The Temptress (Montgomery/Taggert 8)

“Betty didn’t exactly pursue Tynan…. Maybe she did go to the saloon but I’m sure he enticed her.”

“Billy started seeing a girl who was visiting from Seattle, but I’m sure it would have blown over if that Tynan hadn’t interfered.”

“Tynan killed Billy, we know that,” one woman insisted.

Chris put an apple pie in place. “Billy Dickerson started seeing another girl. Betty started pursuing Tynan, then Mr. Dickerson went after Betty’s father and—”

“No!” one of the women said, then stopped.

Another woman leaned forward. “Betty was in the family way and Billy wouldn’t marry her.”

“Ah,” Chris said. “So Tynan stepped in to help a young girl get the man who was refusing to marry her. And he killed this young man? Tynan must have loved Betty to do something like that for her.”

The women began shifting the food on the table.

“Betty only loved Billy and after his death she went back east somewhere.”

“But I thought she and Tynan were so in love that he killed a man for her,” Chris asked, wide-eyed.

The women didn’t say anything for a while.

“I do believe my son is pestering your young man,” a woman said, looking toward the river.

Four young boys were encircling Tynan, looking up at him with eager faces.

“He won’t…do anything, will he?” a woman asked hesitantly.

“No,” Chris said with confidence. “He is a very good man. Now, shall we call all our good men to the table?”

The men were more tolerant than the women and they didn’t seem to care one way or another that Tynan had been in and out of jail. They were more interested in corn on the cob and fried chicken.

Rory Sayers tried his best to make Tynan feel out of place.

“Better than prison food, isn’t it, old man?” Rory asked, sitting across from Ty. “But then, over the years you must’ve gotten used to it.”

As Rory reached for a piece of chicken, a woman, the one whose son had been talking to Ty, smacked Rory’s hand sharply with a wooden spoon. Everyone at that end of the table looked up at her as the woman’s face turned red.

“I can’t teach the children not to reach if the adults do,” she said at last, then looked up at Chris who was smiling broadly at her. The woman also smiled. “More beans, Mr. Tynan?” she asked sweetly.

“Why, yes, please,” Tynan said, looking at the woman in surprise.

“Tell us what it’s like to take a man’s life,” Rory said as the woman was heaping beans on Tynan’s plate.

At that moment, one of the other women overturned a cup of coffee into Rory’s lap. As Rory jumped up, one of the men began to laugh.

“Boy, you get married and you’ll learn that women have ways of fightin’ that cause you to lose the war before you even know it’s been declared.”

Another man began to laugh and before long, they’d all joined in. Tynan sat there grinning.

“Sit down, boy,” someone called to Rory. “You’ll dry. Martha, give Sayers some of that cherry cake of yours. That’ll make him forget everything else, even pretty little blondes.”

Chris became very interested in the inside of a pitcher of milk but she could feel her ears growing warm.

An hour later the food was packed away, the younger children were being put to sleep under shade trees, the adults were gathering in groups and the young ones with the energy were laughing and planning ways to be on their own.

“Will you come with us?” a pretty, dark-eyed girl asked Chris. “We’re going canoeing on the river. It’ll be a lot of fun.”

“We’d love to,” she said, holding onto Tynan’s arm.