“Mattie darling.  You coming?”  Jason Bartholomew Shear stood beside his buckboard wagon and peered at the woman rocking on the porch, about fifty feet away.  The brawny man wore copper-riveted denims tucked in war-issued boots, and suspenders over a jersey knit.  His hip sported a Colt 44, Army issue as well.  He had swirls of yellow hair, hanging from a weathered Stetson, and a most striking thick red beard. 

He would trim his beard and combed his hair, if Mattie pestered him, usually before they headed to town.  This morning, however, Mattie hadn’t said a word, which made Jason wonder if she'd even be going to town.  He shook his head in doubt, and looped the reigns on the springboard seat.  

Mattie sat on a rocker at the front of the “L” shaped pine wood porch.  Orange nasturtiums spilled from a clay pot by the steps, one Mattie had bought during her last trip to town, from a Mexican woman sitting outside the Patterson's Livery Stables.  She had pitied the poor Senora surrounded by her clay pots and strings of dry red chilies.  The desert sun had made her skin dark and leathery, and she was no older than 30.  

The rocker creaked the rough planks.  Mattie stared toward the river, her long chestnut hair draped to one side.  She wore a sunbonnet kept crisp specifically for going to town.  

But her thoughts were far from Wickenburg, far from meeting Jason’s partner arriving on the Prescott stage, far from Jason himself.  She did not want to think about anything.  It was safer that way.  Safer not to think or say a word.  Safer to simply enjoy the fresh spring breeze wafting onto the porch.  It had rained the night before and a good rain always filled the desert air with the pungent creosote -- a piney medicinal aroma.  One appealing to Mattie.  Soon, she thought, honey bees would be buzzing around the creosote's tiny yellow flowers.  

Mattie loved the desert, its flowers and birds and the serenity of each day.  Her life on the farm was so unlike the commotion of San Francisco, which she remembered well.  She felt settled now, a feeling she’d never known, not in the City, not even in the small town of Wickenburg.  Sometimes she thought Jason’s quiet manner brought her this feeling, but mostly, she attributed it to the land. 

High above a hawk circled in the vast blue sky.   Jason slipped on the jacket he had placed across the springboard seat.  Normally, he would have hitched the wagon and left for Wickenburg on his own, or with one of his Mexican hands.  But this trip was exceptional.  He wanted Mattie beside him when he met David on the Prescott stage.  

"David saved my life," Jason would tell Mattie, from time to time, especially after a hearty meal of chicken and biscuits with pumpkin pudding for dessert.  Recently, in anticipation of David's arrival, Jason often reminded Mattie of how David had found him wounded on the Cumberland fields of Tennessee.  “Would’ve died if he hadn’t come along…  Owe him everything I got.”

A Mexican boy came from the barn, leading a brown saddle horse to the back of the wagon.  Jason secured the horse, which intended for David, and glanced up at Mattie, wondering whether to leave without her.  She hadn’t budged from the rocker since he went for the team, nearly half hour back. 

He loved her, more than he’d ever loved anyone before.  She was a good woman, never pestered him about smoking, cussing, or incidental whiskey drinking.  She never complained about summer's heat or the long hours of work at the farm, or the uncertainty of bandits and Apache attacks.  No, she never complained.  But she could be ornery, his Mattie, a chore to understand.  It wasn’t her distrust of people, that troubled Jason, nor her quiet nature.  He had always preferred a “quiet man to a talker.”  No, it had to do with Mattie staring blankly into the desert, as if she were about to have another foreboding.  

Shortly after bringing her to his farm, Jason found his Mattie sitting beside the river.  "My darling," he had said, worried she was still tormented by the massacre.  "What's troubling you?"  Mattie had continued staring at the trickling Hassayampa, saying nothing.  

Her silence scared Jason, a little, but in time he learned to ignore her distant look.  He didn’t know what to say to her to ease her troubles, so why bother saying anything.  As he saw it, times could be hard.  Times could be good.  People died, got killed.  It made no sense to fret over the “comings and goings” of life -- if that was what Mattie did.

Jason patted the horse’s neck, recalling long hours of riding across the dry dusty terrain, with David Harrell Williamsen, his partner.  For five years the prospected for gold in New Mexico Territory, spending many late evenings by a flickering campfire, drinking strong bitter coffee.  (He could still smell the bacon sizzling in the cast iron skillet.  And hear coyotes howl at the moon in a shoal of a billion stars.)  

A family of Gambel's Quail cackled in their scurry toward the river.  The plan was, as Jason saw it, David would run the farm so he could return to his mining claims near Prescott.  He hadn’t worked those mines since Mattie came to the farm, and with David around, he'd feel more at ease, leaving for a month or two.  It’s good to have your partner around, Jason thought as he tightened the girth under the saddle horse.  Especially when he’s a man you can trust with your very life.

