“I…uh…I don’t know.” Just hearing the word Pendleton sent a strange rush through Sunny. Whether it was excitement, fear, or something else, she couldn’t be sure.
“The plan is to spend a few days there right before Round-Up, utilizing some of the local color and activities for the backdrop while we shoot. And, of course, we’ll take some shots at the woolen mill and possibly the Cunningham Sheep Ranch, where Pendleton Woolen Mills gets their wool.”
Aubrey headed over to join them, and Sunny wasn’t sure what to say…or do.
“I’d like to know by the end of the day,” Marsha told Sunny. “I’m trying to set it all up, and I only plan to take about eight models.”
Aubrey looked both interested and disappointed now. “Are you inviting Sunny to the Pendleton shoot?” she asked Marsha.
Marsha looked surprised but simply nodded.
“Man, I’d give anything to be part of that.” She smiled at Marsha. “Did you know I’m from Pendleton? My family has a big wheat ranch, and my sister was a Round-Up princess back in the eighties.”
Marsha looked slightly impressed. “Interesting.”
Aubrey glanced at Sunny, who wasn’t saying anything. “But you probably already heard about her Pendleton heritage?”
Marsha turned to look at Sunny now. “You have Pendleton heritage too?”
“Well, not really. My grandmother was born on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, but she left that area back in the thirties.”
“Sunny is Jackson Sundown’s great-granddaughter!” Aubrey blurt out.
Sunny clenched her fists and mentally counted to ten. Afraid to speak, lest she lash into Aubrey for bringing this up, she wondered if this was how Grandmother felt when her dad had tried to bring it into the open. Still, this was different.
Marsha actually grabbed Sunny by the arm now, peering intently into her face. “You are Jackson Sundown’s great-granddaughter?” she said slowly with a look of both disbelief and curiosity.
Sunny let out a slow breath. “This is pure speculation.”
“Pure speculation?” Aubrey rolled her eyes. “Sunny found a box of memorabilia from her grandmother. It was full of photos of Jackson Sundown and Sunny’s great-grandmother, who was there at Round-Up the same year as Sundown. She must’ve collected all these things about him and her and put them in this box. She even put a birth announcement in there—nine months after that 1911 Round-Up, Sunny’s grandmother was born, and her mother named her Mary Sunrise.”
“And your name is Sunny,” Marsha stated with far too much interest.
“She was named after her grandmother,” Aubrey supplied, as if Sunny wasn’t even there.
“I’m sorry,” Sunny interrupted. “It all makes for a very interesting story, but I have no real facts. No birth certificate, no family records, and this particular subject was always completely taboo with my grandmother. I only found this box last night and, while I’ve started to do some research, I’ve barely begun.”
“She’s a scientific girl,” Aubrey said quietly, as if this were something to be embarrassed by.
“Well, you’re right,” Marsha told Sunny. “It is an interesting story. And if I were you, I’d want to get to the bottom of it. But, really, what better place to research your family roots than in Pendleton? And here I am, offering to pay your way—all expenses, as well as wages.”
“Why don’t you go, Sunny?” Aubrey urged. “You’d be crazy to pass on this.”
Sunny glanced at Aubrey now. Part of her wanted to strangle her outspoken friend. But another part of her couldn’t help but admire Aubrey’s enthusiasm. Sunny turned back to Marsha. “I might be willing to go if my bigmouthed friend here could go with me.”
Marsha shrugged. “Sure, why not.”
“Seriously?” Aubrey’s eyes lit up.
“Very seriously.” Marsha smiled. “And didn’t you say your family has a ranch?”
Aubrey nodded.
“Any chance we could use that setting as a backdrop for some photos?”
“Absolutely!” Aubrey nodded eagerly. “My mom would love that. She’d probably cook everyone lunch.”
Marsha shook hands with both of them, as if it was a done deal. Then she turned back toward the rest of the group and announced it was time to get back to work.
“Thank you, Sunny!” Aubrey hugged her. “This means a lot to me.” “You’re welcome,” Sunny told her. “I’m curious as to why you’re so anxious to do this. I mean, it’s just a photoshoot in Pendleton. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s a long story,” Aubrey said as they walked back to the changing area.
“Well, we have a long drive home. I’ll hold you to telling it to me then.”
