SPIRIT OF LOVE

It is with great reluctance that I put Pen to Paper and write to you today, but I can perceive no other Course of Action. The good Lord knows, I've tried to cope. Truly I have, Evelyn. You needn't think that I have run to you at the first sign of Distress in our dear Mother. I am certain you know me better than that. I have never called upon Anyone for help before, but I fear the time has come for Drastic Action.

"Dear Lord," Evelyn Witherspoon whispered, her soft doe's eyes going as round as saucers.

"What is it, Mother?" Georgina Witherspoon rose from the chair in which she had been embroidering a slipper for her father's birthday and hurried to her mother's side. "Does Aunt Vernice's letter contain unpleasant news?"

Usually the family found letters from Aunt Vernice, who lived clear across the country in the New Mexico Territory, interesting and enlivening. At least Georgina did. Her parents occasionally tutted with disapproval at some of the things Vernice wrote about. The present missive was obviously different.

Evelyn fluttered Aunt Vernice's letter at her daughter. "I--I fear it does, Georgina."

"Dear me." Georgina didn't know what to do in the face of her mother's distress.

"Good God, is it your mother? Again?" Georgina turned around to find her father, George Witherspoon, standing at the parlor door looking grim.

Georgina tried to hide the slipper in a fold of her skirt, not wanting him to see his birthday surprise. Her father's words startled her. "Grandmother? Is there something wrong with Grandmother? Is she ill?" And what was that "again" business? She didn't ask.

She was alarmed to see a look of fearful premonition in the glance her parents exchanged. It was as if they knew something she didn't.

Georgina didn't like to be left out of things. Since she was a properly brought up, well-bred young woman, she did not demand an explanation of either parent, but only watched, her insides tight with apprehension, as her mother finished reading Aunt Vernice's letter.

Something was terribly wrong. Georgina could see it in the pallor of her mother's cheeks and the glitter of unshed tears in her eyes. "Mother! Mother, please, tell me what's happened!" She'd never seen her mother thus, and it frightened her.

Her father walked over and took the letter from his wife's trembling fingers. As he read the words scripted thereon, the frown that grew on his face was forbidding to behold. Georgina put a hand to her mouth, worried about this show of consternation in her parents. She forgot all about her father's birthday slipper. It dropped from her fingers to the carpet and was ignored.

"So," George said at last, "the old bat's gone around the bend at last, has she? Ghosts, my foot." He gave a wholly undignified snort.

Georgina gasped.

Mrs. Witherspoon uttered a stifled moan of affliction.

George scowled and slapped the letter against his open palm in patent disgust. "I wondered how long it would take her to lose her marbles." He looked up and glowered at his wife. "I'm surprised it took her this long, quite frankly."

Mrs. Witherspoon began to weep softly.

Georgina was profoundly shocked.

Georgina Witherspoon didn't know if she was more enthusiastic than apprehensive or the other way around when the train finally chugged to a halt in the small depot of the commensurately small village of Picacho Wells, New Mexico Territory. She'd never been away from home in her life before now, except when she and her parents had vacationed together in Saratoga. In her estimation, such trips were mere holidays and didn't count.

This time, however, she'd traveled the whole way from New York City to Picacho Wells alone. All by herself. Without even Henry Spurling, her putative fiancé, to guide and guard her.

Henry had intended to come, but he'd fallen ill with the croup and couldn't. Georgina would never admit it aloud, but she'd been relieved. She assumed she'd marry Henry one day, thereby doing her duty and fulfilling her God-given destiny as a woman and a Witherspoon, but the knowledge didn't thrill her.

In her heart of hearts--that very most secret place to which she allowed no one, not even her dear mother, access--Georgina longed for excitement. She'd like at least one smallish adventure to call her own before she took up the mantle of matronhood in the stodgy New York society of her birth.

So here she was. Alone. All by herself. In the vastness of New Mexico Territory. Come to help her aunt cope with her allegedly mad grandmother.

She grinned happily.

