Page 58 of Charlotte's Reckoning
She’d tried that route. The store-bought shoes were never a good fit. She’d had to stuff wadded-up cloth in the toes or they’d rub a blister on her heels. On her feet every night for long hours, it wasn’t comfortable, but arguing with the snob who didn’t want her perfectly good money was pointless.
The bell over the door jingled as Charlotte entered Ivinson’s General Store. Heads turned, and, as usual, when they saw who had arrived, disapproving looks followed. She was used to being judged, but she refused to let it bother her. Once she bought her shoes and picked up Lou’s chocolate drops, she would happily retreat to her side of town.
She was relieved to find the shoe section empty and quickly scanned the selection. There was a suitable pair of patent walking shoes, but the choice of evening slippers was sparse. The few they had were in white satin, an unwise choice in dusty Laramie.
While browsing a mail-order catalog from a New York City shoe store with an extension selection, Charlotte overheard a nasty comment. “What is this town becoming when harlots can mingle with decent folk in public places?”
Fed up with a morning of slights and insults, she rose to confront the speaker, a pinched-faced older woman with a distinctly unpleasant expression. The deep grooves around her mouth clearly weren’t from smiling, her bun wound so tight her scalp must ache.
Though they had never met, Agnes Ledbetter’s reputation for a razor-sharp tongue and withering glares were legendary. As was her mission to stick her beak-like nose into everyone else’s business and pass judgment on anyone who didn’t meet her narrow definition of propriety.
Charlotte didn’t stand a chance.
“I have as much right to be here as anyone else,” she said stiffly.
“There are children here. Have you no shame?” she snapped.
“There is no shame in shopping, ma’am. As you said, this is a public place,” she said in a hushed voice, hoping she would lower hers as well. “I believe you were the one who first mingled with me.”
The old biddy visibly bristled, and her voice only rose in volume. “I can’t believe Mr. Ivinson allows women of your ilk in his store.” She lookedaround, declaring, “I’ll have a word with him and have this practice stopped immediately.”
At that moment, Janelle Jackson appeared from behind a display of fabric, her expression cool and composed.
“What seems to be the trouble?” she inquired.
Mrs. Ledbetter remained unfazed by the mayor’s wife observing her behavior, not seeming to care that she might have overstepped. “This person shouldn’t be in a store with decent people. That’s the trouble,” she hissed.
While “person” was a step up from “harlot,” the old woman’s contemptuous sneer left no doubt of her feelings.
Janelle’s composure vanished. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, Agnes Ledbetter! Looking down your nose at someone else like your own outhouse doesn’t stink.”
She gasped, clutching her chest. “What an utterly appalling thing to say. And kindly mind your own business, Mrs. Jackson. I wasn’t talking to you.”
“No. You were spewing your spitefulness loudly for all to hear, which I take exception to.”
“You can’t honestly condone her whorish ways!”
“I try not to judge others, especially women, who have to do what they must to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies.”
With her hand cupping her mouth, the mean-spirited fusspot muttered an aside to her companion, who stood behind her looking mortified. “Says the woman who runs around town, putting on airs as though she has the learning of a doctor. I have it on Madeline Barnett’s good authority that she shucked her husband Lemuel’s trousers clean off, drawers and all, on the premise of tending a flesh wound.”
Her friend frowned before stating hesitantly, “The bull gored him in his, um, well…his hind parts, Agnes. How else was she to stitch him up?”
Clearly annoyed that she wasn’t getting the support she expected, she waved off the excuse. “A decent woman would have found a more circumspect way of going about it or waited for Doctor Morgan to tend him.”
“And let him bleed to death in the meantime?” Janelle challenged. “Would that have been the decent thing to do for Argyll?”
Her curiosity piqued, Charlotte couldn’t stay quiet. “Who is Argyll?”
“Never you mind!” Agnes snapped.
“Doc and I were called to the clinic Friday night to see Argyll Ledbetter, her husband,” Janelle explained, speaking over the older woman, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. “He was drunk as a skunk and bleeding from…” She waved her hand near her groin. “Let’s just say a bullet grazed an intimate area.”
Ah. The old biddy’s ambush made sense now. This was too rich. Charlotte could hardly restrain herself.
“On Friday night, a man accosted a lady outside the Red Eye. Her rescuer shot him in an intimate area.” She gestured vaguely in the same general area Janelle had. Then she turned to Agnes with wide-eyed innocence. “Surely, that’s no coincidence.”
A ripple of shock went through the crowd gathered, as they put it together, too.
