The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

52: Rendezvous

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Wash by Laura Hollingsworth. All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

I like to ask readers things from time to time, because it helps me as a writer. Who is your favorite character and why? I probably asked this earlier, but we're in a new book now and at a different point in the story. So it's interesting (and helpful!) for me to find out how your opinions as readers form and morph and change. So if you'd like to share, I would love to hear. 

Happy trails!      -'gina

Iris rifled her fingers through the pages of the reading primer on table for what she thought was about the millionth time. She felt awkward, sitting in the mostly empty schoolhouse by the light of a couple of oil lamps, the sounds of Mrs. Plunkett behind her grading papers at her desk.

She glanced at the clock, which seemed to be moving simultaneously at both a snail's and a racehorse's pace. Mr. Monahan, the gunman employed by Mr. Lynch out at the mail station, was due tonight for his first reading lesson. She was filled with trepidation and doubt as to how this evening was going to go, and just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible. But on the other hand...

Across the room, Mrs. Plunkett finished one paper and turned it over, revealing the next one. Iris flinched at the sound of crisp paper sliding across Mrs. Plunkett's desk.  

...on the other hand, I'm nowhere near ready for this.

When she'd told Mrs. Plunkett about her meeting with Mr. Monahan and asked if she'd be willing to sit in as a chaperone, Mrs. Plunkett readily agreed. In fact, the old schoolmarm had seemed delighted that the man had decided to "work on some self-improvement", as she'd put it. Iris had been more than a little taken aback that Mrs. Plunkett had more than a passing acquaintance with Mr. Monahan, but then she remembered that Mrs. Plunkett was married to Doctor Plunkett...who owned stitching supplies and a bullet extractor... and suddenly she was far less surprised.

She jumped at the sound of the soft knock. The door creaked open, and Mr. Monahan's pale, lightly freckled face peered through at her.

"Good evenin', ma'am." He dipped his head respectfully, and nodded again at the older woman. "Mrs. Plunkett."

Mrs. Plunkett smiled at him warmly. "Come on in, Mr. Monahan. Have a seat." She turned back to her work. "Don't mind me."

Iris gave him a stiff smile and pushed out the seat beside her at the table. "Glad you could make it Mr. Monahan."

"I'm serious about this so I am," he said, sliding awkwardly into the offered chair. "Thanks so much for agreeing to meet with me."

"Of course," she said, feeling out of place and not quite knowing what to say. He was scrubbed, combed, and smelled of shaving soap. She could tell he'd gone to the trouble of cleaning up a bit before coming here tonight. He'd even appeared to have made an attempt to neaten his tousled russet curls. If she'd had to put together what a professional gunman looked like in her head, he certainly wouldn't have looked anything like this freckled, blue-eyed Irishman currently struggling to free his arms from his entangling coat sleeves.

"So," she ventured as he was folding his coat over his lap in a vain attempt to hide the pistol strapped to his hip. She pretended not to notice the firearm and soldiered on. "You're from Ireland, then?"

"No," he said shaking his head, evidently used to the look of surprise that surely must have been on her face. "New York." A dimpled smile broke over his features "Me uncles used make fun of me American accent."

She couldn't decide if he was kidding with her. "I see," she forced chuckle she didn't feel. "So, Mr. Monahan...tell me, can you read at all? Have you ever had lessons?"

"Uh...no." A faint pink bloomed in his cheeks. "No, ma'am. I'm afraid we got a job ahead of us, so we do."

Iris might have expected a number of things from Mr. Monahan, but embarrassment was not one of them. He's right about that. Adults are far harder to teach than children. I don't know if either of us are up to this. She nodded resolutely. "Well...it's never too late," she said.

"I hope not, Miss. I made a promise I'd do this, so I mean to." He looked right at her, his eyes intense, determined. She felt heat rise to her face and quickly directed her gaze to the book on the table, unable to hold his gaze. She couldn't help but be wary of him. Her mind went back to the day he'd first come into the classroom, when Jeb Ward was bellowing about the intruder that was shot dead at Mr. Lynch's station, and she found herself wishing this task had not fallen to her.

"I promised one of the lads on the crew I'd do this if he did, too. We have a pact, so we do."

"A pact?" she ventured a glance back up to his face.

"Aye. We both have to learn to read. Mrs. Plunkett?" He turned in his seat to address the older woman at the desk. "We've decided we want you to decide who gets the best marks at the end of it. Luis and Rosie, or me and Miss Sullivan here."

Iris stared at him. I've been pulled into a wager between a gunman and a Pony Express rider? How did this happen?  "Uh.." she scratched her eyebrow, processing this bit of news. "What..." She tried again. "I'm surely going to be sorry I asked this, but what do we gain if we...win?"

"Well," Mr. Monahan turned back to her and winked. "Mostly bragging rights, but more to the point, me not having to shovel the stables for a long, long time."

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