Dear Daisy,
Yes, it's time I wrote your name. It feels strange though. I'm not sure when you'll get this letter. It's been one of the worst winters that I can remember. We are in the middle of a 4 week blizzard. Some nights the icy snow hits the jail windows like buckshot beating against the panes and the jail roof. In the morning, the frost is so thick you can't see out. Some rancher's homes are buried in snow. I don't know how Slim is doing. I would imagine that he has enough wood as his backyard is a forest. I'm glad that many of the young families are in town. Supplies are getting low. The Benson's have long since sold the lot of grain they had, as well as preserves, fruits, beans, coffee - heck most all of their shelves are bare.
Caleb and Jed have teamed up to take what few supplies they can round up to ranchers who are stranded. As soon as the snow stops they will hitch up some horses to a wagon and drive out-of-town to ranches as far as Slim's place.
I've always said that most of the town folk are hard-working, generous people and when the word got out that many of their neighbors were starving and their root cellars were empty -well, you wouldn't believe it! The spare room at the jail is full of bags of crackers, sacks of potatoes, wheat. One man had a jar of molasses. Some had coffee. There must be enough food for six months!
Keep well.
Mort
Mort POV:
What I wish I could tell her is that Slim is very ill. She would be on the next train and livid to boot!
On one of the last runs Sam received a note from Charlie to go out to the ranch. Slim wrote that he was ill and needed help. When Sam and Carrie arrived at the ranch, they found the front door open, the fire long gone out, the house freezing cold and a very sick man in bed. When they didn't return to town, I rode out to see what happened. Sam told me it was lung fever and Slim was very ill. I hemmed and hawed about sending a telegram to Andy and Mike, but in the end decided to wait a bit. Slim is a strong, healthy man and this should be over quickly. I decided to stay a few days so that Sam could sleep I tried to get Carrie, Sam's daughter, to rest also but she refused to leave Slim's bedside. I remember when Jess was ill and she and her father spent almost a week at the ranch. She is very devoted to this family. It was very hard for me to see my friend suffering through the night dreams. Drenched in sweat, he mumbled words I could not understand; kept asking for Jess,-where was he, was he coming home, all the while I kept trying to calm him down, help him when he coughed, wiped him down with cool water and tried to get him to drink water. I realized that this illness was not going away quickly. I sent the telegraph when I got back to town. Sam said he was following me in a day two leaving Slim in Carrie's hands.