Free On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch by Shelter Somerset

see each other again?” the man said. “Perhaps tomorrow for supper? I leave on the Wednesday train. But I can arrange to come back to Chicago as often as I like. I head the factory’s sales department.”
    “I may not be here,” Tory said. He slipped on his pants, tucked in his shirt, and fastened the button fly.
    Calvin McGregor sat up, alert. He reached for his spectacles from the side table and placed them over his nose. “But where will you be going? You live here, don’t you?”
    “Yes, but I’m thinking I might travel.”
    “Travel? Travel to where? Out east, perhaps? To Maryland?”
    “I suppose I could. I have a sister who lives in Washington, DC.” Tory cared little what he said to the man; he had no connection to him. Ten minutes of heartless physical interlude had not united them in any way. Once he had disengaged himself from the man’s clammy grip, they were no more linked than two strangers waiting for a streetcar.
    “Your sister lives in Washington? What do you know? See, the moment I saw you, I knew we had much in common. Will you be staying with her for a lengthy period? It’ll be perfect if you do. Ellicott City is only a short train ride from the nation’s capital.”
    Tory was sitting on a ladder-back chair, lacing his boots. “Well, I… I was only thinking of visiting for a few weeks.”
    “When will you know for certain?” Calvin McGregor lowered his head, his brow furrowed. Gazing back at Tory, he said, “Do you think you’ll come out for the summer?”
    Tory stood, snapped on his suspenders, slipped on his jacket. “I’m not certain. I still have to think on it.”
    The man gathered the sheet around him and approached Tory. “Can we write? Can we somehow stay in touch? I can give you the address where I work.”
    A welling emptiness choked Tory. If only Joseph van Werckhoven were with him in a South Side hotel room, instead of Calvin McGregor. His experience with Joseph, no matter how short-lived, had spurred him into demanding more than cheap lovemaking with strangers. He dreamed of a husband. Yes, he dared to say it to himself. A husband. No matter how absurd it sounded to his and everyone else’s ears.
    “No,” he snapped. He softened his tone. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We mustn’t write to each other.”
    He fumbled with his cravat, unconcerned if he tied it straight. Turning sharply from Calvin as he came closer, he put on his derby and said, “Good-bye. I wish you the best of luck in your fabric business,” and he trotted out the door. He heard the man shouting for him down the cavernous concrete stairwell, but Tory ignored his call.
    On the street, he ran, glancing back to make sure the man had not dressed and followed after him. The evening crowd had grown, pushing and nudging. Wishing to hide from the world and catch his breath a moment, he found refuge behind a stand selling dime novels, newspapers, and periodicals.
    Wedged between the kiosk and a parked police wagon, he read the headlines from the Chicago Tribune and the Daily News . The country marveled at the overdue near-completion of a massive statue in New York’s harbor; more labor disputes around the country had unions hankering for power; riots in central London had spread into the central part of England; another conference to establish disputed lands with the Plains Indians remained uncertain. None of that interested him. But a periodical grabbed his attention. He had seen one of his aunts reading it a few years before. She had stowed it under her skirt when he’d surprised her. Curious ever since, he took it off the rack and thumbed through it.
    As he read the inside of the front cover, he learned that Matrimonial News , published in San Francisco, arranged matches between “refined ladies” and gentlemen living in the American West. Men and women submitted advertisements, and the magazine’s editors forwarded the responses to the interested parties. Recipients decided whether