He glanced back at the pinewood porch.  “Mattie, my Darling.  I’m fixing to go now.”

The fresh morning air suddenly heartened Mattie.  She felt eager to see the wildflowers and birds along the river road to town.  Perhaps she'd spy a red cardinal, this morning, or a family of warblers, even a crimson flycatcher.  

Mattie grabbed her beaded handbag, carefully placed beside the rocker, and walked to the wagon, lifting her skirt from the mud of last night's rain.

Jason met her halfway across the yard.  He took her hand, led her to the wagon and eased her onto the springboard seat. 

After adjusting her skirts on the hard wood seat, she pulled a gold chain watch from her handbag, one that had belonged to her German grandfather, a man she never knew. 

  “Nearly seven o’clock,” she said. 

Jason nodded, climbed aboard the other side and took hold of the reins.  “Hee-yaaah,” he commanded and flapped the reins. 

Mud flung from horse hoofs and the large wagon wheels spinning past the stables, hog pen and chicken coop, on the way to the river road.  Two dogs barked after the wagon, one black, one brown.  When reaching the edge of the bean fields, the dogs stopped, turned and ran back to the corrals.  

Neither Mattie nor Jason spoke until reaching Patterson’s Stock Corral and Livery Stables, on the east side of Wickenburg town.  

***

Since the Great War ended, ten years before, Jason had drifted onto the Western frontier.  For the first five years, he prospected for gold with David.  Then David married the Navajo woman, after she guided them through the Chusca Mountains, and built himself a homestead along the San Juan river.

The wide streets of town were always thick with dust or mud.  A row of flat adobe shops and two-story pine buildings edged Frontier Street, the main route through Wickenburg.  A scattering of adobe homes stood along First and Second Streets, where the Mexicans lived and held their weekly market. 

The town's namesake, Henry Wickenburg, was an Austrian emigrant who had lived in California for several years.  In the early 1860’s, he discovered one of the largest gold strikes in the west.  He established the Vulture Mine and the town of Wickenburg grew.  This occurred during one of the roughest periods in territorial history, when Apaches were murdering hundreds of settlers in Yavapai county.  

In response, the Arizona Volunteers to the U. S. Army, which included Pima, Papago, and Apache scouts, patrolled the land to protect settlers and prospectors.  After the war, additional troops reinforced the Army posts and by the time Jason arrived in 1871, relative peace prevailed across the county, except for an occasional renegade off the reservation. 

Wickenburg and the surrounding land appealed to Jason.  He decided to pan for gold up north, while looking for some land to homestead .  He wanted to find himself a wife, by this time.  She'd probably be Mexican, he assumed, like most unmarried women in the territory.  And that didn't matter.

However, on his second day in town, while he secured his horse to the hitching post outside Snider’s Hotel, Jason encountered Miss Mattie Bachman for the first time.  She was fetchingly dressed in a black silk manteau with velvet fringe and a bonnet with tiny pink rosebuds.  He had never beheld such a beautiful sight and he thought her an angel from heaven.  

Mattie nearly bumped into Jason as she hastened to cross the rough and dusty intersection of Second and Frontier Streets, from Frank’s General Store to Crawley’s Dry Goods, next to the assayer’s house.  Her sight had been impaired by large reams of calico bundled in her arms.  

At first he assumed she came from the Bucket of Blood Saloon and Brothel, at the other end of town.  Generally, the only white women in frontier towns were soldier’s wives and whores.  

But then Abraham J. P. Grant, proprietor of the Magnolia Brewery and Saloon, on the corner of First and Frontier, corrected Jason.  "That's Mattie Bachman," he said, filling Jason’s glass with the warm lager he brewed in a dark cellar-like back room.  "She's the most respectable unmarried lady in the county, if not the Territory,” as he spoke he ran his fingers down a gray moustache grown to his chin.  “She’s a strange one, though." 

Coal lamps dangled from the ceiling, sizzling dim light and emitting black soot over dusty game tables.  Jason puffed a 20 cent cigar and leaned against the counter, his mud-caked boot atop the footrest.  A tall bottle of frontier whiskey -- reeking like turpentine -- stood open beside him. 

“Say what?”  Jason asked, envisioning her soft rosy cheeks, thin pointy lips, and large blue eyes -- eyes a man could never forget.

“The girl never says much to anyone,” Abe replied, wiping his sweaty brow and bald head.  "Not even women-folk.  Especially after her uncle got himself kilt, ‘bout a year back.” 

