Child of the River

by Wanda T. Snodgrass

  Using the horseshoe rock formation and the old river’s path for a guide, Morgan scanned the map again with the mirror and chuckled. The particular mine that he was searching for, he concluded, was in the south mountain. Taking a worn cedar pencil from his pocket, he marked his findings and sketched a new map on the back. He mounted the still saddled mare and headed back home to the ranch, content with the find of the day. Pressing ranch work deterred Morgan from searching out new clues for a couple of months. Screwworms had infested some young calves that had been attacked by buzzards. Then came the fall roundup. One emergency after another delayed the search. He replaced worn leathers on two windmills, pulling the pipe by hand. Every second weekend from the beginning of summer until late fall, he entered horses in the races at Kimbleville. He wasn’t about to arouse suspicion by discontinuing his regular activities. Besides, it was Morgan’s way of advertising his horses.

  It was late October before he got the chance to return to prospecting in the hills. He left the cabin at the foot of the mountain before daybreak and crossed over Harris Hollow on the imaginary line. He crossed some flat terrain over to the south mountain and tied Babe well out of sight should anyone happen by. Then he proceeded to climb the steep embankment, sometimes using the pick to chip out a foothold. Upon reaching the brushy top, he decided he’d veered too far east in the climb, so he made his way through the thick foliage a few yards to the west and sat down upon a rock to await the sunrise. He drank from the canteen and lit a smoke, closing the tobacco sack by pulling the yellow string with his teeth. The eastern sky was brilliant magenta, with golden streaks shooting through the dismal gray of morning before the glare of sunlight appeared. Morgan sighted the tin can he’d wedged in a branch of the marker tree on the other mountain through the field glass. He followed the marker down the mountain, across the hollow and up the mountain to the rock where he sat. He decided that he was still too far east. He pushed through yellow, red and golden leaves of thick brush and stopped abruptly, staring at a small valley. The indention on the mountaintop was completely hidden from view by trees and brush. Huge, concrete-like smooth rock steps led downward. “This is no natural phenomena,” he exclaimed, awed by the sight. “These steps are man-made!”

  Still in a state of astonishment, he descended the steps slowly, wondering what he would find at the bottom. He probed the bushes at the bottom, searching for an easy access opening at the spot indicated by the locator rod with the circular tip that rotated wildly in his grasp. It was at that moment that he heard the deadly rattle. For a moment, he stood motionless with only his observant brown eyes and the whirling rod moving. It was too late to lay the instrument aside. The coiled rattlesnake struck not once but twice. A hot, burning pain ripped through his right leg. He killed the snake with one shot from his Colt .45. It was an old snake, almost as big as Morgan’s wrist and half as long as his wagon. Some of its numerous rattles had broken off.

  Painfully, Morgan dragged himself up some of the steps, away from the lurking danger in the brush, a possible mate to the rattler he killed. He tore a strip of cloth from his shirt and tied a tight tourniquet just above the knee. He was bitten in the bend of his knee and again on the calf. He ripped the trouser leg with a pocketknife and sliced both wounds deep, causing the blood to run freely. He managed to suck the poison from the calf wound but was unable to reach the other. He struggled in agony for the half-pint whiskey bottle in his hip pocket. He took a long swig of the elixir to help deaden the pain. He then cleansed the wounds with the alcohol. The rest, he poured on the rock steps. He always carried whiskey when he explored untamed wilderness, ever alert to the danger of snakebite. He tore a small piece of cloth, set it afire and dropped it into the empty bottle, then placed the opening over the wound in the bend of his knee. The fire created a vacuum to draw out some of the poison.

  Climbing back up the steps was a painful ordeal. Morgan was dizzy, aching all over and his whole body broke out in beaded sweat. He felt faint. “I…must…get off this mountain. Nobody must know…what I have found.” He prayed to God for strength to carry him through the ordeal. Slowly, slowly, he pulled himself up one step, rested and ascended another. He dragged himself, crawling through the bushes along the ridge, praying that he didn’t pass out before he could get down the steep hill.

