Authors: Nancy Radke
“The poor lad. I had hoped you and he would get to know each
other better.”
“Victor needs the trip, Mother.”
Father came in and stood next to me. “Our daughter’s grown up.
She is an independent woman now.”
“Yes. And the first thing I’m going to do is learn to cook.”
“Cook?”
“Yes. I need to learn.”
“I planned to have a soiree for you, so you can tell all our
friends about your trip out into the Dangerous West.”
“Thank you, Mother. Right now, I just want to go to my room and
rest.”
“You poor thing. Go right ahead.”
I grabbed my small case and started to carry it up the stairs.
She looked startled. “Merle will bring it up. You know that.”
“I’ve got it,” I said, and took it up with me. I didn’t want any
servant coming in while I slept.
The next day, Thomas and Victor arrived. Victor was belligerent,
according to my father, but the three men marched him down to a ship going to
India. The ship’s captain was instructed to keep him locked up until after it
sailed in two days.
The captain was a friend of Victor’s father. After hearing about
the problem, he told them he would put Victor to work, to pay for his passage.
He would lock him up each time they came to port, until his “manners” improved.
“Nothing like hard labor to straighten out the mind,” he assured
them.
Father came home and I started my cooking lessons. No longer a
child, I now attended to my lessons so well that I learned quickly. Maybe I
could handle being a farmer’s wife.
I told mother I was marrying James Trahern, and she had a fit.
Father tempered her somewhat, so that she finally insisted James come to
Baltimore so she could meet him herself. My father could give me away, if they
approved of him. Otherwise she would send me to England.
After I had a good cry, I took out my writing packet and dipped
my pen in the inkwell. I tried several times to write, and finally ended up
with, “My dear Mr. Trahern, I have considered your offer and my answer is
‘yes.’ If you want me, you’ll have to come get me. Yours, Brynn.”
I decided that if James thought I was worth coming after, if he
valued me as much as he did Sir Galahad, he’d come get me. If he didn’t, then
I’d be well shut of him before I got to the point I couldn’t recover my heart.
I remembered what the young man had said at the dance. That women were scarce
and so the men had to grab the available ones. I wanted to be more than
available to James.
I addressed it and mailed it off. Why he would want someone who
caused him so much grief, I’ll never figure out, but he came.
My father went to meet him at the train and brought him back to
our house. James was wearing a dark corded suit that looked much better than
most of the men’s clothing here. He stood a head taller than my father and
evidently had answered all his questions, because my father looked more than
happy to hand me over to him.
My mother wanted me to have a grand marriage, and started to
protest when I told her that I only wanted her and father, and my grandmother,
Ellie.
James told them, “I only have a month for our wedding and
honeymoon, part of which will be the train trip back. So make your preparations
quick.”
He tilted his head toward the door and I quickly jumped up and
headed out. “I want to show James the bulls,” I said, but I think they all knew
I just wanted time alone with him, because no one trailed
along.
As soon as we were alone, James kissed me. And I kissed him. I
hadn’t realized just how much he meant to me until I finally had him again. I
realized that if he hadn’t come for me, I’d have got on a train pretty quick
and gone back to him. He was not someone I wanted to miss, especially because
of Victor. I would have tried to talk mother around, but left to go back to
James. He was the center of my life now.
James said, “Why did you leave so soon? I was telling my folks I
was the happiest man in the territory, then you were gone. I thought you were
going to stay, after Thomas put Victor on the train. What happened?”
I explained why I left so suddenly, and how Thomas and the fathers
had taken care of Victor before he could do any damage.
“I could have protected you.”
“Yes. I don’t doubt that. But if you had to kill Victor to do
it, then we would have had all the legal complications. It was best for
Victor’s father to handle him. And the ship captain didn’t mind locking him up.
Maybe he’ll learn that the world doesn’t revolve around him.”
“It’s a lesson everyone needs to know.”
