Chapter 1

I was sittin’ in the shade from my big wrap around porch on my seven bedroom, two story house. It was the biggest building in the territory aside from a few hotels, and I often reflected on how odd it was to belong to a single man with no relatives. Well, except for Aunt Madge, but if I had my ruthers, I’d be alone in this world.

I hadn’t heard from her in years, until I struck it rich. Then she showed up like a bad penny, bemoaning her desperate financial situation. Like it or not, I was rich, and her only relative, and honestly, I didn’t want anyone else to shoulder the burden.

She moved into my new house immediately, and started dictating to my cook and her daughter, a couple I’d met on a trail during a trying time for me, and they’d helped me as much as they could. I was rich even back then, but almost no one knew about it. They were in rough shape themselves, so I just took ‘em along with me, building them a little two bedroom house so they would have privacy, and told them it was theirs for as long as they wanted it. Sarah was about 35, and had a twelve year old daughter. She wasn’t an idler, and insisted she cook the meals and she and Carmen would keep the place clean. They cried when I paid them at the end of the month, then sent them into town to buy supplies. Mitch, my segundo, went along to watch over them, but I’d seen the way he was moonin’ over Sarah, and I didn’t figure it would be long until their house would be sleeping three instead of two.

I finally had to calm my aunt down when she tried to beat the girl over some imagined slight. Carmen was a pretty quick youngster, so she avoided the kick and flew down the stairs, almost knocking me down when I came in, crying hysterically. Madge was right behind her.

“Good. Hold her down while I strap that sassy mouth shut!”

BY then was Carmen was behind me, scared to death. “Ain’t nobody strappin’ nobody in this house. What’s going on?”

She was all but foaming at the mouth. “That vile child disrespected me and refused to do my bidding! Don’t you worry none, I’ll straighten that willful little spitfire out!”

I looked at the terrified face of Carmen. “What did she tell you to do?”

“She told me to move your things out of your bedroom, so she could have it. I told her I wouldn’t do it until you told me to, because I work for you and not her.”

I looked at my Aunt. “Is that true?”

She was an interesting shade of red by then. “You don’t need that bedroom! I do because the light in mine wakes me up too early in the day.”

“I can understand. It must be hell to wake up at the crack of nine every day. It didn’t occur to you to discuss the move with me first?”

She snorted. “You don’t discuss things with men. You tell ‘em, and they obey. It worked with my husband, and you’re no better!”

It took me a couple of minutes to calm down enough to talk. “That so? What next, you start making business decisions for me? After all, you know best, right?”

She wasn’t backing down. “You’re foolish with your money, and it’s time someone took you in hand.”

“I see your point. I mean, I’m only 23, and I’ve just been on my own for six years. How in the world did I manage? But, I concede your point. You do need money to manage. I’ll help you out. In the meantime, nobody is switchin’ our rooms. And if you ever lay a hand on this girl, I won’t do a thing. I’ll turn you over to her mother, and let you two talk it over.”

Madge didn’t like that. She’d tried to bully Sarah, and that didn’t go well. She’d survived an Indian attack, killing two of them on her own, worked hard all her life and asked for no charity, and was an independent, strong willed woman. I listened to her thoughts and gave them much more weight than I did my aunt. If you laid a hand on Carmen, there wasn’t a door built anywhere strong enough to keep her out, and it would end badly for Madge.

I thought about it for a few days, got hold of my lawyer and banker, and dealt with the problem. Madge was moving back East. I bought her a nice house in her hometown, gave her a stipend of $250 a month, and told her if she ever came back I’d put her on the street.

She tried to sue me, and even the Judge had a hard time keeping a straight face as he denied her suit, declaring it frivolous. “It’s his money, ma’am. He made it, not you, so he can use it any way he sees fit. I advise you to take his offer before he rescinds it.”

