In Mesquite, a small river town down by the Rio Grande an afternoon tea party had been arranged at Teddy, and Agnes Little's house for the sole purpose of introducing Leah Butler to Stefan Dulton, the town's only carpenter.
Stefan Dulton was considered by all to be a good catch for Leah, even though she was much younger than the man she was being introduced to over cups of tea in Agnes Little's finest china.
However, Leah had been reassured by all that Stefan Dulton was an honest man, and he would be very discreet as to a woman in Leah's condition. The pair were married the very next Saturday, and Leah moved into Stefan's house which he had built himself.
Seven months later a son was born to Leah, and Stefan Dulton, and that boy was named Royal, after the fine china tea cup that Stefan had drunk from on the very afternoon he had been introduced to Leah Butler.
Stefan never asked Leah who the father of her child was, and she never offered to tell him. Royal grew up always believing that the man he, and his mother both loved, and admired, Stefan Dulton, the carpenter was his real father.
The family stayed in Mesquite, and Royal attended the small, and sparse school there as well. The floating population of Mesquite, a small cattle town meant that Royal never had many school acquaintances or friends, everyone just kept moving on for greener pastures.
Teachers were not all that reliable either, and the position of Mesquite school teacher was usually filled by one of the children's mothers. Then one day there were no children in Mesquite to attend school, and soon there were no girls Royal's own age for him to court either. The future growth of Mesquite was to remain stagnant it seemed.
Royal now worked as an apprentice alongside his father Stefan, and the one thing that he wished for most of all now was to be able to build a house for himself. Then he would go out, and find someone just like Stefan had, an honest woman, and settle down just like his parents had.
Then one day out of the blue, two rough looking cowboy types rode up to where Stefan, and Royal were working up on top of Laura Wagner's roof. They were up there to fix a leak in her shingled roof, not that it had rained recently or looked likely to happen anytime soon.
The cowboys were towing a saddled horse between them, and they tied it off up at the hitching rail, right out the front of Laura Wagner's place, and called on up to Royal.
"Horse is yours, it's a present from your father," The cowboy said. He was wearing a wide sombrero, and spoke through a mouth full of yellow teeth. "happy birthday," He added, excitedly as he smiled up at the pair seated on Laura Wagner's roof.
"What's he on about?" Royal asked his father.
