Falling for the Rancher’s Daughter (Preview)

Prologue

Peshtigo, Wisconsin, October 8, 1871

Screams of fear, shrieks of pain and anguish ripped through the night. Charlie woke with a start, flung his covers off and lunged from his bed, bare feet on the cold floorboards, heart pounding as he reached for his pants and yanked them on. 

He pulled on a boot, holding the other in his hand as he stepped to the door of his room and swung it open. 

“Pa!” he shouted, bent over, tugging on the other boot. “Ma!”

His suspenders dangled from his waist, brushed against the back of his legs. A faded, red long-john undershirt barely kept the chill of the early October night away. More shouts of alarm rose in the distance. 

“Pa!”

Fifty-year-old Martin Hawkins emerged from his bedroom in his gray long-johns. Charlie’s mother Maggie appeared, wide-eyed behind his father in her long white nightgown. Her dark brown hair, streaked with gray, hung loose past her shoulders. Grasping her husband’s hand, she followed Martin and their son down the hallway toward the front of the house.

More shouts and screams echoed from outside, some close, others farther away. In the distance Charlie heard the frantic clang of the church bell across the river, sounding what could only be an alarm. From the front parlor the family peered out the windows, curiosity turning into wide-eyed dismay.

Charlie stared agog at a wall of reddish orange flames, twisting and swirling upward while it voraciously consumed homes in the near distance. Farm houses were on fire, barns ablaze. In the blink of an eye, he saw men wearing long-underwear scooping up their children and racing for the edge of the Peshtigo River to the east, or the banks of the tributary to their north.

“Oh, good Lord,” Martin gasped. He turned to Charlie. “We’ve got to go!”

The buildings of the town, not a quarter of a mile away, were engulfed in a raging inferno consuming everything and anything in its path. Bawling cows and grunting horses raced past in the glow of the oncoming fire. Barking dogs and squawking chickens joined the terrified squeals of pigs and the cacophony of men shouting, women screaming and children crying as they dashed from their homes in their sleeping clothes. 

People and animals ran through recently harvested fields and still growing gardens that separated the Hawkins’ home from their neighbors. Glowing orange cinders blew in the air. Beyond and surrounding the town of Peshtigo, the forests to the northeast were in the midst of being eaten alive by hungry flames.

“To the river!” Martin Hawkins shouted again. “Now!”

Charlie reached for his mother’s arm as she stared in open mouthed horror out the window. “Mother! Come on! We’ve got to go!”

Embers driven by a steady wind of their own making rushed toward their own home. His father grabbed his mother’s other hand and together they pulled her screaming from the house, her hair swinging over her shoulder as she stared wide-eyed from the flames surging ever closer to her home and back again in disbelief.

“My Bible!” Maggie screamed. “Mother’s china!”

“Never mind all that, Maggie,” Martin shouted. “Pray! Pray for us and our neighbors. It’s all burning!”

“Pa! The sawmill,” Charlie shouted, pointing toward the east bank of the Peshtigo River roughly a hundred yards away. His father owned the place. “It’s on fire!”

Charlie stared at the awful scene, heart pounding. Fire was everywhere, the air hot with it, the night sky aglow with devilish shades of reds and oranges and yellows. 

Shapes moved through the flames and clouds of smoke. He realized they were running figures; people, dogs, farm animals, all heading toward the tributary or the banks of the river. The fire raced through town, consuming one structure after another in an alarmingly short time. Home after home in their own neighborhood was swept up into the conflagration with a whoosh and sounds of bursting glass and groaning wood not fifty yards away.

“To the tributary,” Martin shouted. “We need to get to the water.”

The fire chased them. Smoke borne on the wind carried the scents of burning pine and charred oak leaves, and something else stringent and unpleasant beneath that. His mother tried to pull out of his grasp and he turned toward her. 

“My home—”

“No, Mother!” Charlie shouted, tugging even harder. “We must hurry!”

Smoke roiled, thick and black, the wind pushing it toward their backs, the flames at their heels. Charlie inhaled hot, sooty air into his lungs and coughed, his eyes burning and watering as he winced against it. They raced over rough and uneven ground of their own recently harvested crop of stunted corn, the result of a long, hot dry summer and fall. 

