Mail Order Cowboy
“I think we should let the gentlemen decide,” she announced, then ducked her head as if astonished at her own audaciousness.
“Yes, but how?” Milly prodded.
Jane shrugged.
“We could have a party,” said Prissy Gilmore, who’d managed to avoid bringing her mother. “With chaperones, of course, so Mama won’t have a fit—and the gentlemen could be presented to all of us. They could decide whom they preferred.” She smoothed a wayward curl that had escaped her artful coiffure.
“Yes, but what if only one of them comes at a time?” Sarah asked. “Won’t he feel awfully uncomfortable, as if he’s on display like a prize bull at a county fair?”
“Well, he would be, wouldn’t he?” Emily Thompson tittered. “Poor man. But perhaps it won’t have to be that way. From the sound of that letter, it seems as if they might well come in herds!”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Then each of us could have our pick!” Ada Spencer said with a sigh, and everyone laughed at her blissful expression.
“Maybe the gentleman will express a preference as to the type of woman he’s seeking,” Maude Harkey said. “He might have a decided interest in short redheads, such as myself.”
There was more laughter.
“Don’t forget, ladies,” Milly reminded them, “as more and more matches are made, the number of ladies looking over the applicants will be fewer and fewer. Eventually there will be no more need for the Society, God willing, for all of us will be married.”
“Amen,” Ada Spencer said. “But the fact remains, we have yet to receive the first response to our advertisement. I hope we don’t end up as the laughingstocks of Texas.”
Her words hung in the air, and once more the ladies were glancing uneasily around at each other.
“I think we ought to pray about it now,” Milly said. “And you’ve all been praying about it at home, haven’t you?”
There were solemn nods around the circle.
“Very well, then,” Milly said. “Who would like to—”
Sarah raised her hand. “I think when we pray, we ought to include something about God’s will being done. I mean, it might not be God’s will for all of us to be married, you know.”
Milly opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. The idea that the Lord might intend for her to go through life as an unmarried lady for whatever reason He had was startling, but it could be true.
“You’re right, Sarah,” she said, humbled. “Would you lead us in pr—”
Before she could finish her sentence, there was a knock at the door of the social hall. Then, without waiting to be invited in, a tousle-headed boy flung open the door.
Milly recognized Dan Wallace, Caroline’s brother, and son of the town postmaster.
Caroline called out, “Dan, is anything wrong? We’re having a meeting here—”
“I know, Caroline,” Dan said. “But Papa said to show this gent where to go.”
Caroline’s brow furrowed, and Milly saw her look past her brother. “What gent?”
“He’s waitin’ outside. He came t’ the post office. Says he’s come in response to the advertisement y’all placed in that Houston newspaper. He’s lookin’ for Miss Milly, an’ I knew she’d be here with you ’cause a’ the meetin’.”
Milly felt the blood drain from her face. It shouldn’t be happening this way. A man couldn’t have just shown up.
She looked uncertainly at the others. “But…but he was to have written a letter first,” she protested, “so we could evaluate his application, then send him an invitation if we agreed he was a good candidate.”
“Perhaps his letter got lost in the mail or delayed,” Sarah pointed out, reasonable as always.
She supposed what Sarah had said was possible, Milly had to admit. Stagecoaches carrying the mail got robbed, or his letter could have fallen out of the mail sack and blown away, or gotten stuck to another going elsewhere…. But the man should have waited for a reply from them.
“I say an applicant is an applicant,” Maude Harkey said. “He must have come a long way. Least we can do is see him and hear what he has to say.”
Milly couldn’t argue with that, she decided. They had prayed fervently that their advertisement would be answered, and it had been, though not in the way she had planned.
Now that the moment had come, though, she felt a little faint. Her corset suddenly felt too tightly laced. It was hard to get a breath. She rose, wishing she had worn her Sunday best instead of this green-and-yellow-sprigged everyday dress, wished that she had time to pinch her cheeks…. Darting a glance at the others, she saw that all of them appeared to be wishing much the same.
“Well, by all means, invite him in, Dan,” Milly said with a calmness she was far from feeling.
The boy looked over his shoulder at whoever stood beyond their sight and said, “You kin come in.”
