“Would that be too much work?” Josephine worried about making more work for her future husband, but thought it would be good to keep the boundary marked somehow.
“Josie-darlin’, we’ll be fencing in nearly a hundred-sixty acres. A few more fence posts ain’t gonna hurt,” he replied with a chuckle.
Josephine smiled. “Good. I’d also like to make a small orchard near the house, maybe over there.” She gestured to a spot to their right as she envisioned different fruit trees offering their delicacies in a few years. She knew it would take time for the trees to grow and honestly had no clue what types would grow in this climate, but she knew that she wanted to be able to make jams, jellies, and preserves, not to mention cakes and pies.
Hank stood there with his arms wrapped around his future bride as he envisioned both their future and the amount of work he would be doing to put that future in place. “Well, now that we have the spot for the house picked out, we can plan it all out on paper. If the weather holds, we’ll start building the house soon. We’ll start with just the kitchen, of course. I’ll have to start sleeping in it right away to hold my claim.”
“I was thinking about that,” Josephine admitted. “What about maybe building a small, one room cabin first? We could use it later as a summer kitchen or for storage.”
Hank made a thoughtful noise. “That’s a great idea, Josie. I’ll have to get a bit more wood and such, but it’d be nice to not have to live in the construction mess. Might delay our wedding, though.”
She looked up at Hank, shock apparent on her face. “What? Why on earth would we have to wait longer if we build a smaller cabin first?”
Hank, who still had his arms wrapped around her, gave Josephine a gentle squeeze. “I wanted to have at least two rooms before we got married, so you wouldn’t have to sleep in the kitchen.”
“Hank Sanders…that is just plain crazy. I lived in a tiny one-room soddie with my mother and step-father for years! I think I can handle a one-room cabin with my husband just fine.”
He grinned with relief. “I’m so happy to hear you say that, Josie-darlin’. I wanted to have everything perfect for you first, but I don’t really want to wait that long to marry you.”
Josephine smiled and turned her attention back to their future home-site. She found that she did not want to wait any longer than necessary, either. Her future was there, right before her in her mind’s eye, and she wanted to reach out and grab it with both hands.
*****
They returned back to the ranch shortly after choosing their home site. Madeline and George were both more than ready for a nap. Hank and Caleb sat together as they worked on what more Hank would need to build their cabin. Josephine poured over a seed catalog as she attempted to plan out her garden.
She was not certain what her budget for the garden would be. Once she had it started, she knew how to harvest and keep seeds for the next year, but the initial cost in seed would be higher. She decided to keep two lists, one of what she considered absolutely necessary items and the other of things she would like to have in addition to those.
Hank looked up to see Josephine meticulously taking notes from the seed catalog and smiled. He loved that she seemed as excited as he was about having their own home. He excused himself from Caleb and sat next to his fiancé on the sofa.
Josephine looked up at Hank as he sat near her and smiled warmly. “Did you and Caleb figure out what you’ll need for the cabin?”
“Well, up to a point, we did. I think we need to figure out what we want in it and design it together. Can we pull you away from what you’re doing?”
“Of course!” She placed her sheet of paper inside the catalog to hold her place and set it on the side table next to the sofa. She hated to ask, but she really did need to know at some point. Now seemed as good a time as any. “I…I do need to know what kind of budget I have to work with, though.” She kept her voice low, as she did not want to embarrass Hank in front of his friend and partner.
Hank chuckled. “Josie-darlin’, I’ve been saving up my whole life for this. Well, at least since coming here to the ranch. I never knew what to spend my earnings on, so I kept it all tucked away. You just order what you think we need. We might be able to get most of what you want in Gering, and Madeline might have some extras on hand, too.”
She had never considered asking Madeline. It was a little late to be ordering seeds now, especially since spring seemed to be arriving early this year, but she thought she would have no other option but to try. “That’s a wonderful idea! I saw that the general store in Bayard had a few seeds on hand, but not many. I’ve never been to Gering. Is the store there much larger?”
“Yep. Sure is. Caleb and I will be heading there soon with the wagons to pick up some lumber and such at the mill. If you write me a list of which seeds you want, we can get them while we’re there.”
Josephine’s heart sank a little. She had hoped to go with Hank to Gering and browse through the store herself, yet it sounded like she would be staying home for this trip. She managed to keep her smile on her face by reminding herself that Hank was trying to be helpful. “All right. I’ll get one ready for you. When are you two going?”
“Well, now…depends on the weather, really. Wagons will be heavy when we come back and we want to make sure the roads are dry before we go. If the weather holds, we’ll probably head over in a few days. If we leave right at the crack of dawn, we should be able to get there in a day. Then we have to wait for the lumber mill to open, buy and load the supplies, make a couple more stops in town…I figure we’ll head out by noon. We’ll stop and camp for the night along the way, and be home the next day.”
Josephine chewed on her lip thoughtfully. She really wanted to see a bigger town, but she knew that Madeline needed her here. Besides, they were not married as of yet. It would not be proper for her to take a long trip with him. “Make sure you let me know the night before you leave. I can have some food ready for you before you head out.”
