by Nancy Radke
“We get Chinook winds here,” he said. “They’re wonderful.”
“I’ve never heard of them before.”
“It’s the name for a warm wind that blows in, that can melt a foot of snow overnight. The temperature will go from freezing to shirtsleeve weather almost instantly. There’s nothing quite like it.”
“This land out here is fascinating.”
“You like it?”
“Yes. Very much so.”
“In spite of having lost your private car, and sleeping in the hay, and being without a comb?”
“That wasn’t the fault of the land. I love being able to look for miles and miles and see nothing but prairie. And here, you have lots of trees in town already.”
“The oaks, the maples, and the poplars, mainly. Seeds brought from New England.”
“So that they wouldn’t be homesick once they got here. I can understand that. Everything is a little strange.”
“You calling me strange?”
“No. Although your accent is different.”
“That’s not west you hear. That’s Tennessee mountain twang mixed with western lingo. You’ll find some folks with heavy German accents and others with a broad English. French and Swede. We are a very mixed group out here. After a while, you’ll find your speech changing some.”
“Oh, I doubt I’ll be here that long. As soon I get Sir Galahad settled, I’ll visit Lizzie for a week or so, then return home.”
“You got some fellow waiting for you back there?”
“No. No one. That’s not to say they haven’t tried.” I smiled as I remembered my last suitor, who turned and ran when I took him out to introduce him to Sir Galahad. There were plenty of fellows with their eye on my father’s money, who figured I would be an easy path to it. I had believed the first two, who had pledged their love eternally. Father had made short work of them. Later, I’d seen them cozying up to some other girl in town, and it made me pretty cynical from then on, when some fellow tried to sweet-talk me. I decided he’d have to prove he loved me. Words weren’t enough. That usually sent them packing. That or Sir Galahad.
That bull had bamboozled many a suitor. It was strange, because he was so tame. I doubted he had a mean bone in his body.
We arrived at a gate, an opening in a pole fence that zigzagged its way across the hillsides.
I had been sitting as straight as I could, so as not to slump back against James. I didn’t want him to think me forward, although to ride with a man on a separate horse, anywhere, for any length of time, would have brought scandal back home. Come to think of it, I had done a lot of things on this trip that would have brought scandal on me. I was fortunate that no one was writing all this to my mother.
I had better not tell Lizzie of my adventures. One thing she couldn’t keep was a secret.
Dear Lizzie. It would be fun to see her, at last.
*4*
James jumped off Red’s back and opened the gate. As soon as I rode through, Sir Galahad followed, dragging his lead.
James closed the gate, picked up the lead, and remounted behind me.
“I don’t know why you bother with a halter and a lead. He’s going to go where you go.”
“He better not try to follow me tomorrow, when I go to Lizzie’s.”
“We’ll put him in the barn so he doesn’t see you leave.”
“Good idea.”
“Aren’t you going to miss him?”
“Yes. I’ll have to find another bull to raise. Although I doubt there will be another one like him. He has a sense of dignity. I think someone told him how valuable he is.”
We approached a large ranch house. Next to it was a cluster of buildings including a barn, a tool shed with a forge, a milking barn, and a bunkhouse. James pointed them out to me. They were beginning to be hard to see in the twilight.
“Oh, he’s going to like it here,” I said. “As long as he doesn’t have to run hard.”
“We’ll bring the cows to him, if we have to.”
“If he starts eating nothing but hay, he’ll slim down a little bit.”
“We’ll give him some grain. I don’t mind pampering him a little. I can already picture the calves he will have.”
We stopped at the barn and James helped me dismount. He took his hat back and led Sir Galahad and me into the barn. It was nice inside. They had built a special pen for him next to the barn, so he could go in and out at will. He already had some bedding straw down and some hay in his manger. I led him in and took off his halter.
“Here’s your new home,” I told him. “Isn’t it nice?”
