This story started out as a western and ended up as a romance, somewhat to my surprise. As usual, any resemblance of a character in the story to an actual person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All persons engaging in sexual activity are over the age of eighteen. And, again as always, I look forward to constructive comments and feedback. Enjoy.
THE FIXER
I was sitting in the boarding house finishing my breakfast when the territorial governor's secretary walked in. "Governor wants to see you, Dan. NOW!!!"
"Can I finish my coffee?"
"He said NOW and he meant it. I'll get you another cup when we get to the governor's mansion."
As we walked down the boardwalk to the governor's so-called mansion, really just a large house set back from the street in the territorial capitol, I thought back about my relationship with the man now holding the position of territorial governor. I'd first met Joseph Madison while riding for the Jessie Scouts, the cavalry unit organized by General Fremont and named for his wife, Jessie. I'd started off as a trooper, then had become his orderly. Being relatively well educated, thanks to a school teacher mother and an Episcopal priest father, I'd become more a secretary and messenger than a servant. We'd ridden over much of western Virginia, the area that had become West Virginia, and up and down the Shenandoah Valley for several years.
When the war ended, I'd gone home to discover my parents and younger brother dead, killed by one or another of the partisan gangs who objected to their abolitionist views, and our farm and church both burned to the ground. Big for my age, I'd enlisted as a sixteen year old and spent three years as a trooper. When I'd mustered out, I'd managed to keep the Spencer rifle, a cartridge carrier with seven tubes, and both of my Colt Army revolvers, along with a horse and saddle. Seeing no future in my old home, I'd tracked down my former captain and joined him and his brother, Aaron, as they headed west to grow the fortune Joseph's brother had amassed by trading in military supplies during the war on behalf of the both of them.
Initially, I performed as his secretary, but as I reached my full growth of over six feet and two hundred pounds, I began to receive other assignments. The loss of my family, combined with the horrors of the war, particularly in the West Virginia hills, had hardened me. I became the Madison brothers fixer. Issues which could not be resolved by persuasion, money or law became my responsibility. That I'd been an expert rifle shot since childhood and had become an equally skilled shooter with a handgun as a result of my military training simply added to my abilities to achieve by force what my bosses could not otherwise achieve by more socially acceptable means. By the time I reached age twenty-five, I had a reputation within the territory that generally resulted in my reaching the Madisons' desired outcome to a matter simply by appearing and stating that outcome to the person the Madisons were trying to persuade.
I'd also filled a secondary role as bodyguard to the Madison families. I sat in almost all meetings, propped in a chair against a wall, not participating, but simply observing. My mere presence had the effect of putting the other party to a discussion or negotiation off balance. I also traveled with the family when it moved from town to the ranch, by now the largest in the territory. Finally, when family members left the ranch headquarters for rides or hunting trips, I accompanied them, not always visible, but always within eye and ear shot.
Joseph and his wife had never had any children, although several of Joseph's mistresses apparently graced him with issue and were kept on a stipend which I was responsible for delivering each month. In return, those women kept their mouths shut about the paternity of their children. Aaron had lost his wife when she died giving birth to his second child, a son, who lived only a few hours after his mother. His older child, Jessie, was five when her mother died.
I was about fifteen years older than Jessie. Oddly enough given my role in the Madisons' business empire, I'd played a considerable role in helping Aaron to raise her. He was busy with the businesses, which had grown to include mines, railroads, and timber, along with the ranch. As Jessie matured, I taught her to ride. At her request, and largely without Aaron's or her nanny's knowledge, I taught her to shoot, first a rifle, then a revolver. By the time she reached age sixteen, she was an expert shot, probably the finest on the ranch other than me.
When she had turned sixteen, Aaron and the nanny decided that Jessie needed to live with her Aunt Elizabeth in Philadelphia, where she would attend one of the country's finest ladies' finishing schools, equipping her to move in eastern society with the same ease that she currently moved among the territorial elite. Jessie had objected, vehemently, and I had the unpleasant task of ensuring that she'd boarded the train that was taking her to Philadelphia. She'd made no bones about her dismay. "Dan, I'm a western girl. I grew up here. Everything I love is here. The ranch is my home. Philadelphia is some crowded, dirty, smelly city that I never need to see. My father and my uncle tell me I need this experience so I can be a proper wife to some elite businessman. I don't want some soft, fleshy, son who is going to inherit his father's money and whose only goal is a life of leisure. I want a man, a hard, self-made, determined, ambitious man. Someone who I can be partner to, not an ornament to display. Someone to build a life and a family with."
