This is a love story, but not quite the way one would expect it to
happen, with a surprise ending. It has gentleness, joy, pathos, and
sadness. It puts you squarely into Victorian-era Arizona at a time when
the railroad has not yet arrived and travel is by stagecoach. Henry
Stratham is a civil engineer, a former Union artilleryman, and a
principal investor in a major railroad scandal. Elizabeth (Lizbeth)
Truman is the widow of an Arizona logger who has two children. What do
they have in common? Not much. Thaddeus Truman, the widow's
father-in-law, decides it's time for her to remarry and sets into motion
a mail-order-husband effort. While Henry perceives that the opportunity
allows him to obtain western employment and land, Lizbeth wrestles with
the inevitability of her remarriage, if for no reason other than her
children. Campbell Stanley is a Michigan schoolteacher who attracts
Naomi Givings, a young Georgia governess who has been ordered by the
court to deliver her charges to a New Mexico orphanage. Was it only a
chance meeting, or was there some overarching plan to draw her to the
western city of Flagstaff, Arizona? Two children, Martha and Jacob, each
in search of a father, bring to the story the sadness over the loss of a
parent and the consideration of a potential replacement who challenges
their relationship with each other. The wealthy traveler (Claude Chana)
who rescues the orphanage and the U.S. Government auditor (J.R.
Wentworth) who serves a warrant for the arrest of Henry Stratham-where
do they fit into the story? And finally, there is Old Wellington-the
smartest horse you ever saw.
