The Long Trail Home (Quartz Creek Ranch)

by Amber J. Keyser

  It was larger than she’d realized. The logs were as big around as her waist. She wondered how the pioneers had transported them. They must have used horses or oxen to drag them into place. Would Rowdy do that for her? Could he be a pioneer pony? The front wall was still mostly standing. The opening where the door had been was crooked and sunken, but she could imagine the cabin when it was new—a stout, square structure built to last.

  Rivka sat down on the grass, trying to imagine living here. Right now it was sunny and warm and apparently “trouty.” What about winter? She knew it snowed a lot in Colorado. Maybe it would drift higher and higher until snow skimmed the edges of the now-collapsed roof. There would be wood to chop and water to haul and a million things to do to survive.

  It was hard to imagine no Chinese takeout, no ice-skating rink with tinny music over the speakers, no escaping dreary afternoons in the movie theater down the street from her brownstone apartment. What Rivka’s father announced on a regular basis was true—they were city people. Every single one of Rivka’s aunts and uncles and cousins and second cousins lived in the city—Providence or Baltimore or New York. Avoid the wilderness was practically a family motto. The old people didn’t even like to have picnics.

  And here she was, flying in the face of convention. She had peed outside. She had set up camp. And while she might not have held the caddis like Cat did, she had poked it with her finger. That seemed like accomplishment enough. Tonight she was going to sleep out under the stars. Her aunts would never believe it.

  “Skunked,” said Cat, coming up the trail toward her. Rivka looked over her shoulder and sniffed. Cat giggled. “If you smell anything bad, it’s Paul, not me.”

  “Hey!” he protested. To Rivka, he said, “What have you been up to?”

  She pointed across the river at the abandoned cabin. “Can we wade over there and explore?”

  Paul pushed his cowboy hat back and checked out the river. “Don’t know why not. Let’s do it.” He leaned the fly rod against a tree and sat down to pull off his boots. “We should probably take our shoes with us.” He unloaded his day pack and left the contents by the fly rod. “Pop your boots in here.”

  Rivka rolled up her pant legs and tested the water. “It’s really cold.”

  “Snow melt,” said Paul, pointing to the still white-topped mountains.

  He held out his hands to the girls, and they linked together for the crossing. Rivka felt along the bottom with her toes. The rocks were smooth and a tiny bit slimy underfoot. She tried not to think of caddis fly nymphs or whatever else could be down there. The rushing water tugged at her legs, but it never got above knee-high. Even so, her toes were numb by the time they reached the other side, and she had to rub the blood back into them.

  Once she had her boots back on, Rivka walked around the outside of the cabin, running her fingers along the weathered wood. She was so curious about who had lived here. Maybe a gold miner or a rancher? She wondered if there had been kids with cornhusk dolls, like she learned about in school. Had Mr. Bridle’s great-grandfather known them?

  Back at the front of the cabin, she stepped gingerly inside. There was no floor, just the pile of fallen-in roof boards. Grass, wildflowers, and young trees grew up through the decaying wreck of the cabin. In the far corner was a broken jumble of old canning jars. The rusting remains of a potbellied wood stove stood in the other corner. She stepped inside and turned in a circle, trying to imagine living inside these four walls. When Rivka had completed a full revolution and was facing the opening again, a black mark above the door caught her eye.

  It was seared into the fading wood.

  The shape looked like a capital R, except the long part of the R extended downward and hooked into a J.

  “Check this out,” she called to Paul and Cat, who joined her inside. “What do you think that means?”

  Paul reached up and ran a finger along the shape. “That. Is. Amazing.”

  “I don’t get it,” said Cat. “Pioneer graffiti?”

  Rivka’s heart flip-flopped. Graffiti. “Does it mean something bad?”

  Paul tugged on his mustache. “It’s a cattle brand, and yours truly happens to know exactly whose it is. Or rather, was.”

  “You do?” Cat looked at him like he had just solved a big mystery case.

  Paul explained. “Mr. Bridle is really into genealogy, and recently he showed me a list of brands he had dug up, all the marks for the earliest ranch families in the state. This is one of them.”