Enthusiasm seemed to be winning this battle. As Georgina picked up her skirt so that its hem wouldn't brush against the smoke-blackened floor of her train carriage and headed for the door, she felt, in fact, an unfamiliar impulse to whoop with delight.

She was free! Free from the strictures of her upbringing. Free from her very proper parents. Free from the constraints of the stifling society in which she'd operated since the day of her birth some twenty-three years ago. Free. Free, free, free!

She stooped to peep out of the windows as she moved toward the train door, and a smidgen of her exhilaration faded.

Goodness sakes, but it was bleak out there. She didn't even see a tree. Georgina took heart from the certain knowledge that this was the train station, and bucolic train stations always looked a trifle--well--bucolic. The trees and other scenic vistas must be elsewhere, she thought. She bucked up immediately.

Although she'd traveled the entire trip in an enclosed car, she hadn't avoided being smudged by soot. There seemed to be no way to avoid it, even in the first-class section. Since, however, a passenger riding in one of the cheaper open carriages had caught fire somewhere in Texas and had to be rolled in a blanket to be extinguished, she did not repine about the slight damage to her traveling suit. She figured she'd arrived virtually unscathed, and anyhow, the interesting train trip and its accompanying rigors had already given her something to write home about.

Her parents were very anxious about her. They hadn't wanted her to come. Using all the coercive force she possessed, Georgina had eventually persuaded them to allow her to make the trip. After all, she had argued reasonably, somebody had to do it. Poor Aunt Vernice was unquestionably at her wits' end and needed help, and Georgina was willing and able--eager, even--to help her. She wasn't altogether sure she was going to enjoy caring for an insane woman, but any trouble encountered in that endeavor was worth it to be able to travel all this way and to see the Wild West for herself.

The Wild West.

Georgina's insides quivered with delight. She'd read so many magazine articles and novels about the wonders of this savage, untamed land full of cacti and cowboys and Indians and bandits and coyotes and so forth. She could hardly wait to meet a real brigand. She hoped it wouldn't take long.

Her first glimpse of Picacho Wells might have daunted her had she been a girl of a lesser spirit. It's so ugly, was her first thought. Her second thought got blown away by the wind, along with a feather from her hat. She slammed her hat down on her head, and was extremely glad she'd worn her small-bustled, straight-lined traveling skirt, or the howling wind would be showing onlookers a good deal too much of her fancy New York City patent-leather boots.

Speaking of onlookers, Georgina realized there were several of them, and they all seemed to be staring at her. Did she really stand out that much in her smart bolero jacket with leg-'o-mutton sleeves in pale gray washed silk with over her tucked white blouse and matching gray nine-gored skirt? Looking around in avid curiosity, she decided perhaps she did. That was all right. Georgina intended to fit in here; she would simply remember to dress in more simple frocks in the future.

Good heavens, people dressed oddly here. And were those men actually squatting right smack on the boardwalk, leaning against that building over there? With their hats pulled down so low she could hardly see their eyes? She squinted hard against the bright sunshine, thinking she must be mistaken.

She wasn't mistaken. They were indeed. Gentlemen would never behave in so casual a manner back home in New York City. Perhaps those fellows weren't gentlemen.

Oh, dear. As much as she longed to see a real, live desperado, Georgina rather hoped none of those men was one, because they were a little too close for comfort. Perhaps this squatting-on-the-boardwalk-and-leaning-against-a-wall business was an old and established western custom.

Georgina reminded herself that her intention was to learn without prejudice. It was not her place to pass judgment on these, her fellow United States citizens--even if they didn't live in a united state.

Merciful heavens, she was now outside the boundaries of the United States! For a moment she reminded herself of her greatest hero, Theodore Roosevelt, and she nearly succumbed to the emotion of it all. Since she didn't wish to make a spectacle of herself, she swallowed her tears of delight and took in a deep breath of territorial air. It was very dry, and she sneezed. Still holding onto her hat because the wind seemed to be trying to tug it off her head, Georgina walked inside the train station's small building.

