CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Late June
Summer in Little Missouri left a lot to be desired. The heat, or something, had gotten to them all. Ruby hid out on the porch with the peas to get away from the bickering.
“I sure miss the Brandons.” Opal leaned against a back-porch post.
“You can help me shell the peas.”
“I picked ’em.”
“And you’ll help eat them too, so sit down here in the shade and put your fingers to work.” Ruby knew she’d said something unpleasant about the time it passed her lips, but too late to remedy.
“Do we have to work all the time?”
Ruby breathed a sigh, similar to those her sister issued repeatedly.
“I know, why don’t you go get the book and help Milly with her reading? That way you both can sit out here in the shade and keep me company.”
“All right.” Opal jumped off the porch and ran out to the garden where Milly, wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, knelt to pull the weeds from along the carrot rows. She’d stormed out there when Cimarron said something that hurt her feelings. Charlie turned from hoeing the potatoes to say something that made Opal laugh. Making Opal laugh was never hard. While Ruby couldn’t hear his comment, she smiled at her sister’s lilting laughter that sprinkled smiles wherever it went. If only she’d hear laughter again from the others. And if Belle didn’t stop snipping, she was going to get snipped herself.
Opal came leaping back. “She’s going to finish the row while I get the book and glasses of sweet tea. You want some?”
“Of course. Thank you.” Ruby split open another fat pea pod and, using her thumb, popped the line of peas into her bowl. The next pod, she thumbed the peas into her palm and then into her mouth. Fresh peas, straight from the garden, sweet and crunchy, were better than cooked peas any time. Unless, of course, they could have creamed peas, new potatoes, and ham over biscuits. She’d have to ask Charlie if there were any tiny new potatoes under the vines he’d been hoeing.
She thought back to the letter received the day before from Mrs. Brandon. Like Opal said, she missed them dreadfully. And they were sorely missed as well. According to Mrs. Brandon, no one could manage the children as well as Ruby had—they’d been through two more tutors, and now Mr. Brandon was threatening to send Jason off to boarding school and the others to a private school for girls.
A private note from Alicia said how much she abhorred that idea.
“Look, if you don’t like the way I iron the tablecloths, you can get up here and do them yourself.” Cimarron’s voice carried clearly through the screen door.
“I was just givin’ you a suggestion.” Belle’s suggestions had a queer way of always sounding like orders.
After deciding that she was in no way going to get involved with the conflict inside and with the song of peas pinging the pan, Ruby let her mind drift over the preparations for the Fourth of July celebration, the first one for the town of Little Missouri. There would be horse racing and calf roping in the morning. The cowboys from the local ranches and the soldiers from the cantonment would all be competing. Mr. Williams had set that up, since Ruby had no idea what that entailed.
Captain McHenry had encouraged his men to send for their families to join in the festivities. Perhaps there would be someone for Opal to become friends with.
So far the hotel was fully booked, and the evening’s entertainment would be dancing in the street with the musicians playing from the Dove House porch. Invitations had gone out to all the local ranches, not that there were that many of them. To her surprise, Rand Harrison had offered a steer to roast over a pit, which according to Cimarron was a western specialty called barbeque.
“Okay, Ruby, you ready to listen?”
She hadn’t even heard the girls settle on the porch. “Of course. And thank you for the drink.” She took a long slow sip, savoring the coolness.
Opal read first, and Ruby could hear improvement in her reading. She believed what some folks said: the best way to learn something was to teach it to someone else.
“Okay, now your turn.” Opal handed the book to Milly and pointed to the place. “Start right there.” Opal certainly enjoyed telling someone else what to do. She had adopted a schoolmarm attitude she’d learned from some of the former governesses at the Brandons’.
“John ran through the bush . . . es. His dog, Blacky, ran in front of him. John t . . . r . . . i . . . pp . . . ed, tripped”—her smile beamed at sounding out the word—“over the dog. He hit the g . . . r . . . ound with a smack. Ouch! Blacky barked at John, wa . . . gg . . . ing his tail, his t . . . o . . . n . . . g . . . u . . .”
