The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Miller Lael

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      Laughter erupted. Sam bit the inside of his lip, so he wouldn’t smile, and waited it out. “Mr. O’Ballivan,” he corrected.

      Tears welled in the little girl’s eyes; she seemed to shrink, as if trying to fold in on herself until she disappeared entirely.

      “Violet’s a tit-baby,” somebody said.

      “She makes water in her bloomers,” added another voice.

      “Her papa got hisself hanged for horse thieving.”

      Sam scanned the room. “Enough,” he said quietly.

      The resulting silence was profound.

      He went to where Violet huddled at the far end of the back table and crouched beside her. A tear slid down her cheek and puddled on the slate resting in her lap. Up close, he noticed that her calico dress was faded and thin with wear, and she smelled pungently of urine, wood smoke and general neglect.

      Sam laid a tentative hand on her small, bony back. “When you want to use the outhouse, Violet,” he said, “you don’t have to raise your hand for permission. You just get right up and go.”

      Violet nodded miserably, unable to lift her head. “Mr. Singleton made me wait,” she whispered.

      Sam patted her awkwardly on one small, hunched shoulder and straightened to address the rest of the class. “I will not countenance bullying,” he said. “Ask Mr. Chancelor if you don’t believe me.”

      Terran flushed vividly, keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead, but no one made a sound.

      “Now,” Sam said, “let’s get down to business. How many of you know how to read and write?”

      * * *

      IT WAS THREE FORTY-FIVE by the big clock on the mercantile wall when Sam O’Ballivan strode in. Maddie felt his presence, even before she stole a glance to confirm it. She drew a deep breath and smiled at Undine Donagher, who had come to town to order ready-made dresses from the catalog.

      There were no other customers; folks tended to stay clear of the store when the Donaghers stopped by, which was often, since they owned the establishment.

      “Maybe this silk would do,” Maddie suggested warmly.

      Undine, the pretty and youthful wife of Mungo Donagher, a grizzled old rancher who probably tallied his land holdings in counties instead of acres, was someone Maddie dreaded rather than welcomed, even though Undine invariably spent a great deal of money when she went on a buying tangent. Because Mungo liked to keep the accounts straight, he made all his purchases like any other customer would.

      Undine turned to look at Sam and her petulant expression went coquettish. Mungo, occupying himself with a display of rifles, seemed to sense the shift of his wife’s attention and turned, frowning, to watch the exchange.

      Undine tugged at her white gloves, with their rows of tiny pearl buttons, and smiled, ignoring her husband. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said, and walked right over to Mr. O’Ballivan as if they’d encountered each other at a soiree. “I’d have remembered anybody as handsome as you are.”

      Sam nodded with solemn cordiality, a flush darkening his neck, and took a box from the stack next to the door. “Howdy,” he said, and his gaze skittered to Maddie.

      She realized that her mouth was open, and closed it again, but not quickly enough, she saw, to fool Mr. O’Ballivan. The flicker in his eyes told her he’d registered her disapproval of Undine’s bold behavior and found it amusing.

      Recovering her manners, Maddie said, “Mrs. Donagher, this is Mr. O’Ballivan, the new schoolmaster.”

      Before she could introduce Mungo, he stepped between Undine and Mr. O’Ballivan, extending a work-roughened, pawlike hand in greeting. His manner was one of blustery goodwill, but Maddie wasn’t fooled, and neither, apparently, was Mr. O’Ballivan. A muscle bunched in his jaw even as he shook Mungo’s hand.

      Undine, her flirtation thwarted, pushed out her lower lip and retreated to the counter, where she and Maddie had been poring over the catalog.

      “You look like you might just be able to handle that bunch over to the schoolhouse,” Mungo boomed, apparently determined to keep the conversation going. “One of those whelps is mine. Name’s Ben. He gives you any trouble, you just haul him off to the woodshed and tan his hide.”

      A motion at the window drew Maddie’s eyes, and she saw her brother peering through the glass. When he spotted Sam O’Ballivan, he recoiled visibly and hurried off down the sidewalk.

      “I don’t make much use of the woodshed,” O’Ballivan said.

      Maddie’s temper heated. No, she thought. You just hang innocent children upside down in the well by their feet and scare the life out of them.

      Mungo laughed, fairly rattling the canned goods on the shelves. It was not a friendly sound; Mungo Donagher was not a friendly man. In fact, most people feared him, along with his three older sons, who were, in Maddie’s opinion, little better than criminals. She stayed close to the shotgun when any of them were in the store.

      “I hope you’re a better man than poor Tom Singleton,” Mungo said. “Those snot-nosed little devils stampeded right over him. Thought he might toughen up, but he didn’t.”

      Maddie glanced at Undine, saw a faint blush rise in the woman’s cheeks and the slightest tightening around the mouth. She wondered about that, but only briefly, because the exchange between Sam O’Ballivan and the patriarch was building up steam.

      “Yes,” O’Ballivan agreed mildly, selecting a cake of yellow soap from those on offer and dropping it into the box in the curve of his left arm, moving on, and then going back for another. This time, he chose the fancy, scented kind, French-milled and wrapped in pretty paper. It cost the earth, and Maddie’s curiosity was piqued again. “I saw the evidence of that yesterday. I’ll need two pounds of coffee, Miss Chancelor. A pound of sugar, too.” He proceeded to add tins of peaches, tomatoes and green beans to his purchases.

      “A man’s got no business teaching if he can’t ride herd on a few brats.” Mungo thundered on. “’Course it’s usually a woman’s job. Teaching school, I mean. My older boys always favored a schoolmarm.”

      I’ll just bet they did, Maddie thought, watching Sam O’Ballivan closely while trying to pretend she’d barely noticed him at all.

      O’Ballivan didn’t answer. Occupied with his shopping, he reached down for a shaving brush, then a razor, then tooth powder. Maddie wondered, as she had from the first moment of their acquaintance, why a man like that would want to spend his days writing on a blackboard in a border town like Haven. He must have felt confined in the schoolhouse, a place hardly big enough to accommodate the width of his shoulders, and his skin was weathered, as if he’d spent much of his life outdoors.

      Maddie knew the salary allotted to the teacher was paltry, since she attended school board meetings, and besides, Mungo was right. Most teachers were female. Mr. Singleton had been an exception, hired after his predecessor eloped with a medicine peddler three weeks into the school term. And now here was Sam O’Ballivan, who looked more like a hired gunslinger than anything else.

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