Page 50 of Heart on the Line

“Mr. Bledsoe,” Henrietta Chandler snapped.

“Sorry, ma’am.” Amos smiled at the feisty, gray-haired lady, then immediately lurched forward and grabbed the back of her seat.

Good grief. She’d been about to mount. Even now, her hands clutched the handlebars with purpose and one foot was lifting to fit itself against a pedal.

“Hold on a minute, Miss Chandler. Let me explain a few things first.”

The woman had too much gumption for her own good. She’d proven that when she held him at gunpoint that first day. He still shivered when he thought about her beady eyes staring him down over the barrel of her revolver. Those eyes hadn’t changed. They stared at him now with a similar demand for answers and equally little patience.

“Well?”

Amos cleared his throat. “Backpedaling usually aids in the slowing process,” he instructed, “and there is a spoon brake you can apply by pressing this lever here.” He pointed to the slender rod that extended beneath the right side of the handlebars. “However, engaging the brake tends to cause wear on the pneumatic tires, so I only use that apparatus in emergencies.”

Miss Chandler raised a pointed brow. “So how do you stop?”

Amos pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and straightened his shoulders. “A well-timed dismount from the seat usually does the trick.” He didn’t like to brag, but he was practically an expert at the maneuver. “When my feet hit the ground, I keep hold of the handlebars, and the bicycle halts as I do.”

Not that he would recommend such a stunt for an amateur. In fact, he hoped to harness Miss Chandler’s enthusiasm with that daring description. But he might have miscalculated.

Her mouth tightened at the corners. “Jump off. Got it.”

Good grief. At her age, she’d probably break a hip. “No, Miss Chandler. No leaping for you. I’ll teach you to backpedal and engage the spoon break. Besides, the ground is fairly level here in Harper’s Station.” Thank the Lord for small favors. “You shouldn’t have need for any high speeds. At a slow pace, you can simply put your foot down to bring the machine to a stop.”

Emma Shaw came up beside her aunt, pushing another bicycle through the throng of ladies who had come out to witness the spectacle. The hum of their excitement filled Amos’s ears, leaving him oddly on edge.

He darted a glance over to the freighter, but Mr. Porter was busy carting a load of supplies up the steps to the store. The shopkeeper walked by his side, and a young boy held the shop door wide for them.

Where was Dunbar?

His grip on Miss Chandler’s seat loosened as he stretched his neck to peer over the crowd. The bicycle wobbled, and a squeak of surprise cut through the crowd’s buzz.

Amos immediately returned his attention to the bicycle, taking hold of the seat with both hands and steadying it as Mrs. Shaw reached for her aunt’s arm.

“Easy, Aunt Henry.”

The older lady must have thought she’d been holding the bicycle steady on her own and attempted to mount when Amos let go. Her left foot slid awkwardly off the pedal, and her ankle twisted a bit before she finally found purchase upon the ground.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Emma Shaw admonished, instantly becoming Amos’s second favorite female in town. “When Malachi taught us to shoot, you didn’t rush off and start pulling triggers before learning the proper technique. Riding a bicycle is the same. We must first receive instruction—”

“Bah, it’s not the same at all. I can’t hurt anyone by pedaling improperly.”

Amos scowled at her, taking his turn at wielding a beady-eyed glare. “Actually you can. Not only can you injure yourself by taking a tumble, but if you ride before understanding how to steer or stop, you could run someone else down.”

The shopkeeper’s son chose that particular instant to rush around the wagon and skid to a halt right in front of Miss Chandler’s front tire. “Are we all gonna get a turn? I bet I could go the fastest.” He made a whooshing noise and proceeded to demonstrate his natural speed by sprinting past the giant black horses hitched to the freight wagon and pounding up the store steps, his puppy barking excitedly at his heels the whole way.

Miss Chandler’s eyes widened at the boy’s unexpected appearance in front of her, and her knuckles whitened as she tensed her grip on the handlebars. Amos could kiss the boy for his timely interruption.

“Maybe we should wait for the crowd to thin a bit,” the older lady conceded, though her bristly tone warned that she’d not be put off for long.

Amos glanced over his shoulder toward the telegraph station. He didn’t see Dunbar, which would have been reassuring were it not for the fact that he hadn’t been able to spot the Pinkerton anywhere else, either.

“Why don’t you ladies settle your accounts with Miss Adams?” he suggested.

Henrietta Chandler’s brow furrowed mulishly at that suggestion, but he couldn’t bow to her whims. Not anymore. He needed to find Dunbar. Or at least confirm that Grace was all right.

“We’ll have a lesson this afternoon in the field behind the station house.” Amos released his hold on Miss Chandler’s bicycle seat and backed away. “Learning to balance on two wheels takes a significant amount of practice at first, and having a soft bed of prairie grass to fall onto instead of the hard-packed street will reduce the likelihood of injury.”

His gaze darted back to the telegraph office. Was that movement by the window? He prayed it was Grace, distracted by the commotion of the delivery. Yet his gut still clenched.