Wardle Stuebner and the School Ma’am
written by: David L Painter
My name’s Wardle Stuebner, and I once shared a stagecoach with the meanest schoolmarm you ever saw. She sure didn’t look like trouble at first, I mean she wear one of them neat bonnet, that tied in front, hands folded polite like on her lap, sitting up ramrod straight but by the time the smoke cleared, two old boys was tied up, the sheriff was confused, and I had to ride three days out of my way to avoid explaining the whole mess to anybody.
Well, sir, this here is my story just as it happened. It all started on the trail back from Ellsworth, Kansas. I’d just spent sixty days on a cattle drive that had me feeling older, uglier, and in sore need of a bath. I was headed south, trying to get home to the Bar-T Ranch. Ya see, I’ll gotten drunk and mixed up in a fight back at the saloon. I had cracked one or two heads before the town’s sheriff stepped in and hauled me off to jail for a few days to sober up and cool down. Well, the ranch hands, as well as Mr. Taylor, left without me, and I’ll be doggone if they didn’t take my horse with them.
I was standing out in front of the stage office, looking like I did not know which end was up. When the stagecoach, headed for Abilene, was loading, the driver — a tall feller with a face full of whiskers waved me over. He said I looked lost and that he had room for one more if I didn’t mind sharing.
Now, I’ve learned one thing from a life spent in the saddle and one-horse towns: you never know what kind of company you’re run into. Could be a Bible-toting drummer, could be a snake oil peddler, could be someone who thinks both those things are the same. This time, I stepped up into that coach and found three sets of eyes already staring at me.
The first was a banker type, all starch and spectacles. The second was the schoolmarm, whose dark eyes were sharp enough to cut leather. The third was a skinny feller with a hat brim so wide you could’ve used it for shade at a Sunday go to meeting picnic. We nodded all polite like at each other, and I settled in next to the Banker, thinking it’ll be a quiet ride. One thing about a stagecoach ride, it’ll shake your innards plum out, and the dust is worse than on a cattle drive…
Now I was wrong about that quite ride by about twenty minutes.
We’d barely made it past a stretch of scrub oak when the driver reined up hard, cussing under his breath. The stage jerked to a stop, throwing the four of us around. I ended up face down next to the school marm. A gruff-sounding voice from outside called, “Everybody keep calm, and nobody gets hurt!”
Now, I ain’t the calmest man when other folks start making outlandish rules I didn’t particularly like, so I poked my head out the window to see what was what. Two young fellas stood in the middle of the road, faces half-hidden by bandanas, holding pistols like they weren’t sure which end did the shooting.
And that’s when the schoolmarm sighed, reckon she was just plum put-out, reaching into her handbag. She didn’t pull out a pistol, mind you, though, in hindsight, that would’ve been the less dangerous thing. Nope. She fetched out a black-handled ruler, the kind schoolmarms use to whack knuckles, and set it across her knees like a gunfighter laying out his gun.
The banker had a shocked look about him as he looked at her. The skinny cowpoke blinked at her. I just sat there, trying to figure out how she was a goin-ta outgun two armed bandits with twelve inches of mean looking hard wood.
One of the outlaws opened the stage door, eyes darting nervously. “Alright, folks,” he said, voice sounding like a school boy in church, “hand over your money nice and easy like.”
The schoolmarm leaned forward, peered over her spectacles, stared at him with those dark eyes, and said in the slow, cold voice of a woman who’s been teaching rowdy younguns for twenty years, “Young man, what is your name?”
That froze him for a bit. I guess would be stagecoach rubbers ain’t used to being quizzed. “Uh… Billy.”
“William,” she corrected. “Does your mother know you’re out here doing this deceitful act?”
The other outlaw shifted on his feet. “Lady, we’re robbing you now, just shut up and hand over the cash.”
That’s when the ruler came up in a blur and whacked Billy across the knuckles so hard his pistol went flying into the dust. He yelped as he had just stepped on a cactus. The cowpoke beside her let out a laugh before he could stop himself, and the banker slumped way down in the seat.
The second outlaw panicked, waving his pistol at us. “Don’t move!” he bellowed in his high-pitched voice.
The schoolmarm stood, the ruler still in hand, eyes cold as steel. “Drop it, or I’ll make certain you can’t hold that gun for a week.”
Now, I ain’t say-n it was her tone or the fact Billy was still hopping around shaking his hand, but that second, would be bandit dropped his pistol without a fight.
The driver who had been watching all this unfold grabbed a rope from under his seat and tied them two up.
And that’s where I should’ve let the law take over. But me being me, I remembered that sheriff in Abilene owed me money, and I wasn’t too keen on finding myself on the wrong end of an argument about it. So, I made a little side arrangement with the schoolmarm — one that led to a whole other mess involving a saloon, a missing shipment of gold, and a man claiming to be the governor’s nephew. I reckon the Bar-T Ranch and Mr. Taylor will have to wait for a little while longer. Heck, my pa always said that, “If it went for no brains I wouldn’t have none at all.”
- Wardle Stuebner and the School Ma’am - January 24, 2026
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- Wardle Stuebner’s Tale of a Cattle Drive - March 20, 2025
