Janette Foreman - Last Chance Wife

Losing her appetite to read, she picked up the newspaper to toss it away—when two small words caught her eye: “Wife Wanted.”

Frowning, she set the newspaper back on her pallet and scanned the short ad.

Wife Wanted: Mr. Businessman seeks wife. Needn’t be beautiful; must be practical.

Winifred dropped her head and groaned into her blankets.

Now she’d heard everything. This was what seeking a wife had come to—stating truth, yes, but bluntly. No romance there, not even an attempt to promise love or affection should a woman be desperate enough to answer such an ad.

An idea struck her, and she reached into her nearby valise for a pencil and stationery. For his honest request, this man deserved an honest reply. Not that she would send it. But maybe writing the silly thing would ease her frustrations about today’s events. She thumbed through her envelopes for the perfect one to seal away her pretend response. In her boredom during the coach ride from Cheyenne to Deadwood, she had resorted to sketching sprawling images across her envelopes, leaving just enough space on each one for the recipient address and the stamp.

Settling on one with a hummingbird in flight above a half dozen flowers, she smiled and tucked the rest away in her valise. Then, using the newspaper as a hard surface, she laid out her pretty floral stationery and penciled her reply. This was exactly what she needed in order to forget Mr. Ansell.

“Dear Mr. Businessman...”

* * *

If there had been a way to fail at gaining an investor, Ewan Burke had surely found it.

Judging by the firm line etched across Mr. Richard Johns’s forehead, anyway. A line that only deepened the farther he read through Ewan’s report.

Ewan rubbed a hand down his mouth, pausing on his shaven chin. He glanced at his office clock. Nearly five. The investor had read through the plans twice but still hadn’t relayed his thoughts.

“Mr. Johns...” Prompting seemed like the way to go. “May I answer any questions?”

“Yes,” the man responded in a gravelly voice, eyes still glued to the stack of papers. “When do you plan on turning a profit?”

“Very soon, sir.” Not as soon as he would like, but he had built this mine from nothing, and he counted any growth as progress. “I have worked out the numbers and estimated our growth over the next few quarters, and—”

“And you’ll still be no closer to making this into a prospering business.” The older man sighed and lifted off his spectacles. “Look, Mr. Burke. Your enthusiasm for the Golden Star Mine is admirable. And the business is new yet. But I don’t invest in charity cases. If you want my funds, then this company needs to prove it will make me money soon—not in some fairy-tale future. Understand?”

Pursing his lips, Ewan stifled his own sigh. “Of course, Mr. Johns. I agree.”

“There, now. I’d best be off.” The investor plunked the stack of papers on Ewan’s desk in a ruffled heap and stood.

Ewan hastened to meet him at the door, then escorted him out of the office and down the flight of stairs leading to the Golden Star’s main level. Only the light slapping of their shoes on the stairs filled the silence between them. Resisting the urge to cling to the banister, Ewan opened the door at the base for the middle-aged man to exit through first. Kindness, regardless of affliction. Of course his mother’s relentless teaching reverberated through him now, when tossing the investor out on his rotund rump sounded like the more tempting option.

From the moment Ewan received Father’s letter announcing his colleague’s trip to Deadwood to invest in Black Hills gold, he had spent countless hours preparing for this meeting. He’d meticulously compared the average growth of his gold production with others’, based on the year the Golden Star was a simple placer mine by the creek and the six months that followed, when it’d become a drift mine carved into the mountainside.

His business wasn’t perfect, but it was just beginning, and he’d been confident that his report showed how the Golden Star was poised to thrive, if it could only gain the support it needed to pass through these growing pains. But now after this rejection, Ewan had to fight the sinking feeling clawing at his stomach as he shut the stairwell door and followed the investor to the front of the office building. Bidding farewell to Mr. Johns might very well mean bidding farewell to his own dreams of making something of himself.

Ewan opened the next door, the one that connected the Golden Star’s offices with its tiny general store. He crossed the shop floor in haste. “Thank you for coming. I wish you safe travels back to Denver.” He turned to Mr. Johns with his hand outstretched.

The man slipped his knobby hand into Ewan’s politely, but nothing cordial appeared in his pointed stare. “Your father told me I wouldn’t be disappointed.” He pulled their hands closer to his body, causing Ewan to lean in. “I hate going back empty-handed.”

Ewan kept his stare calm and confident. “My father is never wrong, Mr. Johns. When will business bring you back to Deadwood?”

“In December.”

“Ah.” He broadened his smile to keep from wincing. “Three months.” Not much time to begin showing a profit—but then again, judging by his ledger, he didn’t really have a choice.

Yes, his growth had been slowly climbing over the past six months, but a series of recent setbacks had put a weighty strain on his finances. Damaged and missing equipment, broken-down machinery...even production was suffering because a few of his employees had quit. According to a conversation Ewan had had with one of them, the man had learned how fledgling the business truly was and had felt it was too risky to stay. Ewan had tried explaining that every business started this way, that all they needed was time—and funds—to blossom. But apparently the man hadn’t expected the business’s financial state to be so precarious, and his worry about shutting down had spread to the others.

Like gangrene through a wounded body.

Just how many others had been infected, Ewan didn’t know. To be sure, only a few had quit, so he prayed the concerns had stopped with them.

Mr. Johns’s investment would give them a boost. And they certainly needed one. As much as Ewan hated to admit it, the Golden Star could only tread water so long, and he needed to get the mine over this financial hump before his employees’ worries came to fruition.

“Come back when you’re in town, Mr. Johns,” Ewan said, “and I’ll show you the improvements we’ve made.”

“And the money.” The man emphasized the M word like the chop of a guillotine.

“Of course, sir. How nice to meet you.”

Mr. Johns grunted as he shut the outside door behind him and was gone.

Feet stuck to the rug, Ewan stared at the door’s paned glass, not focusing on the smattering of dust collecting there, nor on the booming gold town that lay beyond his establishment.

He had three months to get the Golden Star Mine earning more than it spent. Three. Plenty of gold existed in the mountain to do that very thing. The problem was extracting it and refining it to sell. Every penny he’d made already went straight back into the business—buying equipment, digging the mine and constructing the main building, which held offices, a small kitchen and meager housing for a few employees. But in order to grow—and cover those unexpected recent expenses—the business required more money than what his current profits could cover. He still needed extra hand drills, black powder and miners to reach more gold. And what good was more gold if he didn’t purchase more stamps for his stamp mill to process it? Those were what he needed in order to produce the growth Mr. Johns wanted to see.