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Chapter One
Early Fall 1888 –Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Myra hesitated as she left her uncle’s house on the outskirts of Pittsburgh; no one stood on the doorstep to bid her goodbye, not even to bid her safe travels. She had to do this. She had no other choice, no options, no job prospects, and a broken heart. There was nothing left for her here in Pittsburgh, nothing but humiliation and, yes, even bitterness, even though she knew the Lord wouldn’t likely be pleased with that kind of attitude.
She stepped into the buggy that would take her into town, driven by one of the stable hands, who remained silent as he headed toward the train station. Yes, she had a roof over her head and food on the table, but those took care of her physical needs, not her emotional ones. What about companionship and love? What about a man for her to love and to love her back? What about kindness, compassion, and empathy?
Her uncle and his son, her cousin Richard, wanted her out. She knew that. They both resented her presence, or at least Richard did, and he hadn’t hesitated to make that clear every day since the very morning after she had arrived.
How had this happened? Everything had been going so well! Then, the sheriff of River Falls, the place she had called home since she was a child and located a mere twenty miles from Pittsburgh, had knocked on the front door of the home she shared with her grandmother. He bluntly informed her that her grandmother Cordella had passed away quietly in her sleep while visiting her good friend down in Greensburg. Shocked and grieving, twenty-two-year-old Myra Hale had spent the last ten dollars in their household account to bring her grandmother home, pay for her burial, and purchase a small headstone to put over her grave.
Two days later, the bank manager showed up at her door with an appropriately sad mien while informing her that the unpaid debts on the house and delinquent property taxes required the bank to take ownership. She would have to be out within the next couple of weeks. Well, those two weeks had passed much faster than she had anticipated. She’d been forced to leave so much behind. Without a job and any hope of one, she’d been forced to take her leave of the small but comfortable cottage with only a small suitcase of clothes.
She’d stayed with her spinster aunt Ima for a couple of months after that, much to the older woman’s displeasure. The mother’s sins passed on to the child, of course, even though Myra had nothing to do with her mother’s poor decisions. Then, to make matters even worse, her dreams of love, marriage, and family had been dashed in less than fifteen minutes just four days ago when Roger Tumbly, the son of the local sawmill owner, had informed her that his father would not honor their year-long courtship and had betrothed him instead to the mayor’s daughter.
Myra had endured every blow with as much dignity and grace as she could muster, but inside, she couldn’t help feeling a great and unsettling anger and disappointment. She had believed herself in love with Roger, but if he had loved her as well, how could he have given her up without at least a disagreement? No, her fiancé had simply stood in front of his parents and acquiesced, leaving Myra heartbroken, humiliated, and escorted out of the house.
How much could one person endure? As a child, she had been abandoned on her grandmother’s doorstep when she was just two months old. Apparently, her mother had fallen in love with a gold prospector heading for the gold fields of California. She didn’t want to be saddled with the burden of a child. From what her grandmother told her, her father had been a drunkard, a dead one after he’d been struck and killed by a train two years later.
Roger Tumbly was supposed to be the one to give some stability in her life.
Once again, she found herself alone, without guidance, with no job prospects, and with the slow, steady thrum of fear an ever-constant presence in her life. In dire straits, her elderly aunt having shuffled her off to Uncle Justice and Cousin Richard, she did what would have seemed unthinkable just a year ago. She’d decided she had to leave River Falls and Pittsburgh, leave all of it behind. She had to start over again, but where? With whom?
Then, her dear friend Alma showed her the ads she’d cut out of her father’s newspaper. She didn’t understand. What were matrimonial ads?
“Mail order brides,” Alma somberly explained. “Men write ads for brides or women without means write ads for prospective husbands.”
“Without ever meeting them?” she exclaimed. It sounded ridiculous. Who would marry someone sight unseen?
Yet the day after that, she’d resorted to writing her own reply to one of those ads, her heart in the pit of her stomach, her shoulders slumped in discouragement. Was this what God wanted her to do? Was this the path she was supposed to take? Was she doing the right thing?
So many questions and no answers …
“You wrote the letter of reply,” she mumbled to herself. “You can’t back out of it now. You gave your word. Besides, he’s already wired money to the bank here in Pittsburgh with instructions for the purchase of train fare west. You probably won’t get a response from him before you get there anyway.”
She had never wanted such an adventure, as Alma called it, but what choice did she have? Her grandmother had raised her to value her faith and stay true to God, and if this was God’s will, then who was she to deny Him?