At that moment several people came in, an adult couple and three children in their teens.
“Hello.”
“Land sakes. He sure is big.”
“Who are you?”
“This is Miss Brynn Porter, recently of Baltimore. Her father sent her out with Sir Galahad, since he won’t pay attention to anyone else,” James said.
They smiled.
“Brynn this is my mother, Mally, and my father, James Madison Trahern. My brothers, Gilbert and Andrew. My sister, Catherine. There are four more, but they aren’t home right now.”
His father was an older version of James, and shook my hand.
“Call me Trey, Miss Porter. We’re glad to have you.”
“If we had known you were coming out, James could have brought the carriage,” his mother said.
“She didn’t figure on coming, Mother. It’s just that her bull wouldn’t come without her.”
“I guess I made too much of a pet of him,” I said. “He wanted to follow me, and wouldn’t go with your son.”
“A pet?” Gilbert said. “Who makes a pet out of a bull?”
“I did. I hand-raised him. He’s very friendly.”
“And stubborn,” James said.
“And spoiled,” I added.
“It’s a good thing he came most of the way by train,” Trey said. “It took Mally and me three months to get here by wagon train, and that was just twenty-four years ago. This part of the country has grown by leaps and bounds, once they brought the railroads in. We even have our own narrow-gage railroad up to the mill on Mill Creek. The Webs keep it humming, furnishing lumber for the new homes that are going up.”
“I saw a lot of new buildings as we walked along.”
Trey had entered the corral with Sir Galahad. “How tame is he?”
“I reckon you could ride him, Dad,” James said. “You wouldn’t get very far.”
I went in and scratched Sir Galahad on the head. “He doesn’t know bulls are supposed to be ferocious. He might get harder to handle, once he’s got some cows. Just let him get used to you.”
“Look at the meat on him,” James said. “Can you imagine what his calves are going to look like?”
Trey was running his hands over Sir Galahad’s red coat, groomed as if for a show. I had lost my comb, but not Sir Galahad’s currycomb, and Henry had used it daily.
“I do look a mess,” I told Mally. “I’ve been in the same clothes over a week.”
“You look just fine, Brynn. Come on up to the house. We held some supper aside for when James got home, so it’s waiting on the stove.”
She and I walked up to the house. I had noticed that these western women were not “fashionably white,” and after riding out in the sun with James, I could see why. Unless you wanted to spend your life inside, you got out in the sunshine and got tan. And anyone living in this beautiful country who didn’t get outside and enjoy it, would be missing a large part of their life.
The house had a separate fence around it, with an small opening containing a dug out ditch with poles running from one side to the other, lengthwise. Next to it was a larger, normal-looking gate.
“That’s a cattle guard,” Mally told me when I asked her about it. “Cows won’t cross it. They don’t like to step on the poles. We put this in so the men didn’t have to keep opening and closing the gate, sometimes with their arms full of t
hings. Otherwise the cattle would come in and graze right over my vegetable garden. I’d never be able to grow anything.”
I stepped over it. “Does it keep horses out?”
“No. Most don’t come in here. We always keep a few in the home corral so we can go get the rest when we need them. Like during round-up time.”
We crossed a wide veranda, which looked shady and cool. Several chairs and two rockers occupied the porch, and I could imagine them sitting here, waiting for us to come.
Inside was a big living room with a stone fireplace and a large clock, and just beyond that, a dining room with one plate sitting on the table.
“Come wash up in here. Now that haying has started we bring in a large, temporary crew and feed them on a table we set up out on the side veranda. I used to hire a woman to help me, but my girls are now old enough to do the cooking and serving.”
“Your girls can cook? Even Catherine?”
“Yes. She fixed this meal while I was mending sheets. I think some of the men sleep with their spurs on.”
I washed up in the small bathroom she showed me, wishing I had grown up here and at least learned to cook. Maybe I could get Lizzie to show me while I was staying with her.
