Printer In Petticoats

He plopped his four precious books on top of the other crate and stood staring out the multipaned window. Directly across the street he saw the Smoke River Sentinel office.

He’d known there was another newspaper in town; he just hadn’t expected it to be located so close. Well, maybe that was a blessing. He could keep a sharp eye on the competition. Still, it was a mite more than he’d bargained for.

Was that spunky miss with all the questions the typesetter? Or the sister of the printer? Or the daughter...maybe even the wife? Pretty little thing. Rude, too. Never even introduced herself.

Well, neither had he. He must smell like a randy goat after the eighteen days he’d spent hauling that press from Kansas City. No wonder the little lady didn’t introduce herself. Better rustle up a bucket or two of water for a spit bath tonight.

Tomorrow he’d stop in and make nice, but right now he was dog-tired. All he wanted was a shot of whiskey, a steak two inches thick and twenty-four hours of sleep.

Two doors down, the Golden Partridge Saloon beckoned, and next to that was the Smoke River restaurant. Handy. He swiped his hand over his stubbly chin, finger-combed his hair and set off down the street.

The whiskey was smooth, the steak rare and the bucket of water he hauled up to his living quarters was free. Couldn’t beat that. He stripped, sponged off four states’ worth of dirt and was just about to collapse onto the cot when he saw something out the window that stopped his breath.

Directly across from his room was another set of windows with the shades drawn. A lamp of some sort illuminated what lay behind the shades, and—good golly Molly! The silhouetted figure of a woman was moving back and forth in front of them.

A naked woman. Must be the Sentinel woman. Girl, he amended, assessing the slim form. High breasts, nicely flared hips, long, long hair, which she was brushing with voluptuous movements, her arms raised over her head.

Well, hell. He sure as shootin’ wasn’t tired anymore. He watched until the lamp went out across the way, but by then he was so aroused he was awake most of the night.

In the morning he checked the windows across the street. The blinds were up, but he couldn’t see a thing with the sun hitting the glass. Just his luck. He’d have to wait for tonight.

The restaurant next door to the hotel served biscuits that just about floated off the plate and bacon so crisp it crackled when he bit into it. The plump waitress, name of Rita, was pleasant and efficient and nosy.

“New in town?”

“Yep.”

“Passing through?”

“Nope. Staying.”

“Don’t talk much, do you?”

“Nope.”

“More coffee?”

He nodded and left her a good-sized tip.

He spent the morning setting up the press, then asked around town for a typesetter. Nada. By suppertime he’d given up, stopped by the barbershop for a shave and a haircut and a bath, then returned to the restaurant for dinner.

“Know anyone who can set type?” he asked the attentive waitress.

“No, but I do know someone who’d like to learn,” she said. She leaned toward him confidentially. “Young Noralee Ness. You’ll find her at the mercantile. Her father’s the owner.”

“Her?”

“Sure, why not? You got something against females?”

“Not if they can set type, I don’t. How come she’s not working for the Sentinel?”

“Oh, Miss Jessamine sets her own type. Always has, even before her brother died.”

Cole lowered his coffee cup. “Died?”

“That’s what I said. Irate subscriber shot him.”

Hell... This was no better than Kansas City. He’d narrowly escaped the same fate as a result of an editorial he’d written on abolition. Actually sometimes he wished he had been shot; might have been easier than what he’d gone through later.

“What was the issue?” he asked cautiously. “Not slavery, was it?”

“Nah. Election coming up. People out here get pretty riled up.”

It was full dark by the time he tramped up the stairs to his quarters, and he was dead tired. But not too tired. Quickly he washed and then doused the lamp and waited.

Sure enough, about nine o’clock the blinds across the way snapped down and the light went on behind them. Cole watched until he couldn’t stand it any longer, then spent the next three hours trying to get to sleep. The next morning he could hardly drag himself off his cot.

Noralee Ness turned up promptly at ten o’clock. Hell, she was only eleven or twelve years old, but her brown eyes snapped with intelligence, and she brought apples and cheese and a slab of chocolate cake for her lunch and shared it with him while he showed her how to arrange the pieces of lead type in her type stick.

She was quick to learn and even quicker with her hands. By noon he had finished the last page of the story he’d been writing, and before three in the afternoon Noralee had typeset it right down to the last comma.

Two Newspapers? Why Not?

Why shouldn’t the Smoke River Sentinel have some competition? It’s a free country. You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to. Besides, the little popgun press in this town shouldn’t fear a bit of healthy competition.

Or should it? Is it possible the Smoke River Sentinel has grown complacent because it’s the one and only newspaper in this fair community?

I ask you—with an election coming up, isn’t it reasonable to present two sides to every question?

Cole Sanders

Editor, Lake County Lark

That night before he crawled onto his cot he slipped a copy of his first edition under the door of the Sentinel office across the street.

Chapter Two (#ulink_f45c879c-48ef-55a7-9fc7-42c6e2b7b771)

“Popgun press!” Jessamine screeched. “Popgun? Just who does this Cole Sanders think he is?”

Elijah Holst, her printer’s devil, pushed his scruffy cap off his forehead with fingers stained black with ink and aimed a squirt of tobacco juice into the spittoon beside his stool.

“Fer as I kin tell, Miss Jessamine, he’s the gent across the street with the fancy Ramage press.”

“Gent! He’s no ‘gent,’ Eli. He’s an interloper. An opportunist. A muckraker.”

“No, he ain’t. He’s jest another newspaper editor, same as you.”

“He is not the same as me, not by a long shot. He’s rude and uncouth and—”