“Then mother proved obstinate, so I had her objections to
overcome. Lizzie and Thomas helped, by coming and visiting her, and explaining
that I wasn’t marrying a savage. We’ve had quite a storm going on here.”
“And your father? Did he object? At first?”
“No. I told him everything that happened. He’s always been easy
to talk to. He helped me make Mother understand. I’d like to have her blessings
before I marry, as I’m her only child and I don’t want to cut her out of my
life.”
“I figured you were having to deal your parents, so I came right
away.”
“Thank you. I’ll never ask that of you again. I will marry you,
no matter what she says. She knows that. If you hadn’t come for me, I would
have gone back to you. I didn’t quite realize that when I wrote, or I wouldn’t
have written such an abrupt note. I’m sorry.”
“This is our busiest time of the year.”
“I know it. I didn’t expect you to come so soon.”
I still needed a
little longer time to learn to cook.
“Otherwise my parents would be here.”
“We can have a reception there,” I said. “Or the wedding there.”
“We’ll have it here. It’ll make your mother happy.”
“And me happy.”
“So, let’s get married and have a honeymoon.”
“I don’t expect a long one. The train trip back will be enough.
A passenger train only this time. Six days.”
“You’ve already made one train trip. How about taking an ocean
voyage, around South America? We can take the next ship out.”
“Thank you, but no,” I said. “I get seasick in a sailboat with
no waves to speak of. I’ll take the train trip. Just make sure they hold onto
our car.”
“When Dad found out I was traveling back here, he ordered ten
cows from your father.”
I stared at him, open-mouthed, but before I could say anything,
he laughed.
“I brought one of our hands along to take them back. And I’ll
make sure they take a different train. I don’t want to split my honeymoon time
with a bunch of cows.”
“Don’t you have to get back?”
“No. I told Dad I was coming to get you. He understood. Told me
to take all the time I needed. He’d hire someone to help him. We’ll have a
large enough wedding to please your mother. Then a train trip to Los Angeles.
Some time there. Then return to Walla Walla by another train. How does that
sound?”
“Wonderful. Whatever you want.”
We kissed again, and sealed our love.
James was so much the gentleman that Mother was swiftly won
over. She flew into planning a perfect wedding, while I showed James around the
farm and introduced him to the workers there. He laughed when I told him about
my cooking lessons, assuring me that he didn’t care how long it took for me to
learn, but by now I could boil water, make bread and fix a roast and potatoes.
Mother put on a wedding to impress Baltimore, making her
extremely happy and leaving my father to shake his head over the expense.
Our honeymoon trip was all I could ask for, except we did
have a buffalo stampede that stopped our train for several days as the huge
beasts knocked the caboose and two cars off the tracks, trying to get past the
train. We had to wait for a flatcar with a crane on it to come right the cars
and put them back on the tracks. James and many of the passengers helped to push
them up and into place.
Oh yes, and a bridge out. James and I did not mind waiting. We
were conducting a school of our own, learning a lot about loving.
They were just starting harvest when we got back to the ranch.
We quickly moved into the weaning house, and I spent most every day helping
Mally. During the next few years, I learned how to cook and make soap and do
all the other things a farm wife needs to know.
That winter was the terrible winter of 89-90. We were fortunate,
because when Trey and James got the cows from my father, they decided to sell
off all their cattle except for Sir Galahad and the ten cows. They took a small
loss on them, but wanted a purebred herd.
When the snow and freezing weather came in November, James
brought them into the barn, not knowing how they would manage with their short
legs. He had plenty of hay, and the ranchers came to him to buy hay, until one
of our hands warned him to keep enough for his prize animals to last through
spring. The cowboy had seen bad winters on the plains, and knew how bad it
could be.
Well, this one was worse than those. Most ranchers lost over 90
percent of their cattle, as the deep snow covered fences and homes, and the
freezing weather lasted until late spring, killing horses, cows, and deer, all
over the country.
