Once a week or so I went into Little Bend to tend to a business that my wife and I owned. It was a saloon named Maude's, after my mother-in-law, and she'd given it to us lock, stock and barrel when our fifth child was born. Of course, I'd been running the day to day operations for some years now, and it was really just a matter of hiring the right people to work for you. And, over the years, we'd acquired all the right people.
Our general manager was Billy Sunday, and a better employee you couldn't find anywhere. He'd worked for my sister in Montana before he'd come to Texas and joined this branch of the family, and I was damned glad to have him. The floor manager was Willie Beacham. Willie started out as a bartender and worked his way up. The head bartender was Johnny Savage. He'd only been with us for a year or so, but Johnny was a sharp cookie who wasn't afraid of hard work. He'd already been promoted twice in that first year of employment.
By the way, my name's Bart Maverick. I spent most of my life playin' poker, until I fell head-over-heels in love with Maude Donovan's daughter, Doralice. Many years and five babies later, I was still in control of the saloon, but my brother Bret and me owned the B Bar M Ranch, raising and cross-breeding Arabian horses. We'd come pretty far with the ranch and had fallen into a nice pattern with everything else. Every once in a while either me or Bret (or sometimes both of us), would take off and go play poker for a day or two, sometimes even three, but we always came home to our wives, our families, and the ranch.
We'd bought our Uncle Ben's land when he went to live in Baton Rouge with his son Beau and family, and that's where we'd built the ranch. There were three houses, two barns, and six or seven smaller barn-like structures with corrals. Bret and his wife Ginny, along with their three kids, lived in one house; Pappy and Maude lived in the second house, and Doralice and me and our brood had the third one. Pappy was our father, who'd evidently decided to live forever. He and Maude had always been good friends, but one or the other was involved with someone else until, suddenly, they weren't. The timing was right, and they'd been together ever since.
This particular day I was almost done with everything at Maude's, and wandered down to the Post Office to see if anything exciting had come in. The only one who ever writes to us is our little sister Jody Beckham, who lives in Silver Creek with her husband and two children and runs The Four Mavericks saloon there. To my surprise, there was a letter for me, in a handwriting that looked familiar but I failed to recognize. I took it back to my office in Maude's and examined it, and you could have knocked me over with a feather. The letter was from Samantha Crawford.
I hadn't heard anything from Samantha in so many years that I'd lost track of her. I checked the return address and it was still the Double C Ranch in Dry Springs, New Mexico. So I opened the envelope and started to read. When I finished the first reading I went through it again, to make sure that I hadn't misread anything.
Dear Bart,
It's been a long time since we last saw each other. Many things have occurred over the years to both of us, but something is about to happen in my life that I never thought would. On September twenty-second of this year, at exactly noon, I am going to be married. At long last, I will be a bride. That is almost two months from now, and I'm hoping that by giving you this much time, you will be able to attend the wedding. Please know that this invitation is extended to your wife, and your brother Bret and his wife, and any of the babies that are too small to leave at home. I understand that you and Bret have quite a few between you.
You needn't worry about a place to stay, there is more than enough room for everyone to stay here. Catherine Delaney, who runs the household and its staff, said we can accommodate at least twelve adults and ten children. And the date is almost two months away, so you should be able to arrange your schedules accordingly.
And just who is the groom, you ask? That is one Zebulon Turner, late of Denver, Colorado. I met him almost six months ago when he came to Dry Springs to look at some land that was for sale. He fell in love with the land here, and I fell in love with him. Something I never expected.
Please, please say that you and Bret will come and bring your families. The Maverick brothers are the closest thing I ever had to relatives, and I'd like y'all to be there. Looking forward to seeing you again.
As Always,
Samantha
I was surprised, to say the least. I don't think that Samantha Crawford had crossed my mind since I'd left St. Joe, Missouri. And that was a long time ago. A beautiful woman had taken her place, and I was going to go straight home and ask Doralice what she thought of our traveling to New Mexico for a wedding. And if I got 'Yes' for an answer, I'd be sharing the invitation with my brother Bret and his family.
I had time to think as I rode home. I was talkin' about spendin' time at the one place on earth that held nothing but painful memories for me. But did it really? At least I thought it did. Finding Caroline and losing her. Almost dying from an allergic reaction to aspirin. Nearly burning to death when the house went up in flames. But all of those happened a lifetime ago. So many good things transpired in the years since – too many to mention, but at the top of the list were falling in love with Doralice, our beautiful family, the success we had with both Maude's and the ranch, and my much-improved relationship with and understanding of my father. If I had to weigh the bad against the good, I'd say that I came out way ahead in the happiness department.
Besides, it would be nice to see what Sam had done with the ranch over the years. Nice, too, to show it all to Doralice, so she would finally understand everything there was to know about me. There'd never been another woman in my life like Doralice Donovan Medina Maverick, not even Caroline Crawford, and maybe in New Mexico I could finally help her see just what she meant to me.