“Apparently when the railroad went through another nearby town and bypassed Ely it ruined him financially,” Hallie Taylor explained to her guests.
It was a sad tale she’d rendered many times since she opened the inn and it never failed to grasp everyone’s attention.
“Then his wife of twelve years ran off with a suitor and his heart was broken.
“All he had left was the house and the land it was on, and with his beloved gone he lost the desire to remarry.
“Or, it sadly seemed, to go on living.”
She wisely preserved much of the old house the way it was when she opened for business.
Dave correctly saw her as a woman with a vision and likely a shrewd businesswoman.
She’d likely drive a tough bargain, but that was okay with Dave.
He didn’t want to take advantage of her, and in fact expected to be quite generous.
As he and Lindsey got comfortable in two matching Queen Anne chairs in front of her desk, Mrs. Taylor said, “I understand you’ve come looking to make a trade, Mr. Speer.”
“Please, call me Dave. And that’s correct. Three head of beef, all healthy Guernseys. Two heifers and one bull. One of the heifers is carrying a calf and can be made into a milk cow.”
“Any idea of their age?”
“I’m told the heifers are in their fourth year. The bull’s in his third.”
She studied them closely and hesitated as though searching her mind for the proper words.
Finally she said, “Mr. Speer… Dave… may I be blunt?”
“Please.”
“I was under the impression you were merely passing through Ely. How is it… I mean… I want no part in buying stolen livestock. How did these animals come to be in your possession?”
Dave was not offended. He fully expected the innkeeper to ask such a question and he admired her for being so bold.
“I’m merely the broker, ma’am. The beef belong to my sister-in-law, Karen Cooper, who I believe you know well. She speaks very highly of you.”
“Ah, yes. Karen is a fine woman. I heard a terrible rumor that Tommy didn’t survive.”
“Yes ma’am. Killed by marauders more than a year ago.
“If we come to terms I will bring a signed and witnessed document from Karen attesting that I’m acting on her behalf.”
“Will Karen be going with you when you depart our little community and head back to Texas?”
“Sadly, no. We tried to convince her to make her new home in San Antonio but the long journey ahead didn’t appeal to her. She’s decided to try to trade her farm for property inside Ely and to move into town.”
Mrs. Taylor smiled broadly.
“Oh, wonderful. It’ll be an absolute joy to have her close by.
“Now, then. Exactly how much would you like to trade for your stock?”
“We’d like a hundred pounds of jerky or jarred eggs and a hundred pounds of jarred vegetables; a variety of your choosing.
“And a dozen of the homemade chocolate chip cookies I’ve heard so much about.”
“Yes. Beth thought quite highly of my cookies.”
“She told me they were a slice of heaven.”
“Pardon me for saying so, Mr. Speer. This transaction will make a large dent in my food stores, but we can handle such a trade. But I expected you to want much more for three head of healthy stock.”
“We’re traveling on foot. The more we barter for them more we’ll have to carry. All we want is enough to get us through the journey.”
“I understand, sir. If you’ll bring the stock by tomorrow I’ll take a look at them. If they are as you describe I’ll turn you loose in my cellar and let you pick and choose your vegetables.”
He stood up and shook her hand.
“Don’t go just yet,” she said. “I have a fresh batch of cookies in the kitchen. You can take those with you.”
She returned a minute later with a paper bag.
“This contains the twelve we agreed upon and two extras for your trip home.”
She winked.
“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”
Chapter 14
It was still muddy the next morning as Dave and Lindsey made their way through the woods to the three head of cattle.
They’d been deposited there, in the dense forest far from the farmhouse, in the event Karen and her husband lost all their other livestock to marauders or disease.
Tommy built a special pen for them in a large clearing which had a spring running through one end of it. He fenced it all in with barbed wire to keep the cattle from wandering away, and created sort of a bovine nirvana. There was plenty of meadow grass to eat, fresh water to drink, and plenty of trees to provide shade from the sun.
Tommy was long gone now, but Karen never saw a need in moving them.
Since then the cattle thrived without human intervention. One was even carrying a calf, because cattle left to their own devices will find ways to entertain themselves.
They’re not unlike humans in that regard.
Lindsey had so much fun hanging out with her father the day before she decided to do it again.
That was over the objections of little Beth, who very loudly proclaimed it was her turn.
Dave calmed her down and explained to her that he hadn’t had a lot of time to spend with Lindsey lately.
And he reminded her that she’d spent weeks on Sal’s rig with him. That was time they had to bond that Lind hadn’t had an opportunity to participate in.
Not long before Beth would have pouted and carried on until she got her way.
But she’d matured a lot in recent months.
Enough, anyway, to understand her father’s logic and to relent.
“Okay,” she said. “But I get to go next time.”
Dave laughed and said, “Deal.”