The next year, ranchers lined up to buy bulls or breeding
opportunities from Sir Galahad, because most of the cows which survived that
winter had white faces, and looked just like him.
He was truly a noble bull, worth his weight in gold, living
twenty pampered years on our land. He always followed me around, like a tame
dog.
I refused to put Mally and
Trey out of their home, but she countered me by saying she wanted a smaller
house without any stairs. We lived in the weaning house until they built a
place near the main ranch house, where we could look in on them and care for
them as they got older. Our many children were able to have their grandparents
close by, which I considered a blessing.
THE
END
“Barnabas?
Here’s the list of men Wylie sent out from
town. They were mighty glad for the work. The depression is hitting everyone
hard.”
My foreman, Joe Taylor, held up a scrap of paper. I took the
list and glanced down the old storekeeper’s shaky writing. Mickey B., Terrance
Y., Pete M., Alvin J., and Sam W.
I could barely make them out. It looked like Terrance was
crossed out.
“Mickey, Alvin, and Pete came on out with me to start building
the corrals. Sam is bringing out the herd you bought.”
“By himself?”
“He has a dog.”
I nodded, pocketed the paper and walked outside with him. It was
mid-summer in the Blue Mountains of Oregon, the air warm but not oppressively
hot. Overhead an eagle circled and a Steller’s Jay called from a nearby pine.
My Becky would have loved it her
e
, I thought, as I helped
Joe move shovels, posthole diggers, hammers and nails out of the buckboard into
a wheelbarrow, all of which he had bought on his trip into town.
I’d come to Oregon a young man in my early thirties, bought my
land and built a cabin for my wife-to-be. Becky. We were married in Walla Walla
and I drove over the mountain pass on the narrow road, bringing her home. I had
a car, one of the first ones in the area, but the brakes failed. They told me
it wasn’t my fault, but I knew that if we’d have come horseback, like we were
used to traveling, my Becky would probably be with me today. I missed that gal.
I came back from the hospital, not knowing if I wanted to ranch
anymore or not. But the moment I set foot again on my land, I knew I would
stay. Joe had taken care of the place, even built a small cabin for himself to
live in when I got back with my bride. He was an old cowboy who was happy to
have found a place to settle.
The car company offered me a new car, but I wasn’t having it on
my ranch. I could barely stand the sight of them. I was going to refuse the
money they offered instead, but Pa said I should take it and buy something for
Becky.
She already had a tombstone, so I bought a small herd, just
outside of Elgin, and now had a rider bringing it home.
“Does he know the way here?” I asked Joe that afternoon, when
Sam still hadn’t arrived.
“He said he did. He’s probably taking his time. I told him not
to run the fat off them. And to give us time to get the corral finished.”
I sent Alvin and Pete out to bring in more poles while Mickey,
Joe and I set the posts. There were plenty of them already down, from fallen
trees. All they had to do was clear off the branches and drag them in, a few at
a time.
We had a small corral built, where we kept the horses, but we
needed a larger one for the cattle.
I had already planned where we would put a barn, and how the
corrals would adjoin each other and access it. So we started digging.
That Oregon soil didn’t want any holes dug in it and we got more
blisters than we got holes. But lots of trees had grown in the vicinity where
we were digging and we put in some planks to stand on and sawed them off eight
feet from the ground. It zigged the shape around some, but we got that corral
built, making poles from the dead snags and logs that Alvin and Pete brought
in. We hung our gate between two trees.
We had been finished for half an hour when the cattle came up
the road, taking their time, just moseying along. Sam turned out to be a
youngster, but had a dog, which was helping with the cattle, and looked to be a
great addition. They took a short break to get some water, then helped us start
the bunkhouse.
We drug the trees we cut down over to a place where we would put
it. I planned on building it next, and then a barn.
