Abilene, Kansas
Late May 1869

Guess th' soldiers whipped them redskins so hard this time, they'll think twice afore bothering us again," came the husky, masculine voice in the seat directly behind her.

Having no wish to eavesdrop on the conversation, Anna Wiley gazed steadily out the dirty window of the #17, or the Choctaw, the name given to the Kansas Pacific train.  In a single glance she took in the station's platform and the few untidy tents set out on a flat stretch of Kansas prairie, and she wondered, was this all there was to Abilene's train depot?

Anna's spirits took a plunge at the thought.  She had hoped for more...so much more.

Taking a deep breath and inhaling the hot, stale air in her crowded car, Anna set her gaze toward the outside of their caravan.  There, beside the train tracks, in a line seeming to stretch off into infinity, stood the telegraph poles carrying the singing wires of modern communication.  Farther away rose a building or perhaps two, which appeared to be all that there was to the "sprawling metropolis" of Abilene.

Brushing a fly that buzzed around her face, Anna allowed herself a brief smile, remembering th words of Mr. Bilsworth, the New York agent for the Society of Orphans; the man whom she had, of necessity, left behind in Kansas City.

Copyright © 2001 by Karen Kay Elstner