“You like cattle, don’t you?” Bess said hopefully.
“Yep. Easier than horses. Maybe we’ll have over a hundred next year.”
Bess thought that he didn’t seem to have much enthusiasm in his voice. “How does the pasture look?” Bess asked.
“Stock dam is full. Grass is good. Snow we had will help,” answered Doc. “Maybe we can sell some next fall. Depends on how many calves.”
Doc had good business sense when it came to raising horses, and Bess hoped that his enthusiasm for cattle would be profitable—but she still had her worries. You make money from cattle by raising calves or from buying young cattle when the prices are low in the summer, fattening them up, and selling them during the fall, she thought. The business is raising the cattle for beef. Making money with sheep was a little different and Bess clearly knew that. You make money selling the wool in the late spring or summer, and in late summer or early fall you make money selling lambs. Bess and Doc planned to do both. But Doc’s lackluster attitude worried her. She needed him to be energetic and capable, since she had more than enough to do, tending to their children.
“I’m tired of this,” said Doc on a late February morning. “All the snow.”
“It’s hanging around,” said Bess. “Not the kind of melts we had the past couple of years.”
It wasn’t terribly cold during the winter of 1911-1912, but the temperature rarely got above freezing. That meant that the snow just stayed around and piled up during the entire winter. Twice Doc shoveled the snow off the roof of the sod house because they were afraid of roof leakage when it did melt in the spring. The sheep and cattle fared very well, and they had no more experiences with coyotes. They brought Jim Edgar back to herd the sheep in early March after the thawed, and he seemed to enjoy getting back to living in the sheep wagon.
During the thaw, there was quite a flood when a big ice jam several miles up the Grand River gave way. It must have broken suddenly, because the river level rose rapidly, but not so high as to threaten the new bridge. Doc came back late afternoon in mid-March when the river was at its peak. “House floating down the river, Bess,” Doc said. “Got stuck at the bend up river from the crossing.”
It was quite a sight when that house was floating down the river. People were worried that it might hit the bridge, but it grounded about a half-mile upstream in a sharp turn of the river. Later on in the spring, after the river level went down and the house part and old roof dried out, many folks participated in demolishing the house and carried away much of the wood for firewood.
That the house didn’t hit the bridge was lucky. It was easier to get into Haley after they built the new iron bridge across the river a couple years ago. The old one had washed away and this bridge was wider and felt safer. It was built to handle automobiles, too, and when people crossed the bridge on horseback, they had to be careful that there were no automobiles competing for the single lane at the same time.
Automobiles, Bess thought. There are a lot of them coming into Haley. She thought about Doc’s hope that saddle horses would continue to be in demand, even though work horses were falling out of favor as farming machinery became more readily available. She struggled to balance her curiosity and interest in progress against the knowledge that if automobiles became more popular, Doc would gradually lose his life’s great passion. And his business.
Doc told her that Mr. Feist at the lumberyard bought a new Ford Model T, and Mr. Currie had a new Hupmobile. Sometimes when Bess would see them driving, she thought they probably weren’t going anywhere and they were driving around because they could drive around. Maybe we can get one in a year or two, she thought. Sure would make it easy to go into town with the children. She felt a little disloyal to Doc and his horses, but she couldn’t help being practical.
The automobiles weren’t of much use after a heavy rain, though. The mud would stop them in their tracks, or sometimes they would slide around because the mud was too slick. Bess wondered how they would fare down in South Dakota toward Buffalo, where she had heard that the roads had a lot of that sticky-slick gumbo. Wouldn’t want to be in one of them in that mud, she thought.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Pregnant again,” Bess sighed. It was March 1912, Marion was almost two years old, and Helen was six months. Bess wasn’t too pleased about it, but obviously there was nothing she could do. When she told Doc, he immediately quipped with a smile, “Ordering from Wards again?”
