Waltz with the Lady Read online

  “Hey, you can’t do that,” protested the heckler’s companion as he drew himself up to size.

  Someone of a calmer nature spoke up from behind. “Now settle down, Curly. That man’s holdin’ a baby. You can’t hit a man holdin’ a baby.”

  Offense flashed in Curly’s narrowing eyes and it was apparent he wasn’t convinced. India’s concluding remarks fizzled into silence as she stared, along with everyone else.

  Gat turned to a nearby woman. “Pardon, ma’am, would you hold the baby?” She took it readily. “Now, Curly,” Gat challenged, “I’m not holdin’ a baby.”

  Curly threw the first punch and the fight was on. Women and old men scattered while the more hardy joined sides, not for Gat or the heckler, but those in favor of women’s franchise and those against. It seemed the perfect afternoon for it, the perfect place, and the perfect method of settlement, fist to face and knee to groin.

  Aghast, India watched her debating opponent leap from the platform and into the melee with undisguised exuberance. She called for peace, but she might as well have whistled in the wind. Suddenly, something in her head snapped and she became seething mad. How dare Gat do this to her! How dare he turn the debate into a brawl? Every paper in the territory would write up the story.

  Heedless of the possibility of being hit herself, she pushed over to where Gat and Curly were still slugging it out and began shouting at Gat. “How dare you turn this into a common brawl! I’m leaving. Do you hear? I’m taking the next train out of here,” she yelled. “I’m leaving and I’m taking the baby with me!”

  Never minding that Curly had his hands around Gat’s throat, India took Gat’s silence as indifference. She pivoted on her heel, took the baby from the gaping matron who had been holding her, picked up the petition ledger, which had been knocked off the table into the dirt, and stomped off down the dusty street toward the train depot.

  Moments later Gat called to her. “India!” But India didn’t slow her headlong pace or turn to answer. He moved beside her and easily matched her pace, stride for stride. “I’m sorry.” He took out a handkerchief and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

  “Humph!” India sniffed with rising wrath. “Mr. Ransom, your escorting job is finished! Do you hear? Finished! I’m done with traveling around this godforsaken territory with a…a womanizer and brawler.” She opened the depot door and stepped inside to the ticket counter. Muttering, Gat followed.

  Tommy Cahoon was at his usual spot. Recognizing Gat, he called out a friendly “Howdy.” Gat didn’t answer.

  India, baby in arms, stepped up to the counter. “One ticket to Cheyenne.”

  “Why, ain’t you the one…” He looked over at Gat and seeing the black scowl on his face thought he’d better hold his tongue.

  “Wait a minute,” Gat took her arm and swung her around to face him. “Now, get the burr out from under your tail, woman. This fracas hasn’t been any picnic for me, either.” He gave a sideways spit into a nearby brass spittoon.

  She grimaced. “I thought you quit that disgusting habit.”

  “I did. That was part of my tooth.” India felt a twinge of sympathy, but quickly squelched it. She started to turn back to the ticket counter but he held her tight and his touch fueled the fire.

  “Must you always resort to brute force?” she challenged, glaring down at his hand on her arm. The baby had started to cry again.

  Tommy Cahoon kept looking over to the baby and then curiously at Gat.

  Gat knew his hold on her was hardly brute force, but he released her. “India, be reasonable. You’ve worked up this all-fired idea that—”

  “Just bite your tongue and don’t tell me my ideas. I’m capable of thinking for myself.” She fished in her pocket for the ticket money. A line up had formed behind them at the ticket counter. Outside, the eastbound train was building up steam for departure.

  The train whistle blew and with it went Gat’s patience. “Bite my tongue? I should have held mine less and bit yours more!” he thundered.

  India stared straight ahead but her chin quivered with outrage and her nostrils flared like a race horse running the quarter mile.

  He opened his mouth and swore. “Lady, you can get on that damned train and ride it all the way to hell for all I care!” He turned heel and strode off.

  Cahoon stamped her ticket and handed it to her. He watched the two leave by opposite doors and rubbed the hairless patch on the back of his head.

