Cowboy For Hire by Alice Duncan

was setting up to be a huge trial. “Yes.” She
smiled. It had been a somewhat pleasant little joke. “I do believe
I am.”
    “You got a whole lot of sandwich left,”
Charlie pointed out.
    Immediately, Amy thought of the poor starving
orphan children in China and India, as she’d been taught to do as a
child. She wished she had a starving orphan right here right now;
she’d gladly relinquish the rest of her sandwich. On the other
hand….
    She smiled sweetly at Charlie. “Since you’re
such a hard-working fellow and need lots of fuel to keep your
energy up, perhaps you can help me finish it, Mr. Fox.”
    He looked startled for a moment, then grinned
back. “Why, that’s a very nice offer, Miss Wilkes. Don’t mind if I
do.”
    So he did. Amy watched him polish off the
last three-quarters of her sandwich with amazement. He really did
have a prodigious appetite, didn’t he?
    Thinking about Charlie’s appetite started a
whole new train of speculation about him in her head. She started
out by wondering if he’d enjoy her cooking. Amy had always believed
herself to be quite a hand in the kitchen. Then she considered his
accent and changeable grammatical leanings. He was an awfully
handsome man; he’d appear to advantage in a suit and tie of a
Sunday morning, say, on his way to church. With his neatly dressed
children and his pretty wife.
    Amy couldn’t help thinking that Charlie Fox
could be quite a respectable member of society if someone were to
take him in hand—clean him up, as her uncle might say. If someone
were to, oh, for instance, teach him grammar and table manners and
not to swear in public, Amy had a feeling he’d fool anyone into
thinking he was a perfectly refined gentleman.
    She was distilling her image of Charlie as a
civilized human being when a commotion broke out at the front flap
of the tent. She heard someone shouting, then heard a woman scream,
and turned to see what was happening.
    Charlie turned, too. Martin, who, Amy
realized, had been sitting as still as a stone and watching Charlie
and her banter back and forth, stood, shaded his eyes, and stared
in the direction of the ruckus. Amy heard him mutter under his
breath, but couldn’t make out what he said, which was probably just
as well. Although Martin Tafft would never, she felt sure, sink so
low as to curse in a room full of people, she could clearly see
that he was upset.
    With growing uneasiness, she asked, “What is
it, Mr. Tafft?”
    Charlie, too, seemed concerned, and glanced
at Martin sharply. “Need any help, Martin?”
    “I’m not sure,” Martin said. He extricated
himself from his chair, skirted their table, and headed like a bee
to its hive toward the front of the tent.
    Amy watched, apprehensive. “I hope nothing’s
the matter.”
    “Yeah,” said Charlie. “Me, too.” He rose and,
because of his height, didn’t have as much trouble as Martin had in
discerning the cause of the commotion. He frowned. “Hellfire.”
    Amy, alarmed in earnest now, jumped from her
chair. “Oh, Mr. Fox, what is it?”
    “Some drunk, it looks like form here.”
    “Oh.” Some drunk? Amy’s nose wrinkled.
    “Yeah. Looks to be carrying on something
fearful.”
    “How disgusting.”
    She shouldn’t have said that; she could tell
as soon as she noticed the expression on Charlie’s face. “Well, it
is,” she averred with some spirit. “I think it’s deplorable for men
to drink themselves senseless and then cause problems for
others.”
    Shrugging, Charlie said, “I reckon you’re
right.”
    He didn’t sound as if he believed it. Amy
felt considerably deflated and said darkly, “One of the people in
this picture is a man who drinks too much. He spent a month at my
uncle’s health spa, but I don’t believe he profited from the
experience.” She sniffed her disapproval.
    “That so?” Still watching the melee, his eyes
thinned for better vision, Charlie said, “Would that be Mr. Horace
Huxtable, by any chance? The man who