Scryer's Gulch

Episode 2: Red Eye Gravy and Fellow Travelers

Many eyes watched her surreptitiously, but she sensed a pair more persistent, and turned toward the window to meet the hard gaze of Sheriff Runnels. Her heart fluttered in recognition, and she kept herself from staring back with the same frank suspicion and interest. Instead, she gave him her shyest, sweetest smile, and gestured hesitantly at the empty chair opposite her. Runnels frowned and hesitated, looking around the street as if for something else that might need his attention, then nodded and came through the door. Ralph saw him coming, and hurried up with a cup of coffee; Runnels murmured a thanks as he removed his hat and sat down opposite Annabelle.

"Good morning, Sheriff," she smiled.

"Morning, Miss Duniway. I expect you're off to see your schoolhouse today?"

She consulted the little watch that hung upside down from a brooch on her breast. "I have one-half of an hour before Mayor Prake will come to hand over the key. I am anxious to get started, though I imagine the children are indifferent at best!" she laughed. The remark got only a small, tight smile from Runnels, and she took another tack. "Well--is Jamie looking forward to school? He does seem a shy boy."

"Here is my question, Miss Duniway," said the Sheriff, ignoring her conversational gambit. "What is a very pretty, obviously bright young woman like yourself doing in this town?"

"I beg your pardon?" said Annabelle, opening her blue eyes wide. "I--I'm here to teach school, sir, why else would I be here?"

"With what I assume would be a pick of assignments, that's what I wonder."

Annabelle blushed, and put down her fork. "I took the assignment, if I may speak frankly, because Mayor Prake offered a great deal of money for the position. I was first in my class, my professors recommended me, and Mr Prake took their recommendation. I must ask you, sir, what else you might be implying," she added stiffly.

"Nothing that would imply moral turpitude, I assure you, Miss Duniway," he answered, finally breaking into a full smile. He took a long pull on the coffee, rose, and returned his hat to his head. "I'm not so impertinent as to ask what you might need all that money for, but now I wonder that as well. Good day, miss." He tipped his hat, gave her one last look of meditative speculation, and left, boots firm on the floor planks.

<I>He flusters me</I>, she thought, <I>and here's hoping I played off that well enough to throw him off the scent.</I>

Annabelle was still turning over her conversation with Sheriff Runnels when Mayor Prake appeared at her side, took off his hat and gave her a warm, paternal smile. "Good morning, Miss Duniway. Are you ready?" Annabelle smiled up at him with a greeting, let him pull out her chair, and accepted his offer to help her with her shawl.

Annabelle kept a discreet eye toward the rooftops on the short walk from the Hotel to the schoolhouse, spotted a familiar, small black figure silhouetted against the sky near the whorehouse, and returned her full attention to the Mayor. "--Growing all the time," he was saying. "It never stops. Some of the new folks'll work through the night, getting a building up. No hammering last night, but if you hear it, don't be surprised."

"I heard quite a bit last night as it was," she said with a rueful laugh.

"I don't know how the men can work in the morning, the way some of them carry on all night," said Prake, with a shake of the head. "But when there's nothing to come home to--a man gets restless, I suppose."

"Tell me about you, Mr Prake. How did you come to be here? Surely you weren't a prospector?"

"Me? Goodness, no, miss," he chuckled. "I'm too old for that. Can you imagine your own father, gone down the mine? No, Simon came first, had a look around. College made him restless, I suppose. He couldn't seem to settle in, so I staked him the money to open up a hardware store here. I'd hoped he'd realize his foolishness and come home, but Prake's Hardware did so well we all came out shortly after. Would've been foolish not to! I do believe Mrs Prake was the first honest--" he stopped, and shot her an embarrassed sideways glance. "I think I'm the first one who brought family with me," he amended. "Simon had a partner at first, but I bought him out and he headed back to Jackson. Simon went back home to Jackson himself, to work at my old ethergraph firm as an engineer. He's got serious talent in that direction, but he got bored. He was too used to life out here, I guess, and he missed us--Oh! Oh!" he suddenly cried.

Annabelle followed his horrified gaze. The white pickets surrounding the schoolyard were torn up, black paint splashed on the crisp red and white paint, and in big black letters: "NO SCOOL TECHER GO HOME!!"

Annabelle put her hand to her throat. "Oh, my," she said in a faint voice. Who would vandalize a school? Or had someone already guessed why she was here and was sending her a warning?