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D aisy wiped her brow on the hem of her apron and stared at the roomful of loaded crates. “How did we accumulate so much stuff in such a short time?”

“With one trip to the wagon yard,” Lily reminded her. “We haven’t bought a single thing since then. It came to us in two wagons. Think we can take it away in only that many?”

Daisy waved an arm to take in the whole room.

“All this only had to come less than a quarter of a mile. Leaving is a different matter. We will have to travel several miles over rough ground. We’ll have to pack things a lot differently than merely piling it up.

We’ll need Beulah’s and Elijah’s help, too. ”

“Maybe the trip will cure you of wanting to join a wagon train and light out on an adventure,” Lily teased.

“Or make me more determined,” Daisy shot back. “But will you-all want to come back to town once a month for the women’s auxiliary meeting? There’s men in town that wouldn’t want their women to associate with us.”

“Can we come to the meetings, too?” Frannie asked.

“Of course you can,” Beulah told her. “We stood together at the camp, and we will do the same here in town.”

“I plan to come back,” Lily answered. “That will be a good time to take whatever we create to Beulah’s store and to keep the ladies encouraged.”

“Think they’ll even come around if they know we are there?” Just asking the question put a lump in Daisy’s throat.

Lily went over to the broken window and looked out. “Here comes the judge—and the way he’s strutting, it looks like he’s on a mission.”

Frannie and Lula crossed the room, moved the chair away from the door, and met Wesley on the boardwalk outside the store.

“Judge?” Frannie tipped up her chin. “What brings you to the seamstress shop this morning? Are you going to help load the wagons?”

“Frannie?” He stopped and stared at her. “No, I’m not. I’m here to tell these two women that this window has to be fixed before they can leave.”

Daisy stomped outside, crossed her arms over her chest, and went nose to nose with the man.

“All repairs on any rental property fall on the shoulders of the owner. We will be out of this place before dark, which means you actually owe us a couple of days’ refund on the month’s rent we paid.

We don’t want the money, so you can use it to have the window fixed. ”

“Birds of a feather . . . ,” he started.

Frannie held up a palm. “Before you go any further, remember that Sally Anne flocked with us. I didn’t say a word to her that you were cheating on her, but she had enough sense to fly away.”

Wesley squared his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. “You may have won a small battle, but you will never win the war. Women don’t have the staying power to ever get to vote.”

Daisy took a step forward. “Women kept the home fires going during the last war, and we will win this one—one victory at a time. Someday women will be running for politics and winning elections. We might even be working right next to the president of the United States, or maybe even holding that office. Never underestimate the power of all of us when we stand together and set our minds.”

“You’re just a bunch of ...” He hesitated, and then the corners of his mouth turned up in a mocking smile.

“Y’all are all—and I do mean all the women who joined you in your little campaign—are just a bunch of cackling blue jays.

You make a lot of noise, but soon you’ll find out that’s all you can do. ”

“Blue jays also rob other birds’ nests, like we did yours, and they certainly scare predators away,” Frannie told him.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Wesley asked.

“We robbed y’all of your will, didn’t we? And we made enough noise to scare most of you into signing the petition,” Frannie said.

Men, right along with Gertrude’s little group of women, had begun to gather and line up across the street, blocking Matt’s and Claude’s wagons. When they were close enough, both sides brought out pistols, and the sheriff took a step forward. “You boys turn around and go on back to your sheep.”

“I don’t think so,” Amanda called out as twice as many women marched down the street and began to push their way into the crowd.

“Go home, the bunch of you,” Wesley called out as he joined the men. “Daisy and Lily can leave with these men if they’re willing, but they won’t take one thing off my property.”

Beulah stepped out of the store with her shotgun in her hands. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“You don’t have the firepower that we do. We’re just running a couple of bad women out of town. They are lucky we don’t tar and feather them,” Otis yelled.

“Ladies?” Beulah said in a calm voice.

Fists raised into the air, and they all shouted, “Together!”

They lowered their hands and clasped them as they moved forward, letting go only to push or shoulder their opponents out of their way as they broke up the line that had been formed.

Gertrude stumbled and fell. Amanda stopped and helped her up, then looked her right in the eye and said, “Shame on you!”

Maggie whipped around and faced the crowd so fast that her skirt stirred up the dust. “He among you without sin can shoot the first bullet at whichever one of us you deem to be the worst of the lot.”

In groups, the other women made it through the line the men had formed, and Amanda said, “Either Daisy and Lily are allowed to leave with all their belongings or else we are going back to our camp.”

“And we will stay there until their things are delivered out to the sheep farm—and then maybe until Christmas, to show you that we mean business. There will be no clean houses, cooked meals, or women to warm your beds,” Beulah declared.

“And no Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas celebrations, either,” Amanda added.

“And shame on you in particular, Wesley Martin.” Edith shook her finger so close to his nose that he took a step back.

“You have not been setting a decent example for the office you hold. Hanging out in the saloon, drinking, playing poker, and taking the women upstairs for a romp in the sheets. No wonder Sally Anne left you—and someday, when women can vote, men like you won’t even be hired to clean outhouses. ”

His jaw worked like he was trying to spit something out, but he didn’t say another word.

Matt flicked the reins, and the women parted to allow the two wagons through, then closed up their ranks again.

Elijah drove Beulah’s wagon in behind them and nodded at the women on either side of him.

He brought the team of horses to a halt and hopped down off the buckboard to face the crowd of men.

“Y’all need to remember something,” he yelled.

“A wagon yard is an important part of the town, and I can close it down before you can blink if you don’t do right by these women. ”

“Yes, but—” the judge started.

