“I am right about this,” Iris declared. “I’ll just be glad when these men get here and take over. Everything will be all right once that happens.”
“What about you, Rose?” Violet asked. “What do you know about your groom?”
“His name is Jacob Hamilton,” Rose replied. “I know he’s been working on ranches down in Texas. He traveled up here from San Antonio. But I don’t know much else about him.”
“Don’t you know how old he is?” Violet asked.
“No, I don’t,” Rose admitted.
“But he could be old,” Violet pointed out. “He could be forty or fifty. Didn’t you at least ask him?”
“No, I didn’t,” Rose replied.
Chapter 6
Something in Rose’s tone struck Violet as odd, and she glanced over her shoulder at her youngest sister. Instead of facing forward, listening to their conversation with keen attention, Rose stared off at the countryside outside the buggy. The same dreamy expression haunted her eyes.
Violet shuddered. She expected Rose to eavesdrop on their conversation and inform Cornell about their complaints. That would be just like Rose to play both sides of the fence. Instead, Rose gazed at the scenery with her head in the clouds, seeing nothing in front of her. Didn’t she care enough to listen to her sisters’ conversation? Didn’t she care enough about the future of the ranch to form an opinion about its management?
Violet barely discussed the merits of mail-order husbands with Rose to win her consent to the plan. Rose barely listened to her arguments at all. She flatly agreed to everything Violet suggested, right down to the methods they should employ to deal with Cornell. Her compliance irked Violet more than anything. She preferred Iris’s rebelliousness to Rose’s bland, empty submission.
Except it wasn’t submission, was it? Rose might say ‘yes’ to everything, but she kept her true feelings and opinions secret. The comforting thing about Iris was, no matter how forcefully she disagreed with you, you always knew exactly where she stood and what she thought. She never minced her words keeping anything to herself. When you dealt with Iris, you got one hundred percent Iris or nothing at all. Violet never doubted Iris for a minute.
No matter what Rose said, even when she agreed with you, you always doubted her. You never knew what she thought or felt or heard or believed because regardless of what she said, she always kept something back. She smiled sweetly, and agreed to everything anyone asked of her gently and easily, so you hated yourself for doubting her. You couldn’t question her. She only smiled more sweetly than ever and fill your head full of butterflies and bunny rabbits.
Like now, for instance. Rose said she didn’t ask Jacob Hamilton his age, but Violet couldn’t question her about anything else she knew about her prospective groom. Rose would only find a polite way of making Violet feel guilty for prying into her personal business.
Violet went back to her solid, reassuring conversation with Iris. “Anyway, we’ll put all three of them in the Fort House. That will keep them out of Cornell’s hair until Friday. The less the three of them have to do with him, the better.”
“And what comes after Friday?” Iris asked.
Violet started. “What do you mean?”
“Where will all of us live after the wedding on Friday?” Iris asked. “Don’t tell me all three of our couples will live in the main house. I, for one, won’t think of it. Once I’m married, I’m going to live somewhere else.”
“Where will you go?” Violet asked.
“I don’t know,” Iris replied. “But I won’t live with the rest of you in the main house, that’s for certain. I’ve lived with you and Rose all my life, and once I get married, I’m living somewhere else.”
“But where?” Violet asked.
“I don’t know,” Iris repeated. “Maybe Mick and I can go live in the Fort House. If you and Chuck and Rose and Jacob stay in the main house together, the Fort House will be free.”
Violet nearly jumped out of her skin when Rose chimed in from the back seat. “I don’t want to live with anyone else in the main house, either.” So she was listening. A chill raced down Violet’s back. What else had Rose heard that she never let on about?
“Well, that isn’t going to work, is it?” Violet complained. “There aren’t three separate houses. We can’t all just go off and live alone with our new husbands.”
“I am,” Iris declared. “I don’t care what anyone says. We’re living alone. Cornell is around the main house all day, every day. And whichever of you stays there will be there, too. I need somewhere I can go to get away from the main house, and once we’re married, Mick and I will want privacy. We’ll take the Fort House. You and Rose can fight over the main house.”