  “Friends of yers?” asked Tommy’s assistant.

  Tommy shook his head with puzzlement. “Yep, him and that little gal was in here not more ’an a couple months ago, the two of ’em barely acquainted. Now a baby an all. Why I hadn’t taken Gat to be such a fast worker.”

  The day coach occupants were men, slouching barroom characters playing cards, smoking and spitting tobacco while talking in boisterous tones. India heard the conductor’s final call, and the train began to move slowly forward as she took an isolated seat. Little Hope still bawled in sporadic bursts. India stared out the window vacantly watching the ill-arranged buildings and shanties of Laramie pass out of sight. A single tear, then another, fell hot against her sun-freckled cheek until she was crying uncontrollably.

  Chapter 22

  It was hard to know who suffered more from the parting, Gat or India. India retrenched in Cheyenne, throwing herself into the cause of suffrage with fanatical zeal. Her days were spent lobbying the legislators and lecturing the populace on behalf of women. At night baby Hope became a gossamer shield against her loneliness, and her confidants were pen and paper.

  One night in a letter to her sister she confessed:

  You may find it shocking after all my letters berating the frontier, but I am adjusting to life out here. The very air I breathe seems so free that I have not the least desire to return to the constraints of eastern society. Admittedly, I am a wee bit lonely, despite little Hope’s companionship. She is a dear and I do love her, and I have petitioned the foundling home for legal adoption, though I wonder if she should not have a true father and mother. At times my concern over this dilemma is enough to tempt me into marriage. Truthfully, I’m enough of the old-fashioned woman to want to love and be loved, but never to be ruled. I fear a year or two of married life would pall upon me and I should demand my freedom.

  Oh, perhaps there are better ways to achieve equality than by preaching about and heralding the idea abroad until everyone is tired of the subject, though I nearly tire of the topic myself. Indeed, Sissy, life is not so simple as I once thought.

  Betty Bright caught the eye of her husband, Colonel Bright, and mouthed silent instructions from her seat in the gallery of the assembly hall.

  “Betty, I’m sure he’ll do very well on his own,” India advised, her own eyes unwavering from the Colonel, who with quiet seriousness nibbled the end of his cigar.

  Along with him, India studied the faces of railroad men, miners and cattlemen, the elected officials of Wyoming Territory, some of whom could not read or write. The room was hazy with smoke and smelled of sweat and tobacco as the barkeep from the saloon next door made his appearance with a tray of mugs for the thirsty legislators. India glanced at the jeweled timepiece pinned on Betty’s bodice and shook her head, wondering if the debate would ever end. The Colonel’s bill to grant the women of Wyoming Territory the right of suffrage and to hold office might have passed the Council, but she realized that the opposition in the House would be more formidable. They sat listening all day to the opponents bluster against the bill and she was beginning to doubt its passage altogether.

  The news of Colonel Bright’s “Female Suffrage Act” had spread about the territory, though most thought it was some sort of practical joke. India knew Bright himself was worried that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his campaign promise to his own wife and her good friend Esther Morris. Both of the women had worked so hard on his behalf to elect him as the representative from South Pass City, and now they were all counting on the efforts of
women all over the territory who had taken the opportunity to write letters and pay personal calls on members of the legislature and even the governor. With the help of Will Noble, the Argus had done its share to shift public opinion.

  “Gentlemen, this is a pretty important move,” began Badger Bigsby, a Union Pacific manager elected by the railroad men of the southern part of the Territory, as he took the floor.

  India stifled her desire to gag the old windbag before he could do more damage. She knew Bigsby and Ben Sheeks were the leaders of the House opposition to the bill. They had taken the initiative to destroy the bill by amending it to death.

  “Gentlemen,” continued Bigsby, “a measure like this is kinda like a wild train on a single track, and we’ve got to keep our eye peeled or we’ll get into the ditch. It’s a new conductor making his first run. He don’t know the stations yet, and he feels as if there were a spotter in every coach besides. Female suffrage changes the management of the whole line, and may put the entire outfit in the hands of a receiver in two years. We can’t tell when Wyoming Territory may be sidetracked with a lot of female conductors and superintendents and a posse of giddy girls at the brakes.”