The ads she had reviewed, maybe half a dozen, were written by men of all ages, from those in their early twenties to those in their sixties. Sixties! What would a man that age want with a wife, other than someone to cook and clean for him? Then she had seen the ad, the last one, from a twenty-six-year-old man named Joseph Stewart. At least he knew how to spell.
‘Needed: wife. A 26-year-old widower in Wyoming seeking a wife, no younger than 20 and no older than 30. Must be willing to share the workload, live in a fairly remote location, and have some experience with cooking and household and yard chores. Will put a roof over your head and food on the table. I am of good character, promise never to raise a hand in anger, and vow to provide protection and support. Upon receiving a definite reply of interest and commitment, I will wire money ahead for the train and then stage fare to take you to Cheyenne and then by state to Laramie. I live a few miles outside of a small town named Chance. I will send enough money for food along the way. Laramie is an hour or so away from my ranch. Looking forward to honest replies only. If interested, please reply to Joseph Stewart, care of Talbot Mercantile, Chance, Wyoming.
The ad had been simple, short, and to the point. But what kind of a town called itself ‘Chance’? Did that mean taking a chance? Or was the chance a good thing, as if someone had made the right choice? Either way, she had penned a reply to the widower. Every word she had written in reply felt like torture. She cringed when she thought of what her grandmother would say, imagining the frown on her face as she shook her head and told her, ‘Don’t do it, Myra, stay here with me. You’ll find the love and home you’re looking for if you can just be patient a while longer.’
The problem was, the men she’d met so far in her life had never turned out to be who she thought they were. They had lived comfortably in houses larger than hers, many of them with servants. They wore nice suits and had lovely buggies, but when she stopped to think about it, they had never been tested by difficulties. They didn’t have mothers who abandoned them or drunkards for a father. They didn’t have to take on the physical care of a loved one. That’s what servants were for.
Had she done the right thing? This man, Joseph, wrote that he was a rancher. He lived in Wyoming, where she had heard everything was wild. The people, the animals, and the lifestyle were gritty, hard, and filled with challenges. Could she even survive it? With a frown, she lowered her head to her task again, telling herself she could. Hadn’t she survived enough already? Besides, she couldn’t bear the thought of living in this mansion of her uncle’s any longer, what with his disapproving frowns and her cousin’s disparaging comments.
So, although she had written hesitantly, she recalled every word she had written as her pen slid smoothly over the paper.
‘Dear Mr. Stewart,
I read your ad placed in the newspaper with interest. I’m 22 years old. I suddenly find myself alone and without job prospects that enable me to live independently in the city and no relatives willing to accept a ‘long-term’ guest. I’ve never lived on a ranch or even ridden a horse, but a couple of times. I am willing to work hard and do my part with cooking, housekeeping, and yard chores.
I will not deny that I find it rather frightening and difficult to accept a marriage proposal from a man I have never met, but I will trust in your character and in your promise to provide shelter and support.
Sincerely yours, Myra Hale, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
She was brought back to the present when the buggy stopped in front of the brand-new railroad depot beside the Monongahela River. This train would take her north to Chicago, where she would board yet another train to take her westward and halfway across the country to Wyoming Territory. Heart pounding, she sat on the hard wooden bench inside the train station with other passengers waiting to board, worrying that she hadn’t made the right decision but hopeful that she had.
What would it be like to live out there in the west? From what she’d been able to learn, it was rough country. The territory had just endured years of bloody and violent wars between the army and white settlers and tribes of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow. From what she understood, they were mostly settled onto reservations now. But even though the Indian Wars were over, outlaws roamed the wide-open territories. She had also read about wild animals, treacherous weather, and frigid winters on those western prairies.
Waiting to board the train, her heart thudding, she watched fellow travelers, her suitcase placed in front of her feet as she sat on the bench, hands in her lap, tightly clutching a reticule dangled from her right wrist. Inside were her tickets, a few coins, and a brooch that had belonged to her grandmother, one of the few things she had managed to keep from her former life.
“Where you headed, Miss?”
She turned to find a middle-aged woman sitting next to her, a friendly smile curving her lips. “West,” she said simply.
“Me too, well, not too far west.” A gloved hand extended her way. “My name is Pauline Harrelson.”
Myra smiled politely. “Myra Hale.”
“You got family out there?”
