Hilda Hogties a Horseman

by Linda K. Hubalek

  “Poker, sit,” and the dog did when Hilda gave the command. She gave Noah a sideways glance when he gave an exasperated huff. Noah was a good horseman, but she was much better with Poker than he was.

  Noah looked at Terror watching and yapping at everything from her saddlebag perch, happy to be along for the ride. “Why does my dog behave better with for you than for me?” Noah asked in exasperation.

  “You haven’t trained him right. You have to be firm,” she countered back as they started to climb the hill.

  “So you’ve trained your dog to bark constantly?”

  Hilda straightened up to put her hands on her hips. “There is nothing wrong with my dog. The breed is just hyper and needs to talk.”

  “I bet I could make her quiet down, less fussy.”

  “How?”

  “I won’t say how, but I bet I can. Want to place a wager on it?”

  “You like to gamble, don’t you?” she said as she turned to continue the climb to the cave on top of the hill.

  “I must say I’ve been lucky with cards. Not always winning cash, but lady luck has been on my side.”

  “I didn’t think with your grandfather’s Quaker background, you’d know how to play poker, Noah.”

  Noah glanced back at her as he stretched his leg up to the next foothold in the rocky hill. “How’d you know about our family Quaker connection?”

  “Noah, I’ve spent a lot of time with your family the past few months. I probably know more about you than you care for me to repeat.”

  “I bet that’s true. No, I didn’t learn to play cards at home. It was on the trail up to Wyoming Territory when I learned the art of card playing. The cook for the group taught us the tricks of the trade, and when we lost to him, we didn’t pay him in cash, we paid him in work. The man rarely washed dishes or fetched water because there was always some sucker from the previous night’s card game who owed work to Uncle Cookie.”

  “Shoot, wish I would have thought of that. Rania and I always had to get the water and wash dishes on our trail drives. Of course, our mother wouldn’t have let us play cards with the men though. But she did give the trail hands extra work if she thought they weren’t pulling their weight on the drive.”

  Hilda stopped talking as they approached the front of the cave. It was empty as they expected it to be, but there were a couple of boot prints in the entrance’s sand, which had eroded from the rock’s surface. Were they new or old steps? You couldn’t tell because the entrance was protected from the cave’s overhanging ceiling.

  Hilda stood in the cave entrance and looked back over the landscape. “You can see a long ways from here.”

  “Especially if you had a field glass,” Noah added. “A person could spy on my…er…your homestead pretty easy.”

  Hilda gave an involuntary shudder, thinking of someone spying on her. Maybe it was a good thing Noah was around now. “Anything in the back of the cave? You said there were some ledges there.” So far she hadn’t stepped into the cave, letting Noah do the exploring and reporting to her.

  “Huh. There is an old leather bag shoved to the back on this high ledge,” Noah said as he returned to the bright light at the entrance. “Shall we check what’s in it?”

  Hilda scanned the landscape for any sign of life, but the horses and dogs down below the cave remained quiet. “Sure, I’m curious, and we can always put it back up there when we’re done looking.”

  Noah kneeled down and slowly opened the two straps on the flap of the bag. “Now I’m going to slide the contents of the bag out on the ground. Watch out for spiders and mice. Step on them if any come out.”

  “Oh good grief, Noah, just dump the stuff.” But she did take a step back just in case.

  Noah shook out a man’s shirt, a small but heavy bag which, Hilda guessed, had coins in it, and a cardboard photograph. “Well. I wonder how long this has been in the cave.”

  Noah picked up the portrait and studied it. “I don’t know this young couple,” he said as he handed it to Hilda.

  The edges of the cardboard were bent, and the photo dirty from handling and maybe water stains, but the faces of the two people—a young man sitting in a chair, and a younger girl standing beside him—were clear. Hilda moved the photo to see it in the best light coming from the mouth of the cave.

  “The photography studio was in Texas,” she pointed to the bottom right of the card. “The boy looks about twelve to maybe fourteen years of age. The girl, might be about six to eight years old, maybe? They look a little alike so I bet they were siblings.”