  A supporter of the bill stood up in protest. “Mr. Speaker, I shall pull in favor of the move. You boys should couple onto our train. I’d regard it as a promotion going from a cattle train of male politics to a train with a parlor car of ladies.” India gladly noted he received a light applause.

  “Mr. Chairman, or Speaker, or whatever you call yourself,” spoke up Unusual Barnes, the owner of the Bar G horse ranch on the Upper Chugwater. “I agree with the chair that we want to be familiar with the range before we stampede and go wild like a lot of Texas cattle just off the trail. When we turn this maverick over to the governor to be branded we want to know that we are corralling the right animal. After we’ve run this bill into the chute and twisted its tail a few times, we might want to pay two or three good men to help us let it loose again.”

  “Give women the vote and they will want to be President of the United States and senators and want to be marshals and sheriffs, which is supremely ridiculous,” shouted Ben Sheeks out of turn.

  In supreme agitation India nudged Betty with her elbow muttering, “That man is a pestilence!”

  “In my opinion women officials could give this territory a boom that will make her the bonanza of all creation,” yelled a bill supporter.

  Bigsby jumped to his feet in an attempt to derail such sympathies. “Enough people are already entitled to vote. We need to restrict the vote privilege instead of enlarging it.”

  Elias Kilgore, a retired stage driver raised a calming hand and slowly got to his feet. “The member from Sweetwater County says we are to restrict the vote, does he? Well, Mr. Speaker, because God made men first, they have become mighty stuck on themselves. The fact is that God made the mud-turtle and the bedbug before he made man. He also made the jackass and the baboon. When he had all the experience he wanted in creating, then he made woman. He done a good job. She suits me fine.”

  The assembly let loose with reverberating laughter.

  “I second Elias in that,” said another representative. “The more Godlike we get, gentlemen, the more rights we will give women. The closer you get to the cannibals the more apt a woman is to do chores and get choked for her opinions.”

  “I believe that the mother of a statesman is better calculated to vote than a man who can’t read or write,” continued Elias. “I may be a little peculiar, but I think that when a woman has marched a band of hostile boys all the way up to manhood and has given ’em a good start and made good citizens out of ’em with this wicked world to buck agin all the time, she can vote all day so far as I’m concerned.”

  India clasped and unclasped her hands with excitement. The wind of opinion was changing in favor of the bill. She saw Bright catch the eye of Buck Slocum, his colleague in support of the bill. The time was right to call for a vote, before support could shift again.

  “Mr. Chairman, I propose we take a vote on the measure,” announced Slocum.

  Bigsby bent over to his cohort Ben Sheeks, and after a moment’s consultation, Sheeks took the floor.

  “I propose to amend the suffrage bill by moving that the age requirement be changed to thirty years in place of eighteen, on the theory that no woman would vote because none would admit to being thirty.” He grinned, apparently pleased with his own cleverness, but India wanted to tweak his bulbous red nose.

  During more debate the age of eighteen was raised, not to thirty, but to twenty-one. However, Sheeks wasn’t thwarted. He took the floor again and India and Betty exchanged worried glances.

  “I again propose a change in particular in Section One of the bill. I would require the word ‘woman’ be stricken and the phrase ‘All colored women and squaws,’ be inserted.”

  This proposal brought a hearty round of applause from the opposition and an unladylike hiss from India. Sheeks took his seat and another man stood up proposing that the vote on the bill be postponed until July 4, 1870—a holiday and a year when the legislature ordinarily would not be in session.

  Debate was keen, but all the amendments failed except one: the change of age requirement from eighteen to twenty-one was accepted. India shifted with relief and knew they were on the downhill slide.

  At last the chair called for an end to the debate. Bright gave a nod to his supporters in the House. India crossed her fingers. The final vote was taken.

  Outside the Argus office, a cold November wind relentlessly whipped the building’s signboard. Will was putting wood into the stove when the door burst open and along with a blast of cold air, India and the Brights stepped in.

