A Wife in Name Only

by Rosey Dow

Chapter One

The sky over the mountains was dark and lowering when Katherine Priestly and her brother, Johnny, left their ranch to head south. Traveling on horseback in late October was always risky business in Colorado, and the sky wasn’t making any promises. Huddling deep into the shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders, Katie squeezed her eyes shut. The last thing she needed was to add frozen tears to her misery.

The night before, she and Johnny had made their decision to leave home. It had been so hard leaving Ma and the four younger kids behind with just a little cornmeal and some flour in the larder and a small deer hanging in the smokehouse.  It had been hard hugging them all good-bye and hearing their sniffles, especially Ma’s. But facing the bitter wind and the steely sky were hardest of all.

They had to make it to Musgrove, the mining camp twenty miles southeast of their ranch. It was the only place they could think of to find work, a tiny spark of hope because this time of year the camps were almost shut down. Everyone with any sense headed home for the winter… except those desperate enough to stay there… or desperate enough to go there.

Doggedly heading into the wind, the Priestly siblings qualified in that respect. They were desperate enough to do anything that would feed their family through the frigid months ahead.

Their ranch had never been prosperous, but Pa had eked out enough to feed his six children and keep them in shoes. Until last August when anthrax had wiped out their herd. Within days, they were penniless and living on what Pa could shoot and Ma could scratch out of the ground in her kitchen garden.

When fall days shortened and the icy wind swept through, Pa gathered the children around. With Ma close to his side, he said, “I’m leaving in the morning to take a job with the railroad. It only pays twenty-five dollars a month, but with God’s help it will feed us through the winter.” He looked at Johnny. “You’ll have to take care of them for me, Son.”

He squeezed his wife’s hand. “I’ll be back come spring.”

That was six weeks ago, and they hadn’t heard from him since. Had he met with an accident? Had the railroad refused him work?

These questions gnawed at Katie’s mind as the terrain grew rugged and the road all but disappeared. “How much further?” she called to Johnny ahead of her.

He pulled his horse up and waited for her to come up to him. “What was that, Sis?” he asked. His sandy brown hair blew across his eyes. The top of his nose was red above the scarf covering the lower part of his face.

“How much longer?” she asked. “My feet are numb.”

“We’d best find some shelter and build a fire,” he said, scanning the area for a hollow or an offset in the rocky terrain. “There’s a place.” He urged his horse forward.

Half an hour later, they sipped weak coffee and held their feet toward the flickering fire.

“They hurt,” Katie whispered, gazing at her boots.

“Don’t take them off, Sis,” Johnny said. “You’ll never get them back on.” He glanced at the sky. “We can’t stay here too much longer. What if it starts to snow?” He took a closer look at his sister’s pinched face and drew her into his arms. “Here. Let’s try to keep each other warm. That’s what Pa and I did when we were out in that blizzard that time. We huddled up and waited it out.”

Katie pulled her shawl higher until it completely covered her face. She pressed her cheek into Johnny’s coat and tried to stop shivering. Johnny was a good brother. A year older than she, he’d always looked out for her.

All too soon, they were back in the saddle. The wind had died down a little. Now and then the sun tried a peek at the landscape.

When they rode into Musgrove, it was suppertime. The streets were clear. Not a person, a horse, or a wagon in sight. Katie was so cold and so exhausted, she could hardly stay in the saddle. Johnny led the way to the hitching rail at the General Store, a shanty with board walls and tent canvas for the roof. He helped Katie down, kept his arm around her, and supported her inside.

The warmth of the store almost felt painful to Katie’s frozen cheeks. A potbelly stove glowed in the center of the room, and a slim, white-haired woman sat close by it in a rocking chair. When she saw them, she stood up.

“Bring her here by the fire,” she said, reaching for Katie’s arm. “Where did you kids come from? You can’t be from around here, and it’s much too cold to be traveling.”

Katie sank into the chair. It felt like a tiny spot of heaven. Her eyes drifted closed.

She heard Johnny say, “We rode down from our ranch, about twenty miles from here. We had to stop twice to thaw out…”

The rocking chair was soft with padding on the back and the seat. It wrapped around Katie’s cold form while the heat from the fire seeped into her weary, aching muscles. Her head relaxed on the back of the chair, and she fell soon asleep.

***

“Katie!” Johnny’s voice brought her out of the delicious warm stupor. She blinked and pushed away his hand.

“Here’s some hot tea for you,” he said, his voice insistent. “Drink it, Sis. You need it.”

She tried to focus on his face. The smell of the sweet tea caught her attention. “Thank you,” she said, sitting up straighter and reaching for the blue enamel mug. She hadn’t eaten anything since cornmeal gruel for breakfast.

“You’ll stay for supper, of course,” the store owner said. “It’s not much, but it’s hot.”

“We’re obliged,” Johnny said. He had his hat and coat off and was standing near Katie with his hands out to the stove. “My sister was all tuckered out.”

Katie sipped the tea and savored the warmth traveling through her. “Did you ask about work?” she asked Johnny.

“Mrs. Sanford is going to hire me for the winter,” he said. “Room, board, and five dollars a month.”

“There aren’t many customers this time of year,” the storekeeper said. Her face was drawn and she had a hollow-eyed look. “But I can use someone to keep the snow shoveled away from the door and carry wood for me. Come spring, I want to start building a real store with a tin roof and windows in it. He can help with that, too, if he’s a mind.” She nodded, pleased.

“Five dollars?” Katie murmured. Even in these hard times, it was a meager amount.

Johnny knelt by her and whispered. “It’s the best we can do, Sis. No one else is hiring here. At least Ma won’t have to feed me along with the others. I’ll send the five dollars to her like clockwork.”