When I came out, Mally had added another place to the table, along with water and coffee cups.
James came in and joined me. “Is that clock right? Is it ten o’clock?” I asked.
“Yes. You know how long our daylight lasts, even after the sun goes down.”
He picked up his plate. “Come on. Let’s get some food. I’m hungry, even if you’re not.”
I jumped up, grabbed my plate and followed him to the kitchen. The meal was on the warming area of the stove, and James dished up for us both. Evidently he was an old hand at coming in late from the range and helping himself to the food. He left a few dishes on the stove and pulled others off that we had finished up.
It was a full meal that Catherine had prepared, meat, potatoes, and string beans, along with fresh bread rolls, and apple pie for dessert. It put me to shame. I simply had to learn how to cook. Our cook had never let me in the kitchen.
We ate quietly, enjoying the food. I would have talked longer, but James had to get up at daybreak, which at this time of year was around four a.m.
“I sleep in during the winter,” he said.
“How late?”
“Around six. Sometimes seven. The milk cows won’t let you sleep any longer than that.”
“You do the milking?”
“In the winter. This time of year, Gil does it. He’s the youngest. In winter, he has to ride to school, so doesn’t have time.”
“How many milk cows do you have?”
“Four. We go through the milk pretty quickly. Catherine and Mom make butter from the cream. The men we hire love it. We pay well and feed well, so get good workers.”
We took our dishes to the kitchen, where James washed up, including the empty pans, and I dried. I had never done this before.
“What should I do with them?”
“Just stack them on a towel. Catherine will put them away. I don’t know where she wants everything. She told me she would rather put them away than have to hunt for them.”
He led the way into the living room where Mally and Catherine were talking, and Mally put down her mending.
“Why don’t you go with Catherine, Brynn? She can show you where things are. I got Abbie’s bed ready for you. You can get a good rest, then I’ll see you in the morning. We’re haying now, and need to get up early.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Trahern.”
“Call me Mally, dear.”
Catherine grabbed a lantern and led me into a side room. The girls’ room had four bunk beds, one which was Catherine’s. She showed me Abbie’s bed, then the washstand.
“You and Abbie are about the same size. If you want to, put one of her dresses on tomorrow and we can wash yours. I can’t imagine living in the same dress for over a week.”
“I couldn’t either, until I had to do it.” I didn’t mention that not being able to change socks or undergarments was actually worse.
“You’ll have to tell me about the girls in Baltimore. Tomorrow.” She got ready for bed and was in and asleep before I finished washing my face. I poured some more water and wiped off my legs and feet.
Mally had laid out a gown for me, and I slipped into it, blew out the lantern and jumped into bed.
I would have enjoyed it except I didn’t stay awake long enough to. I think the whole trip caught up to me because I didn’t wake up until seven.
Catherine and Mally had fed the crew, and had breakfast all cleared away when I finally came out.
“I’ll get you something,” Mally said.
“Thank you, but what I’d like is a chance to wash my clothes and myself. I’ll take that over eating right now.”
“We usually do the washing on Friday, when we heat the boiler. But I can put some water on the stove. One thing we are lucky to have in this country is plenty of water. We have an artesian well. Trey found it when he dug for a root cellar. Water spurted out like juice from a ripe peach. He put a barrel there and it is always running over. Purest water you can find.”
“It’s so warm out, I don’t mind taking a cold bath. Just so I can wash my hair.”
“Our lye soap doesn’t work very well in cold water. You need it warm enough to work up a lather. We ran out of our glycerin soap last week. Need to make some more. Maybe between haying and harvest.”
“Then I’ll take some warm water. Thank you.”
The water was heated quickly. Not much, but I added it to some cold water and it was warm enough to wash my hair and do a quick rub down of my body. I rinsed it in cold in the bath house, which was an enclosure lower than the artesian spring. The water could be rerouted to fall into it. It acted like a cold shower and I spent a good amount of time in there, rinsing off.
