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Madera.
    Chase shook his dark mane and snorted as if to hurry his master along. He stamped a hoof, and a swirl of pale yellow dust rose up and billowed around the young man.
    “Hey!” Matt admonished with a laugh. “None of that. I won’t be long.” He glanced down at his dust-caked shirt and chaps. What was a little extra dust at this point? He’d been out on the range all day and had built up a good supply of dirt long before Chase showered him.
    “Howdy, Matt. Haven’t seen you around town for a spell. How’re things on the Diamond S?”
    Matt turned. Evan Moore, Madera’s portly postmaster stood in the doorway of his store grinning. His bald head glistened in the hot afternoon sun. Matt smiled back. “Busy, Evan. Fall roundup’s just around the corner.”
    “Got a full crew?”
    “Pretty much. Wish I didn’t have to hire on drifters.” Matt shook his head and joined the postmaster on the wooden sidewalk. “They’re nothing but trouble, but if I don’t snatch ’em up, Chapman over at the Redding Ranch is likely to hire ’em. I don’t want to be caught shorthanded this year.”
    “I don’t blame you.” Evan motioned the young rancher to follow him inside the store. “Don’t worry about the dust,” he said when Matt removed his wide-brimmed felt hat and slapped it against his chaps before entering. “Can’t seem to escape the dust, no matter how hard a body tries. Just like this infernal heat.” Evan wiped the sweat from his shining head and strolled to the small cubicle behind the counter that served as the Madera Post Office. He reached into a pigeonhole and withdrew a fistful of envelopes addressed to Matthew Sterling, c/o Diamond S Ranch. “Sorry, Matt. Nothing from Dolores.”
    “Drat that girl,” Matt muttered, swiping at the stubborn hank of black hair that hung over his eyes like a horse’s forelock. He replaced his Stetson and sorted through the letters with a scowl. “Don’t they teach young ladies to write at that fancy finishing school back east? You’d think Dori could send word to her only brother that she’s alive and happy.”
    The postmaster made no comment.
    Matt sighed. He missed little Dori. He missed her chatter. He even missed the silly, affected airs she put on when she wasn’t happy with the way things were going out at the ranch. Sending her to school in Boston had been Solita’s idea, not his. “Senor Mateo, you must let the senorita finish her education,” the diminutive Mexican housekeeper had insisted. “She is unhappy here. Your mama and papa would have allowed it, had they lived. Since they are no longer with us, you must decide what is best for her, not what is best for
you.”
    Matt had agreed, but he wasn’t pleased about it. The white stucco, Spanish-style hacienda seemed huge and empty with the only remaining member of his family gone. He enjoyed these rare visits to Madera. Picking up the mail—a task easily done by any greenhorn ranch hand—was Matt’s excuse to mingle with the friendly people of the small valley town.
    Madera—lumber
in Spanish—was the perfect name for the thriving little village that had sprung up all at once a few years back. The California Lumber Company had chosen this site along the Southern Pacific Railroad line as the terminus for their timber flume back in 1876. Six months later the town had been laid out, and building had commenced at a lively rate. Matt often paused in the middle of the wide main street to take in the three hotels, three general stores, the drugstore, butcher shop, blacksmith shop, and livery. He thanked God each and every time for timber, flumes, and lumber companies. No longer isolated on his ranch ten miles east of nowhere, the rancher and his hands benefited from the influx of new businesses and the people who ran them. All in all, Madera was—in Matt’s opinion—just about the prettiest and most wide-awake town in the entire San Joaquin Valley.
    Matt gave Evan a curt good-bye and left