Josie would rather die than resort to such generic journalism, but if things didn’t change soon, she might not have a choice. If she had to run the paper by herself, she wouldn’t have time to do much in the way of news gathering. Writing, editing, selling advertisements, handling subscriptions, and distribution took up most of the time. Without Hank setting type, she would be lost.

  Sighing, she tossed her competitor’s paper aside.

  Mr. Whiskers jumped up on the desk and batted at her gold locket with his paw. The cat couldn’t resist shiny objects. She lifted him by his middle and set him down on the floor. The tom stalked away with an indignant meow, tail in the air like a flagpole.

  “Yes, I quite agree,” she called after him. “Something’s got to be done about that annoying Mr. Wade.”

  ***

  During the next three weeks, things went from bad to worse.

  Josie offered deep discounts on advertisements and ran specials on subscriptions. The few advertisers and subscribers she landed were nowhere near enough to pay the mortgage, let alone any other expenses. She lowered the print run and used cheaper paper, but with so little money coming in, cutting costs hardly made a dent.

  There was only more thing left to do. It was the thing she most dreaded, but it had to be done.

  She arrived at the office that Friday morning in April to find Hank busy typesetting a handbill for the women’s suffrage march. Josie had agreed not to charge for the handbills as a favor to her sister Amanda.

  Already people were lined up across the street to purchase her competitor’s newspaper, while the stack outside her building remained untouched.

  Bracing herself, she closed the door and removed her straw bonnet. She had twisted and turned all night thinking about this moment, but there was no other way.

  Like the cat, Mr. Whiskers, Hank had come with the paper, and that had been a very good thing. A veteran of that awful war, he’d suffered injuries during the second battle of Sabine Pass, including a head wound that left him with a speech impediment. After the war, he fell on hard times.

  Before the railroad came to town, goods were transported by way of prairie schooners drawn by twelve or more Mexican mules. A teamster had spotted Hank going through trash and taken pity on him. He brought him to Two-Time and introduced him to his brother-in-law, who at that time owned the Gazette. Hank was put to work hawking newspapers and soon advanced to compositor. He was a hard worker, and Josie valued him both as a friend and employee.

  “Hank, we need to talk.”

  He looked up from beneath the green celluloid visor of his cap. He was only in his early forties but looked older, and it wasn’t because of his spotted gray beard. War and a hard-scrabble life had aged him beyond his years, giving him a hollow-cheeked look that stayed with him even during better times.

  “Let me sinish this fentence” he said in his slow way. He reached into the lower case for a metal letter and placed it into the composing stick.

  His war injuries sometimes caused him to swap the consonants of words, usually when he was tired or under pressure. The fact that he was scrambling words now indicated he sensed something afoot.

  As a typesetter, his grammar and spelling skills were impeccable—an oddity considering his verbal skills were less than stellar. With her smaller hands, she could set the type faster, but never more accurately. She hated having to let him go, but it wasn’t fair to keep him when she wasn’t sure how long she could afford his salary.

  She also dreaded the thought of having to run the paper without him.

  While she waited, she checked the mail. The invitation to subscribe to the Lone Star Press set her teeth on edge, and she promptly tossed it into the wastebasket. The announcement of a new photographer in town she kept.

  After a few minutes, Hank pushed his chair away from his workbench and spun around to face her. Hazel eyes gazed at her through wire-rim spectacles. The war injuries had left him deaf in his left ear, which is why he approached conversations with his head slightly turned so that his good ear faced the speaker.

  “Looks like you’re in a tull-bossing mood,” he said.

  She sat on the edge of her desk and folded her arms across her chest. There was only one thing she would like to toss, and it wasn’t a bull. It was that annoying publisher across the street!

  Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. “As you know, we’ve had some unexpected problems of late. I’m afraid I underestimated the impact of the competition.”

  “It’s not just the competition,” he said. “The town has become as dull as tarnished silver.” The eyes behind his spectacles gazed past her as if looking back in time. “I remember the good ol’ days when your father carried on that feud with the Farrell fellow. Boy, did we ever get some great headlines out of that!”

  Josie sighed. “Don’t remind me.” The battling jewelers had each insisted they alone had the right time. The feud divided the town into two time zones, which is how the name Two-Time originated.

  “Then there was the time your sister Meg was left at the altar and sued her wayward groom for breach of promise.” Hank slapped his thigh and chuckled, his earlier nervousness forgotten. “’Course, that happened before you took over the paper. But there was no topping those headlines. And just when things started getting dull again, your other sister, Amanda, became sheriff.” This time he gave a hearty laugh before continuing. “Hardly a day went by when somebody didn’t rush in the office yelling, ‘Stop the presses.’ We couldn’t fit all her shenanigans into a single edition and had to keep bringing out extras.”

  He frowned with a shake of his head. “It was a sad day when your sister finally settled down and got married. Things just haven’t been the same since. Now we have no crime to speak of. No lady sheriff to criticize. No raging feuds to report. If you ask me, the town has sunk into morbid quietude, and that’s death to us daily chroniclers.”

