“Morning, Miz Weston. Do you have a cup of coffee for a lonely old man?”
Trapper Andy, the biggest scrounge in the west, limped into the house. He took Pa's chair and regaled us with tales of misuse by trading posts and Indians until Ma handed him a plate of food. With him around, I'd never get my chores finished.
“Why just look at you, Miss Abigail,” Trapper Andy said. “I can't believe my eyes.”
Peter and Paul pressed their noses against the kitchen window when Ma faced me. The boys' merry expressions put deep fear into my heart.
“Don't swell up Abigail's head with outrageous compliments,” she said. “She's not used to men like you, Andy.”
“I never expected to see her looking so grown up.” Trapper Andy shoveled a forkful of ham into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I've never seen a prettier young woman.”
Delighted warmth bathed my cheeks. It turned into embarrassed, fiery heat when Peter and Paul hooted with laughter.
“Those chickens won't feed themselves,” Ma snapped. “I'll find my broom if I hear you two goofing off again.”
It was my turn to laugh when they ran off. Ma turned her anger on me.
“There's a whole basketful of sheets you didn't iron yesterday,” she said. “I've already put the iron on the stove.”
“Yes, ma'am.” I filled a water pitcher from at the pump on the sink, dunked a wooden dowel with a cone-shaped end into it, and snapped out the sheets.
As soon as she wiped the table, I laid a sheet flat, tested the iron, sprinkled on water, and set to work. The most awful stench of hot cotton hit me hard. I wrinkled my nose but nothing improved the horrific smell.
“Grace!” Trapper Andy gasped.
“Don't you dare!” Ma screeched. “Get outside right this minute, Andy.”
She shooed him out the door. I kept ironing but listened hard to figure out what had just happened.
“She looks like my Grace,” he said in a broken voice.
“You can't talk about that with Abigail,” she said. “Don't break your word, Andy, or I'll have to tell you to stay away.”
“I miss them so much,” he moaned.
“Hush!” She peeked through the window.
I pretended to be very busy.
“She doesn't remember,” she said. “Don't remind Abigail about that time. It's hard enough on her, being a girl on the frontier. Don't make her life more difficult by making her remember she was the only one to survive that day.”
I couldn’t help eavesdropping but stilled at my mother’s words. What? Who does she mean?
A mystery had just appeared in the middle of my boring life. My mind whirled with how to solve this mystery, which apparently had a lot to do with me remembering something that happened a very long time ago.
There was no time to worry about mysteries now. Ma would come inside soon, and I needed to have at least four sheets ironed and folded before she did.
* * * *
The next three days, I wondered about the mysterious conversation between Ma and Trapper Andy. Why did he call me Grace? That was my middle name, but my family avoided calling me by it no matter how bad I messed up.
A hint pushed through the murky memories of my childhood, I must have been about five. At some time, there were two other children in the house. I remembered laughing with them, and running around the corral after Pa brought home a large group of mustangs with Adam, Charles, and Bart. Some of the horses had screamed with what sounded like terror. Pa, Ma, and a couple of other adults had shouted. Flying hooves had descended toward my face and then there was nothing but blackness and incredible pain. Without thought, I rubbed the side of my neck, where I had a scar no one had ever explained.
“How did I get this?” I whispered. “What happened?”
The scar was shaped like a horse's hoof, actually more like the shoes all horses wore. The impression of the steel shoe was only half there, as if only part of the foot had hit me. A horse had never hurt me, as far as I remembered.
Lost in thought, I stared out the kitchen window and tried to drag those memories out of my brain.
“Best get moving,” Ma snapped as she trotted past with a load of men's underwear. “I don't want to have to remind you about putting up those beans and peas Peter and Paul brought in from the garden.” She paused at the door. “Don't step outside until I have these unmentionables decently hung.”
She never called underwear anything but unmentionables. Ma even went so far as to forbid me from touching any of them but the bloomers she and I wore. According to her, I had time enough for handling men's unmentionables as soon as I had my own home and children. It was one of the many things I couldn't know about—as if it didn't exist until after I had a husband.