Elijah butted in before he could finish. “As acting judge, if this case was between any other two people in town, would you rule for the owner or the renter?”

“Daisy blackmailed me, and that’s against the law,” Wesley muttered.

“Did she?” Elijah asked. “You made no attempt to hide that you were visiting the girls at Otis’s saloon on a regular basis.

What would any of you men do if your wives”—he waved his hand to take in the line of women behind him—“visited the saloon and went upstairs with one of the poker players or drinkers there?”

“There’s different rules for men and women!” Cooter shouted, slurring his words.

“You don’t even have a woman! Here’s the deal .

..,” Beulah said. “You either get on back out of here or shoot us. We are going to stand right here until these three wagons are loaded, and if there’s anything left after that, Elijah will get another one of his wagons to help out.

There will not be a hairpin or a speck of dust left when Daisy and Lily have left Autrie. ”

Total silence filled the town, and then a blue jay lit on the barrel of Beulah’s gun and squawked for a full thirty seconds before it flew up to the broken window and entered the seamstress shop.

“Judge Martin, do you think that bird might be a sign?” Daisy asked with half a giggle.

“I’m glad to be a pretty blue jay. Seems like the judge liked my blue saloon dress better than my red one,” Frannie said.

“I’ll be a blue jay if it gets things done for all of us,” Maggie said.

“Me too,” Edith added. “And someone better haul Cooter off to the jail to sleep off his drunkenness.”

One at a time, the men began to slip away, and Matt climbed down off his wagon and went into the shop, loaded a crate onto his shoulder, and carried it outside. Claude followed him and brought out another one.

“Judge Martin, you can watch us all morning if you want to, but I promise we are only taking what we brought to the place. We don’t need a broken window or a—” Lily ducked when the blue jay suddenly flew right over her head and landed on top of Wesley’s hat.

He slapped it with his hand, and it flew away, but not before it left a splat of bird crap on the brim. “See what you caused?” he accused Lily.

“It wasn’t me that referred to all us women as just a bunch of blue jays, but that one just proved what we think of you,” she countered. “I guess the birds don’t like it when you use them to try to annoy us.”

He glared at her for what felt like a full minute, then stormed back to Otis’s saloon, grumbling the whole time. Cooter staggered along behind them, weaving as if he might fall on his face any minute.

Lily started down the row of women. She hugged Amanda first, and then each one as she went up to them. “Thank you all so much for supporting us. That could have ended a whole different way.”

“I vote that we are no longer the women’s auxiliary club, but the Blue Jays,” Maggie announced. “We can make money for our cause instead of giving it to the churches since we can’t be pastors or deacons or even have a voice in those places.”

All hands raised in agreement, and tears flowed down Lily’s cheeks. She swiped them away, determined not to be a big softy in the moment.

Daisy threw her arm around Lily and whispered, “And the sun rises a little more.”

“Together! Blue Jays forever!” the ladies all chanted later that morning when four wagons left in a line headed out of town.

“I can’t believe that you are actually doing this,” Matt said when they were well on their way.

Lily leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for letting us move onto the sheep farm—or is it a ranch? I never know what to call it.”

“It can be anything you want it to be,” he answered. “Claude and I are glad that you are joining us.”

“Are you truly all right with this, Matt? How do the ladies who live there all the time feel about us?” She thought of what Abigail had said.

“Several years ago, a whole big wagon train of a hundred women stopped to rest awhile on our land. They were mail-order brides on their way to the California gold mines. I wasn’t born yet, so I’m telling you what I heard about that time,” he said.

Lily was about to ask what that bit of history had to do with her and Daisy being accepted, but she kept quiet, and after a few seconds he went on.

“The women had come from all walks of life, but most of them were poor folks just looking for a second chance, for a new start. That’s when the wagon master had a big party out there for the folks who lived on the farm to thank them for letting the women camp there. ”

“That’s when the celebrations began, right?” she asked.

“Most likely. A few of the women had been saloon workers in Houston. Two of them decided to stay on the farm and marry Uncle Elijah’s younger brothers.

One of those women is my mother. The other woman is Claude’s mama.

They never hid what they did in the past, and they’ve been good wives and mothers.

No one is going to throw stones at you, darlin’.

If I love you, then they’ll love you like family.

Does that answer your question?” he asked.

That sure enough explained why Elijah hadn’t turned his back on Lily and Daisy, and why, even after she’d told Matt, he hadn’t thrown her out the door with a good solid cussing.

But knowing what family meant to him, she could never come between him and them.

If she couldn’t win Abigail over, then she would simply have to move on to another place.

“Well?” Matt prompted.

“Now, I’m both humbled and excited to be moving out there, but I do have a question.”

“Anything, darlin’.” He grinned.

“When you drove the wagon into town and the mob had gathered, you just sat there and didn’t confront them,” she said.

“I don’t hear a question in there.”

“I expected you to come off that buckboard, pull out your pistol or maybe grab your rifle, and demand that they leave. Why didn’t you?”

“Were you disappointed?” he asked.

“I’m not sure how I felt,” she replied.

“From the buckboard, I could see the women forming a line and pushing the men,” Matt said.

“But why didn’t you do something?”

“Darlin’, you are the slayer of snakes, the leader of women, and the strongest woman I know. It’s not my job to protect you, though I will when you need me to.”

“Then what is your job?” she asked.

“To tell you how beautiful you are every morning and evening, to make you feel safe at the farm, and to support you—but most important, to let you handle things in your own way,” he whispered.

Lily scooted closer to him. “I can live with that.”