The Widow Black

Brides in Blood (Classic Western Mail Order Bride Romance Adventure)

“Elvira Scarlett.” The words felt too loud in the cramped office, bouncing off the glass-fronted cabinets where other women’s files slept in neat rows. Behind Mrs. Carothers’ shoulder, a map of the territories spread across the wall like a rash, its edges browned by pipe smoke. Someone had stuck pins in it, red for available brides, black for confirmed placements, forming a constellation of desperation that stretched from Omaha to Sacramento. Elvira’s eye caught on a cluster near Cheyenne, pins jammed so close together they looked like a wound.

Mrs. Carothers’ pen paused. Her eyes flicked up, taking inventory, calloused hands, sun-browned collarbones peeking above the dress’s high neckline, the stubborn set of Elvira’s jaw. “Condition?”

“Widowed.” The word landed like a stone in still water. Elvira watched the ripple of understanding distort Mrs. Carothers’ professionally neutral expression. “Thirty acres.” Her throat tightened around the next admission. “Flood took it.”

Mrs. Carothers’ pen resumed scratching. “Children?”

Elvira flexed her fingers against her thighs, feeling the ridges of scar tissue where she’d gripped the shovel too tight. “Buried with him.” Three words to encapsulate twelve years, Jack’s first steps across the homestead floorboards, the way he’d hum tunelessly while shelling peas on the porch, the feel of his small hand in hers when they’d walk the property line each spring to check the fence posts. The wound was still too fresh to poke at; saying more might have let everything spill out, the weight of his body when she’d lifted him from the netting, how his eyelashes had looked like wet feathers against his cheeks, the terrible quiet of the house afterward.

Mrs. Carothers’ pen hesitated again, then carved two swift lines, one for birth, one for death, before flipping to a different ledger. “We have three categories for women in your... circumstances.” Her fingers tapped the headings: Domestic, Agricultural, Specialized. The last word curled around Elvira’s ribs like a hook. Beneath it, someone had scribbled Midwives/Teachers/Nurses in cramped script. Mrs. Carothers’ thumbnail, chewed ragged, hovered over Agricultural.

“Railroad man in Wyoming,” she said, tapping a smudged entry. “Needs a woman who can mend fences and shoot straight. Won’t tolerate laziness or lip.” She slid the book across the desk, ink-stained finger marking the spot. The entry swam before Elvira’s eyes, Harlan Voss, 42, Section Foreman, Union Pacific. Requires sturdy disposition. No attachments preferred.

Mrs. Carothers didn’t wait for hesitation. “He’ll take you sight unseen if you leave tomorrow. Train ticket’s included.” She produced a yellowed envelope from a drawer warped by humidity. “Terms are written here. You sign, you go. No refunds if he turns you out at Cheyenne.”

Elvira’s finger moved down the ledger to the next entry. “What about this one?”

Mrs. Carothers leaned forward, her bosom pressing against the desk edge. “Jasper Cole. Forty acres in Montana. Sheep.” She paused. “Lost two wives already. One to fever, one to…”

Elvira’s fingernail scraped the ledger’s margin where someone had scribbled likes them docile. She pushed the book back. “Next.”

Mrs. Carothers’ fingers flicked to the bottom of the page. “Harrison Black. Palo Duro Canyon, Texas. Four thousand acres. Hereford cattle.” Her tone shifted, not warmer, but sharper, like the edge of a knife testing fruit. “No woman’s written him last three mail runs.”

Elvira watched the older woman’s chipped nail hover over the entry. The ink had bled there, obscuring something beneath. Mrs. Carothers continued. “Two daughters, sixteen and thirteen. Lost his wife to typhoid last winter.” Her gaze lifted, assessing Elvira’s sun-cured hands, the faded yoke of her dress where flour dust had permanently settled into the weave. “Girls need teaching. Cooking. The elder one’s... emotional.”