That’s as far as I got that first day and since then, I’ve added some now and then, but goodness, this July has been so busy. The poor letter has bacon grease and coffee splats and ink stains all over it, but if I started over every time something soiled the paper, like Jimmy does when he’s writing one of his letters to the editor, I’d never get this sent. Last summer when I visited home, I promised I’d write more, and I’m doing a poor excuse of imitating that promise.
They got a nice letter before Christmas, and I told them about the barbed wire Fales and I put up at the end of summer. I’m one of the first homesteaders to use barbed wire out here, and oh, that created a stir! The cattlemen think it’s a scourge from hell, and they tear it down whenever they can. Interferes with their “open range,” as if there really was open range yet. They’re just the last ones to get the news. Pa always wants to know about the cattlemen out here because he agrees that they’re living in the old days.
In my Christmas letter, I told how they wouldn’t give me a brand and about my first cows. I told about plans with the neighbors for a Christmas supper, which Old Man Winter ruined again, and how I was making extra by mending the clothes of cowboys who came by the roadhouse. Every little bit helps, as my Ma would say.
Then I got off another letter in March, right after I got my brand—couldn’t wait to share that story—and told them about another horrible winter and how we never would have made it if I didn’t have cows to slaughter, not just for us, but for some of the neighbors, too, who had nothing. But I haven’t written a word since and I’ve gotten four letters from Ma and my sisters and I’m feeling real guilty.
It’s not that I’m not thinking of what to write them, even when I’m busy at my place or the roadhouse. In my head, I compose all kinds of wonderful things to tell them. Just reciting our daily life is enough to make a letter worth reading. But actually getting it down on paper, well, that’s a harder task.
I should make a list so I don’t forget the important things. My Jimmy’s new honor is at the top. My people already know he was appointed postmaster by President Cleveland that summer after I got here and then a notary public by Governor Moonlight the next year and now Carbon County has made him a justice of the peace! Every new honor speaks to the kind of fine man he is and every one brings new business to the roadhouse. There’s even folks talking about running him for office. He shrugs them off, but I know he’s pleased to be on people’s minds. More than once I’ve heard him joke about how he got two votes for Sand Creek Constable back in ’86. Here he was, a Democrat in a Republican precinct, and a newcomer at that, and he still got two votes!
From my visit home, I know that some of my life here amuses them, and so I throw those things in. Guess some of Fales is rubbing off on me because he’s helped me see the humor in some of the nonsense around here.
Next time I sit down with pen and ink I’m going to tell them more about the snakes in W.T. Not that Kansas doesn’t know snakes, but I don’t remember them being so plentiful and so mean as they are here. And of course, Pa joins Jimmy in being amused that I am so afraid of them. But Ma understands and shares my feelings.
First off, they’re everywhere. They’re all through my garden and everywhere on the prairie and I never go without my snake hoe. I never reach down to pick a bean or dig a potato without checking there isn’t one ready for me. I swear, they hide better than cucumbers.
Jimmy says I’m foolish—they’re just snakes, there’s just a lot of them. He tells me, if you stay out of their way they’ll stay out of yours. According to James Averell, who claims to be an expert on these things, W.T.’s rattlesnakes are really scaredy cats who want nothing to do with people, and that’s why God gave them rattles, so they can keep us away. But I think they’ve got rattles so they can brag that they’re about to bite us.
I used to stand on my stoop and scream, “Snakes, I’m coming. Go away.” Jimmy laughed so hard he choked when he heard me one day.
“Oh Ella, don’t you know snakes are deaf? You can scream all you want and it won’t do any good.”
Of course I didn’t know snakes are deaf. Bet most people don’t. I did feel foolish, but even after I knew, sometimes I’d yell anyway, just hoping it did some good.
My Jimmy will not let my fear of snakes go and he taunts me all the time. He’s even tried to get me on the snake’s side. “Do you realize,” he said one day in that voice he uses when he thinks he’s a teacher, “that the rattlesnake was once considered for the national symbol of the United States of America?”
