“Colors like home,” she said when I glanced at her.
The homesick in her eyes made me wonder if I could live in India. And it made me think maybe I’d been right to pick those bright, bright colors for her quilt. I know I’d meant to do the curtains first … but the ring pattern was more fun, anyway.
Priya’d need a coat, I reckoned, and two pair of trousers. A pair of boots that could stand up to the wet. Shirts. There was a good wool check in black and yellow that I liked and she liked, too. We smiled over it conspiratorially: we’d both seen the dime-novel covers with Tombstone cowboys wearing shirts of that stuff. She liked a bright pink gingham with little green sprigs, too, which was more ladylike than I would of taken for her. I decided I could make a shirtwaist of it, for fancy, and there was no law saying she couldn’t wear a woman’s shirtwaist with men’s pants.
Actually, there was a law saying so, but the same law said she couldn’t wear trousers at all — and Miss Francina couldn’t wear sixteen yards of crinoline and skirting. I didn’t see it as about to slow down either one of ’em.
The boots were harder, but in the third shop we found a pair ready-made that were narrow enough for her. They was boy’s boots, for walking, not for riding, in dark blue leather. They cost about the earth, but I didn’t let her find that out. I just paid while she still had ’em on her feet and was admiring. She wore ’em out of the shop. She seemed to have given up protesting.
Crispin winked at me conspiratorially while I handed him loaded baskets and my old pair of boots Priya’d given me back, along with four out of six socks. I wasn’t getting nothing past Crispin. But then, he knows pretty well that I feel exactly the way about women he don’t, and I didn’t think most anybody could have missed me mooning over Priya. Except possibly Priya. Who was pretty and clever and a wit … about everything except me being falling-down in love with her, apparently.
We was only halfway down the block and hadn’t yet found the right wool for trousers when she stopped stock still on the boards and stared. I followed her line of sight, and I ain’t ashamed to say I cussed as well as staring. There on the wall beside a barbershop and dentist’s was a big printed placard in two colors of ink, advertising the mayoral candidacy of Mr. Peter Bantle, Democrat and local businessman.
I liked to have turned my head and spat, but I remembered at the last minute that I was out on the street and ought to comport myself as a lady. Cussing aside, but it was too late to rein that wagon.
Crispin, coming up behind us, didn’t seem too much more pleased. He lifted a sagging basket out of Priya’s shocked hand, though, and made a little production of redistributing his loads. I thought it was probably intended to hide whatever he happened to be thinking.
“Can he do that?” Priya asked, waving her now-freed hand at the sign.
“He can’t win,” I said. I looked at Crispin, and I knowed my face was begging for him to offer an opinion backing mine. He made an attempt at it, but I could tell the encouraging expression was spackled on. “Madame pays more in taxes than he does. Half the city council are her customers. She…”
“Greases the right palms?” Priya asked, grinning wickedly.
“So to speak.” I laughed softly. Even in my desperate denial, I felt better for her humor.
But then her face fell. “Bantle can win.”
I glanced at her for an explanation. No explanation was forthcoming. Just tight lips and a curt, quick shake of her head.
Crispin said, “There’s them as would give Bantle money. Just to spite Madame. Or because they think it’d be good to have the mayor owe them. Or for half a dozen other reasons. Who’s running for the Republicans? Is it going to be Mr. Stone again?”
It was a good question, and I wished I’d thought of it. The Republicans were the party of President Hayes, and I knowed a lot of people didn’t like him because of the way he’d been elected. But they were also the party of President Lincoln, who people still talked about in hushed tones as a martyr. Of course, here in the Washington Territory we couldn’t vote for President and being a woman and under twenty-one, I couldn’t vote at all.
I didn’t know a lot about politics. But I did know that even just within the confines of Rapid City, we elected a lot of Republicans. “He can’t win,” I said. “He’s a Democrat.” A sick thought came up in me like water up a drilled well. “He’s just doing this to get back at Madame.”
Priya’s brows bunched up over her nose, shading those deep-textured eyes. “How does this … get him back at Madame?”
I winced and looked at Crispin. He was studying on rearranging those baskets, still. None of us was supposed to know about Mayor Stone and Pollywog. If my mouth was a mare, I’d put her on a curb bit.
Priya was just looking at me like it was a matter of life and death that she understand what I was talking about. And I couldn’t tell her. “Just,” I said, “the city council owes her favors. Just what we said before.”
“Ah,” she said. She thought about it for a few seconds and looked satisfied, like she’d figured something out. Priya’s not just smart as a whip. I bet she got no end of practice reading between the lines, working for Peter goddamn Bantle.
“Anyway,” I said, hoping to change the subject without letting on that I was changing the subject. “He can’t win.”
“He can win if nobody runs against him,” Priya said.
“That’ll never happen!” I said. “Mayor Stone would never give up without a fight, even if nobody else was running!”
Priya cocked her head at me, her braid falling over one shoulder. “No doubt,” she said, “it shall be as you say.”
* * *
But she was right, of course. We tracked down a fresh hot copy of the Rapid City Journal Miner Republican from a newsboy crying the afternoon edition in the street. He looked to be about eight years old, and I slipped him a silver quarter, which was exactly double the price of the paper. But newsboys paid for their own papers and most of them were orphans, like me — or had homes such as you wouldn’t send a child back to under any circumstance.
We gathered around that rag and skimmed past stories about a gold ship sunk coming back from Anchorage and a splintercat that had done some damage up at a logging camp near Shasta. We quickly discovered that not only was Priya absolutely correct — Bantle was running unopposed — but there also was a full column of editorials discussing how Peter Bantle was undoubtedly the man for the job. In sickening and laudatory detail. And wishing Mayor Stone well in his retirement.
It weren’t raining, for a mystery. But the day felt pretty dark to all of us just then, notwithstanding.
I crumpled the paper in my fist, more or less by accident, and hastened to smooth it out again. “How did you know?” I demanded of Priya.
She gave me the bleakest look imaginable. “I know Bantle. He’s got his ways.”
Our previous merry mood was shaken, and I hoped to recapture it. We were by that time down by the opera house, which was about the grandest building in town. It was dark green with white and brick-red trim, all gussied and hung with elaborate jigsaw work in the English style, and it was about as big as three banks put together. It was dark on a Monday afternoon, but I wandered over to look at the bills anyway.