  “We have wonderful news,” gasped India.

  Betty unwrapped her woolen cape. “The Colonel’s suffrage bill has passed the House. I’m so pleased! I declare my husband is a magician.” She turned to the Colonel beside her and kissed him on the cheek.

  “That is grand news!” Will exclaimed, rushing over to shake the Colonel’s hand.

  “We knew once Colonel Bright was elected in September he would see it through,” India said.

  “I don’t deserve all the credit. It must be shared with you, India, and my wife.” He looked at Betty lovingly. “Betty, it’s a shame that I should be a member of the legislature and make laws for such a woman as you. You are better than I am. You know a great deal more, and you would make a better member of the Assembly than I, and you know it. I have done everything in my power to give you the ballot. Now it lays with Governor Campbell.”

  “I fear the governor is not sympathetic with our cause,” frowned India.

  “Don’t be completely sure,” Betty said with a twinkle in her eye. “Perhaps the Colonel can influence him as he did the Assembly. You know, when he introduced the bill people smiled. There was not much expectation that anything of that sort would be done. However, my husband is a shrewd fellow. He said to the Democrats, ‘We have a Republican governor and a Democratic Assembly. Now, if we can carry this bill though the Assembly and the governor vetoes it, we shall have made a point. We shall have shown our liberality and lost nothing. But keep still,’ he said, ‘don’t say anything about it.’ He went to the Republicans and used another logic. And likewise they agreed to vote for it. So when the bill came to a vote it went right through!” Betty clasped her hands together with triumph.

  India smiled widely. “Imagine, Will. The members looked at each other in astonishment, for they hadn’t intended to do it, quite. Everyone laughed and said it was a good joke, and that they had put the governor in a fix.”

  “They make it sound easy,” said Bright. “I had my doubts while they debated in the house. Sheeks had set up a strong opposition.” He pulled out a paper from underneath his overcoat. “I’ve brought a copy of the bill for you to print in the paper, Will.”

  “Esther has launched a letter-writing campaign throughout the territory,” Betty said. “I think the governor has been gettin
g a lot of mail.”

  Bright handed the document to Will, whose eyes lit up as he skimmed the writing. “Why, Colonel, this is a stroke of genius. You have not only given women the vote, you have given them the right to own separate property and to enjoy the fruits of their labors.” He read further and shook his head with awe. “‘Property rights for wives and parity pay for male and female teachers.’ I could not have dreamed for a finer bit of legislation.”

  “Indeed,” echoed India.

  “Yes, we shall see,” Bright said on an optimistic note. “Betty and I had best be on our way. It looks like snow.” He put his arm around her and shook Will’s hand once more.

  “Just think, next election we might be voting, India,” Betty proclaimed, as her husband ushered her out the door. “Good afternoon.”

  India watched them hurry down the street, thinking that next election she wouldn’t be here to vote. She had stayed four months longer in the territory than she’d intended, and now with the conclusion of all her efforts, her stay was almost at an end. Her trunk was partially packed and her train ticket purchased, and she and baby Hope would be in Boston for Christmas.

  “India, after such good news, I fear I have something unfortunate to tell you,” Will said, coming up behind her.

  India turned, her blue eyes concerned. “What is it?”

  “Mrs. Horn from the foundling home came by and said they’ve denied your petition to adopt baby Hope.”

  India’s heart fell. “But why? They are begging for homes for their children.”

  “Ben Sheeks is against you because you are unmarried, and according to the paper the baby’s father signed, Gat Ransom is the legal guardian.”

  “Unmarried! Why…why Sheeks is prejudiced against me because I’m a suffragette. How can they listen to him? And as far as Gat Ransom being the legal guardian, he’s an irresponsible drifter…nobody has seen him…I’ve not seen him since…” Tears began to gather in her eyes from frustration and the memory of their Laramie parting. In a half-crazy way she’d hoped Gat would have come after her that day, but he hadn’t. Months had passed and with each day she knew with more surety that she’d never see Gat Ransom again.