Cowboy For Hire (44 page)

For the first
few months of her marriage, Amy was plagued by old fears, but they
gradually tapered off. By the time she was about to deliver her
first baby, she hardly thought about Alaska at all, and when she
did, it was with the remoteness one generally associated with old
legends and fairy tales.

Martin Tafft
stood as godfather to the first Fox child to be born, a bouncing
baby boy whom they named Martin Francis in honor of Martin and
Uncle Frank. Their next child, Karen, was born a year and a half
later, approximately two weeks before Karen’s first child, Amy, was
born.

The two little
girls grew up together, drank lots of good wholesome orange juice,
wore only the most fashionable clothes, learned to ride and rope
like regular cowgirls, loved the moving pictures, and both served
as Rose Princesses when they were the right age.

Their mothers
and fathers were thrilled.

Vernon Catesby,
the local millionaire banker, didn’t have enough influence to block
their selection. He sulked for a while but eventually recovered.
After all, he was rich.

But Amy
and Charlie Fox, who didn’t have half the worldly wealth of Mr.
Catesby and his wife, the former Miss Luella Simpson, hand-picked
by Vernon’s parents, who no longer trusted him to choose for
himself—knew themselves to be far richer than the
Catesbys.