Cattle Kate

by Jana Bommersbach

  Gene was as happy as a coyote. “See,” he spat at John. “See, see,” he bragged to Ralph. And you could tell John and Ralph felt cheated that they hadn’t seen the famous Buffalo Bill themselves. Then all three of them looked at Jimmy with new respect that he’d actually met the famous showman.

  ***

  “Thursday, July 11. Hi again. Well, we went on our picnic to Independence Rock and you would have had a good time because my Jimmy was as good a storyteller that day as any of those men who write books. I’m sure it helped that his audience was listening like a hawk. He starts telling boys about the Indian Wars and how he almost was at the Little Bighorn. He tells how he served under General Crook—THE General Crook who went after Geronimo. I tell you, those boys could have listened to stories like that forever

  “Of course, our hired man couldn’t help himself, so he got into telling his own stories, trying to one-up Jimmy. It was a battle of the stories. You would have laughed and cheered just like we did, and it was a very fun day.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever had such a fine birthday in my entire life. First off, the weather was just beautiful, warm but not too hot, a little breeze. I’d cooked up chickens ahead of time and made biscuits fresh that morning so we could take off first thing and spend the entire day. I made molasses cookies to share and we didn’t bring a crumb home. We saw so many of our neighbors, and everyone was in a grand mood. A man brought his fiddle and we sang campfire songs. A man in his Civil War uniform sang “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and we all enjoyed that.

  I wish my folks could see Independence Rock, and they’d understand why it is so precious. It stands by itself, like it was dropped on a flat piece of prairie by the Lord Himself. And it kind of resembles an old-fashioned haystack. It sits right along the Sweetwater River and from up there you can really see how the river meanders across the land. The rock’s sides are gentle enough that you can climb all over, and that’s what everyone does because the rewards are so great.

  The boys went scrambling up the rock as soon as the buggy slowed down, and you could hear them shouting with the other kids who were exploring. We climbed up, too, because I hadn’t done my own investigating yet. When I came upon the first name, I thought my heart stopped a second. Scratched into the rock was “Hiram Meck, July, 50.”

  “Jimmy,” I whispered, “who do you suppose he was and what do you think happened to him?”

  Jimmy said all we knew was that he’d gotten this far by 1850, and had celebrated the Fourth like we were doing. Then he smiled and encouraged me to look for more, and I found so many names, I couldn’t even count them all.

  As Jimmy later told the boys while we ate our chicken, the Conestogas and prairie schooners that brought so many people west on the Oregon Trail had to get to this rock by the Fourth of July so they could get through the mountains before the snows came. Getting here was a triumph all its own. And it meant they were about a third of the way to the West Coast.

  Those pioneers named it Independence Rock, and then started carving or painting their names on it, like people do when they’re pleased with themselves. Jimmy said sometimes people coming later would find the names of their kin and would rejoice knowing at least they got this far and it gave them hope to carry on.

  “It took them months to get here, and remember, most of them were walking,” he said. “The wagons were full of everything they owned, and there wasn’t room left for passengers. So I’m betting their feet were pretty sore when they stepped on this rock. You can imagine how happy they had to be. And how strange all this had to look to them—they came from back East and to them, the West was St. Louis and Omaha. They were used to towns and cultivated fields and trees and none of that was here. Here you can see for miles, and mainly what you see is dirt. They were going where few people had ever gone before, and they knew there were hostiles waiting for them, but they came anyway.” Jimmy paused.

  “You know, when we moved here, we arrived in just a few days on a train,” he said. “Well, it took them months to get here. But just like them, we’re immigrants, too. And just like these folks, who risked everything to settle in a new land, that’s just what we’re doing. It’s a lot more comfortable and safe now than in the old days, but the idea is still the same.”

  And I had to admit, I’d never thought of it like that before.

  Gene begged Jimmy to tell about the buffalo because, of course, the boy had never seen one.

