One
Oak Grove, Kansas.
Steve Putnam flipped the reins of his big gray gelding over the hitching post outside of the Wet Your Whistle Saloon and stepped up on the boardwalk in order to get out of the cloud of dust being swirled up along the main street of town. A parade of wagons, buggies and people on horseback and afoot was the cause. All headed in one direction. The train station. The last place you’d find him today. In his opinion, the entire town had gone loco over this mail-order bride scheme.
Turning about, he headed toward the batwing doors of the saloon. The “Closed” sign didn’t stop him from pushing the doors apart and letting them swing shut behind him.
The sight of Chris and Danny Sanders dressed in their Sunday best had Steve pushing the brim of his hat up in order to take a second look at the cousins walking toward him.
“Sorry, Steve, we’re closed,” Danny said. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
“Why?” Steve asked, not bothering to say he’d seen the sign.
“The women are arriving today,” Chris answered.
Taken aback, Steve shook his head. “You two bought into this hare-brained idea?” The cousins had opened the saloon in Oak Grove with the insurance money they’d received after the one they’d owned in Dodge City had burned down. Their business seemed to be flourishing and he couldn’t believe either Chris or Danny was looking for a mail-order bride.
Pointing a thumb at his much taller cousin, Danny said, “Chris here contributed heavily to the cause.”
“Why?” Steve directed his question toward Chris.
The cousins didn’t look much alike, not even with their blond hair oiled smooth against their heads and matching black suits complete with red vests and gold watch chains hanging from their pockets. They didn’t act much alike, either. Danny was shorter and always smiling and joking, while Chris was tall, thin and far more serious, especially when it came to money, and that was what Steve couldn’t believe. That Chris would have made a contribution to the Oak Grove Betterment Committee that had been raising money the past year “to bring suitable women of marrying age to their fine community.” He’d seen so many fliers and newspapers articles about the far-fetched idea he knew the sales pitch word for word.
“For the betterment of the community of course,” Chris answered.
Steve gave him a glare that said he knew the man was lying.
“Fine,” Chris said. “If there’s anyone we can trust with the truth, it’s you. Danny and I aren’t looking for wives, and we don’t believe every woman on that train will make a suitable one, either.”
Danny’s laughter left a sly grin on his face. “But they just might want to work in a high-end establishment such as the Whistle.”
“You’re hoping to get a couple of saloon gals out of the deal?” That was as hard to believe as the idea of getting a wife through this scheme.
“Why not?” Danny asked. “Working here would be far better than marrying a few of those men offering up their hands. Can you imagine any woman wanting to take up residence with Wayne Stevens and that creature he calls a dog? It’s dang near as big as your horse and I hear tell it sleeps in his bed every night.”
Steve had heard the same, and Wayne’s dog was big enough to saddle. Still he shook his head. “I just didn’t expect you two to participate in this idea.”
Chris withdrew his watch and clicked open the cover to check the time. As he poked it back in his pocket, he asked, “If you aren’t here to meet the train, why are you in town in the middle of the day?”
“Rex buried an ax in his knee chopping kindling last night,” Steve answered. “Doc was out and stitched him up, but said he’d be laid up for at least three weeks. I came to see if I could hire Helen Oswoski to cook for my boys for a month or so. With it being roundup time, I don’t have a man to spare.”
Danny let out a whistle. “Rex already has a hunk of wood for one leg.”
Everyone knew Rex Walton had lost a leg in the war, and Steve was worried the man would end up without both legs if he didn’t follow the doctor’s orders. “Unfortunately, it was the other leg he buried the ax in.”
“Sorry to tell you, but Helen Oswoski got married last month,” Chris said. “To Ole Hanson. She’s helping him run his stage stop between here and Dodge.”
“I hadn’t heard that,” Steve admitted. He’d made a mental list of people he could hire to cook for his hands, and Helen, being a widow, had been the only viable choice.
“I sure can’t think of anyone who might be able to help you out,” Danny said. “Maybe you can pick one of the brides off the train.”
Frustration made Steve’s neck muscles burn. “I don’t need a bride, I need a cook.”
“Suppose you could ride down to Dodge, might find some options there,” Chris suggested.
“I might have to,” Steve admitted. “Don’t have that kind of time, but might have to make it. Walter cooked breakfast for everyone and the entire lot said they’d quit if that happened again tonight.”
Chris slapped Steve’s shoulder as the train whistle sounded. “Maybe there’re some other newcomers getting off the train in need of work. Won’t hurt to check.”
The odds were slim, but men working their way west and looking to earn a few dollars had been known to get off the train now and again. For the time it would take, it sure as heck was a better choice than the hundred-mile ride to Dodge City, which could prove just as futile. This time of year, most everyone who wanted to be working had a job.
Steve followed the cousins out of the saloon and up the boardwalk to the train station, which was already packed with people. Of course Josiah Melbourne was in the middle of the crowd, up on a platform that had been decorated with ribbons for the occasion and acting like his pompous self. This entire bride idea had been his. Short and pudgy, he probably knew this might be his only hope of ever acquiring a wife.
As far as Steve was concerned, the mayor could have every bride the town had ordered. He’d seen what this county did to women, and men. There hadn’t been a town here fifteen years ago when his family had left Georgia shortly after the war. He hadn’t known what his father had promised his mother, but he remembered all the things he’d dreamed about while walking alongside the wagon for months on end. A house far bigger than the one that had been burned down by Union soldiers, a barn full of horses, rivers full of fish to catch and woods full of deer to hunt—things ten-year-old boys dream about.
Their arrival to what everyone now knew as the Circle P Ranch, his ranch, hadn’t been what any of them had expected.
Used to growing cotton and tobacco in the fertile soil of Georgia, his father had taken one look at the treeless, dried-up ground and concluded whatever might grow here would never feed a family. But, it would feed critters, so he’d invested the last bits of money they’d had in cattle. His father’s investment had paid off—selling cattle to the army posts and later the railroad as tracks were laid west proved lucrative—but it hadn’t happened fast enough for his mother.
She hadn’t
