Frontera, NM Spring 1949
To Wade, it seemed as real as
yesterday since he still dreamed about it almost every night. He stood by the
open grave and stared down at the coffin holding the earthly remains of his
wife, victim of the flu and just being run-down, pregnant with her third child
when the doctor had suggested she should have no more. Winifred had been a good
woman but perhaps too gentle, small, and fragile for the life of a rancher’s
wife in dusty southern New Mexico .
Now she was gone.
Eight-year-old Ben clung to his
right leg and Li’l Winnie, only five, to his left, neither fully understanding
but knowing their mother was gone. The old biddies at church said he should not
have brought them to the services, but what else could he do? None of them had
really offered to care for the kids. Upon hearing Winnie’s sniffles turning to
audible sobs, he woke up.
Three months had passed since that
grim day, and nothing had gotten any better. In fact, almost everything had
gotten worse. Ben had to go to school in poorly washed clothes that never saw
an iron. Thank the powers that for now Winnie, only five, stayed home. Frontera
did not have a kindergarten. She’d been growing fast all her dresses were too
small.
Unfortunately, it also meant someone had to take care of her. Old Buck
usually did, since the aging, stove-up cowboy really wasn’t a lot of use on
ranch chores. Despite that, Wade would not let him go. Where would the old man
end up? With the war over and all the soldiers coming home, jobs were scarce.
So a grumbling Buck watched Winnie. Wade felt sure the old man would never hurt
or even growl at her, but he could tell it was not a good fit for either of
them.
Inevitably, at that point his
thoughts turned to the magazine he’d found on the table at Nettie’s New Diner
last time he was in town. Although he rarely ate anywhere except at home, he
was so sick of his own limited offerings he could not resist a decent meal. And
there it lay, like someone had put the damn thing in his path on purpose. The
cover was kind of garish, a cowboy on a big palomino and a gorgeous blonde gal
in ripped up clothes that left little to the imagination. Across the top, Ranch Romances appeared in big red
letters. Lower, in a different typeface, he read “Captured by Brutal Outlaws.”
Why would he even pick up such
trashy, dime-dreadful junk? Still, when he went to lay it back down, it flipped
open to a page that somehow caught his eye and would not let go. There were
letters from men looking for women and women seeking men, mail order brides, handymen,
and more. It must have been the devil put the notion in his mind, but once it
was there, the idea would not let go. He could write in and try to find a wife
or at least a housekeeper to take care of the kids…
Wade labored over that letter for
several nights before he was finally satisfied with what he had written. He was
not an ignorant man. He’d been through high school back in Kansas and could write with proper grammar
and in a decent hand. That wasn’t the problem. Wording the request was. Finally,
he just cussed, folded the paper, and stuffed it in an envelope. He put an airmail
stamp on it in hopes it would get to the magazine and bring results that much
quicker. Five cents was a lot to spend, but this was important.