I went into the pantry and found the canning things. After lugging crate after crate of glass Mason jars into the kitchen, I pumped water into a large pot and set it to boil, and then used a knife to scrape lye soap into the dishpan. On the counter beside me, a mountain of beans awaited my attention. All of them needing their ends snapped and then I'd have to break them up into mouth-sized bites. An even bigger pile of peas filled half a dozen buckets beside the door. I had to shell those before putting them in jars. My fingers ached thinking about this chore. If I was very lucky, I might finish in time to fix supper and clean up afterward.
“It isn't fair.” I poured some of the now boiling water into the sink and swished until bubbles formed, and then I started washing the jars and lids. “Boys get to have all the fun.”
The kitchen window offered the only escape I had from my boring existence. I stared out at the desert landscape while cleaning every inch of the jars. If I missed one single spot, the food inside them would go bad, and we might not have enough to eat. Despite that, I couldn't help looking at the only thing in the world I wanted to do, and fume about how Peter and Paul ignored the horses.
“Pa'll land on them like a duck on a June bug,” I said. “He'll want those horses trained when he gets back, but Peter and Paul won't work unless he's out there with them.”
Mustangs capered around the corral, testing the fence's strength and rearing up. I lost myself in memories about the two children, and the day I received the scar on my neck. Trapper Andy's broken voice came back to me, only it was stronger, happier. He sounded like a man satisfied with his life, a man with nothing to lose. There was a woman beside him, next to Ma and Pa on the porch. They smiled at us as we scampered around in the yard. Warnings came when we moved too close to the corral.
“Don't upset those horses,” Pa had called. “I have to start working with them in the morning. A couple of ranchers offered me a good price.”
“Mayhaps I should join you,” Trapper Andy said. “Sure don't have much else to do these days. Everyone in these parts is far too healthy.”
It almost sounded as if he was a doctor. Now if that wasn't ridiculous, I had no idea what was. Shaking off my dreamy attitude, I dried the jars and set them on a clean cloth. One look at the beans reminded me of my chores, and I sighed.
“Nothing stops those darned beans from sprouting more and more. It's like they hate me.”
I cleaned out the sink and pumped cold water into it. After scrubbing dirt and grit from the beans, I started snapping off the ends and tossing them into a bucket at my feet. The chore occupied my hands, but it left my mind free to drift to another day, one where all I had to worry about was playing. The woman with Trapper Andy had come off the porch to adjust the hair ribbons on the girl with us. The other child was a boy.
“Don't mess up your Sunday dress, Grace,” the woman had said. “Your pa and I bought it special for you.”
The little girl was Grace, and she wore a store bought dress. I'd never had a store bought dress in my whole life. Ma said they were too expensive, but this daydream was so real I took in every detail of that store bought dress Grace wore, the bright blue satin, shining white lace, and buttons in the shape of little flowers.
Thinking ab
out that brought great pain in my head and neck. I shook off the remembrance and stared at the pile of snapped beans. It didn't seem like I had taken that long dreaming, but sure enough the worst part of the chore was over.
“Well, if that don't beat all,” I said with a smile. “I'll have to remember that from now on. Work sure doesn't seem hard when my mind is occupied.”
As I reached for a pot, the sound of laughter outside distracted me. Jealousy rose in my heart along with black hatred for Peter and Paul. They were having fun while I sweated buckets canning food they'd gobble down without tasting.
Chapter Three
I looked out the window as I pumped water into the canning pots and giggled. Visions of my lazy twin brothers getting their just desserts ran through my mind at the sight I saw.
Ma marched toward the clothesline beside the barn. She stopped, cocked her head, and faced the corral.
“Peter and Paul,” she hollered. “You aren't doing as your pa told you to do. Do I have to hunt up my broom?”
