Rebel with a Cause. Carol Arens

to do.

      Early this morning, while gazing out the window of her hotel in Green Island, she had determined to begin her tale with a description of the crisp spring scene spread before her.

      Seen from the upper floor, the Missouri River cut across land that looked like an endless pasture of rolling green. The hills rose in easy swells and then sloped down just as gently. Scattered patches of a late snow glittered and melted in the sunshine.

      Pristine beauty is what she had intended to relate, but upon closer inspection, the Great American West was dirtier than she had first thought.

      In only seconds, Muff had fallen victim to burrs, rascally things that burrowed into his fur with ferociousness. Suzie would laugh her corset loose if she could see his ragged condition.

      “Hush, Muff! I can’t think of a word with all that barking!” Missy glanced toward the stream. A stern glare would silence him. “Oh, mercy me!”

      The splashing in the stream had not been Number Nine. It was a giant cow.

      Missy set aside her writing and stood up. Old wood creaked and groaned. She wiped her suddenly damp palms on her corset.

      Gently bred eastern cattle had smaller, daintier mouths than their wild western cousins. Missy made a mental note of the fact, determined to remember how a piece of meadow grass clung to a glittering glob of spittle oozing out of the cow’s jowls … while it munched in apparent contentment on the bodice of her dress!

      Muff snipped at the cow’s hoof. He whirled to yap at the flick and swing of its fat brown tail.

      A brass button shaped like a rosebud clicked against the cow’s lower tooth then snapped off and plopped in the grass.

      “Adversity holds the seeds of adventure” was a motto Missy lived by, but really, that was one of her favorite gowns.

      “Hello, cow,” she crooned, dismayed to witness a red satin bow disappear between the great hairy jaws. She slid by slow inches off the wagon. “Let go of my dress.”

      Missy shuffled a step forward. The cow was shorter than she was, but weighed Heaven’s-own-guess more.

      So far, the beast seemed to care for nothing beyond the lovely red-and-white cloth being crushed in its mouth. It didn’t even kick at Muff who resembled a snowball-sized fiend, nipping and yapping at the cow’s muddy hooves.

      If the creature wasn’t annoyed enough at Muff to silence him with a kick, perhaps it would be safe to walk right up to it.

      Chances are it was someone’s large pet, a creature used to being coddled and fed a daily ration of women’s apparel.

      With a deep, steadying breath, she left the security of the wagon behind.

      “There’s a good brown cow.” She knelt and gripped the hem of her gown in both fists. “I’ll take my dress now.”

      A tug on the fabric made no impression on the beast’s dedicated gnawing.

      She glanced about. Perhaps help would come trotting over one of the rolling hills.

      Drat! Where was a heroic, handsome cowboy when a girl needed him? Surely the plains must be speckled with them. As far as she could see, though, the only movement was the grass bending under the breeze and a building mass of clouds that darkened the afternoon horizon.

      She yanked. The cow yanked back, tossing its head. A seam ripped and a snort from the bovine nose sprayed something unpleasant into the air.

      Muff snarled. The heifer’s gaze swung sideways at him. One stomp of the cloven hoof and the dog would be done for.

      “Come, Muff, come,” she commanded.

      Muff charged. Missy let go of the dress. She snagged him by the curl of his tail.

      The cow snorted and pawed the ground. It lunged.

      Missy ran.

      She scrambled onto the wagon with the heat of a deep “Moo” raising the hair on her neck.

      “Quiet, Muff.” She clamped her fingers over his muzzle, her breathing quick with the narrow escape. “Hush or I’ll toss you right back down to get stepped on.”

      The beast butted the wagon. Three slats of wood splintered under the impact. Missy scrambled for balance and nearly toppled overboard.

      Apparently pleased at having the last say, the cow turned and waddled off, dragging the remains of Missy’s dress through the dirt and across the stream.

      Perhaps she ought to mount Number Nine and follow the giant until it became bored with her gown and dropped it. The problem would be keeping Muff out of harm’s way.

      Missy plunked down on a slat of wood. She huffed out a sigh. Apparently not considering the day lost, Muff attempted to scramble out of her lap. He would, no doubt, pursue the bovine filcher over hill and dale if he had the chance.

      Grasping the fringe of grimy fur that had fallen over his eyes, she flipped it back and settled him securely in her lap.

      “You’ve lost your pretty blue ribbon, you little scamp. You won’t be able to see a thing now.”

      At least he wouldn’t see how the clouds on the horizon seemed to boil and blacken by the second. The sun shining down on the wagon lost its kiss of warmth.

      She tried to tug her own ribbon and curls back to the top of her head but they sagged in a steadfast knot halfway down her scalp.

      “Adversity does hold the seeds of adventure,” she announced to a crushed flower on the ground. Its remaining petal twisted in the breeze.

      It would take a bit of creativity to write this adventure so that Suzie would laugh and Mother not swoon.

      Gossip was bound to spread. She knew from some experience that embarrassing stories had an uncanny way of speeding across the miles.

      It wouldn’t do for Edwin to hear that Missy had come trotting down the public streets of Green Island wearing nothing but a dirty shift and toting a bramble-infested, purebred Maltese.

      No sooner had Muff settled into a quiet, filthy ball on her lap than he growled and scrambled to his paws, stretching to look taller than he was.

      “Now what?” She glanced across the prairie, peering through an afternoon being steadily dimmed by the heavy-hung clouds.

      A man appeared over the rise of a distant hill, walking. He spotted her and waved his arm.

      She had wished for a bold cowboy to ride to her aid and was a good bit disappointed.

      The man, breaking into a trot and shouting, “Hello,” looked like a gentleman, with his cravat neatly tied and his polished shoes winking with the last ray of sunshine. His pale cheeks jiggled with his awkward gait.

      He might as well have been plucked from her mother’s drawing room.

      Zane Coldridge fastened the top button of his coat against the rising wind and tugged his Stetson low on his forehead.

      “We’ve nearly got him, boy,” he murmured to his horse.

      The criminal, Wesley Wage, had so far been able to outrun the five-hundred-dollar price on his head, but if his behavior of the past two hundred miles held true, Zane would be able to track him to the saloon in Dry Leaf.

      From a quarter mile away, Dry Leaf looked like a pass-through town. With any luck the slick bank robber would follow his usual pattern and be settled in at the saloon, belly-up to the bar, without the marshal being any the wiser.

      That was often the way it went. Wesley Wage looked like an eastern dandy so folks seldom realized he was the robber who had been terrorizing innocent bank patrons over the greater part of three states.

      Zane urged his horse down the main street of Dry Leaf, taking note of the location of the saloon and the marshal’s office. The two were far enough apart so that a busy or inattentive lawman might be