Doc had already loaded the basket of food for the social and hitched the horse to the buggy.
Dinah clambered up and took her place beside Doc on the wooden bench seat. Part of her felt guilty for leaving Mrs. Agnes at home alone; another part felt she deserved some social interaction.
And she was really looking forward to seeing Silas again.
Doc’s place was on the outskirts of LaBelle, and a thirty-minute buggy ride into Sundance. Although several businesses from Sundance, such as Sackett’s Saloon and Harker’s Hardware, had opened storefronts in the township, complementing the existing mercantile, the area was still considered a “cow town.”
Sundance, however, considered itself to be a “real town.” Since Sundance was the Crook County seat, it had a lovely three-story brick courthouse as the town’s centerpiece. There were also three churches, seven saloons, three general stores, a livery and blacksmith’s, a hatmaker’s and a dressmaker’s, a shoe store, a barbershop, a hotel with a restaurant, two other dining establishments and a community center. The town also was proud of its municipal band and baseball team, which hosted tournaments that drew spectators from Wyoming and South Dakota.
Not that Dinah had personally partaken of any of Sundance’s entertainments.
While Sundance had a daily stage line that ran from Spearfish, the mail only made it to LaBelle twice a week. But the “cow township” did have one advantage that Sundance did not: a main railroad extension to the thriving town of Gillette, via direct route from Cheyenne.
Although she’d spent the majority of her days the previous five years nursing her mother, in her free time she and her friends had an active social life in Cheyenne. She’d attended the fair, shopped at the variety of stores along Main Street, enjoyed community events such as plays and dances—even when she’d been too shy to actually dance.
After her mother had passed on, leaving her practically penniless, Dinah had no choice but to find a teaching job as soon as possible. “Frontier” schools paid a higher salary. When she saw the advertisement in the Wyoming Eagle Tribune, for a teacher for grades one through three, in a township outside of Sundance, that included room and board, she immediately sent off a letter.
Within two weeks she’d received a response from Doctor Alexander Moorcroft. If she accepted the teacher’s position for two years, she would board with him and his wife. Any help she provided as his medical assistant—after her teaching hours—would be paid separately. Transportation of herself and her belongings from Cheyenne to Labelle would also be provided. Not only would she have her own room in his house, she’d also have use of a horse and buggy.
It’d seemed too good to be true—and in some respects, it was. Still, she accepted the position, sold off the last of her parents’ household furnishings, keeping only the steamer trunks, a credenza, desk and chair, a mirror, and the sewing machine. She’d also saved all of the books her family had collected, fabric, quilts and bedding, and a few decorative knickknacks she hoped to display in her own home one day.
She’d arrived at the train station with all her earthly possessions a year ago.
Nothing had turned out as she’d hoped.
Yet, Doc had always treated her kindly and paid her promptly. Mrs. Agnes could be a real pill, but she treated Dinah like the help for the most part, and she’d gotten used to that with her own mother.
That’s where her struggle was. Dinah was lonely. She looked forward to attending church, not to absorb the preacher’s words, but to have social contact with people other than the infirmed.
Doc harrumphed next to her, tearing her out of her thoughts.
“Is that Silas McKay waiting at the bottom of the steps with his hat in his hand?”
Dinah squinted at the figure dressed in the black coat, politely inclining his head at the people passing by him. Her belly swooped and she placed her hand there to quell her sudden bout of nerves. He’d really come.
“Dinah?” Doc prompted.
“Yes, Doc. Silas asked if he could escort me to the picnic and I agreed—but only if he accompanied me to church beforehand.”
He smirked. “Good to know.”
Then Silas was there, helping her down from the buggy. “Dinah. You are a vision of loveliness on this fine mornin’.”
“Thank you.” Lord have mercy, this man looked every bit as if the devil himself had decided to come to church. A satin brocade vest with red piping peeped out from beneath his black suit coat. His