Madge nearly stroked out when her lawyer presented her with the bill, telling him to get me to pay it. “Don’t work that way, ma’am. By rights he could make you pay for his lawyer, so you’d best stop pushing. I expect my money by the end of the week, or you’ll be back in court. Good day, ma’am.”

She had a whole wagon load of stuff when she left, things she’d charged to me, but I gladly paid them, just to get rid of her. I stood in the door and watched her as she got into the wagon, bound for the train. She was about to launch a diatribe, so I turned to shut the door, catching Carmen with her tongue out. I tried to hide my grin as she giggled and scampered off.

So then, how’d I get rich? Luck, and then planning. I had a small spread, just over two thousand acres, which amounted to a hobby ranch compared to the tens of thousands of acres others owned. Still, it had good water, was on the edge of the mountains, so there were canyons where the cattle could shelter in winter, and had over a thousand acres of good grass. I carried a small herd, just over three hundred head. It was all I could afford, and the land would hold three times thta without overgrazing. I sold about fifty head a year the first couple a years, just enough to pay taxes and keep me supplied. My herd had grown to almost five hundred by the third year, so I sold a hundred, mostly old cows and steers, leaving the young stuff to breed.

The market was good that year, and I had spare money for the first time. I held on to it, to tide me over if I had a bad year.

The luck came in when I was chasing three cows through a little offshoot canyon, barely bigger than a gully, cussing because of the brush, determining these three would be in the next herd to market. It widened out and I got ahead of them, turning them with a whip. I never actually hit them unless I had too, but the whip sounded a lot like a pistol shot, and it got their attention. They thundered back out, so I eased along to rest my horse. One of the critters had torn up a shrub bush, and I saw something white sticking out. Curiosity got me, so I got down and looked at it. It was milk quartz, but the important thing was the seam of what looked to be gold running through it.

Even though I knew I was alone, I looked around nervously, before cramming it and a few more in my sadlebags. That night, inside my little cabin, I crushed the rocks with a hammer, coming up with over an ounce of gold.

Ever cautious, I told no one, going to the canyon every week for just a few hours, exploring. I found the vein, and noted how many flakes were in the sand of the drain run, so I shoveled a few bucketsfull and washed them in the little stream, amazed at the amount. I worked all spring, summer and fall, once a week gathering it, and three nights breaking it up and bagging it.

By spring of the next year, I had over thirty pounds of pure gold. That was quite a bit of money at the time, and I was in a quandary. If I went into town and registered it, there would be a stampede onto my ranch, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to fight them off. I puzzled on it for a while before I read about a big strike on Cherry Creek, a hundred miles west of me. I told the banker and store owner in town I wanted to try my hand at prospecting, and they laughed, counseling against it.

I made arrangements for the teen son of my neighbor to check on my stock, having him draw his pay from the bank. He was kind of lazy and I couldn’t imagine him exploring, so he was perfect. I also prepaid the taxes on my place for a year, just in case I wasn’t back when they were due.

I drifted North, taking a spare horse and two pack mules. Two days later I turned West, hitting the outskirts of Cherry Creek five days later. Only I knew one of the mules was carrying forty pounds of prime ore. Most of the good claims were already taken when I got there, but it didn’t matter, I just needed a claim. Finally, I ended up on a stream that was a lot smaller than the other creeks, and set up camp, burying the gold when it got dark. The funny thing was I found color right off the bat. It would have been a pretty decent claim all alone, but I ‘helped’ it, blending in ten pounds of the gold I carried over a six week period.

I was starting to get noticed, and claims started popping up around me. By the time another five weeks had gone by, I blended in another eight pounds, before giving it up. I had the feeling people were watching me, so I dug up the remaining gold and took off. I heard there was another man working my claim before I got out of town, and later how he complained I must have cleaned the seam out before I left. By then there was six thousand in a Wells Fargo acount, and I was sitting good.

