The Mail Order Brides of Last Chance

by Lucille Chisum

  Indeed, the late fall air seemed ominous, even though Christmas was just weeks away. The weather seemed to move through a lot faster out here, but Hallie really didn’t want to see how quickly storms could appear.

  She considered walking further, to see if there might be anything else about that would help them. But Hallie quickly discarded the notion—where would she be walking to, and what would she be looking for?

  Clearly, they were stuck where they were. They might be able to build a fire again, for their guide had taught them how to do that, and it would provide some protection against the dropping temperature.

  But who knew what the fire might invite if it was seen? Stagecoach robbers. Apaches? Their guide had talked about both, and the prospect of meeting either while totally defenseless sent an even worse chill through her.

  She thought about waking the girls, then decided against it. Hallie knew they would panic and completely lose what little composure they had, and that was the last thing she needed right now.

  More than anything, she needed time to think.

  After slowing herself down—or trying to—Hallie decided to take a walk down to the stream. It was a peaceful, idyllic setting, and in any other circumstances she would have thought it a miracle to be here.

  Now, though, it was anything but.

  Being next to the stream helped calm her nerves a bit. She thought of the phrase “babbling brook” as the water trickled along in front of her, how silly those words were.

  Watching the water flow was just what she needed right at the moment—it helped Hallie consider how long the stream had been there, flowing along like this, with nothing to disturb it, no matter what calamities might come along.

  Could I actually manage to be the same? she thought.

  It seemed unlikely. As Hallie considered their situation, she realized something else.

  The stagecoach had contained all their belongings, not to mention a reserve of food as well as canteens with potable water.

  What would they do about all that now?

  She started to tear up again. But then, without thinking, Hallie did the one thing that seemed the least likely to help them.

  She got on her knees and prayed.

  Haley looked out on the flowing water as she did, but not for any specific reason or purpose. She saw her reflection as she continued to pray, and Hallie realized how haggard and tired she looked. Which wasn’t surprising in the least.

  She didn’t pray for anything specific. Hallie knew it would be selfish to ask to be rescued, and besides that would go against the nature of prayer as she understood it, to ask for something specific.

  Instead, she simply asked God for whatever outcome He thought best for herself and the two girls with her.

  If He thought it best to take her, then Hallie would be grateful for the time she’d been given. At least she’d managed to make it out to the West, to behold the magnificent sights she’d already seen.

  Then, when she was done praying, Hallie felt a wave of what she could only describe as determination flow through her.

  Suddenly she felt she was meant for something else, that this wasn’t to be the end for her. Hallie shook her head, wondering where all of this had suddenly come from.

  Is it simply my own arrogance that is causing me to feel this way? she asked herself. Or is this God’s way of answering my prayer?

  Even as she asked herself these questions, though, Hallie knew what the answer was:

  There was no answer.

  She just had to keep going and do the best she could. Haley looked up at the rising sun, which would soon be casting both light and a limited amount of warmth on the prairie, and that gave her some amount of solace and hope.

  Then Hallie looked back over her shoulder at the tent behind her, and she thought once again of the two girls, Josie and Kayleen.

  Hallie began to think of them as individuals, trying to remember their strengths and weaknesses, for she would need to know those things if she were to help shepherd them through the coming days and nights.

  But then again, perhaps that responsibility wouldn’t fall on her, and Hallie realized it was slightly arrogant to think that it would.

  Perhaps it would even be the other way around, with one of the girls saving her, or taking the lead in whatever God had planned for them.

  Once she had that thought, Hallie decided not to wake them just yet, but this time for a completely different reason.

  Praying had helped lift her spirits, but taking the time to look out over the water had also made Hallie realize how tired, drained and exhausted she was.

  Suddenly she understood that that was what she needed to take care of first, even if she wasn’t sure exactly how she should do that.

  Then she stretched herself out by the stream, talking advantage of the patch of grass she’d chosen, which was actually quite comfortable.

  Haley closed her eyes slowly as she watched the flowing water, and she felt the sun beaming down on her face.

  For a moment she thought it would be too cold for her to sleep, and Hallie wondered if it was a good idea to nod off like this, out in the open in a space that was so exposed and unprotected.

  And then her thoughts didn’t matter. In a matter of seconds, Hallie was out cold, and her thoughts about whether it was good or bad became utterly irrelevant.

  Shortly after she fell asleep, Hallie began to dream. She dreamed she was in a place just like this, a peaceful meadow that was beautiful and idyllic, what many people would have seen as heaven.

  But in her dream, there was darkness around the meadow. The darkness held secrets that were unknowable, at least for now, but they made Hallie restless in her sleep, and her legs twitched without her realizing it.

  Then her sleep became more peaceful, and the darkness began to filter away. The meadow turned peaceful, and Hallie was able to fall into a deeper state of sleep.

  She slept for what felt like several hours, although it might have been days for all she knew.

  The dream was just ending when Hallie heard a loud noise coming from somewhere close by, although she couldn’t tell if the noise was real or part of her dream.

  Either way, though, she knew she had to get up and find out what it was.