As he and Lindsey slogged through the sticky muck on their way to the clearing Lind asked, “How come it’s so much muddier here? The farm is pretty much dried out already.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure the shade from the trees keeps the sun off the ground and slows the evaporation.”
“I guess. How much farther?”
“I’m not sure, honey. I’ve never been there before either. But according to Karen’s map it shouldn’t be much farther.”
Twenty minutes later they broke into a majestic clearing of tall meadow grass. Standing in the center of the clearing, watching the first humans they’d seen in a very long time, were two Guernsey heifers.
They seemed wary, but not necessary hostile.
Cattle have fair memories, and seemed to remember the humans they’d encountered in the distant past weren’t unkind to them.
Finding the bull was a little harder.
He was lying beneath an oak tree on the far side of the meadow, mostly hidden by the knee-high grass and blending into the shade beneath the tree.
Dave told Lindsey to stay back as he approached the bull with a rope.
“Hey, big fella… are you gonna play nice with me today or are you gonna give me a hard time?
“Because I gotta tell you… despite your reputation I’m a lot more stubborn than you are.”
As if Dave had said the magic words the bull stood up and glared at him.
He grunted a couple of times but made no move toward him, and Dave went forward and placed the rope around his neck.
The bull was docile and followed when Dave pulled. That surprised him but didn’t disappoint him much.
The only one of the three that gave him a hard time was the pregnant heifer.
She flat refused to budge, until Lindsey had an idea.
“Let’s lead the others away and see if she follows.”
It worked.
She watched as her lover was led away next to her rival and decided she’d have none of that.
She wailed her discontent and followed along, wanting to catch up but unable to because of the extra weight she was hauling.
/> When Dave and Lind got back to Sal’s rig, parked on dry land outside the tree line, the straggler was still fifty yards behind.
They waited patiently for her.
They really had no choice.
Dave used three ropes of different lengths to tie the stock to the back of the rig.
Two ropes of perhaps forty feet or so tied to the corners of the tailgate.
And one longer rope for the bull, tied to the trailer hitch beneath the center of the gate.
He’d spend the trip following the same behavior he exhibited in the pasture, following the females of his species wherever they went.
He’d have to put any amorous designs on hold, though, for he’d be much too tired after the three mile journey they were getting ready to set out upon.
All tied up and ready to roll, Lind and Dave said their goodbyes to the others and promised to be back before nightfall.
Karen handed them a picnic basket full of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on fresh-baked bread.
It would be a fine meal at the Ely City Park, which they’d come to right around lunchtime.
“The park is right next to the Sheriff’s Office,” Karen reminded them.
“I put an extra sandwich and cookies in there for Lenny, if you want to invite him to join you.”
It sounded like a great plan to Dave, who’d been looking for a way to repay the kind little man who’d helped him so much.
They pulled into Mrs. Taylor’s yard at just after one p.m., and she met them outside with two glasses of iced tea.
“My,” Dave told her. “You sure know how to welcome a weary traveler.”
Mrs. Taylor was quick with the comeback. “I’m always kind to weary travelers who bring me cattle.”
Chapter 15
“Mama, something’s been bothering me,” Amy said to Monica out of the blue.
“What’s that, baby?”
Amy looked at her feet.
She was hesitant to broach the subject. Her mom certainly had enough to deal with, without piling even more stress upon her.
But she really wanted to know.
“Mama, I knew the girl who used to live in this house. I went to school with her. Her name was Beth and she was in my class.”
Monica said nothing, not quite sure where Amy was going.
But Amy paused as well, expecting her mother to comment.
Monica finally decided on, “What makes you think your friend lived here, honey?”
“Her room is all decorated in Goofy Grape. Everybody else in the whole school has already outgrown Goofy Grape except for Beth.”
“Okay. So what are you asking me?”
“Daddy said they abandoned the house and wouldn’t be back. And that’s why it was okay for us to move in and keep it.
“But then another time he said they would probably come back and shoot us for being here and that we’d have to shoot them first.”
“Okay…”
“But it can’t be both. I mean, either they’ll never come back and we can keep everything, or they’ll come back.
“But if they come back, should we really shoot them? I mean, if it belongs to them it wouldn’t be right to just shoot them for wanting their stuff back. That would be like stealing, wouldn’t it?”
Monica was caught off guard. She’d expected something more along the lines of, “Mama, can I name one of the rabbits?” Or, “Mama, can I start doing more of the cooking?”
The truth was, Monica was a woman of high morals before Ronald came into the picture.
She learned to overlook her morals more and more often as Ronald went from a good man to bad to even worse.
But she never really forgot how her parents raised her, God-fearing and honest as could be.
It pained her that taking from others had become an acceptable means of survival for her family.
She chose her words carefully as she stroked Amy’s hair.
“Honey, we just don’t know what happened to the family who once lived here.