Hank smiled at her. He wanted to kiss her for being so thoughtful, but he knew that would embarrass her. “Thank you, Josie.”
Caleb could not help but overhear their conversation, which took place mere feet from where he was sitting. “That’s very generous of you. Thank you.”
Josephine blushed. She decided to turn attention away from herself and back to the cabin. “Let me see what you’ve drawn up for the cabin,” she mumbled as she reached for the paper they had been sketching on earlier.
The plan was to build a simple cabin, sixteen feet by twenty feet. Josephine came up with a few ideas for improvements. “If we move this window closer to the cook stove, I’ll have more light to see when I’m cooking and I’ll catch more of a breeze to cool me off in the summer.”
Hank nodded. “That’s no problem,” he said as he made the changes to their sketch. “Anything else?”
She nodded. “Since we don’t know how long we’ll be living in it, and since it’ll become a summer kitchen afterwards, we should add a trap door for a root cellar, right here.” She pointed to where she would like the cellar door to be, near the stove and the dry sink.
“Easy enough,” Hank agreed.
Caleb piped in. “In fact, I think we have the hinges and handle for a trap door out in the barn. My pa was going to put one in, but ma talked him into the stairs instead. You can use those, if you like.”
Josephine smiled her thanks. “Your mother was a smart woman. It’s so much easier to walk up the stairs than scramble up a ladder.”
Caleb nodded. “My ma was a resourceful woman.”
“A force to be reckoned with, for certain,” agreed Hank. The men looked at each other and chuckled as each fondly remembered Caleb’s mother.
Hank’s own mother had died when he was just a small boy. He barely remembered her. When his father passed away when he was just twelve, he was taken in by the Starks to work as a ranch hand. Caleb’s mother had treated him as though he were her own son. He knew that i
t was because of her loving and caring nature that he grew into the man he was today.
Not that it was all sunshine and daisies. She was a loving woman, yet she ruled the ranch with an iron hand. Transgressions of any sort were dealt an immediate and severe punishment. Good behavior, on the other hand, was also immediately rewarded and praise was lavished upon them when it was due, even for the smallest of things. There was something about Martha Stark that just made you want to be good and please her, so punishments were very rare.
“Remember that time we locked Ben into the outhouse?” Caleb reminisced fondly.
Hank chuckled. “I remember the picnic she held that weekend.” He turned to explain to Josephine. “She decided to make fried chicken, and we had to pluck and butcher all those chickens.”
“And then we weren’t allowed to come!” Caleb laughed. “We had to listen to Ben talk about all the fun he had at the picnic. It was torture!”
Their laughter was infectious, and Josephine could not help but join in. “She sounds like a very wise woman indeed.”
Chapter 9
The warm, dry weather held, and Hank and Caleb left for Gering two days later. Josephine and Madeline put together a crate of food for their journey and watched their men drive off to the west. As soon as the men were out of sight, George tugged gently on Madeline’s skirt to get her attention.
“Yes, George?” Madeline replied to her nephew.
“Kin I…err…May I play outside?” George asked hopefully.
Madeline glanced over to Josephine to get her opinion. She felt ready for a nap, even though the sun was barely over the horizon, and it showed on her face.
Josephine took charge of the moment. “George, if you can help me with something first, I promise that you can play outside today while I do the laundry. How does that sound?”
George scrunched his face up as he considered her words carefully. “You need my help, Miss Jo?” he asked incredulously.
She smiled down at him. “Oh, yes. I have the perfect job for you, and I think you’re going to like it.”
He jumped up and down excitedly and clapped his hands. “Ooh! What? What is it?”
“Well, I’m going to hang some rugs on the line. I need you to beat them with the rug beater for me. Do you think you can do that?”
“I get to hit something? And not get in trouble?” A grin split his face from ear to ear. “Yay!”
Josephine and Madeline chuckled at his antics.
“Exactly! You’re getting so big now, we need to start giving you more chores to do. I think beating rugs is a perfect job for a strong young man like yourself.” Josephine winked at Madeline as she lavished words of encouragement on George. She knew that the secret to getting him to help more was to make him feel like a big boy.
“Kin we start now?” George asked excitedly.
“Well, I do need to help your Aunt Maddy get some bread in the oven first,” she cautioned him. “As soon as we’re done with that, I’ll get the rugs and hang them on the line for you.”
“Yay!” George said as he led the way back into the house, skipping merrily as he went.
Madeline smiled at Josephine tiredly. “You are truly a godsend,” she confessed as they followed George back inside. “I barely slept a wink last night, and George just wears me out.”
“Is everything all right?”
“I just have times where I lay awake and can’t sleep. The baby is moving around more now, and he seems to do it more when I try to sleep,” Madeline confessed. “It’s hard to sleep with someone kicking you from the inside.”
“I can imagine. Will you be okay with getting the bread out of the oven?”
“Of course. I won’t lay down again until George’s nap time, though I may just work on some mending and put my feet up for a while.”