Jason filled his shot glass and took a drink as Abe explained that back in 1866, Mattie arrived in Wickenburg with her uncle William Talbot Bachman, a Californian dry goods merchant and friend of Henry Wickenburg.   “They were business partners back in Frisco, before the war.  Both spoke that German lingo.  Henry came out first and after striking gold at the Vulture, he sent for his friend old Billy B, to help run things.  William started the dry goods store down the street.  Good business with all the miners and prospectors coming to town…  Lots of emigrants pass by this way too, on their way to Californi...”

“So, I say, what’s so strange about the lady?” Jason interrupted.  “Ain’t nothing wrong with not saying much.”  He backed against the bar, resting on his elbows.  

Beyond the window opening to the street, a Mexican boy in a broad sombrero passed the saloon.  He rode a mule bearing strings of garlic, onions and chilies, “Ajo, cebolla, chilli pecante,” the boy called.  “Ajo, cebolla, chilli pecante…”  It was the sort of dry dusty afternoon intended for getting drunk and staying clear of the sun. 

Abe toweled a glass and set it under the bar.  “Folks say she’s been touched by Injuns.” 

“Injuns?  How’s that?  Never seen no Injun with blue eyes.”  Jason looked back at the bartender.

Abe laughed, enjoying the company of this stranger (he always liked telling a story to anyone willing to listen).  “Them poor settlers back then.  Appears Mattie’s folks got themselves kilt in Kansas Territory, on their way to Californi.  Their wagon fell behind during a thunderstorm.  They say a tornado blew it clear off the ground.  Soldiers found Mattie’s folks and brothers -- all deader than a card-cheating Mexican.  But they couldn’t find the little girl.   She was only 2 or 3 at the time.  Turns out she had crawled inside this here cave and Injuns found her.  Pawnee, they say.  She lived with the Pawnee for nearly a year.

"I see," Jason muttered, thinking of her pretty eyes. 

"She was just a wee 'slip of a child,' Billy used to say.  Said she took right to him, like he was her real pa.  Which is why he brought her to this God-forsaken desert.  Ain’t no place for a lady.  I say.  But Old Billy saw things different.” Abe shook his head.  “He was a stubborn old fool.  That’s what got him kilt, sure enough.”

 Jason listened intently.  He had heard many stories of Indian captures, most concerned torture, rape, insanity and slavery.  Never pretty affairs.  The unfortunate captive usually died in a matter of months, even days before any rescue could be made.   But this was the way of the frontier.  Venturing west for gold, cattle or a homestead proved a treacherous pursuit.  Some people lived to tell about it.  Many never did. 

“Folks gather it's them Pawnee,” Abe continued, stirring Jason from his thoughts, "that made Mattie so peculiar."

“I say," Jason shot down another glass of whiskey, "how’s she peculiar?”

Abe pulled his mustache together at his chin, thinking for a moment. 

“Well, young drifter, Miss Mattie’s got fore-bodings.  She knows ahead a time when trouble’s a brewing.  Old Bill B claims she even warned of the assassination....  Yep,” Abe picked up another glass from the tin dishpan behind the counter, “she even knew when Mr. Bachman was about to get kilt.  He told me so himself -- ‘Mattie’s scared someone's going to kill me,’ he said, saying nothing more about it.  Turn around next morning.... it was raining like hell all that night... I seen Mattie run down the muddy street, drenched like a mad-dog.  She kepta screaming Billy’s name.  'He's gone,' she yelled.  'Uncle Billy's gone!'"   

"Weren’t till a few hours later that me and the boys found him in Sots Wash, face down.  Shot in the back.  Piterful sight.  Old Billy B was a gentleman.  Honest and true.  Terrible thing when descent folk get themselves kilt…”

“Well,” Jason thumped his lager glass on the counter, “who killed the son-of-a-gun?”

“Don’t know.  Sheriff never caught nobody.  Rain washed away any tracks.  Some folks speculate that Injuns done it.  But nobody knows for sure.”  Abe paused a moment.  “Don’t know why he was at the wash... unlessen them Horton boys drug him out there....”

Jason looked back to the dusty street.  He spotted Mattie leaving Frank's General Store, across the street.  She carried a bundle of velvet cloth, for a lady's manteau. 

Jason headed out the saloon, swinging the creaking screen doors behind him.  He stopped at the hitching posts next door to the Magnolia Brewery, before Snider’s Hotel (where he roomed).  

Mattie approach from across the street.  

When she neared, he touched the tip his Stetson, nodded and said, “How do, Miss Bachman, ma’am?”  

The lady said nothing as she passed Jason.  

"The very least you boys can do," she angrily wrote to Clayton, "is stick together.”

Months, the passed, then years and Rebecca never heard from either son.  Their silence tortured her spirit.  Her boys had deserted her, as Samuel once had during the war.  Often, on a lazy afternoon when a cooling breeze gently swept along the boardwalk of town, Rebecca sat outside the dry goods store reading old letters from her sons and wondering about the grandbabies she would never see.

