They found him dead in the room, holding a new ladies hat and an old photograph of a lady taken years ago. Roger identified him for the police as Dave Miller a rancher from Montana. Roger had been his friend for the last fifty years. 

As he looked as this friend and the photograph in his hand, his mind drifted back over the years to the day that the picture was taken; Dave and his wife Ruth had gone to Omaha to sell cattle. They had not been to town in five months and it was even more special when they got to go to a big town.

                They had been married five years and everything was ahead of them. Dave had met Ruth though an ad in the paper as a mail order bride. She was more than he had hoped for, at about five foot seven inches, just the right weight and with light brown hair that highlighted her face, giving her the look of sophistication.  

                When he met her at the train depot he thought that she was there to meet somebody else, until he heard her ask for him. When she introduced herself he felt suddenly like a young kid meeting a girl for the first time. He could not seem to say or do anything right. 

                They had stayed in town for three days getting to know each other, she asked about his life and what he did. Dave found himself talking with ease to her telling him about the ranch he had to the southeast of town all, that he had done to the place in the last five years. He found that he was talking with an ease that he had never felt with other women that he had been around.   After the end of their time in town they were married by the local minister and set out for their future together on the ranch.

                They left Billings Montana on Sunday and headed out to the ranch, it was a three day drive by wagon as the ranch was located in the Prior Mountains of Montana; Wyoming and Dave’s ranch was in both states.

                When they arrived it was spring, 1910 and Ruth knew at once that she was home, it was the kind of place she had dreamed of, located on small stream which flowed from the mountains to west. The ranch was in a valley and it was green from the prairie east of the house to the mountains behind the house. Dave had built a two story house with inside water in the kitchen, unheard of at the time. He had planned for this day and he wanted everything to be easier for her. He knew life on the ranch was hard enough and he knew being away from everything she knew would be hard also, and he wanted to make everything as easy as possible for her.

                After getting settled in they both went to work on the ranch, working side by side it was a new experience for Dave but he found that he enjoyed it.   As all couples they had their problems but it was nothing that they couldn’t work out, and they were minor compared to the problems of raising cattle and putting up hay for the winters. No matter what the problem they worked them out nothing stopped them as a couple.

                They were well liked by all who knew them and they were always on hand to help a neighbor, even though they were ten miles way or more, and they always had a kind word to say. 

                Dave and Ruth went back to Billings a couple of times and always had fun there acting just like a couple of kids.

                After an unusually hard winter and an equally bad summer with little rain, the couple decided to go to town. It was earlier fall and they had been in town for two days and were planning on staying two more days to talk to the cattle buyers to find out what the market was doing. However the local market was mot offering anything for cows, so Dave contacted some buyers in Omaha and found one that was paying top dollar but the buyer wanted to see the cattle first, so Dave made arrangements for him to come to Montana to look over the cattle.

                Two days later, just as they were ready to leave for the ranch the buyer showed up. He introduced himself as Roger, and he and Dave hit if right off, they were of the same mold, old school and go getters. They drove to the ranch and after seeing the cattle Roger said they were some of the best he had seen and agreed to buy them and the deal was sealed with a good meal and glass of good whiskey.

                Dave and Ruth spend the next weeks talking about what they could do after the cattle sell, finally have the place paid for, putting in a new well, and things for the house. 

                The time flew by and before it seemed possible October was here and they had driven the cows to the railhead and they were on the train to Omaha.  Omaha was the largest town Dave had ever seen, Ruth was from Chicago by way of Omaha, so it was not new to her, but she was still excited to be there and loved to see the excitement in Dave.

                They met up with Roger and got the sale made, after which Roger said he would take them out to supper and show them the town. They agreed and said they would meet up with him at the hotel at 7:00 o’clock that night.

                Ruth and Dave went back to the hotel to change clothes from being around the sale barn, they then went down town to see the stores, stores with everything they had dreamed about, stuff they couldn’t imagine owning. As they passed one store Ruth said she wanted her picture taken in one of those big floppy hats they had in the window, she said it would make her look the part of a lady from the city. So they went inside and Ruth looked her best for Dave and for the picture. As Dave stood there watching her having her picture taken he realized how much he loved her and how lucky he was. It seemed as if nothing could stop him now, that at last everything was going his way.

 

                Afterward they laughed and talked all the way back to the hotel. As they went inside Dave said that he wanted some coffee, so he went to a small shop on the corner next to the hotel, Ruth told him to go ahead without her she was going to take a bath get ready for later.

