Annie looked up at the tall young man, "Ed, can we go to supper now?"
They strolled down Cameron’s wood sidewalks to a nearby restaurant. Cameron was a proud little city located in the foothills of the Sleeping Child Mountains. It had a public school, bank, hotel, four churches, telephone and telegraph service and even a drug store with a soda fountain. Ed and Annie made an attractive couple as they dined in the Bon Serra Restaurant. Their fellow diners assumed they were married. The young couple chatted as a smartly uniformed waitress served them their meal. At the Bon Serra, 75 cents bought a complete meal including coffee and pie in the most modern of dining rooms. Ed told Annie about Yale and his work with the Forest Service. Annie said little about herself.
"I hope I haven’t bored you. I’ve done all the talking. Were you a reporter in North Carolina?" asked the young man.
Annie could sense his frustration at her unwillingness to share her life with him. And what would he think if he knew about London and the murder in North Carolina?
"No, I wasn’t a reporter though I did write articles for local newspapers. I worked for the National Audubon Society. My work was to organize junior Audubon Clubs for school children living on the coast of North Carolina. The slaughter of birds for plumage for women’s hats and for the food markets of the North could result in many species disappearing from North Carolina forever. The Society hopes that by teaching children to value birds we can stop this from happening."
Their conversation was interrupted when the door of the restaurant flew open. A man dressed in a ragged black suit with the stains of many previous meals on it staggered in. Boone Hyatt was a man who would have been unwelcome at any restaurant. He was in his 50’s, lean and had bulging, watery eyes. Under a battered hat there was an unruly mop of long, gray hair tied behind his head. From a distance one might think a large furry animal was sitting on his head.
Boone was a government trapper. He spent over 40 years as a market hunter in the West and had participated in the final slaughter of the buffalo. And now his job was to exterminate the last few wolves, mountain lions and grizzly bears that roamed the wild lands of the West.
Boone looked around the restaurant and then spotted the young couple. He quickly made his way to their table and slid into a chair as they stared at him. The trapper smelled of whiskey. It was obvious he was drunk. Ed was not a timid man but had not been in the West long enough to know how to deal with men like Boone Hyatt. And Boone knew this instinctively.
He stared at Annie in a manner that no gentleman would look at a respectable woman. "You be about as pretty a gal as I seen in a long time."
Certainly it was perfectly proper in a saloon to approach a woman you didn’t know, plop yourself at her table uninvited and start a conversation without being introduced. It was an insult though to Annie and a challenge to Ed. Before either Annie or Ed could respond, Boone flew out of the chair as if someone had yanked a chain attached to him.
"Time to leave. Don’t come back until you’ve learned some manners," Jesse snarled.
The tall woman had encountered the trapper several times in western Montana. She knew exactly how to deal with him. She tightened her grip on his collar, easily dragged him to the restaurant door, and then slammed his head on the doorframe. A powerful kick propelled Boone out of the restaurant and onto the dirt street. Jesse followed him to the street. As he groggily tried to stand, she saw the trapper pull a pistol from his waistband. Could she reach him before he aimed and fired?
Suddenly a loud voice commanded, "Drop the pistol".
Both Jesse and Boone turned to see Town Marshal Brent Foster standing near them with a large Colt revolver in his hand. Marshal Foster came at a run when a waitress from the Bon Serra telephoned saying there was trouble at the restaurant. The marshal had been a lawman for 25 years. The fact he was still alive was testament to his prowess with a gun. Boone knew this and gingerly placed his pistol on the ground. Ed and Annie’s waitress approached the marshal and quickly told him what had happened.
He grabbed Boone by the arm; "You’ll be my guest for a couple nights." As the lawman led the trapper to the town jail, he gave Jesse a quizzical look.
It’s a damn sad day in Montana when a woman’s honor has to be protected by another woman.
Jesse turned to Ed and Annie who were standing in front of the restaurant. They make a nice looking couple.
"Everything’s ready for tomorrow. I’m sleeping in the stable. We’ll leave at six in the morning." She walked back toward the stable without waiting for a reply.
Jesse had not seen the young blonde slip a pistol out of the holster of a cowboy standing next to her outside the restaurant who was also watching the commotion in the street. Annie moved so quickly he never realized his pistol was gone. As Boone put his revolver on the ground, Annie carefully slid the unsuspecting cowboy’s gun back into its holster.