It was ten in the morning and as I sat in the bar drinking whiskey I watched Anna move around the bar looking for some business. I couldn’t help but wonder why she plied her trade in this place. The place being the Longhorn Saloon. I couldn’t understand why some man hadn’t snapped her up and taken her away from a life of whoring. I’d spent two dollars for some time with her several times and had considered it money well spent. I’d like to do it again. I had the money, but I didn’t have the time. Old man Brewster down at the feed store should have my wagon loaded and ready to go and if I left right then I should be out to my spread by nightfall. If I stayed here and dallied with Anna it would be after midnight before I got home although it might be worth it.

Anna finished her circuit around the bar without finding any takers and she finally got to me.

“Morning Frank. Got some time for a little fun?”

Maybe next time I’m in if some man hasn’t taken you away from your whoring.”

She laughed and said “That ain’t likely. Only one man comes in here I’d do that with and he ain’t interested in taking a woman like me to wife.”

“Then he is a fool,”

She looked me right in the eye and said “You don’t look like no fool to me Frank.”

“Me? You’d leave here with me?”

“Ask me and find out.”

“You got any idea of what your life would be like away from here?”

“I grew up on a farm so I’ve a pretty good notion.”

“How fast can you pack up your possibles? Brewster should have my wagon loaded by now and we need to get on the road if we want to get to my place by dark.”

“Give me ten minutes” she said and she hurried off upstairs.

I waved Titus over and told him to top off my whiskey. As he poured he said:

“I couldn’t help but overhear what was said by you and Miss Anna. You know if you do what you plan Mattson ain’t going to like it.”

“Mattson might own this saloon, but he don’t own her.”

“Ain’t the way he’s gonna look at it. You do it and he’s gonna want a piece of your hide. You best be ready for him.”

I sipped my whiskey and wondered just what would Mattson might do. Then I shrugged. Whatever it was I’d do my best to handle it same as I had everything else I’d met up with since I signed up for the war.

I saw Anna coming so I finished my whiskey and stood up. She was carrying a satchel and a sack. I took the satchel from her and we walked out of the saloon and down to the feed store. My wagon was ready to go and I settled up with Brewster, got Anna and her goods situated on the wagon and was checking the horses and harnesses when I heard:

“Get yer god-damned ass off that wagon and back to where it belongs.”

I moved around the horses and saw Zack Mattson storming up to the wagon and hollerin at Anna. She looked fearfully at me and I told her to just sit still. I put myself between Mattson and the wagon, dropped my hand to the Colt Dragoon holstered on my right side and said:

“Back up there. She’s with me now and you got no say in it.”

“Hell I don’t. She ain’t going anywhere as long as she owes me.”

“What she owe you for?”

“Room and board.”

Without taking my hand off my gun and my eyes off Mattson I asked Anna how much she owed and she said “I don’t know; he never told me.”

“How you been paying him up till now?”

“With the money I make whoring.”

“How much does he get from each man you do?”

“He takes it all.”

“Then I don’t guess you owe him anything. Fact is, it sounds like he owes you some. Why don’t you get back to your saloon and figure out what you owe her and we can pick it up next time we come back to town.”

“Like hell I will. Get down off that wagon bitch and git back to work.”

I pulled my Colt, pointed it at Mattson’s head and said “The one who had best git back to that saloon is you. Now git!”

He backed away saying “This ain’t over. You ain’t seen the last of me” and then he turned and headed back to his saloon.

I climbed up on the wagon, took the reins in my hand, slapped the horse’s flanks with the long ends as I said “Go boys; take us home.” We started moving and five minutes later we was out of town and moving along. It would take a while to get to my place so it gave us time to talk and get to know each other. I asked Anna to tell me a little about herself.

I found out she was nineteen years old, grew up on a farm in Ohio where her parents worked for the man who owned the farm. As she grew older she was put to work on the farm and sometimes in the kitchen working with her mother. The owner died and her folks decided to come west and find a place of their own. Anna and her nineteen-year-old brother decided to come with them.’

