Wicked Wyoming Nights (55 page)

“Forever, but you must obey me implicitly.”

“How?” Eliza asked suspiciously.

“You can keep on with your teaching—I don’t think you’d be happy if you gave that up—but I want you to turn the saloon and boarding house over to Lucy and marry me the minute I find the preacher.”

“Any more orders?” she asked meekly.

“Just one. Kiss me.”

Eliza threw her arms around Cord’s neck and he buried her in his embrace. Then Cord swept her up into his arms and carried her to his buggy.

“You can stop staring like a bare-bottomed sharecropper’s brat, and throw those bags down,” Lucy ordered the driver, who had listened open-mouthed to the whole exchange. “Then you can head on to Douglas if you’re so hot to get there. We ain’t got no use for you anymore.”

Cord and Eliza seemed to have no use for anyone except each other. She nestled within the circle of his arms as he took up the reins and turned the buggy toward home. The driver, watching as though mesmerized, stared after the retreating buggy until their silhouettes merged into one inseparable whole.

Author’s Note

Note The Johnson County War is the name usually given to the confrontation that took place in northern Wyoming in April 1892. Tension had been growing for some time between the large absentee owners who controlled the cattle industry through the Wyoming Stock Growers Association in Cheyenne and the small ranchers whom they saw as competitors, the homesteaders who fenced off grazing land and water, and rustlers. Originally the issue was control of the mavericks and the open range, but it turned into one of survival after the rustlers became very active. Nearly two hundred cases of rustling were brought to court, with only one conviction. On the other hand, at least five “little” people were killed before the invasion; in one instance the killers were known by name, but no one was ever convicted. An army of seventy paid gunmen
did
arrive in Casper on April 6th,
did
kill two suspected rustlers at the KC Ranch on April 9th, and were surrounded at the TA Ranch on the 11th, where they were rescued by the Army on the 13th. They were later transferred to Cheyenne, and all were allowed to go free without a trial.

To this day there is a great deal that is not known about what happened or who was involved, and much of what is known is disputed. There are many firsthand accounts of the early days of the cattle industry in Wyoming, and most give their side of the Johnson County War, but perhaps the most objective presentation of the facts is Helena Huntington Smith’s
The War on Powder River
, published by McGraw-Hill in 1969.

I have tried to fit my story into the historical framework and have my characters reflect the sentiments of the time as
I imagined them to be
, but my characters are fictional and their actions are from my own imagination. When I have referred to actual events, such as the killings before Christmas of 1891, I have used fictional names.

About the Author

Leigh Greenwood is the award-winning author of over fifty books, many of which have appeared on the USA Today bestseller list. Leigh lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Please visit his website at
http://www.leigh-greenwood.com/
.