Three small children? she thought. It was hard enough for her to take care of two. She found less and less time to do anything except tend to the chickens now and then, clean up after Marion, nurse Helen, and cook. What had happened to her? She was unrecognizable as the bold young woman who had come out West to homestead on her own.
Bess and Doc were very successful with the lambing thanks to Jim Edgar, and when shearing came around, they discovered that Jim was an excellent shearer, so they didn’t need to hire anyone for that job. Jim and Doc sheared all of the sheep themselves, and it took only two days.
In June, they had twenty-five new little Hereford calves. The breeding in the past fall had been successful, so now they had a small herd of sixty-five cattle! Doc was excited that the herd was growing and didn’t plan on selling any of the new heifers, but they did sell ten males in the fall after they had been castrated and had become steers. They kept two steers as a source of beef for next year.
On October 28, 1912, Bess gave birth to a son, William.
Doc finally had a son and seemed very pleased. Whenever he would come back from the horse ranch, Doc would ask to take time and hold William. They called him Billy. Bess loved the look of kindness on Doc’s face: a happy father with a future ranch hand.
Marion had become very attached to Helen and the two children seemed to get along very well. Bess thought that Marion liked to pretend she was Helen’s mother. Helen’s hair and eyes had turned a darker shade of brown and Bess could tell that Helen’s features—the broad face, wide grin, and dancing eyes—looked a lot like Marion’s at that age. If they hadn’t been separated by a year and a half, they might have been twins. Both of them had a lot of energy and were constantly on the move around the house.
A strong snowstorm blew in suddenly in mid-November from the west. It had been nice and sunny in the morning and Doc said he was going to the horse ranch and then into Haley for a while. When the storm started and he wasn’t back, Bess looked outside but she could barely see past the well down by the front. Where is he? she wondered.
Then she thought about the sheep. They were in the pasture closest to the house, but Bess knew they would be in trouble if they weren’t brought into the corral and the shed. The cattle would be all right in the lower pasture. She didn’t know what to do, but knew for sure that those sheep would have to be brought in from the blinding snow. Marion and Helen were in the living room and she had just put Billy in the cradle, where he was fast asleep.
Bess decided to saddle Annabel and take Bismarck along to bring in the sheep, even though she knew it might be dangerous. She would have to leave the children in the house while she did it--she had no other choice. So she sat down for a moment and looked at Marion, who was a smart little girl and had shown signs of being responsible.
“Marion,” Bess said. “Mama needs your help. Will you help me?”
“Yes,” the little girl said enthusiastically.
“I want you to be mama to Helen and baby Billy for a little while. Mama has to go get the sheep, and she will be gone for just a short time.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Mama has to get the sheep in,” Bess said. “We don’t want them to freeze, do we?”
“No!” Marion said loudly.
“While I’m gone, will you play with Helen? Don’t let her touch the stove. Billy is sleeping, so you and Helen must be very quiet so you don’t wake him up. Can you do that?”
“Yes!” she replied enthusiastically. “I will!”
“Bismarck will go
with me.”
Marion looked very pleased that Bess had asked her to help and immediately went over to Helen, sat down beside her, and started talking to her. Bess couldn’t hear what she was saying, but she hoped she was telling Helen to behave while Mama would be out of the house for a short while.
Thank heaven for that little girl, Bess thought. She had confidence in Marion, and fortunately nothing was cooking on the stove, but it was still quite warm from the coals. Bess put on her coat and wrapped her head with a scarf; then she went out to the shed and saddled Annabel. “C’mon, Bismarck,” she said to the dog, who seemed to like the snow. The snow had tapered off a bit and Bess could see much farther than she could when just looking out the window. That’s good, she thought.
Bess rode Annabel at a brisk gallop down to the far corner of the near pasture, which was only about a quarter-mile away, and Bismarck bounded happily behind. The sheep had bunched up in the corner and Bess couldn’t see any strays. Annabel was a good herding horse.
