Deborah Camp Read Online Free PDF Page A

This has gone too far. I mean, I don’t want any harm to come to her, but I don’t want to have to lock my saloon door to keep her out either.”
    “I understand, Tom.”
    Tom shook his hand again. “I’ll be getting back to my business and leave this to you. Y’all come by tonight and the drinks will be on me.” He swaggered out the courthouse door.
    “Wilson’s feeling heroic,” Eric noted. “The other saloon and brothel owners are rallying around him. It’s a pity Mrs. Nation’s bail was set out of her reach. I would have thought she had some money at her disposal. She’s so well known and all …”
    “She runs that home and has a soup kitchen for the poor. Those kinds of operations don’t come cheap.”
    “You’ve looked into her background already?”
    Theo shrugged. “I’ve just heard things around town. You go on back to the office. I’ve got a couple of things to do first. Motions to file and such.”
    “Anything I can help you with?”
    “No. It will only take an hour or so. I’ll see you at the office shortly.” He was already striding down the hallway.
    Regina stared at the figures before her. The lantern light illuminated the sheets of paper strewn across the table in Mrs. Nation’s kitchen. They spelled disaster at every turn.
    Resting her chin in her palm, Regina stared, blindly, into the flickering light and saw herself as she had looked when she arrived at Mrs. Nation’s home.
Bedraggled
was a good word for her appearance, she decided. Bedraggled and downtrodden. The train ride had been arduous and she’d felt limp and dirty at the end of it. But the momentshe saw Mrs. Nation’s face, she knew she’d found a home. A few months later Mrs. Nation had insisted that she move into the house next door and be her renter. The house was the first home she’d known since she’d left her mother’s. The thought of losing it made her want to cry.
    Sighing, she put aside such doomsday thinking. There had to be a way … a bake sale or a county fair. All that takes time, she thought, and all that time Mrs. Nation would be behind bars.
    She directed her bad feelings toward Tom Wilson and his ruthless lawyer, Theodore Dane. Those men could have prevailed upon the judge to reduce the bail, but they hadn’t. Even Morton Potter had sat there like a knot on a tree. Were there no others besides homeless women and children to rally behind Mrs. Nation?
    “How much do we have?” Lu Beck asked, interrupting Regina’s despairing thoughts.
    Regina looked into Lu’s round, sweet face. A bruise discolored her jawline, a parting shot from the husband she had left last week in Topeka. “Twenty-two dollars and a few cents,” Regina answered.
    “Oh, dear,” Lu said sadly. She stroked her five-year-old daughter’s brown hair. “That’s not nearly enough.”
    “ ’Nuff for what, Mama?” Annie asked.
    “Enough to bring Mrs. Nation home,” Lu said. “Annie, go fetch my sweater. It’s in the parlor. I should get you into bed. It’s late.”
    “Maybe we can have another flapjack supper,” Bitsy Frederick suggested as she entered the room. She playfully swatted Annie’s behind as the girl raced past her.
    “That will take time to plan. I was hoping to get Mrs. Nation out of jail quickly.” Regina checked the figures again. “It’s not fair!”
    “Life ain’t fair,” Bitsy said with dripping scorn. “Especially when it comes to us women. We always get the business end of men’s boots. That old judge must have a heart made of pig iron. I think he wants to keep Mrs. Nation in jail.”
    Annie skipped into the kitchen again and handed over the sweater. “Thank you, dear.” Lu shrugged into the garment, its elbows worn thin. “Aren’t you getting sleepy-eyed, child?” She cupped Annie’s chin in one hand and tipped up her face. “Wide-eyed and full of wonder. That’s my Annie.”
    A knock sounded on the front door and Regina reached for the lantern.
    “Who can that be?” Regina took