  The mare whinnied when Morgan fell the last few steps and lay still, too weak to stand. His right leg was swollen to the size of two. Exhausted and vomiting, Morgan grimaced and crawled, finally struggling to his feet by holding onto a stirrup. One thought beat in his brain and that was to get away from that mountain. Somehow, God gave Morgan the courage and caused him to muster the last ounce of strength in his body to pull himself up into the saddle. His faithful mare sensed her owner’s plight. She instinctively walked close to the mountain, out of sight, ever so slowly with her sick passenger. The animal curved around the hills and across the Kimbleville road and took Morgan back to the cabin.

  David Purcell found him there. He was delirious with a hot, burning fever. The trapper summoned help. Then he rode to the T-Cross ranch to get Dayme. For more than two weeks, she nursed her stricken husband and prayed by his bedside. Purcell never left her side. The doctor left laudanum for pain and instructed them to bathe the fever.

  “However,” Doctor Voss explained, “Don’t lower the fever too much. Fever is God’s medicine to burn out infection.”

  Every two hours day and night, Dayme or David applied hot cornmeal poultices made with two cups of meal to two cups of boiling water. It was old Mrs. Hight’s remedy for drawing out the poison as the poultice dried. The woman came every day to cook and try to relieve Dayme. She insisted Dayme should get some rest. “You’ll be sick too, girl,” she told her gently. “He’ll be all right. The fever is going down.”

  “He has to have nourishment or he…he’ll die.” Dayme was forcing beef broth down Morgan’s throat when he stirred and opened his eyes.

  David Purcell rushed over to the bedside beside Dayme. A wide grin was on his face. “About ready to go fishin’, Cap’n?”

  Morgan smiled faintly at the two of them. “Don’t we have some meat around here?” Tears of joy rolled down Dayme’s cheeks.

  Chapter 26

  No one thought it odd that Morgan retained the log cabin next to the mountain. He was, after all, a prospector who frequently stayed over in the village rather than ride all the way back to the ranch.

  Since that stormy night when Dayme agreed to be his wife, Morgan kept the promises he made. It was becoming more and more difficult with the passage of time. He needed more than her devoted affection. He wanted to feel her warm body next to him every night, not just occasionally when she came to his room. Resentment and disappointment gnawed at the soul of the man. Four years had passed, and yet Dayme’s green eyes displayed sadness, at times, for no apparent reason. She is thinking about him again, that man in her past, Morgan figured. He felt so frustrated. He’d tried so hard to make her happy. His anguished heart cried out for all her love.

  Dayme’s former lover became the object of Morgan’s seething hatred. The wonderful nights she came to his room faded from his mind when she was in one of those moods again. He buried himself in work hoping sleep would come from sheer exhaustion. Many nights in his darkened room at the ranch, Morgan lay awake for hours, puffing a hand-rolled smoke, aching to hold her and brooding about his phantom rival. My wife’s still in love with a memory, he fretted. A man who used her and forgot she existed. He hangs around in Dayme’s mind, this ghost from the past. He blazed with inward fury whenever envisioned pictures of the two in each other’s arms crept into his troubled mind. He tried to imagine how he would handle the situation if that man ever showed up, if he’d try to take Dayme and the children away. He thought that he just might kill him. Morgan knew who fathered Daniel Lee. He figured that out long ago. The man he used to call his best friend.

  Beneath a calm and jovial exterior, Morgan tried to draw comfort from sharing life with Dayme and t
he boys and being near the woman who stole his heart so long ago. He didn’t interfere with Dayme’s decisions concerning the ranching operation, right or wrong. She ran the operation. It was her ranch. He found her greenhorn mistakes amusing.

  When Dayme was elected president of the local chapter of the American Women’s Suffrage Association of 1870, Morgan figured it was Dayme’s business if she wanted to make a fool of herself marching up and down the dusty street waving banners, singing songs and shouting slogans. The few signatures the women collected in Menard County, he reasoned, would have little bearing on the course of the nation. So he signed the voting rights petition just to please his wife. What the heck?