“Tongue.” Opal supplied the difficult correction.
“Tongue? How can that be?”
Opal looked at Ruby. Ruby shrugged.
“Just the way it is. You’ll find lots of words that just don’t make sense sounding them out.”
“Then how am I supposed to figure them out?”
“That’s what teachers are for.” Ruby smiled at Opal. “Gives them plenty to do.”
Milly turned up her nose. “Well, I sure wouldn’t be a teacher. You got to know too much.”
“Keep reading.” Opal pointed back to the place.
While the words were slow in coming, Milly was persistent. When she finished the page and turned to the next, she traced the new line with her finger, the better to keep her place.
“Someday I am going to read the Bible. My ma used to read to us from the Good Book. She said that was the whole reason to learn to read.”
“It’s a good reason, all right, but there are a lot of other books out there too, and magazines and newspapers. Just think, you’ll be able to read Charlie’s newspaper.”
Milly laughed. “Now won’t that just set his tail on fire.”
Ruby looked up from the bucket where she’d just emptied the last of the pods into her apron lap. “Why?”
“Well, Charlie don’t like no one messing with his paper, leastways until he’s read it.”
“Guess I hadn’t noticed. I’m just grateful he shares what he’s read with the rest of us, or I would have no idea what is going on in this country, let alone the rest of the world. Like the amazing invention in France that makes moving pictures, and Thomas Edison building an electricity plant in Wisconsin. Even though I don’t understand how electricity works and can’t begin to picture lights by a wire and no flame, I still enjoy learning about them.”
“I like the one you are reading to us. Do you think Pilgrim will ever get to the Celestial City?”
“What do you think?”
“I sure want him to be happy. He’s had a hard go of life.”
With a laugh Opal joined in the conversation. “I like Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Ruby read that to us back at the Brandons. It was written before the Civil War.”
“Rand Harrison’s father fought in the Civil War.”
“How do you know that?” Ruby asked.
“I heard him telling some men one night. His family lived in the South. That’s why him and the captain didn’t get along too good at first.”
“Well.” Ruby automatically corrected.
“Well what?” Milly watched and waited.
“You need to use the word well in place of good in a sentence like that.”
“Like what?”
“Mr. Harrison and the captain don’t get along well.” Ruby emphasized the last word. She started to give the proper reason for the word usage but just smiled instead. No sense overwhelming her pupil.
Milly returned to her reading, and Ruby dug a handful of peas from the bowl and ate them one at a time, savoring the sweet ones and spitting out ones that had grown old and bitter. While she heard horse’s hooves on the street, she paid no attention, leaning her head back against the post and enjoying the western breeze.
“Look who’s coming.” Opal leaped to her feet as she called, “Hey, Captain!”
Captain McHenry dismounted and tied the two horses he’d b
een leading to the hitching rail, along with his own. “I wondered if possibly you might be able to exercise these two horses for me.” He tipped his hat to Ruby. “If you can find time, that is.”
Opal was halfway to the horses before she remembered her manners enough to stop and look to Ruby. “We can go riding, can’t we?”
Ruby thought through the myriad of things she had to do and the building tension inside Dove House, but she took in the look of pleading on her sister’s face and capitulated without a fight. “I imagine we can work it in, as a favor to Captain McHenry, of course.” She smiled up at him as he stopped in front of her with a slight bow. “Have some fresh peas, Captain?” She held out the bowl.
“Can’t turn down an offer like that. My mother used to wonder why there were so few pea pods on the vines.”
“You think she ever figured out that her children, rather than the rabbits, were eating them?”
“Well, even the most intelligent rabbits might have a hard time picking the pods off vines trailing on a six-foot fence.” His sneaky smile made her laugh outright.
