The Cowboy's Orphan Bride

Satisfied with the number of men he’d counted and confident the cattle were moving at a solid pace, Garth forced himself to put the calf out of his mind and rode past the point riders to catch up with JoJo.

The chuck wagon always traveled a few miles ahead of the herd, and as Garth rode, the calf crossed his mind again. Even if he found a sodbuster to take it, the calf wouldn’t have much of a chance. Orphans as a whole didn’t stand much of a chance. He was reminded of that every time he traveled north into Kansas.

If the orphanage hadn’t taught him that, the farmer who’d taken him off the train had. He’d spent over a month with Orson Reins before deciding he’d had enough. Orson had said from the moment Garth had arrived at his farm that you could take a boy off the street, but the only way to take the street out of the boy was with a whip. When Orson had broken out his whip again, something had snapped inside Garth and he’d wrestled the whip out of Orson’s hands and left.

He’d carried that whip with him for five years, until one night when he’d burned it, concluding his past was well and gone. He was never going back, so there was no need to hold on to any reminders of his past.

“Heading out, Boss?” JoJo shouted above the rattling of his chuck wagon.

Garth caught up with the wagon, and then reined in his horse next to where JoJo sat on the wagon seat. “I remember some water being a short distance ahead.”

“Still figure we’re about five days out?” JoJo asked.

“Four if we’re lucky.”

“You’re lucky all right,” JoJo answered with a laugh. “This trail is working out for us. You know I had my reservations.”

“You liked the Chisholm,” Garth answered. On his way south last year, he’d veered west to explore the Great Western Trail. Some swore by it, others claimed it was cursed. The same was true for the Chisholm.

“Was used to the Chisholm,” JoJo said. “Knew every hill and water hole on that trail. So did you.”

“We did,” Garth admitted. He’d chosen the Great Western this year because these were his cattle being driven north. After spending all winter acquiring and paying room and board for the whole lot of four-footed beasts, he needed to get top dollar.

“But Dodge is paying more than Wichita right now, so we took this one,” JoJo supplied, rubbing his scruffy gray beard with one hand.

Garth nodded. “You’re smarter than you look. Guess you do have a brain under that bald scalp.” Though Wichita was still accepting cattle, the days of the big drives were limited. The farmers were putting up too much of a fuss and the townspeople were agreeing with them, laying down more and more rules for the cattlemen to follow.

JoJo pointed a finger. “And your mug is uglier than you think.”

Garth laughed. “I never claimed to be handsome, but can’t say I’ve had any complaints, either.”

JoJo chortled, and rubbed his beard a bit more when he asked, “What you gonna do with all that money you’re gonna make on this trip? Got yourself a woman holed up somewhere?”

Garth laughed. A woman was the last thing he wanted. “If I did, I sure wouldn’t tell you about it. You’d try stealing her.”

JoJo laughed so hard he coughed. With watery eyes, he said, “Not me, but Bat might.”

“Uh-uh,” Bat said, shaking his head. “I don’t want no woman telling me what to do.”

Bat was the youngest on the drive. Too young really, maybe ten or twelve, but JoJo wouldn’t leave Texas without the kid he’d found somewhere over the winter. Knowing the options for an orphan too well, Garth had agreed the boy could join them. He wasn’t sorry, either. Bat was a good little worker and certainly earned his wage.

The boy was an added bonus, to Garth’s way of thinking. Bat was the reason JoJo had been willing to leave the outfit he’d been with for the past several years. JoJo never said Evans wouldn’t let a kid join his drive, hadn’t needed to. Bottom line was Evans’s loss had been Garth’s gain. An outfit needed a good cook, and JoJo was one of the best. Even though he was a bit cantankerous at times, and full of himself.

“Now that’s smart thinking if I ever heard it,” Garth said to Bat.

The boy grinned and sat a bit taller on the wagon seat.

“Malcolm sure was sad to see you leave,” JoJo said.

Malcolm Johansson, the man who’d hired him when he’d been as green as grass, was still a trusted friend and a man Garth was thankful to have met. Malcolm was a hard man, but an honest one, and had taught Garth a lot about life. “I told him my plan the day he hired me.” A plan he was still working on. That’s how he did things, thought each detail out thoroughly before putting them in place, and then followed them through to the end. That had been the one lesson he’d learned back at the orphanage that he’d held on to. Not thinking things through made for a tough life.

“I heard as much,” JoJo said. “But Malcolm was still sad to see you leave his employ.”

“Sam Taylor will serve Malcolm well,” Garth told JoJo the same thing he’d told many others when they’d questioned him leaving Johansson’s employ. “He’s been driving cows to Wichita for years.”