They ran, stumbling often, the three holding each other up as they raced across the field, heading for the low, marshy area along the banks of the tributary of the Peshtigo River. A cow lumbered past them, bawling. A huge and grunting pig nearly knocked Charlie to his knees as it ran past. A handful of piglets following with high-pitched squeals.

Figures ran from houses and small businesses on the near side of the river. Flames had already leapt over the tributary and into the thick woods on the other side—the trees already smoking and popping as those flames took hold. The tributary and the larger river to the east offered dubious safety to hundreds of people running from their homes.

Holding tightly to his mother’s arm and fighting back his own terror of the flames encroaching, Charlie glanced over his shoulder and saw a pitch-black blanket of smoke rolling ever closer, threatening to choke the air out of their lungs before the flames could even reach them. 

The conflagration snapped and crackled, consuming everything in its path. The fire itself produced a wind as strong as a tornado, whipping flames high into the sky as if they had a life of their own. The speed of the flames themselves terrified Charlie.

“Faster, Ma. We must run faster!”

His father stumbled, nearly taking all three of them down, but they regained their footing and dashed toward the banks of the tributary that meandered its way through the marshes bordering each bank before it disappeared into the surrounding forest to the west of town.

The heat on his back scared Charlie. With every breath he took, his nostrils, throat, and lungs burned. His back felt like it did on the coldest of winter nights when he leaned against the stones of the fireplace. The air grew hotter and smokier, filled with bright orange embers as he ran pell-mell through the marshy grasses. Don’t trip…don’t fall…

His ears echoed with the strident sound of animals bleating, snorting, bawling in terror. Charlie didn’t dare look back again, but held onto his mother’s arm even tighter as they stumbled over the uneven and soggy ground at the edge of the marshes. His boots sloshed through mushy ground and tangled in the reeds, but he didn’t slow down, heart pounding, his mind spinning with disbelief with what was happening.

“Deeper!” Martin shouted over the roar of flames. 

The sound behind them was like that of a locomotive racing past,  but even worse than that, with a life and texture of its own, bringing with it that choking smoke filled with soot and ash that choked the air from their lungs and prompted fits of uncontrollable coughing. 

Finally, with the cold water up to their thighs, his father glanced behind them, his features wavering and grim in the undulating light of the flames. Martin tugged Maggie deeper into the river. Charlie understood what he was doing, still holding tightly to his mother’s other arm.

“We’ve got to get further into the water, Maggie,” Martin shouted, then broke into another fit of coughing.

Soon the water came up to their shoulders. Charlie wasn’t sure which was worse – the heat of the fire behind them or the icy chill of the water as they waded deeper. His boots sank into the silty soil until it almost grew too deep to stand. 

His parents were shoeless, his mother in nothing but her nightgown. The white cotton fabric billowed up around her now, undulating in the water as others made their way into the stream as well. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, trying to give her not only extra support but warmth from his own body.

A huge shape brushed hard against Charlie’s shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. It was a cow, its hide singed, the white of its eyes showing, nostrils flaring, teeth bared. On the banks, he heard sounds of man and beast that would stay with him forever.

Shoulder to shoulder, Charlie and his parents found dubious footing on what felt like a narrow sandbar, then turned back to look for their home. He saw nothing but flames rising high into the sky. Smoke blotted out any hint of stars or moonlight. Shocked, he could only gape.

“It’s all gone, Pa,” Charlie murmured, voice hoarse from the smoke. “It’s all gone…”

Oh good Lord, all those people… 

Over the roar of crackling flames, Charlie heard screaming and wailing. Terrified animals and people alike continued to surge into the water, some of them on fire. His mother wept. His father stared grimly. As for Charlie, he narrowed his gaze against the ashes flying through the air and realized that in a matter of minutes, at only twenty-two years of age, his life had changed forever.

Chapter One

December 1871

Cold Springs, Texas 

Charlie shrugged out of the nearly threadbare coat he’d been given by one of the parishioners back in Peshtigo before his family had set out south for Texas after the fire. “We’re almost there, Mother,” he said. “I’ll find a job and we’ll be back on our feet in no time.”

