What lay ahead Charlotte couldn’t know, but she couldn’t wait to get to Oklahoma and begin her new life. Whether it was teaching schoolchildren, seeing new sights, meeting new people, or even, as impossible as it was to imagine, falling in love, she was ready to enjoy every step of the way.
As the reddish yellow sun, as full as a saucer, began its descent on the far distant horizon and stars crowded the edges of the sky announcing the coming of the night, Charlotte closed her eyes, relaxing with the gentle rocking and swaying of the train car, and slowly drifted to sleep.
One of the first days of the rest of her life was finally drawing to an end.
Charlotte awoke to bright rays of sunlight streaming through the window onto her face and the sounds of her few fellow passengers as they began to stir. Her sleep hadn’t been peaceful; a man’s snoring had wakened her and she had the vague memory of gazing out her window upon the shimmering surface of a slow-moving river silvered by moonlight. Fortunately, she’d been able to fall back to sleep. She rubbed at her neck, stiff from the discomfort of having to sleep sitting up.
Outside, the landscape had changed as the train sped through the night; gone were the gently rolling hills of prairie grass, replaced by a mostly flat scrabble occasionally spotted by squat, clumpy hills of much-redder soil than any she had ever seen before. Tufts of buffalo grass sprang up here and there, far taller than the rest of the short, parched-looking grass. Trees were few and far between, with bunches of scrub bushes scattered about.
Having grown up on the shores of a large lake, surrounded by majestic maple, elm, and pine trees and the thick woods full of wildlife, Charlotte found the many differences of the Oklahoma landscape startling, yet beautiful at the same time. She wondered whether the people she would meet in Sawyer would be so different from those at home.
Suddenly, Charlotte spotted one of them. Up on a rocky rise, sitting atop a tan and white horse, was a cowboy. When he caught sight of the passengers looking up at him, he took off his dusty hat and gave them a hearty wave. Charlotte managed to wave in return, but only after the train had moved on and the cowboy had fallen from sight.
At the front of the train car, the door opened and in walked the train’s conductor, a portly man with a thick, bushy white mustache wider than the small hat sitting atop his head. Checking a pocket watch connected by a chain fob to his vest, he nodded to passengers as he made his way down the narrow aisle.
“How much longer until the train arrives in Sawyer?” Charlotte asked.
“Next stop.” He thumbed in the direction the train was heading. “By my watch we should be there in just under twelve minutes.”
The first signs of Sawyer soon began to come into view. There were ranches with enormous steers and dozens of horses all lazing behind sturdy fences. As the train passed by one ranch, a battered pickup truck pulled out and followed alongside Charlotte’s car, its tires kicking up enormous plumes of dust, before finally turning away just short of town.
Craning her neck out the window to get a better view, Charlotte could see the center of town ahead. Except for its water tower, it didn’t appear to be much different from Carlson. Businesses lined the main street, their signs and awnings announcing their wares, as people milled about on their daily business. On the far side of town rose a church spire, stark white against the brilliance of the blue sky. A group of children, with a yapping dog in tow, did their best to keep up with the train as it slowed. Near the small train depot, its iron wheels screamed against the iron tracks. With another blast of its whistle, it shuddered to a stop.
Gathering her things, Charlotte hurried into the aisle, scarcely able to contain the nervous excitement that coursed through her. Up ahead, a man groaned exhaustedly as he heaved himself out of his seat, planted his cowboy hat over his sun-burned head, and headed for the door, stopping when he saw Charlotte approach.
“Ma’am,” he said with a nod of his hat, letting her go by.
“Thank you,” she replied.
Once she had passed, Charlotte stifled a smile at the thought that the man looked as if he would have been much more comfortable on the back of a horse than inside the train. She wondered if he wasn’t the source of the snoring that had woken her in the night!
Finally, she was before the door. Pausing until a box was placed beneath the steps, Charlotte took a deep breath, accepted the assisting hand of the conductor, and stepped out onto the platform.
