A Path Worth Taking

by Mariella Starr

  Jasper took off for the hills, as did Jeb. They had no particular fondness for doctors. Garret did have some concerns and insisted the doctor check Beth again to her everlasting embarrassment.

  In the privacy of their bedroom with her husband standing guard, Dr. Merritt examined Beth. He put his stethoscope to her stomach and declared he heard a strong heartbeat. He let both Beth and Garret listen to it to their amazement.

  “Don’t you worry,” Dr. Merritt assured them. “Your baby is safe and protected in there, and will remain so until it decides to come out.”

  When Garret walked the doctor to his buggy, he asked a few more questions. The man of medicine answered with a shocking straightforwardness and a foul-mouthed wording for what Garret considered a private matter between man and wife. The doctor bluntly told Garret he could fuck his wife anytime and anyway he wanted. It was his right as a husband and good for her.

  Garret thought about the foulness of the doctor’s words and how the doctor had applied them to his wife. He decided then and there, if Beth ever needed a doctor again, they would find another. Any man who would associate the F word with Beth would never touch her again.

  He returned to the cabin and heartily kissed his wife.

  “I talked to the Doc,” Garret told Beth. “He said our having relations was safe.”

  “You told him?” Beth exclaimed.

  “Yes,” Garret said. “I needed to know if doing it was safe. Doctor Merritt said anything we did before should be safe until your ninth month.”

  “You told him what we do?”

  “Not in exact words or description, honey. He got the general idea of what I was asking. We’re not the first couple to have a baby. He said it was healthy for us to keep doing whatever we were doing before. However, if you ever start hurting, we are to stop!”

  Beth ducked her head and blushed. “I already knew.”

  “From Lettie?”

  She nodded. “She told me the same thing, and I told you. Why will you listen to another man, yet won’t listen to me?”

  “A doctor,” Garret corrected and grinned. “If I didn’t have work to do, I would snuggle in bed with you right now.”

  Beth gave him an exasperated look. “I’m not the one stopping you.”

  ***

  The news came to them from a stranger riding into their place. A new neighbor, Mr. Jerome Conway, introduced himself and declared he had laid claim to a piece of land to the north of their property. He had claimed his land, but he and his family planned to winter in Denver. They would return in the spring to make a go of the homestead. He also brought word of the new railroad line to connect Denver with Cheyenne, Wyoming, and join the city to the Transcontinental Railroad. It now took only twelve to fourteen days to traverse from the east coast to the west coast. What had taken four to five months of dangerous travel across the Oregon Trail at the cost of more than a thousand dollars had been reduced to an eighty-five-dollar rail ticket and two weeks. Thousands of immigrants were flooding across the country onto lands previously held by Indians.

  The massive hurried immigration worried Garret. He disliked the idea of settlers crowding him out on his own land. He spent a long time stewing on the problem before he talked it over with Beth. They decided to dig up their money, jewelry, and silver stash and use it to purchase the parcels of land adjoining their property. It was a risk, although they would still have the found money to use if something awful befell them. He had planned to expand his property in the future, but he hadn’t taken into account that land near or around Denver was being bought by speculators.

  He made the trip to Denver taking Jasper with him. At the land office, the surveyor showed them a map with three sections of unclaimed land remaining next to Garret’s ranch. There were many names attached to other parcels of land where Garret knew for a fact no one lived. Of the parcels next to Garret’s, two plots were available for purchase at a dollar an acre and one section was available for homesteading. That particular parcel was between what would be Garret’s property and Abram’s homestead. Since Garret had claimed another parcel of land in Beth’s name in the spring next to his ranch, he was unable to claim another.

  “I’ll claim it,” Jasper offered.

  The land clerk glanced up from the maps. “Are you his boy?”

  “No, sir, we aren’t any relation. My last name is Slater.”

  “Are you over eighteen?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jasper lied without blinking an eye.