  “The herds used to be so big, when they went by, it would take hours if not days for them all to pass,” Jimmy began. “Do you know how the Indians found them when they wanted to go on a hunt? They’d get up real early and look over the horizon for a little cloud, and that’s how they’d know where the buffalo were—their breath was creating a vapor cloud. That’s how many there were! And the Indians used everything from that animal to survive. Meat, hides, horns, hoofs. They didn’t waste anything.”

  “And they’re all gone?” Ralph said like it couldn’t possibly be true.

  “Almost. It didn’t take long either, to slaughter millions. Many of them rotted where they fell. Some people thought if they killed off the buffalo, they’d get rid of the Indians, too.”

  “Did you ever kill one, Uncle Jimmy?” Ralph asked, and I saw Fales give a little smile because he knew Jim never had. But Jim fudged and said he’d been on a couple hunts in his early days in the Army, and it was a tough thing to kill a buffalo because even your horse was scared of them.

  “The Shoshones blinded the right eyes of their horses so they couldn’t see when they got up close,” he said. Then quickly added, “But Chief Washakie wouldn’t do that—he loved his horse too much to blind him. At least, that’s what he told me.”

  If you want to see admiration in the eyes of boys, tell them you know an Indian chief.

  All three boys looked at Jim like he walked on water because he knew an Indian and survived. “There were good Indians and there were bad Indians, and I was lucky to know one of the good ones,” Jim explained, and he started in telling his Indian stories.

  “Chief Washakie was the main chief of the Shoshones here in W.T. and he didn’t fight the white man like so many did. He wanted peace. You know, they named the fort after him because they so appreciated that he fought with them, not against them. I met him when I was serving with General Crook. He saved Crook at the Battle of Rosebud, you know—saved him from a fate just like the Little Bighorn. That’s just what the Indians had planned for Crook out here in Wyoming—they were going to lure the soldiers into a ravine where they couldn’t get out and then slaughter them. But Washakie knew their ways—Shoshones hate the Sioux—and he didn’t let Crook get ambushed like Custer did in Montana. If Washakie had been with Custer, those men would still be getting their rations every day instead of dying at Little Bighorn.”

  From their reactions, I figured this was the first “good Indian” story these boys had ever heard.

  “And you know what?” Jimmy went on. “Chief Washakie looks just like George Washington.”

  Well, the boys thought that was impossible, and Jimmy bet them each a nickel that when they met him they’d think he looked like our first president.

  “We’re gonna meet him?” John asked with astonishment, and Jimmy promised that one day he’d take us all over to the reservation and we could meet the old chief himself. That was a day I didn’t want to miss.

  I didn’t see any reason to mention that I knew some Indians, too, because mine weren’t chiefs. Boys don’t care if you just know a girl and her grandma. So I stayed quiet.

  All this time, good old Fales was sitting there ready to hop in with his own stories. He wasn’t about to be outdone when it came to storytelling.

  “That ain’t nothin’,” he finally cut in. “When I was just a little older than you boys, I met General Tom Thumb.”

  Well, I learned right then that nothing trumps an Indian chief
like a world-famous midget.

  The boys shifted their attention immediately, as Fales told them a story from the days when he was twelve years old.

  “I was in school in Laramie and they were coming through town with P.T. Barnum’s show,” Fales began. “It was General Tom himself, Mrs. Tom Thumb, Commodore Nut, and Minnie Warren, so we had all the famous midgets the world had ever known. We got to skip school because Laramie declared a holiday, they were so happy the show was stopping there.”

  Fales puffed up his chest and shouted like he was a ringmaster: “P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome—that’s what they called it. I don’t think I was ever more excited than waiting for them to come to town. Of course we knew they’d be staying at the Union Pacific Railway Hotel, and us boys all lined up outside in case we’d catch a glimpse of them. Up comes a tiny carriage pulled by Shetland ponies that weren’t as big as my friend Richie’s hound. We couldn’t believe our eyes. The ponies had gold harnesses and the carriage was silver—I tell you, I’d never seen anything like it in my life and haven’t seen anything like it since. They say Queen Victoria herself gave them the carriage when they performed in London, and it looked like something a queen would have. Well, the little people came out—they were dressed so fancy. Their clothes were silk and velvet. They climbed in that little carriage and went all around our town, and us boys ran after them for awhile.