I called him on that right then. “You mean instead of the eagle?” I used the voice that tells him he’s not as smart as he thinks he is.
“Don’t go making up stories like that—not when we’ve got an eagles’ nest not a mile from our land, and you know how excited the boys get whenever we see them.”
“No, honestly,” Jimmy came back. “There was a coiled rattler on the first flag in the Colonies. Remember, ‘Don’t Tread on Me’? The snake had thirteen rattles and the slogan had thirteen words and there were thirteen colonies. I always thought that was pretty clever. They thought of the snake as the national symbol to tell the English King to leave us alone or we’d bite like a timber rattlesnake.”
“You’re making that up,” I told him, but he insisted it was true. Don’t know if it is, but it never convinced me to look kindly at snakes. And when Gene got bit—well, all foolin’ around ended right then. I had to save that boy and gal-danged, when the day came that I had to suck out the poison, I sucked out the poison! Gene always says I saved his life, and I thanked the Lord for giving me the stomach to do it.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t tell any more snake stories because it upsets Ma. She’s got her own snake fears to worry about.
I know, I’ll tell them about my campaign to get a western saddle. And my pony Goldie, of course, because they always love to hear about her. And I should tell about the ponies I bought for the boys. I know Goldie is considered an old horse now, but I still call her my pony in memory of Darby. I love riding her, even though I’m still riding sidesaddle, and I was sure by now I wouldn’t be.
Even out here, ladies are expected to ride sidesaddle. Not that all women in W.T. ride, of course, but those who do loop their right leg over the leaping horn and snug their left leg under the grip and tuck their left shoe in the stirrup so they can arrange their skirts all dainty like. You know, it’s actually a lot more sturdy than it looks. Since you can’t see any of it under those skirts, you can’t see how the rider is balanced. Instead it just looks like a silly woman perched on one half of a horse. I think it’s ridiculous. I bet someday that’s gonna change, because I think you’re a lot safer straddling a horse, and I’ve decided I don’t care. You can’t herd cows sidesaddle. You can’t gallop along at a speed that will get you someplace by the end of the day. And I don’t see how ladylike has much to do with being a homesteader in W.T. You’d think the world would end if your skirts didn’t hide all of your leg. My goodness, you’re always wearing hosiery or stockings, so you can’t see any skin anyway, but that’s the way it is.
So I’m savin’ up for a new western saddle. It’s been moving up my wish list all year—oh, my people would laugh if they saw how that list started out. It began the first night I got my hands on Jimmy’s Monkey Ward catalog—Ma hates that I call it by its nickname and says such a fine company deserves to be properly called “Montgomery Ward.” Half the country sets its dreams by that catalog, and I certainly am no different. I first leveled my sights on some fancy dress goods that I just knew I’d buy with my earnings from the roadhouse suppers. It was a colored Alpaca in green, and I remember it cost 32 and 1/2 cents a yard and I figured six yards would be just right for a dress and a cape. Of course, fabric that fine would demand a pretty piece of lace and some nice buttons, but the bill was climbing pretty fast. And the funny part, of course, is that it didn’t take me long to realiz
e there was no need for a pretty Alpaca dress out here, and I had far better things to do with $1.95.
I’ve discovered that being a homesteader pushes out the wishing and punches up the practical in you. So now I look for necessary things when I get to studying the catalog.
Jimmy supports my plan for a saddle. He says if I scandalize everyone, so what, it’s not their neck he’s trying to save by having me safe and not getting thrown. Monkey Ward doesn’t sell saddles. If I could, I’d get a fine leather one from Mr. Meanea in Cheyenne, but I don’t ever hope to afford one of them. There’s a livery in town, and I saw one there for $8.85. I’m saving up. I think I’ll tell Ma and Pa how the saddle fund is building—Ma agrees, but Pa thinks I should stay in a buggy.
