by Linda Bridey
Though they rode alone, the sisters kept silent until they passed underneath the big wooden sign over their front gate that read Rocking Horse Ranch. Violet didn’t like to break the silence at all. She would have ridden all the way to Butte with only her thoughts for company.
But this mail-order husband plan was her idea, and the sisters should go over their strategy one last time before they met their men at the train station. But how to broach the subject? Rose and Iris approached the business from such radically different points of view. Whatever Violet said would ring amiss with one of them.
Violet sighed. “Cornell sure is in a dither about this, I can tell you.”
“You shouldn’t concern yourself so much with what Cornell thinks,” Iris told her. “He would work himself up into a dither no matter what we did as long as we did anything other than lie down and obey him. That’s the only thing he understands or cares about. You know that, Violet.”
“I just don’t like making him so upset,” Violet replied. “He’s taken good care of us these last fifteen years. We should be grateful to him for that.”
“He might have taken good care of us in the last fifteen years,” Iris acknowledged, “but he sure isn’t taking good care of us now, not with the way he’s letting the ranch go.”
“I still find it hard to believe he would let it get so bad without realizing it.” Violet remarked.
“Do you want to know something?” Iris replied. “I think he refuses to change his stance on the ranch because I’m the one who brought it to his attention. If I’d kept my mouth shut and let him figure out for himself that the ranch was in trouble, he would have done something about it long ago. He’s letting the ranch go out of spite because I presumed to tell him how to run his business. That’s what I think.”
“I just can’t believe that,” Violet exclaimed. “It isn’t like him at all.”
“Would you rather believe he’s grossly incompetent?” Iris asked. “Would you rather think he’s befuddled on account of his age, or that he’s just too short-sighted to realize the ranch is in danger?”
“In danger?” Violet repeated. “Is it really in danger? I don’t think you ever put it like that before.”
“I told you already,” Iris replied. “The ranch can’t go another year the way it is. We have five thousand head of cattle and two cowboys, and those two cowboys are aging fast. If we don’t get these mail-order husbands, we won’t have enough hands to bring the stock to the sale yards in the autumn.”
“And then what will happen?” Violet asked.
“We don’t have enough range to feed them all over the winter,” Iris told her. “If we don’t bring them to the sale yards, then come the spring, we’ll have nothing and they’ll starve to death. So you see, we need cowboys, and we need them now. Cornell refuses to hire any more hands. This marriage plan of yours is our only hope.”
“Oh, heavens!” Violet gasped`. “You told us it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was as bad as that. If that’s the case, I’m glad we have this mail-order situation well on the way to completion. We don’t have a moment to lose.”
“That’s what I told you,” Iris maintained. “I only hope we can keep Cornell at bay long enough to marry these men.”
“I hope they’re the cowboys we need them to be,” Violet added. “I would hate to get them home and get married to them and find out later that they can’t do the job we need them to do.”
Iris shot Violet a sidelong look. “I’m sure they will be. We have their letters telling us their experience and their backgrounds. It sounds to me like they are competent cowboys. At least, the one I’m marrying is.”
“Mine is, too.” Violet took a folded paper out of the cuff of her sleeve and opened it. “Listen to this.
‘Dear Miss Kilburn, I trust this letter finds you well. I am just getting on the train in Santa Fe, on my way to you. Who knows, but I may see you before you get this letter. I have been working on a ranch down here near Jemez Springs, and we have just finished the spring branding. How are you getting on with yours?’
Do you hear that, Iris? How are we getting on with the spring branding?”
“We haven’t done any spring branding,” Iris grumbled. “I told you, we don't have enough people to do it. Who is this mystery man, anyway?”
“I told you before,” Violet replied. “His name is Chuck Ahern. He’s twenty-five years old, and he’s from Pecos, Texas. He’s been working all over the Southwest on ranches like ours. He’s even worked as manager on a few of them. He’s exactly what we’re looking for.”
