Off to Placerville
Chapter 1
February 1880
Nick pulled the wagon to a halt outside Jennie Hall's home, climbed off, and hurried around the other side to help Audra down. Jennie was going to make Audra's wedding dress, and Audra was here for measurements and to pick out the type of dress and fabric she wanted.
Victoria had wanted to come, but Audra was adamant that she didn't want ANYONE to see the dress or anything about it until her wedding day. Victoria bowed to the bride's wishes, and since Nick was going into town for supplies, he agreed to take Audra to Jennie's and to leave her alone until she was finished there.
They went to the door and knocked, and soon the small red-haired woman opened the door to them.
"Hello, Audra! Hello, Nick!" Jennie said cheerfully and let them in.
Nick took his hat off. "How are you, Jennie?"
"Very well, thank you," Jennie said. She and Nick had dated briefly a little over a year earlier. Nick had started a rumor that Jennie was a former member of an outlaw gang, thinking that no one would believe it. She was, after all, small, proper and reserved. But it turned out, she could handle a gun and take care of herself, and Nick was charmed despite the fact that she was fairly plain and very small a companion for his 6' 3" frame.
They stopped seeing each other after it seemed clear they were not meant to be, but they remained friends, and Nick had to admit to himself that she was still one heck of a woman. Just not the woman for him.
"You need to leave, Nick," Audra said bluntly.
Nick looked a bit startled, but said, "Oh, okay, nice to see you Jennie!"
Jennie laughed as Nick went right back out the door. "Nice to see you too, Nick."
Nick climbed back into the wagon and drove on to the mercantile, where he pulled up and hitched the team to the hitching rail. He went on inside, pulling his list out of his pocket. He had all kinds of supplies he needed for the house as well as for the ranch work. It was quiet inside the shop today, and the owner, an older man named Frank Gill, greeted him right away.
"Hi, there, Nick, good to see you."
"Frank, how are you?" Nick asked.
"Pretty well. Yourself?"
"Couldn't be better. Got a list of things we need out at the ranch." He gave Frank the list.
Gill looked it over. "Doesn't look to complicated. I'll get it ready and get your rig loaded. You gonna be at the saloon?"
Lately it had become Nick's habit to visit the saloon while Gill got things together. Nick nodded. "Half an hour or so. See you later."
Nick went out and across the street. It being early afternoon, only a few men were in the saloon, but his favorite hostess was there. A dark-haired beauty maybe 24 years old named Caroline. She was at the bar, talking to an older man who did odd jobs around town to pay his rent. As soon as Nick came to the bar, Caroline switched her attentions.
"Nick!" she cried, came over to him and put an arm around him.
Nick reciprocated. "How's it going, Caroline?"
"Slow," she said. "How are you these days? What brings you to town?"
"Oh, fetching supplies and delivering my sister to Jennie Hall's so they can work on her wedding dress." He gave a hand signal to Harry, the bartender, who drew him up a beer.
Caroline sighed. "I love weddings. Wish I could have one." She laughed after she said that. She had no prospects on the horizon, and after being with some of the men she saw around here, she didn't want any. But Nick was different. "Tell me, why hasn't some lovely girl snapped you up by now?"
"You know, I was wondering that myself the other day. Jarrod's seeing somebody in San Francisco. He has women falling over him all the time, but he doesn't fall very often himself. Me, it's the other way around. I fall for a beautiful woman, and she turns out not to give a hoot about me, or she has some nasty ex-boyfriend messing things up, or somebody else comes along and steals her away. I just can't seem to catch a break."
"Well, now, I know quite a few girls around here who would love to spend more time with you," Caroline said and snuggled closer to him.
Nick liked his saloon girls just fine, but he'd never met one – even Caroline – that he wanted to spend time with outside the saloon. But how do you say that out loud to a girl? "Someday, maybe," is all he could think of to say.
Caroline got the message with a sigh and backed off a bit. "So Audra and Carl Wheeler," Caroline changed the subject. "He hasn't even been coming in as often, you know? Loyal as a puppydog already."
"He's a good man. We're all pretty happy he and Audra are getting married."
"Well, we do have to get you married, Nick. You really are the marrying kind, even if you haven't figured out how to do it yet."
Nick chuckled. Overhearing the comment, Harry said, "It's really pretty easy, Nick. You find a nice girl who can cook and sew and doesn't have a roving eye for other men, and you're home free."
"Well, you do have to get her to rove her eye your way," Nick said, "and that's where my problem seems to be."
Harry said, "A couple of the guys from the Martin spread are getting up a good card game for tonight, about nine. You coming on by?"
"Maybe," Nick said. "I'm a little cash poor right now"
Sheriff Madden came in just then and wandered up to the bar. "Hi, Nick, how's it going?"
"Not bad, Fred," Nick said. "Little slow maybe."
"I might be able to fix that," Sheriff Madden said, and Caroline wandered back to the older man she'd been with before Nick came in.
"Oh?"
"Got a problem. I picked up a fella night before last for disturbing the peace – got drunk and started shooting the town up. Turns out he's wanted in Placerville for robbing a general store, shooting the storekeeper."
"Kill him?"
"No, just a minor leg wound. Thing is, I got my deputy laid up for a week after catching pneumonia. I need somebody to take the man back to Placerville."
Nick knew what the sheriff was aiming for. "Placerville?! It's February! Why not get the sheriff up there to send somebody down here? There's bound to be somebody who wants to get away from the snow."
"He's shorthanded, too. I gotta come up with somebody who can leave here with the man I have in jail by tomorrow morning. How about it?"
"Aw, Fred, I'd like to help you but I got a ranch to run."
"There's five days pay in it for you."
Nick laughed. "I'm not that cash poor, Fred."
"What about Heath?"
"I don't know, he's not with me. Out with a couple of the hands tracking down coyote up off the north range. Can't even find him by tomorrow morning."
"Come on, Nick, give me a break."
"Fred, I have a ranch to run, and with Jarrod gone I keep having to run into town for the legal work, and I just don't have the time!"
Sheriff Madden leveled a stare at Nick and said simply, "January 1."
Nick knew right away what he was talking about. "Fred, you're not calling that in."
"I'm out of choices, Nick."
Nick heaved a big sigh, took off his hat, and rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, all right, you win. Let me take my sister home and check in with my mother and McCall, and if everything is settled at the ranch, I'll see you in the morning. If I can't help you, I'll send word. How's that?"
Sheriff Madden slapped Nick on the back. "Thanks, Nick. Do this for me, and we're even."
As the sheriff left, Nick mumbled something about the sheriff owing him for a few things other than what happened on January 1, and he mentally kicked himself for being so accommodating when he really didn't want to be.
"Harry," he said out loud. "Give me another beer, and don't expect me at the poker game tonight."