Myra certainly wasn’t comfortable divulging her private matters to a total stranger, so she simply replied in the affirmative. The woman asked yet another question.
“How far are you going? I’m going to Chicago and then on to Minneapolis.”
Myra nodded politely. She had studied her tickets and a map borrowed from one of the local schools. She would be traveling roughly fifteen hundred miles across the country to marry a man she’d never met and to live in a place that might as well be on the moon as far as she was concerned.
Finally, it was time to board. Never having ridden on a train before, Myra didn’t know what to expect, but if she were honest with herself, she admitted the giant iron behemoth of the locomotive frightened her with its low rumbling growl and the puffs of whitish gray smoke belching from its smokestack. The first train car was for first-class passengers only, so a train attendant directed her to the third car, where second-class passengers rode. The fourth and last car before the caboose was saved for third-class passengers. What the difference was between them, she didn’t know, other than the cost of the tickets. Her future husband hadn’t bought her the most expensive ticket, but he hadn’t bought the cheapest, either.
Ten minutes after she sat down, her suitcase tucked under the seat in front of her, a sharp and very loud and shrill train whistle shattered the air. She startled, grabbing the wooden seat beneath her, thinking something terrible was about to happen. Looking around, she saw her fellow passenger sitting calmly. Don’t be foolish. You hear train whistles all the time. She’d just never heard them quite so close. Catching her breath, she sat back in her seat as the car lurched forward. She heard the clang as the couplers joining the train cars bumped into each other slightly as the train began moving slowly at first.
She imagined the huge rods turning the wheels and gradually picking up speed until they cleared the station, and then the speed picked up even more. Within moments, she watched the blur out her window as Pittsburgh floated by, a mixture of feelings rushing through her. She blinked back tears, knowing she was leaving her old life behind. Yes, she would have her memories, but it wasn’t the same. She would never again visit her grandmother’s grave, and that was her biggest regret about leaving. She had her memories, some of them bad, most of them good, after she had gone to live with her grandmother, but she was alone now. She had to make her own memories. New memories.
She straightened her back as she gazed out the window, leaving her past behind as she looked forward, her chin lifted, trying to be brave. Lord, protect me on my journey. And please, please let me be making the right decision, that this is Your decision and not mine made of fear and worry.
Chapter Two
October 1888, Chance, Wyoming
Joseph Stewart pulled the buggy to a halt at the top of the ridge a few miles from the eastern border of his ranch. He gazed over miles of prairie spreading out in every direction, low hills occasionally disturbing the flatness of the landscape, while behind him rose the low range of mountains that marked the western boundaries of his ranch.
It wasn’t the best time to take the nearly five-mile journey from his ranch into Chance, following the meandering and snakelike curves of Fox Run, but he had little choice. His new bride would be arriving by stage in Chance by noon. Behind him and sharing their own buggy seat, eight-year-old David teased his four-year-old sister, Eloise. He could block out their childish bickering most of the time, but today was not one of those days. He turned around, trying not to scowl.
“Children, please. We want to make a good impression on Miss Hale.”
“Why?” Eloise asked innocently.
“Because she’s going to be living with us,” Joseph replied bluntly.
“We don’t need a new mother, Papa,” David grumbled. “Why do you have to get married again anyway?”
David had been only four years old when his mother Corrie had died. Eloise didn’t remember her at all, as his wife had passed away only six months after his daughter had been born. She’d caught a chill that winter when helping him feed the livestock during a snowstorm and had taken to bed not long after. The doctor told him she had something called pneumonia, a condition that caused fluid and swelling in the lungs. He hadn’t much cared about the name but what it did. She coughed, shook with chills, had trouble breathing, and a fever that just wouldn’t quit.
Late one snowy night, holding her hand and watching her struggle, Joseph had prayed. He had prayed for God to make Corrie better. It was the first time he’d prayed in a long time. Instead of making her better, God had taken her away. He partly blamed himself. After all, if he hadn’t needed her help getting hay to the cattle hunkered down in the vale a couple of miles from the ranch house, she would never have taken that chill. Yet he also blamed God for taking her from him. It wasn’t fair! What was he supposed to do with a six-month-old infant and a four-year-old boy who needed their mother?
Well, over the years, he had done the best he could, but it wasn’t enough. He owned a hundred-acre ranch with almost forty head of cattle to care for. Sure, it was a small herd, but he had plans to buy more someday. He had been fortunate enough to sell twenty of them just a few weeks ago and had returned from the stockyards in Sheridan with enough money to get them through the winter, barring any emergencies. Between the time needed to care for the cattle and two rambunctious children to provide for, there wasn’t enough time in the day.
