Ephram Ellis looked up from the firewood he was splitting because he heard the sound of a wagon rattling down the rough road that went past his ranch. When it came around a bend in the road, Ephram saw that it wasn't a farm wagon like he'd first thought.
It was a mud wagon, one of the heavy passenger coaches that were built strong enough to handle the rough and rutted and often muddy dirt paths that served as roads between the small towns that dotted western Montana. He knew this coach was headed to Diamond City, one of the towns that had sprung up because of the discovery of gold in the Confederate Gulch.
It was called the Confederate Gulch because the initial deposits of placer gold had been found by former Confederate prisoners of war who had been released on parole by the Union. They weren't much inclined to violate the terms of their parole and rejoin the Confederate Army, so they headed west and landed in Montana where they discovered gold.
Diamond City had originally been four cabins laid out in a square, hence the name Diamond City. As word spread, more miners came to the area and Diamond City became a small, but bustling mining town.
Ephram had followed the news of gold and got to Diamond City in the spring of 1870. He hoped to strike it rich and live a better life than he had back on his father's ranch in Wyoming. What he found is that most of the easily mined gold was gone. He and his partner, Jerome Mason, had still staked and worked a claim for almost a year before deciding they'd had enough of working so hard for so little. Instead, they used what gold they had between them and bought three hundred acres of mostly grass with some trees and brush, and started raising cattle. There was a market for beef for the miners and for the general store and hotel in Diamond City.
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Ephram had seen that same mud wagon go past his cabin twice a week for the last year, on Tuesday going north to Diamond City and on Thursday going south to Salt Lake City, Utah, and he knew the driver, Buck Wilson. The mud wagons were the only way for passengers to travel from the Union Pacific station in Salt Lake City north to Diamond City and from there to Bozeman and Butte. That day was a Tuesday, so the coach was headed to Diamond City.
Normally, it didn't even slow down from the normal pace of the four horses trotting along. Ephram set another log in front of him and raised his ax. It was October and with winter coming, Ephram and Jerome would need a lot of wood to keep from freezing to death.
Ephram had split that log in half and was leaning one half against the other to split it again when the jangle of the mud wagon stopped. Ephram looked up again and saw the driver getting down from the front boot. He walked up to Ephram.
"Mornin' Ephram. Jerome about?"
Ephram shook his head.
"No, Jerome went to Diamond City to get some supplies for the winter. Won't be back until sometime tomorrow. What do you want him for?"
Buck grinned.
"I got a delivery for him. I'll just leave it with you if you'll help me get it out of the wagon."
Buck walked back to the mud wagon, unlatched the rear boot, took out a leather case and handed it to Ephram. Ephram almost dropped the case because it was pretty heavy. He looked up a Ephram.
"What's in this thing? Feels like it must have an anvil inside."
Buck grinned again.
"Don't know but that's only half the delivery. I'll go get the rest."
Buck walked to the side of the coach and raised the canvas flap on the side.
"Ma'am, you can get out now. We're here."
As Ephram stood there with his mouth open, a young woman in a green dress took Buck's hand and climbed down out of the coach. The first thing Ephram thought was that a woman with flaming red hair like hers probably belonged in the saloon in Diamond City instead of on a cattle ranch.
The second thought that crossed his mind was what was he going to do with her? The cabin he and Jerome had built had only one room and that room served as kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom.
Ephram looked up at Buck's grinning face.
"You gonna leave her here...with me? She cain't stay here."
Buck grinned even more.
"Well, I could take her on to Diamond City 'cause that's as far as I go, but she wanted to stop here. I guess you can ask her if she wants to go on to Diamond City until Jerome gits back."
Ephram only got the word, "Ma'am" out before the woman interrupted him.
"I am not going to Diamond City. They said in Claymore that Diamond City is a hellhole of drunken men and loose women. I'll be just fine here. Now, Mr. -- I don't believe I caught your name."
Ephram couldn't believe the woman had said "hellhole", but he answered.