Two ladies nodded at her, and she smiled back, wondering if one of them was her aunt Vernice. Neither of them looked at all like her mother, nor did either lady move to greet her. Georgina experienced a tiny pang of dismay. If Aunt Vernice hadn't been able to come herself, hadn't she at least sent someone to meet her train? Georgina devoutly hoped so, because she had no idea how to get to her grandmother's home if she hadn't.

"Miss Witherspoon?"

The deep, drawly voice at her back startled Georgina into spinning around. She blinked at the man standing there--looming there, rather. He was an inordinately tall fellow. As far as Georgina was concerned, men shouldn't grow so tall. Tall men were too intimidating. She drew herself up to her full five feet, three inches, adopted a polite smile, and lifted her chin.

"Yes? I am Miss Witherspoon."

He tipped his hat, which was encouraging. At least he didn't seem to be a savage.

"How do you do, Miss Witherspoon? I'm the sheriff here in Picacho Wells."

"My goodness."

Georgina experienced the first real disappointment of her western jaunt. The western sheriffs she'd seen depicted in Harper's Magazine and on the covers of the novels she liked to read looked nothing like this man.

For instance, the illustrations by Mr. Frederic Remington and Mr. Charles Russell always showed their rugged western sheriffs as the possessors of fine handlebar mustaches. This man was clean-shaven.

And he wasn't at all squinty-eyed, as if he'd ridden hard trails in pursuit of rough characters in the harsh desert sun for days at a time. His eyes were quite lovely, actually: deep chocolate brown with curly dark lashes. He didn't squint at all.

And what about guns? She'd always understood that proper western sheriffs wore two gun belts, crisscrossing, with their lethal cargoes toted in tooled leather holsters, one per hip. This fellow had a gun stuffed into the waistband of his trousers, next to a pair of well-worn, floppy leather gloves.

He was tan enough to be a western sheriff, at least, and he was relatively good looking. Still, he had a terrible, twangy drawl. And he'd spoken to her before they'd been properly--or even improperly--introduced. He didn't look gallant and daring at all, and Georgina suspected he was no gentleman, unlike the sheriffs about whom she'd so often read, who were molded along the lines of a modern-day Ivanhoe or Sir Galahad or one of those other knightly fellows.

"Your aunt, Miss Vernice Murphy, asked me to meet your train and see that you were all right. I've got a buggy outside the station, and I'll take you to the Murphy place." He held out a hand to her. "Ash Barrett, ma'am. Pleased to meet you."

It was the final blow. Ash must be short for Ashley, a civilized name if she'd ever heard one. He was supposed to be a Buck. Or a Kid something-or-other. For goodness sake, Georgina had attended school with men named Ashley. In New York City. She was mortally disillusioned.

There seemed to be no help for it, though. Swallowing her disenchantment, Georgina took Mr. Barrett's hand and shook it. She even managed a fairly proper smile. "I'm happy to know you, Mr. Barrett. Thank you for seeing to my welfare."

"You're welcome. I'll bet Picacho Wells is a far stretch from New York City."

"Er, yes. It is, indeed."

"You'll get used to it. We all do, sooner or later."

"I'm sure that's true."

They recovered Georgina's baggage with little fuss, and Georgina found another reason to be glad Henry Spurling hadn't been healthy enough to make the trip. Henry always became rattled in new surroundings. If he were here, he'd be putting on his fussy face, whining, directing everybody and everything, and annoying the locals. The sheriff, who seemed to know everyone in town, dealt with her luggage easily. Overall, she guessed she'd rather be taken care of by the sheriff, even if he was far from ideal.

"The buggy's right over here, ma'am," he said as he strode off, carrying two of her bags. He had a manly stride, at least, even if he didn't seem inclined to shorten it for the sake of her more constricting clothing. She hurried after him.

Georgina didn't resent being consigned to the care of a man she didn't know by an aunt she hadn't met. After all, that's what men were for. Georgina accepted society's opinions on the matter, and had never thought to question her role as an ancillary adjunct to the masculine gender. She supposed her reluctance to accompany the sheriff in this instance was only leftover disappointment that he didn't fit her picture of what a western sheriff should look like.

