Recently released from the army, with a medical discharge, Whit Wadsworth was, after a dose of Spanish flu had laid him low for almost a year. Where he had been a strapping 180 pounds, he was now a staggering, stumbling 150. Upon his discharge, he had caught a train out of El Paso for Benson. Upon arriving there, he had worked his way north along the San Pedro River. Over the course of a month or so, he found himself on the banks of the Gila River. He was almost out of grub. This morning, he had made a pot of coffee and fried a small slab of bacon. He figured he had one more good meal. He needed a job, but knew he wasn't strong enough to do a full day's work. Well, if he couldn't get a job, maybe a free meal.
As he reached the top of the mountain, he saw below him, a house and barn with corrals. As he rode closer, he could see a woman dressed in a denim shirt over a pair of split riding skirts. They fell to the top of shop-made calfskin boots. The woman's hair had once been a honey blonde, but was now showing a little gray, at middle age she still held a fair figure and a face with no wrinkles. But above all that, Whit was worried, for strapped around her waist was a pistol. A lump came to his throat as he approached. He fairly needed a meal and a place to sleep, but this ranch woman looked hard as nails. He stopped twenty feet from the house and removed his hat. "Good afternoon Ma'am, is your man about?"
"No, I don't have a man. Not anymore, he's buried over in Globe. This is my ranch. What can I do for you?" She wasn't unpleasant, but still had a firm tone to her.
"I'm just out of the army, looking for a job. I've come a fair piece. Would ya have anything a man could do for a meal?" Whit was leaning on his saddle horn while he spoke.