Come Spring Read Online Free Page A

skillet for frying. He’d made a new broom by tying dried brush to a smooth pole with a strip of rawhide.
    Besides the table of split logs and the two real chairs, there were two stools fashioned from nail kegs that had been padded with moss and covered with canvas.
    The huge bed took up nearly one side of the room. Buck had made it for himself because he figured a big man deserved a big bed. There was plenty of room in it for him and the woman both to sleep comfortably—even if she didn’t take to him right off.
    When his thoughts drifted in that direction, Buck quickly drew his gaze away from the bed and looked across the table at Ted. As he watched the old man take a sip of whiskey, Buck hoped he’d done the right thing when he asked Ted to look after the place while he went down to Cheyenne to meet the train. Dropping the front legs of the chair back to the ground, Buck straightened and ran a hand across his chin. His half-grown beard felt rough against his palm. He reckoned he should shave it, then decided to wait until he got to Cheyenne where he could have a real barber attend to it for him. He’d have his hair cut too, since it had grown thick and so far past his shoulders that he wore it tied behind him with a rawhide thong. He had the same wild blond mane that had made his father stand out from the other trappers. Even now, whenever Buck ran into some of the old buffalo hunters they knew who he was because of his great height and his abundance of wild blond hair.
    Ted belched. “You leavin’ at first light?”
    “Soon as I can see my hand in front of my face.”
    “Thought about it a long time, have ya?”
    His impending marriage was all Buck had thought about for weeks. If he had any choice he wouldn’t be getting married at all. But he didn’t, so he shrugged and said, “Nothing else I can do. It will all work out.”
    “You don’t look as sure as you sound, but I ‘spect it will. What’d you say her name is?” Ted leaned forward and rested his stubbled chin in his hand.
    “Alice Soams.” Buck tried to conjure up the image of the woman he’d been writing to for six months, but even though she’d told him she was blond, thin, and taller than most women, nothing came to mind. He guessed fear clouded his mind’s eye.
    “How’d you find her?”
    “Remember that paper you carried up last year? The one Jonesey gave you from Boston?”
    “No.”
    “Well, you did. Anyway, I saw an advertisement in it and answered it. A lady from Boston wanted to move west, was looking for a husband. Said all she required was a home of her own and someone who could provide for her. She picked my letter.”
    “Seen a pitcher of her? Hear tell most men that gets a bride by mail has seen a pitcher,” Ted said knowledgeably.
    Buck shook his head. “No. No picture. She said she’s blond. Said some might say she’s attractive.”
    Old Ted looked skeptical. “‘Spect it’s too late now, anyway.”
    “I guess it is, since she’ll be in Cheyenne day after tomorrow. Coming in on the noon train.” Buck tapped the shirt pocket where he kept his last letter from Alice Soams that gave the date and time of her arrival. “It’ll take me four days there and back.”
    “You ain’t stayin’ over in Cheyenne?”
    “No time.” Buck glanced across the room and back at Ted. “We’ll be married soon as she gets off the train and then pack up. I hope she doesn’t have a passel of trunks with her.”
    “I hear women don’t often go anyplace without such. Need ‘em for their geegaws.” Ted took another sip of whiskey and smacked his lips. “It’s been a mild winter, but what if the pass gets snowed in and you can’t get back in the valley?”
    Buck set his jaw. “It won’t.”
    “Hell, it’s only February. It might.”
    “I’ll get through. I’ll be back in four days.”
    “Draggin’ a woman behind you? Why didn’t you tell her to wait till the spring thaw? Why’s she comin’ out here in the dead of