  When Caleb returned to the stables he went back to his duties, thinking he’d had his share of drama for the day. He also thought he might have seen Jason McCourty for the last time in quite a while, based on his past experience.

  But he was quite wrong about both of those things.

  Caleb was in the stables, sweeping, when he heard a knock on the door. Sweeping up was his last chore of the day, and Caleb was lingering over it for he hated to face the prospect of going home and being alone.

  But the knock changed all that.

  He looked up and saw a shadowy figure outlined in the entrance to the stable. Caleb could tell it was a man, but he didn’t recognize him right away, even though he should have.

  “Caleb,” the man said. “Is that you?”

  He smiled as soon as heard the question. “Yeah,” Caleb replied. “Jason?”

  “Yeah,” Jason said in return. He was a very informal man, so they both knew there was no need to stand on ceremony or titles, as there had been in the mayor’s office. “Mind if I come in? Would I be messin’ anything up if I did?”

  “Nah,” Caleb said with a grin, even though he knew Jason couldn’t see it yet. “I already handled all that part of it. Just finishing up with the rest.”

  He saw Jason nod, but just barely. Then the outline of a man turned into a real human being. One who was Caleb’s boss, sort of, although technically he worked for the mayor.

  “What’s going on?” Caleb said, holding the whisk broom upright. “I can’t even remember the last time you came to the stables.”

  Jason smiled. “It was a while ago,” he said. “But I’m afraid we’ve got us a bit of a situation . . . maybe.”

  “A situation?” Caleb repeated.

>   That was odd indeed. These days Caleb got most of his work through the mayor, and when no work came in, his time was his own, as long as the stables were clean and the horses happy.

  Jason rarely intervened, so that in itself was unusual. But Caleb found his attention hanging on the word “maybe,” for Jason was as decisive as anyone he’d ever met.

  Part of it came from being a scout, because he had to be, but that was also Jason’s nature, so those two things went hand in hand.

  “Yes.” Caleb watched as Jason frowned, and he could almost see the thoughts rolling across Jason’s face as he thought of a way to try and explain it.

  “I just received a report that we may need to look into,” Jason began.

  “From one of the scouts?” Caleb asked. Jason had told him he’d been a quick study with all this, so Caleb knew it was the only logical question to ask.

  “Yes,” Jason replied, smiling at how quickly the boy picked up on whatever was happening. “But it’s an unverified report.”

  Caleb watched as Jason grimaced, and without realizing it he did the same. Unverified reports were all over the prairie, and scouts could spend a lifetime chasing ghosts if they didn’t develop the skill to tell which ones were real and which would just lead to a wild goose chase.

  “But you think it’s real,” Caleb said, once again reading Jason’s thoughts.

  Jason nodded. “I think it might be,” he said. “But more than anything, I think we can’t afford not to check it out.”

  “What’s it about, then?” Caleb asked, knowing the more he prodded Jason the faster he could get to the heart of it.

  “A small group,” Jason explained. “Headed from Denver, from what little I’ve been told.”

  “What happened?” Caleb asked.

  Jason shook his head, and he smiled slightly. He was a man of few words, but with all his experience in scouting out on the prairie, nothing much surprised him anymore. But this had.

  “This is where it gets odd,” he explained. “Supposedly there was a stagecoach taking a small group of mail order brides to Denver.”

  He paused, and Caleb’s eyes widened. That elevated whatever had happened from unusual to downright strange. Everyone knew that any mail order brides in this part of the West would almost automatically be headed to Last Chance.

  “Really?” he said. “But there’s no one in Denver that does that . . . find husbands for mail order brides, I mean. At least not that I know of.”

  “Exactly,” Jason said, nodding. “That’s why the report could be a rumor.”

  “Huh.” Caleb leaned on the broom slightly. “So why would you be checking it out?”

  Jason shrugged, and then he sighed. “Well, that part’s a little complicated,” he said. “I talked to the mayor just now and he said there is a verified report of three mail order brides from back east trying to find husbands out here.”

  Caleb, too, shook his head. “But they weren’t connected to Last Chance?” he asked.

  “No,” Jason replied. “But the mayor thinks the part about them getting stranded might be real.”

  Caleb said nothing. He knew the mayor could be a bit of an alarmist at times, especially with anything that concerned mail order brides. Last Chance had built its formidable reputation finding husbands, so in a way it was understandable.

  But the mayor had no real knowledge of the prairie anymore. It had been years since he’d come east, and Owen Standard was considered a true pioneer, one of the founders of Last Chance.

  He’d lost touch after the prairie began to change dramatically, the people he knew and such. Now the mayor left it up to his scouts to sort out which reports required follow-up on and which ones should be ignored.

  “So we’re gonna check it out?” Caleb finally asked, able to see where all this was headed.

  “Yeah,” Jason said. “Not that I totally want to. I have my doubts about that.”

  Caleb nodded, understanding his statements completely. Jason didn’t talk much, but he had told Caleb about the rumors he’d heard, and he’d filled him in to some extent on which ones to trust and which ones to doubt.

  “So if you’re checking this out, I’m guessing you’re gonna need the stage?” Caleb asked.