"Ephram Ellis, Ma'am. My name's Ephram Ellis."
The woman smiled.
"Mr. Ellis, my name is Clarinda Mason. Please carry my bag to your house so I can wash and change my dress. I an absolutely covered in dust."
Buck tied the rear boot cover back in place and then climbed back up into the mud wagon boot. He grinned back at Ephram, then slapped the lines on the rumps of the wheelers and yelled "Giddup."
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When Ephram picked up the heavy leather case, the woman had already started for the cabin. He cursed under his breath and followed. When he got to the door, she was already inside.
Ephram lugged the case through the door and then closed and latched it. He turned to where the woman was standing.
"Miss Mason, what --"
Clarinda cut him off.
"Mr. Ellis, I am a Mrs., not a Miss. I'm Jerome's wife. Did you not realize we have the same last name?"
Ephram shook his head.
"That cain't be. Jerome ain't married."
Clarinda wiped her fingertip through the dust on the small kitchen table and frowned when she looked at it..
"Do you ever clean this place? My mother's chicken coop was cleaner."
She looked at Ephram then.
"Just because Jerome never told you he was married doesn't mean he isn't."
Ephram shook his head. The woman was out to get something. He wasn't sure what that was, but she had to be lying.
"Jerome woulda told me somethin' like that. If you're Jerome's wife, when'd you get married? Jerome and me been workin' together for the last three years so I know damn well it weren't then. You look too young to git yourself married three years ago."
Clarinda smiled..
"Mr. Ellis, I do not know what you consider a marriage, but Jerome is my husband and I am his wife. He placed an advertisement for a wife in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch a year ago. I wrote back to him and said I would come to Montana and be his wife if he built me a house. A month ago, he wrote me and said he'd built a house. He proposed and I accepted so you see, I am now his common-law wife and he is my common-law husband.
"I would suppose this is the house he wrote about. It's not much of a house, but I suppose it will do once I clean it up and put some curtains on the windows."
She smiled at Ephram then.
"Where might you live."
Ephram sputtered, "Where the hell do you think I live? Jerome and I pooled our money to buy this ranch and I worked right alongside Jerome to build this cabin. I live right here."
Clarinda frowned and shook her head.
"That will have to change. A man and his wife can't very well be man and wife with a stranger in the house, now can they? Still it wouldn't be right to cast a man out into the open. Might I suggest you move into the barn until you can build a house of your own."
"Ain't got no barn. Jest got a lean-to for the horses and some tools, and Lady, I ain't no stranger. I'm Jerome's partner."
Clarinda shrugged.
"Jerome wrote that he was living in a tent before he built the house. Perhaps you still have the tent?"
Ephram was beside himself. He'd met this woman all of ten minutes ago and now she was ordering him out of his own house.
"Lady, in 'bout two weeks it's gonna git cold enough to freeze off anything you ain't got covered up and we'll have snow ass deep to a Missouri mule. I ain't livin' in no tent. I'm livin' right here where I got my bed and my fire. You and Jerome wanna to be by yourselves, you can go live in that tent. Maybe you can keep each other warm."
Clarinda smiled.
"I think my husband might have something to say about the living arrangements."
Ephram had about had it with this woman.
"He'd damn well better have something to say. He's gonna have to explain why the hell he brought a woman here all the way from St. Louis without telling me anything and he's gonna have to tell me where the hell he got the money to do it. We ain't had that much money at one time since we bought this place. He's gonna have to explain why you think you can push me out of the cabin I helped him build.
"As for you, you need to decide what you're gonna eat and where you're gonna sleep 'cause I'm about out of food, and you ain't sleeping in my damned bed with me."
Clarinda frowned.
"Mr. Ellis I hardly think it is necessary for you to continually swear at me as you have been. As for how I managed to get here from St. Louis, Jerome did not pay my fares. I paid my own way here.
"I shall think about the situation I now find myself to be in, but right now I have a personal matter to take care of. When you and Jerome built this house, did you have the foresight to also build a privy?"