  “Do you have a photographic memory or something?” Rivka asked, thinking about how she had struggled to keep the letters of the Hebrew alphabet from getting all mixed up in her brain.

  “No way,” said Paul, “but I remember this one because it stands for Rachel Jacobs. See, R and J put together.”

  “Wow. She must have been super tough, living way out here,” said Cat.

  “It gets better. Rachel was one of three sisters, each with their own brand. Bella Jacobs ranched in Nevada, and Hannah ran cattle in California. On top of that . . .” he said, turning to Rivka, “they were Jewish. Mr. Bridle has a whole book back at the ranch about pioneer Jews in the Old West.”

  Rivka could hardly believe it. Jewish pioneers on the Oregon Trail. Why hadn’t she ever learned that bit of history?

  “. . . but I remembered the RJ brand,” Paul was saying, “because apparently Ms. Jacobs lived out here all by herself. Lots of people tried to get her to move to town. Her dad tried to marry her off, but she told him in no uncertain terms that all she needed was a good horse.” He chuckled.

  “She sounds stubborn,” said Cat. There was an edge to her voice that caught Rivka’s attention. Stubborn.

  “Sounds like Ma Etty,” said Paul, unaware of how Cat’s expression had hardened.

  But Rivka noticed. And even though Cat had turned away, Rivka heard her mutter, “Stubborn girls,” more to herself than anyone else. “Parents hate that.”

  Chapter Twenty

  By the time they got back to camp, Fletch had a fire going in the fire pit, and Sam had started laying out plates and cups for dinner. A mesh bag full of fresh corn, still in the husk, was soaking in the river. Fletch had cut and sharpened green sticks for roasting hot dogs. Lauren was laying out buns, only a little squashed from the panniers, and condiments. Fletch retrieved the corn and tucked each ear into a thick layer of coals. He put Rivka in charge of turning them every few minutes until they were tender. Pretty soon, everyone was crouching around the fire holding skewered hot dogs over the flames.

  Rivka’s stomach rumbled.

  Madison grinned at her. “Hungry much?”

  Paul’s stick dipped a little too close to the coals and a row of black blisters rose on his hot dog. He pulled it out for inspection.

  “Amateur move, dude,” Madison teased.

  He assumed a stiff-backed, stiff-upper-lip pose. “You know nothing of food, young lady. All the finest chefs recommend blackened salmon and blackened chicken and—”

  “Blackened hot dog?” Madison snarked.

  “Exactly.” Paul raised a pinky finger and slid the charred hot dog onto a bun. He made a big show of eating it with delicate gusto, and everyone laughed.

  After they were done eating, Fletch put more wood on the fire, and Paul played the harmonica while Madison forced everyone to sing “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain” and “Little Bunny Foo Foo.” There is no escaping camp songs, Rivka thought, as they roared into the final verse. Jewish camp, horse camp—they all did camp songs. When Madison had exhausted her musical repertoire, she brought out marshmallows, graham crackers, and milk chocolate bars.

  “Let’s get roasting!”

  “Hey, Paul,” said Fletch as he skewered two marshmallows on his roasting stick, “how about one of your famous ghost stories?”

  “Don’t want to scare the wee ones,” Paul said, passing the bag of marshmallows to Rivka.

  Cat snorted. “We don’t scare easy.” Lauren shifted uneasily next to
her, and Cat gave Lauren the side-eye before adding, “Well, not all of us.”

  “I want a ghost story,” said Rivka. “A scary one.”

  Paul stroked his mustache and gazed into the fire. The flames flickered red and orange, casting shadows on his craggy, suddenly serious face. “You know,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, “there are many who walk unseen in the darkness of these hills.” He paused, and the kids drew closer. Suddenly the night around them felt thick with shadows. “I will tell you the story of the Gray Lady if you think you’re brave enough to hear it.”

  Rivka shuddered, and across the fire, Lauren’s eyes grew big and round.

  “She was not always the Gray Lady. Once, a long time ago, she was a girl like you.” Paul looked from Rivka to Lauren to Cat and back to Rivka. “A girl who dreamed of wide open spaces.”

  Rivka thought of the buildings back home, how their height cut off the sky and squeezed against the streets.

