The Cattleman’s Sweetheart by Sherry Shindelar–and a giveaway

Mary Ann (Molly) Dyer met Charles Goodnight in 1864 at Fort Belknap, Texas. The Civil War, in its last year, had taken a toll on the Texas frontier. Charles, a former scout and ex-Texas Ranger, was part of the Frontier Regiment, a Texas militia assigned to protecting the frontier from Indian attacks. On his way to becoming one of the founders of the Texas cattle drives, Charles kept a herd of cattle on the side within riding distance of the fort.

The petite school teacher caught the eye of the rough and tumble soldier/scout/cattleman.

Molly wasn’t born to the hard life of the frontier. However, in 1854, a pledge her father made to Sam Houston led to her leaving the tranquil, civilized life of a prominent lawyer’s daughter in Tennessee and immigrating to Texas with her family. Settlers were just beginning to trickle into the lands surrounding Fort Belknap in the mid 1850’s, and Comanche raids were a constant threat.

Molly’s parents died a few years later, and she was left to support her three youngest brothers. She could have packed up and headed home to Tennessee. Instead, she stuck to the frontier and became a school teacher. As the Civil War ripped the nation apart, the Texas frontier rolled back a hundred miles in some places due to Indian raids. Fort Belknap hovered at the edge of what remained.

Molly was a smart, gutsy woman with a heart for others. Her strength and courage were as enduring as the prairie sun. Charles was a fighter, and a natural born frontiersman, who didn’t know the word “quit.” The spark of attraction between them that sprang to life in 1864 flourished into an acquaintance and courtship that endured Charles’s months or even year-long cattle drives as he mapped out the Goodnight-Loving Trail and started making a name for himself and worked to build an empire.

By 1868 and 1869, Molly was teaching in Weatherford, Texas, the supply hub for Charles’s cattle drives. She’d had enough of the extended courtship. This was the man she wanted to spend her life with, and he needed to make a decision. Eventually, she told him he needed to propose or be done courting. He married the love of his life in July 1870.

The refined school teacher traveled west with the rancher to the rough country near Pueblo, Colorado. They settled down on Charles’s ranch, but eventually, they found their true home in the Palo Duro Canyon, a 800 foot deep, ten to twenty mile wide canyon that stretched for one hundred and twenty miles. Together, they eventually managed over a million acres and more than a 100,000 cattle.

Molly and Charles’s love endured long stretches of time apart, with cattle drives keeping him away for several seasons at a time. With only one female neighbor in the vast area of the canyon, Molly befriended the cowboys at the ranch and the occasional Indian that traveled through.

 

She would often go six months or a year without seeing anyone while the men were away on cattle drives. The beautiful walls of Palo Duro, colored like red Spanish skirts, must have felt like the end of the earth at times. But Molly thrived. She ran the ranch in her husband’s absence and was a friend to all in need, including the buffalo.

 

 

 

 

 

Her heart ached for the baby bison orphaned by the wholesale slaughter of the herds from the late 1860’s through the 1880’s. She rescued and cared for the calves, bottle-feeding them when needed. Her efforts helped save the southern buffalo from extinction.

 

Throughout the Goodnight’s fifty-six year marriage, Charles was a man who enjoyed the thrill of adventure and the unknown, willing to take great risks, gaining and losing land and wealth in the process. Molly was his foundation, the North Star of his compass.¹ For his sake, she endured the loneliness of an entire canyon, but instead of being defeated, she thrived in his world and made a name for herself alongside his. She was described as a bubbly person, full of energy and heart. The spark of attraction ignited in 1864 between the school teacher and the cattleman blazed into an enduring flame that neither distance, time, hardship, or differences could snuff out. After her death, Charles “lost himself,” because he’d lost the keeper of his heart.

The epitaph inscribed on Molly’s gravestone reads, “One who spent her life in the service of others.”

Charles Goodnight makes a cameo appearance in the third book of my Lone Star Redemption series, Texas Reclaimed. Goodnight’s wild bronc ride in the story is a real event, but the real love in my story sparks between Ben McKenzie and Cora Scott.

To win a copy of Texas Reclaimed, leave an answer to this question in the comments below: If you were Molly Goodnight, would you have stayed behind on the ranch all of those months alone, or you would you have insisted on going with your husband on the cattle drives? Why?

 

1. Botkin, Jane Little. “I Accepted a Challenge: Researching and Writing Mary Ann Goodnight’s Story.” com/2024/03/i-accepted-a-challenge-researching-and-writing-mary-ann-goodnights-story/. 11 March 202

 Originally from Tennessee, Sherry loves to take her readers into the past. A romantic at heart, she is an avid student of the Civil War and the Old West. When she isn’t busy writing, she is an English professor, working to pass on her love of writing to her students. Sherry is a multi-award-winning writer. She currently resides in Minnesota with her husband of forty-one years. She has three grown children and three grandchildren. Sherry is currently writing the fourth book in her Lone Star Redemption series. The series is set on the Texas frontier in the 1860’s and features some of her favorite tropes: enemies to lovers, captive narrative, Native Americans, scarred heroes, and feisty heroines.

Texas Reclaimed

Can love blossom between a woman haunted by her family’s past and a man with a war-scarred heart?

Cora Scott is determined to hold onto her family’s Texas ranch and provide a stable home for her young half brother, Charlie, despite the mounting challenges of post-Civil War frontier life. But when a scheming creditor threatens to seize their land, she must accept help from Ben McKenzie, a former Yankee soldier sent by her late brother. Though Ben’s generosity and strength draw her, the man’s private struggle she stumbles upon—too reminiscent of her father’s alcoholism—makes her question whether she can trust her heart to him.

Ben McKenzie arrives in Texas intent on fulfilling his promise to his dying friend to protect Cora and Charlie. While using his inheritance to save their ranch, he battles not only the loss of their cattle but also his dependency on laudanum—a medicine that turned into a curse after his imprisonment at Andersonville. As his feelings for Cora deepen, he must choose between his promise to his father to take over their Philadelphia newspaper and his growing dream of a life with Cora in Texas.

Come in and let’s chat.