Owen Family Saga Box Set: Books 1-3

by Ward, Marsha

  Edward Morgan was on guard, and turned as Carl came up to him. “I thought young Tom was going to take the next watch.” Ed yawned and rubbed his neck, then squinted at the stars. “You’re an hour early, Carl.”

  “It isn’t my watch, Mr. Morgan. I can’t sleep. I reckon I’ll go down to the riverbank for a spell. Maybe take a swim.”

  “It’s a nice night for swimming, being so warm.” Ed sounded sleepy. “Keep a watch for them snakes.”

  “I brought my shooter,” Carl replied, walking down the sandy slope in the darkness.

  The closer he got to the river, the louder he could hear the rush of the water over the sandy bottom. The continuous sound felt easy to his ears, and he sat on the bank watching the stars’ reflection in the endlessly rolling water.

  Carl gazed at the ripples before him, and thought of Ida and her laughing eyes, how they sparkled when she was happy, and the curve of her lips when they entertained a smile. Then he recalled her shocked state while he fought the fire, her lack of help, and fear of getting scarred. Remembering her panic brought back the feeling of protectiveness.

  I don’t wonder she didn’t want no scars, he mused. A pretty-looking young thing like her don’t care to be disfigured.

  He thought of her lips, and how soft they had been back on the meadow outside Kansas town. Carl stretched out on the sandy bank, arms behind his neck, and closed his eyes and recalled how it had been, holding her in his arms, feeling her heart pounding against his chest. He felt again the sting of fire leaping through his veins as he touched her flame-like hair. He remembered her trembling perplexity, her flight back to the safety of the dance, and he opened his eyes, confused at the vision.

  Suddenly he sat up, realizing he dreamed of Ellen in his arms. He groaned, then said aloud, “No! I’m bound to marry Ida!”

  He got to his feet. Blood pounded through his temples as he stared into the sky. “Pa arranged it, but we both agreed,” he shouted into the void. “I’ve said my piece to her, and she agreed to be my wife. I won’t go back on my word.” He shook both his fists at the stars. “I can’t betray my brother,” he added, his voice dying away to a whisper.

  Carl’s arms fell to his sides, and for a long time he stood there—the pulse of his pounding heart moving his torso slightly—listening to the water surging past him. He half expected Ed Morgan to come investigate his outcry, then realized his words had been covered by the sound of the waters.

  At last, disquiet seeping out of his veins and his resolve firmed by the regular rhythm of the river, he turned and went back to camp.

  ~~~

  Carl avoided Ida during the next two days that the travelers spent alongside the big river. He spent his time caring for the team and riding Sherando out into the Great American Desert, a place of wind-whipped plain and short buffalo grass. There was no more tall, waving, blue-stemmed grass, no brilliant wild flowers, no escaping the eternally blowing wind. At the end of the second day, Carl returned from his hours of solitary riding ready to accept responsibility for his actions, willing to make the best of his future with Ida.

  He went to Ida that evening, quietly insisting that she walk with him along the river. She followed him reluctantly, and he sensed her resentment toward him.

  Carl walked along with his hands in his pockets, thinking over his words. Finally he stopped walking and turned to face the silent girl.

  “I reckon you’re unhappy with me, and I figure you’ve got a right. I left the dance the other night with another girl, and I owe you a mite of explaining. Ellen Bates went to get something for me from her wagon, and I tagged along.”

  He stopped, leaving the telling at the bare bones, deciding to spare her the shame and the pain of his struggle, his turmoil over divided loyalty.

  She stood with arms akimbo, head thrown back to fully see his face. “Well, I reckon I am a mite peeved with you, Carl. I know we’re not wed yet, but folks know it will happen sometime. I expect you to burn your bridges.”

  Her words hit a guilty spot in his soul, boring into it, and a cloud passed over his lean brown face. “We’ve both got some making up to do, Ida. You were having an almighty fine time with the boys, seemed like.”

  “It just looked like it to you,” she said, tossing her head, making her curls bounce. “My heart was a-sorrowing something pitiful.”

  “Well, my heart is turned to you, Ida. I have a powerful liking for you, and I still want you for my wife, if you’re willing.” He held his breath.

  Ida looked at her feet for a moment. She looked up. “My heart’s feeling some better. I reckon I’m still betrothed to you.” She beamed her most brilliant smile upon Carl.

  He sighed, then took her arm to escort her back to the wagons.

