Ernestine stopped. “Oh.”
Jeeter was trying hard to be sensitive to her feelings. He did not want to upset her again. Their misunderstanding in the schoolhouse had taught him that she was not always thinking what he thought she was thinking. “I don’t feel right about you giving up your job.”
“Oh!” Ernestine said again, brightening. “I can always find another. There are not enough teachers to fill the need.”
“I still feel guilty,” Jeeter said. Here he was, taking her away from everything she knew, from the security and comfort that came of being a highly respected member of the community.
“If I don’t, you shouldn’t.” Ernestine touched his cheek. His stubble tickled her fingertips. “I am doing this of my own free will. You must remember that.”
“It don’t help much.”
“Doesn’t,” Ernestine corrected, and smoothed her dress. “Now then. Our first order of business is the justice of the peace. I happen to know that Mr. Dundleman, on Fifth Street, is a justice. His grandson attends my school. He is a widower and he lives alone, so we can slip in and out without disturbing anyone else. Then we will go to my boardinghouse and you can help me pack. By midnight we can be on our way.”
“That’s not right,” Jeeter said.
“What isn’t? Disturbing Mr. Dundleman so late?”
“No, riding off across the prairie in the middle of the night,” Jeeter said. “We should wait until morning.”
“Wait where? At the boardinghouse? I daresay my landlady would be scandalized. At a hotel? The marshal and the sheriff might want words with you, and it is best we avoid them.” Ernestine shook her head. “No, if we leave by midnight, we should reach Coffin Varnish about the middle of the night.”
“Coffin Varnish?”
“They don’t have a lawman. They know you there, and according to the newspaper, you did them a favor killing those Blights.”
“There is nothing in that fly speck but a saloon, a livery, and a store,” Jeeter recalled. “No place for us to stay.”
“Wrong,” Ernestine said. “Today’s newspaper mentioned that they cleaned out an empty building so people who came to view Paunch Stevens could spend the night if they wanted.”
“And you want us to spend the night there?”
“Why not?” Ernestine rejoined. “We will sleep in late, then head west. In a month we can be in California.”
“You have it all worked out,” Jeeter marveled. It unnerved him a little, her being so smart, and all.
“I like to work things out before I take the first step,” Ernestine mentioned. “I am a teacher, after all, and teachers, by their nature, are thinkers.”
“I have a puny thinker, myself,” Jeeter said. “It never has done me much good.”
“Education and discipline, my husband to be,” Ernestine said gaily. “They are the keys to a happy life.” Clamping his arm in hers, she wheeled and strode briskly toward the lights and noise of Dodge.
Uneasiness crept over Jeeter. Although the newspaper made the shootings in Coffin Varnish out to be self-defense, the law wanted to question him. The sheriff had been quoted as saying he did not approve of leather slappers riding into his county and shooting folks. “We have to watch out for tin stars.”
“Avoiding them should not be difficult. At this time of night they are on Front Street, visiting saloons and bawdy houses under the pretext of doing their job.”
Jeeter chuckled. “Pretext, huh? We might need to find me a dictionary if I am to savvy half of what you say.”
Ernestine grinned and replied, “As it happens I own several. You may use them whenever you want. Once we say our vows, what is mine is yours and what is yours is mine.”
“I don’t have a whole lot,” Jeeter told her. “My revolver, my horse, the clothes on my back, that is about it.”
“I do not own a great deal, either. My clothes, my books, a few pots and pans. I never bothered to buy furniture since my room at the boardinghouse came furnished.”
“How many books and pots, exactly?” Jeeter envisioned the need for a pack animal.
“Oh, I should say no more than sixty volumes and half a dozen cooking utensils.”
“Sixty!” Jeeter exclaimed. “You have your own library.” Some might weigh a pound or more. It definitely called for a packhorse.
“Many are reference works I use when I teach,” Ernestine revealed. “Some are novels I am fond of. Mary Shelley, for instance. I just love
“Jane who?” Jeeter had never heard of any of them. Suddenly the gulf between his world and hers filled him with dread. “All I know are pistols and horses,” he said glumly.
“About which I know next to nothing,” Ernestine said. “You will teach me about them and I will teach you about books.”
“I am getting the better of the deal.”
“Say that again after we have lived together a while.”
