“Your sisters were much older,” said Bess.
“Yep. My oldest sister, Josephine, is thirty years older than me. Has a daughter who is my age. Name is Pearle and she lives in Chicago.”
“So what made you want to come west?” asked Bess.
“I always had a spirit of adventure,” said Doc. Ever since I can remember. When I was twenty years old, I decided to go west and seek my fortune, as my father called it. My ancestors were adventurers—pioneers. I’m a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island. His descendants were governors of the colony of Rhode Island.” Doc paused as Bess listened attentively.
“My great-grandfather migrated west from Rhode Island to Ohio in the early 1800s, becoming one of the first settlers near what was now the city of Columbus. My grandfather settled farther west near the town of Springfield, and my father moved even farther west to the pioneer village of Galesburg, Illinois.”
Each of these men had the same sort of spirit of adventure that burned in Doc, as they all established themselves and built something with their bare hands, thought Bess. It sounds like Doc wanted to follow in those footsteps.
“Some of my relatives—my two uncles—went west to Oregon on the Oregon Trail back in 1845 or so. Seems like my whole family was constantly on the move. I learned about North Dakota from knowing that President Roosevelt had ranched out here—but up north, as you know. So in 1903, I packed up my belongings, took my entire savings, and boarded the train westward until I arrived in Dickinson—where I met you. I filed for a homestead near Haley, which was a growing town.”
“There I established my homestead and began to raise saddle horses--quarter horses that I trained to be either ridden or to pull light wagons or buggies. Then I started raising Percherons— the big work horses.”
“Was it profitable?” asked Bess.
“Not at first,” said Doc. “So to make more money in those early years, I drove Currie’s six-mule freight wagon twice a week to and from Dickinson. That extra income enabled me to purchase horses for breeding. That’s what really started the business.”
“Are you still driving the freight?” asked Bess.
“Stopped that last spring,” said Doc. “Got enough now to make it without the extra job.”
Bess was impressed with Doc’s background, his spirit of adventure, and the simple fact that he was making a business thrive.
After supper, they cleaned up and talked some more. Doc explained that his family had originally come from Scotland in the 1600’s and that one of his ancestors had been a longtime governor of the state of Rhode Island. He mentioned again that another ancestor, Roger Williams, was the founder of the colony of Rhode Island. He’s definitely a Yankee, Bess thought. She found it interesting that his ancestors were Scottish, as were hers.
It was now dark outside, and Doc looked like he was anxious to leave. “Thanks for the dinner, Bess. Sure liked talking with you,” he said as he walked to the door.
“Thank you for the calendar, Doc,” Bess said. Then without thinking, she said, “Maybe you’d like to call again soon.”
A smile lit up Doc’s face. “I’d like that. Very much.”
Doc had been so very polite and interesting, and Bess liked him. She wanted him to come back for another visit, because it was nice to have a friend and it certainly eased the pain of loneliness at the homestead. She put on her overcoat, went to the shed, and chatted with him for a short time as he saddled up his horse. As he rode away, she couldn’t help but notice how comfortable he looked riding a horse. An excellent horseman, she thought.
Bess thought about her fondness for Doc. It’s not romance, she thought. It’s much like how I felt about boys in Cando. Again it made her wonder if she was strange. The only attractions she had experienced that made her skin tingle were with Mary Ann in high school, when she was lying close to Linda in Dickinson and, to a slightly lesser extent, with Martha.
Whenever she thought of those experiences and of their warm and sensual touching, she would think of how much she missed them. Especially Linda, she thought. She longed for her touch, something she knew she would never experience again.
One night she had a dream about Linda. She dreamt that she was in Bowman waiting for the train and when it arrived, she saw Linda getting off the train. She had arrived! Linda walked toward Bess smiling, but when she got close and reached out her hand to touch her, Bess woke up. That was frustrating. Bess wanted to feel her touch. She shut her eyes quickly and tried to go back to sleep to pick up where the dream had left off, but it was unsuccessful.
Bess also had dreams about Martha, but they didn’t involve anything intimate. Instead, she dreamt that Martha was staying in Haley while Don was moving to Wisconsin. Then Don left, but Martha went into the church. While Bess was waiting for Martha to come out of the church, she woke up.
Bess couldn’t explain her dreams other than that they seemed to focus on her unfulfilled hopes and expectations: what she wanted to happen, but never had. In a sense, they were enjoyable dreams up to the point when she would wake up without the fulfillment that she needed. It must be that I am yearning for companionship, she thought. Emotional and physical.
The winter was cold, but not so severe as Bess had expected. Doc began to pay a visit to Bess about once every two weeks and their conversations were mainly about Doc’s horse business and Bess’s hopes for proving up on her land. Doc seemed to know quite a bit about livestock and suggested to Bess that she might eventually obtain some cattle to complement the sheep. He’s becoming a good friend, thought Bess. An interesting man.