Chapter Two
THE EARLY AFTERNOON summer sun felt warm upon Charlotte’s skin as she futilely tried to shade her eyes from the bright glare. A sniffing wind swirled the scattered dust at her feet. The air felt dry and heavy, a far cry from the oppressive humidity of Minnesota, but no less hot.
Sawyer’s train platform lacked the activity of the depot in Kansas City; besides the cowboy who had nodded to her, the only other passenger who disembarked was an older woman, her shoulders hunched low from the weight of the pair of heavy bags she carried.
At first glance, Charlotte saw no one waiting for her.
“Miss Tucker?” a loud voice asked, startling her.
Charlotte looked up as a middle-aged man, well-worn cowboy hat in his hand, strode toward her from deep shadows inside the depot. Trailing behind him was another man.
“Yes?” she replied cautiously.
Smiling broadly, the man stretched out his hand in greeting. “I’m John Grant. You’ll be stayin’ at my ranch while you’re here in Sawyer.”
Immediately, Charlotte felt at ease. She had received a letter weeks earlier from Mr. Grant, offering her a place in his home on a horse ranch. Apparently, he rented out a couple of rooms in much the same way her grandmother had at her boardinghouse in Carlson. Having grown up in such an environment, Charlotte had readily accepted his offer.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Grant,” she answered.
“Now, the only men I ever knew that went by ‘Mr. Grant’ was my pa and my grandpappy before him, and since I ain’t half the man either one of them managed to be, it just don’t seem right for me to be takin’ their names. I’d like it best if you’d call me John.”
“Only if you call me Charlotte,” she replied, taking his offered hand.
“Then you got yourself a deal.”
John Grant made a strong first impression with his neatly combed, snow-white hair, his deep-set, sparkling blue eyes, and his broad, welcoming smile. But the ruggedness of a rancher was hard to disguise. The many lines and wrinkles on his weathered face, his hands worn and calloused, and his bronzed skin were the result of his days spent working beneath the hot Oklahoma sun. With his shirt, pants, and boots caked with dust he would never be mistaken for a banker or lawyer.
“This is one of my men, Del Grissom,” John explained, introducing Charlotte to the man who had followed him from the depot.
“Nice to meet you,” Del offered with a tip of his dusty hat. He was much younger than his boss; his thick coal black hair fell from beneath the hat’s brim and framed a worn, narrow face. Occasionally, his left eye gave a sort of nervous tic, all of its own accord. Still, he looked to Charlotte to be a hardworking, pleasant man.
“Your trip weren’t too hard, I hope,” John said.
“Not at all,” she said. “It was wonderful to see a different landscape. It sure is a far cry from what we have in Minnesota.”
“Even so, my thinkin’ is that people who spend too much time in one of them iron contraptions,” John said, nodding at the idling train, “find themselves needing a washbasin and a few hours of shut-eye. Once we’re back on the ranch, you’ll have a chance to have both.”
When Charlotte’s heavy black trunk in which she’d packed away all of the life she had known was unloaded from the train with a heavy thud, John and Del each grabbed an end and hoisted it up as if it were lighter than a bale of hay, and headed for the end of the platform.
Charlotte followed along behind, smiling with every step.
John Grant drove the old truck from the
station and headed down Sawyer’s main street with Charlotte in the passenger’s seat. Del sat in the truck’s bed, riding alongside her baggage. Glancing back, she saw that he seemed content to travel in the back, one arm resting upon the truck’s railing as the afternoon sun shone brilliantly down.
As they drove, John pointed out all of the sights in town; from the post office, to the grocer’s, and even to the theater, Charlotte felt dizzy with all of the information that was being sent her way. The streets were lively with people going into the stores and other places of business. John explained that they were trying to get their business done before the sun got to be too much to bear.
“Folks in these parts ain’t too complicated, not like in a city,” John explained, giving a wave out the window. “They go to church, look after their loved ones, and say, ‘Howdy,’ to their neighbors. They like things to be simple, but that doesn’t mean they’re simple folks, if you know what I mean.”