Then I put on the dress that Mally loaned me, scrubbed my dress and underclothes, then hung them up to dry. It was so warm, it would take only a few hours to dry.
I went inside, and expressed my thanks to Mally and Catherine. “I feel like myself again.”
“That sounds good.”
They were busy in the kitchen.
“What are you doing? May I help?” I asked, hoping they wouldn’t ask me to cook anything.
“We’re making lunch to take out to the men in the field. When they are close, they come to the house, but when they’re out in one of the farther fields, like today, we carry lunch to them.” She pointed to some loaves. “You can cut that bread. Slice it thin for sandwiches.”
That I could do, except they said I was cutting it too thin. “A little wider. The men want some bread in their sandwiches.”
We buttered them, put in hunks of sliced cooked beef, wrapped them in cloth and set them into baskets. We loaded the baskets, some coffee, and fresh water jugs onto a buckboard.
“Do you want to go with Gilbert to the fields?” Catherine asked. “It’s time to take these out, and he’ll drive.”
“Isn’t he young to handle a team?”
“He’s twelve. He’s strong. He would be insulted if you told him he wasn’t able to do this job. Farm kids learn skills early.”
“I guess so. When did you learn to cook?”
“I started on cold things when I could see over the table, standing on a box. Hot things when I was ten. When did you learn?”
“I didn’t.”
“You can’t cook?” Catherine sounded like I had said I couldn’t walk.
“I was never allowed in the kitchen. I envy you your skills.”
“Well, cooking is something you can always learn. I’d demand to be taught, if I were you.”
“I’d love to be able to bake bread.”
“Well, we bake plenty of it. I’ll show you how, if we have the time.”
Gilbert climbed up behind the team and I got on the buckboard with him.
“Wait,” Mally said. She w
ent back into the house and came out with a hat which she handed to me. “You’re already reddish from yesterday.”
I put it on. This one fit much better than yesterday’s, but I think I preferred wearing James’ big cowboy one.
“Have fun,” Mally said. Gilbert clucked to the team and they started off at a trot. We went along the road, through the gate, then down a dirt road that had cut hay on each side, the dust rising behind us as we rolled along.
Gilbert was quiet, intent on getting us to the workers, and I enjoyed the sweet smell of hay, the clear air, and the warm sunshine. The meadowlarks sat on fence posts and trilled their lovely six-note song as we went by.
The workers had already downed tools and were waiting for us when we arrived. They made short work of the food and water, then went to lie down in whatever shade they could find, including next to and under the buckboard.
This was the noon hour, a time of rest for them in the hottest part of the day. I understood now why the early settlers had planted so many shade trees.
James was there, and he smiled at me as I handed out the food.
“So they’ve got you working already,” he said, taking a drink from the dipper.
“I don’t mind. It was a chance to see more of the ranch.”
“It’s your turn to look clean and my turn to look dirty. Come set with me in the shade. No one works this hour. It’s too hot.”
We found a spot next to the wagon, and James leaned up against the wheel.
“Do you use all this hay?” I asked.
“Most of it. We sell some to ranchers who live near the Pacific Ocean. Cattle do better on it.”
“Is this all hay?” I pointed out to fields in the distance, some looking white, some golden, some still greenish.
“The white is oats or bearded barley. The green is grass hay. Alfalfa. The gold is wheat. We grow a soft white wheat here.”
“There’s a difference in wheat?”
“They grow a hard red in Montana and Wisconsin and places like that. It’s best for making bread. Ours gets used for noodles and items that need starch. The early settlers here boiled it and ate it like cereal when they didn’t have any other food. Dad and Mom had it one winter, but just as a break from the venison they were eating. Both my parents are skilled riflemen, so we always had plenty of meat. Still do. The wheat attracts the deer and elk, and they come down to feed on it. We shoot a couple each year, at different times, so have venison as well as beef. And bear a few times.”