“There’s the Bird House,” Rose put in. “But Cornell lives there.”
“But once we get married,” Iris pointed out, “Cornell won’t be our guardian and our executor anymore. Our fortunes will pass to our husbands. Maybe Cornell won’t live at the Bird House anymore.”
“I can’t believe this!” Violet gasped. “You can’t be thinking of turning Cornell out, not after he’s lived at the Bird House and shared our lives all these years.”
“Everything has to come to an end,” Rose pointed out. “If he isn’t our guardian and our executor anymore, he has no business at the ranch or in the Bird House. His duty is discharged.”
“Discharged!” Violet repeated. “You can’t be serious! He’s like a parent to us.”
“He might be like a parent to you,” Iris shot back. “But to me, he’s an obstacle. We’re getting rid of that obstacle by getting married. Once all three of us are married and our husbands are running the ranch, Cornell is better off somewhere else. He can only cause trouble around the ranch.”
“I can’t believe you would be so heartless, Iris,” Violet exclaimed.
“And I can’t believe,” Iris replied. “That Cornell would let the ranch—which, by the way, is our inheritance, and not his property at all, although he certainly acts like it is his—that he would let it fall into ruin through his own stubborn idiocy. If we have to get mail-order husbands to save the ranch from his mismanagement, then he should be sent packing with extreme prejudice.”
Violet was just about to protest again when Rose piped up. “And then Jacob and I could live at the Bird House. Violet, you and Chuck can live in the main house.”
******
Violet couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Iris and Rose weren’t conspiring to get rid of Cornell, were they? They couldn’t! They wouldn’t! They daren’t! Or was it only Violet who daren’t make a move against Cornell?
And what would their new husbands say about Cornell? They certainly wouldn’t want Cornell around, not after they got their hands on the fabulous Kilburn family fortune. How much did the three men know about their future wives’ wealth? Violet dared not ask her sisters how much they revealed to their fiancés in their letters. Nor did she tell them what she wrote to Chuck Ahern about their family fortunes.
One thing was sure, once the three men married the sisters, they couldn’t control the estate as completely as Cornell did. A single man could do as he pleased with the funds and property at his disposal, and his wards could do nothing to stop him. Three men, joined for life to the three heiresses, would at least have to work together to make the ranch into a thriving, profitable enterprise again. None of them would possess a controlling share over any of the others.
Violet put the idea of Cornell’s future as far out of her mind as she could. Was that the reason Cornell protested so loudly against these mail-order marriages? Then again, he suggested other potential grooms for the sisters all the time. He wanted them to get married—only to men of his own choosing. Their fortunes would pass out of his hands, regardless of who they married.
Maybe Cornell just tried to hide his uncertainty under a bluster of wounded propriety. Maybe he used his position as their guardian to protest their marriages to hide the fact that he didn’t want to be tu
rned out of house and home. No one would want that.
Violet rode the rest of the journey to Butte in silence, and her sisters obliged her. The last thing in the world she wanted to hear was her sisters plotting to dump Cornell. Anyway, she had other things to think about to take her mind off it.
The wedding celebration on Friday, for instance. Violet told Rita, the ranch cook, what foods to prepare and what cake to bake for the luncheon to follow the wedding service. She went to great pains to match her sisters’ wedding dresses with the decorations she planned for the house. She would talk to Iris about giving Pete and Wade the day off work.
Before she knew it, Violet saw the town of Butte in the distance. It wasn’t much to look at. Most Montana towns barely distinguished themselves from the scrubby rangeland from whence they sprang. You could barely see them until you practically ran into the wall of the first building. The weathered boards took on the same desolate grayish-tan color as everything else in this territory.
Only the mountains struck a breath-taking contrast. You couldn’t turn around without catching your breath at their imposing grandeur. They thrust their magnetic presence into your awareness at every hour of the day. You couldn’t get away from them. You kept seeing them even when you closed your eyes.