They were caught by Indians out on the plains. There were five wagons travelling together and they formed a rough square and tried to fight the Indians off. They were just about to be overrun when a column of calvary showed up and the Indians fled. Out of the thirty-one people who were on the wagons only nine survived. Anna was the only one of her family to make it. The calvary escorted the survivors to town and left them there. Anna had no money and she couldn’t find work. Old man Barnes let her sleep in the hayloft of his livery stable for free, but she got so hungry that when a cowboy offered her a dollar to spend some time with him she did it just to get some money to eat on. Once she started she never stopped. The Mattson had offered her room and board if she would ply her trade in his saloon. It was only after she had been there two weeks that she found Mattson was charging her for the room and board.

Then she wanted my story.

“Born and raised in Monroe, Michigan. Worked at the Monroe Wagon Works building wagons and buggies during the week and on my uncle’s farm on weekends. I signed up with the 27th Michigan Infantry in late ‘62 expecting to go off and fight the Reb’s. Ended up in New York trying to suppress the draft riots. Did see some fighting at Spotsylvania Court House and Appomattox. Was involved in the siege of Petersburg. Mustered out in June of ‘65 and when we got home we found all the jobs taken by those who didn’t go to war.

“Bill Hendricks told us about the Homestead Act of that Abe had made into law in ‘62. We could settle on 160 acres for only eighteen dollars and all you had to do was live on it and improve it for five years and then it was yours free and clear. Twenty-three of us decided to do it and a train of eighteen wagons and a herd of cows came out here and settled. All my neighbors are boys I went to war with. And we still help each other out when needed.

“We were the first bunch to get here and had our choice of homesteads. We drew lots to see who could choose first and I got lucked out and got to pick first. I picked the one I got because it’s got a pretty good-sized creek running through the back of it and if I was gonna raise beef I’d need ample water.

“At the end of five years I filled out the papers needed and the place is all mine now and I don’t owe a cent on it. I don’t need to run my beef south to the trailhead to ship them to the slaughter houses cause the Army saw fit to build a post here. I sell my beef to them and the town folks and trade some with the boys I come out here with. That’s pretty much it for my story.”

We reached my place just before dark hit. We moved her goods into the cabin and then I took the wagon to the barn, unhitched the horses, got them in their stalls, fed and watered, and then I left the wagon to unload in the morning and headed up to the cabin.

I come into the cabin and found Anna naked on the bed waiting for me. All I could say was that if she was ready so was I. She lay there and watched me as I took off my clothes and when I was down to my long johns she asked:

“You eat pussy? I love to have a man go down on me.”

“I do, but not tonight.”

“How come?”

“Too soon.”

“Too soon?”

“Got to give it some time. There been other men in there. Got to give it some time for their presence to fade.”

“Ain’t no one been there in two days.”

“Maybe tomorrow then.”

“Promise?”

“I do.”

We did it twice then and then again when we woke the next morning. And after that it seemed like she wanted to do it all the time.

The next morning she asked if I had any chickens, pigs, sheep or just cows. I told her just cows and then she wanted to know what I wanted her to do around the place.

“Don’t want to just sit here all day waiting for you to come back from cow tending.”

“What would you like to do?”

“Plant a garden; maybe get some chickens to raise and get eggs from.”

“You know how to garden?”

“Done it for years.”

“Make me a list of what you need and we’ll get it next time we go to town.”

That night when we went to bed she looked at me longingly and I knew what she wanted so I did it. She sure did like it. Then she returned the favor and I sure liked it as much as she liked what I’d done to her. She’d sure enough gotten better at it since the last time. Last time was about a year back. I’d gone to town for supplies and I went to hook up with her. She said she was sorry, but it was her woman’s time of the month. I started to leave, but she took hold of my arm and told me she could still help me and when I asked her how she told me to follow her up to her room so I did. It were my first and I liked it. Not as much as a coupling, but a close second.

It were three days later that Zack Mattson and two riders showed up at the place. And he yelled out “Hello the house.”

It were pure luck I was in the barn when they showed up. Mostly I’d be out looking after the cows, but I’d come back to get some salt blocks. Anna opened the door and Mattson said:

“Get your stuff. I’m taking you back where you belong.”

Anna closed the door on him. Mattson laughed and said “That ain’t gonna help you none. If I can’t break the door down I’ll just set fire to the place and smoke you out.”

They was facing the cabin so they didn’t see me come up behind them and when I said “I don’t reckon I’d much like that” it startled them some. Mattson wheeled his horse around to face me and his men followed along.

“We come to get my property” Mattson said.