by Montana West
Leyla calmed down after his explanation, and moreover she was oddly impressed that he admitted to what he had done just to survive.
No man admits to that kind of thing if he isn’t dead set on telling someone everything about himself, she realized. He really intends to tell me everything.
Chase rubbed the back of his neck in a sheepish manner following his sudden defense of himself. “Like I said, I wandered around from town to town just trying to find a place to call home and taking any odd job I could get my hands on. I worked as a coal miner out in Pennsylvania, a ditch digger outside of Chicago, and I even took a turn at working in the various mills throughout New England. But no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t find a place that felt right to me. Even when my daddy was still alive I felt like there was something more for me calling over the horizon.”
Leyla nodded, likening his feeling to her desire to roam far and wide in order to further her reputation as a show rider.
“How did you come to be out here in Cheyenne, Chase?”
“I overheard a couple of fellas in the mine one day talking about all of the opportunities waiting for folks in places out west,” he said, his eyes taking him back to that time and place. “They said there was so much land out there that they were practically giving it away. I figured if that were true, then maybe I could try my luck out west and see if I could finally find a place I could call home.”
The more Leyla heard Chase’s tale, the more her anger at him was chipped away like a sculptor working on a block of stone with a hammer and chisel. Instead, sadness and heartache filled the crumbling void as she started to realize that she may have caused him even more pain as a result.
‘He has a wife, a wife yet living, and still made as though he was courting me,’ Leyla reminded herself.
“I didn’t have enough money to buy a proper train ticket out here, so I snuck aboard a few freight trains just to get out here, always staying one step ahead of the yard bulls and local sheriffs who liked to rouse free riders with a stiff beating,” he groaned as though he had received one or two despite his claim. “When I finally arrived in Cheyenne, I was amazed that any place so big could just spring up in the middle of nowhere. It was like magic to me.”
“It was kinda the same way for Maggie and me when our parents first brought us out here,” Leyla said, calling to mind her own memories of the first time she had seen Cheyenne. “After so many weeks of traveling through nothing but the plains and tall grasses, seeing this sprawling city was like something out of a picture book.”
Chase nodded his head in agreement before he continued. “After the initial shock wore off, I started asking about where a fella might find some steady work. Most folks told me that the main industry in Cheyenne was cattle, but seeing as I didn’t own a horse and didn’t have all that much experience riding, I was starting to feel like I’d been fed a line about all the prosperity abounding out here. That was when I heard that the Wilson family was looking for farmhands for the season...”
Chapter IX: Chase’s Story
WILSON FARM LAND, NEAR Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, April 1880
I’m beginning to think that I came out here all for nothing, Chase thought morosely as he looked around at the crowd of men surrounding him. I’ve been in this town for two days and this is the only job around that don’t involve tending cattle. If I can’t get hired here, then the only thing left for me to try is the railroad.
The Wilson Farm was a sight bigger than any that’d he’d seen back east and with more amenities than the average farm had. With all of the land that needed tending to, the Wilson Family was going to need a veritable army in order to get all of the work that needed doing accomplished.
Fortunately for them, a veritable army is exactly what had shown up. Once more, Chase looked around at all the men standing in the crowd. It looked like there was at least one fellow from every part of the country standing on the farm and waiting to hear more about the offer of work. Chase didn’t much care where they were from so long as he was able to get some kind of work.
A well-fed man in a fine tweed suit came out of the large house that sat in the center of the property. Despite the suit’s tailoring, it looked as though it were struggling to contain his hefty bulk. The appearance was not helped by the fact that the collar of his shirt was two sizes too small and the pudge of his thick neck was pressed upwards under his wobbling double chin, set beneath a mouth that looked like it was well adjusted to scowling and beady little black eyes set deep in the round sculpture of fat.
Don’t look like no farmer I ever seen, Chase thought to himself. Casting an eye around, he noticed that some of the other hopeful workers were sharing a similar sentiment amongst themselves.
The man spoke up in a voice that was more whine than anything else. “I’m Robert Wilson and this here is my farm,” he declared imperiously. “I need about fifty men for the next five months to tend the fields and manage the harvest. I’ll pay you the going rate minus room and board.”
A general grumble of discontent ran through the crowd at the phrase “minus room and board” and a few of the men immediately turned around and started walking out the way they’d come, intent on hopefully finding some work where their employer wouldn’t try to gouge them on wages.
The rest, including Chase, remained where they stood. They weren’t any happier about being charged room and board out of their pay than the men who had left were, but they all figured that getting some money in their pockets was better than getting none at all.
Robert Wilson continued yammering on about how his farm was the most efficient and productive in the whole Wyoming territory, and how he wouldn’t tolerate wastefulness, and a lot of other hot air that the man just kept spouting like an overweight geyser. After an hour had passed and the so-called farmer began winding his speech down, the crowd of men had been whittled down to around fifty or so, giving him just the right number to do his work for him.
