by Tammy Barley
Jess smiled at each of them as he went by, feeling, of all things, a sense of ease and belonging that she hadn’t yet felt at the ranch—hadn’t felt, perhaps, since she had left Kentucky. The ranchmen had come to accept her, and she had found a place for herself. Even her rolling accent had smoothed out into the comfortable tones they used, as though it had always been that way. She swept her rake through the pile of straw, feeling wholly contented.
***
Hours later, when Jess shut herself in her room for the night, she discovered that someone had left on her bed a large bundle wrapped in brown paper, along with a small leather pouch that jingled when she picked it up. Her heart fluttered with delight. Jake had brought her something from town.
As eager as a child with a present, she slipped off the string that bound the paper wrapping and unfolded it in loud crinkles, startling the rust-colored cat, which had made a kingly bed of her pillow. Inside the paper was a new supply of yellow calico cloth—it was exactly the same pattern as that of the dress she’d liked, and which the wolves had left in tatters. Jess caressed the cotton fabric as reverently as if it were satin, her fingers finding curious bumps within its folds that she quickly found to be buttons, needles, and thread, and yards upon yards of white, machined lace.
Touched that Jake had wanted to replace the gown, Jess shifted her gaze to the leather drawstring pouch. Slipping it open, she found exactly forty dollars in coins. Her joyous laughter filled the room. It was her first month’s wages for working as a ranch hand.
Chapter Twelve
Jake took a sip from his coffee mug. “I’ll be going after breakfast. I won’t be back until the middle of next month.”
Jess sat across the table from him, the cookhouse empty now except for the two of them and Ho Chen, who was drying clean plates in the kitchen.
She looked up from her toast, feeling the same disappointment as when she’d woken to find him gone the week before. “Going to search for the mustangs again?”
“Not this time. I have to deliver the rest of the cows we brought in to Virginia City, Gold Hill, and Carson City. I’ll be taking several of the men and Ho Chen, and, yes, I’ll talk to Tom Rawlins to find out if he’s learned anything more.”
Her mind started racing. “Surely, Bennett, if I ride along, no one will recognize—”
He was already shaking his head. “No, Jess.”
Jess sighed in frustration, but she let the matter be. She knew he was right. She had promised to stay at the ranch, and she intended to keep her word. She would just need to keep her mind off going back until spring.
That thought led to a request. “I’d like to have a look through the middle bedroom in the house. I saw a loom and yarns in there, and I’d like to use them, if no one else needs them.”
“That’s fine.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Just when did you have a chance to see what’s in that room?”
Jess shrugged and sipped her tea. “The other day, when I went in to find thread and needles for—” She broke herself off. He was teasing her about the men’s union suits. “Bennett!” She laughed and pointed a slender finger at him. “They deserved what I did, and you know it!”
“They deserved it,” Jake agreed, then set down his mug. He pushed himself to his feet. “I’d like to take out those stitches, if you could spare a few minutes.”
Jess lowered her eyes to her own mug. She wasn’t sure how she’d fare being so close to him again. First, her wrists, then, the stitches, and now this. For some reason, it was just too…intimate.
“I can take them out, Bennett, or Red Deer can help me. You don’t need to trouble yourself.”
“I’d like to see to it personally, if it’s all the same. I want to know you’ve healed well before I leave.”
Jess had nothing to say to that. “All right, then.”
Jake came around to her side of the table as she stood up. The cookhouse door was propped open to let the breeze in, and he respectfully paused inside it to let her go ahead of him.
Outside, Jess breathed in the warmth of the morning. With midday would come heat, but right now was heaven. As they walked, orange-breasted swallows swooped and darted through the air, their split tails elegant, their performance dazzling as they gobbled bugs and played in the sunshine.
Seeing the direction of her gaze, Jake stopped and pointed to the peak of the house above her bedroom window. “Those two are building a nest.”