He was tall, taller by a head than Milly, which must put him at six feet or so, she thought absently, and so darkly tanned that at first Milly thought he was a Mexican. But then he doffed his wide-brimmed hat, and she saw that his hair gleamed tawny-gold in the light shed by the high window just behind him. His eyes were the blue of a cloudless spring sky, his nose straight and patrician. He wore a black frock coat with a matching waistcoat over an immaculate white shirt. He looked to be in his early thirties.
He was easily the most compelling man Milly had ever set eyes on.
He bowed deeply from the waist, and when he straightened, he smiled as his gaze roved around the circle of thunderstruck ladies.
“Good afternoon, ladies. My name is Nicholas Brookfield. I am looking for Miss Millicent Matthews.” His eyes stopped at Sarah. “Are you Miss Matthews, by chance?”
“I—uh, that is, I’m S-Sarah Matthews, her s-sister…” Sarah stammered, going pale, then crimson. She gestured toward Milly. “That’s Millicent.”
The woman she pointed to was nothing like the image Nick had formed in his mind of Miss Millicent Matthews, being neither blonde nor short. She was tall and willowy, her figure hinting at strength rather than feminine frailty. Her hair gleamed like polished mahogany, so dark brown that it was nearly black, her eyes a changeable hazel under sweeping lashes, her lips temptingly curving rather than the pouting rosebud he had always thought the epitome of female loveliness.
In that instant, Nicholas Brookfield’s ideal image of beauty was transformed. Millicent Matthews was the most striking woman he had ever encountered. He couldn’t imagine why he had thought, even for a second, that she was blonde. Why on earth had this woman needed to place such an advertisement? Were the men of Texas blind as well as fools?
“Mr. Brookfield, I’m sorry, we weren’t expecting you. In the advertisement we placed, we indicated that an interested gentleman was to send a letter. Is it possible your letter got lost in the mail?”
Nick had wondered if the woman would confront him for not following directions, but she had given him a way to save face, if he wanted to use it. Nick wouldn’t take refuge in a lie, however, even a small one.
He gave her what he hoped was a dazzling smile. “I’m afraid I didn’t want to wait upon an answer to a letter, Miss Matthews, the post being so slow, you understand. I’m here in Texas to take up a post in Austin, but I happened upon your advertisement and found it so intriguing that I rode on to Simpson Creek, purely out of curiosity.”
“‘Purely out of curiosity?’” she echoed, narrowing her eyes. “Does that mean you’re not interested in marriage, sir? That you just came to see what sort of a desperate female would place such an advertisement?”
“Milly,” her sister murmured, her tone mildly reproachful. “We shouldn’t make Mr. Brookfield feel unwelcome. We haven’t even given him a chance.”
So Miss Matthews could be prickly. This rose had thorns. Then he heard his words as she must have heard them, and he realized how offensive his half-formed idea of meeting the lady and her associates merely as a lark before settling down to a dreary job was.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to sound that I was merely looking to amuse myself at your expense, ladies. I…I truly was impressed with your initiative, and decided I wanted to meet you.”
His reply seemed to mollify her somewhat. “I see,” she said, studying him. Her eyes seemed to look deep into his soul. “You’re British, Mr. Brookfield?”
Nick nodded. “From Sussex, in southeastern England. But I’ve been in India the past decade.”
“I—I see,” she said again, seemingly uncertain what to do now.
Nick was increasingly aware of their audience hanging on to every word. “I—that is, I wonder if we might speak privately?” He couldn’t think properly with all of them staring at him, let alone produce the right words to keep her from dismissing him out of hand.
Suspicion flashed in those changeable brown-gold eyes. For a moment Millicent Matthews looked as if she might refuse.
Nick added the one word he could think of to change her mind, and infused it with all the appeal he could muster. “Please.”
She glanced at the others, but they were apparently all waiting for her to decide, for no one said a word or twitched a muscle.
“Very well,” she said at last. “We can step outside for a moment, I suppose. Sarah, will you take over the meeting? If you’ll follow me, Mr. Brookfield…” She led him down the hall past the sanctuary.
Pushing open the pecan wood door, he walked outside with her, around the side of the church past a small cemetery and into a grove of venerable live oak and pecan trees behind the church. Fragments of old pecan shells crunched under their feet.