  Morgan worked alongside Ace Hopkins and the wranglers at roundup time. He helped with the branding, castrating or any situation where an extra hand was needed. He tended to all the windmills, too. The drought conditions of last winter made it impossible for him to prospect. There was too much ranch work to be done. The men worked day after day in freezing weather burning the thorns off prickly pear to supplement the animals’ sparse grazing. The thorny plant was plentiful. The herd would not have survived without it.

  Late rains the following summer created an abundance of rich grass to carry the animals through this winter. That meant more time for Morgan to follow his dream.

  His herd of thirty-nine mustang mares had grown to a handsome herd of over a hundred. The quarter horse stallion he purchased at the Kimbleville auction eliminated the countless trips to the stud at Jake Potterman’s ranch near Teacup Mountain. The quality of the colts was upgraded.

  Dayme’s beef cattle herd was made up of Longhorns, Short Horns, Herefords and mixed breed animals. There were even a few dairy cows mixed in. Dayme had turned in with the herd three old Holstein milk cows not needed for milk anymore and some milk calves. She told Ace Hopkins to add an aged, “jillflirted’ (as the ranch hands called it) Jersey cow who had aborted her last two calves in with the herd, as well.

  Hopkins removed his hat and ran his fingers through gray-black hair. There was a twinkle in his eyes when he spoke. “Might as well butcher that old Jersey. Or shoot her and leave her lay for the buzzards,” he told the woman. “She’ll never carry a calf to term…too old and tough for good table meat. Might grind her.”

  Dayme was not convinced. She was desperate to build up a successful herd. “She might,” she insisted as the cow trotted out the lot gate toward the others.

  Morgan stopped chopping wood to listen. He was amused at her determination. A wide grin spread across his face. That old cow spends half the time in season bawling for a bull, he thought. All the men knew the cow wouldn’t reproduce torn like that, but Dayme would have to learn the hard way.

  The foreman finally convinced the woman, after a lengthy discussion over the price, that a registered Hereford bull would improve the herd, make heavier beef and bring more money on the cattle market.

  “It don’t take any more feed for a purebred Hereford than it does for a bony Longhorn,” Hopkins explained to the woman. “The increase will have more meat on ‘em. Longhorns are all bone. The initial cost is a drop in the bucket compared to the return on your investment.”

  “Five hundred dollars is a lot of money,” Dayme grumbled, not wanting to let go of that much cash. “But you know more about bulls than I do. Go ahead, buy one.”

  The plucky woman joined the ranchmen in following behind cattle drives across her land, rounding up strays. The Comanches had just about cleaned out all the Longhorns in the area, but once in awhile a few wandered onto her land. She became obsessed with succeeding in the operation. She wanted something tangible to hand down to the boys. When she was busy, her mind was engrossed in work or the children. When Morgan was home, the memory of Benjamin was far back in her sub-conscious mind. In the process, she frequently took her good-natured husband for granted. Sometimes, when the supper dishes were done and the children were tucked into bed, she became overwhelmed with melancholia. She berated herself because she couldn’t turn loose of it. She hurt for Morgan, too. She loved him deeply, but still her heart was in a tangle. It would help, she thought, if Morgan were more aggressive in the lovemaking department. Is he afraid to? Seems I always have to be the initiator.

  Morgan watched his wife engrossed in handwork, sitting still and quiet, busily making French knots and lazy daisy stitches. He knew her mind was beyond the Mississippi River. His velvet brown eyes reflected hurt that he quickly covered up with a wisecrack…anything to make her laugh. Those were the nights that Morgan rode back to the village and slept in the cabin at the foot of the mountain.

  I suppose I asked for this misery, Morgan concluded as he approached the village. But I haven’t lost this gamble yet, have I? My darling is married to me, but now and then another man slips into her heart. I’ll give it more time. He hasn’t taken my place yet. He laughed aloud at his own logic. “What place?” he muttered. “I have no real place. I’m a substitute. Benjamin still has the lead role. He occupies the chambers of Dayme’s heart, and if he doesn’t go away, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  He knocked lightly on Ruby Blackmon’s door. This night, he didn’t feel like being alone. The heavily veiled woman came often to Morgan’s secluded cabin after sundown on the days he worked the secret, unauthorized claim. No one in the village knew the identity of Morgan’s secret visitor, and nobody told Dayme about her husband’s indiscretions if ever they knew. By sunrise, the woman was gone as if she’d never come.