“I do.” Charlotte nodded. “Sawyer sounds a lot like where I come from.”
“Good folks is good folks, no matter where they call home.”
Occasionally, John would give the truck’s horn a brief tap and yell out the window at someone he knew.
“There’s Carlton Timmons’ barber shop,” John told her, pointing out the business as they passed. “Known Carl ’bout all my life, and except for one reservation, I can say he’s as fine a man as this town’s ever produced.”
“What’s that one thing?” Charlotte asked.
“He’s one hell of a cheat at cards,” John answered. “You ain’t a fancier of poker, are you?”
“No, I can’t say that I am. Are you?”
“Used to be, but I ain’t no more on account of Carl!” John exclaimed.
Soon, the truck passed by the last business that lined Sawyer’s Main Street and took a gentle turn alongside the dried-up remnants of a creek’s bed. In an instant, the sights of the town had vanished, replaced by the same kind of scrabbly earth as she had seen from the train.
“Where’s the school?” Charlotte asked, looking around, wondering just where it was that she would be spending her days.
“Back on the eastern side of town,” John explained, thumbing over his shoulder back toward where they had come. “Since it’s the opposite direction from the depot, I figured it’d be best to wait until the next visit into town ’fore givin’ you a chance to become acquainted with it. School won’t be startin’ for a few more weeks, so there’s plenty of time.”
“Is the ranch far from Sawyer?” Even as she asked her questions, Charlotte wondered why she hadn’t bothered to inquire about where she would be staying in all of the time she’d been corresponding with John Grant.
“Not far,” the rancher answered. “ ’Bout two miles or so.”
When John glanced over at Charlotte, he could clearly see the confusion written plainly across her face. To soothe her, he explained that although his ranch was a distance from town, he had long been a member of Sawyer’s School Board, and that after she had agreed to come and teach at the school he had volunteered to provide her with lodging.
“You see, the truth of the matter,” he explained a bit sheepishly, “is that… well, I was hopin’ that maybe you’d be able to help me with a… a problem I’ve been havin’ on the ranch. My askin’ you to stay with us ain’t without other motives.”
“A problem? What sort of problem?” she asked, her interest rising.
“While I’d be happy to try explainin’ it to you, it’s really the sort of thing that’s best seein’, I reckon. Somehow, I ain’t just sure that my words would explain.”
For a long moment, Charlotte stared at John Grant as the truck continued on its way. On the one hand, she didn’t like thinking that she had agreed to come all the way from Minnesota under false pretenses. But on the other hand, something in the old rancher’s face made her believe she was not being maliciously manipulated.
“Will it interfere with my job at the school?” she asked.
“If it does, then I won’t fault you for stoppin’.”
Charlotte thought it over for a moment longer before saying, “I’m not agreeing to anything without knowing what it is exactly that you want me to do, but I’ll do my best to go into it with an open mind. If it’s something I feel I can do without harming the reason I was brought here, then we might be able to manage to work something out.”
“I couldn’t expect you to be agreein’ to more.”
“But if I’m going to be living out on the ranch, how will I be getting back and forth to the school?”
“You mean to say you can’t drive a truck?”
“Do you expect me to drive this every day?” Charlotte exclaimed, more than a bit surprised.
“Hell, ole Betsy here don’t much like me drivin’ her.” John chuckled, patting the seat between them. “Some days gettin’ her started is tougher then coaxin’ a stubborn horse out of its stall, sometimes the damn steerin’ wheel jerks to the left so hard it feels like it’s tryin’ to escape right on out the window, and I don’t even want to warn you ’bout drivin’ her in the rain.”
“Then why did you ask?”
“Just an old rancher’s sense of humor, is all.”
“I can’t say that I found it particularly funny,” she admitted.
“Most folks don’t,” John snorted. “The truth is that one of the fellas that’s workin’ for me on the ranch heads into town pert near every day for some errand or other and I reckon catchin’ a ride with him’ll get you anywhere you’d want to go. Even if it’s rainin’, blowin’ to beat the band, or even snowin’, we’ll manage to get you wherever it is you’d need to be.”