Sometimes, one of the ladies from town would bring out a casserole or a pot of stew, a basket of biscuits, or jars of canned vegetables, which was nice but embarrassing. He knew the ladies were just trying to make his life a little easier, but he couldn’t help but feel lacking when they did. It wasn’t like he didn’t try hard enough. In town, he knew they called him ‘the widower Stewart’ instead of Joseph, the cattle rancher.
“What’s she like, Papa?”
He glanced over his shoulder at Eloise. “I don’t know yet, honey, I’ve not met her.”
“You’re marrying a lady you’ve never met?”
He turned to his son and acknowledged his disbelief. “Yes.”
“Why?” the ever curious Eloise asked.
He sighed. “Because there’s no one around here I want to marry.”
David piped up. “What about the schoolteacher?”
Joseph turned around in the seat, barely hiding a grimace this time. “She’s a bit old for me, don’t you think?” It wasn’t as if Joseph hadn’t given any thought to marrying someone in town. Unfortunately, the pickings were slim. The schoolteacher was an old maid in her early forties. Melinda Talbot, the mercantile owner’s daughter, didn’t have the most pleasant disposition and despised children from what he gathered. Sure, there might be a few marriageable women in the county that he could have tried to court, but who had the time?
He slapped the reins, and the mare moved forward. To his right, a growth of oak and tall shrubs followed the course of Fox Run, which would, in turn, join Hawkins Creek a few miles further, and that, in turn, flowed into the larger Pioneer River, which would take him into Chance and then head further east toward Cheyenne and the prairies beyond.
He tried to still his mind and nerves as he guided the mare along, letting her have her head for the most part, his mind whirling with myriad questions he had no answers to, not yet anyway. What would she be like? How would she react when she learned that he’d neglected to tell her about his eight-year-old son and four-year-old daughter? Would she get right back on a stagecoach to Cheyenne and return to Pittsburgh? No. She had told him in that one letter responding to his ad that there was nothing for her in Pittsburgh, no job prospects, no anything. Like it or not, he was responsible for her, no matter what she decided to do.
Then again, that didn’t mean she couldn’t maybe find a job or something in Laramie or even Chance. Maybe she could find work at the Mercantile or the boarding house or maybe even in the small restaurant that the Mastersons had opened just about a year ago.
While Laramie wasn’t one of the larger towns in these parts, it was larger than Chance. A few coal mines populated the region, and with plenty of timber, wood sawmills proliferated along the creeks that ran through the county. Mills with giant water wheels provided flour and grain for towns that were cropping up near and far. The valleys were fertile and produced large crops of oats, wheat, hay, and vegetables. In fact, with the money he had just received from selling his cattle, Joseph hoped to put in a crop of wheat this coming spring. He could clear out a large vegetable garden for Myra that would supply the family with beans, corn, tomatoes, maybe even some squash and potatoes.
Though hopeful, the closer he got to town, the more nervous he became. Chance would be nothing like a big city like those he’d heard of back east. He had no idea what Pittsburgh looked like, but Chance was growing every year. Why, over in Laramie, nearly thirty or so buildings had sprouted up within the last few years, constructed of wood, most of them with false storefronts, some two stories tall, and some three. They had a school, several blacksmith shops, a barbershop, a doctor’s office, and even a lawyer in town. There was a small hotel, a couple of saloons, a hardware store, a shoe shop, and a gunsmith. It had a sheriff and two deputies. Most of the time, the town was quiet, but that wasn’t to say there weren’t outlaws and ruffians passing through from time to time.
He entered the town proper and drove his buggy down Main Street, a wide dirt street filled with deep ruts caused by sometimes violent late summer storms. The buggy jostled roughly from side to side, and he told the children to hold on tight as he guided the mare around as many ruts as he could. When the first snow came, the streets would grow even worse. Sometimes, the mud would be four or five inches deep, making it just about impossible to traverse. Despite its fast growth, Chance was still a hardscrabble town filled with new building construction. Some of the newer structures were sided in fresh pine planking, while other older buildings had turned a dusky gray, paint or varnish peeling from their planking.