Jess shaded her eyes. The pair landed, clinging to the side of the house high under the eaves. They carefully pressed mud from their beaks to the nest they had started, then cartwheeled off toward the creek, dropping from view behind its bank.
“They’re beautiful.” Jess smiled up at him, glad to have shared the sight with him. Her smile widened when a small butterfly flitted past. It took a meandering path to a nodding stem of gray-green sage, where it alighted to rest its wings. Jess had adored butterflies ever since Ambrose had given her the nickname when she was a girl—his little butterfly.
Jake tipped his hat toward the house, and they continued on.
On the porch, he pushed open the door for her, letting her go ahead of him once again. He used a log from the woodpile to prop the door wide open, and Jess went upstairs to get the sewing box. Downstairs once more, she set the box on the table, perspiration dotting her brow.
“Summer’s on its way,” she commented, taking a seat in Jake’s leather chair.
Jake pulled the scissors from the box, along with a pin to slip under the stitches to ease them out. He glanced up at her. “If it gets too warm, you can open the upstairs windows and the door. That cools the house pretty well.”
“I will.” When Jake knelt down beside her, Jess pulled off the boot she’d repaired and drew up her injured calf.
Jake took off his hat and set it on the table. With gentle fingers, he pressed around the stitches to check whether the wounds had healed. Jess lifted her gaze from the stitches to his thick brown hair, which gleamed in the morning light. He smelled pleasantly of the outdoors.
“The cuts are healing well, Jess, but it’ll sting some when I pull the threads out.”
She resisted the urge to finger his hair. “I’ll be fine. Go ahead and take them out.”
Jake expertly snipped the first thread with the scissors, then used the pin to work the thread out. When it was free, the skin where it had been bled a little. He pulled out a clean handkerchief and dabbed the dots of red to dry them. Then he moved on to the next thread.
Seven in, seven out, Jess reminded herself. Each one pulled a little and burned slightly, but Jess knew that Jake was being as gentle as he could.
“Though the men teased you,” he said, glancing at her, “they admired you for taking the stitches without a fuss. They’re a hardy lot,” he went on, “and they accept being thrown, dragged, and kicked as part of a day’s work, but they also see women as different.”
“I’ve heard some of them talking about women who are ranchers. Those women must be as hardy as anybody.”
“That they are,” he agreed. Then, “I just thought you should know that the men respect that, and they respect you.”
“And you?” The question was out before she knew it.
Jake glanced up at her, his voice as smooth as a caress. “I feel no different.” He continued plying the pin.
Jess gazed around the room, feeling warm with the realization that she had begun to care for him. She cared, but she didn’t want to. Caring led to love, and, sooner or later, love was crushed by loss. She had to see him as nothing more than a good friend. She had to. Her heart couldn’t bear any more.
There was a metallic snip, and a few inches of thread dropped to the floor. Jess sighed. He was nearly done.
“You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
He continued on.
There was something Jess had wanted to tell him for weeks. She felt comfortable enough to do so now. Taking a deep breath, she began, “I’m sorry I was
angry at you for so long, Bennett. Angry because of the fire, because of…everything. Blaming you was unfair, but I couldn’t see that then.”
Jake rested his arm on his knee and looked at her again. “You had just lost someone, Jess. In fact, you’d just lost everyone. A man doesn’t hold something like that against a person when she’s hurting,” he assured her. He bent down again to resume his task.
Jess considered his wide shoulders, her slender ankle cradled in his big hand. There was one more thing.
She found she had to clear her throat. “I’m glad you were the one who buried my family.”
Jake paused without looking up, then continued tugging out the stitches.
***
In Jake’s absence, Jess kept busy in the cookhouse and garden, and the days carried her into June. Her new dress was finished. Due to the rising temperatures, she wore only one thin petticoat beneath it, relieved to be free of the others.
One Thursday, around mid-morning, Jess and Red Deer finished the breakfast dishes and then began a leisurely walk to Red Deer’s village. They were going to visit the Paiute women and to finally see Jess’s horses, which Jake had saved from the fire.
