Cole Maverick's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Cole Maverick had loved the schoolteacher for two years without saying so, and now a stranger in a black hat was tying his horse outside the saloon and telling anyone who would listen that he meant to marry her by Sunday. Cole heard it from the barkeep before he'd even set down his glass. The stranger stood at the far end of the room, thumbs in his belt, boasting about the ring in his pocket and the woman he'd only seen once through a schoolhouse window. Men laughed. One clapped him on the back. Cole set a coin on the bar and walked over. He was a quiet man, a fair shot, and he had rehearsed a hundred speeches for her and delivered none of them. He knew that if he waited one more day, the stranger would knock on her door first, and she might say yes just to be chosen. Cole told the man to leave town. The man laughed and asked who was asking. Cole gave his name and said he was courting her already, which was the first lie he had told all year. The stranger looked him over and offered a bet instead of a fight: whoever stood on her porch at sunrise with her father's blessing could stay. The other man could ride out. Cole agreed before he thought it through. He left the swinging doors behind him and walked straight to her house in the dark. Her father answered in his nightshirt, lamp in hand, and listened while Cole said plainly that he loved her and had for a long time and that a stranger was coming at dawn to ask for the same thing. The old man studied him a long moment, then said Cole could stand on the porch, but the answer belonged to his daughter. At sunrise Cole was there. The stranger rode up, saw him, tipped his hat, and rode on. Then the door opened behind Cole, and she stepped out in her shawl and asked him what, exactly, he thought he was doing on her porch — and he understood he had bought himself the harder problem: he had to court her now, in daylight, having already told the whole town he was.