In time, rumors spread through Wickenburg that Rebecca resented Mattie’s presence in what was now the "Crowley Home and Store," not the Bachman's.  Rebecca had spent most of her life living in sparsely furnished rooms.  And now she deserved her finer surroundings.  It was all she had.  But there was something else.  Something more pestering.  Rebecca feared that Mattie would one day predict the death of Samuel or that of her boys, as she had predicted William's death and the assassination. 

Despite William's wishes, and the urgings of Rebecca and Samuel, Mattie refused to return to San Francisco.  She could scarcely endure the small town of Wickenburg.  How could she possibly return to the chaos and noise of such a big City? 

“I’ll never live in the City again,” she told Rebecca many times, until she took to ignoring the older woman and stayed mostly in her room sewing shirts, dresses and mending britches.      

During each of his frequent visits to town (at least once a week), Jason first looked for Mattie, watching for her on the streets, glancing at her rooms above the Crawley Store.  He'd spot her, now and then, always busy running from Frank's store to the Crawleys, carrying cloth for her sewing business.  No matter how polite he was, Mattie refused to even nod when he met her on the street.  

Of course, he would frequented the Crawley Store with each visit to town, even if he had no orders to place or supplies to pick-up.  He'd ask Rebecca to fetch Mattie, so he could order a gingham shirt (Mattie had her business sign placed in both Crawley's and Frank's store windows, in Spanish and English).

“She wants nothing to do with you, Mister," Rebecca said one afternoon.  "Unless’en you take her back to San Francisco.” 

Jason, a patient, determined man, gave Rebecca no mind.  He knew she was a bitter woman who took to gossiping and meddling in the town's affairs.  And she was wrong about Mattie not wanting to see him.  Mattie needed his protection, he knew.  And one day soon he would win her heart and she'd come live on his farm, away from the disagreeable Mrs. Crawley.  Away from other suitors.  

Naturally, there were men other than Jason who aimed to marry Miss Mattie Bachman.  Snider, for one, and even James Grant admitted he hoped to marry the lady, though he was too dumbfounded to even tip his hat whenever she walked by.  Worst of all, there was this bastard of a man, a cowboy Rebel from Texas named Kaleb Horton.   

At the Magnolia Brewery one afternoon, (while Jason was in town to arrange for his trip to Erhenburg) Jason and James peacefully drinking lagers.  Before long, four cowboys, dusty and worn from the long ride to town, entered the saloon, eager to quench a powerful thirst. It was the sort of dry dusty day made for getting drunk. 

The last cowboy to enter the saloon, paused at the swinging doors and looked over the gaming tables in the dimly lit coal smoke filled saloon.  He was by far the largest of the cowboys, and had bristly black whiskers and curly black hair tied at the nape of his neck.  His goatskin chaps matched his vest and he wore silver "saw rowel" spurs that jangled with each step he took when he walked to the counter.  

"Kaleb Horton," Abe whispered, as if to warn Jason.  He then greeted Horton.  

But Jason already knew.  Horton was unmistakable.  No one else in the County fit his menacing description.

Abe poured the cowboys tall glasses of lager, and handed them bottles of his rot-gut whiskey, which they took to a gaming table in the far corner of the room.  

After downing a glass, Kaleb sat back and said, in a gruff heavy voice, “Smells like Yankee sodbuster in here."

Jason ignored the remark, not wanting any trouble.  He knew full well that cattlemen, like the Hortons, hated farmers.  Ranchers believed all land should be open to grazing cattle.  But homesteading farmers built fences and kept cattle off the most fertile land.  When more and more homesteaders farmed along the Hassayampa, cowboys tore down fences, pillaged dams along the river and drove herds of cattle through farm crops.  Rumor had it that the Hortons were behind the recent fire set to a homesteader's barn and wagon.  But no solid evidence linked Kaleb to the damage, and Sheriff Stratton refused to investigate further claims against the ranchers.

So farmers went about farming and repairing the occasional destruction without a fuss.  No one wanted any serious trouble.  It hardly seemed worth the loss of a cow, here and there, or slight damage to a fence.  Too much work existed on a new homestead to battle the powerful ranchers up north.

“I say,”  Kaleb pounded his enormous fist on the dusty table, "stinks like Billy Yankee in here." 

The cowboys laughed, sloshing down whiskey and shouting Confederate battle songs:  "We are a band of brothers from home and kindred far.  The glory of old Texas in the Southern border war.  For like a fiery billow, we dash upon the foe, and well the music of our guns the Yankee troopers know....  Hurah, Hurah..."  

As the song grew louder, Abe eyed his six-shooter under the counter.  He had been lucky for several weeks.  No trouble in his saloon.  The Hortons hadn’t been coming to town lately and when they did they almost always frequented the Bucket of Blood Saloon up the street, on the rougher end of town. 