She glanced around Picacho Wells and realized it didn't fit her mental images of a western town, either. It seemed, in fact, to consist of nothing but dust and shabbiness. Mercy, didn't folks have access to paint around here?

Well, she refused to let appearances fluster her. She was here, this was probably the only chance she'd ever have to experience an adventure, and she aimed to make the most of it. If Picacho Wells was an ugly place, and if Sheriff Ashley Barrett wasn't Georgina's idea of a proper sheriff, he was at least handsome. She decided to be grateful for small mercies and to hope things would perk up soon.

They did.

No sooner had Ash Barrett helped her into the buggy than several gunshots rang out over the windy air. Georgina looked up and was unnerved and excited to see two men with bandannas pulled over their faces. They were backing out of a building that said it was a bank, although it didn't bear any resemblance whatever to any bank she'd ever seen.

She uttered a small scream.

Her scream wasn't in reaction to seeing, at dangerously close range, a pair of dastardly bank robbers. It came out of her throat spontaneously and as a result of her being pushed by the sheriff, very hard, to the floor of the buggy. Once she recovered from her shock, which took mere seconds, she pulled herself up to her knees, sputtering with indignation. It took her another several seconds to push her hat back into place. When he'd shoved her, it had brushed against the buggy seat and fallen over her eyes. All the time she struggled with her hat, she heard gunshots, shouts, foul curses, and a couple of screams. And she was missing it!

Georgina was no fool. She wasn't about to expose her entire body, or even a small portion of it, to flying bullets. Nevertheless, she'd never been this close to any kind of real, honest-to-goodness excitement in what seemed to her to be an extremely sheltered life, and she didn't want to miss anything. What's more, she resented being manhandled.

By the time she managed to get herself positioned so she could peek through the window of the buggy, Sheriff Barrett had overpowered the villains. Blast! She wished she could have watched him do it.

Two men lay in the dusty road, one on his back and the other face-down in the dirt. A puddle of blood was spreading out from beneath the one who was face-up to the sun. A third was on his knees, his hands pressed to his head, squashing his hat flat. Georgina didn't think the hat would be ruined by his doing so, as it didn't look like a particularly handsome specimen of hat-hood to begin with.

The man appeared to be crying and pleading. Sheriff Barrett, clearly unmoved by the robber's show of fear and remorse, shoved him down, hard, into the dirt, grabbed his hands and threw a rope around them, holding him still with a boot to his back. Apparently, western sheriffs didn't use the manacles so popular back East.

Still smarting from being thrown to the floor of the buggy, Georgina opened the door and got down. She had to hop, because no one was around to help her and there were no stairs available. So be it. She was no china-doll miss who had to be pampered and coddled.

Sheriff Barrett yanked the bank robber to his feet, using the rope he'd tied around his hands. The man cried out in pain. The sheriff had opened his mouth, presumably to reprimand the villain, when he spied Georgina and stiffened.

"What the hell are you doing out here?"

It took a second for Georgina to realize Mr. Barrett was talking to her. She stopped dead in her tracks. "I stepped down to see what was going on." She did not appreciate being cursed at, but decided it would be prudent to take the matter up with the sheriff later, in the privacy of the buggy.

"Well, for God's sake, get back in there. Can't you see there's trouble?"

Annoyed, Georgina snapped, "Of course, I can see it! That's why I got down. I want to see what happened."

A man with a huge nose who seemed to be helping the sheriff chuckled. "Cain't very well fault her fer that, Ash. She's a female, after all."

Mr. Barrett grumbled something under his breath. Georgina didn't catch what he said, but she was almost certain it was unflattering. She refused to be daunted. Very gingerly, she tiptoed near one of the dead villains, holding her skirt off the ground. She didn't care to get blood on her garments.

"Ugh." He was a very unpleasant sight. Georgina had never seen a dead person before. Well, except for Grandfather Witherspoon, but he'd been laid out in a coffin in the parlor and had looked fairly good, except for being dead.