He glanced at her, staring straight ahead as if she hadn’t heard him. His heart sank. Lord, help her. Please…

“I would suppose that father’s friend, Michael Rawlings, is still holding the job open even though it took us longer than we planned to get down here. Maybe I’ll be able to find a position at the sawmill, too.”

His mother said nothing, lost in her own thoughts.

Charlie knew he had enough experience to fill any position at a sawmill. He’d worked in his father’s sawmill since he was fifteen years old. With nearly seven years of experience under his belt, he knew he would be a good, hard-working employee and just hoped that Mister Rawlings would feel the same. He glanced at his mother and then away.

The horse lumbered slowly, he tucked the reins between his knees and shrugged out of his coat. “Boy, mid-December in Texas is nothing like mid-December in Wisconsin, is it, Mother?” He’d grown used to talking to himself, which is what it felt like when trying to engage his mother, who was deeply melancholy, in conversation.

The old wagon they had taken from Peshtigo had given out just outside of Green Bay. From there, he and his parents had paid for passage aboard a schooner with money donated by the generosity of others back home. 

They’d traveled aboard that schooner as it took them on a windswept journey southward on Lake Michigan, the captain doing his best to keep the shoreline in sight until they disembarked in Gary, Indiana, south of Chicago. 

If Charlie had his druthers, he would never step foot on a boat again. He’d spent most of that journey hanging over the rail. It was during that lake journey that he and his parents learned that Chicago had also suffered a devastating fire the same night as the Peshtigo fire. Between the great fires, thousands of people had died. Even more thousands had lost their livelihoods and were traveling in all directions looking for work, Charlie and his parents among them.

After disembarking in the town of Gary, Martin Hawkins had just enough money in his pocket to buy a sorry looking cart and a sway-backed mare to continue their southward trek toward Texas. 

Along the way, his father had coughed more, lost his appetite, and grown weaker. At the insistence of his mother, and despite weak arguments from his father, they had paid a doctor in a small town just south of Springfield to examine him. The doctor had listened to his father’s lungs and slowly shook his head before he told them that those lungs were irreparably damaged from the smoke he’d inhaled on the night of the fire, and soon it would become increasingly difficult for him to breathe.

The devastating news had shocked his mother, on top of the melancholic despair of having to leave her former home and friends behind. That despair had compounded when they had been forced to bury her husband on the western banks of the Mississippi River somewhere in eastern Arkansas, his final resting place marked with a simple wooden cross pounded into the ground. 

His mother had hardly spoken a word since.

Maggie Hawkins had become a mere shell of her former self, her hair much grayer, shoulders hunched forward, her features pale and grief stricken. 

Charlie shook his head. Don’t let her give up hope, Lord, he thought for the hundredth time since they’d left Green Bay.

He deeply grieved the loss of his father, but had to keep moving forward. Charlie relied on his faith as he supported his mother, encouraged her, sometimes even scolded her that she had to eat and drink water to keep up her own sagging strength. 

He’d pushed his own grief and sense of loss deep inside, rarely allowing himself to even think of it. To do so would not help either his mother or himself. Now it was just the two of them.

Charlie drove the cart into the outskirts of Cold Springs, Texas. He was worried sick about her. Maybe if he found a job, made some money, his mother would not feel so destitute, so alone, so afraid. He pressed his lips together and resolutely followed the path of a narrow river along the eastern edge of town. In the near distance he heard the familiar whirr of a saw blade. 

“You hear that, Ma? The sawmill must be over there somewhere.”

Pulling into the sawmill yard not ten minutes later, he was surprised to find only a couple of workmen there. When the wagon was seen, the saw grew silent. After leaving his mother in the cart while he looked for someone to speak to, Charlie found a man inside who turned to him impatiently when he offered a greeting.

“What do you want, mister?”

The man wasn’t very friendly but Charlie shrugged it off. “I’m looking for Michael Rawlings. He was a friend of my father’s. He offered my father a job here.”

The man grimaced. “Michael Rawlings is dead. Died in an accident a couple of weeks ago,” the man grumbled. “The place has been bought by a competitor who operates several other sawmills in the Big Piney region. There aren’t any open positions. Sorry, kid.”