Red Deer’s pregnancy had begun to trouble Jess. At six months along, she was far more tired than she should be, and although Jess had taken over all of the heavy chores, she could see that Red Deer’s strength wasn’t what it had been.
When she questioned her about her fatigue, Red Deer only smiled. “It is the same for many who are with child.” She lifted a hand. “The hot days. Sharing cold winter nights with one’s husband brings about hot summer days with his child.”
Surprised by her suggestive comment, Jess grinned back at her. “I suppose that’s so.” When Red Deer’s expression changed, Jess’s smile began to fade.
“I am also not resting well,” she admitted, “for my dreams have not been good.”
Jess looked aside at her as they walked. “What kind of dreams?”
“I dream that I have my son. He is strong and handsome like my husband, and Two Hands becomes his dear brother. Then, as I look at my son, it is as if he goes away from me, and he and I cannot be together again.” She rested a hand on her rounded middle. “It makes me very sad. When I speak of it to my husband, he says it is because of the death that came to the Shoshoni that I dream this.”
“The Shoshoni?” Jess remembered Red Deer mentioning them that first day she had helped her in the cookhouse.
“Yes. Not long before you came here, our neighbors, the Shoshoni, were at their winter camp with their families in mountains north of the Great Salt Lake. The Shoshoni were peaceful, but they took a few cows from the settlers so their families would not starve. Soldiers attacked them for this, and many Shoshoni were killed. Husbands were killed, and mothers and children were taken away from one another.” Grimacing, she used a small cloth she carried to wipe the sweat from her face and neck.
Jess stared past her, feeling sick. Jake’s friend Captain Rawlins at Fort Churchill was a Federal soldier, but he was also kind to have searched for Ambrose for her. Whoever ordered the massacre of the Shoshoni wore the same uniform, but he was inhuman to have done such a thing. “Do you think Lone Wolf is right about the dreams?” Jess asked. She wasn’t sure she would sleep well, knowing what had happened.
Red Deer lifted a shoulder. “He may be.”
Jess studied her friend quietly. The knowledge that more bad times were coming for her people shone in her young eyes, yet her face remained as peaceful as always.
Softly, Jess asked, “How do you survive it, Red Deer?”
Red Deer walked a few paces, thoughtful. “When we lose someone dear to us, it is Paiute tradition to say, ‘Weep not for your dead, but sing and be joyful, for the soul is happy in the Spirit-Land.’ We do weep, because it gives us relief to do so, but we also have hope. The kind missionary who taught my dear sister and me to speak your language also taught us to read. Then I read in the Bible that the Almighty Father turns bad into good for His children.”
Jess nodded. Jake had once reminded her of the same passage in Romans.
Red Deer said, “I have seen this happen many times, Jessica. The loss of my sister was bad. Very bad. The good that has come is that Two Hands is safer now, and he is a joy to me and to the Paiutes here. And he is happy again. This is the good I have seen.” A breeze lifted her hair, and she smoothed it behind her ears with her hands. “Jesus the Savior forgives the wrongs we do and promises life in the Spirit-Land after we die—a life of only good, where we will be with Him, where there will be no more sadness. Sometimes we can see the good that follows bad, sometimes not. But either way, we know that what comes is God’s will, and we have faith that, one day, there will be only good. This is how we survive.”
For a long while, they walked along the creek, now more of a brook after months without rain. Jess recalled pastors in church saying much the same about the will of the Lord. She knew it was true. She also knew that when the Lord, in His wisdom, had seen fit to take her family, she’d been angry with Him, as well as with Jake. On the night of the wolf attack, she had told God she was sorry for her anger toward Jake. Now she silently apologized for her anger toward Him, as well.
All of it had been the Lord’s will—even the wolf attack. He had used it to keep her away from Carson City, perhaps even to keep her here, but she couldn’t be certain. She felt as though she was wearing blinders again, but it didn’t trouble her as it had before. Evidently, the Lord was teaching her to trust Him.