  “But this girl had never left the town where she was born. She grew up and taught in the school, and the children loved her. And every day when the schoolhouse emptied, she walked home to the house she grew up in and made dinner for her mother and father.”

  Sam’s marshmallow went up in a burst of blue-green flames. “I’m not scared yet,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Paul, “a skeptic.”

  Sam frowned at him and popped the blackened marshmallow into his mouth. “I’m just saying your story is kinda boring.”

  Paul held up his hands, shushing Sam. “Just you wait.”

  Sam sniffed at him.

  “One day, a wagon train came through town. These families were heading for Oregon, and the girl who was now a teacher went with them. She rode a gray horse the color of storm clouds. The trail was long and hard. She rode for hours every day, and even though she was bone-weary and her body ached, she told stories to the children around the campfire at night, and they loved her.”

  Sam cleared his throat very loudly, and Madison threw a marshmallow at him.

  Paul cleared his throat even more loudly and continued. “The trouble began once they passed Courthouse Rock. The first to die was a boy, one of the teacher’s favorites, who was run over by a wagon. That night she could hardly speak for the tears, but the children wanted a story, and she told them one.

  “A few days later, an entire family took sick with cholera, and they were buried all in a row—one, two, three, four, five, six. There were fewer faces around the fire that night, and the teacher’s heart ached. A week later another wagon was gone, swept away trying to cross the Platte River.

  “The living were grief-stricken. They walked the trail in a daze. That night the teacher turned away from the fire and the faces of the remaining children. She did not have the strength to face them. But then . . .”

  Paul gazed into the flames for a long moment. Rivka and the others leaned forward, hanging on his words.

  “But then she heard them. Faint sounds over the crackle of the fire. A rustling like dried leaves. A high-pitched, mournful call. The far-off gabble of voices.”

  Paul shifted his position, cocked his head to one side, and listened.

  Rivka couldn’t help listening too. Her ears reached out into the darkness. The glowing coals popped and hissed. From behind her came the huffing breath of a horse on the high line. A hoof stomp.

  And something else . . .

  She strained to make it out.

  A whispering breath, a far-off warble.

  Around the fire pit, no one moved. It seemed they hardly even breathed. Even Sam was frozen in place. One of the horses let out a loud snort, and Rivka jumped.

  Paul continued. “The teacher turned back to the fire and told another story. But there was no end to the trouble. The oxen succumbed to drought. The horses died from starvation and snake bite. Even the teacher’s gray horse, the one that looked like a storm brewing, gave up before they’d crossed Wyoming.

  “Word of their tragedies spread up and down the trail. People said the wagon train was cursed. A boy was hit by lightning. Another, trampled by bison. One by one, the number of people dwindled. Without her horse, the teacher was forced to walk, and her feet blistered and bled. Dust coated her throat until she thought she would choke on it. But every night the teacher told a story. And every night children gathered to listen in a rustling, shifting crowd.

  “At Fort Hall, a woman urged her to leave the trail. ‘There are so few of you left,’ she said. ‘We need a teacher here,’ she begged. ‘Stay.’

  “ ‘But the children,’ the teacher protested. ‘I cannot leave them.’ The woman looked at what was left of the group that had left Missouri. Two wagons drawn by emaciated oxen. An old man and a young man and the teacher.”

  Paul’s face glowed in the firelight. He looked at each of them in turn. In the still moment, Rivka again heard what sounded like voices off in the distance.

  Paul went on. “But the teacher continued on the trail. The old man died, and the young man died, and each day the teacher walked on alone, leading the last of the oxen. Each night, she stoked the fire and told stories to the children—or at least the ghosts of the children.” Paul’s voice dropped even lower. “They say the Gray Lady still walks the trail, and if you meet her and if you’re brave enough to ask, she will tell you a story.”

  A burst of sparks flew from the fire, and sound exploded around them. Rivka’s stomach lurched. She clung to Cat as the whispering voices grew into a caterwauling of screaming laughter and eerie yowls. Lauren shrieked and nearly jumped into Fletch’s lap.

  “What in the heck?” said Sam, jumping up and peering into the darkness.