“Yeah, he will,” JoJo said. “But Sam Taylor ain’t no Garth McCain.”

Coming from JoJo, that was a compliment like no other, and Garth figured it was a good place to end the conversation. “I’ll be back in time for the evening meal,” he said, tapping his heels against his horse.

“Don’t forget my supplies!” JoJo shouted.

Garth waved a hand to signal that he’d heard while urging the horse into a gallop.

They had to be around forty miles south of Dodge City. He could almost smell the town. Every stinking inch of it. Dodge smelled of cattle, booze, cigar smoke and women. Not a single one of those things was offensive to him.

This would be the first time he’d dealt with the stockyards there. All his other drives had ended in Wichita. That’s where he’d made his way to after leaving Orson’s place, and where he’d run into Malcolm. At the Wichita stockyards. The man had told him if he ever made it down to Texas to look him up. He was always in need of cowboys.

That was exactly what Garth had done, followed Malcolm all the way south, and along the way, told Malcolm his plan. That he’d work for him, until it was time for him to go out on his own. That had been nine years ago, and last fall, after returning to Texas, he’d told Malcolm it was time. It had taken him years to save up enough money to assure all would turn out just as he’d imagined. A good sale this year would guarantee he’d been right.

Malcolm hadn’t tried to talk him out of going out on his own. Instead he’d offered a place to pasture the cattle Garth had bought and rounded up throughout the winter—at a price of course. Garth hadn’t expected any less.

That’s how life should be. Fair. Honest. That had been an issue for him. People’s dishonesty. Malcolm claimed Garth had driven away more cowhands than any man he’d ever known. Garth had retorted by saying Malcolm should be happy about that. No one wants a dishonest man in their employ. Or foolish or impulsive ones. That’s how mistakes were made.

Malcolm had agreed, but had also warned him to be careful about expectations. Said sometimes a man doesn’t know what he wants until he sees it.

Garth laughed at the memory. He knew what he wanted. Right now, that was water, so he settled his attention on the lay of the land, looking for telltale signs. In this country, that meant trees.

Glancing in both directions, and straight ahead again, Garth drew a deep breath and let it out. He’d settle for one. One tree. That’s all he needed. Just one.

Once he found a water spot for the cattle to rest for the night, he’d ride on into Hosford and pick up some coffee and bacon. JoJo had said this morning there wasn’t quite enough to get them to Dodge. The cook had offered to ration the portions if needed, but Garth had said no. His men earned their wages every day, and their fodder. He’d never told a cowhand he couldn’t eat his fill, and he wasn’t about to start now.

The other reason he needed to go to Hosford was to send a telegram to Dodge, to make sure the stockyard was ready to receive his cattle.

He held up a hand to shield the glare of the sun as he scanned the horizon. One of the downfalls of being the first drive of the year was not having a clear path to follow. The trail had been well-worn last fall when he’d taken it south. Now a new growth of grass covered the prairie. What he’d followed last fall could be a few miles either east or west. He didn’t think so, but had to admit it was possible. Cattle needed grass to eat along the way, which meant drives didn’t follow an exact trail. Rather, the route was spread out east and west for miles. Hence, why some called the Great Western trail cursed. Water, the other thing cattle needed, could be elusive. Might be only a mile away, yet never found.

The same was true for the Chisholm, and he’d been the first on that trail more than once over the years. Trusting his gut, he angled his horse slightly northwest. This land was so flat, so barren, a tree should stand out like a red petticoat, but dang if he could see one right now.

He clearly remembered a creek crossing the trail around these parts. An offshoot of the larger river farther east. He’d camped near that creek. Alone last fall, he’d traveled much faster than he could with a drive of over twenty-five hundred head of cattle, but considering they’d stayed near the Big Basin two nights ago, that creek had to be close. Hosford couldn’t be more than five or six miles north of here.

Scanning the area again, he pinpointed his gaze. A dot on the horizon could be a tree, or it could be a house. There was only one way to find out.

Chapter Three (#ulink_10e5f7ee-5e67-530e-a289-40c01e4670b7)

“These green beans are so delicious, Bridgette,” Emma Sue said with a voice that was little more than a whisper. “How did you make them?”

“I fried them in the bacon grease left from this morning,” Bridgette answered while gently covering the dough she’d just rolled out and cut into strips. Squaring the corners of the cloth to make sure dust or insects didn’t settle upon her egg noodles as they dried, she continued, “I also added a few onions I found growing west of the house.”

“I think that’s where the former owners had their garden,” Emma Sue said. “Cecil didn’t want it that far away from the house. Said it was too far for me to carry water.”