Clara Reyes did not write like a woman dreaming of a white church and a rose garden. Her pen had cut deep into the paper with uniform, deliberate pressure. There were no sentimental quotes, no appeals to Providence, no false modesty.
At four in the afternoon, with the shadows of the cottonwoods stretching like long blue fingers across the snow, Elias pulled a scarred wooden chair up to the table. He lit the small kerosene lamp, wiped a smear of axle grease from his knuckle, and drew out a single sheet of rough yellow stationery from the drawer where his father had kept the cattle tallies. He uncapped an inkwell that was three-quarters dry and picked up a rusted steel pen.
He sat for half an hour without writing a word.
How did a bankrupt rancher propose a contract of survival to a woman seven hundred miles away?
He dipped the nib into the ink and began to write. He wrote slowly, his hand unaccustomed to forming small letters, his script heavy and blunt like the man himself.
Miss Reyes,
Margaret Hale, our county clerk, gave me your letter this morning. She believes we can assist one another. I will tell you the plain truth of what exists here so you are not deceived by anyone in town.
Black Creek Ranch is four miles west of Dry Hollow, Wyoming. It is four square miles of land. It belonged to my grandfather and my father. Right now, it is nineteen hundred dollars in debt to the territorial bank and an irrigation cartel owned by a man named Silas Crowe. Crowe wants the water that runs through this valley. If the debt is not stayed or settled by the twenty-fourth of this month, the sheriff will sell this land on the courthouse steps.
Mrs. Hale says that under territorial law, a married man establishing a bona fide domestic enterprise with a partner skilled in accounting can file a stay of execution and hold the water rights for six months while the books are audited. That is why I am writing to you.
I cannot offer you an easy life. The winter here lasts until May. The house has four rooms, thick logs, two woodstoves, and wind that comes through the floorboards when the norther hits. There is no church within seven miles, no dressmaker, and no society. You will have your own room with a heavy latch on the inside of the door. I will provide your food, your winter clothes, and a wage of fifteen dollars a month from what stock I sell in the spring.
I do not promise you love. I do not promise you a home that is safe from trouble, because Crowe will not take kindly to being blocked by a legal maneuver. But I make you this promise: you will never be treated with disrespect under my roof. You will never be forced into any intimacy you do not choose freely. You will have your own say in everything that touches your work. And if you come here, look at this valley, and decide that you cannot bear to stay, I will pay your coach fare back to Santa Fe or wherever else you wish to go.
If you come, you will not be coming to save me. You will be coming because you want a stake in something real. If that is acceptable to you, wire Mrs. Hale at the county seat and take the Thursday coach north.
Elias Ward
He did not re-read it. He blew across the wet ink, folded the paper twice, and pressed it into a brown postal wrapper.
He walked out into the barn, saddled his gray gelding—a tough, sure-footed mountain horse named Banner—and rode the four miles into Dry Hollow under a sky that had turned from slate to indigo.
Dry Hollow was quiet except for the tinny piano clattering from the back of the Elkhorn Saloon. Elias did not stop at the saloon. He rode straight to the telegraph and postal office beside the rail siding. Old Ned Miller was sorting incoming freight sacks behind the counter when Elias walked in, the bell above the door jangling sharply.
“Evening, Eli,” Ned said, glancing up through wire-rimmed spectacles. “Heard Crowe had dinner with the territorial judge at the hotel last night.”
“He can eat with who he likes,” Elias said, laying the letter on the counter beside three silver dollars. “Send this on the night train south. Special delivery from Denver to Santa Fe.”
Ned looked down at the address, reading the name Clara Reyes with raised eyebrows, but he knew Elias Ward well enough not to ask questions when the rancher’s jaw was set like a granite ledge. He stamped the envelope with purple ink and shoved the coins into the cash drawer.