Although Wyoming was much safer than when she and her late husband arrived almost ten years earlier, these were still precarious times. The Johnson County range war had only recently ended. The tiny hairs on the back of Ida’s neck rose. She’d better not get caught out in the open. The men were planting the north acres so she and her friend, Peggy Knapp, were alone.

Ida dropped the empty bucket and hurried across the packed-earth barnyard toward the open kitchen door. She rubbed sweat off her forehead with the back of her sleeve as she ran. When close to the open kitchen doorway, she yelled out to alert Peggy.

“Strangers coming!”

As she rushed into the warmed kitchen, Ida peeled off dirty work gloves and wiped sweaty hands down the sides of the coarse pants she wore when working outside of the house.

The usually cheerful Peggy was frowning as she vigorously pumped water into a metal washbasin in the kitchen sink. “We don’t often get riders we don’t know around here.” She splashed water over the flour dust coating her plump hands and arms up to her elbows from baking bread. “Drifters looking for work, do you think?”

Ida secured the kitchen door by its heavy wooden bar.

“Not likely. They ride like they know where they’re going and mean business when they get here. We’d best stay locked up until we know who they are.”

Ida removed the broad-brimmed hat she wore to protect her skin from the sun. A strand of dark brown hair fell alongside her face when the hat snagged a hair pin, pulling it loose from the German-housefrau-like braid she wrapped around her head. She brushed her hand at it, but didn’t take the time to reset the pin before grabbing two pistols and a tin box of ammunition from the cabinet in the kitchen sideboard.

“Whatever could they want, I wonder?” Peggy briskly wiped spilled flour and lard off the table. She threw the damp burlap rag over the faucet of the kitchen pump before sliding bullets into the chambers of the pistols Ida placed on the newly cleaned oilcloth covering. “We’re too far off the main road for them to think they’re headed for town.”

“Let’s go see.” Ida slid the last cartridge into the chamber of her pistol. Gripping a gun with her left hand, she hurried from the kitchen into the narrow hallway leading to the front of the house. The grandfather clock in the seldom-used parlor struck the half-hour as she sped by. She cautiously opened the porthole in the upper half of the front door to peer out at the two armed men. Both appeared to be in their forties. They had reined up some distance from her front porch. Controlling their impatient horses, they waited for her to acknowledge them.

“At least they follow visitor etiquette,” she muttered—relieved, but still cautious.

The man taking the lead had curly blond hair showing from underneath a wide-brimmed hat shading startlingly blue eyes from the morning sun. For some reason, his attitude got Ida’s back up. His ruggedly handsome face looked self-assured despite displaying signs of dissipation. A flamboyantly colorful kerchief tied around his neck created a striking contrast to skin weathered by long hours outdoors. The six-shooters on both hips were tied- down.

The other man’s fierce scowl and hardened eyes were not hidden by his oversized, black sombrero. An unkempt, handle-bar mustache sagged. This gloomy man sat his horse with such malevolent stillness that Ida’s skin crawled as when a scorpion brushes past. She fingered the extra cartridges she’d slipped into her deep pants pocket.

Peggy arrived, puffing from exertion and carrying a pistol. She leaned against the storage seat of the mirrored coat rack before nodding toward the open porthole. “Know them?”

Ida gave way at the door, shaking her head. “You?”

Her considerably shorter friend rose on tiptoes.

“No one I know,” Peggy said after her turn at the opening.

“Guess we’d better find out who they are. Stand back.”

Ida’s heart stepped up a beat as she opened the upper half of the Dutch door. “Who are you? What do you want?” She cocked the pistol.

“No need for that, ma’am.” The blond-haired man gestured toward the gun. He spoke in a shadily cultured Southern voice and edged his horse closer. “We’re here to be sociable.”

His cohort stayed in place and didn’t look the least bit sociable.

“Who are you?”

“Beau Campbell, ma’am.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Nephew to your estimable neighbor.”

A shiver of repugnance traveled the length of Ida’s spine on hearing the Campbell name. “Get off my property. You’re not welcome here.”

“Now, now, Miz Osterbach, let’s not start our acquaintanceship on the wrong foot.”

His smooth-tongued manner reminded Ida of the snake-oil salesman who worked Buffalo last summer. Her throat felt like her voice would get stuck, but she managed to spit out, “Being a relative of Rattlesnake is no recommendation. Get off my land.”

“Puta,” the cohort muttered. Although under his breath, Ida heard and her back stiffened.

The smooth-tongued man brazenly stayed where he was, doffed his hat and smiled ingratiatingly. “I’m here to make a magnificent offer for the purchase of your farm.”

He kept misusing the English language while trying to sound high class. She stepped away from the Dutch door. “I’m not interested.”

“Hold on there, ma’am. Hear me out.”

Ida stepped forward again. “You’ve got two minutes.”

“Uncle Art’s retiring, ma’am, and I’m taking over his ranch. Your farm and his ranch will make a good-sized spread with plenty of water.” He put his hat back on his head. “I’d make it worth your estimable while to sit down for a talk. I’ll pay in gold—more than fair price.”

He smiled a broad smile that some women might find captivating, but Ida didn’t. She was glad her nemesis neighbor was giving up ranching, but his nephew looked to be as bad.

“I’m not selling.” She started closing the wooden half panel.

“Wait.” Beau dismounted his stallion and strode toward her. “Running a farm’s too hard for a lady.”

“Not for this woman,” she said emphatically. “And stay right there. Any closer and I’ll shoot.”