If Butte wasn’t much to look at, it was even less to experience. As much as Violet looked forward to getting off the ranch and into town, Butte disappointed. The haberdashers’ shop carried barely enough thread and other sewing notions to make a complete dress, and the dry goods store often ran out of essential staples like flour and salt.
No amount of complaints to any shopkeeper in town improved the service. They just didn’t care. They knew very well they provided the only service of their kind anywhere in the territory. You could shop with them or go without, and they knew it.
The only businesses in town with enough competition to provide decent variety were the saloons. Butte had four—one in the hotel, one in the whorehouse, one at the billiard hall, and one at the distillery on the road out of town. All four stayed busy day and night, what with cowboys and railroad men and drifters and rich cattlemen coming into town for a bit of diversion. The saloons did a roaring trade in mayhem, gun fights, broken glass, and replacement tables and chairs from the local carpenters.
Violet knew all about the saloons from driving past them on trips to town. You couldn’t set foot in Butte without seeing or hearing some brawl or drunken sing-a-long coming from one of them. The Kilburn sisters drove past them without looking right or left.
This time, Iris had a different idea. Because they were going to the train station and not into the town itself, Iris turned off around the barn and stables behind the hotel. She circumvented the town completely and drove right up to the station without passing a single saloon. Iris reined the horses in front of the station, but the train wasn’t there anymore.
Violet patted Iris on the arm. “Well done. We’ll have to remember that when we come into town next time.” She glanced at the station. “It looks like we missed the train.”
The three sisters alighted from the buggy. A few stray passengers milled around the station porch. “The three of them must have gotten off here. Didn’t we all tell them we’d be here to pick them up? Let’s ask around. Maybe someone knows where they are.”
“But,” Violet pointed out. “They aren’t likely to know each other. They aren’t likely to be together, wherever they are.”
“We can only ask,” Iris replied. “I’m sure we’ll find them somewhere.” She turned to the nearest man, who leaned against the station door, watching the three women and listening to their conversation. “Excuse me. We’re looking for some people who got off the train from Salt Lake City.”
The man cocked his head. “Well, that’s just about all the people you see here. Every one of us got off the train an hour and a half ago. Don’t you see the people you’re looking for?”
Iris flushed, and Violet stepped in. “The men we’re meeting are strangers to us. I mean, we don’t exactly know what they look like. One of them is named Chuck Ahern, and one of them is named Mick McAllister, and the other is Jacob Hamilton.”
“Well, then, you’re in luck,” the man returned. “I’m Chuck Ahern.”
Chapter 7
“Oh!” The blood rushed to Violet’s cheeks. For a moment, she floundered in confusion. Then she burst out laughing. Chuck stared at her as if she’d lost her senses. Finally she composed herself enough to extend her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Ahern. I’m Violet Kilburn.”
“Oh!” Chuck went beet red, opened his mouth and closed it again, glanced around, and opened his mouth again. Finally, he burst out laughing, too. He took her hand. “Call me Chuck. If you call me Mr. Ahern, I probably won’t know who you’re talking about.”
He and Violet shook hands, still laughing at themselves. When they eventually let go of one another’s hands, they stepped back and regarded each other. Chuck stood as tall as Violet, and his square shoulders filled out his clean cotton shirt. His wore a gun belt around the hips of his denim pants, and the unmistakable band of spur straps marked the tops of his boots. A thick mustache covered his upper lip, but the rest of his face was clean-shaven and smooth.
His light brown eyes cut through Violet’s embarrassment. She didn’t look around to see if Iris evaluated Chuck the same way she had, but she knew this man was exactly what Rocking Horse Ranch needed. Everything about him screamed cowboy.
“Did you have a pleasant journey?” Violet asked.
“Good enough,” Chuck replied. “It’s pretty boring, you know, but you can’t complain. The only other way to travel is to ride a horse, and I wouldn’t want to do that all the way up here from Santa Fe.”