As Sunny changed outfits, posed for shots, and did her best to take direction—in addition to “showing some creativity,” as Tyrone kept reminding her—she thought she might be getting a little better. Still, and despite the cooler conditions today, modeling was hard work. Sunny would’ve much rather been in a classroom talking about the courtship rituals amongst the indigenous tribes in the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea.
“Well, that was a good day’s work,” Aubrey said as they headed for the car. “Want to stop and get a bite to eat? My treat, since I didn’t give you any money for gas, although I did bet you that you’d be included today.”
Sunny’s first response was to say no to dinner, that she’d rather just drive and make it back into Portland before dark. But that sounded like such an old lady thing to say—almost as if her grandmother was speaking through her. “I guess that would be okay,” she agreed. “Do you know of any place?” And so they drove through town until a small restaurant caught their eye. Snagging a parking spot right in front, they went inside.
“This looks like a popular spot,” Sunny said as they waited in the busy foyer. But before long they were seated and browsing the menu.
“How about if I get us a bottle of wine?” Aubrey offered. “To thank you for including me in the Pendleton shoot.”
So far, drinking hadn’t really come up in their friendship. Not specifically anyway. Usually Sunny just ordered iced tea when Aubrey ordered a glass of wine. Or else she claimed she was driving, which was tempting to do right now. On the other hand, maybe it was time to be honest. “I, uh, don’t really drink.”
“You don’t really drink? Or you just plain don’t drink?”
Sunny nodded. “I just plain don’t drink.”
“Oh?” Aubrey’s eyebrows lifted. “Is it a religious thing? I mean, I know you go to church…sometimes anyway. I know you don’t go every Sunday.”
“No. It’s more of a personal thing.” Sunny sighed. “I grew up hearing a few bits and pieces about my great-grandmother. She was an alcoholic. A rather bad alcoholic, in fact. And my grandmother always made me promise that I’d never drink.”
“Wow, so you never drank at all?”
Sunny sighed. “Actually, I did start to drink a few years ago. Just casually, socially. Remember the guy I told you about—Reuben?”
Aubrey nodded eagerly. “The jerk.”
“Yes. The jerk. Well, when we started going out, he encouraged me to drink. And since my grandmother had passed on, I figured it wouldn’t matter if I had a drink or two. It’s not like she would know.”
“And?”
“Well, one drink led to another and another. Before long I had what I’d call ‘a drinking problem.’ ”
“Oh.” Aubrey nodded. “Like maybe you’ve got that gene thing going on? Like you shouldn’t touch alcohol at all?”
“Yes.” Sunny smiled. “And so I quit.”
“Was it hard to quit?”
Sunny thought about it. “To be honest, it wasn’t that hard. Maybe because I hadn’t let it get that far along. And, if you haven’t noticed, I tend to be a serious person. I took my job very seriously…well, except for getting involved with Reuben. That wasn’t my smartest move. In fact, that might have had something to do with our breakup, because Re
uben didn’t like the fact that I no longer wanted to drink with him.”
“Oh, that breaks up a lot of relationships.” “So, I suppose I was lucky.”
“I’ll say.”
Sunny pointed to the wine menu. “But, really, it doesn’t bother me at all to be around others who drink. Well, as long as they don’t overdo it.”
“And it doesn’t bother me that you don’t imbibe.” Aubrey grinned. “In fact, it’s kind of nice knowing there’s a designated driver.”
Now the waiter came and they scrambled to make up their minds, finally both agreeing to the special: lamb and risotto.
“So now it’s your turn to talk,” Sunny told Aubrey. “I’m curious as to why you were so determined to do the Pendleton photoshoot. Is it mostly so you can see your family?”
“Sure, that’s part of it.” Aubrey paused as the waiter set their drinks—red wine for Aubrey and iced tea for Sunny—on the table. “But the truth is, I’m still trying to impress my family.”
Sunny frowned. “Why wouldn’t they already be impressed with you?”
Aubrey laughed. “You obviously don’t know my family.”
“I thought you said they were ranchers. Are they that hard to please?”
“In some ways, not really. In other ways, yeah.” Aubrey took a sip of wine. “I grew up in my sister Lorena’s shadow. And, of course, she was perfect.”
