We Ain't Got No Hoosegow

When Billy Waters cracked a rib of one of the working girls down over the Bangtail, all us women of Crackskull Ridge decided enough's enough.

Sally Threshold and I was quilting together, trying to finish up a nice present for Ruth Evans before the baby came. Then Little Henry Threshold came in and told his Mama, “Miss Price wants you to read this.” He held out a folded piece of paper.

“Little Henry!” Sally scolded. “What did you do that’s so much mischief, Miss Price sent you home from school already?”

Little Henry's face turned red as a raspberry. “I ain’t up to mischief today! Miss Price wants every mama in town to read that note. I have to bring it back for Tim Whitin’s turn.”

Sally read the paper without saying a word. She folded it and handed it back to her boy.

“Are we going to have beef tonight?” Little Henry asked. “Tim Whitin says he gets to eat beef most every night.”

“Tim Whitin’s got too much mustard,” Sally snapped. “Don’t you believe him. Now get.”

Little Henry got a wiggle on.

Sally told me, “Janet Price says Billy Waters done thrashed one of the Bangtail girls with a fire poker.”

With that unpleasant revelation I accidentally jabbed my thumb hard with my needle. “That ten-cent varmint gone too far,” I said.

“He done cracked her rib,” Sally said. Her face looked the way my heart felt.

There’s only one woman to every baker’s dozen men out here. We can’t afford to caterwaul over every split lip or black eye. Sometimes a daddy's claim peters out. A man won’t have no patience for his daughter wobbling jaw when he ain’t got grubstake in his pocket. Sometimes a husband gets back from the saloon full as a tick. Nothing turns a hand to a fist as fast as whiskey.

Life’s hard for forty-niners and the Bible teaches us grace. All the same: when the schoolmarm told us he gone so far as to break a working girl’s bone, we knew we was all in trouble.

Miss Price asked all the mamas in town to invite all the other women to come pray together. That’s what we told the menfolk when we needed to confabulate. If they thought we was scheming, they’d put an end to it right quick. If they thought we was praying for Ruth Evans to have a safe delivery, they’d pay us no mind at all.

Mrs Atwood, being the pastor’s wife and all, did start us off with a real nice prayer for Ruth and her baby. Then Ruth waved her hand and said, “I ain’t got no signs this baby’s coming tonight. Ladies, let us focus on the matter at hand.”

Miss Price said, “Thank you, Mrs Evans; and thank you kindly Mrs Atwood for leading us in our mutual devotions. They say the Lord helps those who help themselves, and I reckon the womenfolk of Crackskull Ridge are in such a peck of trouble that ought help each other.”

“What’s this about some painted cat down over the Bangtail?” asked Mrs Buckley, who manages Buckley and Sons General Store, even though everyone says it’s her boy Ephraim what owns it. Mrs Buckley said, “Girl like that take on a dangerous job, it ain’t on us to lick her wounds.”

Sally told her, “Mrs Buckley, I would agree with your sentiment more than a little if this was a ordinary matter of a rough slap and prod. As I sees it, there might two considerations pushing the situation beyond the pale. First off is: the severity of the working girl’s injuries. Lastly and aces high is the implications on the future here in Crackskull Ridge.”

Mrs Buckley asked, “What implications?” because her unparalleled acumen with business does not mean she is all over smart.

There was two working girls in the meeting house with us. The madam of the Perfumed Kerchief sent Rosemary Connelly. The Bangtail sent over one of their Chinese girls. Her English puts to shame my attempts to say or write her name, but I reckon it’s in the neighborhood of Wang Mung Yow.

It was Rosemary Connelly what answered Mrs Buckley’s question. “Any time a group of people establishes the worst behavior they’ll tolerate, they make it clear that the behavior can happen again and again without consequences. Then someone tries to find the new worst behavior what won’t be punished.”

Miss Price said, “I see that every day in the schoolhouse.”

Mrs Buckley tilted her head all thoughtful-like. “I see it with my boys, sure enough. If I let Ephraim spit his chaw on the dinner plate, next Gideon'll spit his chaw right on the table.” All right, Mrs Buckley may not be the quickest draw but she does have her perspicacious moments.

Miss Wang said, “Scrapes and bruises ain’t so bad, but in the last six months, all us abandoneds have been thrashed with belts more than a few times.”

Miss Price agreed. “It ain’t just the working girls. I see every one of your children most every day, and I can tell when you’ve had to doctor them up something extra. If I was a gambling woman, and I thank the Lord I am not, but if I was, I would bet a buck more than half the ladies here have felt the increase in the freedom of the menfolk’s fists.”

“It’s that Billy Waters,” Rosemary Connelly told us all. “He sailed round with a set of Argonauts six months back, but whatever he’s sick with, it ain’t gold fever. That man don’t pan, don’t hunt, don’t make or do nothing useful. Says his folks back Rhode Island way make ships, but he don’t know a chisel from a hammer.”

The pastor’s wife herself agreed: “Billy Waters’ three skills, and the only pursuits in his life, are: poker, whoring, and hiding the people what can’t fight back.”

I pointed out, “We ain’t got no hoosegow locking up the roosters when they get too rowdy. Nearest law is up round Grass Valley. If Billy Waters ain’t got no conscience to stop him breaking working girls’ bones, then he’ll keep at it and do worse until he meets the Almighty.”

“That is,” Miss Wang said, “Unless we stop him ourselves.”

Mrs Atwater asked, “You got some ancient Chinese method for breaking the bad habits of a bad egg?”

“Yes,” Miss Wang said. “We call it, ‘gunpowder.’”

The working girl’s suggestion of cold-blooded murder sparked a palaver of some length. We higgled over means of execution and their potential impact vis-à-vis discouraging more trespasses against our safety. All the while, the good and righteous women of Crackskull Ridge were in accord: that vicious wastrel had influenced all our menfolk in an intolerably brutal direction. He had to die.

In the end, the girls down over the Perfumed Kerchief poisoned his beer.

Elena Alvarez, the Bangtail girl what Billy Waters beat with a fire poker, cut off his three most offensive appendages—the first two being his hands. Her injuries were still aching something fierce, though, so I nailed them to the Welcome to Crackskull Ridge sign for her.

Sally Threshold, Rebecca Whitin, and Miss Price tied what was left to Mrs Buckley’s saddle. Mrs Buckley dragged it behind her for an hour's ride outside town, and Ruth Evans was safely delivered of a precious little baby boy.