The place was run down when I got back, but I hadn’t expected better so it didn’t bother me all that much. I paid the boy off and talked to his father, who said he was wanting to move on if he could find someone to buy his spread. His five thousand acres butted up against mine, along the line of my diggings, so I gave him seventy-five cents and acre and let him sell off the cattle, but made sure I kept all the horses except for what he needed to travel. He couldn’t get out of town fast enough.

I took another little trip, depositing eleven thousand dollars worth of gold with a different Wells Fargo, citing my old claim, explaining I was fearful that if my success got out I would be killed and my claimed jumped. The agent gave me a stinkeye, but it was just reasonable enough to be acceptable. Many a man had been killed on the trail after hitting a strike.

While I was out of town, I contracted with a cattle broker for fifteen hundred to two thousand cattle, with at least 75% being young heifers. Giving him half down, I told him the rest would be paid on delivery, upon inspection. The herd was acceptable when it arrived, and I arranged for the same amount to be delivered the next summer. Gold was a fine thing to have, but it was never available in a nonending supply. Cows were and everybody liked beef.

Then I got an out of town lawyer to contact several reputable mining companies and invite them out to my ranch. Three showed up, and once they’d seen the ore, there was a little bidding war. I signed a contract with the one who seemed the most upright and honest. They would work the claim, pay the miners, and take 45% of the gross per month. They picked an accountant, and I picked one, to assure both parties the division were fair. They also were to pay prospectors to scout for other mine sites, and pay for guards to make sure no one trespassed. The numbers were impressive, I was looking at five to eight thousand a month for an estimated eighteen months. That was a sizable fortune for the day and time.

Plans were announced, which sparkied off a flurry of prospecters, but since the one mine in the area was already on private property, they moved on, especially when one was rather forcibly persuaded that other areas were in his best interests.

So there I was, sitting fat and pretty at 23. Then my aunt showed up, but after I sent her packing things went back to being peaceable.

There was a carriage and a rider coming up the road to my spread, but I didn’t think much about it. People were always coming by, mostly from the mining company, and I was used to visitors. Sarah loved having people, she often told me she was bored out of her mind trying to keep house for one person who was a naturally neat person. I offered to let her seek other opportunities, but she’d just grin and pat my cheek.

I recognized the rider when they turned into the yard. It was my best friend, Ben Thomas, a deputy in town. The driver was Abe from the livery stable, and I noted he was driving his finest carriage, the one he usually reserved for funerals. Who I didn’t recognize were the three women he was conveying. There was a short by very curvy redhead with a wild mane of hair falling out from under her hat, a tall blonde, slender, looking to be no more than sixteen and scared to death, and an older blonde who just seemed amused.

I jumped down from the porch, shaking Dan and Abe’s hand. Both of them were grinning to beat the band. I turned and bowed to the ladies, and the redhead charged me, landing a resounding slap on my cheek. It was hard enough to make my eyes cross, while she screamed at me, using words a young lady of breeding shouldn’t even know.

“You bastard! How dare you?”

She was about to swing again, and I grabbed her hand, squeezing. Her eyes went wide with pain. The blondes chose that exact moment to join in. The tall one slapped my ear so hard it was still ringing two hours later. The short one kicked me, hard, on the inner thigh. I think she was aiming higher but her leg couldn’t quite reach. They were all screaming and cussin’ to beat the band, until Ben stepped in.

“Ladies!,” he said, in that voice that made even drunks pay attention, “Decorum, please. All will be explained, I assure you. Ladies, let me present Samuel Wilkerson, commonly referred to as Slim. Mr. Wilkerson, this fine young lady is Miss Lia Coker, late of Charleston, South Carolina.” That was the redhead.

Then he introduced the tall blonde. “This young lady is Emelia Strothers, from the noble city of Nashville.”

“And this is Nancy Lenhardt, of Albany, New York.”

He tried to hold it in but failed miserably, grinning as he explained their presence. “These fine ladies have journeyed from their respective cities to accept you offer of matrimony.”