  Dayme didn’t sleep well on nights Morgan was in the village. She felt a loneliness, an emptiness and yes, jealousy and guilt. I wonder, she thought as she fluffed her pillow, who is comforting Morgan tonight? Marceline? Some bitch from the cathouse out on the Fort McKavett road? Some hussy he met in Scab Town?

  Morgan hadn’t made any bones about breaking the sixth commandment before their wedding. His words echoed in her ears…. “I’m a red-bloodied lovin’ man. Getting a woman to sleep with has never been a problem for me. I promise I’ll never force my attentions on you.”

  I have needs, too, she thought. I wonder if Morgan knows that? I need him to come to my bed once in awhile. Sometimes, I want him to hold me…just hold me.

  “It’s different with men,” she murmured to herself. “Benjamin said that. Well, Benjamin, you were right up to a point. Dead right. Not the feeling…just the way propriety accepts it.” She arose long before sunup and lit the kerosene lamp. “I hope Morgan doesn’t think I got the big end of the stick,” she muttered. “An open marriage, huh! Open for him. I’ve made such a mess of my life,” she fretted. “My boys will probably grow up to hate me. I don’t blame them or Morgan if they hate me. Today, I hate myself. Poor Morgan. That’s why he leaves. It’s when I’ve been thinking about Benjamin. I can’t expect that dear man to continue playing house forever. I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Alexander was growing up to resemble Morgan, enough to be his own son. The child had flaxen hair like his mother, Betsy, and dark hazel eyes like his father, John, Jr. He was a cuddly, loving, sweet little boy with an easygoing nature.

  Strong-willed Daniel Lee was the exact opposite. He had dark, curly hair and deep blue eyes that seemed to grow bluer each day. He had a vivid imagination and a stubborn streak much like his mother. Erika had to spank Daniel Lee’s bottom regularly for fighting or taking toys away from Alexander.

  A blood-curdling scream brought the housekeeper and several wranglers to the rescue. Erika found them first. Daniel Lee had Alexander down in the dirt and was pounding him repeatedly with tiny fists.

  “Stop it!” Erika shouted. “Stop fighting right now! Daniel Lee, shame on you! Why are you hitting your brother?”

  “Well,” the little boy explained with wide-eyed innocence. “See, I hit Zander and he cwied. I hit him again and he cwied. I’s twyin’ to make Zander hush so I won’t be in all this twouble.”

  Morgan watched with amused interest from the woodpile. He put the axe down to comfort Alexander. “Why
didn’t you hit Daniel Lee back? Don’t let him take you down, son. You’re older and as big as he is. Next time he hits you, sock him a good one under the chin.”

  “But…but,” Alexander said between snubs. His upper lip quivered as he spoke. “I…I’m not mad at him. I want to be fwiends.”

  Morgan knelt to take Alexander gently by the shoulders. “Sometimes,” he told the child somberly, “a man has to get mad to protect himself and his interests. Sometimes, he must even get mad at his friends.”

  Erika dusted the seat of Daniel Lee’s trousers good. “If you can’t play without hitting Alexander, young man,” she scolded, “then I suppose you’ll chust have to play with the cats…cats fight, Daniel Lee… that’s why I never give cookies to cats.”

  Try as he would, Morgan couldn’t help but admire that feisty, stubborn little guy who was constantly out of one thing and into another. Daniel Lee, he thought, will be able to make his own place in this world. He’ll never be content to stay in the background. He must be up front.

  The wind gained speed that afternoon, and the windmill fan whirled faster and faster. Morgan sat on the back porch strumming “Green Sleeves” on his guitar while watching Dayme toss feed to the chickens. She’s still as beautiful, he observed, as the day I left to go to war nine years ago…more beautiful. Having a baby didn’t hurt her figure.

  Suddenly, Dayme’s choked cry alerted Morgan to danger, and he came running. She pointed upward toward the churning windmill blades, unable to speak for fear. Daniel Lee was halfway up and still climbing.