Free The Bride's Prerogative by Susan Page Davis Page A

sober when he entered the Nugget on Saturday evening. He’d already visited the Spur & Saddle, where he’d shared a drink with Oscar Runnels. The Nugget wasn’t his usual haunt, but he wanted to speak to a couple of the men who worked for him on the stage line, and he had reason to believe he’d find them at Jamin Morrell’s establishment.
    He pushed open the door and squinted in the thick smoke. At a corner table, he spotted Ned Harmon and Bill Stout, one of his shotgun messengers and the driver he’d ridden in with that afternoon. The two were deep in conversation with Griffin Bane, the owner of the livery stable. Cyrus strode over to the table.
    “You boys going to be in shape to take the coach on to Silver City in the morning?”
    “What? We don’t get our Sunday off?” Ned scowled up at him.
    “Not this time. The Mountain Home coach broke down. Don’t know when they’ll get here. You’d best call it an early night and show up ready to roll at sunup.”
    “Sure, Mr. Fennel.” Bill Stout looked up at him and hiccupped.
    Cyrus turned and walked over to the bar.
    Ted Hire smiled a welcome and shouted over the loud voices and off-key music from the piano. “Mr. Fennel. What can I get you, sir?”
    “Whiskey. And don’t serve those two men any more tonight, you hear me? They’ve got to work tomorrow.”
    “Yes, sir, I hear you loud and clear.” Ted set a glass on the bar and filled it.
    A lull in the tinny music set off snatches of conversation.
    “—twin calves, both bulls.”
    “—told the mayor that was hogwash.”
    “—ladies shootin’ up a storm, out the Mountain Road.”
    Cyrus turned and homed in on the last speaker—a miner he’d seen before but couldn’t put a name to.
    Ralph Storrey, who had a small spread at the south edge of town, said, “Oh, that’s likely Hiram Dooley’s sister. She can shoot the whiskers off a gnat at a hundred yards.”
    “There was three of ‘em,” the miner said, but the rest of his sentence was drowned out by a shaky rendition from the piano of “My Grandfather’s Clock.”
    Someone jostled Cyrus’s elbow, and he spilled part of his drink. He whipped around. A young cowhand stepped back and yanked his hat off.
    “Sorry, sir. Don’t pay me no nevermind.”
    Cyrus gritted his teeth. No point in making a scene over it. When he turned around again, Ted had already wiped up the spill.
    “Let me refill your drink, Mr. Fennel.”
    When the girl finished the song, the card players were still discussing the female shooters.
    “I say the women of this town don’t seem to know their place,” said a hardware salesman who had come in on the afternoon stage with Ned and Bill.
    “That’s right,” Storrey grunted.
    By now Cyrus had downed two and a half drinks, counting the one at the Spur & Saddle, and he thought the salesman showed a rare sense of propriety.
    “I’ve got to agree with you, mister,” he called out. “I saw a couple of ladies out shooting last week. Said they wanted to be able to defend themselves.”
    “Ha!” Ned yelled. “Ain’t that what you got a new sheriff for?”
    “That’s right,” said one of Micah Landry’s cowpokes, who lounged at another table with the saloon girl now hanging over him. “Old sheriff died one day, and we got us a new sheriff the next.”
    “Well, them ladies don’t seem to think much of the new lawman,” said the miner. “Iffen they did, they wouldn’t be out shootin’ when they’d oughta be tendin’ their young’uns.”
    The salesman nodded. “They should be home keeping house.”
    “My daughter Isabel would never go gallivanting around doing such things,” Cyrus said.
    “Well, you never know,” drawled another cowhand. “She ain’t got no man to keep house for but her father.”
    The saloon went as silent as a church.
    Cyrus slammed his glass down on the bar. “What do mean by that, you jolt-headed lunk?”
    The cowboy and three of his friends stood. Ted quickly scooped all bottles