Pa has come around a little to my homesteading, especially since I’ve got Jimmy. They know the truth and although they don’t cotton to lying, they understand what we’re doing. Pa even sent back money for Jimmy to get me a twelve-gauge scattergun, and I thought that was a fine thing for a father to do for his homesteading daughter. When I tried to hug him in thanks, he waved me off like he does when he’s embarrassed by affection. But I knew he was proud knowing he was helping keep me safe.
I’m a real good shot—Fales has helped me polish that point—and I’m never careless because I think it would be the most stupid thing in the world to die from shooting yourself. Now, somebody else shooting you is another matter. I have to admit, sometimes when those cowboys from the Stock Growers Association ride by, glaring at my corral and barbed wire, I just know they’d give anything to pull out their revolvers and shoot me deader than Santa Ana.
I sometimes take hold of my gun then, just to let them know I have the means to defend myself—Fales says most cowboys think a gun in a woman’s hands is a right dangerous thing, and not in a good way. I’m hoping that’s what they think, and so far, nobody has shot me. I wouldn’t dare even joke about that in a letter to my folks or Ma would go crazy. But even with a gun, I hate it when those guys come around.
So does Jimmy. He calls them “cowboys” like he’s saying “killers and scum.” But then, they call us “homesteaders,” like they’re saying “rustlers and lowlifes.”
I’ll be sure to write all about the boy. I’ve had Gene for four months and already he feels like he’s mine. He wore that harness around his heart and didn’t say much for a couple months—that’s how much he loved his Ma. But he’s better now. I’m teaching him to read. His own Ma and Pa knew only a little, and there was no school for him. So he’s starting out a little late at eleven, but he’ll catch up quick.
I’ve gotta tell Ma about Gene and the pot holders. I guess his Ma never made them, because he was real curious the first time he saw me sewing mine.
“You makin’ a leather sandwich?” he asked in all seriousness, and it took a moment to understand what he meant.
I started to say no, and then realized he was pretty close to right. A pot holder is just a piece of leather sandwiched between two squares of cotton.
“You know, that’s just what I’m doin’,” I told him. “And all this came from Fales’ Ma. She sent over her late husband’s leather shoes, and a pretty piece of calico fabric. They sew up real nice. I bet I get a dozen pot holders out of all that.” My kitchen is full of them, I never have to reach far to get help with a hot pot. But I don’t sew them anymore without chuckling at how I’m making leather sandwiches.
That Gene is a real smart boy, and I school him when I’m studying for my citizenship. He likes learning right along with me. For the life of me, I can’t remember all twenty-two presidents, but one day the boy started reciting them backwards, like he’d been schooled all his life: “Cleveland, Arthur, Garfield, Hayes, Grant, Johnson, Lincoln…” I was really impressed.
“Don’t get discouraged,” he told me. “I bet by the time you take your citizenship test, you’ll know a whole lot more about this country than those greedy ranchers around here who got to be citizens just because they were born here.”
It was nice to know the boy was on my side, and I’ve got to be sure to tell Ma what he said.
She’ll get a kick out of how Gene can’t stand castor oil. Whenever he has a bellyache, I go for the green medicine bottle, and he begs, “Not the fish, not the fish.” I have to laugh in spite of his discomfort. Was it almost-ten Andrew who had the same reaction to that fish-shaped bottle? I think it was. Gene hasn’t let me hug him yet, but one day he slipped and called me Ma, and I have to be sure to tell that.
I’m proud to call Gene my boy and my last letter only had the first weeks he was with me, so I’ve got catching up to do. Ma asks about him in every letter. She’s praying for grandchildren and knows I won’t have my own for awhile yet, so this is a nice second.
And they don’t even know about John and Ralph yet!
John is fourteen and strapping and is as natural on a ranch as a gopher. He showed up at the roadhouse a couple months ago, looking like he hadn’t had a decent meal since Thanksgiving. He offered his labor for whatever was needed. I remember what a gentleman he was, standing there in shoes too tight and jeans too short and hands too dirty, but that didn’t hinder his presentation.
“My name is John DeCorey, ma’am and I’m sixteen.” He’d later admit he added a couple years to improve his circumstance.