Charlie simply nodded and left the sawmill, trying to hide his worry as he made his way slowly back to the cart, not knowing what he would say to his mother. She was already beside herself, likely worried sick over what would come of them, not to mention the physical and emotional exhaustion she was suffering. 

Charlie had grown increasingly worried over the past couple of weeks that he might lose her too. She seemed to have given up the will to live. “No jobs at this sawmill, Ma,” he said softly. She didn’t react. “I’ll find something though,” he encouraged both of them, trying to sound positive. “This town is bigger than Peshtigo, so I’m sure of it.”

Beyond the sight of his mother sitting hunched and staring off into the distance, he looked toward the town of Cold Springs. Shops, businesses and homes spread out along both sides of a wide, dirt main street. 

“It looks like they have a lot of businesses and shops in this town,” he continued, imbuing his voice with confidence. “I’ll find something here. Please don’t worry, Ma.”

Still no response. 

Charlie held back a sigh and eyed the shingle announcing the presence of a sheriff’s office. The painted shingle was swinging gently in the warm breeze a short distance away, the chains connecting it to a post were creaking rhythmically. 

From a structure across the street from the sheriff’s office came the steady clang of a hammer pounding something into shape on an anvil. He looked at his mother, who silently watched him, her eyes dull and listless.

“I’m going to go ask around a little.” He looked around. “I’ll look for a boarding house or hotel where we can stay for a few days.” No response. 

They had very little money left, in fact barely enough to pay for food let alone a room in a boarding house for a day or two. He had to earn some money and quickly. The old cart was barely holding together as it was. They had no more grain to feed the old mare, who had to make do with grazing on the side of the road since they’d entered Texarkana.

Charlie climbed onto the seat of the cart and nudged the horse closer to a stand of cottonwoods that blocked the ever present breeze of the prairie. The mare immediately nipped at the leaves. “You wait here, Mother,” he said. “I won’t be gone long. I just want to ask directions to the place where we can stay for a day or two while I look for a job.”

Again no answer. His heart heavy, worries plentiful, Charlie started down Main Street. 

Past the sheriff and blacksmiths offices, he strode by a combination doctor’s and dentist’s office on the left. On the other side of the street stood a hardware store, and on the corner, a good-sized mercantile. He stepped inside, inhaling the scent of new cloth, leather boots, tobacco, then herbs and spices as he passed by a shelf containing a myriad of small glass jars. 

A woman stood behind the counter. A gentleman wearing a white apron spoke quietly to the middle-aged couple over by a collection of bolts of fabrics. 

“May I help you, young man?” she asked.

Charlie glanced at the woman and nodded. “Good afternoon. My name’s Charlie Hawkins. Me and my mother just got into town. I was wondering if there was a hotel or boarding house around here.”

The woman nodded. “I’m Sarah Thompson. My husband and I own this place.” She gestured toward the man in the apron talking to the couple. She eyed Charlie for several moments then pointed up the street. “On the next block, second building to your left. Boarding house is owned by Mrs. Emily Allen.” She gave Charlie another look. “She runs a clean place, offers rooms with three meals a day.”

Though his face flushed hot with embarrassment, he had to ask. “Do you know how much she charges per day?”

“One dollar a day, and that includes three meals a day and use of a bathtub once a week.”

A dollar a day. He had barely enough money to put them both up for two or three days at the most.

“She runs a clean place,” Sarah repeated. “Doesn’t put up with any funny business.”

Charlie nodded. “It’d just be me and my mother,” he reminded her.

The woman gazed intently at him. “Young man, be aware that that’s a dollar a day for a one-person room. She doesn’t have any rooms with two beds in them.”

Charlie figured as much. It had been much that way ever since they’d left Wisconsin. At first his parents had shared a hotel room or a room in a tavern and he’d sleep in the stables or, despite the cold outside, he’d sleep under the stars, huddled in a blanket, back pressed to the leeward side of the structure. 

Down here in Texas, where it was so warm, he wouldn’t mind sleeping outside if he had to.

“That’s all right,” Charlie replied. “I just need to put a roof over her head so she can rest. We’ve been on the trail for quite a while.”