Red Deer brought Jess out of her reverie and back to the present as she pointed to the creek. Along the banks, twenty or more Paiute children were kneeling contentedly in the mud, their hands busy. “Come see what the children are making, Jessica.”
The children turned bright eyes toward them, and Jess recognized most of them from the days they had spent together planting the garden. Several children ran to her and spoke excitedly in a mixture of their language and hers, holding out their palms to show her the clumps of mud they had pressed and carved.
Jess’s laughter at their excitement faded as amazement dawned. All around her, children were showing her the animals they had formed—animals so lifelike that they could have been the achievements of gifted sculptors. The children smiled at one another as Jess marveled at their precisely wrought creatures. There was a plump quail with each of its feathers etched in and a curving plume atop its head. A tiny, long-tailed deer mouse sat huddled with big round ears. She saw ground squirrels, a rabbit, two coyotes—one sitting, one lying—ponies, a cow, and other creatures. Jess gazed at each of the children, praising his or her carving with her eyes. She had never seen anything like this before, especially made by ones so young.
Red Deer spoke to them, undoubtedly complimenting their skills. Then the children took off toward a large group of wigwams in the distance—large, dome-shaped dwellings made of sticks—eager to show their masterpieces to more admiring eyes.
“They do not have many toys to play with,” Red Deer explained, “so they make these carvings.”
“The animals look so real.”
“The older ones teach the younger. Sometimes, they play that the boys are hunters who bring home their kill to their young wives.”
Red Deer began walking again, but she faltered, pressing a hand to her side.
Jess noticed. “Perhaps we should rest a little.” To ease her friend’s mind, she added, “My feet are getting hot. I’d love to dangle them in the creek.”
Red Deer shook her head and laughed. “No, if I sit, I may not rise again.” Jess smiled with her, but the unease she had felt earlier returned. Still, Red Deer walked on without complaint, and Jess couldn’t help but respect her fortitude.
In the village, many of the women who had become Jess’s friends came out to join her and Red Deer the moment they saw them. Others stayed put and waved from where they were tending small fires and iron pots; others were weaving hats or fleshing hides. The women invited Jess to
see their homes and the baskets and tools they had crafted, and as she made her rounds, the morning swept by. When Jess and Red Deer continued on, they passed near a wrinkled, gray-haired man sitting with several children at his feet. He was teaching them, or perhaps telling them stories, while he repaired the broken strands of a net. When he saw Jess and Red Deer, the man’s expression turned speculative, but not unfriendly.
“They all seem like one family,” Jess observed.
“Our children are taught to love all people, no matter the color of their skin or their appearance.”
Jess thought Red Deer seemed happier after spending time with the Paiutes. She was sure of it when Red Deer continued, “Our people do not argue often, Jessica. They talk together and listen until all agree. If a matter must be settled, we consider it for five days before we decide, so that it will be done in wisdom and not in haste. Everyone has a purpose and a place, and everyone matters.” She indicated the elderly man. “The old teach the young and, in turn, are respected and loved. Many white people think we should be more like they. Some Paiutes feel they should be more like we are.”
Jess thought of the ongoing battles between the Indians and the whites. “What of the settlers?”
“We teach our sons and daughters to be peaceful toward the white settlers, even when they are unkind, and we try to forgive. We love peace, Jessica; we do not love war. When white men cut down our pinyon pine trees, we find others, sometimes far away, but we will not let bad men hurt us or our children. Sometimes, we must fight.” Her face softened. “We call people who are good ‘father’ or ‘mother.’ Our friends, we call ‘brother’ or ‘sister,’ and we love them as if they were our mothers’ children. All this we teach our young. This makes our people strong. When I read the words of Jesus, I am glad to see that in these ways, we do as He would have us do.”
Jess smiled in understanding. In the distance, several horses were grazing near the creek with two older boys watching over them. As the horses moved about, Jess’s eyes fell on her father’s two shiny blacks, and then her own Appaloosa, Meg.