“I’ll go change and be right back.” Amazing how the thought of an outing lent spring to her step as she set the bowl of shelled peas on the table. Cimarron and Daisy were trading barbed silences now.
Ruby headed up the stairs without comment, and within minutes she had arranged her hair into a club so the broad-brimmed hat rode her head more securely, donned her soft deerskin shirt and divided skirt, and taken her boots to sit on the stairs and lace. With her gloves tucked into the back of her waistband, she returned to the kitchen where Daisy was rolling out pie dough.
“What kind of pie are you making?”
“One canned peach and the other canned cherry. Sure would be good if we could can our own.”
“But we don’t have peach and cherry trees.”
“I know, but we could.”
“In Dakota territory?”
“You’d be surprised what all will grow here in the valley if given half a chance.” She flipped the dough over to give it another pass.
“If peaches grew, I’d really be surprised. Back in New York we’d get some off the train from Georgia. Folks aren’t kidding when they talk about sweet Georgia peaches. Where’s Cimarron?”
“Cleaning out the cardroom.” Her rolled-eye look said “Good thing.”
“Opal and I are going riding with the captain. Do you need us to help with supper?”
Daisy shrugged. “Not unless we get a houseful, and you know the odds on that happening.” She wiped the perspiration off her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Would that we had such a difficulty.” Ruby snagged another handful of peas as she passed the table. “You better put these away, or there won’t be any left for supper.”
McHenry had Ruby’s horse standing beside the mounting block when she went back outside. Opal was already mounted and walking her horse in a circle out by the garden. “Ah, this is so much easier.” Ruby settled in her saddle and wiggled her legs so her skirt left off bunching and hung straight. Even so more of her leg showed than was proper, but at least not much above her boot tops was exposed.
When they trotted down the street, she waved to Mrs. McGeeney, who was scrubbing her front porch.
“She still hasn’t forgiven you for taking over Dove House, has she?”
“No, and I doubt she will. The ladies of Little Missouri seem to hold an exaggerated view of their propriety.”
“Perhaps the Fourth of July celebration will help remedy that.”
“I hope so. Before I came here, I never imagined how few women there were in these parts.”
“That’s going to change real soon. On patrol we talked with two families on their way here from Minnesota. They’re coming in covered wagons. They should be in Dickinson about now. They hope to homestead on the Little Missouri or one of the tributaries. The ranchers most likely won’t be real happy about that.”
“Why not?”
“Cuts into their cattle range.”
“These new folks won’t want to run cattle?”
“Who knows.”
“Surely there’s enough room for everyone.” Ruby thought of the land that went on forever.
“Takes a lot of land to feed cattle. But more people will come. You can count on it.”
If I can only hold on till then. She watched Opal trotting ahead of them, following the river northward this time. She turned in her saddle and beckoned them on.
“That girl rides like she was born in a saddle.”
“Well, having been nearby at the time, I know for a fact she wasn’t. She’d never been on a horse until the first time you put her up. I can never thank you enough for this. As you’ve noticed, there aren’t many children in this part of the prairie.”
“As I said, that’s going to change. Most likely you’ll need a school here soon.”
“Who will teach it?”
“Oh, the state would advertise for a teacher. That’s what they’ve done in other places.”
“But where would they meet?”
“Have to build a schoolhouse. Might have to build for a cattle company too.”
“A cattle company in Little Missouri?”
“Sure. They’d have their headquarters here and range the cows wherever they want. That’s the value of free range.”
“How does anyone know whose cattle is whose?”
“They round them up and brand the new calves every summer.”
“Brand them?”
“Heat up an iron brand to red-hot in a fire, then slap it on the calf’s rump. Smells something awful.”
“How terrible for the calf. Why, a burn hurts worse than anything.”
“Don’t bother them none. They jump up and run back to their mothers. Spring roundup is a real busy time for the ranchers. In the fall they round up the steers, and those that are big enough are shipped back east for butchering.”
