* * *
"About time you showed up," Miss Hawks said when they rolled into the ranch yard. "Thought you forgot about me." She took off her hat, beat dust out of it, and slapped it back on her head. "Not exactly dressed for company."
"Took me a while to arrange some free time," Sarah explained, "and you look fine. Why don't you give us the tour?"
"Let's get your things up to your rooms first."
She showed them to their rooms--separate rooms in different wings of the Manor House. It seemed that her idea of propriety was even stricter than Sarah's, so any ideas Aaron had along certain lines was killed. He would have protested the sleeping arrangements if Sarah had looked the least bit upset. However, she didn't seem to give the matter any thought. Miss Hawks eyed him with a sour expression, almost daring him to say something.
Her expression changed drastically when he flipped open his bags and lifted out two pounds of silver coin.
"I'm really glad to see that," she admitted. "I rehired some of the old hands and sent everybody off to buy cattle with the rest of the ranch's money. Mister Moorehouse and I are the only people left.
"Don't you think it was a bit risky to strip your funds that way?" Sarah asked.
Miss Hawks shook her head. "My partner gave me his word. I wanted to find out early how good it is." She hefted the bag of silver coins. "Looks like his word is solid. Come on, I'll take you on the two copper tour."
She gave them a tour of the Manor. Aaron was impressed. Though he did not know anything about running a Manor, he did know a lot of buildings when he saw them. The Manor had fourteen buildings, stables, carriage houses, bunkhouses and guesthouses. If he wanted to be exacting, he even saw chicken houses but that would take the number of buildings up to nineteen and Miss Hawks specifically said there were only the fourteen and not one building more. The Manor, itself, was two stories tall and owned seventeen rooms. Most notably, the grounds had one of the most luxurious outhouses Aaron had ever seen. The outhouse had padded seats and was divided. One side of six stalls was for women and the other side with two stalls for men. That impressed him since separate facilities for men and women were not the norm in Last Chance. Apparently the Kingsfords had wanted no one standing outside doing the side to side shuffle when there was work to be done. Eight stalls, no waiting seemed to be their motto.
When they approached the outhouse the end door opened. A tall, older man stepped out who looked vaguely familiar. Aaron was sure he had visited the store, though the gods knew when or why. Perhaps the man's thick grayy beard was the problem. It was so long and wild that Aaron could barely make out any details of his face. It was possible that he generally shaved before heading to town.
"This is Mister Moorehouse," Miss Hawks said. "He can't punch cattle to save his life, but he is a genius at everything else. This place would fall apart without him."
Aaron accepted a proffered hand, noting thick knuckles and hard calluses. "Mister Moorehouse."
Moorehouse smiled shyly. "It's a pleasure, sir. Was never so happy in my life as when the Mistress told me you took over. Knew things would be all right then."
"Miss Hawks is in charge," Aaron said. "I'm only visiting."
"As you say, sir," Moorehouse answered, taking his hand back. He gave a brief nod and walked away.
Aaron was glad for the tour because Miss Hawks' face lit up when she talked of the Manor and her plans for it. She was obviously the right person to run the place. She was as proud, or prouder, of the ranch than if it were her child.
The day went quickly. Evening found them sitting in the living room, drinks in hand while they made plans for the future.
"I think getting those people to grow hay for us is a good idea," Miss Hawks said. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about the possibility of growing other crops too. We have a lot more land than we really need and there are hungry people back east."
"Maybe so," Sarah supplied. "The difficulty is getting the food to the people who need it. By the time the food gets far enough east for it to sell it will be spoiled. There isn't much profit in that."
"There is if we build a cannery out here," Miss Hawks responded. "We can preserve our own food for our use, and then we send all the extra back east to make us a profit. I don't think the process should take up more than three or four acres of land."
"It will take more than that," Aaron supplied. "If you plan on building this thing out here you will need to set aside land for housing. You will also need a schoolhouse." He tasted the drink she had given him. He wasn't sure exactly what the drink was, but he knew it was good. From the burn running down his throat, the alcohol content was impressive.
"Now there you go," Miss Hawks told Sarah. "The man does think ahead."
Sarah laughed. "Stop sucking up dear. You can't tell me you never considered the matter of housing your people."
"Of course I thought of it. I just never considered building a schoolhouse is all--Um, Mister Turner?"
"Hmmm."
"Exactly why do we need a schoolhouse?"
