Read The Handsomest Man in the Country for Free Online Page A

into a sling hung under the wagon. I ended up with slim pickings, barely enough to heat coffee.
    But worse...after all the work was done and I was ready to turn in, the boys would come a-courtin', with wild flowers or a sweet or just spruced up and talkative. They had plenty of time for me, then, and I would have been flattered if it wasn't so obvious. What with my flaming hair and Uncle Dem's outfit, I was the prize catch. Only I didn't want to be caught.
    But the idea had been planted by Mr. Hayes and like a swiftly blooming desert plant it was beginning to grow and then flower in my mind. It sure would be nice to have a partner take on his share of the work.
    I'm 'shamed to say I didn't last long. The tireder I got, the better those men began to look. By the end of my first week I was so exhausted I fell asleep driving, so sound asleep I didn't even know that the mules had stopped and had started to graze.
    Mr. Hayes shouted me awake as he rode back to get me. I sat bolt upright, startled silly. If there had been Indians about, I'd have lost my hair plus the wagon. It was time to face the unpleasant facts and Mr. Hayes knew it as well as I.
    Like Adam, I needed a help-meet; an answer to my problems. God didn't give Adam any choice at all and Mr. Hayes wasn't giving me much of one either.
    "I want your answer tonight, Miss Buchanan. Marriage or else leave this wagon behind and join one of the families. Let me know after supper."
    "Yessir." I flipped the reins and put those mules into a fast trot to catch up with the rest who were already about a quarter mile away. It didn't take long to die in this country. I'd been lucky. A wagon alone was fair game.
    If I gave up the wagon, I would be penniless again. If I could somehow hang onto it.... But I couldn't, without help.
    I could give it away to one of the families in exchange for their helping me get out to Oregon. Most were well supplied and not needing anything of mine, just a few had mighty poor outfits. But those who did have poor outfits were a shiftless lot; careless and mean.
    There was a man and his wife and three grown daughters traveling in the train. They were always quarreling among themselves as to who was to do the work. The man expected the womenfolk to do most of it and he a big burly man. One time I saw one of the girls pitch out of their tent headfirst and his booted foot visible in the air behind her.
    I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to give the wagon to; anyone I wanted to join. Except for Axel and Hedda. But they were well equipped and needed what food they had for themselves. Not one more mouth to feed.
    So I shook my tired mind awake and pondered on those men who had come to pester me each night.
    I’d wanted to marry a handsome man, and the smoothest talker and most handsome of the lot was Calvert Smith. He was clean and neat and kept a good outfit. He was twenty-three; old enough to be settled down. But I liked his Tennessee Walker better'n him. Maybe it was the way he could twist words around. Maybe it was the insincerity of his compliments. Maybe it was the sly gleam in his eye he sometimes got. Whatever, he made my skin crawl, like when lightning is dancing on the hilltops. Or was I just imagining it?
    Cordell Knast was the same age as Calvert Smith, kind enough, but a slow thinking, heavy, dirty and shiftless man. Gareth Madison was a slow thinker too, about twenty years old. If he ever took a bath so that I didn't instinctively step upwind of him every time he came near, I might give him serious thought. Would I ever be able to get him to clean up? He hadn't thought it necessary when he came a-courtin'.
    Elliot Hayes was like his father. Unforgiving and hard. I didn't want to turn out like Hannah. The more I knew of her the less I liked her husband, Burt. And if I married Elliot, I'd be marrying into that family, for Elliot showed no desire to be independent of his father.
    That was about it. Barney was too young. Charlie Web too old. Still,