  Knowing that her family had provided most of the journalistic fodder contributing to the paper’s prior success didn’t make Josie feel any better. “‘Morbid quietude,’ as you call it, doesn’t seem to be hurting Mr. Wade.”

  Hank rolled his eyes. “Wade could turn growing grass into a provocative headline.”

  “That insipid piece . . .” She sighed.

  Recalling why she’d initiated this talk—which wasn’t to discuss Mr. Wade—she moistened her lips. The words forming in her mouth felt like acid.

  “Hank, your friendship means the world to me. I just want you to know that. I couldn’t have done any of this without your help.

  He pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Oh, boy, this sure don’t gound sood.”

  She clutched her locket and swallowed hard. “I’m afraid I have to let you go at the

  end of the month.” Her voice broke, forcing her to clear her throat before continuing. “I wanted you to know in advance so you could make other arrangements.”

  His eyebrows inched upward. “You’re firing me?”

  “No, no, I’m not firing you. I’m . . .” She searched for a better way of saying it, but nothing came to mind. “It’s a financial decision and has nothing to do with your work. You’re an excellent employee, and I hope we can still be friends.” She regretted not being able to pay him his true worth. “But unless things change . . .”

  He sighed in resignation, and his shoulders slumped. “You’re firing me.”

  She grimaced. She’d known doing business in a man’s world wouldn’t be easy, but never had she imagined anything as difficult as this.

  “I can pay you till the end of the month, but after that . . .” She didn’t want to give him false hope. “The last of our long-time clients has abandoned—um—left. Without advertisers . . .” She swallowed hard and forced herself to continue. “I’m sorry, Hank. I don’t know what else to do. Maybe . . . Maybe Mr. Wade will hire you.”

  The thought of Hank working for her competitor cut her to the quick, but realistically, that might be his only chance for employment. “I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.” That was the least she could do.

  Hank clamped his lips together in a tight line and didn’t say a word. Turning back to his desk, he continued setting type as if no conversation had taken place. He pulled capital letters from the upper-type case and smaller letters from the lower as smoothly as a pianist playing a scale.

  Josie didn’t think she could feel any worse. She plopped down on her chair and, elbows on the desk, held her head in her hands. Papa had warned her against sinking all her savings into the newspaper, but at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. The town had been growing in leaps and bounds, and the possibilities seemed endless. By now subscriptions should have increased ten-fold, if not more. Never had it occurred to her that someone could come to town and take away everything she had worked so hard to achieve.

  From a distance came the sound of the bell at Papa’s clock shop. At one time the bell had been used to announce not only the time but milestones in peoples’ lives. Through the years, the bell had rung out news of marriages, births, and deaths. It rang out the arrival of soldiers returning from war. It rang for those who didn’t.

  Once the town gained its own newspaper, it had no longer been necessary to ring the bell except to announce the time. And since the adoption of standard time, almost everyone had a watch or accurate timepiece anyway. There was now no need to ring the bell at all, but Papa persisted. He said his hourly chimes were the glue that held the town together.

  Josie felt the same about her newspaper. The birth of every child, the union of every couple, the loss of every family member, was announced in print with loving care. When little Johnny Shaver died of smallpox, the article she’d written had moved the community to rally around his grief-stricken parents. After Mrs. Murray’s husband passed away unexpectedly, leaving her with six children to feed, Josie had used the Gazette to ask for donations. Money had poured in, along with offers of housing.

  Under her management, she had continued the long and noble tradition of making the Two-Time Gazette the very heart and soul of the town. The thought of losing it nearly crushed her.

  The thought of losing Hank was almost worse.

  Chapter 5

  Reverend Wellmaker asked ushers to pass apples out to the congregation as he preached about Adam and Eve. He said the fruit was not to be eaten. Instead, it was to be kept as a reminder to obey God’s orders. The service was interrupted when Mrs. Brubaker complained that she couldn’t hear the sermon for all the munching. —Two-Time Gazette

  The following Wednesday morning Josie caught a whiff of sickly strong perfume even before she entered the office. Surprised to find the madam of the house of ill repute, Miss Bubbles, waiting for her, Josie glanced at Hank, who shrugged and went back to setting type.

  Nodding politely, Josie took her seat and folded her hands upon her desk. “Miss Bubbles, what can I do for you?”

  Seated upon a ladder-back chair, Miss Bubbles picked an imaginary piece of lint off her purple satin skirt and fixed Josie with a studied look. Her purple eyelids and stained red cheeks emphasized rather than hid her forty-plus years. Hair the color of carrots was swept beneath a tall, feathered hat. With slow, measured movements she peeled off a purple glove and laid it across her lap, her gaze never leaving Josie’s face.

  “I wish to place an advertisement.”

  Josie hesitated. As desperate as she was for income, she drew the line at promoting certain endeavors. She cleared her throat and carefully chose her words. “I would like to accommodate you but . . . this is a family paper.” At the moment, it wasn’t anyone’s newspaper, but that was a different story. “Perhaps the Lone Star Press . . . ?”

  Miss Bubbles wrinkled her nose. “Mr. Wade informed me he has no more advertising space left, and I refuse to be put on a waiting list.”

