“Last chance,” the wagon master would cry as they approached the small settlement. Those that didn’t want to continue towards the treacherous Rocky Mountains, stopped at the tiny town along the river, and the name Last Chance, stuck. Now, the town wasn’t so small. There were several hundred people living in the small city, which was surprising since there was no railroad that came through the town.
The train stop was several miles outside of town. From there, anyone who needed to go to Last Chance, or the small settlements to the south, could take a stage. The stage would cross the North Platte River via ferry and then go past the depot and down Stagecoach Road on its way out of town.
Heather picked up her pace. She had just been visiting Pastor Collins at the small church on the corner of town. Pastor Collins, it appeared, was in touch with all the local happenings and because of his prattling, she stayed longer than she had intended. Heather wondered if his source of information was Mrs. Purcell, who also seemed to know everything that was going on in town.
Gossip was not Heather’s purpose for her stop there, however. She had asked Pastor Collins to pay a visit to Widow Green. Mrs. Green lived with her son and daughter-in-law, Charity. Charity Green was six months pregnant with her seventh child. As the town midwife, Heather visited Charity monthly, after which she would have coffee and a snack and listen to the elder Mrs. Green lamenting about her life. It took nearly an hour to gently extract herself from the conversation.
The only other person Heather knew that liked to sit, sip coffee and talk was Pastor Collins. Of course, he readily complied and in fact, made immediate preparations to do his Christian duty and head to the Green farm. She hoped Charity would still be friends with her after spending several hours with the chatty pastor.
She glanced at the watch pinned to her blouse. She needed to get to the butcher shop within fifteen minutes if she had any hope of her husband giving her a ride home. Unfortunately, the shop was still all the way across town, near the ferry dock. She should have just enough time to walk the six or seven blocks before her husband, Jackson closed shop and hitched the horses to the buggy.
She jumped over the next rut.
“Mrs. Barnes!” she heard her name called. A young girl, no more than eight was standing on the fence surrounding the school. She had a doll in one hand and was waving frantically to get Heather’s attention.
“Good afternoon, Cecily,” Heather called back, waving to the child. Cecily’s mother had just given birth to her fifth child. There were some large families residing in Last Chance. Heather pushed aside that she hadn’t started her own family yet.
There is plenty of time, her husband would tell her. Now she was twenty-seven and she often wondered if time was running out.
Heather spied her best friend, Millie Reed, the schoolteacher approaching the fence. She put her hand up in greeting. “Stop by for coffee this week, Heather,” Millie called, steering Cecily back towards the school.
“I will.” Heather waved as the children started to file into the one-room schoolhouse. She and Millie had met on the train when they traveled west as mail order brides.
At that time, the concept of mail order brides was still new, and there wasn’t much information about becoming one, other than pages of advertisements imploring women to leave their homes in the east and move west to marry a stranger, sight unseen.
Even the fear of being poorly matched, didn’t stop any of the other women that came to Last Chance. Heather felt rather daring, leaving everything behind for the great wild west.
Both Millie and Heather were fortunate they married good men. Honest men. Some weren’t so lucky. Heather gave a quick thought to Ruby Felton, who lived on the outskirts of town. She gave a little shudder. Mr. Felton was not an amicable man. In fact, Heather was hard pressed to find anything redeemable about Mr. Felton.
As the number of women coming to town as mail order brides increased and the town grew, Doc Woods was overwhelmed. Heather volunteered and became the town’s first midwife to help prepare the women for birth.
She worked closely with the doctor, making sure the expecting mothers remained healthy and gave birth without complications. She was proud to say that she only lost one child in her six years as a midwife. The mother was young, and the poor babe was born with its cord around her neck. There was nothing Heather could do except contact Mr. Blanchard, the town undertaker, and arrange for the funeral.
When they lowered the casket into the ground, she remembered telling Millie that they shouldn’t be allowed to make caskets that small.
As she rounded the corner onto Main Street, Heather spied Otis Ignatius Graham sleeping on one of the park benches. The smell of corn liquor and perspiration rolled off him in waves. The scent was enough to make a person faint.
Mrs. Graham must have kicked him out again the night before. It was a weekly occurrence to find Otis somewhere in town sound asleep. He would arrive home besotted, and Mrs. Graham would send him to the barn to sleep it off. Otis was an interesting character. He performed odd jobs in town, mostly to keep a few coins in his pocket for a drink. The only outfit he seemed to own was a well-worn black suit that had seen better days, and a frayed silk top hat. Heather wondered if he had any other clothes.
He was a fixture around town, insisting that everyone he met