“So this employee of yours has managed to tame Betsy,” Charlotte teased, clearly liking the fact that John Grant was so quick to humor.
“This truck ain’t all that different from the horses we got back on the ranch.” He smiled knowingly. “With the really wild ones, the ones that would just as soon stomp you into a mud hole as let you put a saddle on ’em, you don’t ever really break what spirit they got, not really. ’Bout as easy to tame as a spring storm that come rollin’ in across the prairie. In the end, you just hope and pray that you ain’t the one that ends up broken.”
John Grant’s horse ranch lay just across a worn and rickety bridge that spanned a wildflower-strewn creek; unlike the dried-up streambed that lay just outside of Sawyer, its rushing water gurgled across rocks below their passing wheels. An enormous pair of trees, sun dappling their breeze-blown leaves and branches, stood silent watch as the truck drove beneath.
“We’re here,” John said, nodding toward the house.
“It’s… it’s…” she began, but her words failed her.
The ranch house was much more than Charlotte had expected; two stories tall with a pair of porches on each floor that ran the length of the front of the building, decorated with four columns, the house showed that John Grant’s enterprise had been successful. Painted a crisp white, it shone as majestically in the sunlight as a jewel. Surrounded by a white fence, the property was dotted with young trees. High above them, a windmill churned lazily in the soft breeze.
Farther back on the property, numerous small buildings lined a path that led from the ranch house to the holding pens at the rear. A couple of larger barns, painted dull red with white trim, had their doors flung open, and men milled about, working on various chores. Laughter and the sounds of labor, steel hammers colliding with anvils, even the sawing of wood, rose above the sounds of the truck. There’s so much activity! Charlotte was even pleasantly surprised to see a couple of men cultivating a garden.
But what really caught her attention were the horses; those who ran wildly about the pens, and others who milled about next to the water trough, or were ridden by men herding a small group of steers. All were captivating to Charlotte: white, black, brown, and spotted colors in between. With their upraised ears, large and expressive eyes, and strong musculature, they were beauti
ful.
“Do you ride?” John asked.
Charlotte shook her head.
“That is somethin’ we’re gonna have to change,” he declared.
He drove the truck up the drive, shouting a bit of encouragement to a pair of men who were working with an unruly black and white stallion in a nearby corral. Turning toward the house, he slowed the pickup directly before a side door. Del leaped from the back of the truck before the vehicle came to a full stop, his boots crunching loudly on the hardscrabble ground when he landed.
“Don’t you worry yourself none ’bout your belongin’s,” John explained. “Del’ll have one of the other fellas help him haul ’em up in a bit. In the meanwhile, why don’t you let me show you your room.”
Charlotte followed the rancher as he led the way through the side door, passed through the mudroom, and into a small foyer. Beside them, an entryway led into the kitchen, but she didn’t get more than a quick look before John began to climb a nearby staircase toward the upper floor.
All along the length of the tall stairway were framed photographs, some so old that they were brown and mottled. Some were posed, bearded gentlemen with their impassively unsmiling wives standing beside them. But there were other images that were more captivating; one photograph was more than two feet wide, a panoramic view of the breadth of the ranch.
“That photo is from my pa’s time,” John explained, coming back down the steps to where Charlotte stood. “That’s him standin’ there at the front of the house,” he said, pointing a worn finger to the small figure visible at the head of the walk, his thumbs hooked into his vest.
“He looks like a proud man,” Charlotte remarked.
“As a peacock,” John stated. “He was rightfully pleased with what he and his father before him built.”
“Where are you in this picture?”
“More likely than not, I was runnin’ around in my short pants as blind to what was happenin’ as a baby bird just out its shell.” He chuckled. “You know, for the longest time, I thought these pictures was nothin’ but a waste of time, memories best forgotten, but now that I’m older, it’s nice to be able to look back to what come before.”
Dorothy Garlock - [Tucker Family] Page 2