“Bring us more whiskey, old timer,” Kaleb yelled.  “And bring out them cards.  I feel like playing me a hand of poker.”

From under the counter, Abe pulled out a bottle of rot-gut, still eyeing his gun.  “I told you boys before, no rough stuff in here.  You're welcome to stay, as long as you let me keep them guns.”

“Sure old timer.  Come on boys.  Guns.”  Kaleb went to the bar, followed by his cowboys.

“Let’s head out,” James whispered.  “Don’t need no trouble from these here Horton boys.”

“No,” Jason grabbed his friend’s arm, then swallowed more lager, looking straight ahead at a dingy cracked mirror reflecting everyone's move.

Kaleb placed his pearl grip Colt .44 on the bar.  He grabbed the bottle of whiskey and took a chug.  “Hey farmer."  The Texan’s cold gray eyes pierced Jason.  “Hear you beena pestering my lady.”

Jason continued staring ahead as the other cowboys placed their guns on the bar -- a 36 cal Remington, a 32 cal rimfire Smith and Wesson and Benjamin's own mother-of-pearl grip, silver-plated and engraved Colt 44.

“Hear me farmer?” Kaleb demanded.  His hand neared the Colt, before Abe could put the guns under the counter.

“I ain’t looking for no trouble, Mister.”  Jason thumped his glass down.  “So why don’t you and your boys just settle into that game.  We’ll be leaving shortly.  Ain’t got no business with you.”

“We don’t care for farmers around these here parts.  Especially some Yankee son-of-a-gun sodbuster pestering my lady.  You best keep clear of her.  Miss Mattie’s marrying me.”

Jason swallowed more lager.  He had learned long ago to keep calm during confrontation, whether in battle, on the trail and especially in a saloon.  But Kaleb’s talk of marrying Mattie made Jason's stomach spit fire.

“Let’s go man,” James urged.  The younger man wasn’t used to fighting, having lived a secluded life on a Prescott farm, until his widowed father moved to Wickenburg.  He was a simple man, more prone to flee trouble than confront it.   

Abe placed the guns, one by one, under the counter, keeping his eyes on Kaleb.

“No, I ain’t a going nowhere, see,” Jason said.  “Not till I finish my drink.  Fact is, I’ll take another one.  Abe.  Hear me man?  I’m feeling rather thirsty all of a sudden.”

Kaleb’s neck veins flared, his brow furrowed.  “This here snake's got a yeller streak down his back...  Don’t you Billy Yank?”

Jason kept silent, steadying his nerves, quelling the flames in his gut.

“I say, Yank,” Kaleb leaned toward Jason, his breath foul from chewed tobacco and harsh rot-gut, “you best head outa town if you value your life.”

Jason stared long and hard at Kaleb, unafraid of the rascal.  “I think you and your boys best be going now.  Don’t want no trouble.”

Suddenly, Kaleb reached under his worn leather vest.  But before he pulled out his pistol, Abe had a six-shooter pointed between Kaleb’s eyes.  

“Yessir Horton," Abe said, "you heard the man.  You and your boys best get along.  Don’t need no trouble from the likes of you.”

Kaleb looked squarely at the gun and lowered his hand from his vest.  “Well, old timer.  I can see we’re not welcome in this here Yankee privy.”  He grinned his foul grin.  “Come on boys.  Got some ladies uptown."  He paused and glowered at Jason.  "I ain’t done with you, sodbuster.  No, sir.  Your days are numbered.”

Jason rested on the counter, ignoring the parting cowboys.  He knew trouble had started.  But cowboy threats wouldn’t diminish his spirit.  No Texas Cattleman and Rebel would win favor with Mattie Bachman.  Only Jason Bartholomew Shear, Union Man and owner a 320 acre Hassayampa farm, would ever manage that.

The ranchers slowly past Jason.  

Kaleb rode high on a heavy Mexican saddle, his horse a stunning brown and white pinto.  Ben rode a sorrel quarter horse over 15 hands tall.  Both men wore rawhide chaps and vests and silver spurs.

The cattlemen stopped at the hitching post before Frank’s Store.  “Where you heading, Billy Yank?” Kaleb said.  He was dusty and he reeked of sweat and leather.  

“Thought you’d be scalped by now,” Benjamin said, laughing with his brother.  They were both sloshed from whiskey and fired up for trouble.  

Jason cautiously watched the men.  They could shoot him at any moment.  Without warning.  The Horton’s were fearless when it came to the law.  Cowards, really. 

Mattie appeared at Frank's door carrying a bundle of purple satin.  She paused, noticing the men.

