Moving on - Chapter 3 The Town is Growing

Leave Your Husband and Come Away With Me !!

 

The town is growing and us with it

After proving up on my ranch Mercy and I spent most of out time in town.

The town had grown and on a couple of our lots we built a hotel. Our rooms were full most of the time and the restaurant also had a full house.

The railroad made our town one of their stops and put up a station with cattle yards. This one particular year we had the round up and took our much improved herd to the railroad to sell them. We were the first herd for sale so we got top dollar for them.

There just happen to be a cattle buyer in town that bought cattle for a packing house in Chicago. He spent a lot of time out at Albert's place; in fact he spent too much time there. Sarah, Albert's wife had chosen that name when we arrived in New York and had smartened up a bit but still wasn't too bright. This buyer had pretty well mesmerized her into thinking he was madly in love with her.

A woman out on the prairie was not used to the wiles of a city dude. As you recall she was an immigrant and was married to Albert while still on shipboard. In any case Albert was in charge of the cattle sale and he insisted we receive payment in gold coin. The buyer agreed but said it would take a few days longer for payment to which Albert agreed.

When the gold arrived Albert was back at the ranch and Sarah who was staying in town signed for it. I had been watching over the transaction from afar not being active in the sale of the cattle.

Mercy came and told me that the buyer was going into Sarah's room from time to time and she didn't think that it was proper for him to do that.

I sent for Albert to come to town and deal with what I thought had suspicious overtones. By the time Albert arrived, silly Sarah had moved the gold coin strong box to the railroad station and had bought two tickets to the West coast.

Albert went directly to the station and took possession of the coins and removed Sarah from the train.

The buyer wasn't aware of what was happening so he got aboard the train and was looking for Sarah. When he couldn't find her he began to panic especially when he saw two of my brothers and me on the train.

As we approached ten mile trestle we escorted the buyer to the platform between cars after hitting him on the head with a six gun. The river was rushing madly below in the canyon and as we crossed the trestle we gave him a downward toss to the canyon some hundred feet below. He quickly disappeared below the surface of the rushing river. Our other brother had brought horses for us on the town side of the trestle and we stopped the train and got off telling the conductor we were going to look for some missing cattle. He smiled and said we might also look for a missing passenger while we were at it. Phillip said we would but doubted if we would find him.

Perhaps some might say that was a harsh treatment for the man but in our world people had a way of coming back and try to get even from some ill treatment and we made sure that never happened.

Meanwhile Albert was dealing with Sarah! He had used a whip on her and she could hardly sit down.  Papa had found out what had happen and was in full agreement with the lashing she had received. Papa said Albert should get rid of her right now but Mercy said; I will handle this and everybody stay out of it. She told Albert to come to her room for she had something to tell him. When Albert came in he was all flushed and highly agitated.

Mercy told him to have a big drink of whiskey and settle down. After three big shots he began to cool off and she started in. Her defense of Sarah went along the lines of her not being able to cope with someone that Albert had allowed to come to the ranch when he wasn't there.

After an hour later and a couple more drinks Mercy said Sarah hadn't laid with the man she had just been deceived with his telling her sweet things Albert had never said to her. 

Mercy said, “A woman needs to hear loving complements and things like that from her man once in a while.” She then told him, “Now go and makeup with her and do not beat her anymore.”  He told Mercy; alright he would do as she said.

He staggered out of the room as the whiskey was having it effects on his equilibrium to where Sarah was weeping. She was cowering in a corner when he came in.

He asked her questions about the affair the main one being if the man had bedded her.  She vehemently denied that anything happened yet, and he accepted her explanation as he fell into the bed and went to sleep.

Come the morning he became amorous and she did her wifely duty through the painful stripes she wore.

I was glad Mercy had intervened because Albert might have killed Sarah in a moment of rage. Albert was happy Mercy had settled him down also although he never said so.

 

To be Continued