Chapter One
Albany County, WyomingTerritory - June 1879
Three bullets.
How many more could a man be expected to take in his life and still somehow avoid death?
Sheriff Arlen Thomas winced as the pain shot through his shoulder again. It had been five days since he and his men had cornered squatters at a ranch several miles outside of town. Squatters armed with half an army’s supply of rifles and ammunition, it had turned out. And while they’d driven the men off the land, Arlen came out much worse for the wear.
“You need help with that?” His deputy, Mark Sampson, asked as Arlen gritted his teeth and hefted the saddle over his good arm.
The grimace he gave Sampson answered the man’s question without words. Sampson shrugged in response and unsaddled his own horse.
With the horses turned out to graze, Arlen gratefully dropped the saddle just inside the door to his office.
“What’s that make it now?” Sampson asked. “Two bullets?”
“Three.” Arlen sank into the chair behind his desk and closed his eyes. It felt as if he had ridden a hundred miles, instead of just down to the railroad tracks that were under construction and back again.
Sampson nodded. “That’s right. Forgot about that fellow down at McIntyre’s Saloon.”
Arlen couldn’t forget it. Or the man who’d held up the stage four years ago that shot him in the leg. Or—he gritted his teeth as he sat up straight—those squatters.
The appeal of being a lawman had worn off some time ago.
“Truman dropped by another poster. This one’s from Cheyenne, I think. And you got something from Nebraska too, while you were off recuperating,” Sampson said as he grabbed the keys to the jail.
“Nebraska?” Arlen couldn’t think of who’d be writing him from there. He didn’t know a soul in Nebraska. Unless . . .
Sampson shrugged and disappeared through the door that led to the jail. Arlen could hear him joking with Old Man Bentley. Bentley had spent more nights in their jail than Arlen could count.
With his good right hand, Arlen shuffled the papers on his desk, pushing aside various posters and purchase receipts until he found the letter Sampson had mentioned. The return address read Last Chance, Nebraska. With a shred of hope daring to rise in his heart, Arlen fumbled to open the letter. Inside, a single sheet of paper awaited him.
Dear Sheriff Thomas,
I am writing to you on behalf of my younger sister, Josephine Gresham. She received your letter, along with several others. After much deliberation, I invite you to come to our ranch outside of Last Chance to meet Josie for the purposes of marriage.
The letter went on to describe the number of cattle and the size of the ranch, which the letter-writer was quick to note was “rebuilding after last fall’s terrible blizzards.” Two quick sentences at the end described the widowed Mrs. Gresham as being just shy of twenty years of age, slight yet strong, brunette with brown eyes, and blessed with a lively personality. She was also half-owner of the ranch. A Mr. George Cummings signed the letter in a hurried scrawl.
This was it—Arlen’s ticket out of his elected office. With this letter, he could go back to the life he’d been born into, working the land and worrying on the health of cattle rather than wondering when the next bullet would get him.
Oh, how he missed that life.
He reread the sentence at the end of the letter. The lady sounded pleasant enough, although one had to wonder why Mr. Cummings spent only a few words on her and most of the letter on the ranch. Arlen skimmed the missive again. The place would be half his own, after he married Mrs. Gresham, and this Cummings fellow sounded affable enough to be a business partner.
Arlen set the letter down and ran a hand over his face, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his shoulder. The novelty of chasing down outlaws and breaking up fights at the town’s saloons had long worn off, leaving him with a sense of dread each morning when he awoke, like he’d swallowed the poisonous pit of some fruit and it was taking root in his stomach.
He had to take this chance. It might not work out—Cummings could be nothing as he seemed in the letter, his potential wife could be a shrew, the land itself could be a barren strip with beasts on the verge of death. But even if it didn’t turn out as he hoped, Nebraska might offer other opportunities. Perhaps there were more widowed ranch ladies looking for a husband, or he could find work and continue to save his earnings until he had enough to start his own place.
Anything was preferable to staying here and hoping the next ride out wouldn’t see him dead. And considering his only other real option was tucking tail and returning to the farm his brother had inherited in Indiana, Nebraska looked mighty promising.
Mind made up, Arlen reached across the desk for a pen and some ink. And steadying a clean sheet of paper with his useless arm, he began to write to his future wife.
