dark ragged edges when Chet spotted some buildings and pens.
“They might put us up,” he shouted above the rising wind.
With over a half mile to cover, they put on their slickers as the temperature fell. Chet smiled as he buttoned his coat—a man could freeze to death in one of them, but they did shed rain. The three raced for the outfit. They reined up hard in front of the low sod-roofed cabin.
“Hello the house.”
No one came to the door.
He looked around the place for a sign of someone. “Try the door,” he said to Reg.
The youth bounded off his horse, pulled the string, and pushed on the door. It went open, and he shouted from inside, “Nobody’s home.”
“Good, we’ll use it. Get the panniers and the saddles inside ’cause in less’n ten minutes it’s going to be hailing here.”
“How do you know that?” J.D. asked, jumping off and fumbling his latigos loose.
“See that green line under the clouds? That’s hail.” Chet carried his saddle inside and set it down on the horn. Reg was undoing the diamond hitch. When it was off, Chet loosened the canvas, and then grabbed the first pannier with the wind whistling in his ears. He packed it in the doorway and hurried back, meeting Reg with his arms full of bedrolls.
Hard drops began to pelt on Chet’s felt hat. “Is there a shed for the animals?”
“I think so, over there,” J.D. said, looking anxiously at the worsening weather.
“Take ’em. We can get that packsaddle later.”
The youth set out leading two horses, and Reg led the other two. Lightning struck close by. The air stank with the sulfurous smell and the crash came right behind it. Chet dodged inside, and watched from the open door for the boys’ return as the rain began to turn to ice pellets.
It grew dark as night. Then, to his relief, they came for the house, making long strides and shouting over the hail’s noisy rattle on the porch roof.
“Horses undercover?” he asked, closing the door.
“Whew,” Reg said. “Yes, that was close to a wreck.”
J.D nodded. “They’re fine, even got some hay.”
“Yes,” Reg said. “They’ll be all right.”
“We should have a candle in the pannier,” Chet said, unbuckling the straps to open the lid, then feeling around for a wax stick. He soon produced one and laid it on the table. He scratched a match and lit it to melt some wax into the cut-down tin-can holder so he could set the candle up to illuminate the room.
“What’ve we got?” he asked, looking around.
“There’s cooking wood by the stove and I guess if we had a bucket of rainwater, we could make some coffee,” Reg said.
“You’re in charge,” Chet said, picking up a letter on the table. It was addressed to Nick Van Rooter, General Delivery, Max, Texas. The letter might tell him something about the absent owner. He took the letter out and carefully read the first page.
My name is Hilga. I am eighteen. I will be arriving in Fort Worth on November the 15th at twelve noon on the train. You and my father have corresponded about me coming to your large fine farm and becoming your wife. If I do not suit you at the train station, you must do as you promised and buy my ticket back to St Louis.
Yours Truly
Hilga
“This Dutchman who owns this place is in Fort Worth today, getting his mail-order bride,” Chet said, and thunder drowned out his last words.
“Getting what?” J.D. asked with troubled look on his face.
“A mail-order bride.”
“Sears and Roebuck has them, too?” J.D. blinked in his confusion.
“Yes, brother, and I want one of them I seen in last spring’s copy wearing a corset.” Then Reg dropped his head in wary disgust. “Hell, brother, they don’t sell brides.”
“They sell everything else.”
“I think this has been arranged,” Chet said. “She’s eighteen and if she doesn’t suit him at the train station, he has to buy her a train ticket back home.”
“Guess the bride market out here ain’t holding up too good,” Reg said as his brother took the letter to read. “Maybe we should bake her a cake before we leave.”
“How about an apple-raisin pie?” Chet asked above the noisy storm. “For our use of this cabin.”
“Way it’s raging out there, I’m grateful enough to do about anything.”
“We don’t have any lard to make crust,” J.D. said.
“We’ve got some, but all I had in mind was an apple-raisin crisp. Coffee’s about done,” Chet said, and rubbed his palms together to warm them. The temperature must have dropped forty degrees outside. The cookstove was heating them some and felt good.
“She’s sure going to be disappointed.” J.D. put the letter down after reading it. “This sure ain’t no large fine farm. It’s a patch of grass and mesquite in north Texas with some pear thrown in.”
“Heavens, she’ll think that’s fruit,” Reg said. “Prickly pear cactus beds.”
“I wish I could be here.” J.D. spread his arms out. “And she comes over the rise to the east in that buckboard and for the first time feasts her eyes on this dump. ‘Otto, Otto.’ She elbows him. ‘Give me de train fare to go home.’”
Chet blew on his coffee and chuckled. Those two were more than funny at times. He could recall laughing in his own house growing up—but since he’d turned seventeen, there had not been much fun coming from that place. He’d be thirty-one in May. Had it been almost fourteen years already?
He scrubbed his bristled mouth on his palm. Time sure flew.
“You ever plan to marry?” J.D. asked.
“Oh, if I can find the right woman.”
“You going to serenade her, too?”
“If it suits the occasion and I can find a drunk Mexican fiddler.” They all three laughed.
The storm passed in the night, but the clear sky before dawn was cold as an iceberg. Everyone put on their second shirt over the first for warmth and wore a slicker to break the wind. The sweet-smelling apple-raisin crisp was cooked and cooling in the oven for the newlyweds, along with a note wishing them the best and a thanks for the shelter in the storm.
Late afternoon, they located the cavy spread out grazing across a wide basin. Sitting abreast on their horses atop a rise, Chet looked for campfire smoke, but the strong gusts they faced wouldn’t let any traces stay long.
“Think