  Josie gritted her teeth. A waiting list for advertisers? Whoever’d heard of such a thing? She was just about to cite her policy regarding family-appropriate material when the woman’s painted face seemed to crumble like crushed paper.

  “Please.” Inhaling loudly, Miss Bubbles dabbed at the corner of her watery eyes with a lace handkerchief. “I hoped that a woman would be more . . . sympathetic and understanding. I need your help.”

  Josie didn’t know what to say. This sounded more serious than the simple placement of an ad. “My help how?”

  “As you may have heard, one of our girls met with foul play. She went by the name of Miss Ruby.”

  The crime had occurred just before Josie returned from Arizona, but she vaguely remembered hearing that the prostitute had been found strangled in her bed. Obviously, the young woman’s death had deeply affected Miss Bubbles. And who could blame her?

  “That must have been a very difficult time for you,” Josie said.

  “Yes, it was. Some people said it was no more than she deserved.”

  Josie drew in her breath. How could people be so cruel? “No one deserves to die like that.”

  Miss Bubbles dabbed at the black streaks running down her cheeks. “I talked to Sheriff Hobson, and he didn’t offer much hope of finding the killer.” She pursed her painted lips. “He said he’d followed every lead, but since the crime occurred a year ago, the trail is now cold.”

  “He’s very good at what he does.”

  Josie wasn’t just saying that because Scooter was a friend. Since taking over as sheriff, he’d done an excellent job of keeping crime down. Some said too good. In his early twenties, he was one of the youngest and most successful sheriffs Two-Time had ever had. Enthusiastic to a fault, he kept crime down, but some felt the cost was too high. Scooter saw nothing wrong in jailing some of the town’s most distinguished citizens, including the pastor and mayor, for minor offenses. Just as annoying, shops and saloons were often forced to stay closed while their owners cooled their heels behind bars.

  Things had gotten so bad at one point that the town council passed a law that no more than three businessmen or council members could be arrested on any given day. It was the only way to keep the town running smoothly.

  “I’m sure he’s doing everything he can.”

  “Perhaps.” Miss Bubbles reached into her purse and drew out a photograph. She laid it on the desk.

  Josie picked up the photograph and studied it. Miss Ruby looked about eighteen or nineteen at the time the picture had been taken. She had a pretty, round face, large expressive eyes, and light-colored hair that fell to her shoulders in a cascade of ringlets. She wore pearl earbobs, and a cameo necklace adorned her pale, swanlike neck.

  “She was beautiful,” Josie said.

  “Yes, she was.” Miss Bubbles sniffed and her blue-lidded gaze sharpened. “Next week will be a year since—” She swallowed hard. “To mark the occasion, I’m offering an award for any information leading to the identity and arrest of the killer.” The madam’s chest heaved. “The reward is for a thousand dollars.”

  Josie laid the photograph carefully on her desk and took a breath. The average wanted poster offered only fifty to five hundred dollars for criminals, with Jesse James being the exception. The reward for his capture, dead or alive, had been set at an astounding five grand, though only a small portion of the money went to Jesse’s killer.

  “That’s quite generous of you,” she said after a pause.

  Miss Bubbles looked hopeful. “So, then, you’ll run it in the newspaper?”

  Josie nodded. “Yes, of course.” No doubt some people would object and might even drop their subscriptions, if they hadn’t already. But it seemed like the right thing to do.

  Miss Bubbles looked dubious, or at least as dubious as she could look beneath her thick face paint. “I sense your hesitation.”

  Not wanting the woman to think she was being judgmental, Josie hastened to explain, “I was just trying to decide how best to position the advertisement. I don’t generally place ads above the fold, but I’ll make an exception in your case.”

  “Above the fold?”

  “Yes, like this.” Josie held up a newspaper folded to reveal the headline. “This is the first part a reader sees.”

  Her real concern was not placement but distribution and readership. She owed it to her advertisers to give them as much exposure as possible.

  “Yes, I believe above the fold will do quite nicely.” Miss Bubbles slid a sheet of floral stationery across the desk. She’d written out what she wanted the advertisement to say in ornate Spencerian script and had included all pertinent information.

  After Miss Bubbles had signed an agreement, paid, and left, Josie considered ways to get the paper into as many hands as possible. But how? She hated the thought of having to give away the paper for free, but if there was no other way . . .

  Outside, a man carrying a bucket of paste caught her attention. She watched as he glued a handbill on a post announcing that a traveling circus was coming to town. A slow smile curved her mouth. Maybe there was more than one way to beat Mr. Wade at his game.

  ***

  Josie had just finished slapping the last of the handbills on a post in front of the office of the Lone Star Press when the door swung open and out stepped the paper’s publisher, Mr. Wade.

  As usual, his presence caused an inner turmoil, which she hid behind an outer calm.

  Dressed more casually than usual, he was hatless, and a strand of brown hair fell across his forehead. His rolled-up sleeves were captured by red garters, and a pencil stuck out of his shirt pocket. He looked nothing like the other newspaper publishers she’d known, whose flabby jowls and pasty complexions had reflected long hours spent in saloons or behind desks. Many were hard drinkers and were hardly seen without cigarettes or cigars dangling from their mouths.