It was pleasantly cool in this sun-dappled shade, though the heat of the afternoon shimmered just beyond the influence of the leafy boughs. Insects hummed. A mockingbird flashed gray, black and white as it flitted from one tree to another. A curved stone bench curled around half of the thick trunk of one of the trees, but Millicent Matthews didn’t sit down; instead, she turned to face him.
“Mr. Brookfield, before we say anything more, I feel compelled to point out that I’m merely the one who composed the advertisement. There are several other ladies to choose from, as you saw. I assure you, it’s quite all right if you find you prefer another of them…”
So she had a sense of fair play and generosity. Nick liked that about her. But somehow he knew her suggestion was something he didn’t even want to consider. It was incomprehensible how he could sense that already, but there it was.
“I know you will find this difficult to believe, since we’ve only just met, and we really don’t know each other at all,” he said. “I can well understand that it appears I’m making a snap judgment, and perhaps I am, but I would like the opportunity to get to know you better. I—I find you very attractive indeed, Miss Matthews, and that’s the simple truth—”
He broke off, somewhat nettled as he noticed she appeared to have suddenly stopped listening. “Miss Matthews…”
“Ssssh!” Millicent hissed, suddenly holding up her hand.
Then he realized she was listening to something beyond the trees, up the road. Then he heard it, too, the pounding of hooves coming closer and a voice calling “Miss Milly! Miss Milly!”
“That sounds like Bobby…what can be the matter?” She jumped up, her brow furrowed, and began running toward the front of the church. Nick followed.
Just as they reached the road, a lathered horse skidded to a sliding stop in front of them and a wild-eyed youth jumped off, keeping hold of the reins. The other ladies, doubtless hearing the commotion, poured outside, too.
“Miss Milly! Miss Sarah! You gotta come home quick! There was Injuns—Comanche, I think—they attacked, and I think Uncle Josh is dead!”
Chapter Three
“Indians? Josh is dead? We have to get back there!”
Nick saw the color leach from Millicent Matthews’s face until it was white as sun-bleached bones. He stepped quickly forward to catch her, but although she trembled, she stood firm. It was Sarah, her sister, who swayed and might have gone down if one of the other ladies had not moved in to hold her up.
“Sarah! Are you all right?” Milly asked, rushing forward to her sister, whom the other woman had gently assisted to the ground before starting to fan her face.
“Yes…I think so…everything went gray for a moment…” Sarah said. “I’m all right, really, Caroline. Help me up.”
Still pale but obviously embarrassed at her near-swoon, she scrambled to her feet.
“We’ve got to get home!” Milly cried, now that her sister was standing. Her gaze darted around until it settled on a wagon whose horses were tied at the hitching post next to his mount, then back to her sister. “Sarah, come on, let’s get you into the wagon—” She braced her sister with an arm around her waist.
Caroline said, “I’ll help you get her into the wagon and go home with you. Dan, you run down and tell Pa and the sheriff to round up the men and come out to the Matthews ranch. And bring the doctor, just in case…. Quick, now!” she added, when it seemed as if the lad would remain standing there, mouth agape.
Then Milly seemed to remember him. “Mr. Brookfield, I’m sorry…I have to go. I’m sorry, but I won’t be able to—that is, perhaps one of the other ladies…”
“Oh, but I’m coming with you,” he informed her, falling into step next to her as she and the other woman helped Sarah walk.
“Really, that’s awfully kind of you, but it’s not your trouble. There’s no telling what we’re going to find when we get there,” she told him, as if that was the end of the matter. Her eyes went back to her sister as the other woman clambered into the bed of the wagon and stretched an arm down to assist Sarah. “Careful, Sarah…”
“Which is exactly why I’m going,” Nick said. “There’s no way on earth a gentleman would allow you to ride alone into possible danger. There might be savages lying in wait.”
She looked skeptical of him and impatient to be off. “Thank you, but I’m afraid you don’t understand about our Comanche—”
He saw how she must see him, as a civilized foreigner with no real experience in fighting, and interrupted her with a gesture. “I have a brace of pistols in my saddlebags,” he said, jerking his head toward his horse. “And I know how to use them, as well as that shotgun you have mounted on the back of your wagon seat. Miss Matthews, I have served in Her Majesty’s army, and I have been tested in battle against hordes of murderous, screaming Indians—India Indians, that is—armed and out to kill me and every other Englishman they could. Let me come with you, at least until the men from town arrive.”
