No Job for a Lady Read Online Free

dead for hundreds of years? Drunken talk that made no sense.
    I wish my mother was here so I could talk this out with her. I need her common sense, for I know my imaginative and suspicious mind will weave a tale that will have little connection to reality.
    I shake my head. I should bang it on the wall to get some sense into it, because I need to be up early and fresh. Tomorrow I am boarding the train for Mexico City and a grand adventure! I have to get to sleep.
    Rats! All my logic is still not working, for I can’t stop tossing and turning.
    Frustrated, I get out of bed and go to the window. Maybe some fresh air will clear my mind of all this foolishness.
    I’m about to raise the window, when I see a man standing below the gas-lit lamp on the street below, smoking a cigarette. He’s wearing a white Stetson and—I’ll be—he has a six-shooter strapped low on his leg. His left leg.
    I’m sure he’s looking up at my window, and I step aside so I can sneak a peek out.
    Okay … and what does this mean? What’s he doing out there?
    I carefully peek back out again.
    Yes—he is definitely there looking up at my window.
    He takes a step forward and I jerk my head back in and press my body against the wall, my heart pounding.
    Did he see me watching him?
    “Get ahold of yourself, Nellie,” I tell myself in a strong voice to calm my nerves. It’s dark in my room, so I wouldn’t have been silhouetted and easy to spot. Besides, what could he do even if he knew I had spotted him? I’m up here. He’s down there. I’m safe.
    I peek out again. He’s still there, but now he’s leaning against the lamppost.
    I slip back into my place of complete darkness and try to take deep breaths to relax and think. Be logical. Think. Maybe he is waiting for someone. One of the other guests? When I signed the register, there were three names—all male. Good Lord, he might be staying here, because it might be the same three men who came out of the saloon.
    No, that doesn’t work. The man who rented me the room would have recognized them back in front of the saloon.
    So why’s the young cowboy, gunslinger, whatever he is, out there? A coincidence? Why not? I’m just being silly and paranoid.
    I slowly look back out.
    He’s gone, yet the hairs on the back of my neck are still standing straight up. I lean back and bang my head against the wall. Darn it! I gave myself a good scare. And it all started because I stuck my nose into something.
    I crawl back into bed. The morning can’t come soon enough.
    Tomorrow I’ll board the train for Mexico City and leave behind the jabbering drunk and whatever schemes these El Paso cowboys have under their hats.
    “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” as my mother would say.

 
    3
     
 
    There were no drunks or cowboys outside the boardinghouse when I scurried out the next morning. I had, in fact, looked the moment I jumped out of bed.
    Wanting to be the first in line to ensure getting a sleeper berth and knowing the reputation of Mexican trains for not watching the clock, I had a boardinghouse bowl of thin gruel boiled in water rather than sweet milk, then got myself to the southbound tracks an hour before I was scheduled to depart.
    As I approach the ticket counter, I can’t believe my eyes. There is already a line.
    “But it’s not even eight A.M. How can this be?”
    “Do you always talk to yourself?”
    I turn, to find the young gentleman who had asked me out to dinner last night in a rude manner.
    “You again.”
    “Good morning to you, too.” He tips his hat.
    “I, uh, good morning.” It comes out more reluctantly than I intend it to because a cat’s got my tongue, again. I lied to him last night about traveling with my mother and now I will be caught.
    “No need to explain. I know I have this charming effect on women.”
    “ Charming isn’t the word I was looking for.”
    “Ouch—you don’t mince words. Well, not to worry, I’ve been told it’s a big train. Hopefully, this