Josephine nodded. “Good. You need to take care of yourself.”
Together they made quick work of mixing up some bread dough and getting it in the oven. With their men gone, they only needed to make half of what they normally made each day, which sped up the process immensely.
Once the bread was in the oven, Josephine began to pick up the rugs that needed a good beating and hang them on the line outside. Madeline brought her sewing basket into the kitchen and began to work on her pile of mending while she waited for the bread.
After she had the last rug in place, Josephine came back to the house and called for George. By the time she had taken the rug beater from its hook on the wall, George came racing into the kitchen.
Josephine took in the excited expression on George’s face and smiled. “Are you ready to get to work?”
“Yes, ma’am!” George’s eyes danced excitedly between the door to the yard and the rug beater in Josephine’s hand.
Josephine glanced over at Madeline, who was watching her nephew nearly burst at the seams with excitement. Madeline had a smile playing at her lips, and winked when she caught Josephine’s eye.
George raced outside as soon as Josephine opened the door. He ran to the clothesline that held the rugs, which was set up far away from the clothesline that she would be using for their laundry. Pardner joined him the moment he set foot outside, wagging his tail and barking at George’s heels.
Walter had already set up the outdoor cauldron the family used to heat water when they washed their clothes outside. He had even carried out the wash tub, washboard, and the large basket of laundry that Josephine had set aside earlier. All were set up close to the clotheslines she would be using. Josephine made a mental note to thank him later.
“All right, George. Let’s see what you can do.” She handed George the rug beater and watched as he gave the rugs an excited whack or two. A little dust and dirt flew from the rug he had targeted, but not much. He was clearly not hitting the rug with the flat side of the beater.
Josephine moved in to help George correct his grip on the beater. “Hold on. If you hold it like so, you’ll get a lot more dirt out.”
George held it as instructed and tried another good whack to the rug. He let out a whoop of delight when a large cloud of dirt flew as the beater struck its mark. “I did it, Miss Jo! I did it!”
“That you did, George! That was wonderful! Now, keep hitting it all over until you don’t see any more dirt come out of it. Then you move on to the next one.”
The little boy beamed under the praise. “I will, Miss Jo!”
She watched him whack away at the rug for another minute, then moved over to begin her laundry. She had barely begun when Pardner started barking up a storm. This was not his normal playful bark, but a deeper warning bark.
She looked toward where he was barking and saw someone approaching the ranch on horseback from the south. Her heart jumped into her throat as fear engulfed her. No one ever approached the ranch from the south. The main road ran roughly east to west. This rider was cutting across the prairie, and from the direction of Redington.
After what felt like an eternity, she managed to move her legs. She had seen Silas go into the barn earlier, and ran for the safety of the open barn door as fast as she could. She nearly plowed Silas over in her haste to get inside and hide.
Silas caught her before she ran smack into him. He had heard the ruckus and came out to see what was going on. “Whoa there, Miss Jo. Where’s the fire?”
Josephine gasped for air before she responded, the wet shirt she had been holding still clutched tightly in her grip. “There’s a rider…from the south…I’m not here, Silas! Tell him you’ve never seen me! Tell him…”
Silas cut her off with a gentle shush. “I know what to do. Don’t you worry none. Hank gave us marching orders.”
Josephine peeked around the corner of the barn door. While she was terrified to be seen, she had to know what was happening. She saw Madeline appear at the door to the house, clearly curious as to why the dog was barking. She saw Silas send George into the house by his aunt. George sulked, but did as he was told, rug beater clutched firmly in his hand.
The dog continued to bark, but at some point he seemed to recognize the rider as his tone changed to one of excitement.
Silas met the rider near the road to the east of the house. Josephine watched them talk for some time before the rider left, heading into town on the road. Once he was out of sight, Josephine slowly emerged from her hiding spot.
Silas met her just outside the barn doors. “That was the sheriff. He’s looking for a Miss Josephine Randall. He gave a description of you.”
Josephine’s blood ran cold. “What…what did you tell him?”
“Well, I told him I didn’t know anyone by that name. He said it was important that he find you, though. Didn’t say why.”
“But…what about the people in town? Will they tell him that I’m here?” Her mind began to spin with where she could run to next, how much time she would have to gather her belongings, and how much of a head start she would have.
Silas took in her panicked expression and how she clutched the wet shirt in her hands until her knuckles turned white. “It’s all right, Miss Jo. Everyone in town knows not to say nothin’. Caleb is protecting you. The Stark name means everything hereabouts. You’re safe.”
“Maybe I should leave…”
Madeline walked up just in time to hear her say that. “No, if the sheriff is looking for you, here is the safest place to be. He’s already stopped by looking for you, right?”
Josephine nodded as she tried to regain her composure.
“He won’t be back here for you. Everything will be all right. You’ll see.” Madeline gave her friend a gentle hug. She could feel Josephine shaking like a leaf on a tree.
Hank's Runaway Bride (Brides of Chimney Rock Book 1) Page 11