She blushed prettily and drew her hand back. Which dandy would receive her favors tonight while other women looked on and frowned with jealousy?
The billowing dust brought on a fit of coughing, and that jerked Rosemary back to harsh reality. France with its chateaus and vineyards faded into the dusty Kansas plains as the stagecoach bumped along. She coughed again, straining the tight laces of her corset, and wiped her round face with a lace hankie, which only made muddy streaks, she knew. No doubt her plain brown hair was full of dust, too. Rosemary tried to straighten her hat with its big plumes, then she raised one arm and looked at the dark circle under the armpit. She should have worn a lighter color. Plum probably wasn’t a good color with her complexion anyway.
Oh, Daddy, I never really got to know you. Mother always had me back East in fancy schools. How was I to know you would drop dead suddenly of a heart attack in the bank lobby while I was away?
That had been more than three years ago. Then Mother had married that slick and too handsome teller, Godfrey St. John, and made him president of the bank.
Rosemary scowled. All that was about to change. She had never liked Godfrey, and now she vowed that on her twenty-first birthday, she would send the rascal packing. With the help of that old reliable teller Bill Wilkerson, Rosemary would take over control of the bank herself. Was she smart enough to do that? Mother had told her over and over that she was not clever at all.
All right, so if she wasn’t clever or pretty, she’d have to rely on her stubbornness and common sense. After she fired St. John on October thirty-first, Rosemary would make some other changes. First, she would get herself a dog. Her parents had never allowed Rosemary to own a dog; they complained that pets were dirty and shed hair.
Yes, a dog, and not the prissy little pup that ladies favored, but a real dog—a big, hairy dog to romp and play with, and yes, it could sleep in the house and it would love her no matter how plain and stubborn she was. She smiled to herself. Her parents would probably roll over in their graves.
She stuck her head through the open window of the rolling stage and looked down the road ahead. In the distance, she could see the barest silhouette of the town. Her brown hair blew loose and she pulled back inside the stage and tried to readjust her plumed hat. Gracious, she probably looked a mess, but she couldn’t do much about that now.
Rosemary stuck her head out the window again and yelled up to the driver. “Could you just pass through town and take me on out to the house?”
The old man shook his head and yelled back,” Can’t do that, Miss Burke, ma’am, they’re plannin’ a big homecomin’ for you at the bank.”
Oh, of course Godfrey would do that. She leaned back against the horsehair cushions and tried to straighten her hat, mop the dust off her face, and smooth the wrinkles and early lunch crumbs from her dress.
She could almost hear Mother’s disapproving voice. “You look a fright, Rosemary. Next time you buy a dress, take someone with good taste with you.”
Who would I take, Mother? she thought. I have no friends in Prairie View. You never allowed me to play with the local children or go to school here; everyone in Kansas was too low class for you.
“I swear, you surely didn’t get any of my looks, you take after your father’s side of the family.”
“Yes, Mother,” Rosemary said without thinking and smiled. On Halloween, Rosemary would be of legal age and the first thing she intended to do was toss that handsome rascal Godfrey out into the street. He might have fooled Mother, but he hadn’t fooled Rosemary.
Waco and his men had stabled their horses, had a drink at the nearest saloon to wash the dust from their throats, and presently, they were walking around inside the bank, looking up at the banners and the big cake a teller now carried into the lobby and set on a table. The crowd inside and out seemed to be growing.
“What’s goin’ on?” Waco asked an old man.
“Oh, ain’t you heard? Banker’s daughter comin’ in on the noon stage. Been gone quite a while now.”
“Don’t say?” Waco muttered.
“Stick around,” said a blue-clad soldier, “there’ll be cake and punch.”
“Sound good.” Waco surveyed the crowd and then caught the eye of his men, nodded his head toward the outside.
The four of them ambled out onto the wooden sidewalk.
“I don’t like it,” Tom said. “You ever see so many Yankee soldiers? They make me as nervous as a deacon with his hand in the church collection plate.”
“Gawd Almighty! Keep your voice down,” Waco cautioned. “You want to be grabbed this minute? We got to keep a low profile.”
“Is that the reason you ain’t wearin’ them silver spurs?” Tom asked.
Waco nodded. “Attract too much attention. I’ll keep them in my saddlebags.”
Zeb took a chaw of tobacco. “Knew it was too good to be true about that fat bank bein’ easy pickin’s. Never seen so many blue-bellies; town workin’ alive with them.”
“I never said it was gonna be easy,” Waco reminded him. Privately, he was shocked himself. When he’d been told about this bank, what he hadn’t been told was that the town was a beehive of Union soldiers.
Zeke combed his fingers through his beard and took his mouth organ out of his shirt pocket. “Who’s this Rosemary everyone’s talkin’ about?”
“The banker’s daughter,” Waco answered.
Zeke began to play an off-key version of “Dixie.”
The other three glared at him.
Waco said, “Why don’t you just wave a red flag at all them Yankee soldiers?”
“I plumb forgot.” Zeke looked sheepish and changed over to “Camptown Races.”
“That banker must set a heap of store by her,” Tom offered, “judging from all the whoop-de-do that’s goin’ on.”
“Must,” Waco agreed, shrugging wide shoulders. “Think she’s been gone awhile.”
A growing crowd gathered on the wooden sidewalk in front of the bank.
“Hey!” someone whooped. “I think I see the stage in the distance!”
“Somebody tell the banker!”
A short man pushed through the crowd and into the bank to carry the news.
Waco caught a freckled-face boy by the arm. “Hey, son, how come there’s so many soldiers around?”
“Ain’t you heard?” The boy pointed. “New fort bein’ built just west a town.”
“Yes siree bob,” a snaggled-tooth older man said with a smile, “bringin’ lots of prosperity to our little Prairie View.”
The four Texans exchanged glances and moved away.
“A whole nest of soldiers guardin’ that bank,” Tom muttered under his breath. “So now what do we do?”
“Shh!” Waco ordered. “We got to think about this. There has to be a way.”
“We don’t dare go back without the money,” Zeb said, putting a chaw of tobacco in his mouth.
His older brother took the mouth organ away from his lips. “You think we don’t know that?”
“Hush up!” Waco drawled. “Y’all keep your minds open and your mouths shut.”
“Hey,” yelled a beefy Yankee sergeant, leaning against a store front.
Waco felt the sweat break out on his tanned face. “Yes, Sergeant?”
“You