  The clerk pulled out some papers from behind the counter. “You’ll have to fill out these forms.”

  “We need a moment to consider this,” Garret requested.

  “Take your time, I ain’t got nothing else to do,” the clerk grumbled.

  Garret walked outside and gave Jasper a hard stare. “Are you sure you want to do this? You’ll be lying to a government official. You just turned fifteen. If you lay claim to the land and work to prove up for five years, you will lose those years for the rest of your life.”

  Jasper looked Garret straight in the eye. He had grown to the height of a full-grown man and had the girth and muscles of a man. “They ain’t gonna ask for proof of my age. Most would guess I’m at least eighteen, anyway. I can lay claim to the homestead and with help, I can prove up on it a lot sooner than five years. Once I do, you can buy the land from me to add to your ranch, or I might take a wife and use it myself. Five years is a long time down the road.”

  “It’s a lie,” Garret insisted.

  Jasper flushed at the admonishment. “I’ve been asking around. Railroad people and land speculators own half the homesteading properties in this county. It’s only a name on a plot of land, and any man can hire another to claim land for him with the understanding it will be signed over to the man with the money. I’ve even heard tell of men building cabins and putting them on wheels so they can be moved from homestead to homestead for prove up. Once the paperwork is filed, it will be my land and legal. The land agents are as crooked as the rich men making false claims to get their hands on the land. It’s one piece of land, Garret, the one separating your land from Abram’s. It doesn't make sense for me not to claim it. I’ll have five years to decide what I want to do with it. By then I will be a fully-growed man.”

  Garret put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “I think you already are, Jasper. You’re not thinking like a boy, you’re thinking like a man.”

  They returned to the land office and finished filling out the forms and signing the paperwork. Jasper walked out a little bit taller. Garret walked out feeling a sense of pride in the boy they had taken in and helped on his way to manhood.

  Beth decided their expanded ranch needed a name. They had time to think about it, all the time in the world, except it was becoming a challenge. Each morning at breakfast everyone looked at the school slate she had propped against the sideboard in the kitchen. Anyone could add a name or erase a name. After several weeks of cheering for a name or seeing white streaks where a name had been erased, one name still remained in place with no additional new names. By a vote of all to none, they agreed to think about it until spring.

  The remaining name was Journey’s End although Beth challenged it in an open discussion at the dinner table. Everyone liked the name. She liked the name too, but it didn’t feel quite right. She still argued against it.

  “It makes sense,” Garret said. “It took a long journey to get here, yet we all made it. Journey’s End sounds like a good name for the ranch.”

  “Except our journey hasn’t ended,” Beth protested. “We are still living it. Living here might be the end of one journey, yet it’s also the beginning of a new one for all of us.”

  The argument continued, but Journey’s End remained on the slate as a possibility. There were no new names added.

  ***

  The first snow of the season came early, followed by a freeze, which put a skim of ice on the creek. This would be their second winter on the ranch, and they
were well prepared. The gardens had been bountiful, and they had two earthen food cellars packed with provisions.

  Garret decided it was time for a hunt, so he and Jasper went after elk or deer, whichever they found first. Lettie was nearing her time, so Abram declined. He would go after some wild turkeys, which allowed him to stay close to the home place.

  While her men were away, Beth watched the horizon for them every day. On the fourth morning, Lettie began having pains. While she and Beth had prepared for the birth, it was too soon. Her labor pains stopped, thankfully, and by the next morning, Lettie was helping Abram roast turkeys in the meat smoker.

  Several more days had lapsed before Beth was rewarded in her constant vigil when she saw two riders and recognized them even in the distance. She ran across the frozen fields to meet them. Garret did not pull her into the saddle as he normally would, not wanting to cause her harm in her condition. Instead, he dismounted and handed the reins to his horse and the leads to the two packhorses to Jasper, who rode on ahead.

  He kissed his wife as she ran a hand over a new growth of beard.