  “Any names on the back of the card?”

  “Yes. The writing is faint…but it looks like ‘Sid and Tina’.”

  She turned the card around and stared at the faces, then looked up to Noah. “This is a portrait of Sid Narker and his sister! Probably taken ten, twelve years ago, but this Texas town is near where Sid joined our trail drive.” Her eyes quickly left the picture to scan the landscape. “I wonder if he holed up here after he was fired from the Bar E.”

  “Or before, or after, Hilda. It’s hard to tell when he’s been here. And why is this sack still here? A person never leaves money and an important family photo if he can help it.”

  Hilda shivered, thinking she was standing in the same spot as Narker had stood, looking down on the Wilerson lands. “It’s possible he stashed it here for safekeeping. Maybe he meant to pick this up after kidnapping Rania, but the circumstance of the flooded river changed his plan.”

  “We’ll take it with us and give it to Adam. The law might be able to track down his sister.”

  Noah hoisted the leather bag over one shoulder and held out his other hand to her. “Let’s get back down and ride home.”

  Hilda took his hand as they carefully climbed down the hill together. Noah’s grip held tight as they slid together down one rocky spot. Hilda thought she could get used to Noah’s touch real easy.

  Chapter 7

  Hilda watched as Noah pulled the bandana out of his back pocket and wiped his face with it. The sweat was dripping down his body from the exertion of digging holes in this heat. The humidity had been high this morning. They could almost see it hanging in the air when they started working before daylight had barely begun its appearance.

  She was wringing wet too, but kept digging at the hole she was working on about twenty feet away. They got into a system of Noah starting the post hole, but then she finished it, unless the soil was too hard, then he’d clean it out to the right depth. Hilda would hold the post straight in the hole while Noah shoveled dirt around the base and tamped it in.

  Actually, they were working well together after two weeks’ time. With not much in the way of trees around the prairie to make fence posts, they scoured the river banks for some, and used limestone slabs for corner posts. They borrowed the Wilerson wagon to buy wire and supplies in town. Hilda helped with everything, from unloading the wagon to stretching the fence wire. She knew she didn’t have the strength for some tasks, but she’d figure out how to work around the problem, or ask for Noah’s help.

  Hilda felt bad about buying Noah’s homestead, now that she knew him. Before, the claim had been filed by a faceless person, so it didn’t matter she was taking over a place someone started from scratch; a person’s dream, and a home to share with a wife and family.

  Hilda had been mulling around an idea for the last week and was ready to share it with Noah. After warily circling around each other for the first few days, they seemed to have called a truce and set to work, stepped off the fence line, gathering supplies they needed, and started fencing, as two ranch hands would have worked together.

  When Noah realized she wasn’t the type of boss who’d give him orders, then stay in the house and read a book, things started to go better. Noah, grudgingly accepted Hilda’s help, because she was comfortable with tools and the physical work—doing the job just like a seasoned ranch hand would be doing.

  Over time, they gradually shared information about thei
r families and travels, when the work wasn’t too strenuous to talk, or when they shared meals together. Just like the rest of the Wilerson family, Hilda liked Noah and knew she could trust him.

  She leaned against the shovel, ready to take a break. Hilda had packed a snack of sugar cookies—made by Millie, not herself—and a jug of water on Nutcracker when they left the house after their noon meal. She wished for a shade tree to get out of the sun, but there was no such place out in the open land.

  “Noah, how about resting a bit? It’s hot today and I’d like to take a break,” she said as she plopped down in the grass, stretching her legs out in front of her. Hilda popped off the cork on the jug and took a long swallow. She paused a few seconds and took another swig before passing the jug over to Noah who had sat down beside her.

  “Water tastes good,” Noah said after gulping several swallows. “You going to share Millie’s cookies?”

  “How do you know I didn’t make them?”