  ~~~

  The next morning, Rod Owen got his party moving again. The wagons toiled along the sandy valley of the Arkansas, day after day. From time to time Rod sent two or three men to hunt for fresh meat. Often they were gone for several days, returning with heavily laden pack horses.

  One day toward the middle of September, James came tearing back from the hunt, riding a lathered horse, with Albert and Clay hard on his heels.

  “Pa,” James yelled. “Hold up them wagons. There’s a herd of buffalo headed this way.” He stopped his horse and jumped off, then caught the alarm in his mother’s eyes. “Great snakes of the sandy hills, I didn’t mean to scare you. They ain’t stampeding or nothing like that. They’re just moving along, grazing, but there’s a powerful lot of them, and it makes an awesome sight.”

  “Well, Julianna,” Rod said over his shoulder to his youngest. “Here’s your chance to see a buffalo up close.” He took off his hat and scratched his head. “I reckon we’ll make camp here, for I been told a buffalo herd can hold up a train for days.”

  Julianna shook her head. “Papa, I don’t want to see no buffaler. Clay says they’re ‘most as big as monsters, and have long hairy claws coming out of their feet. He says they got a humpback, and make a screeching sound that’ll raise the hair off my head as good as any red Indian might. I don’t want to see ‘em.”

  “Clay is teasing you, daughter. I heard some of them stories he told you that night, and he’s put a mighty lot of nonsense into your pretty little head. Buffalo isn’t nothing to go having a fit over. Calm down and enjoy the sight.”

  The great, hairy, humpbacked creatures came from the north, and browsed slowly along, crossing the trail and the river as though nothing was in their way. For the next two days the women camped, washing clothes and baking. The men stood with their rifles at the edge of the passing herd, shooting any buffalo that strayed too close to the camp. The gunfire only disturbed a few of the shaggy creatures, and they loped off deeper into the herd. After the dead animals were butchered, the women gratefully added the meat to their larders.

  On the third day the trail cleared, and Rod gave the order to break camp. The days slowly blended into dusty sunsets as they followed the river through western Kansas, until on the last day of September they crossed the border into Colorado Territory.

  When given the news, Ida looked around at the same flat, endless plains and asked, “Is this all there is? It’s so empty, and there ain’t no hills, neither. I don’t think I like Colorado.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the seat of the freight wagon.

  “Let’s see what comes up ahead. I heard there are mountains a large sight grander than those we left behind, Ida. You won’t lack for hills.” Carl glanced over at her, and saw that she wore a petulant look on her face. “You got no call to frown yet. We ain’t stopping here.”

  “Carl, I am so tired of traveling that I could fairly scream. I want to find a pretty place to live, where you won’t be always toting your rifle and your gun belt against those Indians your pa worries about. I’d favor a nice town, or even a little city.”

  “I promise you, you’ll have a pretty place by and by, but it won’t be in no town, nor city neither. We can’t raise cattle in the city.”
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  Ida sighed and gave Carl a long look. “You’re sure about the cattle? You’re bound to raise cattle?”

  “Yup.” His tone left no chance of argument.

  She sighed. “Then I guess I’m bound to live where you raise your cows. But you will take me to see Denver City, won’t you, once the cattle get sold?” Ida turned on the seat, using her most winsome smile.

  Carl laughed. “Yes, we’ll go see the sights. I reckon we’ll go hunt up my Uncle Jonathan ‘fore too long.” He looked at her eager face. “If our house is up by then, likely we can go there on a wedding trip.” The delight he saw in her eyes made him laugh again. “You surely do sparkle when you’re happy.”

  “I declare! You do bring out the best in me, Carl Owen.” Ida beamed. “I’ll really sparkle some once we’re wed, and away from all these prying eyes,” she finished, looking around at the men, boys, and children on horseback.

  Carl’s blood pulsed harder in his veins, and he flicked the whip over the heads of the mules to cover the creeping red blush he felt moving up his face. He swallowed once, then matched her boldness with candor of his own.