  “That night was the performance, and I bet every school child in Laramie was there. The tent was so packed it would be safe to say there wasn’t anybody in the entire town that wasn’t there—I even saw Snaggletooth Johnny, the town drunk. My Ma and Pa came early to get good seats.

  “I talked to Tom Thumb myself—he was a very nice man and was perfect in every way, except he was so small. They say he was only thirty-one inches tall! He asked us boys how we liked living way out here in Laramie, and if we had horses, and if we’d ever been attacked by Indians, and he seemed real interested in us. We asked him how the Queen was and he said she was a very nice woman, but he thought she should take off some pounds. Boy, we hooted at that, and the General laughed too, knowing he’d said something naughty.

  “Mrs. Tom Thumb was like a fairy princess, and she sang in a childish voice. She sang ‘In the Cottage by the Sea’ and some of the ladies cried.” Fales explained the song was about a woman who had just been widowed, and the boys screwed up their noses.

  “I ate my first roasted peanuts that night, and I favor them to this day. And it’s one of those things I’ll remember to my grave—how I got to talk with the smallest man who ever walked the Earth.”

  Even Jim was hanging on his every word, because that would have been something to see. I’m betting Fales took his snooze thinking he’d won the storytelling contest.

  But when it comes to winning, my Jimmy is No. 1 in my book and in a lot of other people’s, too. I’m going to send my folks the newspaper clipping to show them his letter to the editor that has created such a fuss. That will help sweeten the pie when the letter finally gets off. I’m going to send the picture we had made of me on Goldie, too.

  I worried a little when he first wrote the letter, because things are bad enough with Bothwell and some of our neighbors that this would surely fan the flames. But Jimmy said, “If I don’t stand up, who will?”

  I know I’m bragging, but Jimmy is about the most prominent settler in these parts. The Journal in Rawlins calls him “the gentlemanly Sweetwater postmaster.” And now being the justice of the peace, well, he’s right that he has a standing that nobody else has.

  Some days I wish there was something we could agree on with the cattlemen, but they won’t budge off a dime, and my Jimmy won’t stampede for a penny. Jimmy says a lot of it is that they’re all Republicans and he’s a Democrat, but I think it’s a more than just that. I’ve seen some Republicans I like and some Democrats I don’t, but I keep my own counsel because Jimmy is pretty set on his views.

  One of the Republicans I surely don’t like is Bothwell. That man will not give up trying to get our claims on the creek. He thinks he’s so clever and he must think I’m dumb. Like when he offered to loan me money to buy my claim—you’d have thought I stabbed him in the heart, he seemed so disappointed when I politely turned him down. And he acted so puzzled. I guess he thought I was dumb enough to be indebted to him. Then if I couldn’t pay back the loan, he’d take my land. Lord, that man is sneaky. I’m hoping he’s going to get tired of all this and give up, because he’s tried about every trick in the book and Jimmy and I are still here.

  I did think I’d found a mutual stand with the cattlemen when it came to the new county of Natrona. Last spring, they brought around a petition to split Carbon County in two, with Rawlins staying the head of ours, and growing Casper as the head of the new one. I must say, I was very pleased that they asked me to sign. There they were, some of my most prominent neighbors and some of the big cattlemen, right there on the same petition as me. Proved they don’t realize we aren’t citizens yet and, of course, neither Jimmy or I ever bring that up.

  I signed big and bold, “E.L.Watson,” and was glad to do it because Jimmy agreed the county was getting too big and the folks in Casper should have a chance, too. But then, those cattlemen changed horses and came back wanting to change the first petition to say we no longer wanted the split—just goes to show, there’s nothing we agree on.