A table was set up where a weasel-looking man dressed in clothes that were a cut below the quality of Robert Wilson’s ordered a line to form so that he could take down each man’s name and give him an assignment.
Chase didn’t care much for waiting in lines, especially ones that looked like they weren’t going anywhere, but he reminded himself that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
When he finally arrived in front of the little man’s table and gave his name, he was assigned as a field hand and directed toward one of the bunkhouses. Chase couldn’t help but notice the man lick his quill pen before scribbling a few numbers in red ink next to his name in the book, doubtless the money that would be taxed from Chase’s pay.
The bunkhouse wasn’t even fit to be called as such. The building and its siblings was of such shoddy construction that it seemed to lean in even the slightest breeze. There wasn’t even a decent cot inside any of them. All Chase and the others could do was find a spot on the floor to claim as their own and spread out.
“I’ll tell ya, boys, even the mines I worked for gave the fellows working down in the hole something soft to lay their heads on at night,” Chase said in a statement to the room.
A murmur of agreement replied to his assessment, but once more all of the men just took the hand they’d been dealt and resolved to make the most of it.
Chase slept fitfully that night, unable to find a single position on the floor that he could call comfortable in even the minimal sense of the word.
I slept better in between the crates on those rattling freight trains! he thought, mentally cursing the tight-fisted Robert Wilson and his rat-like crony with the books.
Sunrise came far too early for Chase’s liking, made all the more miserable when combined with the tasteless mush that he and the other hands were served for breakfast. Before he’d even had a chance to choke down the meal, he and the others were herded out to one of the fallow fields to start turning over the soil.
Armed only with a set of meager tools, Chase and
a dozen others dug into the backbreaking labor as the sun rose higher and higher into the sky.
It was around noon when Chase just happened to look up. What he saw nearly took his breath completely out of his lungs.
Standing near the edge of the field was a beautiful woman, probably around the same age as he was. She wore a beautiful navy-hued dress that contrasted perfectly with her porcelain features, as perfect as a China doll he’d once seen in a shop window. Her long blond hair flowed in the late spring breeze as she watched the farmhands toil away at their labors.
She must be an angel, he thought dimly, his mind unable to comprehend such beauty.
The woman turned her head ever so slightly and her eyes met Chase’s.
Chase wasn’t sure what to do. There he was, standing in the middle of a field and stuck openly staring at what was obviously a woman of class. For all he knew, she was going to walk straight over to him and smack him for even daring to look at her for more than a moment before stomping away to Robert Wilson and demand that he be thrown from the farm immediately.
Another few moments passed in which the two continued to stare at one another. Instead of appearing angry, the woman smiled at Chase in a way that he couldn’t remember anyone ever having done so before. But smile she did, and then she turned ever so precisely and strode gracefully away.
Chase remained bolted to the spot, completely at a loss for whatever had just transpired. He’d have probably remained that way until one of the other hands poked him in the side, asking him what he was doing. He quickly remembered himself and got back to work, but the chance encounter with the beautiful woman remained lodged in his mind, playing over and over again.
WILSON FARM LAND, NEAR Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, May 1880
A month passed and Chase had become more accustomed to working on the Wilson Farm. In the time since his arrival, he had learned that the woman he’d stared at and received a smile for his troubles was Robert Wilson’s daughter, Janet. Every now and again, Chase would spy her wandering about the farm in her ever graceful fashion, her dress immaculate and her movements so flawless and sure that he was almost convinced that she floated rather than actually walked.
It occasionally made Chase wonder how such a beautiful and kind-looking girl could be the daughter of a creature like Robert Wilson and, more incredulously, his wife, Martha Wilson. Martha Wilson looked like an older version of Janet, but her features were sharpened to the point that if one somehow stuck her on a tree branch she could be mistaken for some massive bird of prey. Though Martha Wilson was far quieter than her husband, Chase never saw her express anything other than deep disdain for the world around her. He may not have been entirely book smart, but he could read people fairly well, and he could tell that Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were not the most pleasant folks.
One evening in late May of that year, Chase had been relaxing along one of the fences that marked the boundaries of the land that belonged to Robert Wilson. He felt exhausted from the day’s work, but the ache in his body was soothed by the knowledge that he was at least making some money. If there was one lesson he’d learned from his father, it was how to stretch one’s funds effectively. Minus what he lost for room and board on the Wilson Farm, he had figured out how much he needed to survive on while putting the rest away just in case. He kept his savings, meager though they were, safely stowed away under a loose floorboard in the bunkhouse.
He was just beginning to roll a cigarette, one of the few luxuries he allowed himself, when a voice spoke into his ear.
“Good evening, sir,” came a voice so sweet and fluid that it may as well have been fresh honey.
Chase jumped in the air, startled out of his wits. He turned to see who had snuck up on him and found himself face to face with Miss Janet Wilson, all dressed up in her lovely blue dress and smiling at him.
