Chapter 43

As soon as we were inside the store, my women discarded me like an old worn out shoe as they walked over to where the other ladies were shopping. I was standing there looking lost, I guess, because the man that the other women came in with walked over to me and stuck out his hand.

“That is our fate, brother, always to play second fiddle to a hen party. Name’s Ezekiel Walker.”

I laughed, shook his hand and introduced myself. Ezekiel was a big, robust man in his late twenties, brimming with good humor. We liked each other immediately, which was a good thing, because our wives became friends almost instantly.

It took the ladies and me less than two hours to decide that Cheyenne and Wyoming were everything we were looking for. Ezekiel and his wives really helped us reach our decision, because they lived their plural marriage openly, and without drawing ill treatment or negative attention. Plus, although they were very devout, the Walkers did not act all preachy with us or shun us because we didn’t share their belief. Brother Ezekiel said that he was confident the example he and his wives set would lead to our conversion in the end, anyway.

“A smart person doesn’t have to be shown the path, Brother Tyler,” he said. “Rather, he or she finds it on their own.”

Ezekiel put us in contact with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association. The cattleman association’s president personally helped me find the land that would become our spread. Then, as soon as I joined the WSGA, he even helped me with the process of buying the property from the territorial government.

I paid two thousand dollars for a beautiful six thousand acre valley about seventeen miles northwest of the town and only four miles from Ezekiel’s spread. It didn’t surprise me much that all three of our closest neighbors were Mormons with more than one wife.

My wives loved the valley as much as I did and almost suffocated me with hugs and kisses when I named the place Five Angels Ranch. The WSGA man nodded approvingly as I registered our brand with them; it was a numeral five with a halo around the upper left part of the five.

We returned to El Paso eight days later and immediately started the process of settling our affairs in order to move. As you can imagine, it required considerable effort to untangle ourselves from the club and our other interests. In the end, I sold my share of the gent’s club to Pen Smythe for half of his quarterly profits for the next two years. Belle made the same deal with Pen’s wife, Big Liz. The rest of the partnership members agreed to the sales at our June quarterly meeting. They also appointed Ray Jarvis as general manager of the club.

Right after the quarterly meeting, Belle and Feleena departed for Cheyenne to supervise the construction of our house on the new ranch, and then find us temporary digs until the house was completed. My wives were staying with Ezekiel Walker and his family while they were in Cheyenne. I’d have loved to been around to see the looks of the Cheyenne men when my two beautiful and independent wives conducted their business.

That June also saw a flurry of weddings with Jose Colon marrying Yolanda Garcia, Rosalinda’s sister, while Maria and Miranda Lopez tied the knot with Wilfredo Acevedo’s sons Raul and Antonio. One look at the Acevedo boys and you could tell that the Lopez magic had them totally love-struck. They were lucky young men. The marriages were a big coup for Hector who helped arrange both marriages, but I suspect it was Maria and Miranda who really made it happen. You had to give the young women credit, they found a way to stay together and still snare the most eligible bachelors in San Elizario.

Jose Colon was a lucky stiff also, because Yolanda was a smaller version of Rosalinda and she acted as if Jose was the second coming. I was mighty happy that Jose and Yolanda both agreed to move north with us, he as our head wrangler for horses and mules, and she as the head of our household staff. Of course, both those positions were something Belle dreamed up because they were our only two employees so far.

Belle and Feleena spent three weeks in Cheyenne, returning to El Paso on the second of July. They were just in time for our big Independence Day celebration, which made them also just in time for our first big family disagreement. The argument was over me competing in the cowboy events, something I wanted to do, and to which the women, especially Connie, vehemently objected. I stuck to my guns stubbornly and they retaliated by cutting me off from sex. Of Course, Feleena and Belle sided with the others, called a family meeting and voted down the idea five to one. As if I were a petulant child, I stomped out of the house.

“I’ll sleep in the barn with Melosa tonight,” I flung angrily over my shoulder. “She, at least, doesn’t want to remove my balls.”

I was just shaking out my bedroll when Anna slipped into the barn. Anna walked over to me and put her soft, warm hand on my arm.

“No one is trying to take your manhood, Charro, and none of us for a minute question your masculinity. You don’t have to prove a thing to us. What you do have to do, though, is be here for us. Do you not see that without you, we would all be lost again? You have obligations now Tyler, not the least of which is an unborn child, and you have a not very good record of taking care of yourself.”