She suspected this dead fellow wouldn't have looked good even after an undertaker had been at him. This was one person who fitted Georgina's mental pictures of what a proper westerner should look like. Every inch a scoundrel, he was. She was pleased.

She uttered a very unladylike squawk when she was grabbed roughly from behind.

"Get away from that man, Miss Witherspoon. It's no sight for a--ow!"

Georgina hadn't meant to slap Sheriff Barrett. She presumed the combination of circumstances had rendered her mental processes sluggish and, since she was already laboring under strong emotion, being grabbed that way had precipitated an automatic reaction. She was actually tolerably glad to know her survival instincts seemed to be keen, in spite of a life lived in ease and luxury in a civilized eastern city.

"Unhand me, if you please, Mr. Barrett. There's no need to be brutal."

"Brutal?"

It didn't look to her as if he aimed to apologize. He appeared, in fact, surprised. Georgina was offended. "Yes, brutal. All of this is new to me, and I was only curious." She swept a kid-gloved hand out in a gesture meant to indicate the entire western United States.

Mr. Barrett plainly didn't care. "Damn it, lady, do you know who these men are?" He, too, swept a hand out, but his gesture was meant to encompass the dead outlaws.

"Of course I don't. How could I?"

"Exactly." Mr. Barrett spoke as if Georgina had just proved his point for him. "And what you don't know can get you killed out here. This isn't New York City, Miss Witherspoon."

"I'm well aware of that, thank you."

"You're not acting like it. For Chrissakes, lady, these men are a gang of outlaws that have been robbing and murdering all over the southwest."

"Gracious sakes." Georgina glanced again at the dead men, feeling a good deal more respect for them than she'd had initially.

"Gracious sakes." Repeating her words, the sheriff put an emphasis on them that Georgina didn't believe they deserved.

She lifted her chin at an angle calculated to depress sarcastic innuendoes. "I am ready when you are, Mr. Barrett. If you're through here." Again she gestured, indicating the dead men on the street. A crowd was beginning to gather, and Georgina believed their inquisitiveness amply vindicated her own.

"If I'm through here?"

Georgina frowned, not understanding why he should sound so exasperated. "Don't you have minions who can take care of the details engendered by such a circumstance?" She considered it a reasonable question, but Mr. Barrett rolled his eyes in an ungentlemanly fashion and snorted.

The large fellow with the huge nose who had chuckled earlier now walked up to them. He tipped his hat at her. She offered him one of her most gracious smiles, pleased to know that a few proprieties existed in this out-of-the-way place, even if they were extended by a man who seemed to have more nose than was absolutely necessary.

"I'll take care of it, Ash. You drive the lady to the Murphy place."

Mr. Barrett gave Georgina a lingering and, it appeared to her, contemptuous glare. After too many seconds of that, he said, "Thanks, Frank. I'll do the paperwork after I get back."

"Take your time," the man named Frank said. "You're dealin' with a Murphy, after all."

She was a Witherspoon. Georgina almost pointed it out to Frank, but decided against it. She did have Murphy blood in her. She presumed his comment was meant as a compliment and that Frank was telling the sheriff that the Murphys, as a respectable family in the neighborhood, deserved consideration. She appreciated him for it, and gave him another smile. He smiled back, giving her a glimpse of teeth that looked more like broken pickets than any teeth she'd ever seen. She blinked and commanded herself not to stare.

"Thank you very much," she said to Frank. Her gaze for the sheriff was much colder than the one she'd directed at Frank. "Whenever you're ready, Sheriff. I shall return to the buggy now."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Georgina frowned at him. It sounded as if he were speaking through gritted teeth. She neither understood nor approved of his tone. "Fine. Thank you."

It was a struggle, but she managed to get into the buggy without help. She was going to be living here for however long it took to sort out the things with Grandmother, and she aimed to do it right. Not for Georgina any misplaced airs and graces left over from her New York City home. No sirree. She was going to become a proper western woman or know the reason why.