This was Blue Mountain country, higher than the ranch area where
my grandfather, Trey, had settled in Walla Walla. The view was spectacular, but
I knew the winter snows could be heavy, so needed to cut hay and cure it out
before putting it into a barn. If the hay didn’t dry sufficiently, it could
combust and burn your barn down, so I needed to get it cut while we built.
Towards evening, Sam offered to cook supper. I had put on a pot
of beans, and figured to fry some steak to go with it, but that youngster
whipped up some biscuits and gravy to go with the steak and beans and made
quite a meal out of it. A whole lot better than my cooking.
“You want to take over the cooking?” I asked.
“Sure, Mr. Trahern. I usually do the cooking wherever I go. I
like to cook.”
“Good. Cause I hate to.”
Sam just smiled good-naturedly.
That night one of the horses pulled up lame, and Joe went to
look at it, taking Sam with him.
He came scooting back shortly.
“Barnabas,” he said, pulling me aside. “That there Sam is a
girl.”
“What?” I felt like someone had whacked me with a tree limb.
“A dame. A female. She found a boil on ole Brownie’s leg. She
lanced it and cleaned it out, then put a little whisky on it and wrapped it as
pretty as you please. She said she had been assisting her father on his
calls—he’s a country doctor—for many years. She’s nineteen. She’s
not a kid.”
This was impossible
. “I told that storekeeper to send me men!”
“No, you didn’t. You said, ‘Send riders.’”
“If this is his idea of a joke…”
“She can ride. And that dog of hers is worth two men. And her cooking
will keep the men happy.”
“A woman! Where are we going to put her tonight? I’ll send her
back first thing tomorrow.”
“She can sleep in my cabin. I’ll sleep out with the boys
tonight,” Joe said.
“What was old Wylie thinking, to pull a trick like that?”
“Ask him, next time you see him.”
“I will. A woman. I can’t have a woman out here, with all these
men. Don’t tell them she’s female.”
“I think they already know.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Evidently she’s well known around these parts. Mike said she’s
as good as any doctor. That’s why I took her with me to check out my horse. I
think only you and I didn’t know.”
I nodded and stomped out to the corral. Sam had tied the horse
up outside the corral, and I looked at her work. A very thorough and professional
looking bandage was on the horse’s leg. I looked around for her.
I found her setting up her gear a distance away from where the
men were sleeping. “What do you think you are doing?” I demanded, my voice
harsh.
She straightened up from where she had just put down her
blankets and looked at me, puzzled. “Uh, fixing my bed.”
“You can’t sleep out here with the men.”
“I’m not. They’re over there.”
“It’s not right.”
“What isn’t?”
“You. A girl.”
“I’m a woman. My dog will take out any man who threatens me, and
my pistol would finish them off. These men know that. Bear is very protective.”
I looked at her dog. He was watching me and had his hackles
raised, probably because of the way I was talking.
He was a big dog, looking to be part German shepherd and part
mastiff. With his hackles raised and his teeth showing, like they were right
now, he was as good a guard dog as I’d seen. It didn’t matter.
“You put your gear in Joe’s cabin tonight,” I said. “You can
draw your pay and leave tomorrow. What made you think you could pull a stunt
like this?”
“It’s no stunt. I needed work and Wylie said you were hiring.
You needed someone to move cattle. Me and Bear are a team. Everyone in the area
knows us.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Trahern. I thought you knew.”
“What’s your name?”
“Samantha Web. My grampa knew some Traherns, back in Walla
Walla. Said you were fine folks.”
“Charlie and Kimana Web?”
“Yes. They’re my grandparents. Do you know them?”
“They had the sawmill on Mill Creek?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, you can’t stay out here. It wouldn’t look right.”
“Mr.Trahern, if you’re worried about my reputation, you don’t
need to. Everyone in this county knows me. And Bear. We go everywhere doctoring
folks. No one touches us.”
“So why were you looking for work?”