“You must be tired.” Violet wrenched her eyes away from him and peered around at her sisters. “We’ll find the others and get you back to the ranch. As I told you, we have a spare house you men will stay in until the wedding service on Friday. You can rest up there and get your bearings. I hope that arrangement still suits you.”
“Suits me fine,” Chuck replied. “I won’t be sorry to stop traveling for a while.”
“Well, then, we’ll just find the others….” Violet trailed off. She and her sisters glanced around at the other passengers on the platform.
How should they go about finding the other two men? Nothing remained but to ask the nearest person, as they did with Chuck, and hope for luck.
But Chuck cut them off. “Mick McAllister’s inside the station, talking to the station master.” The three sisters jumped with surprise. “And Jake Hamilton is over there, in the hotel saloon.”
“How do you know?” Iris cried. “We didn’t think you three knew each other.”
“We didn’t,” Chuck told her. “We got talkin’ on the train. You know how it is. We’re all in the same business of punchin’ cattle, so you fall in with others like you. There’s nothin’ else to do on the train for days at a time. That, and after a while, you begin to notice which people are going the same direction as you. Anyway, we got talkin’, and we figured it out. Took a while, but we figured it out.”
“Well, that makes it easier for us, doesn’t it?” Violet remarked. “Thank you very much….Chuck.” She broke into another fit of giggling. His name sounded so strange in her mouth. Even after months of corresponding with him by mail, saying his name out loud gave her a queer little tingle. “Now we won’t have to go hunting for them.”
The noise of a scuffle drew their attention toward the station. The door flew open, and two men locked in a tight embrace exploded out of the station and bowled over into the dirt at their feet. As soon as they hit the ground, they fell into a mighty struggle to drive each other to the ground. Violet cried out in horror at the conflict, but Chuck and the other bystanders simply watched the two men fighting in the dirt.
Just when one man got the better of the other, the man on the bottom rallied and flipped his opponent over to regain the upper h
and. They reversed positions two or three times before the larger of the two fought his way onto the top of the other. He delivered a decisive blow to his rival’s midsection, which knocked the wind out of him, and then another to the side of his jaw. This last blow dazed the other man enough to give the victor time to consolidate his advantage by sitting on top of his opponent.
He straddled his fallen enemy on his knees and punched him repeatedly in the face. Sweat and saliva flew from both men’s faces, and before very long, the man on the bottom lay motionless with blood leaking out of his nose.
The victor stopped hitting his victim and stared at his senseless form, panting and sweating. At last, he dragged himself to his feet and loomed over the body, his fists still clenched at his sides. He glared around him at the onlookers, his teeth bared between curled lips. “He stole my wallet,” he growled.
So saying, he bent down and ransacked the fallen man’s pockets until he pulled out a folded leather wallet. He waved it at the spectators and stuffed it into his own trouser pocket.
Most of the people standing around the train station turned back to their own business then, and the man relaxed his posture somewhat. Violet stared in horror at the ogre, but her horror reached a peak of dismay when Chuck announced, “This is Mick McAllister.”
Now that he stood upright in front of them, Violet saw him clearly for the first time. She saw a very tall, sturdy man with sharp, angular features and a sun-bleached Stetson hat over his close-cut blonde hair. He walked away from his victim and toward the Kilburn sisters. His clear blue eyes surveyed the platform to the right and to the left with the quick superiority of command before he turned toward Chuck Ahern.
One more glance showed him who the women were. “These them?” he asked Chuck. Without waiting for a reply, he stuck out his hand to Violet. “I’m Mick McAllister.”
Violet shook off her shock and returned his handshake. Sweat squeezed out between her fingers when Mick gripped her hand. “I’m Violet Kilburn. This,” she nodded toward her sister “This is Iris.”
Iris extended her gloved hand to Mick. “Good afternoon.” Mick shook her hand with a curt nod, but both he and Iris blushed and stole shy peeks at each other. Iris couldn’t approve of this street-brawling brute as her mail-order cowboy, could she?