Maggie And The Maverick. Laurie Grant

      “Why would I leave the boy here? I’m his papa, by thunder, and the boy belongs with me.”

      His brothers exchanged glances, saying nothing.

      “Mama isn’t gonna be happy about lettin’ Johnny go away,” Sam said at last. “She’s awful fond a’ the little feller already.”

      “So am I,” Garrick said, and realized it was true. “But I’ll bring him home to visit often enough. Once Mercy has her baby, Ma won’t mind so much.”

      “Sure, why not? If you can write those fiery letters to the editor, you can write newspaper articles,” Cal said, obviously warming to the idea. “And just think, every week you could write an editorial and criticize—or praise—any ol’ thing you wanted.”

      Garrick thought getting to express his opinion in print, in his official capacity as editor, sounded very fine indeed. Then he had a disturbing thought. “But I don’t know anything about running a printing press.”

      “Well, you could learn, I reckon,” Caleb assured him. “You could hire someone who’s worked on a paper, and get ‘em to teach you. You’d be the editor and write the articles, and he’d run the press.”

      “But what about Johnny? I have a responsibility now,” Garrick reminded himself aloud.

      “Shoot, I imagine Livy’d be willing to lend you her housekeeper,” Cal said. “Senora Mendez is always complaining we don’t give her enough to do, and asking us to have a baby real quick so she’ll have somethin’ to keep her busy.”

      “You are tryin’ to comply with that command, aren’t you, brother?” Sam inquired, his face the picture of innocence.

      Cal grinned. “Maybe.”

      Garrick watched his brothers, suddenly envious of their happiness. Both of them had found a good woman to marry. That avenue seemed closed to him, however. Even if Cecilia had entered a bigamous marriage, he wasn’t free to marry again—and even if he were, what woman would marry a man with a wooden leg?

      Resolutely he shut his mind to the idea of a woman’s love and focused on the rising excitement he felt about the idea of starting a newspaper. He was ready for a change. He’d been sitting around the farm for too long as it was. If he didn’t try something new, he’d just become an old man before his time, and Johnny would grow up smothered by his grandmother and his aunt, who, with the best intentions in the world, cossetted the boy too much.

      “All right, ask that Mendez woman if she’ll be my housekeeper. I’m going to do it, boys. I’m going to start a newspaper in Gillespie Springs. You reckon you could find a house for me there?”

      Sam let out a rebel yell that had the women running from the kitchen to see what was the matter, and Cal clapped him on the back. “I’m sure of it, brother,” Cal said.

      

      “Gillespie Springs!” the stagecoach driver sang out, as he reined in his team in front of the Gillespie Springs Hotel.

      Maggie Harper sighed with relief. The jolting, swaying ride, which was supposed to have taken only a couple of days, had taken three and a half, thanks to the spring rains. The roads between Austin and Gillespie Springs were a quagmire. Torrential downpours had delayed their start two mornings out of the three, and at least twice each day the driver and the men in the coach had had to push the coach out of muddy ruts.

      Once, a flash of lightning had struck a nearby tree, which terrified the team and caused them to gallop on in a runaway panic. They had gone a full two miles before the driver could rein them in, and Maggie had been sure that at any moment the coach would hit a bump, tilt and crash onto its side, crushing its hapless occupants.

      Afterward, to amuse herself as the tedious, muddy miles rolled by, she’d composed a newspaper article in her head as if the worst had happened. The headline read: Stagecoach Overturns—Famous Female Journalist Tragically Perishes Before Her Time.

      The red-faced woman in black bombazine sitting across from her glared in her direction. Belatedly, Maggie realized she had been smiling. The journey hadn’t been enjoyable, but the rain had finally stopped, the sun was shining and they had at last arrived in Gillespie Springs.

      Mrs. Red Face was just one of the fellow travelers Maggie wouldn’t be sorry to bid farewell to. The coach was filled to capacity with two rotund drummers who had a fondness for foul-smelling cigars, an anxious mother holding a teething, fretful baby, and Maggie—and of course Mrs. Red Face, who had surely uttered a complaint for every mile that passed.

      Every fifteen miles the coach had stopped to change teams, but it was usually raining too hard for Maggie to get out and stretch her legs. Every fifty miles they’d halted for a longer time, so the passengers could eat, drink and relieve themselves, but the stations were crude and dirty and the food was hardly fit for consumption.

      The coach creaked to a stop, and after Maggie descended, the driver lifted her bag down to her.

      “Thank you, sir. I hope the last leg of your trip goes smoothly,” Maggie said.

      “You’re welcome, Miz Harper. You’d better get up on the boardwalk yonder before those boots’re soaked through,” the driver said, pointing to the mud that squished up to her ankles. “Ain’t ya got someone meeting ya here?” “Oh, someone’s expecting me, sir, don’t worry. I just have to find my way to the newspaper office.”

      A small town, Gillespie Springs nevertheless had a prosperous look on this sunny April morning. Next to the hotel on her right, Maggie could see signs announcing a millinery and a barbershop. When she turned to look to her left, she saw a bank, a doctor’s office, a general store, and across the street from those buildings, the saloon, the jail, a telegraph office and the livery. So where was the newspaper office? Then she noticed the small, new-looking building right across the street.

      She narrowed her eyes to read the sign swinging in the breeze beneath the new building’s overhanging roof. “The Gillespie Springs Gazette, Established 1869,” she read aloud. Yes, this was it. The ad in the newspaper seeking an experienced pressman, or printing press operator, had mentioned that the venture was a new one. When she had written offering her services, Garrick Devlin, the editor, had responded with flattering speed.

      Of course, Devlin might not have done so had she signed her letter with “Margaret Louise Harper” rather than “M. L. Harper.” Pangs of guilt had assailed her all the way from Austin, but she knew she had to find a way to leave there, and if misleading a prospective employer about her sex would secure her a job in another town more quickly, then mislead she would. Surely once she told Mr. Devlin why she was every bit as qualified as a male printer, he’d give her the chance to prove herself.

      Garrick Devlin. She’d formed a picture of him in her mind. With a name like that, he must be an older man, probably in his fifties, with a balding head and spectacles perched on his nose. He’d have a plump, comfortable wife and a brood of grown or nearly grown children. Perhaps he’d already be a grandfather, and if so, no doubt he’d be a doting one. He might be skeptical of hiring a woman, but she’d tell him about her experience. Why, she’d started as a printer’s devil for her father, a veteran newspaperman, back in Ohio, and progressed to the point that when they got to Austin she’d been John Harper’s most-relied-upon reporter.

      Devlin had to accept her! She just couldn’t go back to Austin! She’d rather die than face the knowing looks, the sneers, or the attentions of the officers and officials of the Freedmen’s Bureau, who suddenly seemed to find her irresistible—ever since Richard Burke had left her house that night.

      Of course he had boasted of his conquest. She’d known it the very next week, when she’d gone with her father to a New Year’s Eve ball put on by the army for its staff and the rest of the Northeners who now lived in Texas. She’d seen the ladies whispering behind gloved hands in corners, staring in her direction, only to fall silent when she approached. They were distant and vague when she tried to converse with them, and some even looked right