  Noah unwrapped the cloth handkerchief Millie had wrapped the cookies in and held one up in front of her. “One, I haven’t seen you bake any, and Millie’s cookies usually have Tate’s thumbprint in the middle.”

  “True,” Hilda confessed. “I can bake better in a Dutch oven over a campfire than in a woodstove in a kitchen.”

  “But you weren’t on the trail all year long. Didn’t your ma teach you how to cook and bake when you lived on the Texas ranch?”

  “Oh she tried, but she had better luck with Rania listening to her. I tagged after my brothers while they broke horses if I could get away with it. I think Ma just finally gave up and let my brothers take care of me. So, I spent my growing up years on the back of a horse, whether we were on the trail or home in a pen.”

  “How about you?” Hilda asked between savoring bites of the delicious sugar cookie. “Did Cate teach you the basics of cooking and baking?”

  “Actually, yes. Gingersnaps are my specialty, I’ll have you know.”

  “Good, baking was just added to your job description,” she teased. “Do you know the cookie recipe by heart, or have to get it from your mother?”

  “No, Ma would have to write it down for me.”

  Hilda smiled, then turned to scan the homestead below them. “I like where you put the sod house, but where did you plan to build your permanent home?”

  She watched out of the corner of her eye as Noah glanced at her, then down at the soddie. “Oh, probably west of the well. I was going to let Victoria make the final decision. It’s one of the reasons I hadn’t planted any trees around the place yet. We’d need to plan the permanent buildings first.”

  Hilda liked when Noah said “we”, even though Hilda knew he meant Victoria. “But then it would be closer to the barn, pens and animal smells. I was thinking we…uh, I would put it northwest instead, about where the garden is now. And I’d like a separate wash house too, like your mother has.”

  “I’d like to add a lean–to on the barn which could house more animals during winter, and probably should add a bin for oats too—being we’ll get more horses.”

  She slowed her breath to sound calm as she continued. “I was wondering about getting a few pigs to fatten up. Think Jacob and Rania would trade beef for some pork this fall with us?”

  So far, Noah wasn’t contradicting her ideas for the two of them to share in—if he caught on yet she was using “we” and “us” in her conversation.

  Noah turned to face her. “You’re hinting about the future, Hilda. How about you spell out what you’re really thinking?”

  Hilda took a deep breath before sitting cross–legged and squaring her shoulders. “I want us to become partners.”

  Noah’s eyes narrowed and Hilda worried it might be too soon to mention her idea. “Well, I have the land,” she blushed remembering it was his first, “but you could add more horses and we could train them together.”

  He quickly looked away and remained silent. Did he hate the idea, or was something else wrong?

  “I could have been a partner with Jacob, but I wanted to be my own boss, not a little brother. It wouldn’t have been his fault, but he would have always made the decisions and expected me to go along with them, just like when we were kids.”

  “You’re so close in age, I think of you three brothers as equals.”

  “Yes, we were close then—and still are now—but I’ll always be “number three”, or the youngest. That’s why I got the homestead, so I could make my own destiny.”

  “And then I messed up your course by buying your land.”

  Noah shook his head and sighed. “Yes, and no. I jumped the gun—thinking Victoria would adjust to my choices, and then couldn’t face the fact she wouldn’t ever come here with me.”

  Hilda couldn’t help but lay a hand on Noah’s arm. “What did you plan here?” She’d love to rub his arm to feel his muscle and sweaty skin, but kept her touch still and light.

  “Much like you just talked about…a place close to my family where we’d grow our own food, and raise and train horses. A two–story wood house—built so I could add on more bedrooms as we needed them for our growing family. And plant some trees too. I wish we could have a grove of trees like my grandparents in Illinois had around their house, but I can’t transplant fifty–year–old trees.”

  “Would you specialize in any type or breed of horse?”

  “Our family had a contract with Fort Harker when the fort was going strong. We sold mostly chestnut three–year–old quarter horses which were green broke, so I sat on the back of dozens of horses growing up. That would have been from 1867 to last year, when the fort closed after the railroad was completed to Denver. I know Jacob hated for the contract to end. Our family sold cattle for the fort’s beef supply, too.”