  “I don’t reckon I’ll be a shy feller, once we’re in our own place and you’re in my arms. There’s going to be no campfire betwixt you and me, nor anything else.”

  Ida clasped her hands tightly together. “I reckon I’m having a mighty hard time waiting for that day.”

  “You’ll wait.” Carl nodded once, firmly. “I’ll do you no wrong.”

  Ida dropped her hands into her lap and shrugged her shoulders. “Carl, what do you aim to use to build our house? I suppose brick ain’t very plentiful hereabouts?”

  “I’ll have to see what’s close to hand, Ida. Depends mostly on where we settle, I reckon. If Pa picks a spot this side of the mountains, there won’t be logs nor lumber around. I heard tell of something called a soddy, though.”

  “That’s a curious name. What’s it mean?”

  “It’s sort of a cabin built of chunks of sod and earth.”

  “Sod? You mean dirt and grass? Carl,” she cried out, appalled. “That ain’t no better than a slave shanty!”

  “ ‘Tain’t forever, Ida. I aim to build us a nice home once the beef starts selling.”

  “That’ll take years,” she wailed.

  Chapter 11

  Fort Lyon began life as William Bent’s second trading post, but by the time Rod Owen’s group reached the fort, the Army had acquired it, changed the name three times, fortified it, and installed a small company of troops. Rod called on the commandant and found that the Indians were busy up north along the Platte.

  “That’s a mighty relief to us all, I reckon,” Rod said. “We been expecting to have a fight on our hands any day.”

  “Well, it’s safe enough right now. If you’re going to take up land hereabouts, you’d best get on with it,” the Major advised. “Winter’s not far off, and you’ll need shelter. When those freezing winds hit, you’ll wish you were back in the States.”

  “Thank you kindly for the advice, but we’re going on. I promised my wife she’d have trees.” Rod tipped his hat and turned to leave, but the major spoke again.

  “In another day or two you should catch sight of the mountains. Keep heading west, and you’ll run into plenty of trees.”

  Two days later, before the travelers broke camp for the day’s journey, Ellen walked over to Marie and pointed to the cloudy far-western horizon.

  “Marie, I been looking at those clouds, and ever so often there’s something that looks like a blue cloud amongst the rest. Do you reckon it could be one of them mountains your pa keeps talking about?”

  Marie’s eyes followed Ellen’s finger. The sun had risen enough to sparsely light the brown prairie around them, and a hint of chill pervaded the breeze that tugged at the girls’ skirts. Marie shivered as she stared toward the west.

  “I don’t see anything.” Then the clouds parted, revealing a far distant peak thrusting up into the sky. “Oh, Ellen, that’s a real mountain. I ain’t never seen anything so beautiful! Let’s go tell my pa.”

  The girls found Rod hitching his team to the wagon. Marie tugged on his arm, trying to get him to go with her to see the mountain, but in her excitement, her words spilled out faster than she could arrange them into sentences.

  “Whoa, daughter. What’s your hurry?” he exclaimed.

  Marie pulled him out from between the wagons to where he had a clear view to the west.

  “It’s them, Pa, it’s really them. They’re right back of those clouds.”

  “What do you mean, daughter?”

  “The mountains, Pa. Ellen found the mountains!”

  Again the clouds dispersed briefly, allowing Rod a glimpse of the peak.

  “That must be Zebulon Pike’s Peak. You remember, daughter, ‘Pike’s Peak or Bust’. Your Uncle Jonathan came out here then. Fifty-eight or Fifty-nine, it was. Hush, I never thought to see it.” Rod gazed on the sight for a while, then called to his neighbor at the next wagon.

  “Chester. Take a look at that. Your girl got the first sight of the mountains. They’re just grand.”

  Chester stepped out from hitching up and looked toward the west. “There’s nothing to be seen, Rod.”

  “Wait a spell. The clouds will clear, I reckon.”

  “Why, they’re so blue,” Chester cried, as the clouds parted again. “Muriel, look at this.”

  The word spread through the camp, and all the travelers stood and stared, relief etched on their faces. After a time, Rod called out, “Hitch ‘em up. Let’s get rolling, or they’ll stay as far distant as you see them.”

