Baby Screamed Nonstop On A Stagecoach Until A Widow Did The Unthinkable For A Rich Cowboy…

Today, it only suggested he was holding himself together by force.

Six passengers had left Cheyenne at dawn, headed for Fort Collins. The fare was eight dollars a person, and everyone felt cheated with every bounce of the wheels.

Cheyenne had been all sharp noise that morning—hammers on timber, wagon wheels in mud, men yelling over each other as if volume was proof of worth. The stage office had smelled of tobacco, ink, and sweat, and the clerk who took the money had promised a “smooth enough ride if the weather holds.”

The weather held. The ground did not.

A railroad surveyor named Pruitt sat near Owen, trying to read a manual that never stayed in focus because of the shaking and the screaming. He was a thin man with sunburned cheeks and restless eyes, the kind that measured distances even when he wasn’t holding a chain.

The manual was open on his knee, pages fluttering with each jolt.

Every time he tried to find his place again, the baby’s cry cut in, and his eyes twitched like he might throw the book at the sound.

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