  “The majority of ranchers have a herd of mares and raise their own colts to train. What different kind of horses could we raise?” Hilda threw the “we” word out again before she caught it.

  Noah didn’t seem to catch her mistake when he answered, “Anything crossed with an Indian pony is fast and has good stamina. Lots of cowboys in the area are looking for good horses, if they aren’t staying with a trail crew.”

  “Train teams of draft or carriage horses?”

  “Not enough need for big draft horses in this area. You usually see them in cities where they pull big freight loads around town. For wagon or farm equipment, medium–weight horses are better, they travel better in the field and faster on our trails.”

  At least Noah was thinking of what they could do together, rather than saying “no” right away. “Have you worked with mules?”

  “Yes, we raised some for the army. They worked well for hauling supplies to other forts out west. Trains are taking over that task now too.”

  “Would you want to raise cattle instead? Dagmar said Mr. Elison was thinking about shipping some Hereford bulls from back east to the ranch. Mr. Elison heard breeding Hereford bulls with the longhorn cows will improve their meat.”

  Noah picked up her hand and gave it a squeeze to get her attention. “Do you really want me to be a partner with you or are you just trying to ease your conscience about taking my homestead?”

  “Oh, I think we’d do well as partners, Noah. We seem to get along fine—I haven’t pointed my rifle at you lately, have I?”

  “No, it’s been a few days since I felt like a target,” Noah chuckled. “I’ll have to ask around to see what people need in the way of livestock before deciding what to do. But yes, I’d be interested in working with you, instead of just for you, Hilda.”

  “Good, do we shake on it…or…”

  Noah still held her hand so he gave it a firm shake. Hilda was thinking of another way to seal the deal, but it looked like she’d have to work on that approach a little more since Noah didn’t take the hint. She took a deep breath when Noah released her hand and stood.

  “Maybe this evening I’ll ride over to see Rania, and ask if they want might want to trade meat. I think we can find a fe
w piglets to raise. Want to go with me?” Hilda asked as she rose and dusted off the back of her trousers.

  “I think I’ll head over to the Cross C and get some advice from Isaac, and visit Sarah instead.”

  “Marcus may have some ideas on selling to the military. Fort Harker may be closed, but there are still four forts west of here that continue to operate. Forts Hays and Larned aren’t far from here. Forts Wallace and Dodge are further away, but that distance would be nothing like taking cattle from Texas to Wyoming Territory. And if we don’t have enough land here for the stock we want to raise, we might work out a deal with my parents or Jacob since we’re between their lands.”

  Noah stared at Hilda and said, “You’ve been thinking about this for a while, haven’t you?”

  Hilda gave a shrug as she picked up the shovel to work on the post hole again. Yes, I’ve been planning this; ever since I bought my wedding dress four years ago.

  Chapter 8

  This is the type of porch I’d like to have someday, Noah thought, as he sipped lemonade and visited with his sister Sarah, Isaac, and Marcus. The evening breeze came across the porch, cooling them down after a hot day. He could just picture a wide wrap–around porch on his house, with comfortable rockers, and a porch swing, northwest of where the sod house sat now. Noah reined in his thoughts and sighed. It wasn’t his place to plan a house anymore.

  “I think training horses for herding and cutting cattle would be your best bet, Noah,” Isaac recommended. “We have forty to fifty yearlings we bring in from the pastures each fall. In fact, I’d like to give you four young horses to work on right now. They’ve been problem horses, but could be decent rides if they had some personal attention like you and Hilda could give them. I remember you had a gentle hand with training horses, and Hilda could talk anything into cooperating with her.” Noah smiled when thinking how Hilda had been hinting they should “work together”.

  “Think we could get any military contracts, Marcus?” Noah switched the conversation to the other man, who had stayed silent throughout most of the evening.