She touched his chin, still soft as a child’s though he was nearly twenty.

“What about me?” she asked, speaking louder and looking at Mrs. Sanford. “I need work, too.”

Setting three bowls on a rough-hewn table nearby, the older woman looked up and shook her head. “There’s nary a place hiring this time of year, girlie,” she said. “I wish there was.” Suddenly her gray eyebrows drew together. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. There was someone in here…” She bent her head low, drumming her fingertips on the tabletop. Suddenly, she straightened, her finger pointed toward the canvas ceiling. “Masten! Brett Masten needs a cook at his ranch. He stopped in last month to see if anyone was pulling out of Musgrove and needing work.”

“How far is that from here?” Johnny asked.

“Ten miles west,” she replied. She looked at Katie. “You’re not going anywhere tonight,” she announced. “It don’t cost nothing to loan a body a cot and a blanket now and then. You’ll sleep here and head over there in the morning.”

Katie nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. Sanford,” she said, and she meant it.

Johnny got up to help Mrs. Sanford, and Katie finished her tea while she waited. What if the rancher had already found someone? What then?

***

Near noon the next day, Katie rode into the Masten ranch alone. It had been a nerve-wracking two hours, alone in the saddle, cold and scared, watching the landmarks and praying that Mrs. Sanford had been accurate in her directions. Katie wanted nothing more than to find a place, any place to roll up her sleeves and work, preferably some place with a roaring fire, but any place would do.

The entrance to the ranch had two tall posts with an arched piece of iron over the lane connecting them. It had the word Masten welded into it and a six-pointed star on each side.

The ranch yard was bare, free of trash but also free of any decoration. The bare wood of the buildings was gray and weathered, strong and sensible, with a long rambling cabin to the left of the lane and the barn door facing her straight ahead as she rode in. She scanned the area, looking for someone to talk to. The cabin had two front doors, one at the closer end and one in the center. She had no idea which place to knock or where to put her horse. She also feared she’d fall if she tried to dismount alone. She’d stopped feeling her feet half an hour ago.

She brought her horse to a halt in front of the ranch house when a tall man stepped out of the barn. He paused in the doorway, his bushy white eyebrows raised in surprise. Rubbing his nose, he came toward her in a kind of sideways gait unique to old cowboys. He wore a stained Montana Stetson that had long ago lost its shape and was now only a rounded dome with a floppy brim.

“Help you, ma’am?” he asked. His voice was creaky and higher toned than Katie had expected. He had a round face and blue-gray eyes.

“I’ve c-come to see about a j-job,” she stammered, partly from cold and partly from stark terror. What if Masten turned her down?

The cowboy turned toward the house. “The boss is inside, rustling up something for dinner, I reckon. He’ll be mighty glad to see you, I swan.” He pointed to the door in the center of the long building. “That’s the kitchen door. Go on in.”

She tried to kick her boot free of the stirrup, but it wouldn’t come loose.

Without any fuss, he pushed the toe of her boot through the metal arch and offered her his hands. She gladly leaned on his strength and eased to the ground. Schooling herself to walk a straight line with those two frozen stumps she called feet, she headed toward the second set of steps and made it to the door.

Knocking, she waited, willing her breathing to stay silent and slow.

“It’s open!” a man’s voice called.

She pushed and the wooden door moved inward. Feeling the warmth meeting her, she quickly entered and shut out the cold behind her.

After the wonderful heated air, the first thing she noticed was the smell. It was a mixture of charcoaled bacon and stale beans with a background aroma of fresh coffee. A lanky man bent over the stove, his left side facing her. He wore a blackened apron over jeans and a red-and-white checked shirt, his sleeves rolled to the elbows.

Behind him, a small square work table was piled high with vegetable peels and dirty cooking pots. The table had soiled dishes stacked in the center where someone had simply moved the dirty dishes inward and set the table with clean ones—which were now dirty, too.

For a full minute Katie stood without moving, trying to decide whether to be pleased or disgusted. If this was the boss, he hadn’t found a cook yet. On the other hand, what she was looking at would take two days of hard work to set it to rights, besides the cooking she’d have to do as well.

“I’m here about a job,” she faltered at last. “Mrs. Sanford at the General Store in Musgrove…”

“Can you cook?” he demanded, looking at her for the first time. His voice was strident with an edge of desperation.

“Yes, sir.”

“How old are you?” he asked, a little softer.

“Eighteen,” she said, lifting her chin.

He pushed the smoking skillet away from the hot spot on the Franklin cook stove and picked up a grimy towel.

“What brings you here, if I may ask?” he cocked his head a little, squinting one eye as he sized her up.

She licked her lips. Her feet were beginning to ache as they warmed up. “We lost our cattle to anthrax. I’m trying to find work to get through the winter.”

He nodded. “That anthrax outbreak scared me spitless. We were spared, thank the Good Lord.”

He pulled a chair away from the work table. “Here. Sit down. We need to talk.” When they were seated he went on, “I’ll pay you thirty dollars a month. You can sleep in the room off the kitchen. It’s back there.” He nodded toward the hall that went off from the back of the room beyond the stove. “And you’ll get your meals, of course.”

She swallowed. “I’d like forty dollars,” she said. “I have to send money home to Ma.”

His eyes narrowed. He studied her, working his mouth outward. “There’s one more thing we have to get settled. I have a rule here at the Masten Ranch. Once burnt, twice shy, as they say. I only hire married women. A single woman on a ranch full of single cowhands is a recipe for big trouble. As much as I need kitchen help, you’d end up being more of a problem than I can even describe if I don’t enforce that rule.”

Katie gulped. She felt the safe, comfortable warmth of that filthy kitchen slipping from her frantic grasp.

“That’s all right then,” she said, her voice tight. “I’m married.”