“I’m off to the Colorado, Miss Mattie.”  Jason passed the Hortons and stood at the edge of the boardwalk, tipping his hat.  “Off to pick up my new stove from California.  It’s a Westinghouse.  Finest ever made.”

Jason hadn’t seen Mattie for some time now, and he wanted to tell her about the house, especially to spite Kaleb, who stood listening beside his horse. 

“More likely," Ben broke from laughing, "one of them Ehrenberg whores.”

“Yeah, one of them squaw whores along the river.”  Kalib shot a wad of brown chewing tobacco on the boardwalk.

“Mister,” Mattie said, her voice atremble. 

Everyone stood quiet, shocked that Mattie spoke.  

“Don’t go."  She somberly implored, looking Jason.  "Don’t take that stage tomorrow.  I got a bad feeling...” 

Jason felt his brow moisten.  This was the second time she had even looked at him.  And now she was talking to him directly, warning him about the stage.  He didn’t quite know what to make of it.  Except he felt encouraged.

When Jason caught his breath, he uttered, “But Miss Bachman, I got to meet the steamer.  Got to pick up that stove for my new spread up the Hassayampa.  Real nice spread by the river...”

“Mister,” Mattie interrupted.  She was looking down now, her blue eyes tearing, “if you value your life don’t go on that stage tomorrow.  That’s all I can tell you.  It’s a feeling that’s overcome me.”

Jason tried holding back his smile, his heart pounding in anticipation. Mattie was serious.  She wanted him to stay in town.  She cared about him.  Maybe even loved him.  Soon, she’d move out to the farm.

“You got to tell those people, Mister, that New York writer staying at your hotel.  Mr. Loring.”

“No,” she pulled back and hurried across the street to Crawley's Store. 

“I aim to marry you gal,” Kal yelled after her, laughing for a moment, then turning to Jason,  “You ugly son-of-a-gun Yankee.  I hates the likes of you.”

Jason nervously watched the Hortons stumbled around their horses.  He sighted Kal’s fingers, bent inches from his holstered gun.  

Bastard cowboy, Jason thought.  We'll see who kills who first.  I ain't afraid of nobody.  

Over a tall mug of lager, Jason told Abe about Mattie's warnings and his encounter with the Hortons.  

“We got to warn them people,” Abe said anxiously.  "And you, young friend, ain’t a going on that stage!  Mattie’s never been wrong.  Besides, I got a feeling them Hortons are up to no good.  Them boys had a hand in scaring off those homesteaders outside Walnut Creek.  Somebody’s bound to get kilt.  I got a bad feeling myself.  And it ain’t Apaches doing the killin.  No sir.  Ain’t Apaches this time.”

“No,” Jason remarked.  "Guess I ain’t going on that stage tomorrow.  Not if Mattie wants me in town.”  He removed his Stetson and rubbed his un-tanned brow, his fingers combing back his yellow waves.  “Reckon I can wait till later to get my stove.”  

Early the following morning, the red Prescott stagecoach bound for Erhenburg screeched to a halt beside the livery station, across from Crawley’s Store.  Men from Patterson’s Stock Corral quickly changed the team of six tired horses, with fresh ones.  Meanwhile, the passengers from Prescott, who had been traveling all night and most of the day before, stood outside the cab to stretch and settle their stomachs.  The run had been jolting and many more hours lie ahead before reaching Ehrenberg. 

Frederick Loring was on his way back to New York via river steamer to Panama.  Freshly dressed in a brown suit and crisp white shirt, with a brown bowler hat, he appeared from Snider's Hotel with two carpet bags.  He proceed to load his bags in the boot at the back of the coach.

Jason told the driver he wouldn’t be riding along after all.  “You might want to wait here for the day,” he added, after seeing Abe across the street, closing the saloon the doors.  “Heard there’s trouble between here and Walker Station.  Road bandits, maybe Mexicans.”

“Hey fellows,” Abe approached the men hitching the team of horses.  “You can’t leave today.  Mr. Loring, there’s trouble up the road.  Stay here a spell until we arrange for an Army escort.”

 “You folks crazy around here?” the driver said.  “These people got a steamer to catch.  And we, the Butterfield Stage Company, got a schedule to keep.  We're the fastest means across the West, leastwise until they finish the railroad lines.”

Frenchie, Snider, Patterson and a Mexican family arrived at the stage to see if they had any mail or packages from Prescott.  Mr. and Mrs. Crawley stood across the street.  Rebecca looked at the stagecoach, feeling helpless.  Something would happen, she knew, because of Mattie’s warnings.  She also knew the driver would not delay the stage.  Men were stubborn like that. 

“Ma’am,” Abe said to a middle-age woman from Prescott as she climbed aboard the stage.  She wore a green traveling suit trimmed in rabbit fur and a matching bonnet festooned in lace, feathers and ribbons.  Nobody knew her, though she looked like the wife of a northern rancher.  “Don’t go," Abe pleaded.  "Wait for the next stage.  Heard there’s a band of road agents outside a town.”

