Marshal In Petticoats By Paty Jager

How far would you go to take care of your family? Do situations kind of happen around you beyond your control? In Marshal In Petticoats, Darcy does what she can for her brother, but sometimes things still get out of hand before she can stop them. And they sure can be fun to see how she fixes these ‘problems’!

Darcy Duncan is an accident looking to happen. So it is no surprise to her when she shoots a bank robber while buying mining supplies. She wonders at the town asking her to be marshal. However, being a resourceful, resilient young woman, she takes the job with every intention of giving it an honest try. But falling for the handsome enemy, is one accident too many.
Gil Halsey is asked to bring his boss' errant son back to the ranch. He follows the man and his band of bumbling robbers to a small mining town. A corrupt local official runs the town and has pinned a marshal's badge on an accident-prone young woman. Gil believes the two are working together, until the marshal blunders into a bank robbery and is kidnapped. While saving the marshal, he reunites with his estranged family and stumbles into love.

Darcy Duncan will do a lot to take care of her brother Jeremy. Raised by good, kind upstanding parents, she tried to be moral and not break any more rules and laws than she has to to care for Jeremy. But when their uncle, who had promised their dieing parents to take care of them, had sold her to a brothel and starved Jeremy while making him a slave, she had no choice. On the run from their uncle for five years now, she had worked many odd jobs while they traveled the back and forth across the north-west part of country. Now she was hoping to set down some roots and it looked like trying their hand at mining around Galena might just be the best chance they had. Until she accidentally shot a bank robber! She was dressed as a boy/man to make traveling easier and as protection, so the town assumed she was just a young, underdeveloped boy. Jeremy claiming she was a crack shot and had stopped the robber on purpose didn’t help. But they had not eaten in days, so when the mayor offered her the job of Marshal, and with Jeremy begging her to take it, she didn’t know how to refuse. That she decided to take her job serious and not be the mayor’s puppet was a surprise to everyone, especially the mayor.

Gil Halsey has been working at the Chandler Ranch for about a year. He has been offered the foreman position if he can bring the boss’ son, Pete, back to the ranch. Pete’s trail has led Gil to Galena and probably a gang of bank robbers. Pete’s trail has dried up at the town but there is no sign of Pete himself. So Gil decides to watch the shot (but still alive) bank robber, waiting for Pete to show up for his friend. Gil is still haunted by his parents’ and younger brother’s death, feeling if he had been there instead of down at the creak he might has saved them from the Indian attack. He hasn’t been back to the family mine or seen his older brothers since. He likes ranching and hopes to get the foreman position but that is dependant on Pete. And things in Galena are looking very odd as well what with the mayor hiring a young, green boy for marshal and all.

Darcy is trying to hide that she is a girl, trying to pull off being a marshal, and keep herself and her brother out of trouble (they have a habit of finding trouble wherever they are, not meaning to of course). Then the mayor offers her more gold then called for if she just “does as she is told.” Now she knows things are NOT right with Mr. Craven, and there is the friend of the bank robber, Red, who happens to know Gil Halsey, the man who got Red patched up but then brought him to the jail to wait trail. None of this is making sense. So it is up to Darcy to find out just what IS going on around here. She really likes this town and hopes her and Jeremy can settle down here. Assuming she can catch the bank robbers and keep the mayor from whatever it is he plans to use all the land he is trying to take from the local miners.

And then she gets herself kidnapped during a night robbery! The gang staged a robbery during an evening dance that everyone, the town and the local miners all, were attending. And Darcy was dressed as a woman trying to find out what Craven was up to, so the gang doesn’t know that she is the Marshal, and take her with them. Now she is able to learn that Craven is mixed up with the gang but is still stuck. And Craven had taken the gold “to hide for save keeping” he claimed, so the gang is really mad. When Gil and her brother come for her (she sets the hide out on fire to escape), she convinces Gil to stop at his old family homestead to rest up on the way back to Galena. To his surprise, his brothers are all still there and welcome him (and both Darcy and Jeremy) without any hesitation. Now they just have to find a way to catch both the bank robbers and Mr. Craven, especially since the mayor put out that Darcy was in with the gang when she disappeared as they did.

Marshal In Petticoats is simply fun. This is another one that has a little bit of everything: history 1880’s with a western tint from mining Organ; romance between Darcy and Gil; family values in Darcy taking care of her younger brother Jeremy; humor in Darcy’s clumsiness and the outlaw gangs ineptitude; mystery in figuring out what the corrupt Mayor Craven is up to; lots of adventure in Darcy trying to find the bank robbers, Gil saving Darcy, both of them getting back the town’s money, etc. Marshal In Petticoats did all this and more while keeping me truly entertained! Now I know some are going to claim that Darcy’s clumsiness is a little extreme, but you try walking around in your father’s oversized boots (the kind from the 1880’s), with a hat pulled low on your head to hid the fact that you’re a girl (pretending to be the male marshal) while wearing too big men’s clothes in a town that doesn’t even have nailed down wooden walk-ways. I know I would be falling all the time! That Darcy only does so on occasion is impressive. While Gil is a good hero and his brothers are a nice balance to him, Jeremy is the real scene stealer in Marshal In Petticoats. Jeremy starts the story by causing Darcy to shot the first bank robber. He adds unfailing belief in his sister and a natural upbeat attitude despite the many hardships they have faced. And boy is Darcy going to have her hands full in a couple of years when he hits his teens!

Marshal In Petticoats does have one problem: it is the first in the Halsey Brothers series and I don’t have the others! I knew I should not start reading series books when I don’t have the others. I enjoyed Marshal In Petticoats enough that I want the others, especially after how amusing this one was for a western historical.