  The girls stood together a moment longer, looking at the cloud-covered horizon, their hands tightly clasped in friendship.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ellen whispered. “So wild and untamed. And the wind—I love the wind!”

  Marie squeezed her hand. “You’re like that, too, Ellen.”

  Ellen turned to her friend. “How do you mean?”

  “You’re beautiful and untamed yourself. Under that shy face you show the world, you’re a wild, free woman, and I reckon I’m the only one as knows it. Don’t I wish Carl did. He needs you, if he could only see it.”

  Ellen gasped and turned away to hide the red that she felt flaming her face. She had not told Marie about Carl’s response to her fall from the wagon. That night she had felt his emotion flowing into her from his hands, almost like fire, and she knew that he had been badly shaken by his unsuspected passion. Still, he had gone back to Ida. Ellen had seen them walking out of the camp on the last night at Great Bend, and had seen Ida’s face when they returned, and she knew that Ida was still Carl’s intended.

  “Don’t you give up!” Marie’s words pulled Ellen back from the verge of despair. “You can’t give up till the preacher says the words over them. She ain’t right for him, and I reckon he knows it. His soul is a-ragin’, and he don’t get much sleep, pacing around all the night long.”

  Ellen pressed two hands against her chest. “It can’t be on account of me.”

  Marie pounced on the comment. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing! That’s why it can’t be on my account. You know I say dumb things sometimes,” Ellen mumbled.

  “You never do. You always make perfect sense. You’re the most sensible girl I know, and you never could tell a lie.”

  Ellen shut her eyes against the daylight for a moment, then opened them wide. “There ain’t nothing I can tell you,” she blurted out, and ran blindly back to her wagon.

  ~~~

  Near the junction of the Huerfano and Arkansas Rivers, Autobees’ Plaza sat in the sun. Set back from the cabins along the bluffs, the stockade lay with the gate cautiously open, surrounded by corrals and baking ovens. The settlement was a welcome sight, and Rod took Chester Bates with him when he went to collect news.

  Hailing the gatekeeper, an old Mexican man with shrewd eyes, Rod and Chester gained entrance to the stockade, and halt
ed their horses by a post outside the main building. They dismounted and tied their animals, then entered the trading room.

  A bar of planks laid on two barrels occupied one side of the interior; store goods filled the other walls. A rough wooden box on the counter was labeled “U. S. Mail” in black paint. There were three letters in the box.

  Seated behind the bar planks, a slight, clean-shaven man drank milk from a whiskey glass while he munched on a sandwich and read a folded newspaper. He looked up at the approach of the men.

  “You the owner?” Rod asked.

  The man nodded his head, his cheeks full of bread and meat.

  Rod hitched up his belt. “I’m Rod Owen. This here is Chester Bates. We aim to take up land on the Homestead Act. What can you tell us about this country?”

  The man swallowed his food and smiled, putting out his large, square hand. “I’m Charlie Autobees, Justice of the Peace for Huerfano County, so I’m the man to ask. What kind of land are you seeking?”

  “I aim to graze cattle, but my wife favors trees. Where can I find good pasture land and trees, both?”

  Charlie Autobees spread both arms outward. “There’s plenty of land in the County, so you got a powerful mite to choose from.” He walked over to a map hung on one wall. “We take in pretty near all the corner of the Territory, from here to Kansas, but if I was to hanker after trees, I’d keep on southwest of here and hit for the Wet Mountains.” He tapped the spot on the map. “They’re plum full of pasture land, and they’s a-plenty of water, and about now I ‘spect the leaves are bound to be a-turning. Makes a right purty sight for the women folks to take joy in.”

  “You got any towns around here? We got a storekeep with goods and a blacksmith along with us.”

  “If it’s towns you want, just follow the Arkansas. We ain’t too far removed from Pueblo City. Down south there’s a Mexican settlement to two. One called Leones ain’t far down the Huerfano and the Cuchara. ‘Course, down along the Santa Fe road, there’s the settlements at Raton Pass, but they ain’t a place for the ladies. They got a name for being tough towns.” As he mentioned each place, Autobees traced the route on the map.