For that small favor, Witt was devoutly grateful. He’d dealt with enough Crazy Mike’s over the years to know that “help” of that nature only made things worse. To men like Mike, one man coming after them was a joke.
Half a dozen eager citizens was a threat that provoked more violence and got a lot of people hurt.
And it would take half a dozen normal-size men to stop someone as big as Mike.
He hadn’t met many men even as big as he was, but Witt was willing to bet Mike topped him by a good two inches or so and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds. The man had arms that looked like tree trunks and fists the size of a nine-pound sledgehammer.
Five feet from the miner, Witt stopped.
“Nice night out, Mike,” he said conversationally. “Let’s you and me go for a walk, shall we?”
Crazy Mike tossed aside the useless gun and came at him like a bear, roaring with rage, shoulders hunched, eyes glittering with the light of battle.
Witt sidestepped, then punched him in the gut as he passed. Hard.
The miner’s roar died in a choking grunt as he doubled over, clutching his middle. He staggered, tried to straighten.
Witt hit him again.
Crazy Mike sagged, then slowly toppled onto the floor, face first. The floor shook when he landed.
Witt could hear the crunch as Mike’s nose smashed into the wood. He winced and ruefully rubbed his knuckles. The damn fool was so drunk, he didn’t have the sense to roll.
Silence held Jackson’s saloon in a grip of iron.
One of Mike’s friends stepped forward, fists half raised in the wary, defiant stance of a man who felt obligated to defend his friend but wasn’t all that happy about it. Witt looked at him, raised one eyebrow in silent inquiry. The fellow wavered for a moment, then lowered his fists and sheepishly slunk back into the crowd.
Witt scanned the rest of the gaping patrons. “A couple of you gentlemen want to help me get him to the jail?”
“You’re gonna put Crazy Mike in jail?”
“Well, I’ll be a—”
“Damn straight he’s going to put Mike in jail,” said the mayor, pushing through the crowd. “It’s about time Mike realized he can’t go around doing as he damn well pleases.”
“You might want to watch your language,” Witt advised, suppressing a grin. “The gentleman clearly objects to vulgarities.”
The gentleman in question groaned and tried to shove to his knees. Witt reached to help him up. Mike’s head bobbled. He stared at the proffered hand for a moment, bleary-eyed, his mouth working like a dying fish’s. In the end, drink and the effects of a broken nose won out. He glared, grunted, then his eyes rolled up in his head as he quietly slumped to the floor in a dead faint.
Chapter Four
It was nearing ten when Molly called good-night to the last of her friends. This late, most of the town had settled peaceably behind their doors. Lamps shone through windows, but here and there the houses were dark, their inhabitants long since tucked into bed.
A few people strolled past her—a man alone, head down and hurrying home; two men laughing; a couple, arms entwined, oblivious to anything outside their world of two.
The sight of them only reinforced her sense of isolation.
Four years. That’s how long she’d been a widow.
Sometimes, especially whenever she glanced at the photograph of Richard that hung in her small parlor, it seemed like only yesterday that he’d gone out to work and never come back. There were still times, usually when she was tired and her thoughts had wandered, when she would hear a sound and look up, expecting to see him walk in the door. And sometimes, in the night, she’d turn in her sleep and reach for him, wanting his warmth and his strength, needing to feel his lean, angular body curled around her, shielding her from the world outside their door.
There were even times when she was wide-awake, without the distraction of wandering thoughts or a weary body, when she would find herself physically aching for his touch and the glory of what they’d shared in bed.
Especially what they’d shared in bed.
She had never been one of those simpering misses who blushed at the mere thought of kissing a man, but she knew, now, that she had been fortunate in her choice of husband, for Richard had been kind and more than willing to teach her the secrets of what was possible between a man and a woman who loved each other. She’d never asked him where he’d learned his secrets, and he had never told her. She’d never thought it mattered, for once he’d married her, he had given everything to her—his heart and soul; his dreams. Eventually, even his life.
It was his dying that made her angry. He had gone into the mines because he wanted to earn more money to pay off the debt they’d incurred to start the store and a little extra to put aside for the future. Richard had always been impatient, eager to move ahead, and he’d seen the mines as the fastest way to get what he’d wanted. They’d quarreled about it horribly.
She regretted the quarrels. She regretted even more that, in the end, she’d been proven right.
Immediately after Richard’s death, when creditors were pressing her to close the store and sell off the inventory, she’d spent long, sleepless nights scheming how to save Richard’s dream and her children’s future.
Calhan’s would be different from all the other dry goods stores, she’d decided. Better. Bigger, someday, when she could manage it.
Richard hadn’t been buried a week before she began changing things. At first, the changes were more for distraction from her grief than for the work itself. Eventually, however, the new ways had taken on a life of their own, challenging her and helping to make the long hours and sometimes exhausting routine more bearable.
She’d started with a few eye-catching displays on the counters and tabletops. Gradually, as her confidence in herself and her ideas had grown, she’d ordered more merchandise that her competitors didn’t carry and tried more adventurous approaches to displaying what she had.
The man mannequin had been the talk of the town. People had wandered in just to have a look at the thing, and often as not they’d wandered out again with something else they hadn’t planned on buying. She’d paid for it in three months with the profits from the extra sales.
What she had realized, and none of her male competitors had yet understood, was that women were the ones who controlled the money in most households, not the men.
Oh, men were quick enough to buy tools and hardware and an occasional pouch of tobacco—they were, she’d found, particularly fond of fancy patent tools—but they were generally happy to pass responsibility for everything else to their wives. Women bought the family’s food and shoes, chose their clothes or the cloth to make them, and decided which medicines and tonics to stock to keep them well. It was the women who selected the furniture and decorated the home, then bought all the supplies to keep that home swept and polished and functioning as it ought.
It was an insight that had changed her life because once a woman was in her store, Molly knew how to hold her attention long enough to tempt her to open her pocketbook.
She hadn’t looked back since.
Sometimes she thought she didn’t dare. Though four years of hard work had paid off the debts and allowed her to put a little money aside, she couldn’t help worrying about the future. She still needed an occasional loan to finance her expansion. Was, in fact, considering her largest loan yet for a move that would increase the size of Calhan’s by half again. But what if the state was