"I understand. But your father has tasked me with putting you on this train and on this train you go. If it helps, you can write to me. I'll keep you informed about what's going on with the family business, at least to the extent I'm able."
"Do me two favors while I'm gone. First, take that stallion of yours and breed my mare, Ginger. I've been riding Ginger since I was ten and she's almost thirteen years old now. I want a replacement waiting for me when I get back, because she'll be going out to pasture."
"I can do that. And the second favor?"
"Write me regularly. At least every two weeks. And not just lightweight letters. I want to know what's going on here, especially with my father and my uncle. I'm going to inherit all of this one day and I want to know all there is to know about it, or at least as much as you can tell me. I'll keep confidences, but I know you have more information about the businesses than any of their staff. And you know their secrets, too. I need to know everything."
"Unless I'm specifically asked not to tell anyone, I'll let you know everything I know. You won't like all of it, I'm sure. You know what my role is. I'm no saint. I'm the Madison family's attack dog."
"That may be, but you've been more a father to me than my own. I trust you. I'm depending on you to help me prepare to be the next generation's leadership."
"Won't that be your husband's role?"
"What husband? I'm not putting myself in a position where I'm dependent on some man who inherited what he's got and has no idea how it got there. I'm young, but I'm no fool. Daddy and Uncle Joseph have no idea how sound carries in the ranch house. They sit in the parlor talking business and think no one can hear them because they close the door. My room is right above that and the stovepipe runs through a corner of it. I hear everything they say, particularly when they've been drinking and get a bit loud. They think they'll find the son of some family just like ours and put the two businesses together through marriage. I'm not going to do that. The man I marry, if I marry at all, will be someone hard and strong enough to protect and grow what's ours. I don't want one of these weak kneed boys when it comes time to marry. I want a real man. Now, promise me you'll breed Ginger and write regularly and I'll get on this stupid train."
"I promise. And Jessie? I'm going to miss you. You're the closest thing to a family I have. You take care of yourself and remember that I'm only a telegram and a couple of days' train ride away if you need me."
She hugged me, got on the train and waved to me through the window of the rail car as the train pulled out of the station.
For the next three years, we exchanged letters about every two weeks. I kept her informed about operations of the Madison family's businesses, including telling her things that would have appalled her father and uncle. I'd been kept busy, convincing sod busters to move off the range we used to graze, encouraging recalcitrant miners to keep working after some accidents that they felt reflected poorly on the Madisons' business and safety practices, and handling several gangs of rustlers who thought that a large ranch operation couldn't keep careful track of its cattle and thus would be able to rustle a few head with impunity. I even got a trip to the timber operation, dealing with a group of loggers who thought they could steal timber and sell it without consequences. Without going into detail, I told Jessie about each of these activities, making sure she understood that extralegal force was sometimes the only way to address a problem.
When Ginger dropped her foal, I sent Jessie a lengthy description of the foal and continued to update her on its development. I spent hours working to gentle it so that the foal would be ready to ride when Jessie finally returned. Two years after the first breeding, I had the stallion cover Ginger one more time, resulting in a second foal born shortly before Jessie was scheduled to return.
Jessie's letters were less serious for the most part, but all of them had an undertone of sadness at being so far away from the home she loved. She told me about the fashions she was required to wear, the training she was undergoing in society's mores, the young men she was meeting, her unhappiness at being stuck in a city, and how much she missed the ranch and the life she'd led. I kept all of her letters, including one I kept with me at all times in a wallet, reading it repeatedly. The last paragraph was special to me. "I miss so much about the ranch. I miss the wide open spaces, the calves and the foals, the clean air and the smell of wildflowers. Most of all, I miss those times when just the two of us would ride out in the morning and simply explore the ranch until forced back to the ranch house at dusk. I miss my friend most of all." And I missed my friend, too.
I'd been tasked with meeting the train when Jessie returned. When she stepped onto the station platform, I was dumbstruck. The young woman, merely a colt when she'd left, had become a strikingly beautiful woman. She was dressed in what I assumed to be the latest fashion, but immediately had spotted me waiting for her and had rushed up to give me a hug. "Let's get out of here and go to the ranch. I'm dying to get into a riding skirt and take a long, hard ride somewhere that has no people and doesn't smell like a sewer." I'd collected her bags, placed them in the buckboard and we'd driven straight to the ranch from the station. The next morning, Jessie had appeared already dressed to ride, informed her father that I was taking her on a tour of the ranch and had the cook pack us a lunch. Since being back, we'd repeated this regularly.