“On the railroad?”
“There used to be cattle drives. Some still come up from Texas that way, but east and west they use the railroad.”
“I see.”
When the trail widened, Opal dropped back to ride with them.
“You will understand things better once you’ve been through a year here.” He stopped his horse and pointed ahead. “See that snag up there?” At the look of confusion on her face, he explained. “See that dead tree along the river? That bed of sticks in the upper branches is an eagle’s nest. Been there for three years that I know of. Eagle chicks ought to be learning to fly pretty soon. Sometimes their mothers have to push them out of the nest to make them fly.”
Opal glanced over at him after watching the nest. “Do you think the mother is there now?”
“Doesn’t look like it, but I could tell better if I had my telescope.”
“Have you seen eagle chicks?” Her voice took on awe.
“Yes. I got above a nest one time, on a cliff. There were three of them. The mother tried to chase me away.”
“And did you leave?”
“You bet I did. She flew right at me, talons foremost. I vamoosed before she could rake me or beat me with her wings. She looked vicious as all get out.”
Opal returned to watching the nest. “What do eagles eat?”
“Sometimes you see them catch fish when the streams are low, and rabbits. I heard tell of eagles taking a small dog and even a lamb. Usually they take small critters. They’re raptors, like hawks, only much bigger.”
“There sure are lots of kinds of birds out here.”
“True,” Ruby said. “I think we better be heading back.” She nodded at the long shadows cast by the buttes. “I am always amazed at the colors of the rock formations, and when the sun rises or sets, the colors are even more wonderful.” She pointed to one rock face that blazed in the light from ochre to rust to red, with a horizontal line of black and one of gray.
“I never get tired of this land.” Captain McHenry turned his horse back toward town. �
��Every day you see something new, or at least you see it in a different way. I’ve heard people say this land haunts you, and I’ve begun to believe it.”
“Well, it must be a pretty well-kept secret, when you think how few people live here.”
“Look over there. What’s that?” Just as Opal asked, they heard a whistle.
“Prairie dogs, small ground-dwelling mammals. They live in colonies—people call them prairie-dog towns. That whistle was the lookout telling the others that danger is near and to hide back in their burrows. If we had time to sit here and not move, they’d pop out of their holes again. They eat grasses and seeds, so they make their area pretty barren. You try running a horse through a prairie-dog town and, sure enough, he’ll step in a hole and break a leg. You got to be careful about things like that.”
“I hope I can come back here sometime,” Opal said, all the while gazing at the place the prairie dog had disappeared from.
Ruby could hear Opal’s unspoken wish for soon. If only horses weren’t so expensive to both buy and feed. If Opal had a horse, she would have a friend indeed.
If—the biggest small word in the language.
At least a tenuous peace had returned by the time Ruby reentered the kitchen. Perhaps having two customers to serve helped with that. It sure encouraged her.
Later that night Ruby listened to Opal’s prayers. “And dear God, thank you for the chance to ride again, and thank you for the captain who is so nice to us. Lord, if you please, I would surely love to have a horse. I’d take good care of it, and a horse would make it easier to go fishing, so I could help make sure there is enough food for our guests to eat. Thank you. Amen.”
Ruby captured her sigh before Opal heard it. How long had it been since she’d been able to pray like that? So simply, with a certainty that God heard. And cared. And might really answer. Life surely had changed and not necessarily for the better. At least for a change they had a celebration to look forward to. If nothing went wrong, of course.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A rifleshot announced the Fourth of July dawn at the same time as the rooster crowed. The bugle at the cantonment answered, letting everyone know that the cavalry was in attendance. A platoon of soldiers had ridden in the day before, while some of their families had arrived by train. Many of them were staying at Dove House. Tents had sprung up like weeds, and a chuck wagon from one of the ranches had set up cooking by the corrals.
[Dakotah Treasures 01] - Ruby Page 25