Anna kissed me on the cheek and left me to think about what she said. She was correct, of course, so after a few minutes, I packed away my bedroll and walked back to the house to apologize for my churlish behavior. I guess I hadn’t quite divested myself of the streak of proud, willful stubbornness that drove a wedge in every relationship in which I’d ever been.

My apology was tearfully accepted and the wives made a big point of letting me know I was more than man enough for them. After we resolved that problem, we spent the rest of the night taking care of Belle and Feleena’s pent up sexual needs.

That night the women also decided that it was time to start trying to get Mina in a family way.

After all the drama, Jose Colon represented the Rancho Los Angeles in the cowboy competition on Independence Day, although I did compete in and win the pistol contest. My wives and I sat with Rosalinda and Yolanda during the events. My wives had a blast cheering on Jose and Pedro and holding Rosalinda and Pedro’s baby, Tyler Garcia-Diaz. The big news among the women was Matt Faulkner squiring around Molly Dean and Naomi Singleton. Belle buttonholed Naomi at the restroom to find out what was going on, and filled in the rest of us. Belle said that, yep, Molly and Naomi had indeed cut Matt from the herd and put their brand on the lucky so and so.

The Saturday night after Independence Day, we had a nice going away party at the club. The following day we received just as nice a send off after Mass, over in San Elizario.

Monday and Tuesday we loaded two freight cars Belle had engaged with furniture and materials we’d need for our new house. Tuesday evening, we loaded the animals we were taking with us on two partitioned livestock cars. I had a few moments doubt about Wendy and Dog as they looked extremely unhappy about piling into one of the cars, even though their buddy Melosa was on it already. Connie solved that problem with a few sharply spoken Comanche words. I don’t know what she said, but evidently, Dog and Wendy did, because they hustled their asses up the ramp without another grunt.

I think Dog wasn’t as much against riding on the train as he was unhappy not to be riding in the plush Pullman. I was the one who relegated him to the livestock car because I thought he’d be a calming influence on the horses. The idea sounded reasonable to the women but Dog didn’t like it even a little. Dog weighed about a hundred pounds by now and he was impressively tall. He had feet about the size of Bozo the Clown’s shoes and was as clumsy as the town drunk on Saturday night.

The following morning, Wednesday, July the eighth, 1878, my wives and I boarded the train to Santa Fe. The number of people at the station to see us off caused my eyes to well up with tears. Thankfully, about everyone else was crying too.

It made me sad as hell to be leaving El Paso, because I’d made myself a damned good life there. Ironically, that was the exact reason I had to leave. There had been no larger than life Tyler McGuinn living in the El Paso of my ancestors. If I stayed, I knew for certain that there would be no Tyler McGuinn living in the El Paso of the future.

As the train pulled out of the station and the waving figures on the platform disappeared behind us, I turned my thoughts towards the future. I wasn’t through with Texas by a long shot, because I knew where a lot of Sweet Texas Crude Oil was going to be found during the next century, but I was also excited about the prospects Wyoming offered. Wyoming was cattle country and a wild and open frontier. In short, it was a place custom made for Tyler McGuinn and his incredible wives. Heck, I’ll bet there was another amazing story there just waiting for us to live it...

Epilogue

Isabel Lopez McGuinn finished the last page of the old journal and gently closed its faded cover. She laid the journal atop the other one that sat on the small table next to her rocking chair. She gave her watch a quick glance and was surprised that she’d been completely absorbed in the journal for well over an hour. The two old books, along with a letter and what looked like a hand drawn family tree had been delivered to her that morning by a young lawyer from the firm that had been handling the McGuinns’ legal matters for over fifty years.

The young lawyer, a grandson of the firm’s founder, had told her that the Journal had been in the firm’s vault since the death of her husband’s grandfather fifteen years ago. Isabel was flummoxed that the journals were bequeathed to her as part of Grandfather Ty’s last will and testament. She was receiving them now, because the two conditions that predicated her inheriting them had finally been met. One of the conditions was the death of her son Raymond’s wife, Inga. The other was the existence of the child sleeping peacefully on Isabel’s bed, her precious little grandson, Tyler Lopez McGuinn.