His words seemed to act like a dash of cold water. “A-all right,” she said, and without another word turned back to the wagon. She climbed with the graceful ease of long experience onto the seat and gathered up the reins. Before he could even mount his horse, she had backed up the wagon and snapped the reins over the horses’ backs.
Milly’s heart caught in her throat as the wagon round ed a curve and she spotted the smoke rising in an ominous gray plume over the low mesquite- and cactus-studded hill that lay between there and home. Unconsciously she pulled up on the reins and the wagon creaked to a halt in the dusty road.
“Oh, Milly, what if it’s true? What if Josh is dead? Whatever will we do?” Sarah moaned from the wagon bed behind her.
Please, God, don’t let it be true, Milly prayed. Don’t let Josh be dead. Nothing else really matters, even if they burned the house. She saw out of the corner of her eye that the Englishman had reined in his mount next to them, as had Bobby.
Braced against the side of the wagon bed, Caroline Wallace gave Sarah a one-armed hug, but she looked every bit as worried.
“We’ll deal with whatever we find,” she said grimly, fighting the urge to wheel the horses around and whip them into a gallop. What would they do, with only a boy not old enough to shave to help them run the ranch? “And the sooner we find out what that is, the better. Here, Mr. Brookfield,” she said, reaching around the slatted seat for the shotgun. “Perhaps you’d better have this at the ready.”
His eyes were full of encouraging sympathy as he leaned over to accept the firearm from her. “Steady on, Miss Matthews,” he murmured. “I’ll be with you.”
It was ridiculous to take heart from the words of a stranger, a dandified-looking Englishman who claimed to have been a soldier, but there was something very capable in his manner and comforting in his words.
“I’ll go ahead, shall I, and scout out the situation?” he suggested. “See if it’s safe for you ladies to come ahead?”
“And leave us here to be picked off? No, thank you,” she responded tartly, gesturing toward the rocky, brush-studded hills. She could picture a Comanche brave hiding behind every boulder and bush. “We’ll go together.” She clucked to the horses and the buckboard lurched forward.
She couldn’t stifle a groan of pure anguish when she rounded the curve and spotted the smoldering ruin that was the barn. Just then the wind shifted and blew toward the wagon, temporarily blinding her with smoke and stinging her eyes. Had the house been burned to ashes like the barn? Where was Josh? Or rather, Josh’s body, she corrected herself, knuckling tears away from her cheeks.
Then the wind shifted capriciously again and she saw what she hadn’t dared hope for—the house was still standing. So was the bunkhouse, which stood across from it and next to the barn. Why hadn’t they been burned, too? But the pasture beyond, in which some fifty head of cattle and a dozen horses had been grazing when they’d left for the meeting, was empty. There was no sign of the Comanche raiders except for a hawk’s feather that must have fallen from one of the braves’ hair, sticking incongruously in a rosebush by the house.
“They left Josh on t’other side a’ the barn,” Bobby whispered, as if fearing that speaking aloud would bring the Comanches back.
She couldn’t worry about the loss of the cattle right now or how they would survive. She had to see Josh.
“Caroline, stay with Sarah, please,” she said to the woman, who still crouched protectively in the bed of the buckboard by her sister.
“I say, Miss Matthews,” Nicholas Brookfield said be side her, “please allow me to go first. There’s no need to subject yourself to this if there’s nothing to be done for the chap.”
It was so tempting to accept his offer, to spare herself the sight of the old man perhaps scalped or otherwise mutilated, lying in his blood. But old Josh had been their rock ever since their father had died, and she owed him this much at least.
“No,” she said, letting her eyes speak her gratitude for his offer. “But please, come with me.”
Still holding the shotgun at the ready, he led the way around the barn.
At first, she thought the old man was dead, sprawled there in the dirt between the side of the barn and the empty corral. He was pallid as a corpse, his shirt saturated with dark dried blood. A deep gash bisected his upper forehead, dyeing his gray hair a dark crimson. A feathered shaft was embedded in each shoulder, pinning his torso to the ground, and his left pants leg was slashed midthigh. She caught a glimpse of a long, deep laceration beneath. Not far away, a corner of the barn still burned with crackling intensity. It was a miracle flying sparks hadn’t set Josh’s clothes alight.
And then she saw that Josh’s chest was rising and falling.
“Josh?” she called, softly at first, afraid to trust her eyes, then louder, “Josh?”
