“Good luck with that, Brett,” Steve said. “I hope you find one. I’m not here for a wife. Just a cook. Rex got hurt. I need someone to fill in for him. I’m hoping they’re on this train.”
“Ya. Dr. Graham told me. Poor little man, Rex.” For a man who could throw hundred-pound feed sacks in a wagon one in each hand, the blacksmith was a sensitive man. “You tell Brett what I can do.”
“Haul a cook out to my place,” Steve muttered while taking note of how Brett had nodded toward Nelson Graham standing on his other side. Frowning, Steve gave his head a quick, clearing shake. He hadn’t expected the doctor to be looking for a wife, either. Had every man in town gone loco? If they all thought a woman was going to make their lives easier, they needed a new line of thinking. While peering around Brett, Steve caught sight of the man standing next to the doctor and clamped his jaw tight.
“Excuse me, Brett,” Steve said, while squeezing past the man. After nodding to Dr. Graham, Steve planted himself next to the cowboy who should be rounding up spring calves. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The look in Jess Rader’s eyes said he would have run but was squeezed in too tight to move. “I told you this morning I was coming to town, Boss.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I didn’t?”
“No.”
“Well, I meant to.” Jess glanced left then right, and then must have concluded he still didn’t have an escape route. “I ponied up five bucks, Boss. I gotta be here for one of the gals to pick me or I lose my money.”
“You lose your money either way,” Steve pointed out. “And if you want one of those gals to pick you, you should have taken a bath.”
“It ain’t the first of the month yet,” Jess said. “Besides, with Rex hurt, there’s no use taking a bath. Ain’t no one to wash my clothes while I’m washing my skin.”
Steve huffed out a breath. Besides being able to cook, his new hired hand would need to know how to wash clothes.
“What are you doing here?” Jess asked. “I thought you didn’t like this idea of brides.”
“I don’t,” Steve said. “I’m here to hire a cook.”
“Good,” Jess said. “Did you know Walter put salt instead of sugar in the flapjacks this morning? They were awful.”
“Yes, I know. I tasted one.” And had tasted the eggs Walter had sprinkled with sugar. The bacon had been burned black, and the coffee had been too full of grounds to swallow.
“Aw, what? Really?” Jess stomped a foot. “If that don’t beat all.”
Steve glanced around as moans and groans filled the air from the men standing around him. “What?” he asked Jess.
“Didn’t you just hear that?”
“What?” Steve repeated.
“Someone just said there are only five. Five women instead of twelve.” Jess pointed up and down the men standing on either side of them. “Look at all these fellers; that ain’t good odds.”
Steve glanced up and down the row. Besides the blacksmith, the doctor, Jess and the saloon-owning cousins, the banker, the gunsmith, a couple of farmers, a couple of ranchers, as well as the hotel owner and few others he didn’t know were lined up next to the platform.
“All these men paid up front?” he asked Jess.
“You had to in order to be in the group the gals have to choose from.”
Lester Higgums started pounding on his drum, a signal that the train door would soon open, and suddenly Steve didn’t want to be in the front row. He didn’t want it assumed in any way he was here for one of the girls to pick from. In fact, the idea of finding a cook amongst all this hullabaloo was as far-fetched as the whole bride project.
Other instruments joined Lester’s drums; an entire band was playing. The pomp and circumstance the town was putting on for this was laughable. Or disgusting. Either way, he wasn’t impressed, and shouldered his way through the crowd.
Shouts and cheers said the conductor must be opening the door, and without a backwards glance, he headed toward the Wet Your Whistle to collect his horse.
Once mounted, he muttered a curse at how the road heading west out of town was blocked by wagons and buggies. He urged his horse eastward in order to cross the tracks behind the train and then he’d head north, back to his ranch, empty-handed.
Mary had never been so frazzled. Her hair had never been so dirty or her clothes so dust-covered. And she’d never been so mad at her sister in her life. They were twins. They were supposed to think alike. They were supposed to have gotten off this stupid train miles ago. Days ago.
“We have to go,” Mary hissed. “Now. It’s our last chance.”
“I want a bath,” Maggie said. “I want a decent meal. The girls say that the town is supposed to have hotel rooms for us and everything.”
“We’re not staying in this dusty cow town,” Mary insisted yet again.
“Well I want to enjoy it while I can,” Maggie spouted back. “Nothing is wrong with a little pampering.”
“Pampering!” For being twins there were times they were as different as night and day. “We need to find jobs and I need to find a place to make more tonic.”
Maggie raised her chin as if she was some high and mighty princess. “The tonic needs another week before it’s ready to bottle. What does it matter whether we are comfortable at the hotel?”
“It matters. We’ve got to show them right from the start we aren’t going to marry anyone and they can’t force us.” Mary had to draw a breath to calm her ire. “You know how it is...how it’s always been with our business. We need to be ready to leave town if necessary. That’s why you need to come with me. We have to stay together.”
“We won’t make it. That conductor has eyes like an eagle. Besides, I heard the sheriff talk to him in Bridgeport. They won’t give us a permit to sell it here anymore than they would in Ohio.”
“Then we will just have to be more careful. Anyone who tries the tonic is happy enough with the results. It will only be for a few weeks. By the time the authorities find anything out, we will be gone.”
“Where will we go after this town?”
“I don’t know,” Mary admitted. “Maybe Denver. Somewhere big enough to make a good profit. Somewhere far enough west that selling permits aren’t a problem.”
“We can talk about it at the hotel,” Maggie said before she crossed her arms and spun around.
Mary may have been angry before, now she was furious. Her entire being shook. Ever since they’d boarded the train Maggie had been too busy making friends to care about anything else. Well, maybe it was time for her to discover friends weren’t the same as sisters. It would be a rude awakening for her, but if that was what it took, so be it.
As the wheels screeched to a halt and the others, including Maggie, rushed to stare out the windows, where the music played and people shouted, Mary slid into the small latrine. Her anger continued to fester. If Maggie had kept quiet, they could have snuck out without catching the conductor’s attention more than once.
Cracking the latrine door open, Mary peered out, waiting for the chance she wouldn’t let slip by.
As a portly man stepped aboard, commanding everyone’s attention, Mary slipped out of the latrine and out the door before anyone noticed. Taking a deep breath, which caught in her throat because the air was full