sat there stunned, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gasps. By its size and coloring it was a raccoon. She hoped it was a raccoon. She shivered, hoping it wasn’t a groundhog or badger or some other dirty animal. Did those even exist in this part of the country?
Nothing like this ever happened in Boston! She dragged in a deep breath, trying to calm her racing pulse when suddenly her eyes started to burn. She was frustrated and discouraged at the same time. She didn’t like feeling helpless...frightened. And that’s just how the scare had made her feel.
Shakily, she gathered her wits about her and rose to her feet. She dusted herself off, straightening her coat.
How had the raccoon trapped itself in the shed?
Stepping up to the shed, she worked the latch on the door. She had heard that raccoons were smart, but were they smart enough to work this latch and open the door in order to enter on their own? Even then, the latch was fairly high off the ground. And with no food, nothing to bait it, why enter? It didn’t seem likely.
Unless, someone had put it there.
The image of Billy Odom’s angry glance before heading to the stream filled her mind. Was this his way of getting back at her for interfering with the fight? Maybe he had thought she slighted him when she sent him to the creek and didn’t require Duncan to go too. She had just wanted them to stay separated until their tempers cooled.
Perhaps it was simply a prank to garner excitement. After ten weeks, the newness of coming to school had waned for most of the children. With Christmas coming, it was much more difficult to keep their attentions. Likely, teasing the teacher was considered fair play about now.
But not fair at all by her book. She didn’t like this type of teasing. She didn’t care to be startled out of her wits.
Inside the shed a few remaining logs were strewn over the floor from the short, stacked pile. Either the raccoon had done that in its unsuccessful attempt to escape, or whoever put the animal inside had. Either way, she would soon need more wood. She made a mental note of the fact and picked up two small logs to take into the school. Still a bit wobbly and shaken, she shut the door and latched it securely.
Inside the school, she prepared the stove for lighting in the morning. Then, because of her scattered thoughts of raccoons and badgers, she pulled out her chair and climbed up onto her desk, searching the crux of the crossbeam with her hand. After a moment of patting along the beam, she touched on the box that held her father’s gun. She breathed a sigh of relief. Still there. It was good to know she and the children had protection but she hoped none of them ever learned of its hiding place.
And she hoped she never had reason to use it.
Sheriff Parker always had a gun strapped down at his hip. Had he had reason to use his in his position here in Clear Springs? The man’s holster and weapon fit to his hips like it was a part of him. He would look odd without it. She shuddered. Was it the thought of him firing it from a low, crouched stance? His jaw tight and his eyes squinting the way she’d seen it on the cover of dime novels? Or was it the image of that weapon riding low and casual on such a trim, broad-shouldered form that made her extra aware of him as a man and stole her breath?
He could be waiting outside right now. He had said he would return to escort Tara home. Gemma climbed down from her perch. She picked up her empty lunch pail and stepped outside. There was no sign of him in the schoolyard. Perhaps something had come up. Perhaps he’d seen Billy arrive with the mule. Whatever his reason for not showing himself to her, she was glad of it.
After making sure to lock the door behind her with her skeleton key, she headed to town.
* * *
Molly Birdwell’s lips twitched at the end of Gemma’s tale of the fight at school and then the raccoon. She slipped the supper dishes into the tub of warm water and soap and began to wash them. “Boys can be mischievous. I wouldn’t put it past my two young’uns to do something like that once upon a time.”
The woman hummed as she washed. Molly was broad in her hips and had a round face topped with fluffy white hair that reminded Gemma of a sweet Mrs. Claus. The woman’s husband had passed on four years back and she’d opened up her house to boarders to make ends meet. Gemma also suspected, with as much as the woman liked to talk and bake, that she enjoyed having company.
“Are you saying I should have handled it differently? That it’s a case of boys will be boys?”
“Oh, I ain’t saying that at all. Their pa would have walloped my boys good if he’d heard tell of them causing a ruckus at school. No—you did the right thing there. You couldn’t let them keep a-fightin’.”
Gemma rose from the table and grabbed a cloth to dry the dishes. She valued Molly’s advice. The woman had been through good times and rough times and had a commonsense approach to life that reassured Gemma.
Molly eyed her skeptically. “You ain’t never run into a situation like that?”
Gemma shook her head. “I didn’t fight with my tutors.” Just the thought of stern Mr. Allen rolling in the dirt in a bout of fisticuffs produced an unexpected giggle. She slapped her hand over her mouth.
Molly chuckled. “No...guess you wouldn’t, at that.”
“And what about the raccoon?”
“Now, that you can’t let them git away with. They’ll only try something worse next time.”
Next time? Gemma swallowed. “What do you mean...worse?”
“Oh, likely you got nothing to worry about. They was just trying to get a rise from you. ’Course, if it was mean-spirited, that’s another thing entirely.”
It could have been mean-spirited. She hadn’t gotten on well with Duncan or Billy for the past few weeks. Maybe she was pushing them too hard. They both had so much potential and she had encouraged their competition, hoping it would spur them even further in their studies. She hadn’t counted on it being quite so adversarial as an out-and-out fight.
“Then you don’t think the raccoon could have found its own way into the shed and the door just happened to slam shut?” she asked hopefully. She really didn’t want it to be because of a student.
Molly shrugged and kept right on washing. “Guess you’ll have to talk to your class and figure that out.”
“Molly, they are not going to confess to something like this. No one would.”
“No, but you might be able to tell something from the way one of the kids acts. And though I don’t hold with squealin’ on your neighbor, one of those children might feel a need to tell on his classmate.”
Gemma contemplated the woman’s attitude and wondered if she would ever feel that self-assured. An education in Boston sure didn’t translate to real life in the back country. People here set more stock on common sense and survival than they did on head knowledge.
“I learned one thing from today. I’d better make sure the shed has a way to open it from the inside. I wouldn’t want one of my students to get trapped in there like the raccoon.”
Molly nodded. “That’d be hard on a young’un for sure.”
“Let alone trying to explain to the school board