“Did you say your friend’s name was Beth?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, honey, it’s possible that Beth and her family left with no plans of coming back.
“Maybe they went to live with Beth’s grandparents, or aunts and uncles. A lot of people did that, you know.”
“Does that mean if they don’t want their house anymore we can keep it Mama? Kind of like finder’s keepers?”
“Well, honey, I’m not sure what the law says about that. But I’m pretty sure if they left with no intention of ever coming back then finder’s keepers rules would apply.”
“But what if they just went to visit her grandparents? What if they just went to visit and then they’re coming back?”
Monica sighed heavily.
Her daughter certainly wasn’t making this easy on her.
“I suppose it depends on how they come back, honey.”
“But what do you mean?”
“Your father was pretty sure that when they come back they’ll try to shoot us for being here.
“He was always pretty smart about that kind of thing. Things about shooting and dangerous stuff and things like that, I mean.
“So if they come back and start shooting at us, we won’t have any choice but to shoot back at them. I mean, we just can’t let them kill us without defending ourselves.”
“But that doesn’t sound like Beth. Even though she liked Goofy Grape she was pretty cool. We used to team up for jump rope at recess and trade food in the lunch room.”
“Well, I suppose if they come back and they’re not mad and don’t try to shoot us we’ll have to give everything back to them.”
The child paused to think for a moment, then said, “Where would we go then?”
“I don’t know, honey. Back to our old house I guess.
“Why don’t we not worry about that for now? I really don’t think they’re coming back. If they do, then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s try not to think about it right now, okay?”
“Okay. Can I go outside and play with the bunnies?”
That idea was a relief for Monica, and the timing couldn’t be better.
She felt another of her headaches coming on, and wanted to get Amy out of firing range before the pain got too bad and she snapped at her.
“Go ahead, honey. Just remember to be very quiet outside, okay?”
“Okay, Mama. I will.”
The youngster trotted off and Monica sprawled across the bed to think.
She now had a moral dilemma to deal with on top of everything else.
On the one hand, she hoped the Speer family never came back with guns blazing, for while she cared little for her own life there was just too much chance one of her kids would be killed or injured in the cross-fire.
On the other hand, if she rolled over willingly and let the Speers have their house back they’d likely starve to death. For say what you would about Ronald, he was the breadwinner of the family. She was too ill to scrounge for food and the kids were too vulnerable.
Hopefully she’d never have to make that decision: whether to battle the Speers for the spoils their home contained.
She would, as she suggested to Amy, cross that bridge when she came to it.
Chapter 16
Monica watched from the back window as her children chased a baby rabbit around the back yard.
They finally cornered it, Robert trapping it with his hands and Amy tenderly petting it and trying to make friends.
Monica’s own experience with rabbits wasn’t a good one. When she was in grade school her best friend had a caged rabbit in her back yard.
That rabbit, named Buggs, seemed to hate Monica. For while he was gentle with seemingly everyone else, he had a habit of biting Monica every chance he got. Or letting her hold him and then viciously scratching her chest when he decided he wanted down.
She hoped her children didn’t learn the hard way that rabbits can be vicious little crea
tures.
And as she watched them… her children with the bunnies… she figured out the mystery her husband had been so determined to solve.
A couple of days before Monica had been in the pantry looking for something to feed the children and dug through a large cardboard box marked “Jerky.”
The box contained perhaps forty quart-sized zip-lock bags, each stuffed with various types of jerky and marked on the outside with a black Sharpie.
As she dug through the bags she wondered why so many of them said “Rabbit.” Nearly all of them were marked so, and only a few were marked “Pork” or “Beef.”
Watching the furry creatures hopping around happily in the back yard made her finally realize they weren’t family pets which were left behind and multiplied in the family’s absence.
No, not at all.
They were a food source.
Obviously a very viable one, based on the amount of jerky they’d rendered.
They were a food source that was probably once penned in the yard and somehow managed to get out.
That’s why they hopped in and out of the neighbors’ yards at will.
She walked outside and inspected the holes that went under the fence and into the yard behind the house and the yard next door.
Each of the holes was partially blocked by what appeared to be chicken wire, or wire fencing.
It was twisted and rusty, and didn’t stop the rabbits from slipping through. But it hampered them and slowed them down.
Monica went to her knees to get a better look and a closer examination revealed the chicken wire was once tacked to the bottom of the fence and buried beneath the ground.
A very determined rabbit, or more likely several, had worked the wire free from the fence and dug a hole around it, beneath the fence and to freedom.
She smiled as she imagined the first rabbit to break out of their prison. How he must have hopped around, excited to be free and yelling in rabbit speak for all his friends to come join him.
Rabbit speak…
Now she was embarrassed for her own foolishness. Sometimes she thought more like a child than a grown woman.
Texas Bound: Alone: Book 11 Page 5