“Hey, mister!  Stop scaring Miss Shepherd,” a man inside the cab protested.  He was an insurance salesman from back east, also dressed in a finely tailored suit, though not as fresh as Mr. Loring's, because he had endured the difficult journey from Prescott.

“Let’s go folks,” the driver yelled, collecting the reins.  The passengers quickly boarded the red and dusty coach.

Abe shook his head in defeat.  No one would heed his warnings – not the driver, not Mr. Loring -- none of the passengers.  They each had pressing business in Ehrenberg and wouldn’t let some old timer delay their progress.  People depended on the stage.

Jason leaned back against a hitching post, arms folded.  He watched the town all stirred up because of Mattie's foreboding.  This disturbed him, though he had never put much thought in fortune telling.  But lots of people did, including his own mother, from what he could remember.  

Across the street, he noticed Mattie peer at the stage from the window above the Crawley store.

 “We’re off,” the driver yelled.  Can’t delay the U. S. mail.  Besides, hasn’t been any real trouble around here for years.  And I’ve fought off outlaws before.  Hhaa-yaah!” he yelled, whipping the team of horses. 

The stage lunged off, raising dust clouds in its wake.  The woman passenger, Miss Shepherd, leaned out the window and waved back to townsfolk she didn’t know. 

 “I got a sick feeling,” Abe said upon seeing Mattie at the window.  He meandered back to his saloon, shaking his lowered head. 

Jason watched the stage disappear then noticed Mattie had left the window.  He headed to the Magnolia to get drunk.  Now that he wasn’t going to Ehrenberg, all he could do was wait for what might happen.  If nothing else, he hoped to ask Miss Mattie to his farm, if he could summon up the courage.

An hour passed, then two.  Jason and Abe said nothing more about the stage, though Abe sweated with worry while Jason drank lager.  A stranger entered the Magnolia and ordered whiskey.  He was a miner on his way to the Bradshaws.  Then Patterson and Frenchie came in, then Samuel Crawley.  Everyone seemed agitated, though no one spoke about the stage or Mattie's foreboding.  

After three hours passed, men from the Vulture Mine arrived to wet their dry throats and play cards.

Jason engaged Patterson, Frenchie and the miner in a game of poker.  

At about two in the afternoon, Abe finally said, “Hey boys.  What do you say we ride out to Walker Station and make sure the stage got through?” 

“Tomorrow,” Patterson calmly suggested.  “First thing.”  The men mumbled in agreement and continued playing poker. 

It was just before sunset, when the sudden ruckus came, from outside the saloon.  The men jumped awake from their games and stupor and ran outside. 

“Stage’s beena robbed.  Stage’s beena robbed," a courier screamed from the sweaty black mare he trotted down Frontier Street.

Townsfolk scrambled to the street.  The men ran to the courier, who dismounted his exhausted horse outside the livery stables. 

“Bloody hell of a sight,” the man exclaimed, panting heavily.  “Appears Injuns done it…  Mr. Loring...  He’s dead.  Kilt everyone... but that Krueger man and Miss Sheppard.  But they’re both in bad shape, the two of them.  Real bad shape.  Don't expect they'll pull through.”

“Let’s head out, boys,” Frank exclaimed.

“No,” the courier said.  “Ain’t nothing you boys can this time of night anyhow.  No telling where those renegades are.  You boys best keep a watch here, in case trouble heads this way.  No telling about Injuns on the war path.” 

The men protested, but the courier convinced them to stay in town until he returned with the sheriff and soldiers, hopefully by the next morning. 

A sense of gloom shot through town as people returned to their homes to keep vigil and await further news.  Abe reluctantly locked his saloon.  Jason staggered to his hotel room, wanting to protect Mattie in case trouble came to Wickenburg.  He recalled terrible stories of Indians, Comanches mostly, on the warpath killing and torturing the settlers across Texas.  Destroying homesteads and even towns.  And he'd heard tell that renegade Apaches were even worse than Comanches. 

In his hotel room, Jason grabbed his Winchester rifle from under the bed.  But before heading to Crawley’s Store, where he planned to keep vigil beneath Mattie’s window, he gulped some whiskey from a jug by his bed.  

Woozy from a day of drinking and the tragic news, he fell back on the bed.  The room spun and his mind repeated Mattie’s words, "Don't take the stage, Mister...  I got a bad feeling."  

The foreboding had come true. 

There was no answer.  Only a screech owl sounded in the distance.  All the townsfolk were at home, keeping vigil. 

He noticed a light in her room go on, then go off.  “Woman,” he sobbed, “you saved my life.” 