  “You shouldn’t be out here in the cold.”

  “The walk will do me good,” Beth exclaimed as his arm went around her and he laid a hand on her stomach.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Right as rain, or I should say snow, since it hasn’t stopped in days,” Beth exclaimed. “We had a false alarm with Lettie a couple of days ago. Did you get elk or deer?”

  “Two deer and a buffalo,” Garret announced with a smile. “It’s a good thing we took extra pack horses. We should have more than enough meat to get through the winter.”

  “Abram thinks he’s the king of the smokehouse,” Beth teased.

  Garret laughed and gathered his wife in his arms. “I’m glad to be home.”

  While Garret was busy outside dealing with the butchering, Beth added wood to the kitchen stove filling kettles and her largest pot with water. She carried the hot water into the bedroom to fill the bathing tub. It was hours before her husband came in from the barn from the butchering, but Beth was prepared. She had kept reheating the tub water, and she quickly locked their bedroom door behind him. She helped him out of his clothing and removed her own before he sank into the hot water and closed his eyes.

  “Are you tired?” Beth asked.

  “I’ve been awake since daybreak and rode thirty miles on horseback. Then, between the four of us, we butchered fifteen hundred pounds of venison and bison. Yeah, I’m tired.”

  Beth picked up a cloth and soaped Garret’s shoulders and then his chest. When her hand dipped lower, any weariness Garret felt vanished, and he pulled her into the tub with him. There was barely room for one, but he settled her on his lap.

  She lay on top of him, and her hands traced the arc of her stomach. “I don’t think I’m very attractive right now.”

  Garret caught her hands in his. “You’re wrong, you are more beautiful now than you were before. This is our baby, and it’s beautiful, too.”

  “I love you, too…”

  Her words were silenced as he kissed her and after a little rearranging of her in his lap, he had her where he wanted her.

  Their bodies were wet and hot. Garret pushed her up slightly and eased her down onto his stiff erection. Beth moaned as he pumped into her. Her hands gripped the sides of the tub to keep her from sliding. They came together with a delicious grappling of their bodies as they surrendered to their needs.

  Beth could feel him shrink under her, but Garret slid his hand beneath her and wiggled his fingers through the folds of her womanhood. He turned her slightly for more access and took one of her swollen breasts into his mouth swirling his tongue around the nipple. His fingers stroked. He found her center and twirled his finger against the little private part she found so sensitive.

  She moaned as she felt herself becoming desperate for his touch. He continued to stroke her as she succumbed to the grip of an orgasm, which shook her entire body, and still he would not let her go. Again and again, he went after her sensitive part, and she responded until she was sprawled across his lap, panting and shaking.

  He scooted around her and stood her in the middle of the tub. He washed her, paying due attention to her sex, and then wrapped a towel around her and carried her to their bed. Garret tried to be gentle, but Beth did not want gentleness. Even in her condition, she never wanted him to hold back from her. He started tender and thoughtful, but she had the effect of turning him into a raging sex-driven animal thinking of only his carnal desires.

  Once he began making love to his wife, Garret could not stop himself. Beth never denied him. He tried to slow his pace, except she would have none of it and pulled him down to her. He feasted on her lips, neck, and breasts. There was so much of her to love to touch and feel.

  She lifted one leg wrapping it around his waist and arched her back so her extended belly would not be in his way. At some point, he lost control as Beth lost herself in the pleasure his body gave her. He needed her and rose to the challenge, satisfying her needs as well as his own.

  Garret found himself lying in the arms of his wife with a satisfied smirk on his face. He was one lucky man!

  Early in the morning hours, there was a pounding on the kitchen door. Garret dragged himself out of bed and opened the door to Abram.

  “I think it’s Lettie’s time,” Abram exclaimed.

  “I’ll get Beth.” Garret returned to their bedroom where she was already throwing things into a bag.

  “What can we do to help?” Garret asked as he followed Beth to Lettie’s cabin.