  And that’s how Jimmy started his letter:

  “We find two distinct views on the matter; namely the settlers who have come here to live and make Wyoming their homes, and the land grabber who is only here as a speculator in land under the Desert Land Act. The former are in favor of dividing Carbon County, believing it to be for the welfare and proper development of the country, and the latter are opposed to the organization of Natrona County, or anything else that would settle and improve the country, or make it anything but a cow pasture for eastern speculators.”

  Jimmy’s letter went on and on about the “land grabbers” and how we had to fight them and that it was the “honest settler” that was the future of Wyoming.

  You know, for a while there, it seemed like my Jimmy was the only one who dared stand up and challenge these speculators, but now even the president is interested! President Cleveland had one of his men investigate desert claims and he found a whole lot of them were fake and they cancelled a whole bunch of claims. Guess who owned them? Only the man who runs the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, that’s who! Oh, it created an uproar in W.T., and you can bet not one single cattleman was happy that the president stuck his nose in. But every single homesteader was pleased as punch.

  And it was turning out that when homesteaders wanted a public voice, they looked to my Jimmy, so his letter was a big deal. He also used it to give Bothwell a poke in the eye.

  Put all the ugly cats you can find in one sack, and that’s A.J. Bothwell. The water and pasture problems aren’t the whole of it. Now he’s pretending he’s developing a town—even calls it the Town of Bothwell. He claims a railroad will soon link it to Casper and—here’s the best part—that this town will someday be the new capital of the new State of Wyoming. Wonder what the boys in Cheyenne think about that! He’s trying to sell lots for up to four hundred dollars an acre—Lordy, you can buy homestead land outright for $1.25 an acre, if you don’t want to work the five years to prove it up. So if I had an extra two hundred dollars in my pocket, I could have gotten all my homestead land. At Bothwell’s prices, I’d have had to spend sixty-four thousand dollars!

  I’m wondering if folks back East are that dumb, and Jimmy says some of them are, and so he included that in his letter, too:

  “Do not be misled by the matter of the town of Bothwell. There is not one house in that town, and you can safely say, that the town of Bothwell is only a geographical expression.”

  Well, you can imagine how that went over. Bothwell and his pals brought in two
men to start a newspaper in his “town,” and they were publishing stories like there really were houses and churches and schools there, when the only thing there was the newspaper office and these two men. We heard that Bothwell was selling “houses” and “lots” for his town like crazy, and when people back East found out it was all a fraud, well, that would look bad for W.T. That’s what we cared about. One paper called it “Mythical Bothwell,” and another said it was “A Home for the Feeble Minded Populace of the East.” But Bothwell didn’t care about our reputation. He cared about his own pockets.

  Fales, for one, read Jimmy’s letter while drinking coffee and warned him, “Don’t push Bothwell too far, Jimmy. That man won’t take it.” Jimmy flicked it off as balderdash, because he was having a hero’s moment. Lots of men came to the roadhouse and gave him a slap on the back in thanks for that letter. But I heard more than one of them quietly tell him they thought it was a mistake to sign it. He didn’t just sign it, he made a point of pointing out that he was signing it. He ended the letter “Not wishing to disguise myself in the matter, I remain yours truly, James Averell, February 7, 1889.”

  But while I was a little scared, I was also proud that he dared stand up to them, and it helped to prop up my own courage. And I think it gave courage to others, too, and that’s just what Jimmy had wanted.

  Well, we didn’t have much time to dally after our picnic on the Fourth because we had to get the roadhouse ready for the election on July 8. They were choosing delegates to the Constitutional Convention—that’s the big step toward statehood and even on that, there’s disagreement. Although me and Jimmy are siding with those who want Wyoming to be a state, some of Jim’s Democratic friends are hanging back, worried it will be too costly and we should wait. I think the Democrats are plumb wrong.

  Jim himself was one of the three judges for the election, and his nephew, Ralph Cole, was one of the clerks. We expected a whole lot of folks in that day to vote, so I baked extra pies. I served stew for lunch, because I wanted to be sure to have enough and you can always stretch stew. And they sure came. But all of them were men. I’d have thought some women would have come to vote, too, since it was so important. When I get my citizenship, I’m going to vote every chance I get.