The young farmhand was dumbstruck. He’d never have believed it if anyone had told him that he would one day be lucky enough to have the pleasure of Janet Wilson acknowledging his existence, much less greeting him politely.
“Uhm, uh, howdy do, Miss Wilson,” he stuttered out, unable to maintain any level of composure.
Miss Wilson giggled at his unease, the sound of her joyful voice ringing like bells within Chase’s mind.
“Please, call me Janet,” she said politely. “I was hoping I might finally learn your name as well, Mister...?”
“McCharles Chasester,” Chase stuttered out before realizing his mistake. “I mean, Callister Charlie McChase! I mean, Charles “Chase” McAllister, Miss Wilson!”
Once more, her angelic laughter met his ears as he finally got the right combination to his name. Still smiling, she offered her petite hand, encased in a silken glove, toward him.
“Pleased to meet you, Mister Charles “Chase” McAllister,” she greeted, her tone one of complete sincerity.
Chase reached out and grasped the offered hand limply, as though he were some kind of fish, and shook it as gently as he could.
“I do hate to trouble you, Charles,” she said, appearing mildly distressed, “but would you greatly mind sparing one of those?” She pointed at the cigarette he had finished rolling.
Chase was about to admit his astonishment that a woman of class would want a cigarette that he had just rolled, one that he probably hadn’t even rolled at all well compared to the higher class brand ones that a lady like Janet could afford, when she answered his curiosity before he even made it known.
“You see, Mama and Papa don’t think that a lady of good breeding such as myself should smoke,” she said elegantly, “but I do enjoy it so. Would you be so kind as to help a poor girl out?”
Chase didn’t even give it a second thought. Slowly, almost reverently, he extended the hand that held the cigarette out and watched as her dainty hand grasped it delicately. He had a match pulled from his pocket and lit before she even had the cigarette pressed to her lips.
She allowed him to light the mixture of paper and tobacco before taking in a long draw.
Even the way she inhales is elegant, Chase marveled, unable to draw his eyes away from her lest he miss something miraculous.
When she exhaled the cloud of smoke over the rail of the fence and away from them, she smiled gratefully at him.
“You’re most kind, Charles,” she complimented, continuing to smile while she held the cigarette between two of her gloved fingers.
“Pleasure’s all mine, Miss Wilson, I mean, Janet,” he replied, still struggling to find the right words in his mind to send to his mouth.
Her smile turned enigmatic, still pleasant but now more reminiscent of the expression a cat wore when it had found something to play with. “You wouldn’t mind if I stayed for a little while and talked with you, would you, Charles?” she asked, her tone still saccharinely addictive.
“Not at all, Janet,” he breathed, still floored to even be in her presence, much less talking to her.
“You know, Charles,” she began after drawing in and exhaling another plume of smoke, “I couldn’t help but notice you the first day you and all of the other farmhands arrived. You’re quite the industrious worker. Tell me, did you grow up on a farm?”
Chase answered that question simply enough, and then another and another. By the time Janet Wilson had politely excused herself, bidding Chase a fond farewell before gliding off, Chase felt as though he had told her his entire life story up to that point. The encounter had left him shaken to his core and he craved that it would not be the last time that that happened.
WILSON FARM LAND, NEAR Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory, September 1880
“Charles, I want you to marry me.”
Chase nearly choked after he heard Janet say those words aloud. For a moment, he thought she might have said the words in jest, but when he finally composed himself, he could see that she was serious.
“M-m-marry?” Chase stuttered out, feeling terrified and excited all at once. “Me? You? Marry? When? Will? How?”
Janet giggled
and leaned forward to press a kiss to his cheek in order to calm him down. “Yes silly, I want to marry you,” she said, as though the whole thing was so normal.
Over the time that Chase had been working at the Wilson Farm, he and Janet had started talking with one another more and more. Janet would take him on long walks around the farm, telling him about how her great-grandfather had been an extremely successful farmer and had carved a living for his family from the bountiful land. Other times Janet would choose Chase to escort her into Cheyenne to the shops so that he could protect her from any miscreants as well as carry anything she bought.
The time that Chase had spent with Janet so far made him feel happy and as if he had found a place where he belonged, but still, they weren’t even courting. Marriage?
“What about,” Chase began uncertainly, “what about your parents? Won’t they be angry about their daughter marrying a farmhand like me?”
Janet met his concerns with her disarming laughter again. “Oh, my silly Charles, do you think I’m the only one who has noticed how hard you’ve been working the last few months?” she asked sweetly. “He may not say it in front of all the other farmhands, but Papa thinks you’re the most useful and intelligent out of all of them. He said you remind him of himself when he first started working the land. And Mama believes that a handsome and strong man like you would be the perfect husband for me!”
Everything was happening much too fast for Chase to comprehend all of it, but it sounded good so far: the chance to be part of a family, have a wife and an actual home, and maybe kids someday...