He winced, wondering what Myra would think of the town. Would she like it, or would she hate it on sight? All he knew about Pittsburgh was what his friend Cody had told him. Cody was from back east and would go back to visit relatives once in a while. Cody had told him that most of the structures there were built of brick or stone, some of them fine mansions, and the city was filled with fancy hotels and theaters and an opera house. Cody’s mother had named her first and only son after William Frederick Cody, more commonly known as Buffalo Bill Cody these days. Thoughts of Cody prompted a frown. His childhood friend had disappeared on him again, and again without a word. He tried to push his annoyance aside, not wanting to be in a worse mood when he picked up his fiancée.
Behind him, David and Eloise grew excited at the number of people they saw. They were used to staying on the ranch, just him for company, sometimes a ranch hand or two he would hire on temporarily, sometimes a visit from one of the church ladies. There was a schoolhouse about three miles from the ranch, but he couldn’t take the time to drive them in the buggy to-and-fro, so he had done what he could over the years to teach them their letters and numbers. David was stubborn but smart and could read a little bit. Eloise was proving more challenging.
The stage depot was located on the eastern edge of town, and he saw it at the same time David did. Joseph’s heart began to thud harder in his chest, and he found it difficult to swallow. Eloise began to whine, stating that she didn’t want a new mother, while David began to grumble that he liked things just the way they were and why did he have to go and get married to some stranger?
There were too many people gathered around the depot, which consisted of a corral, a small barn, and the depot itself, a small structure that could use a fresh coat of paint and a new window on the west side that had been broken out during a hailstorm this past spring.
He pulled the buggy up to the edge of the yard near the corrals. Before he could tell them not to, David had grabbed Eloise’s hand and jumped down, heading for the horses in the corral, their heads hanging over the top rail.
“Remember what I told you!” Joseph warned.
At the last moment, Eloise, who had lifted a hand to the horse’s muzzle, remembered to flatten her hand and let the animal sniff her palm before she attempted to pet it. Just last week, one of his own mares had nearly taken off one of Eloise’s fingers when she tried to give the animal a carrot.
He had barely wrapped the reins around the brake handle and stepped down before he heard the sound of horse’s hooves and the creek of the stagecoach as it pulled around a curve in the road and came to a halt smack dab in front of the depot. A cloud of dust rose behind it. The air was crisp and cool, autumn in full swing. The leaves of the aspens, cottonwoods, and maples higher up in the mountains had already started to change colors, but not just yet down here in the valley.
He glanced toward the mountains, taking comfort in their familiarity, wondering what Myra would think of them. He didn’t have much time to wonder as the stage driver shoved down the brake, muttering to the horses, who shuffled, stomped, and snorted. The cloud of dust filtered back over the stage as the driver gathered the reins and wrapped them around the brake handle. He stepped onto the top of the wheel and jumped down. He heard the children moving closer to him as the driver pulled a small bench from beneath the stage and placed it directly under the door before reaching for it.
Joseph shoved his hands in his front pockets to hide their sudden tremble. He shouldn’t have done this. He didn’t need a new wife! His mouth dry and his heart racing even faster, he watched a young woman step down. She was young, with long blonde hair pulled into high chignon at the top of her head. Several loose tendrils framed a lovely … no, a beautiful face. She wore a traveling dress of dark blue broadcloth trimmed in burgundy around the bottom of the sleeves, the high neckline, and the bottom of the bodice. She looked around curiously, and then her eyes settled on him. His heart jumped, but her eyes continued their searching. Was this Myra? Two more passengers disembarked, both of them men.
Myra stepped away from the stage, barely avoiding the suitcase flung from the stage boot. It landed near her feet, tossed recklessly by the stagecoach driver as he unloaded his luggage.
“Is that her?” David asked.
“I don’t like her,” Eloise whined.
Joseph swallowed his nervousness and stepped forward. The young woman turned to watch them, her eyes taking him in and then widening when she saw the two children beside him. She was even prettier up close than she was from further away. Her eyes were a lovely shade of blue, the color of bluebells. Their eyes met as he introduced himself.
“You’re Myra Hale?”
She nodded, gazing from him to the children and back again. He introduced himself. “I’m Joseph Stewart.” Before she could speak, he continued, “This is my son, David. He’s eight years old. This is my daughter, Eloise. She’s four.”
She stared at him agog, her jaw dropped, her eyes moving from the children to him and back again. Then she said the words he had dreaded, filled with soft and disappointed accusations.
“You didn’t tell me you have children.”
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