“That’s good,” Iris declared. “What else does he have to say?”
Violet read the rest of the letter. “Your ranch sounds really nice, and I can’t wait to see it. Also I look forward to meeting your sisters. They sound like nice people, and the Fort House sounds like the perfect place to stay until we can get married.”
“You told him about the Fort House?” Iris asked. “What did you do that for?”
“Well, I couldn’t very well agree to have him stay in the main house, could I?” Violet folded the letter and put it back inside her sleeve. “I had to explain where he and the other men would stay between their arrival on the train and the wedding on Friday. He couldn’t stay in the main house with us. I’m surprised at you, Iris. Didn’t you tell your groom he’d be staying in the Fort House with the others?”
“No,” Iris replied. “We never discussed that. He left all the arrangements to me.”
Violet laughed. “Well, what did you talk about? Don’t tell me you spent all your time discussing ranch business. That would be just like you.”
“We didn’t spend all our time discussing ranch business,” Iris shot back. “But I can tell you I made sure he knew his way around a ranch. He wouldn’t be much good to us if he didn’t. You and Rose can get all romantic with your men if you want to. We’re getting them in to work the ranch, and I’m making sure mine can, even if you won’t.”
“So what do you know about him?” Violet asked. “What do you know, besides that he can work the ranch?”
Iris blushed. “I’m not going to read our private letters to you, if that’s what you’re after.”
“What?” Violet exclaimed. “I just read you one of mine.”
“I don’t care what you did,” Iris snapped. “I never asked you to read the letter. You did that off your own bat. My letters with Mick McAllister are my private business. I’m not sharing them with you or anyone else. So there!”
“Well, at least tell us something about him,” Violet told her. “We have to know something about who we’re meeting at the station.”
“He’s a cowboy,” Iris replied. “What more do you want to know? He’s from Yuma, Arizona. He has a twin brother somewhere in Georgia, and he’s a bronc buster in the rodeo. He’s worked on cattle ranches and cattle drives since he was fourteen years old, and he’s twenty-three years old. What more do you want to know? No, wait. Don’t ask that, because I don’t know anymore.”
“Well, there isn’t much there to let us know how he’ll react to you running the ranch,” Violet observed. “He could be a real redneck, for all you know.”
“I’ll be married to him, one way or the other,” Iris shot back. “It’s a little bit late to question him about his attitude toward women.”
“Didn’t you ask him anything about it in your letter?” Violet asked.
“Of course not!” Iris exclaimed. “I didn’t want to frighten him off marrying me. Anyway, if he objects to me working the ranch, I’ll just have to stop. The only reason I began punching cattle in the first place is because we had no cowboys to do the job. Once we marry these men, there will be no reason for me to do it anymore.”
“But didn’t you tell me before,” Violet pointed out. “That they’ll need you on the cattle drive at the end of the season?”
“They’ll need someone,” Iris corrected her. “If they don’t want to take me, they might decide to hire some other men instead. By that t
ime, we’ll be able to afford them, because when the cattle drive ends, we’ll have the money from the sales to pay them. Once we have a decent cattle drive, the ranch will be making a profit again, and we won’t have to worry about the odd expense here and there.”
“I sure hope you’re right about all this,” Violet exclaimed. “All our futures are riding on your opinion of what’s best for the ranch.”
“I am right about this,” Iris declared. “I’ll just be glad when these men get here and take over. Everything will be all right once that happens.”
“What about you, Rose?” Violet asked. “What do you know about your groom?”
“His name is Jacob Hamilton,” Rose replied. “I know he’s been working on ranches down in Texas. He traveled up here from San Antonio. But I don’t know much else about him.”
“Don’t you know how old he is?” Violet asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rose admitted.
“But he could be old,” Violet pointed out. “He could be forty or fifty. Didn’t you at least ask him?”
“No, I didn’t,” Rose replied.
Chapter 6