She had to wait several more minutes before Sheriff Ashley Barrett condescended to take his place in the driver's seat of the buggy. Georgina did not care to be kept waiting, and she had a sneaking suspicion he let her wait on purpose, although she had no idea why he was being so disagreeable. He was almost much of a fusspot as Henry, for heaven's sake.

As Georgina waited, she observed the village of Picacho Wells. Again, she couldn't help but be slightly discouraged. It really was a pathetic-looking place. Her gaze swept the street, from north to south and back again. That's all there was to it. One street. A sway-backed boardwalk ran along it on either side, and buildings stood like ragged schoolchildren behind the boardwalk. A hitching rail that looked more splintery than was seemly ran the length of the boardwalk.

And there were those men, squatting there, doing nothing, with their hats pulled over their eyes. Mercy sakes. She paid attention to the buildings again.

Everything seemed to be plain and brown, pockmarked, and peeling. Windmills pierced the sky behind several of the buildings, their blades spinning like pinwheels in the relentless wind. The landscape appeared to her to be as dry as a bone, and she couldn't imagine what purpose the windmills served unless there were underground water sources around.

Georgina presumed most people lived beyond this one main thoroughfare, although she couldn't imagine where they did it. For as far as her eyes could see, there was nothing but grassy, windswept plains. Were there houses out there? She didn't see any. Hmmm. This wasn't at all promising.

Since she was so busy observing her surroundings, the only reason she knew the sheriff had come was that the buggy dipped suddenly, almost heaving her out of the seat. When she caught her breath, she realized Mr. Barrett was in the driver's seat. He didn't turn around to greet her or otherwise acknowledge her presence, but only presented her with a view of his excessively broad back.

Georgina frowned, then scooted forward so she could talk to him. Deciding to give him a chance to redeem himself--after all, perhaps he'd shoved her to the floor of the buggy out of concern for her welfare and a sense of misguided chivalry--she said sweetly, "Thank you for rescuing me from the shooting, Mr. Barrett."

"You're welcome." He sounded not at all conciliatory.

"Is Ash short for Ashley, Mr. Barrett?"

"Yes."

Georgina had suspected it. She compressed her lips and decided to give him one more chance. She heard nothing more from his lips but a click to the horse pulling the buggy. The buggy jerked forward, slamming Georgina against the seat cushion--if cushion was the proper word for so thin and hard an object. She struggled upright again, this time honestly furious.

"Mr. Barrett," she said in her most severe tone. "If in the future we should happen to be in the vicinity of one another when bandits try to rob a bank, I should appreciate it if you would not shove me to the floor of a buggy."

He twisted his neck so that he could look at her. It wasn't a friendly look. "Don't worry. There probably won't be a buggy handy. I'll just shove you to the ground."

Georgina's mouth fell open. It took a good ten seconds for her to recover her composure enough to cry, "Good heavens! You truly are a brute!"

"A brute? Cow-pats."

Cow-pats? She had no idea what he meant, although she was certain it wasn't anything good.

"Yes," she said firmly. "A brute. There's no need to use force. You need merely advise me to remove myself from danger, and I shall do so expeditiously."

He heaved a huge, irritated sigh. "Listen, lady, I know you're not used to life out here in the territory but, believe me, when the shooting starts, there's no time to talk. I'm the sheriff here, and I'll do what it takes to protect my citizens." He added grimly, "And even visitors."

"That's very good of you, but you needn't do it in so rough a manner." Georgina was feeling pretty grim herself.

"You'll get over it, Miss Witherspoon. And it seems to me you ought to thank me for it, too. If I hadn't shoved you, you might not be alive to get over it."

Georgina thought she heard him mutter an addendum about almost wishing she weren't, but she wasn't sure. She opted not to argue anymore, because she realized her first assessment of him had been correct. The man was, beyond a doubt, no gentleman.

After fuming for a moment or two, however, she began to perk up. This might be an ugly place. And it might be rough and full of dastardly bank robbers and crude, ungentlemanly sheriffs. But it wasn't dull. In fact, by gum, Georgina believed she'd just experienced the first real adventure of her lifetime. She breathed in a big gulp of dusty air and felt her spirits lift.