They dashed out from behind the barn. Hay stuck out from their hair in all directions, which they tried to brush away while also tucking their shirttails into their pants. Both looked like she had jolted them awake from a wonderful dream and thrust them into a nightmare. Rubbing their eyes, they ran into the corral and shoved bits into the horses' mouths. The animals set up a ruckus from the treatment.
“Don't ruin those ponies. And you'd better hurry it up. But don't you short those horses their training,” Ma said, “and don't you dare sneak off again. You'll miss your dinner if you do.”
Her reminder that the time for our dinner was approaching pushed me to working faster shoving beans, salt, and water into jars. I put a lid on each one before placing the containers into the pots. After I had three of the pots bubbling away, I made cornbread, slid the pan into the oven, and pulled out a smaller pot to boil up a mess of beans. For flavor, I added bacon grease from a jar beside the stove and chopped up a couple of potatoes. It was a busy day lunch, and one we had quite often when Pa and my older brothers were away. By the time Ma checked on me, I had made sure the canning pots hadn't overflowed, the pan with our midday meal simmered on the back of the stove, and picked up the bucket of potato peels and bean ends.
“I need to take this to the pig,” I said.
“What do you have left to finish?” she asked.
“Take the canning pots off the stove and set the jars out to dry,” I said. “Dinner's cooking. I'll take out the cornbread when I get back.” I glanced at her. “I'll do up the peas after dinner.”
“Good job.” She peered into the bubbling pot of our meal. “Did you season these?”
Fiery heat that didn't come from spending the morning cooking lit up my cheeks. “I'm sorry.”
“It's not too late.” She added salt and pepper to the meal. “Go on, Abigail. It'll be dinnertime soon enough. Tell your lazy brothers to wash up on your way to the pigpen.” Ma shook her head after looking at the peas. “We'll do those together after supper.”
The offer was far too good to speak about, even to say thank you, lest she change her mind. I hurried to the corral, grateful for a respite from my duties. Peter and Paul grinned at me when I stopped.
“Feeding the pig, Abby?” Peter hollered at the top of his lungs.
“Ma says it's time to clean up for dinner,” I said. “You'd best hop to it. She's downright upset about you sleeping away half the morning.”
They jumped off the horses but left the bits in the animals' mouths. Those lazy boys ran toward the house without even offering to help me, or caring about how uncomfortable the animals were. I shook my head, set down the pail, and climbed under the railing. The Mustangs shied from me at first, but I held out a hand until they came over and then removed the bits.
“That hurts, doesn't it?” I asked.
One nodded and stood in front of the others. He had the most beautiful white blaze on his forehead. The marking stood out like a bright star on a dark night against his deep brown hair. I stroked the blaze until he nudged the side of my face.
“That tickles!” I giggled and cast a guilty look at the house.
Peter and Paul were busy tossing water at each other instead of washing up at the shed where Ma did laundry. She puttered around the kitchen, but unlike me, she never took the time to look out the window. No one would notice if I took a minute or two with the mustangs. I returned my attention to the horses.
“No one's explained what an important a job you have,” I whispered. “You'll deliver the mail, so people all over the United States can write to each other. Isn't that wonderful?”
The mustang bobbed his head up and down. A thrill ran through me, as it did every time I knew the horses understood me.
“Before you can do that, you have to learn how important it is to have someone riding you, but Peter and Paul just want to play.” I checked the house again and looked back at the horse when I discovered no one watching me. “Tell you what. I'll come out here early every morning. We'll show Pa and all my brothers I can train you right.”
I left the corral and picked up the bucket. The mustang hung his head over the split-rail fence. He watched as I walked around the barn to where the pig wallowed in happiness under the only shade around our ranch.
“Here you go.” I dumped the vegetable scraps over her fence. “Enjoy yourself.”
She lumbered over and nudged her nose through the food. I returned to the house and hoped the rest of the day moved fast. I looked forward to training the horses before anyone else woke up so much it seemed like every minute was crawling now.
