Christie And The Hellcat Part 33

Enjoying the flush that brought to Christie's cheeks, she mounted up and rode off.

The telegraph key stopped tapping out its dots and dashes and she looked up.

"It's sent," called the clerk.

"Thanks, Henry." Zee ran a hand through her hair and resettled her hat, then stepped outside and headed back toward Main Street.

Hogan's horse was tethered next to her mare, she saw, as she neared the jail. She pushed open the door to his office with a bang.

He looked up. "Morning, Brodie."

215.

"Morning." She la.s.soed the hat stand with her hat and perched on the corner of the desk. "Nice break?"

"Fair to middling." He put down the logbook. "Looks like you've had a high old time while I've been away." He gave her a sly glance.

"So now you're living with two pretty women? Hound dog."

"It ain't like that."

He laughed and gave her a shrewd glance. "How's Christie taking it?"

"Not well." She sighed. "It never occurred to me she'd feel so . . .

proprietorial."

He fingered his mustache. "About you, or the house?"

"Both," said Zee. "I've only ever felt possessive about horses . . .

and Christie, of course. It was different with Mollyher heart was mine, but her body . . ." She fiddled with a loose thread in her Levi's.

"It's kind of flattering Christie feels that way." She looked up and caught his grin. "What?"

"Dang it, I do believe that little blonde's tamed the h.e.l.lcat. Never thought I'd see the day."

She felt herself blushing and changed the subject. "Yeah, well . . .

So have you taken care of Granpappy Carpenter? I left him sobering up overnight." She grimaced. "He spends more time in the cell than he does at home."

Hogan nodded. "Gave him some coffee and beans and sent him packing."

"Good." She stood up and paced toward the window, watching the customers coming and going at the barbershop across the street.

"Wonder what delights today holds in store."

"Temperance Union demonstration," said Hogan. "Outside the Last Chance Saloon at ten."

She turned and looked at him. "First I've heard of it."

He tapped his nose. "You don't have the right contacts."

"Ah, that pretty little widow over on Second Avenue?"

It was Hogan's turn to blush.

She gazed out the window again. "I dealt with those sour-faced old biddies last time."

"So? I'm the boss. I say who does what."

She folded her arms and looked at him.

Hogan pulled out a silver dollar. "All right. Toss you for it."

"Tails."

It spun through the air and landed on the battered desk . . . heads up.

216.

Zee looked at it in dismay. "d.a.m.n it, Hogan. Is that thing double-headed?"

He laughed, pocketed the dollar, put his feet up on the desk, and crossed his ankles. "That would be telling."

GIF.

Zee could hear them a block away. They were singing "Rock of Ages" out of tune.

It was the usual culprits, she saw, as she drew nearer to the group of women huddled on the sidewalk outside the Last Chance Saloon Adah Riker, Eliza Atkey, and their Temperance Union cronies.

One woman was rushing around handing out placards clearly made at the last minute. Zee read the slogans: "Down with the Demon Drink," "Woe to Whiskey," and her favorite "Outlaw Licker."

She suppressed a bawdy laugh and approached the ringleaders.

The singing faltered as the women registered her presence, some undoubtedly remembering being picked up by the bustle and scruff of the neck and thrown into the street.

"You can't stand here, ladies." Frightened male eyes were watching them through the saloon's front window. Wonder if their husbands are in there?

"It's a peaceful protest, Deputy," protested the hatchet-faced Eliza Atkey, folding her arms.

"I sure hope it is, but you still can't stand here. You're blocking the way."

Grumbling and muttering, the women moved until they were half on the sidewalk and half in the street.

"Much obliged." Zee leaned back against a rail, folded her arms, and scrutinized the members of the Temperance Union one by one.

They shifted under her gaze. "Well, really!" said one. "Who does she think she is?" said another.

"Rock of Ages" came to an end, and after a short bout of chanting "Say No to Liquor," "Save our Menfolk from Ruin"the women switched to "There Is a Fountain."

Zee winced at the caterwauling. I'll get you for this, Hogan.

The protestors began to march up and down, waving their placards. A few interested bystanders were now watching, hoping for a brawl.