  Paul reached for Sam, pulling him back down. He patted Rivka’s shoulder. “Calm down, everyone. Those are coyotes. When they really get going, they sound more like ghosts than anything.”

  Still jittery, Rivka and the others settled back into their spots around the fire, and for a long time, they all listened to the otherworldly chorus of yips and barks and howls until the sounds of the pack faded off into the distance.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  No ghosts came in the night. No coyotes either. About the only scary thing was Paul’s snoring, which was loud enough to raise a corpse. The first time Rivka woke, she thought it must be the growl of a bear. The second time, she knew it was Paul and couldn’t help but giggle. The night was cold and clear. Rivka snuggled deeper into her sleeping bag and lay awake for a while, staring up at the midnight sky. The Milky Way was a swirl of sparkles. It reminded her of a story from Hebrew school about an old rabbi who said that everyone should have two slips of paper, one in each pocket. On one slip of paper it should say I am but dust and ashes, and the other should say The world was created for me. Sometimes you need to reach into your pocket, the old rabbi had said. The trick is knowing which slip of paper you need to read.

  The cold night air skimmed her cheeks. The people around her were good people. And those stars! It really did feel like a world created for her. Rivka fell asleep watching the sky and thinking of Rachel Jacobs living way out here, the absolute ruler of her own universe.

  Not a bad idea, she thought. Not a bad idea at all.

  In the morning, she woke curled up in a ball down near Madison’s feet and absolutely starving. “What’s for breakfast?”

  Madison pulled her sleep-wild hair into a ponytail. “What are you fixing?”

  “Takeout,” said Rivka, thinking of her favorite breakfast spot, the Waffle Window.

  “Ha! I think we planned to do bannock with peanut butter and honey.”

  Rivka zipped her fleece and pulled on her boots. “What’s bannock? Is it as good as waffles?”

  “Yes,” said Fletch with authority. “You will not be disappointed. You’ll see.”

  “Hey,” Rivka asked, scanning the campsite, “where’s Cat?”

  “In the tent,” said Lauren. “Still asleep.”

  “When did she decide to go in there?”

  Lauren shrugged. “Sai
d she heard things in the night . . . weird things.”

  “Better get her up,” said Madison. “It’s time to get cracking.”

  After they’d brushed their teeth and spit into the bushes, Rivka helped Fletch relight the campfire. There were still some hot coals from the previous night under a thick layer of ash, and he showed her how to add small twigs and coax the fire to life again. The rest of the crew woke up slowly. Paul was last of all, rubbing sleep from his eyes and moaning about coffee.

  “Don’t be such a baby,” Madison teased as she measured coffee grounds into a percolator. “Your morning fix is on the way.”

  Sam and Lauren used a handsaw to cut an alder branch into sections that were about two feet long and an inch in diameter. Fletch mixed up a batch of thick, biscuit-like dough and showed the kids how to wrap it around the peeled end of a stick. Pretty soon, they were crouched around the fire, trying not to scorch their meal. When the dough had puffed up and turned golden-brown, Madison helped each of them slide the tube of flaky goodness onto a plate and fill the center with peanut butter and honey.

  Fletch was right: Delicious!

  That settled it. Rivka was never going home. She didn’t need the sideways glances, the not-so-subtle guilt trips, or the shadow of her super-perfect brother. She needed baked dough and honey. That was it.

  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

  Rivka walked to the river’s edge to wash the stickiness off her hands. She watched a dragonfly twist and hover near her toe. Everything about the day felt lazy. The current here was slow, and flecks of foam from the faster water upstream curled over the surface of the water. The sun spread across the rocky cliffs on the far side of the river.

  She was thinking about the book in her saddlebag and maybe another visit to the ruined cabin as she walked back to camp.

  Paul was getting his fishing things ready.

  “Gonna bring us back some trout this time, cowboy?” Madison asked.

  He tucked a granola bar in the front pocket of his flannel shirt. “I will try to bring you a tasty morsel, m’lady.”

  The trainer gave him a little curtsy. “Fletch and I thought we’d take the crew and ride up to check out that golden eagle’s nest on the ridge. Sam is keen to see it.”