“A new doctor came to town, set up his shingle. He’s a real
people doctor, with training. I just had what I’d learned from my dad and
Grandmother. My dad got busted up when he was trying to work on a sick horse,
so he can’t even do vet work right now. He used to do both people and animals.
Right now, he can’t do either. I need the work.”
“Well, take your blankets and put them in Joe’s cabin. He can
sleep in with me tonight.”
“I need this job, Mr. Trahern. Please don’t fire me.”
“I’m sorry. See me after breakfast. I’ll pay you, then you go
back to town. Tell Wylie to send out someone else.”
She picked up the blankets she’d put down and carried them over
to Joe’s cabin.
Now that I knew she was a woman, I could see it. Her hands were
fine-boned and she walked like a woman. Like Becky walked.
I didn’t need any female around, reminding me of Becky. Although
Sam had her hair cut fairly short, it was still long for a man. I’m surprised I
didn’t figure it out.
I walked over to where the men were settling down for the night.
They were laughing.
“You just figuring out she’s a girl?” Mickey asked.
“Yes. I want you all to leave her alone.”
“She’s safer here than in town,” he said. “She and her pa have
nursed all of us through something or other. Mine was a busted leg.”
“Appendicitis,” Pete said.
“I got gored by a bull,” Alvin said. “We like having her here.
Anything go wrong, we got us a top-notch doctor.”
“She’s female,” I said.
“That she is,” Pete replied. “Sure as shootin’. I reckon she was
born that way.”
“Goodnight,” I said and stomped my way back into my house.
“They want to keep her,” I told Joe, who was already bedded down
on the floor.
“Of course they do. Who wouldn’t? That meal she fixed last night
would make most men want to keep her.”
“Well, she goes. First thing tomorrow morning.”
I fell asleep, secure in the knowledge I was right. A single
young woman had no place in a camp full of men. It was only inviting trouble.
I woke up to the wonderful smell of pancakes. I ran out
into the main room where the kitchen was, barely remembering to pull on my
pants.
Samantha was standing there, fully dressed, flipping pancakes.
“I told you to leave, first thing,” I told her.
She looked at me with a determined glint in her eye. “"I'll
leave when I'm ready. I need to check that leg once more. Make sure it is
draining properly. If it's all right, then I'll leave."
"I can take care of it."
"I'm sure you can. But I finish what I start. It won't take
long, if it's healing like it should be."
“How did you get flapjacks?”
“I made a sourdough sponge last night, while I was fixing the
biscuits, and I aimed to have some before I left this morning. Or did you
expect me to ride back to town on an empty stomach?”
“No,” I sputtered. Only it bothered me to see her using the
stove I’d bought for Becky.
She put some flapjacks on a plate and set them on the table. She
already had some brown sugar syrup bubbling on the stove, and all of a sudden
my stomach hit my backbone and reminded me that I hadn’t eaten yet.
“Fix some for me,” I said, and left to put on a shirt. Joe was
getting dressed when I walked into the small room I’d built as a bedroom.
“Sure smells good,” he said. “What is it?”
“Sourdough pancakes.”
“Really? I haven’t had any of those since my mother used to make
‘em.” He watched me pull my shirt on and tuck it in. “Save some for me.”
“I think she made enough for the whole crew.” I ran my hand over
my beard. I hadn’t shaved for several days and stopped myself as I reached for
the razor. I didn’t want her thinking that a passel of flapjacks was going to
make me change my mind.
They almost did, though. They tasted so good and so light. My
feeble attempts were like shoe leather.
“How do you get them so light?” I asked.
“It’s my mother’s starter. I carry some with me wherever I go. I
always try to leave some fresh starter behind when I leave. I put yours in the
cooler.”
Joe walked into the room and heard the last statement. “It looks
like I’m cook. Tell me what to do.”
“Make your sponge the night before and let it rise. Just flour
and water and the starter. In the morning, pull out a cupful of starter and put
it aside. Then mix your eggs or whatever into your sponge and cook it.”