Sarah looked as if she wanted to ask a question, but then pressed her lips together and simply nodded. “Down the street, two doors on the left. Emily Allen.”

“Much appreciated,” he said and walked out the door. Once outside, he looked around, slowly shaking his head in disappointment. Since the night of the fire, nothing had turned out right. Not one thing. 

He dug his hand into his pants pocket and withdrew a couple wrinkled dollar bills and four fifty-cent pieces. Again he shook his head. As Charlie looked up he saw a man watching him from in front of a bank across the street.

He hid a frown as the man approached. He had longish, sandy blonde hair, whiskers, and wore well-worn canvas pants, the legs tucked into a pair of battered boots. A faded and stained red flannel shirt was haphazardly tucked into the waistband of his pants, a dirty red neckerchief tied loosely around his neck.

“Howdy,” he said, approaching Charlie. “You new in town?” He gestured with his head toward the cart where his mother still sat at the end of the street.

“Yes.” He warily stuck out a hand. “I’m Charlie Hawkins.”

The man looked at his hand a moment then stuck out his own.  “Roger Deerfield.” 

Roger looked him over with an assessing gaze. Finally he nodded, jabbed a thumb over his shoulder and spoke. “I’m the foreman of a ranch outside of town. We’re always lookin’ for new hands.”

For the first time in days, weeks actually, Charlie’s spirits rose. He straightened. “Really?”

Roger nodded and scratched his whiskered chin. It sounded like sandpaper. “But I’m tellin’ you, if I get you a job over there, you’ll owe me a favor in return one of these days.”

Charlie could hardly believe his good luck. “Agreed.” They shook on it. “Where’s the ranch?”

“About five miles that way,” the man said, again shoving his thumb over his shoulder to the west. “Owned by Benjamin Montgomery. He owns one of the largest cattle ranches in the area.” He gave Charlie one more look from the top of his head down his boots and back again. “It’s my day off, but you can go see the owner and tell him Roger sent you.”

Charlie thanked him. “I’ll just get my mother settled in at the boarding house and I’ll rent a horse… there’s a livery stable here, isn’t there?” He hoped he had enough money for both. The man seemed to read his mind.

“Tell Hank Bascom—he owns the livery—that I told him to give you a horse. If Mister Montgomery agrees to hire you on, he can take the cost of the rental horse out of your first paycheck.”

Again, Charlie could hardly believe his good fortune. “Thank you,” he said again. He extended his hand once more and the men shook on it. Roger narrowed his eyes on him.

“Don’t let me down, kid,” he said. “Your word on it. When I ask you for a favor, whether it’s tomorrow or months from now, you owe me.”

“I won’t forget, Mister Deerfield,” he promised.

With that, Charlie returned to the cart and told his mother the good news. 

In less than a half an hour, he had her settled in a room on the second floor of the boarding house. The owner, Emily Allen, was in her mid-forties and fussed over his mother as she helped her up the stairs. 

He had arranged for her to stay in a room for two nights. Emily Allen had told him that he could sleep in the small stable behind the house. She had apologized about that, but she had no more rooms available. Charlie didn’t tell her that he was grateful for any kind of a roof over his head. After all, he was just about out of money.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, Ma,” Charlie said, loathe to leave her.

His mother simply nodded. Emily turned to him with a gentle smile. “Don’t you worry, Mister Hawkins. I’ll take good care of her. Mister Montgomery is a good man. You work hard for him and he’ll do right by you.”

“Thank you,” he said before kissing his mother gently on the forehead. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he repeated.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the boarding house, Charlie rode out of town on a spirited young sorrel gelding. He’d gotten directions from Hank, the livery owner, who also told him that Benjamin Montgomery was an honest man who paid good wages for a good day’s work. 

After leaving Cold Springs he rode westward on a flat, open prairie. The ground was covered with scrub brush and an occasional oak tree or copse of hardscrabble pines tucked into folds in the landscape. The land was deceptively flat, but as he rode, he found swales rippling with knee high wheat-colored grass. At the bottom of those shallows stood herds of grazing pronghorn antelope.

