Page 35 of The Prospector's Only Prospect
“Buster, Ma’am. And no. I can write my own letters, but I wondered if you’d give me a trim?”
Marigold sat taller, smile falling away. She’d already been teased about the bear and Virgil’s haircut tonight. She was ready to make a sharp remark about not wishing to be the butt of everyone’s jokes, but Buster was serious. He removed his hat to show her the matted knots that had formed in his fringe of fine gray hair.
“I can’t get a comb through it.” He frowned with distress.
“I’m so sorry, Buster. I didn’t bring any scissors.” She showed her empty hands.
“I asked Yeller if I could borrow these. I sharpened them myself.” He set a pair of thin-bladed scissors on the table next to her bottle of ink. “I’ll go wet my head.”
Marigold wasn’t given an opportunity to decline. Buster went out to the pump and came back with his hair and beard dripping.
When he returned, he seated himself on a bench beside her, expression patient.
“What’s going on here?” someone asked as Marigold rose and picked up the scissors.
She hesitated, not realizing she was looking for Virgil until she met his gaze across the cookhouse. If he had seemed to relish her becoming a spectacle, she would have refused and gone home, but he quirked his mouth with wry amusement.You’re standing in it now.
She bit her lip, trying to think how to rescue herself.
“I’m not sure I should charge you,” she confided to Buster. “I’m not very good.”
“You can’t make it worse,” someone drawled nearby.
“Have you seen Virgil?” someone else asked. “She definitely can.”
Snickers followed. An audience was gathering.Oh no.
“Iwillcharge for providing entertainment, though,” Marigold decided, sending a warning look around at the men. “Shall we send your hat around, Buster? Split the takings?”
It was a bluff, but Buster craned his head back to see her.
“Yes, ma’am. If someone wants to say I’m so bald there’s nothing for you to cut, he can ante a half-dime for the privilege.”
“Hear that, gentlemen? We will not be made a mockery,” Marigold informed them.
“These men just got paid, Marigold.” Owen flipped Buster’s hat and threw a coin into it. “I’m going to put my dime in, purely out of appreciation for what a greenhorn move that was on your part.”
“Oh, for—” She was definitely standing in it. Virgil had his tongue tucked firmly in his cheek. She resolved to do her very best and tried to block out the comments as she got to snipping.
“He’s gonna be too embarrassed to go to town after this.”
“Virgil oughta be.”
“That’s his plan. Get us too ugly to leave. Keep us here ’til it grows out.”
“Was that his ear? They grow back, don’t they?”
“Is it supposed to bleed that much?”
No blood was shed and Buster’s ears were intact when she finished, but Marigold vowed,Never again.
Two more men sat down, both with wet heads.Damn it.
If she hadn’t heard more dimes going into the pot, she might have refused. As it was, between barbering and letter writing, she came away with nearly a dollar.
More importantly, even though they had been merciless, she came away feeling less intimidated by these hard-living men. Outside of that ribbing, they were always polite to her, calling her Missus Davis even though they didn’t fuss with last names here.
Over the next days, they also began giving her things when she least expected it. The day after she had cut his hair, one young man gave her a wooden hand mirror. She was thrilled to have it, but he refused to take any payment for it.