Sunny nodded, thinking how she’d always longed for a sister. “Anyway, Lorena was a real cowgirl. She could rope and ride and barrel race and everything.” Aubrey wrinkled her nose. “Whereas I didn’t like the smell of manure—at all. Plus, I was skittish around horses. But, to be fair, I got kicked hard as a kid, and not long after that I got thrown. I figured the horses liked me about as much as I liked them.”
“That’s understandable.”
“But I tried to pretend I liked that whole horse scene, putting on this big act for my dad’s sake. But when Lorena made Round-Up princess…well, that was an act I couldn’t follow.”
“But you’re so beautiful,” Sunny said. “You’d make a pretty princess.” Aubrey chuckled. “A pretty ugly princess when I fell off my horse facedown in manure. You see, to be in the Round-Up court you have to be an excellent horsewoman. And I was not.”
“Yes, but that was so long ago,” Sunny pointed out. “Why would anyone even think about it now?”
Aubrey shook her head. “When you go to Round-Up, you’ll see why. Tradition is the name of the game. Ranchers have a lot of pride. They take pride in their ranches and their land, their livestock and their kids. I always felt like I let my dad down.” She sighed. “It doesn’t help that I never finished college, or that I’m divorced, or that I haven’t given them any grandkids. Overall, I’m a fairly big disappointment. A twisted limb in the proud Westcott family tree.”
“Yet you want to go back there?”
Aubrey nodded eagerly. “I know it would impress them to see me modeling in a Pendleton catalog. I called my mom when I got the job in Portland, and she was so excited. If I get to be in that Pendleton shoot, at Round-Up nonetheless, and if they possibly use our ranch in the shoot…well, that might just untwist that limb a bit.”
“Then all you need to do is get married and have a couple of kids, right?”
Aubrey laughed loudly. “You get the picture.”
“I’m still not sure I want to go on the Pendleton shoot,” Sunny admitted.
“But you won’t back out, will you? Please, promise me you won’t.”
“I gave Marsha my word,” Sunny remembered. “We shook on it. I’m going.”
“Oh, good, because I plan to call my mom tomorrow morning. I can’t wait to hear how excited she’ll be. I can just imagine her bragging to all her friends. You know, it’s the one hundredth anniversary this year. It’s going to be packed out.”
“But I want you to make a deal with me, Aubrey.”
“Sure. What kind of deal?”
“No more talking about my family, okay? Specifically, no mentioning to anyone about my possible but unlikely connection to Jackson Sundown.”
Aubrey looked truly disappointed. “But it’s so exciting.”
“I don’t know if it’s even true. And until I have real evidence, I’d rather no one else know about it.”
Aubrey frowned. “We wouldn’t have to tell anyone it’s for sure, Sunny—only that the possibility exists. Don’t you get how people would love to hear the story?”
Sunny shook her head. “No. I don’t get it. But I do know that my grandmother would turn over in her grave if she thought I was going around telling everyone that I was Jackson Sundown’s great-granddaughter. I can’t do that to her. The woman raised me after my parents died. She sacrificed to give me everything, and I loved her more than anyone. For some reason she didn’t believe she was related to Jackson Sundown. And without having some positive proof, I don’t really believe it either.”
“Okay. I understand. Unless you get solid evidence, these lips are sealed. Does that work for you?”
“Thanks.”
“But you will do some research while we’re there, won’t you?” “Sure. I’m already doing research. But I honestly think it’s going to be hard to prove this thing—one way or the other.”
“You never know.”
For the next few minutes Sunny told Aubrey what she’d learned about Jackson Sundown from her research so far. “He was really an amazing person,” she said with enthusiasm. “He was related to Chief Joseph. When Jackson was fourteen, he participated in the Nez Percé war, mostly caring for the horses. When the tribe was defeated, he and a few others escaped to Canada.”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar.” Aubrey buttered a piece of bread. “You mean you know all this?”
“Sure. I grew up in Pendleton, Sunny. Almost everyone knows about Jackson Sundown there. He’s a legend.”
