He was answered by a loud chorus of “Like hell!” and “No way!”
“Don’t squabble!” Sawyer shouted.
Ben chuckled and slid a plate of sourdough hotcakes onto the counter toward Ralph.
“See what I mean?” the cook said under his breath. “Your men are already fighting over the new teacher, and she isn’t even arriving for months.”
Ralph lit into the hotcakes as if he hadn’t eaten in a week. Mouth full, he mumbled something about lonely bachelors.
“All right, all right,” Sawyer conceded. “Bringing a few women to Hard Luck might be a good idea, but how do you suggest we persuade them to move up here?”
“I guess we could advertise,” Christian said thoughtfully, then brightened. “Sure, we’ll advertise. It’s a good idea. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner.”
“Advertise?” Sawyer glared at his brother. “What do you mean, advertise?”
“Well, we could put an ad in one of those glossy magazines women like to buy. You know, the kind with lifestyle articles.” He said the word almost reverently. “What I heard, it’s gotten to be the thing to place an ad about lonely men in Alaska seeking companionship.”
“A friend of a friend sent his picture to one of ’em,” Ralph said excitedly, “and before he knew it, he had a sackful of letters. All from women eager to meet him.”
“I want you to know right now I’m not taking off my shirt and posing for any damn picture,” Duke Porter said in an emphatic voice.
“Getting your photograph in one of those magazines isn’t as easy as it sounds,” Ralph warned after swallowing a huge bite. He shrugged. “Not that I’ve tried or anything.”
“Things are rarely as good as they sound,” Sawyer pointed out reasonably, pleased that at least one of his employees was thinking clearly.
“Those women aren’t looking for pen pals, you know,” John said. “They’re after husbands, and they aren’t the type who can be picky, either, if you catch my drift.”
“So? You guys aren’t exactly centerfold material yourselves,” Ben was quick to remind them. He pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and planted both hands on the counter.
“As far as I can see,” Sawyer said, “we don’t have anything to offer women. It’s not like our good looks would induce them to move here, now is it?”
John’s face fell with disappointment. “You’re probably right.”
“What would work, then?” Christian asked. “We need to think positive, or we’re going to end up spending our lives alone.”
“I don’t have any complaints about my life,” Sawyer told his brother. Christian’s enthusiasm for this crazy idea surprised him. Sawyer was willing to go along with it, but he didn’t have much faith in its success. For one thing, he wasn’t convinced there’d be any takers. And if there were, the presence of these women might create a whole new set of problems.
“You’ve got to remember women aren’t that different from men,” Christian was saying, sounding like a TV talk-show expert.
The others stared at him, and Christian laughed. “You know what I mean. You guys came up to Hard Luck, didn’t you? Even though we’re fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle.”
“Sure,” Duke answered. “But the wages are the best around, and the living conditions aren’t bad.”
“Wages,” Christian said, removing a pen from the pocket of his plaid shirt. He made a note on his paper napkin.
“You aren’t thinking about paying women to move to Hard Luck, are you?” Sawyer would fight that idea tooth and nail. He’d be darned if he’d see his hard-earned cash wasted on such foolishness.
“We could offer women jobs, couldn’t we?” Christian asked. He glanced around to gather support from the other pilots.
“Doing what?” Sawyer demanded.
“Well...” Frowning, his brother gnawed on the end of his pen. “You’ve been saying for a long time that we need to get the office organized. How about hiring a secretary? You and I have enough to do dealing with everything else. It’s a mess, and we can’t seem to get ahead.”
Sawyer resisted the urge to suggest a correspondence course in time management. “All right,” he said grudgingly.
The other pilots looked up from their breakfasts. They were beginning to take notice.
“What about all those books your mother left behind after she married Frank?” Ben asked. “She donated them so Hard Luck could have a library.”
Sawyer gritted his teeth. “A volunteer library.”
“But someone’s got to organize it,” Christian said. “I’ve tried now and then, but whenever I start to get things straightened out, I’m overwhelmed. There must be a thousand books there.”
Sawyer couldn’t really object, since, unlike Christian, he’d never made any effort to put his mother’s collection in order.
“That was very generous of your mother, giving the town her books,” Ralph said. “But it’s a shame we can’t find what we want or check it out if we do.”
“It seems to me,” Christian said, smiling broadly, “that we could afford to pay someone to set up the library and run it for a year or so. Don’t you agree?”
Sawyer shrugged. “If Charles does.” But they both knew their oldest brother would endorse the idea. He’d been wanting to get the library going for quite a while.
“I heard Pearl say she was thinking of moving to Nenana to live with her daughter,” Ben told the gathering. “In that case, the town’s going to need someone with medical experience for the health clinic.”
A number of heads nodded. Sawyer suspected now was not the time to remind everyone that Pearl regularly mentioned moving in with her daughter. Generally the sixty-year-old woman came up with that idea in the darkest part of winter, when there were only a couple of hours of daylight and spirits were low.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ben said, turning to Sawyer. “But did it ever occur to you that Pearl actually would leave if someone was here to take over for her?”
No, Sawyer hadn’t. Pearl had lived in Hard Luck for as long as he could remember. She’d been a friend of his mother’s when Ellen lived in Hard Luck, and a peacemaker in the small community. Over the years Sawyer had frequently had opportunity to be grateful to Pearl. If she did decide to move, he’d miss her.
“We can ask her if she’s serious about wanting to retire,” Sawyer agreed, despite his reluctance. “But I won’t have Pearl thinking we don’t want her.”
“I’ll talk to her myself,” Christian promised.
“I could use a bit of help around here,” Ben said. “I’ve been feeling my age of late.”
“You mean feeling your oats, don’t you?” John teased.
Ben grinned. “Go ahead and add a part-time cook and waitress to your list.”
There were smiles all around. Sawyer hated to be the one to put a damper on all these plans, but someone had to open their eyes to a few truths. “Has anyone figured out where these women are going to live?”
It was almost comical to see the smiles fall in unison, as if they were marionettes and a puppet master was working their mouths. Still, Sawyer had to admit he was beginning to warm to the idea of recruiting women. Hard Luck could do with a few new faces and he