  Jason grimaced. “Yeah, I’m afraid so,” he said. “I hate the idea of taking it away from the town, but if there’s a group involved, there’s no choice. Even if it’s small.”

  Caleb nodded, understanding completely. It looked like he was going to be getting a lot more action than he’d thought he would.

  “So when are we leaving?” he asked, thinking he was nearly ready and they’d probably be leaving first thing in the morning.”

  “Now,” Jason said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “Or at least as soon as we can.”

  “Now?” Caleb repeated. “But it’s late afternoon.”

  Jason nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “But the mayor wants this done as soon as possible.”

  He paused. “I told you how he is about mail order brides and all. I’m afraid he’s got a bit of a bee in his bonnet about this thing,” Jason added.

  Caleb looked around, thinking about which horses might be suitable to leave right away, and then he thought about the condition of the stagecoach.

  Fortunately he’d checked everything out after helping to rescue Joseph, and it was all in perfect working order.

  “I don’t know how much progress we’re gonna make today, though,” Caleb said as he sorted it all out in his mind. “Not a whole lot of daylight left.”

  “I know,” Jason said, nodding. “But we can at least get out to an initial campsite I know of.”

  “I remember it,” Caleb said. “At least if it’s the one we’ve been to before.”

  “Probably,” the scout replied. “It’s the one due east.”

  “So that’s all you know?” Caleb asked. “That it’s due east?”

  Jason shook his head yet again. It was clear he was at least slightly exasperated about all this, but just as obvious that he had little recourse, at least not at this point.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” Jason replied, and then he realized he needed to share at least some of what he knew with the boy, even if it was tentative.

  “I talked to the mayor about it, and he said it had to be on one of the trails that would lead out to Denver past here. And there ain’t many of those,” he explained.

  Caleb nodded. He’d only been on one of those trails, but he had a pretty good idea what Jason was talking about.

  He’d made sure to take note of everything Jason told him whenever they talked, and he remembered the time they’d talked about the different trails and routes the scouts covered.

  “Well, I can be ready in half an hour if you need me to,” Caleb said finally, noticing that Jason was starting to fidget and rock back and forth on his heels.

  Suddenly Jason’s face lit up. “You can?” he said, his eyebrows rising. “I figured it would take at least an hour, and we’d lose some of the daylight that’s left.”

  Caleb shrugged. “Nope. I cleaned up and got everything ready after I got back yesterday, so it would take no time at all for me to be ready to go.”

  “Huh.” Jason cocked his head, and smiled slightly, and Caleb could tell he was impressed. Jason was a hard man to read, but Caleb liked to think he’d gotten pretty good at it in the few months he’d know him.

  “So you can meet me at the ranch then?” Jason asked. “In an hour?”

  Caleb nodded slightly, running the time it would take through his mind. A half hour to the ranch would be possible if he pushed the horses, which he knew he could do if they didn’t have a full day’s ride in front of them.

  “Sure,” he replied. Then he smiled. “Maybe even a little less if I push.”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “Well, don’t push too much,” he said. “I want to get going, but I don’t want to push the horses that bad. Especially not if we’re gonna be out for a couple of days, which we most likely are.�
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  “All righty then,” Caleb said. “I’ve got a fresh team that can handle it, and I promise not to push ‘em too hard.”

  “That’ll do.” With that, Jason looked out toward the door, and he nodded toward the entrance to the stables. “We should get going, then. My horse is outside.”

  “All right,” Caleb said. “I’ll come out and give the stage another quick look over, and then come back here for the team.”

  “Sounds good,” Jason said, nodding as they walked out of the stable together.

  They saw that the sun was beginning to set when they got out into the open, and both Jason and Caleb had the same thought, that there wasn’t much daylight left.

  “Sorry to do this to you on such short notice” Jason said as he walked over to where his horse was hitched up. “I have a feeling this one might turn out to be something of a mess.”

  When she got up, Hallie approached the tent cautiously, wondering if her two fellow mail order brides were up yet.

  It was well into the morning, but Hallie was aware that they might have been just as exhausted as her, even if they were unaware of their situation just yet.

  Slowly, Hallie lowered herself and sat next to the edge of the tent. Her calico dress was already soiled slightly, but she knew full well there would be no standing on ceremony for the rest of this little adventure.

  “Excuse me,” she said softy as she opened the flap to the canvas tent. “Josie? Kayleen?”

  Nothing. It had been an effort just to remember their names after the discovery that the stage was gone, and Hallie smiled to herself.

  She could hear gentle snoring coming from inside the tent, and that was when Hallie realized she’d been right about how tired they were.

  Still, Hallie knew she had to wake them up at some point soon. It would make no sense to let them sleep through the rest of the day; if she let that happen, they would wake up in the twilight or the dark and be beyond alarmed and bewildered.

  Unsure about what to do, Hallie stood up and backed away from the tent. She tried to think of what to do next, and the only thing she could come up with was to check out the campsite.

  Still, it was a place to start. The corrupt stagecoach driver had at least taught them how to build a fire and keep it going, so Hallie checked to see if they had enough sticks and wood to do that again in the evening.