Aaron's head felt fuzzy. "For the kids."
"What kids?"
"For the ones I assume the workers will have."
Sarah laughed at him. "Aaron, there ain't no single woman going to come out here with her kids when she can be someplace where she has a chance of catching herself a man. The only women you're going to get out here are the ones committed to being single."
"But what about the married women, the ones whose husbands work in the factory too?"
They looked at him strangely. "Mister Turner," Miss Hawks finally said, "Men don't work in factories. It just isn't done. Not on this side of the ocean anyway. I did talk to a man once who said it was different over in the Old World countries, but they do a lot of strange things over there."
"You're kidding." Aaron was astonished.
"Not at all," Sarah told him. "By law, men are not allowed to work in factories."
"But why not?"
Miss Hawks spread her hands before her. "I suppose it's because factories are dirty. Can't take chances when men just seem to get sick more than women, and then they die. We don't know why it happens, but we do know that it is stupid to let men work inside a factory."
"So what do they do overseas?" he asked. He felt strange. Men were supposed to be the stronger sex. Why was this place different?
"From what I've read in the papers," Sarah said, "they let the men do whatever they want to do. I also read that their man to woman ratio is, at best, one to five or six."
"By the Lady," Aaron muttered, shocked by the turn of social events in this world. He tipped up his cup and emptied it. "I'm surprised you people let men serve in the Guard."
"No choice," Sarah said. "By nature, men tend to be more violent than women. Some of them never learn to curb that violence because it is so deeply embedded. Those are the ones who have to go into the Guard if they want any life at all. Their only other option is to turn criminal or go slowly crazy because they have these terrible instincts that they cannot find an outlet for. Sometimes they just run berserk. Fortunately the really wild ones have a high sex drive. They do more than their share to make sure new people are born."
"This," Aaron told them, "is too much information at once. I think it's time to get some sleep. If I stay up any longer the two of you will only depress me more."
"Do you want me to tuck you in?" Sarah asked sweetly.
"Will you be staying?"
"No dear, not without Cathy. I won't even let us be seriously tempted. That's why I had Miss Hawks put our beds so far apart."
That figured. She and the world conspired against him.
Sarah turned serious. "Aaron, you do know that if things become too difficult you can always find someone who is willing to give you a quick tumble. Honestly, neither Cathy nor I will have a problem with that. Jealousy over other women is just not in us. It isn't in any woman. We can't afford it because it gives our men a reason to leave."
"You told
me that before."
"Perhaps if you were to ask Miss Hawks?"
"I suppose I could have sex with him," the indicated lady reluctantly said. "After all, he has done enough for me." Her enthusiasm was warm enough to freeze lava.
"Maybe another time."
"Offer's there." Miss Hawks shrugged and finished the dregs of her drink. "To bed then."
"To bed," Aaron agreed. Leaving the women, he stood, headed up the stairs, and crawled into his bed. After he lay down he wondered if he should have accepted Miss Hawk's offer after all. The way things were going, he was probably going to be this world's first twenty-five year-old male virgin. That thought gave him pause. After doing some quick figuring he realized that he had made a mistake. His birthday had been yesterday.
Damn. That meant he really was a twenty-five year-old virgin. Uh oh, thinking of birthdays, he had come very close to making a huge mistake. Cathy would turn sixteen in another week. He needed to find her a nice present.
But that was for later. This was now, and right now he really wanted another one of those very strong drinks. In fact, he wanted several.
Rising, he left the room, went down the stairs, and into the dining room. Though the ladies were in bed, the bottle was still out.
"Fine," he said out loud as he poured himself another drink. Because he did not want to just sit and drink, he pulled a sheet of paper and a pencil from the writing desk and started doodling. Before he knew exactly what he was doing he had drawn up a speculative perspective of how a canning factory would best be laid out. He even put in rail lines. He drew the size and shape of his projected rail cars and designed the type of harness the horses would need to do the pulling.
Gods No! He looked at what he had done with disbelief. With near panicky movements he picked the paper up and tore it into shreds. Taking the pieces, he went over to the unused fireplace and threw them in it and then used his lighter to ignite them.
No way, there was no way he was going to get himself involved in another project. Stress reduction was the only way to go. If Miss Hawks sank her teeth into this project it would give Aaron nothing but two years of headaches.
With that potential problem avoided, he poured himself the rest of the bottle and took his glass when he went back to bed.