The fact that she could cook but refused to pretend cooking was a personality.
She ended:
If you are seeking obedience rather than partnership, please save the stamp.
Three weeks later, his answer arrived.
I own cattle. I already have enough creatures that ignore me. Partnership sounds better.
She laughed alone in her rented room for the first time in months.
Then wrote again.
Thirteen letters followed.
The cowboy wrote badly.
His penmanship leaned downhill.
He misspelled occasionally.
He rarely filled more than two pages.
But every letter answered her actual questions.
How cold?
Very.
How far from town?
Almost an hour by wagon when roads are good.
Church?
Small.
Doctor?
One.
Neighbors?
Close enough to help, far enough not to hear arguments.
Debt?
Some.
He even wrote the number.
That impressed her.
Most men lied about money before women had even asked.
He told her the roof leaked above the pantry during east winds.
That his horse disliked women in red.
That he served as a temporary deputy when the marshal needed another man.
That he had no children.
That he had never married.
That he wanted marriage now because eating supper alone for eight years had begun feeling less like freedom and more like stubbornness.
She wrote back:
That may be the first sensible definition of loneliness I have ever read.
The factory photograph reached him accidentally with her third letter.
She never knew who slipped it inside.
Years later, she would learn.
But not yet.
When his next letter remained warm, she assumed he had no idea what she looked like.
The following letters became more personal.
He asked what frightened her.
She almost lied.
Instead:
Being invited somewhere and then watching the inviter realize I take up more space than he imagined.
The cowboy responded:
I can build larger furniture. I cannot make people kinder. I’m better with wood.
She read that line until the paper softened.
Then came the ticket.
He sent enough money for rail travel followed by stagecoach passage.
He added:
If you arrive and decide against me, the return money is already set aside. You will not owe me marriage for transportation.
That sentence made her cry harder than the proposal implied by the ticket.
Nobody had offered her an exit before asking her to enter.
The journey west was harder than the letters.
Railway employees stared.
Some accommodations barely fit.
A porter quietly found her a sturdier bench when a narrow seat made travel painful.
She tipped him more than she could afford.
At one stop, two men laughed after watching her descend.
She stared until one looked away.