His answer was a groan.
She rushed past Brookfield, falling to her knees beside the fallen cowboy. “Josh, it’s me, Milly. Can you hear me?” Gingerly, she touched his face, not wanting to cause him any extra pain.
Josh’s eyelids fluttered and then he opened one eye, blinking as he attempted to focus his gaze. “Miss Milly…sorry…I caught them redskins stealin’ cattle…tried to drive ’em off with the rifle…” He squinted at the ground on his right side and sighed. “Looks like they got that, too. St-started…they started t’ take my scalp…dunno what stopped ’em from finishin’…”
“Thank God,” Milly murmured. But Josh couldn’t hear her. He’d passed out again.
“Bobby, go get me some water from the well,” Milly called over her shoulder. “And tell Sarah and Caroline to bring soap and a couple of clean sheets to make up the bed in the spare room for Josh.”
“And Bobby, bring me a couple of knives,” Brookfield called out, pulling off his black frock coat and throwing it over a fencepost in the nearby corral. He rolled up his sleeves past his elbows, revealing tanned, muscular arms. “And some whiskey if you can find it. Or any kind of liquor.”
Milly turned startled eyes to him and saw that he knelt in the dirt beside her, oblivious of his immaculate white shirt and black trousers. “Mr. Brookfield, what are you going to do?”
With his bare hands, he was digging into the dirt beside Josh’s wounded shoulder. “Before he comes around, I’m going to cut off the arrowheads. There’s no way we can pull the arrow shafts out otherwise without injuring him further.”
“Are you a doctor, Mr. Brookfield?”
He shook his head without looking at her, still digging in the dirt.
“Shouldn’t we wait ’til the doctor gets here to do that?”
He shook his head again. “You can’t even move the man to a bed until we pull out those arrows. I’ve seen the regimental doctor remove a spear from an unlucky sepoy before, if that makes you feel better.”
He didn’t explain what a sepoy was, or if the sepoy had lived through the procedure, but she didn’t have any better idea. And Dan Wallace might not find the doctor right away. They didn’t dare wait.
“I suppose you’re right—you’d better go ahead. But even if Josh comes around, we don’t have any whiskey or any other kind of spirits. Papa didn’t hold with drinking.”
“It’d be to pour on the wounds mostly, though if he regains his senses I’ll be giving him some to drink,” the Englishman answered, with that purposeful calm he’d exhibited ever since they’d received the awful news.
Just then Bobby dashed back, a pair of knives from the kitchen clutched in one hand, a half-full bottle of whiskey in the other.
Milly’s jaw dropped. “Bobby, where on earth did you get that?”
Bobby scuffed the toe of his boot in the dust and refused to meet her eyes. “Mr. Josh, he had some in the bunkhouse. He didn’t drink it very often,” he added in a defensive tone, “an’ never ’til the day’s work was done. He never would let me have any, neither. Said I wasn’t a man growed yet. He said I wasn’t to tell you, but I reckon I needed t’ break that promise.”
“That’s fine, Bobby,” Nicholas Brookfield said, taking the bottle from him. “Now go hold one of the knife blades in the fire for a minute.”
After the boy did as he was bid and returned with the knife, its tip still glowing red.
“Now you hold the hot knife, Miss Matthews—don’t let it touch anything, while you, Bobby, hold Mr. Josh by the shoulder, just so…”
Obediently, she held the knife, watching as Bobby braced one of Josh’s shoulders, holding it just far enough above the ground so that the arrow shaft was visible, while Brookfield sawed at the arrow shaft until he had cut it in two, then shifted the wounded man slightly so that he was no longer lying over the arrowhead and the tip of the shaft that was still embedded in the ground. Although Josh groaned, he did not wake up.
Brookfield and Bobby switched sides.
Caroline came from the house then, lugging a bucket of water that splashed droplets out the side with each step she took. “I thought it best to set Sarah to making up the bed in your spare room…” She stopped stock-still when she caught sight of Josh. “Heaven have mercy, he’s in a bad way, isn’t he? I was afraid she’d faint if she saw him like this.”
Milly nodded, knowing Caroline was right. She’d felt dizzy herself, just looking at all that blood, but knew fainting was a luxury she didn’t have. Josh needed her to be steady right now and help Nicholas Brookfield.