Between the Raindrops

Let Me Begin

"Oh, come now," Heidi whispered with a sweet smile. "We friends. Aren't we? You can tell us."

Emelia blinked. "I've been on no outings and attended no dinners," she said, very confused. "I really am at a loss..."

"Oh?" Heidi smirked. "What about the tall, rugged fellow you've been spending your mornings with?"

A smile bloomed on Emelia's face. "Oh, you mean Arthur. But, he's not..."

"Yes... what's his name?"

"Arthur Morgan."

Heidi folded her hands around her cup in a contrite way. Her sugar sweet smile slipped from her face. "He's not from around here, you know," she confided and Elizabeth nodded in sad agreement.

"Neither am I," Emelia rejoined breezily, before popping a bite of egg in her mouth.

"You're different," Heidi allowed. Her bright, friendly façade appeared again. "You bring... class. We love having your sort of new. But that... drifter?" and now Heidi made a face, similar to sucking on a lemon. "The sort he rides with...?"

"And what, pray tell, does that mean?"

"Well. You know."

Emelia waited.

Heidi and Elizabeth exchanged glances. Elizabeth leaned forward and whispered. "Loud mouthed working girls and conmen and shiftless layabouts!"

"Working girls?" Emelia asked. She had not thought... Arthur lacked in polish, but she thought of how he removed his hat when first they met. Of how he offered to carry her bags and how he opened doors for her. She felt a sudden nagging pang of unease.

"And you know he's a debt-collector and a bounty hunter besides?" Heidi added.

"A bounty hunter?" Oh, she knew the debt collection. But, bounties? Emelia thought of Arthur's course edges. Of the gun always at his hip and the way he kept his face tilted in such a way that half was usually hidden under his father's hat. All worn and weathered and scarred.

"Mm hm. Lucy saw it!" Heidi insisted. "So distasteful! A little before you arrived in town, this Robert Sims fellow was set to stand trial for rape and murder and then he just... disappeared! They had been looking for him for weeks."

"And Mr. Morgan caught him," Emelia guessed. A dangerous and unstructured profession, and Emelia felt worry like a cold weight in her stomach. "Why did the lawmen not arrest this Sims fellow themselves?"

"I don't know," Heidi said with a shrug. She sipped her coffee. "He left the county? Or maybe he was too dangerous? You can ask Deputy Weaver yourself. They always send bounty hunters when it's safer to... well. You know."

"Why?"

"Oh, Emelia... sheriffs are gentlemen," Elizabeth said. "They have families and their communities to think about."

"And bounty hunters do not?"

"Why don't you ask your bounty hunter?" Heidi needled with a saccharine smile. "He's the expert. Beat Sims to a pulp! Can you imagine?"

"No, actually," Emelia replied. "He's been so gentle." A bounty hunter and a debt-collector. She knew what the work entailed. She saw the results of the vocations in the City, had to repair it even on occasion... but Arthur? The same Arthur who spoke so sweetly to his Boadicea... to her? No. She could not imagine it.

Heidi arched her perfect coppery brows. "Gentle as a grizzly bear," she declared with a simpering smile, and Emelia inhaled sharply. "He's no good, Emma."