Chapter 8

Millie found out the whole sordid story of Boots and Jasper quite by accident. She'd gone to the general store, to pick up some flour and lard. Bessie Robinson, the mayor's wife, was there, engaged in gossiping about whether or not Melissa Thistledown, a local rancher's wife, was simply gaining weight or pregnant again. When she saw Millie she squared her shoulders and approached.

"There is something I wish to discuss with you, dear," she said, confronting the teacher.

"Yes?" said Millie.

"Why do you allow that gun-toting whore in your classroom? She is a distasteful and unseemly influence on those children's tender sensibilities."

"I beg your pardon?" Millie stared at the woman, shocked.

"She's a murderess!" hissed the mayor's wife. "She goes into the saloon, bald-faced, on a regular basis! She wears pants! I do not believe it is in the best interests of this town or the children for her to be disturbing your teaching by being in the school."

"Boots helps me," said Millie, still stunned by what this woman was saying.

"And what kind of name is Boots anyway? She killed a man and then robbed his dead body of his boots! And she's proud of that! I simply must insist that she be expelled from your school."

Millie felt her face heat up. She might only be a pretend teacher, but she was doing the best she could. The children were making good progress, and Boots was to her mind partly responsible for that progress. That this woman thought she could just call the shots made Millie livid.

"Mrs. Robinson," she said, her voice tight. "I don't believe you have any children in school. As I understand it, your daughter decided not to go to school." She saw the woman's face go pale at the mention of her daughter, who had eloped. "That being the case, I shall discuss the matter with the parents of the children who are in school, before I make any firm decisions. Have a good day, madam."

She turned to the storekeeper's wife, who also looked shocked, and asked for what she'd come for. She ignored Bessie, who decided her business in the store had been concluded and left, slamming the door behind her.

"She won't forget that," said Melissa, when she set the flour and lard on the counter. She had included a packet of coffee and a small coffee pot. She did not ask for payment for either.

"I won't either," said Millie, gruffly.

"If you tell anybody I said this, I'll say it's a lie," said Melissa, leaning over the counter and dropping her voice, "but as far as I'm concerned Boots only did to that man what he had coming to him. Bessie never saw the girl when all that happened, but I did. No human being should have had to endure what that man did to her."

"I didn't know!" said Millie, and suddenly remembered the scars on Boots' body, and what she'd said the night they'd shared a bath. Millie had thought she was joking, but there was obviously more to it than that.

"Boots is handy to have around," said Melissa. "She brings news and she's even ridden on a posse before. You can talk to the other parents if you like, but I'd be surprised if you find many who want her gone."

"I like her," said Millie. "The children like her too. Thank you for telling me this."

"You're welcome. My Mary is just busting out all over with how smart she says you're making her. And it's not just talk. I can see the difference. I don't know what you did wherever you came from, but you're a passable good teacher." She smiled.

Millie thanked her again, and then left. She decided she needed to find out more about Boots.

Millie's intent was to locate Boots and ask her about this new information she had come by. But in that mission she was to be disappointed, because Boots was nowhere to be found.

So she went to Bob's office. She found him snoozing in his bedroom, having no patients and therefore no real need to be in his office. That didn't stop her from waking him, though. She sat on the edge of his bed, and reached to touch him. At the same time, she realized that a proper young lady would never be caught sitting on the edge of a man's bed, reaching to wake him. Not a grown man, anyway.

She decided she didn't care.

Bob woke with a lurch, asking what was wrong.

"Nothing," said Millie. "I just need to talk to you, that's all."

"Oh," he said, rubbing his eyes. "That's interesting, because I was just dreaming about you."

"Oh?" Millie sounded interested. "What was this dream about?"

His eyes darted this way and that, as he woke fully.

"Never mind," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Boots," she said.

"What about her?"

"Did she really kill a man?"

Millie was pale when Bob finished describing the day he met Boots. She sat stock still the entire time he told the story. Partly that was because Bob, like many frontier men, was skillful at telling stories. Such men were the purveyors of oral history in those days, before newspapers and books were common. And partly it had to do with the fact that she was so emotionally involved, trying to imagine what the girl must have gone through. Bob's account was unvarnished. He told her everything because he knew Boots never would, and because he was well aware that Millie was the only real friend Boots had, and deserved to understand why Boots was the way she was.

Truth be told, Millie was conflicted. She was horrified at the image of a girl, even one like Boots, bashing a man's head in. At the same time she knew Boots to be a caring human being who, while she talked roughly, seemed on the whole to be a basically decent person. In the end, she decided, as she had several times before since arriving in this little town, to trust her first instincts. She liked Boots, and that was that.

Bob, who had told the story while lying down, put his hand on her arm.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

His hand on her arm, simple as it was, was enough to take her mind off of Boots. Instead, she concentrated on the feel of his skin touching hers. That was another of the first instincts she had trusted - about Bob. She still couldn't remember anyone from her past, such as a young man who was special to her, but if there was, she knew how she felt about him, because of the way she felt about Bob. He was a man she could let her guard down around ... a man she could trust ... a man she liked to be with, simply because she could be herself.

Whoever that was.

She looked down at him and felt heat suffuse her face.

"Thank you," she said. "Boots is my friend, and it helps me understand her better."

"I wouldn't try understanding Boots," he joked. "She might be a tomboy, but she's still a woman down deep."

"I see," said Millie gravely. "What you're saying is that no woman can be fully understood."

"Not by a man," he grinned.

"You know, I wasn't actually joking about not remembering if I know how to dance," she said. "Perhaps we should practice a little bit. I wouldn't want to look foolish on Founder's Day."

Bob blinked. "Now?" he asked.

"Why not?" she said, her voice light and airy.

It was the tone of her voice that made Bob wary. But he couldn't put his finger on anything in particular that suggested there was danger here, so when she stood, he rolled out of bed. He had taken his shoes off to take his nap, and decided maybe staying in stocking feet was a better idea anyway, in case he stepped on her toes.

There was a moment of angst, as they faced each other, arms held not quite outright, but not closed either. Finally she stepped forward and they assumed a classic waltz position. He stepped off with his left foot and she automatically began humming a tune he recognized as There's a Song in the Air, which had been popular for about a year.

She hadn't forgotten how to dance.

In fact, she was quite good at it. His style was rough, a low-brow country kind of bouncy waltz, more attuned to following the energetic rhythms of fiddle and washboard, but she adapted flawlessly. They had very little room to maneuver, so what they mostly did was spin, which rubbed their bodies together.

Bob's problem was that when he woke to find this beautiful young woman sitting on the edge of his bed, his mind responded in classic male tradition. That meant that when he rose to dance, his penis was not completely flaccid. And after having her in his arms, whirling, with her young, firm breasts bouncing off his chest, he was soon not anywhere even near flaccid.

Nor was she unaffected. She liked this man anyway, and when she felt the evidence of his arousal bump occasionally against her loins, instead of being horrified, she was thrilled. It was all just raw emotion, not thought through. She was a little dizzy, to be honest. But the overreaching feeling was of being ecstatically happy in a man's arms as she was whirled in circles.