Jason swayed by the door a moment longer, then tumbled backward, hitting his head on the corner of a horse trough.  He fell beside the walkway.  Blood oozed down his forehead.  for a moment, he thought he’d been shot, even scalped by Indians.  His head pounded and spun a moment longer, then everything went dark.  He didn't wake until sunrise the next morning.

Six new graves occupied the cemetery outside of town.  Soldiers and reporters from Prescott, Tucson and as far away as New York had come to Wickenburg to report about the massacre.  Fred Loring’s murder was big news throughout the nation.  He had been a well-known and well-liked newspaperman, back east.  “Loring Slaughtered on the Frontier,” the headlines read, “Renegade Apaches Massacre Loring and 5 Others.”

Most people believed that renegade Apaches had attacked the coach, until Captain Meinhold of the Third Cavalry told reporters that Miss Sheppard had witnessed white men among the robbers.  

"The Army will investigate the possibility of white men disguised as Indians," Captain Meinhold was quoted in the newspapers.  "But we will continue to concentrated our efforts on hunting down Apache leads."

Jason suspected Horton had something to do with the stage massacre, so did Abe Grant, and a few other folks in town.  Horton hadn’t been around when the stage came to town and hadn’t shown up since.  And, Kaleb wanted Jason dead!  Everyone knew that.  And Jason had planned to be on that stage, Horton knew that..

The Sheriff quickly determined that the Hortons had been at their northern ranch during the massacre.  Then the Army refused to pursue the Horton matter any further.  They were after a band of outlaws or a band of renegade Apaches, not cattlemen from the largest ranch in Yavapai County.

Jason decided to stay in town until the next freight wagon arrived.  If his stove wasn't with the freight, he'd head on to Ehrenberg as originally planned, despite the massacre.  The Army now patrolled all the roads between Prescott and the Colorado, and at least two soldiers escorted every stage.

Jason hurried to meet her.  “Miss Mattie Bachman,” he pause to catch his balance by holding the post.  He had been drinking that morning, out of pure boredom and frustration over Mattie’s stubbornness.  “How about forgetting all this trouble and moving out to my farm?  Got a nice little house there, three rooms, a large pine table I made myself.  Got that Westinghouse stove arriving on the mule train, any day now.  I got all kinds of fixings from California, out at my spread.”  

Mattie walked a few steps beyond him, her calico dress trailing on the dusty boardwalk. She smelled of sweet lavender perfume.

Jason felt foolish.  He just as well give up, he thought.  Miss Mattie caused him nothing but heartache and confusion.  He’d look elsewhere for a wife, go stay with Franny or old Annie Parker at the Bucket of Blood Saloon.  He hadn’t been there for some time now, not since before the massacre.  He didn't want Mattie to see him arrive or go to that end of town.

“Damn you woman,” Jason said, in one more effort.  He loved Mattie, with all his heart.  She was his angel come to him and he could not lose her now.  “What do you want?”

Mattie stopped, turned and looked at Jason.  She smiled briefly, fetchingly, then continued along the walkway.

"I ain't never seen Mattie smile like that," Frenchie said.  He was standing outside his store.  "No, not since before old Billy's murder." 

Jason stood dumbfounded, his neck in shivers as he watched Mattie cross the road.  He had never seen her smile before.  And such a smile could only be heaven sent.  The good Lord had answered his prayers.

That afternoon, Jason hitched his team to the buckboard and readied to return to his farm.  He felt it urgent to check on the property and his hired help, the Mexican brothers who tended the livestock and crops, and made repairs around the farm.  He would return to Wickenburg later next week, to check on the freight wagon from Ehrenburg.

Before leaving town, however, Jason went to the Crawley store to fetch Mattie.  This would be his last time, he swore, though deep inside he knew he'd never give-up.  

Inside Crawley's store he stood at the counter and asked Rebecca to fetch Mattie. 

“She’ll never come down for you, Mr. Shear,” Rebecca sternly replied.  “So you might as well stop trying.  Besides,” she waved her hands to clear the air of his strong stench of whiskey, “you’re drunk.”  

Jason remained at the counter and insisted Mrs. Crawley tell Mattie he'd come to fetch her. 

"Fetch her?" Rebecca said, her eyes wide open.  "You mean, take her away from here?"  

"That's right.  Aim to take her to my farm."

“It’s nearly three o’clock, Mr. Shear,” she said, looking straight at Jason.  “We going?” 

Jason stood speechless.

Mattie approached him.  Her soft face and blue eyes illuminating the room with her presence. 

She offered her hand, which Jason took and gently kissed.  He then placed her hand at his elbow and led her to his buckboard parked across the street at the livery stables.  

The buckboard was ready to go and he headed for his farm, up the Hassayampa River road, north of town, with Mattie by his side.