Charlie figured he was about halfway to the ranch when suddenly he saw a dust cloud rising from the north. It was maybe a quarter of a mile off and coming closer, fast. He pulled his horse up and stared. A horse at full-out run with a figure atop it raced across the prairie. The horse’s legs pounded the ground so fast they were nothing more than a blur of movement. 

As horse and rider grew closer, his eyes widened when he realized that the person sitting atop the horse was a woman, her hair flying behind her as she bent low over the horse’s neck, holding onto its mane, reins trailing.

With a shout of alarm, he nudged his heels into the gelding’s sides and took off after the runaway horse. Charlie felt the gelding’s muscles bunching and stretching as he took off after the runaway stallion, which had passed by so quickly that he’d only caught a glimpse of long light brown hair glinting in the afternoon sun, a slender figure wearing dark-blue canvas pants tucked into scuffed black boots, a checkered blue shirt with a vest over it. 

A kid? His heart leapt. I’ve got to help him! Fearing that the stallion might step into a gopher hole or trip and stumble, sending its rider flying any moment, Charlie urged his horse into a run and followed, only slightly gaining ground.

The stallion, a half-length ahead now, leapt over a clump of sage, forcing Charlie to hold his breath as the kid slightly lifted up out of his saddle and then landed back in it with nary a scream or a shout of alarm. Just then, the horse stumbled slightly. 

Heart in his throat, Charlie finally caught up and reached over to grab the bridle of the runaway horse. He reined in his own horse, barely able to keep his grip on the bridle as the stallion snorted and tossed its head up, nearly jerking Charlie’s arm out of its socket. He thought he heard a sound coming from the kid on the stallion’s back but didn’t glance up, keeping his eyes on the stallion’s laid-back ears and lips pulled back over sharp teeth.

Finally, as they both came to a halt, the horse snorting loudly, he turned to the rider. His jaw dropped—the kid was no kid, but a young woman sitting in the saddle with shining eyes and a grin. She eyed him with a lifted eyebrow and didn’t appear to be the least bit afraid. Charlie didn’t know what to think.

“You all right?” he finally asked.

She leaned forward, patting the stallion on its neck “Good boy, Copper.”

He glanced from her to the horse, noticing for the first time that the sorrel’s hide did look a lot like the color of a brand-new Indian head penny. He glanced back at her, confused. She was lovely, with a slightly rounded face, soft green eyes and a smattering of freckles over her cheekbones. “What are you doing, Miss”

“Giving him a good run.” She eyed him for several moments. “You thought I was in trouble, didn’t you?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Thank you for being so gallant, but I was fine. I needed to run him, let him feel his oats a bit. He’s a bit ornery sometimes, but a good run often simmers him down.”

He continued to stare. Yes, he’d thought she was in trouble but realized now that nothing could’ve been further from the truth. Embarrassed, Charlie shrugged.

The stallion took a couple steps, limping ever so slightly. The woman frowned and quickly dismounted. “Oh dear,” she murmured. She knelt in front of the horse’s forelegs and passed her hands gently down their length. She glanced up at him over her shoulder with a disapproving frown. “I was afraid that maybe he was pulled to a stop so quickly…” She stood.

He frowned and interrupted, his voice a bit harsher than he would’ve liked. After all, he’d just been trying to help. “I thought you were in trouble,” Charlie grumbled. He hadn’t meant to be rude, but he was a bit offended and the tone slipped out. 

What in the world was she thinking? She might have been killed! Such reckless—

“He should be all right,” she said, heaving a sigh as she palpated the horse’s cannons and fetlocks another couple of moments and then stood. “But I don’t want to ride him back home just yet. I want to make sure.” She stared at Charlie with a frown. 

He dismounted quickly, still confused but wanting to help. Maybe she was right. He would hate to be at fault if the horse had been injured. It was a magnificent animal, his hooves alone the size of plates. “I can give you a ride back to your place if you’d like,” he offered, eying her again. “Who are you and where do you live?” He couldn’t see any sign of a structure in any direction.

“My name’s Mary,” she said. 

“Charlie Hawkins.”