  “I don’t know,” Beth admitted. “Lettie will tell me what to do. At least she knows what she’s doing.”

  While the men waited outside, Beth followed her friend's guidance. She watched closely because she knew in a few short months she would be experiencing the same thing. Lettie knelt down on the floor in a squat leaning forward.

  “Shouldn’t you be in the bed?”

  Lettie shook her head. “I helped my Aunt Birdy deliver many a baby. I don’t think this one is going to come as easy as Virgie, although his coming was pushed along by my having to ride on horseback.”

  Beth stood by for hours, wiping Lettie’s brow, and doing whatever else was needed. At least the men were being kept busy, as they continued butchering the meat for the smoker and packing it in the meat cache. It was snowing again, and she thought the cold was good for butchering. However, it might not be so good if Lettie needed the help of a doctor.

  Her friend cast off the idea. “There ain’t a man alive who knows more about birthing than a woman even if she ain’t done it before. A woman’s instinct will get her through it!”

  Beth was not so sure she agreed. She stood by as hour after hour passed. Lettie moved from one position to another. Sometimes she squatted on the floor where Beth held her hands to help her balance. Other times, she walked around the room or sat bent over in the only chair. Sometimes, she put her back to the side of the bed, stretched out her hands, and made little bouncing moves as she was squatting.

  Contractions came and went irregularly, but Lettie was quite stoic. She would hold Beth’s hand so tightly in a grip Beth thought her fingers would be crushed, and then Lettie would release her breath and pant. All Beth could do was offer kindness. Finally, Lettie crawled into the bed and pulled her knees up to her sides.

  “It’s time, Miss Beth. It’s gonna be bloody and messy, but you have to hold up and help me.”

  “I will,” Beth promised shakily. “I won’t let you down. Tell me what to do.”

  There was not much for Beth to do. She watched as Lettie grunted and panted her way through contractions. With a strangled cry and grunt from Lettie, a little girl slid out onto the clean feed sacks with lusty cries. Lettie asked Beth to hand her the baby. She laid her child on her stomach while she took a length of thread, tied it around the cord, and snipped the umbilical cord.

  “Take her and wrap her up until we can
wash her.”

  Beth took the baby as Lettie pushed down a few more times until the afterbirth expelled from her body. Beth wrapped it in the sacks and set it aside, trying not to vomit, as Lettie tended to herself.

  The next few minutes were definitely women’s work, as Beth helped Lettie out of the bed to change the bedding as quickly as she could while Lettie washed and inspected her baby. Beth helped her friend clean herself before getting into the clean bed.

  Beth hauled the buckets outside and disposed of their contents.

  She met Abram at the door of the cabin. “Let me make sure she’s ready to see you,” Beth exclaimed, running inside before realizing Abram was coming in right behind her.

  “Say hello to your daughter!”

  “I don’t know if I can be so brave,” Beth admitted to Garret when they went to bed that evening. “It was scary and miraculous at the same time.”

  “You don’t see yourself as a brave woman, but you are. I see it. Black Crow saw it. When your times comes, you’ll do what you need to do.”

  “I hope so,” Beth murmured, and she pulled his arms tighter around her. They both chuckled as the baby kicked.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Is this one of those light winters again?” Beth asked as she swept snow off Garret and Jasper as they came in through the kitchen door.

  “Don’t take off your boots, yet!” she ordered. “I need one of you to take this pot of beef stew to Lettie’s.”

  Jasper took the pot and sniffed appreciatively.

  “There’s plenty more for us,” Beth assured the boy… the man… the young man. She was struggling with her assessment of Jasper because he was changing so rapidly. He had grown as tall as Garret in the last few months. He had taken on the actions and the voice of a man, but he still had the rascality of a boy.

  “Someone had better check on Abram and Jeb,” Jasper added. “Abram is bound and determined to get his barn walls at least half-way up before he quits for the winter.”