                As he sat at the counter enjoying his coffee and the day, he was reflecting on how everything had seemed to change for the better in his life after Ruth came into it.

                He strolled around town for a while stopping to buy a paper and headed back to the hotel to get ready for the evening. When he entered Ruth was not there, he called her name, nothing. Everything was as they had left it earlier when they went to sell the cattle.   After looking around, checking the hotel lobby and shops he decided she must of went back down town to get something and would be back soon, even though she always told him when she was going someplace.

                He got ready to meet Roger, thinking that she would be back long before then, but seven came and went and Ruth had not returned now he was worried this was not like her. He went to the lobby to see if she was there but all he seen was Roger waiting for him and Ruth. He asked if he had seen Ruth and he stated he had not seen her since that morning. Roger could sense that something was wrong and asked what it was. Dave told him what they had done that day and that when they came back to the hotel he went for some coffee and Ruth went to the room, when he came back she was not there and he has not seen her since.

                The two men went back down town to the shops that Dave and Ruth had visited earlier in case she was there, but everybody that they talked to remembered them but had not seen Ruth since she was there with him. After not having any luck finding her they contacted the police. They talked to Dave and to him it did not seem like they cared about him and his problems at all. They asked if they had been fighting or if they had an argument that day. Dave could not believe this it seemed like they were accusing him of her being gone. After he had convinced them that he had nothing to do with it and that he was concerned they started to search the area for her but she had vanished. Vanished, nobody had seen her, the only thing that was found was a piece of cloth on the back stairs of the hotel, a piece that looked like it came from Ruth’s dress. 

                Dave stayed in Omaha for a month, hoping against hope, that she was there but to no avail. He talked to everybody that would listen, even offering the money he made from the sale of the cattle as a reward, nothing, nobody came forward or seen a thing.  

                A month to the day after she disappeared a farmer brought in a hat that looked like Ruth’s, he said he had found it in his field that was next to the road, but that was all there was he had not seen anything, just the hat. Dave searched the area around the farm but he found nothing else.

                He finally returned to Montana and the ranch, alone. Oh, the ranch still ran but it was not the same, sure he had ran it for years before Ruth but after Ruth came the ranch was a happy place, now without her the joy and happiness of the ranch was gone. It was just a ranch.

                Each year Roger bought Dave’s cattle, and every year Dave would spent a month in Omaha. Staying at the same hotel in the same room, going to all the same places he and Ruth had went to. He talked to everybody he saw about Ruth but nobody knew anything. 

 

*************

                                It’s been fifty years since Ruth vanished and he is back in Omaha again, he is now seventy five and he feels every year of it, he feels so tired and oh so old, if only she had been there to grow old with him. 

                As he sat in the chair in the room he wished that over the years he would have found some clue or just something as to what happened to Ruth. That was the worse, the unknown. 

                He closed his eyes he was so tired, if only…………………..he felt a hand on his hand. He looked up and there stood Ruth, looking like she did fifty years ago on the day she disappeared, beautiful. She held out her hands to him, as he reached out to her and touched her he felt young again, like when they had first meet. He rose up out of the chair and hugged her, afraid to let go, feeling more alive than he had in years. 

                As he released her he turned to look around and he seen somebody sitting in the chair he had been in. He walked over and looked and he was looking at an old man sitting there with gray hair and a slight smile on his face, his chin was on his chest. With a shock he realized he was looking at himself. He turned to look at Ruth and she smiled at him and nodded and he smiled back realizing that he would not be alone again, he was with Ruth and everything was right.

                As they started to walk away he looked back one more time and felt a little sad to be leaving life behind, but he understood that life was just a beginning, and as he looked forward he could see how much there was to be done. It seemed as if he could see ahead forever, and Ruth was there with him, through it all. After all this time, the torment was finally over, he was with Ruth.

*************

                His friend Roger found him there found him in his room the next day when he never showed up for their usual morning coffee.   He was sitting in the chair with a smile on his lips and holding a brand new ladies hat, of a style that had not been seen in fifty years and holding the photograph of Ruth that was taken all those years ago.

                Roger recognized the hat as the hat that Ruth had worn fifty years ago, the day she disappeared. As they were removing Dave, he said “Goodbye my friend, you have finally found what you have been missing. Tell Ruth Hi for me.”