“I’m the handiest boy you’ll ever find. I can do anything and I’m strong as an ox, and in good trim and I hope you have need of me.”
I liked him immediately because he gave his entire speech while his stomach was growling like a grizzly. First I fed him, and I thought he was going to eat the table cover, he was so hungry. In the short time it took me to fill up a plate for him, he’d already eaten all the Crosse & Blackwell Chow Chow I had on the table. Just ate that relish like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. I agree it’s real good—one cowboy joked that if I ever stopped putting bottles of chow chow on my tables, he’d have to find another place to have his supper. But Lordy, to just eat it like that?
After he finished his meal, I hired him to work at my place, and I’m sure glad I did because he’s keepin’ it up real nice. John doesn’t have much book-learning, but he’s smart and has a good memory. He’s honest as the day is long. He’s especially good for Gene.
And then Ralph arrived in April, and he’s a wonderful story all on his own. Ralph Cole is Jimmy’s sister’s boy from Wisconsin. He’s around twenty and he is one talker. Fales has named him “Windy Ralph,” and that’s really tumbling to his talents.
I’ll have to start with when I first met him.
“Watson?” he asked, like it was a name he was hauling up from the well. “Are you related to the Watsons in Oklahoma?”
I hooted and said I didn’t think so, that my people were the Kansas Watsons. Pa will get a kick out of that bit of fluff. Windy Ralph just kept right on because when he has something to tell, he says it all before he stops.
“They’re saying it was a Watson who shot Belle Starr in the back. Shot her right on the road going to her ranch, and don’t you think it’s a scoundrel who’d shoot a woman in the back, even one like Belle Starr?”
I nodded, pretending I knew who Belle Starr was. Fales later told me what a tough character she was. They called her the Bandit Queen. We all agreed it wasn’t much of a man who’d shoot a woman in the back. I hope he’s no kin to me.
Ralph came out to work with his uncle. He’s real dear to Jimmy, being his sister Sarah’s first boy. Sarah and Able pretty much raised Jimmy, and gave him his first leg up and now he’s returning the favor in giving the boy training. That boy is one hard worker, although all his talents live inside the roadhouse. He can sort mail and do books and keep inventory, and he made some changes that really spruced the place up.
But by the wildest stretch of the imagination, Nature never intended him for a ranch hand. His hands are too soft and he has no natural feeling for it, but that’
s alright. The other two boys are just the opposite and they can handle a ranch with their eyes closed.
Ralph already treats the boys like his little brothers, and they’re always horsing around, trying to outdo one another. And that’s what happened the day Gene thought he saw Buffalo Bill.
I’m gonna have to tell Ma and Pa this story because it’s so funny. Gene came running into the roadhouse kitchen, one of his overall straps hanging down his back, and he was so out of wind that he couldn’t talk. Then he got the hiccups and I had to hold his nose and force him to drink water, and when he finally came back to normal he almost screamed, “I just saw Buffalo Bill!”
“Did not,” John yelled from the storeroom, where he was stacking cans for me.
“Did too,” Gene yipped.
“Come on now,” Ralph scolded, like the boy was fibbing through his socks.
“Did too,” Gene shouted all the louder.
I shushed everyone and told Gene to tell what he had to tell—thinking like the boys that his eyes were deceiving him.
“I was on the road to Casper and these men came along on horseback. And there he was. He was in buckskins and had that white mustache and beard like on his poster, and when I yelled up, ‘Hello, Buffalo Bill’, he called back, ‘Hello, young man’, and they kept on goin’ and I ran here as fast as I could.”
“Did not,” John said with disgust.
“Did too,” Gene sneered in defiance.
“Did not, did not, did not.”
“Did too, did too, did too.”
Jimmy came in from outside and wanted to know what all the ruckus was. When Gene quickly repeated the entire story, Jimmy shocked us all by saying, “Could have been.”
Gene puffed up as Jimmy explained, “He’s friends with Tom Sun. They were Indian scouts together. I met him once at Fort Steele. He’s in these parts now and then, when he isn’t traveling around the world.”
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