There had been considerable snow during January, but the temperature went below zero degrees only a couple of times. In February, the “big snow” the townsfolk warned her about came with a fury. It was followed a couple of days later by the warm Chinook winds that melted the snow quickly. The Grand River ran wild because it simply did not have the capacity to handle all the water from the melted snow. It swept away the bridge in Haley; Bess found out that the bridge had washed out just a few moments after Dr. Poppe had crossed it with his horse and buggy. He was lucky not to have been killed.
Others were not so lucky. While the river was still up and over its banks, one of the local men set up a raft ferry to enable people to cross. It was dangerous, and one man fell off the raft and was swept away. There were others whose lives were claimed by the raging water, but those accidents happened down river and quite a distance from Haley.
The town itself was not flooded, but the high water, which lasted for about a week and a half, severely disrupted traffic flow across the river and Bess was unable to get into town for the last two weeks in February. When the water level of the river had dropped to near normal, homesteaders had to use the old crossing, which had been altered significantly by the water flow. It was quite muddy, but was still reasonably easy to cross. But that didn’t last very long.
There was another significant snowstorm during the first week in March, but this time there were no Chinooks. The snow stayed on the ground until the middle of March when the big melt came. There were a few days when the temperature rose sharply to nearly seventy degrees. It was a relief to know that spring was arriving, and Bess was looking forward to lambing time, which she calculated would be sometime in early April. Most of the ewes were pregnant, and she took great care to keep them well fed and sheltered in the hope that she would soon almost double the size of her herd.
Chapter Twenty-Four
April 1909 came with the snow fully melted, and Bess was looking forward to seeing pastures turn green along with the bloom of the spring flowers--especially the beautiful purple crocuses. She had spent time fixing up the place and recovering from the snow damage, which was minor. The ewes looked like they were almost ready for lambing and Bess had purchased several lambing tents—little canvas tents that were approximately four-by-four feet in size, with steel supports in each corner. She felt prepared for lambing to come and was anxi
ously waiting for it to begin.
Bess purchased a lift pump system for her well and had Art Paulson, the well-digger, install it. Now she would be able to simply pump the water instead of using the water bucket tied to the rope and pulley. She still kept the pulley and bucket because Mr. Paulson told her that the pumps would sometimes freeze in the winter.
Then it happened.
The unthinkable.
Bess was sound asleep shortly past midnight during the second week in April when she felt something sharp grind into the back of her neck. Then she heard a voice, a terrible low-sounding voice much like a growl. “Don’t move. I have a knife. Turn over and don’t say anything. I’ll kill ya if you do. Keep yer eyes shut!”
Bess was terrified but slowly turned over. On top of her was a hulking shadow of a man whose face was covered by a bandana, holding what appeared to be a large knife, pointed directly at her face in the low light.
“Just do as I say,” the hulking figure said. He pulled down the quilt that was covering Bess and roughly began to pull up her nightgown. Fear coiled in her gut and ice filled her veins. She was petrified and her limbs felt paralyzed, as if she couldn’t move.
“Move or say anything and I’ll kill you,” he said. “And keep yer eyes shut!”
Then for a time which seemed to Bess to be an eternity, he threw himself on top of her, and tried to force her legs apart.
In desperation, Bess reached under her pillow, pulled out her loaded revolver, and pulled the trigger. The shot startled the man and he immediately pulled away from her, dropping his weapon on the wooden floor planks.
Bess fired blindly again and the man backed away, ducking as he moved toward toward the door. He smelled of stale beer and tobacco and what she thought were probably rotting teeth and a filthy mouth.
“Bitch,” he yelled.
Bess fired the revolver again—this time in the direction where she thought the man would be. She heard him yank the front door open and rush out the door. Bess didn’t recognize his voice and assumed he must be some drifter, hired hand, or cowboy who had carefully planned what he wanted to do.
“Say anything, bitch, and you’re dead! Remember that!” he said again loudly as he opened the door and disappeared into the night. He left the door wide open and Bess could feel the rush of the cold, wet breeze flowing inside.
Bess jumped up, rushed over to her trunk, and whipped out her loaded double-barreled shotgun. She hurried to the open door and looked out into the darkness. At a distance, riding away at a trot, she could see the shadows of the man and his horse. Her hands were shaking, but she cocked the shotgun, took careful aim, and fired both barrels at once. Boom! At the sound of the shots, the man galloped away faster.
Bess raced over to the trunk, and it seemed to take forever for her to bring out her loaded 30-30 high-powered rifle. She went again to the door, fearing that he might be coming back, but she saw nothing. She aimed in the direction where she last saw him and fired again and again, emptying the rifle.
She went back inside and found the weapon that he had suddenly dropped. It wasn’t a knife. It was a sharp stick that had she thought was a knife—obviously that was what he wanted her to think. She opened the door and threw it out as far as she could. Then she sat down on a chair beside her table and slowly the reality of what had happened started to sink in. She began to shake.
Bess loaded the rifle again and sat in the dark with the door wide open in fear of his coming back, and by the time she did get up the sun had risen and it was fully light outside. The room was cold.
She got up, shut the door and lit the stove.
Then she sat down again facing the door with the loaded rifle in her lap.