217.

Sorry, folks, but there ain't gonna be a show todWait a minute.

One of the women who'd caused trouble last time, Martha Curry, was having difficulty marching. Either her drawers had fallen round her fat ankles, or something under her petticoats was hampering her.

Zee straightened and advanced on the plump woman, who froze and looked at Zee as if the deputy were the mongoose and she the snake.

"Want to hand it over?" Zee gestured.

Martha's abrupt halt had caused disarray as the marching women behind her b.u.mped into one another. "What's going on?" asked someone. "What does she want with Martha?"

"Hand what over?" Martha tried to look down her nose, but since she was a foot shorter than Zee, it didn't work.

"I won't ask you again." Zee donned the menacing glare that had once cowed her fellow outlaws and Martha quailed. "Want me to turn you upside down and search under your petticoats?"

The women gasped and went pale. "I can't believe she said that!"

"She's going to a.s.sault Martha." "Someone call the sheriff." "She is a sheriff."

Martha began to squirm and wriggle in a very odd manner. What the h.e.l.l is she doing? A rain dance? Something thudded onto bare earth.

"Step back," ordered Zee.

Martha obeyed and her companions let out a shocked gasp. On the ground where she had stood lay a hatchet. Zee picked it up; it was still warm from its unusual hiding place. She looked at it then at the now blushing Martha.

"Peaceful protest?"

"Martha," hissed Adah Riker. "I thought we agreed"

Zee tossed the hatchet from hand to hand. "Any more of these?"

She regarded them each in turn. One by one, they shook their heads.

"Good," she growled. "Very good. 'Cause if there's even the hint of any trouble here today, you'll alland I mean allbe spending the night in jail." She waited. "Got it?"

They nodded.

"All right." Satisfied that they would behave themselves this time, she turned and, hatchet in hand, headed back toward the jail.

Zee had gone only a few paces when she remembered 218 something. She turned and shouted, "Oh, and by the way. It's spelled LIQUOR."

The women's mortified faces were enough to keep her guffawing all the way back.

Chapter 12.

"How long have you and Deputy Brodie lived together, Miss Hayes?"

Christie's rolling pin halted, and she considered the question.

"Well, I've known her a little longer of course, but we've actually lived together for about two months. And please, call me Christie."

She smiled at Julie's surprise. "It isn't long, is it? Yet sometimes I feel as if I've known Zee all my life." She shrugged at the mystery of it and resumed rolling out her pastry.

Julie half-heartedly turned the pages of her magazine. Christie had selected it with care. Every Sat.u.r.day was running an adventure serial about a heroine stranded on a desert island, and she hoped the exciting story would hold the girl's interest and encourage her to persist with her reading.

Christie had discovered that Julie's literacy skills were sadly lackingMillain hadn't considered such things important in a wardand she was taking steps to remedy that. Unfortunately, Julie seemed more interested in her hosts' personal lives than in fiction.

Julie peered at Christie from beneath lowered eyelashes. "Was it love at first sight?"

Christie snorted. "Hardly." She rested an inverted pie dish on top of her pastry, and cut around it. "The first time I met Zee, I was so frightened of her, I got her shot."

Julie's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really." She lined the dish with the pastry and began to pile in the beef in gravy she had cooked earlier.

"But then you fell in love?"

"No, then I decided she was the most insufferable and impudent woman I had ever met . . . and also the most fascinating." She 220 remembered her painful confusion. "I didn't know what was happen-ing to me. That I could be in love with a woman like Zee was unthinkable."

"I see."

Christie had a feeling Julie didn't see at all. She knew nothing of love. How could she, given her life with Millain?

"But then you realized you loved her?"

The pie now ready for the oven, she cleared away her pastry making equipment and wiped down the table with a cloth. "No, then I got engaged to someone else."

By now Julie looked totally confused and Christie laughed. "You look the way I felt."

"But if you were engaged . . ." The girl fiddled with the corner of a page.

"I left my fiance to follow Zee," explained Christie, still amazed in retrospect at her boldness.

"Just like that?"