With a sigh, she looked at his horse and then at him. “That horse is from the livery stable in town, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

Mary gave him an appraising gaze. “Where are you headed with a rented horse?”

“The Montgomery ranch.” 

She didn’t say anything but stood with her hands on her hips, waiting. 

“My mother and I just got into town,” he explained. It actually felt nice to have a conversation with someone for a change. He continued, probably talking too much but tired of silence. “I was hoping to get a job over at the sawmill but the man told me it’d been sold. I met another man in town, Roger Deerfield, who said he was the foreman of the Montgomery ranch. He said I could ask the owner for a job there.” The young woman frowned when he mentioned Deerfield’s name but still nodded. 

“The Montgomery ranch is always looking for a good hand. You got cowhand experience?”

He thought that an odd question for a lady to ask him, but answered anyway. “No. We’ve just come from Wisconsin. I worked in my father’s sawmill up there.”

To his surprise, she didn’t ask any more questions. She simply scratched her stallion under its mane, speaking softly to it, before grabbing up the reins and gesturing toward Charlie’s horse. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. “You can take the saddle,” he said. “I’ll sit behind you.” 

She shook her head. “That’ll put too much weight on his kidneys. It’s about two miles to the ranch over that way.” She pointed to the west. “You take the saddle and I’ll sit behind you.”

Charlie thought better of arguing with her. She stood facing him, fisted hands on hips. She looked like a woman with her mind made up. 

With a sigh, he mounted, situated himself, boots pressed down into the stirrups before he leaned down and gave her his arm. She stepped back, then lunged upward off her feet while he heaved her up with his arm. In a matter of seconds she had settled on the skirt of the saddle behind him, arms around his waist.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Mary said.

Her breath tickled the back of his neck. She smelled of lavender and horse. He tried to still his thoughts, knowing he had no business thinking about women or anything else other than finding a job to support himself and his mother.

As they rode back to the Montgomery ranch, she talked. Actually, she talked quite a bit. Mostly about the stallion trailing behind his rented horse, about what a beautiful day it was, and about the people in Cold Springs, one name after another, until they got all jumbled up in his mind. He didn’t mind. She had a nice voice. 

When she finally paused, Charlie glanced behind to find her chin nearly resting on his shoulder. His cheeks flushed hot and he quickly turned away before she saw. 

“You’ve lived out here all your life?” he asked.

“Yes.”

For someone so talkative, her one-word answer surprised him. Then she spoke again. He liked her voice. It had an accent that reminded him of syrup for some reason.

“What brings someone from Wisconsin all the way down here to Texas?”

“A fire.”

“The one up in Chicago?”

He shook his head. “Further north, in Door County. The Peshtigo fire.”

“I didn’t hear about that one.”

He didn’t say anything. To his dismay, not a lot of people had. The fire in Chicago had eaten most of the space in newspapers in the days and weeks that passed. Charlie sighed. 

Finally, a number of buildings appeared on the prairie and he gestured with his chin. “Is that the Montgomery place?”

Mary nodded, her chin almost touching his shoulder again, her breath warm against the side of his neck. “It is.”

“You know the owner?”

She nodded, chin bumping his shoulder as she peered over it at the ranch buildings slowly coming into focused view. 

“What’s he like?”

“Oh, he owns the biggest ranch in the county, maybe in this whole region of Texas,” she said slowly as they rode closer. “So he’s busy a lot, and he counts on his ranch hands. I suppose he can be a little hard on them. If they don’t do their job he doesn’t keep them on very long.”

“That sounds fair enough.”

“I suppose so.”

The buildings grew closer and closer. By the time they rode into the yard, he saw several men watching them approach. One stood in the corral with a long lead rope attached to the halter of a beautiful dapple-gray mare. Another man emerged from the barn, carrying a bale of hay by its wire. 

Then Charlie glanced toward the porch of a large, two-story home, its multi-paned windows glinting in the sun of the Texas afternoon. A man emerged to stare at them, a pipe tucked between his lips, hands fisted on his hips as Charlie guided the horse toward the front of the house and the hitching post there.

He’d barely pulled his horse to a halt when Mary slid off the horse and called out to the man.

“Hello, Father,” she called out. “I brought you a new ranch hand.”