Beau stopped, raising his hands in a mocking gesture of surrender. “Living out here’s not safe. Ladies should live in town.”

She raised the pistol and placed a shot into the ground close enough to raise dust and startle his horse so it twisted around, almost pulling the reins out of his hand.

“I can take care of myself.”

“I can see that, ma’am.”

“Even if I was interested in selling, I’d never sell to a Campbell. Your uncle murdered my husband.”

Anger contorted Beau’s face, but he took a deep breath and seemed to gain control so he could speak in the rational tones of a successful salesman. “My innocent uncle was cleared of that charge, ma’am. Your husband and Uncle Art were getting ready for a fist fight, putting their holsters to one side, when the gun accidentally went off.”

“Right through my husband’s back and into his heart.” Her voice cracked with dredged-up emotion. “Some accident!”

“There were witnesses.”

She burned hot with anger. “Your uncle’s ranch hands. Paid thugs.”

Beau’s face darkened with the flush of blood from his anger. He clenched his fists.

“You’re mistaken, ma’am. I’ll send Uncle Art over. He’ll explain what happened.”

Ida aimed the gun straight at Beau. “Rattlesnake knows better than to show his face around here. I’ll put a bullet between his eyes if he tries.”

“Let’s go,” the gloomy partner grumbled. “You’re not getting anywhere.”

“Good advice,” Peggy yelled.

“Good riddance,” Ida said.

With a roar, Beau dropped the reins and charged.

Taken aback by the fierceness released when he stripped away the thin layer of Southern charm, Ida’s shoulder blades tightened and the back of her head started to pound. She swiftly lowered the gun to his groin. “One more step and I’ll make a eunuch of you.”

Beau stopped dead. He stared at her and must not have liked what he saw in either Ida or in Peggy, whose pistol was centered on his friend. He spun angrily on his heel, leaving indentations in the dust of the roadway as he stomped back to his horse.

“You’ll regret this,” he hissed as he mounted. “People didn’t call my uncle ‘Rattlesnake’ for nothing and I’m worse.”

Whirling his horse around, he galloped down the road.

Beau’s evil-eyed cohort sat a moment, scowling, then slowly turned his horse to follow.

A shiver traveled down Ida’s spine.

* * * *

Minutes later, Peggy placed a steaming pewter mug of sugared tea on the oil cloth-covered kitchen table where Ida sat, hunched over and weary. The confrontation with Campbell had taken a toll. She wrapped trembling fingers around the warmed mug and sipped. The tea’s soothing herbal aroma started working its calming effects.

Ida blessed the day she decided to give Peggy a home after her husband’s early death to disease. Peggy ran the farmhouse efficiently and cooked superb meals. This released Ida—in good conscience—to work the fields.

“The nerve of him.” Peggy looked thoroughly upset. “Wouldn’t you think a Campbell would be ashamed to show his face around here?”

Ida willed her heartbeat to slow down. “They’re still trying to get their hands on my water.” She pictured the series of irrigation ditches in the sloping fields that fed water from Clear Creek to her crops. The creek continued on, running through Campbell property to water a straggly herd of cattle. “Art Campbell says I siphon off too much.”

“Horsefeathers!” Peggy passed by on her way to the cook stove. “Art settled here after you and Dean. He knew what he was getting into.”

“That man lacks common sense. He overgrazed for the amount of water on his land.”

“He’s okay in good years,” Peggy said, “but in dry years he’s not.”

“He should’ve dug wells, but he never figured it out until his cattle started dying. Still hasn’t done it. Just keeps hassling me.” Ida sipped the sweetened tea. “He killed Dean for our water.”

“By keeping the farm going,” Peggy said, “You cooked Art’s goose.”

Ida remembered how—newly widowed—she’d assumed control of the hundred and sixty acres in the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains near the Bozeman Trail to Buffalo. It had been a struggle, but with the help of her cousin, Ernest, she’d made it. “But his nephew’s trying to horn in and whitewash the shooting.”

“Remember, sweetie, the sheriff said there wasn’t enough evidence. He said it must’ve been accidental, didn’t he?”

Ida grimaced. “They’ll never convince me.”

Peggy puckered her brow. “Should we ask Mr. Buell for help, do you think? Remember, honey, he wanted to buy the farm after Dean got shot. He won’t like to hear that someone else is muscling in, will he?”

Ida’s face flushed. She and her rancher neighbor on the south side hadn’t spoken in two years. “I’m not about to ask that beanpole for help. He hasn’t been civil since we quarreled.”

“It was just a thought.” Peggy made herself a mug of tea, stirred in sugar and milk and placed it on the table.

“I can take care of myself. I don’t need that man to fight my battles.”

“I know that, sweetie.”

“Besides, Mr. high and mighty Jared Buell has never been partial to farmers planted next to his precious ranch.” Ida still warmed her hands on the mug.

Peggy said, wistfully, “You’ll never be more than polite enemies, will you?”

“He’s lucky I’m even that cordial.” And to think, her friend, Martha, once suggested she set her cap for the wealthy widower.

Peggy lifted a ladle and tasted the stew heating on the wood-burning cook stove. “Food’s ready. I’d best get the men in from the fields.”

She unbarred the kitchen door and gave three resounding clangs on the dinner bell mounted just outside to summon Ernest and the two field hands.

Ida drank the last of her tea before getting up to help Peggy set the table. “They’ll be getting bad news with their meal.”