Very quickly Bess and Bismarck had moved the sheep from the corner and had them heading back to the corral and shed. It seemed like the sheep knew where they were going, and the small herd moved rather quickly, but not so fast that they had to run. Bismarck had learned to be patient with them, following closely behind and moving back and forth behind the herd to keep them bunched.
In half an hour, Bess and Bismarck had the sheep safely in the corral. She shut the gate, unsaddled Annabel, and put her safely in the stall. “Thank you, Annabel,” she said as patted the horse gently and hurried out the door, shutting it tightly after Bismarck scurried out. “Good dog!” she said.
The snow had picked up in intensity and within a few moments, Bess and Bismarck were back in the house. To Bess’s surprise and relief, Marion was sitting on the floor with Helen at her side, singing a children’s song that Bess always sang to her when putting her to bed. The song was simple—“Over in the Meadow.”
Bess hummed the lyrics to herself.
Over in the meadow in a pond in the sun
Lived an old mother duck and her little duckies one
“Quack!” said the mother
“Quack!” said the one
And they quacked and were happy in the pond in the sun
It was a fun little song—ancient in its origin. Sort of a “counting rhyme,” thought Bess. A soothing little song that also teaches a child how to count. She remembered when Mama used to sing the song to her—and was pleasantly surprised that Marion clearly knew the words and was singing the song to her baby sister.
Bess felt such a sense of relief, even happiness, as she watched her two little girls sitting safely together. “I’m a good mama,” Marion said as she looked up at Bess with a smile.
“Thank you, Marion. Yes, you are a good mama.”
Marion smiled, turned back toward Helen, and began to sing “Over in the Meadow” again.
Bess checked on Billy and found him still fast asleep. Then she sat down at the table and rolled and lit a cigarette. The wind batted the windowpane. Where is Doc? she thought. Despite the howling winds and blowing snow outside, it was warm inside. The coal-fired stove gave off enough heat to keep the room cozy, and the thick and heavy sod walls insulated them from the outside cold as though they were deep inside a warm cave. There was no leakage of air or cold around the double windows, nor from the well-insulated front door. It was a well-built house.
Doc didn’t come home until about nine o’clock, two hours after the snow let up. His right arm was in a sling and not in the sleeve of his coat, which was buttoned tightly. “Accident,” Doc said as he closed the front door and shook snow off his shoulders. “Leavin’ the horse ranch. Nearly broke my arm, but not bad. Dr. Poppe fixed me up in Haley.”
Thank heaven it’s not serious, thought Bess. “How’d it happen?” Bess asked as she came to his side.
“Horse slipped and fell on me,” Doc said. “It’s okay. Doc says it ain’t broke. Cracked, though, most likely. Said I was lucky. Said I sprained my shoulder, too. That’s what hurts. More than my arm.”
“I got the sheep in,” Bess said. “Me and Bismarck wrangled them in when the snow let up a bit earlier.”
“Good,” Doc said. “Was worried about them.”
“Marion looked after Helen when we brought them up from the lower pasture,” Bess said. “She was a good mama.” Bess said loudly as she turned and smiled at Marion, who beamed with pleasure.
Marion jumped up and came over. She looked at Doc’s arm bundled up in the sling, then she looked up at her father and said, “Hurt?” She reached out and gently touched the sling.
Doc kneeled down and looked Marion in the eye. “Papa hurt his arm,” he said as he pointed to the sling. “He’ll be okay.” Marion put her little hand on Doc’s arm as if she were trying to comfort him. Then she whirled around and ran across the room to tell Helen, who was sitting on the floor playing with some blocks.
Later, after Bess put the children to bed, the wind died down but it began to snow heavily. “It’s gonna be a long winter maybe, with snow this early,” Doc said.
“I hope not,” Bess said as she turned off the kerosene lamp and climbed into bed. As she lay in bed before drifting off to sleep, she wondered just how Doc hurt his arm. Is he telling the truth? she asked herself.
Bess felt Doc stir. “Bess,” he whispered.