Right after supper with the sun hanging low in the west, Ma shooed Peter and Paul out the door.
“Bring me back a couple of bushels of corn,” she said. “We have to get busy on the vegetables, or the wild animals will eat them.”
She turned to face me, but I was already making my way toward the pantry. From the set look in her eyes, she wouldn't give me a moment to breathe now that she'd decided to put up vegetables. If I was very lucky, I might see my pillow about ten.
Hours later, she counted jars of corn and peas. Her happy nod didn't ease the soreness in my muscles as I pumped more water to wash the pile of pots.
“Go on to bed,” she said. “You've worked hard all day.”
“Thank you.” I set the pot on the stove.
My eyes closed as soon as my head hit the pillow.
The next morning, even though I wanted to burrow under my blankets, I put on my clothes and slid out my window. The sun still had to break over the eastern horizon, but if I wanted to help The Pony Express, I had to do this in secret. As soon as I reached the corral, the mustang with the blaze met me. I put a bit into his mouth and spent an hour teaching him to accept the unfamiliar restriction.
The sun had just begun to rise when I scurried to the chicken coop to feed the birds and gather eggs. Peter and Paul ran past me to the barn, where the cows mooed loud enough for Pa to hear on the trail.
“You ain't tryin' to make us look lazy, are you, Abby?” Peter asked.
“I don't have to try to do that,” I shot back at him. “You are lazy. Best move it. Ma's probably going to want to make butter today.”
“Says you.” Paul pointed at the corral. “We have important work to do for The Pony Express.”
Oh, how I wanted to tell them I'd already done their work, so the horses didn't languish for lack of attention. Instead, I trudged across the already warming desert sand.
“Holy heck,” I muttered as I approached the house. “Boys have all the fun.”
* * * *
Getting up before everyone else tired me out fast, but I never let that slow me down as I trained the horses to make up for Peter and Paul's laziness. On the tenth morning after Pa and my older brothers left, I woke far earlier than normal. The nightmare that had jolted me out of sleep left me trembling in every muscle.
I'd seen the little girl, Grace, and her ma lying in the horse corral
near the boy whose name I still had to figure out. The rest of my family and Trapper Andy had hollered while I lay beside the others with blood running down my neck.
“It's not real.” I slipped into an old calico dress and pulled on my boots. “Ma and Pa wouldn't have let me anywhere near the corral again if that happened.” I listened hard but heard nothing except Ma, Peter, and Paul sleeping. “Where are the others?”
Even though Pa, Adam, Charles, Bart, and Mark should have returned last night, none of us had worried much when they didn't. As she said at supper, any number of things could have held them up. While hooking up my boots, I tried to shake the fuzziness from my brain, but nothing worked. Concern about my pa and brothers combined with my awful dreams since Trapper Andy's visit had me walking around like one of the barn cats on the hot, sandy ground.
“I won't do anything but talk to the horses today,” I whispered while sneaking out of the house. “They'll understand.”
Even though it was still dark, I didn't falter while walking to the corral. I saw wide eyes watching me and smiled. The mustang with the blaze never balked now whenever I touched him or slipped a bit into his mouth. This horse had become so much more than another animal to deliver to The Pony.
“Hello,” I said. “What name do you want?”
Pa had always forbidden us from naming the horses. He didn't want us attached to them since they came and went from our lives so fast, but I had trouble resisting. I had finally met a horse that retained his spirit while also learning to carry a rider.
“Pony sounds dumb.” I stroked his forelock. “What about Blaze? Do you like that?”
He nickered approval.
“We won't tell anyone else.” I climbed onto the fence and slipped the bit into his mouth. “Does that hurt?”
Blaze snorted and tossed his head. I giggled. He sidled sideways against the fence. Temptation proved too hard, and I swung a leg onto his back. Unlike my brothers, a horse had never bucked me.
“Let's do it,” I said, unable to resist the temptation to ride this wonderful horse.
Pony Dreams Page 2