Sunny was still trying to get her mind around all this. The possibility that her great-grandfather was someone legendary seemed too much to absorb. Was that the reason her grandmother had refused to believe it? Or was it because her grandmother had a reason not to believe—something she’d never disclosed but had convinced her it wasn’t true? If only she’d spoken of it with Sunny. It wasn’t like Sunny hadn’t tried to get her grandmother to talk about her roots or her upbringing. But her grandmother’s reaction was always one of two things: she would clam up and take offense, or else she would share a bit of sadness and tear up. About all Sunny really knew of her grandmother’s past was that, like Sunny, her mother had died when she was young. Also, like Sunny, her grandmother had helped to raise her. But, for some unknown reason, she couldn’t wait to get off the reservation—and she never wanted to go back.
Chapter Four
Labor Day came and went, along with another rejection letter. As far as Sunny could see, this was it. She would not be teaching this year. To distract herself from this grim reality, she thrust herself completely into researching Jackson Sundown. Becoming so immersed in his life and times—what she could find of it—she began to feel a real sense of kinship with him. And as her notes piled higher, she realized why this man had become a legend.
Jackson Sundown had an amazing gift with horses—riding, training, and breeding. Nez Percé were known for being horsemen, but Jackson Sundown had raised the bar for his tribesmen. He could do anything on his horse—without reins or saddle. His skills didn’t stop with horses, either. A great bull rider, he’d ridden one of the wildest rodeo bulls until the bull wore out. As for being a cowboy, he was renowned throughout the rodeo circuit. Sunny had to chuckle when she read that if other cowboys discovered they were competing against Jackson Sundown in a particular event at a rodeo, they would often back down. She could imagine those “tough” cowboys slinking away.
Jackson Sundown’s Native American history was impressive too. Not only had he been in the company of Chief Joseph, but Sitting Bull as well. Some sources said that Jackson Sundown actually hid out with Sitting Bull after
the Battle of Little Big Horn. Both were considered war criminals at the time, though they’d been considered heroes among their own people.
Jackson Sundown was also a handsome man. Not only had he been frequently photographed, he’d modeled for bronze statues. Sunny smiled to read how he’d grown impatient after long hours of posing until he nearly ran down the artist with his horse. She could definitely relate to that. But who would’ve known this legendary cowboy had been a model, as well? He was also clever and charming, with a sharp sense of humor. Sunny could imagine how many a female heart might’ve beat a little faster when a man like Jackson entered the room…or the tipi.
Sunny had been a bit surprised to learn that he enjoyed the finer things in life—whether clothing or automobiles—and was good at both making and spending money. She also learned he was between wives that September in 1911. He seemed to enjoy his own fame, as well as the adoration of fans—and he did have fans. He also liked pretty women and partook in the occasional drinking binge, so it wasn’t unreasonable to think he’d been attracted to Polly Wikiapi— a pretty woman not opposed to alcohol. Yet, though the theory was believable, it still wasn’t solid evidence.
Jackson was close to fifty the year her great-grandmother’s path may have crossed his—and it seemed more than likely their paths had crossed, even if nothing more than a tip of the head had occurred. Although he’d been more than thirty years older than Sunny’s grandmother, judging by his photos, he could’ve easily passed for thirty at the time.
As Sunny compiled pages and pages of notes on her laptop, she couldn’t believe that no one had written a book about this interesting man. Sure, there was the late Ken Kesey’s Last Go Round, but that was a fictional retelling of three cowboys. As far as she could tell, no one had written Jackson Sundown’s story. But perhaps it was being retold in the native oral tradition. If so, maybe she’d get the chance to hear it for herself in Pendleton. The one solid thing her research had accomplished was that she now wanted to go to Pendleton. In fact, wild horses couldn’t keep her away!
On the day before the scheduled Pendleton trip, Sunny took her morning coffee out to the small backyard and sat in the old metal rocker beneath the covered patio. This used to be her grandmother’s favorite spot. No matter the time of year or the weather, if Grandmother wasn’t in the house, she could almost always be found out here. Usually she was poking around in her garden, but if it was unbearably hot, she would bring a glass of water or lemonade and just sit and look. If it was cold, and the garden was “sleeping,” as she used to say, she would simply bundle up in a woolly blanket with her mug of herb tea to warm her hands. And here she would sit just looking…gazing at things Sunny couldn’t see.
Love Finds You in Pendleton, Oregon Page 3