Bess was silent for a few minutes, fearing that perhaps Doc was interested in sex. Sometimes if she pretended to be asleep, he would leave her alone. But it seemed unlikely that he would want that, with his injured arm. “Yes?” she said softly.
Doc turned over and faced her. “Can we talk about something?”
“Your arm hurt?” asked Bess.
“No, something else.”
“OK,” said Bess. “What do you want to talk about? The children are sleeping.”
“Well,” said Doc, “we’re married.”
“Yes.”
Doc seemed to be struggling with words. He was silent for a couple of minutes. “Bess, we don’t lay together often. Really, not often at all. Have I done something that doesn’t please you? You can tell me.”
Bess had never talked openly about sex—certainly not with her parents, and not even with Doc. Nobody knows what I’m really like, she thought. Maybe he thinks I don’t enjoy sex. “It isn’t you,” she said.
Doc hesitated. She heard an ache of loneliness in his low voice. “Then why don’t you want me?” he asked.
Bess was quiet as thoughts raced through her mind. I don’t like being with men, she thought. But is that all right to say? “I’ve just never been much interested. In anyone. There’s nothing you’ve done wrong.” I can’t tell him that I prefer to be close to a woman, she thought. What if he called me a criminal? What if he took our children, and abandoned me? What would I do? I’d rather he seek his comfort with another woman than tell him the truth.
Doc was quiet and Bess could sense that he was disappointed. The topic made Bess very uncomfortable. I wonder what he’s thinking.
“It’s something we do to have children,” Bess said. “That’s all I think about it.”
Doc was silent for several minutes. He took a breath a couple of times as if he had something to say, but he gave up. “Nite, Bess,” he finally said, as he turned onto his side, away from her.
“Nite, Doc,” said
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Chinooks brought little relief during the winter of 1912 and the big thaw didn’t come until late March. The house was warm and Bess and Doc’s routine centered on his tending the horse ranch for a few days and spending as much time as he could with Bess and the children. Caring for three young children occupied most of Bess’s time, but she still was able to tend to the sheep, which was quite easy because Doc had arranged for Jim Edgar to stay through the winter.
The small children and the harsh weather gave Bess little opportunity to go into Haley even for supplies, but it was mostly unnecessary because Doc wou
ld always bring the supplies they needed when returning from the horse ranch. Bess had time to write down her thoughts in her journal two or three times during each week. She also had time to write letters to Mama and Papa.
The children suffered from chest colds just before the spring thaw came, but fortunately, baby Billy was spared. Marion was particularly sick and her illness lingered for about three weeks. Bess took her to see Dr. Poppe, who reassured her that Marion did not have pneumonia, but that she should take special precautions and feed her liquids. Dr. Poppe was a particular advocate of chicken broth as a relief, but not a remedy. Over the course of the next three weeks, Bess found herself preparing substantial quantities of chicken broth for both Marion and Helen. Each of the children had recurring and persistent coughs that lingered until the first week in April.
On a warm April afternoon, Bess was outside with Marion and Helen feeding the chickens. Each of the two small girls loved taking a handful of the chicken feed and tossing it on the ground in front of the hungry chickens. When they were nearly finished, Marion pointed to the north. “Mama,” she said as she pointed.
Bess looked north to where Marion was pointing and noticed a tall billow of smoke coming from the Haley area. It was obviously a fire somewhere and Bess worried that it might be the Currie Store, but as she moved to get a better look she could see that it was too far to the west of the store and closer to the boarding house where she had stayed when she first arrived in Haley and to the Feist lumberyard.
Bess immediately thought of the fire in Miles City that took Linda’s life. Oh my God, she thought as she felt a wave of sorrow in her heart. Fires were indiscriminate and relentlessly consumed anything in their paths—especially the prairie fires that burned without remorse. Thankfully sod doesn’t burn, Bess thought as she looked at the children happily playing on the floor by the kitchen table.
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