And for the first time in her life, she cried uncontrollably.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bess spent nearly all of the morning washing herself over and over again. She filled her washtub with hot water and used a large washcloth and towel to rub her skin raw. She felt unclean, dirty, and angry—even though she had foiled the intruder. She felt anger that she’d let this happen and because she had not been prepared to ward off the attacker sooner.
She didn’t know what to do except to cleanse herself. Should she tell someone? Whom would she tell? Doc? Thoughts raced from solution to solution. She felt helpless, fearing that he might come back and attack her again, and fearing what might happen if she told anyone.
When she went out to feed the animals, she carried her loaded revolver and was afraid that when she opened the door to the shed, he might be inside. She was prepared to shoot. At the same time, she hoped he would be there. I want to kill him. Bess wondered who he was. Certainly he was not someone from town. Probably a wandering cowboy or drifter, she thought.
That night she didn’t sleep at all. She sat upright in her chair facing the front door with her shotgun loaded. She almost hoped that the door would quietly open and he would try to sneak in again. She imagined him stepping through the door and she would pull the trigger, and his blood would splatter. She wanted to see him suffer. Her anger was at the boiling point.
Staying up with her shotgun loaded became her routine for the next week or so. She became nocturnal and was fully awake at night, and during the day she would occasionally nap with her loaded revolver in her hand and a chair blocking the locked door. On the practical side, she thought that her new sleep cycle would fit in well with the nocturnal habits of her sheep when they went into lambing, which would be any day now.
When she went into Haley about a week a week later, she found herself looking from side to side and occasionally behind her with the fear that she might see him again. She carried the loaded revolver in her bag in case she might see him, and if she did, she was determined that she would shoot him in broad daylight. Right in the middle of town, in front of everyone, she thought. While looking him directly in the face.
Doc was at the Currie Store when she went in to check her mail and to buy a new shovel. When Doc saw Bess, he smiled and walked over. “Mornin’, Bess,” he said.
He startled her slightly, but she recovered quickly and said, “Mornin’, Doc.” Immediately Bess felt safe.
“Been worried a bit about you, what with the flood and all,” he said. “Lambin’ time about here. Ready for it?”
“Yes, any day now,” she said. Bess felt relief talking to Doc, and she realized how much she’d missed his company. Given what had happened to her with the intruder, having him around might make her feel safe. “Stop by sometime?” she asked.
Doc smiled and quickly said, “Sunday?”
“I’d like that,” she said. “Very much. Early afternoon?”
“Will be there,” Doc said.
Doc arrived at Bess’s homestead promptly at one o’clock on Sunday. It was comforting to see him. They chatted all afternoon. He told her more about his horse-raising business, which was the way he was proving up on his homestead after he stopped driving the freight for the Curries. Doc had some experience with lambing and they talked about the advantages of spring lambing when the ewes would give birth in April. He said that while the danger of coyotes was generally greater in early lambing, the problem with parasites was less. “Coyotes are hungry after the winter, Bess,” he said, “but your herd is small enough so you shouldn’t have a problem.”
“First ones should give birth any day now,” said Bess. “I’ve got the tents ready.”
“Good idea, the tents,” Doc said. “Keeps ’em out of the cold and protects ’em against the coyotes.”
“I’ve got a 30-30 for protection, too,” Bess said smiling. In more ways than one!
Doc made Bess feel very calm as they chatted and had supper. Bess wished he would be around during the night, but she was thinking of her own safety, not of any romantic intentions. Doc gave her no hint that staying overnight was on his mind. She still would keep one eye open during the night with her revolver under her pillow as she tried to sleep. And she would bar the door so no one could sneak in without
waking her.
After supper, Doc prepared to leave, but he seemed hesitant. Before he left, he turned around and said, “I really like visiting with you, Bess.” His face looked so very sincere and Bess could tell from the look in his eyes that his interest in her went beyond simple friendship. In a way, that pleased her, but in another way, it was a bit frightening because she was not romantically attracted to him. Thoughts of the horrible event a couple of weeks ago swept over her.
“Me too, Doc,” she said, trying to ward off a shudder. Doc smiled, then mounted his horse and rode away. Bess stood at the door for a moment, watching him. He turned around and gave her a wave, and she waved back at him. It had been a pleasant day. I like him, she thought. I like him.
Bess had gone through lambing several times before during her years in Cando, so she knew what to look for when a ewe was getting ready to deliver and what to do during the delivery.
It was mostly common sense.
Some of the telltale signs she would look for included the ewes who were separating themselves from the rest, those lying down and obviously in labor, those whose eating habits had changed significantly, and those who might be pawing the ground as though to clear an area, or whose udder had dropped as though she was ready to provide milk for her lamb. If a ewe was lying down and obviously in labor, then only a fool would not understand what was about to happen.
Two ewes gave birth that night, with one delivering a set of twins. Bess put each ewe in one of the small tents that she’d erected near the corral so they would have a bit more warmth and they could bond with their lambs. The deliveries went smoothly without either ewe suffering any unanticipated distress. Bess stayed close by with her 30-30 rifle in case there might be any coyote visitors … or unwanted men.
Bess: A Pioneer Woman's Journey of Courage, Grit and Love Page 18