Wonders! One of the weather vanes was longer than the other.
“Thank you kindly, Mr. Morehouse. Ulysses is sorely missed on the ranch.” He sounded sincere, and Lenora read nothing sinister in his eyes. Instantly she regretted being irritated with the man and his irksome ways. She shouldn’t judge.
“Too bad you hired that saddle tramp Wright. Wish you had come to me for help. Could have saved your dog.”
Lenora suddenly felt very small again, like she had when she had first come to Mr. Morehouse for help. It was bad enough that she’d stupidly hired the very man her husband would have nothing to do with. But her failure to honor her husband’s wishes had cost the life of her loyal and trusting friend. Her heart felt as heavy as stone in her chest. But she wouldn’t get what she came for if she didn’t present herself as anything other than a competent, confident, and capable ranch woman. Above all, she must stay calm and not let Mr. Morehouse’s words, no matter how provocative, pique her in such a way that she lost control of her tongue. Without a loan from Buffalo’s only bank, she would lose her ranch.
“Heretofore many local ranchers have taken advantage of Sam Wright’s services without incident, Mr. Morehouse. I don’t know how I could have foreseen this untoward and tragic outcome.”
Mr. Morehouse nodded, never taking his eyes off her. Lenora grew increasingly uncomfortable under his unyielding gaze. It occurred to that she should take control of the conversation before it led her downstream and over a waterfall.
“Mr. Morehouse,” she said, taking a large, steadying breath, “I came in today to make a loan against the ranch. I am asking Wells Fargo Bank to lend me one hundred dollars. Today, if possible.”
“One hundred dollars? That’s quite a sum. Now what would you do with that kind of money, my dear?”
Lenora flinched at his patronizing use of an endearment. Heavens to Betsy! She was running a sizable ranch. What did he think she would do with the money? But she had no choice. She slogged on.
“I plan to hire a full-time foreman to run the ranch until James returns.”
“I see. And do you have any idea when that will be? His return?”
Lenora’s jaw went rigid with anger. The man full well knew the answer to that question. “No sir. I do not. But even if he never returns, Mr. Morehouse, ownership of the homestead passes to me as his widow.” She knew that much about the Homestead Act. James had told her.
“You are right, Mrs. Rose. If your husband dies, you do indeed become the owner of your ranch. But for the alienation of your property to take effect, another event must come to pass.”
Alienation? She would look that up in her dictionary when she got home. She would not grovel to this man even more than she was already by asking him to explain.
“And that event is?”
“You must present to the local land office a legitimate certificate of death, issued by a judge, for your husband.”
Instantly Lenora saw where this conversation was leading. James was missing, possibly dead. But no one could be certain of his demise, at least not right now. But what if his remains were never found? What if his body was rotting away this very moment, hidden in some cave, out of sight forever? Lenora pushed down a rising sense of panic. She must make Mr. Morehouse think that she was in control of the situation. She must look like a person who could handle the many obstacles to running a profitable ranch as well as any man.
“I’m sure that if I received notice of my husband’s death, I could reasonably produce a certificate,” said Lenora, hoping her doubts weren’t flashing from her eyes like a field of lightning bugs.
“And if they don’t find his body?” Mr. Morehouse leaned back in his chair, swiveling idly, back and forth, back and forth.
Lenora got the feeling that the banker was enjoying seeing the cloak of confidence being yanked from her. It made him feel powerful to make her feel small and weak. She felt vulnerable, exposed for the frightened young wife she was.
“I don’t know…” She hesitated, grasping for the right words. She didn’t want to say that she didn’t know what she would do.
“Mrs. Rose,” he interjected during her pause, “let me explain how the Act works.” The tone he used was one of a condescending albeit patient teacher who’s been tasked with staying after school to grudgingly tutor a slow-witted child. “If a man files for the one hundred sixty acres, takes possession, then changes his place of residence or abandons his land for more than six months, the land automatically reverts to the government.”
Lenora felt a tight, squeezing sensation in her chest. She forgot to breathe. She felt herself sinking, sinking into a pit of darkness, as if she was falling through a narrow, bottomless barrel. Change his place of residence ... abandon the land ... six months. Then a disembodied voice penetrated the darkness.
“Therefore, as much as I’d like to help you in your hour of need, Mrs. Rose, I’m sure you can understand how it is not in the best interest of the bank to loan money against land that could soon be alienated to the government.”
“Pardon me?” Could she have heard right?
“It is not in the best interest of the bank to make a mortgage on land subject to seizure.”
“But Mr. Morehouse, my husband has not abandoned our ranch. You know that as well as I.”
Mr. Morehouse’s eyebrows shot up. Without a word he got up from his chair and walked to the window, his back to Lenora, just a few feet from where she sat. He stood there pensively looking out at Main Street. Lenora grew more nervous in the silence. She sensed that he was preparing a speech.
She was right.
“Mrs. Rose, you came in here several months ago certain, in your own mind, at least, that your husband was alive. So I ask you: Is he alive or is he dead?” He turned around then, waiting to observe her response.
Lenora said nothing, just looked at his steely eyes, her hands on her lap, shocked and speechless, wondering what steep cliff this conversation would push her over now. She had an unsettling feeling that all her questionable attempts to be vague about the events surrounding James’ flight from their ranch that awful night were about to trap her in a web of her own spinning. Mr. Morehouse towered over her, an elephantine silhouette against the noonday sun. Unconsciously she shrank back in her chair.
“Perhaps you were right,” he continued while she squirmed. “We have no way of knowing. But let us presume for the moment that you were wrong. If that is the case, and your husband is dead, the wisest thing for you to do at this juncture is seek to have him declared legally deceased. Death in absentia.”
“But it’s only been a matter of months.” Four months. I have only eight weeks before the government can take my property. “It wouldn’t be proper to seek a declaration so early in the investigation.”
“As a business woman, a ranch owner,” he said, drawing out his statement, “propriety should not be your first concern, Mrs. Rose. You have a decision to make that will permanently alter your fortune for good or for evil.” He hesitated. “And that of your unborn child.”
Mercy. Was there no one in this town who was not privy to her condition? Who spread the word? Surely not Dr. Biggerstaff. He would never breach a trust. Lenora blushed in total mortification. Mr. Morehouse glanced at her but seemed unmoved.
“The alternative is to seek a divorce, citing abandonment. You’d lose the ranch, but no judge in the land would withhold any other part of Mr. Rose’s estate from you and your child under such circumstances.”
“But I can’t lose the ranch!” Lenora could hear her voice rising but felt powerless to get control. She wasn’t following the script she had written for herself. But losing the ranch wasn’t written into the script! This couldn’t be happening to her. James would never just walk away and risk everything they had worked for. And James didn’t own anything else. The ranch was their entire estate.
“Oh yes you can lose the ranch, Mrs. Rose. Unless, of course, you have evidence that your husband was taken against his will—kidnapped—that yo
u can bring to the sheriff and the judge to prove coercion.”
Lenora sank back against the chair for support, putting her hand to her forehead and closing her eyes to think. The moment seemed surreal. She was aware of only the blackness behind her eyelids and a hellish terror. Her future in the Territory and that of her child loomed before her like an inhospitable, howling wasteland of crushing loss and poverty. But to return to her parents’ home would be to revert to the status of a child with all the strictures and humiliation associated with dependency. Since she left New York she had grown into an independent woman and enjoyed the dignity attendant thereto. She couldn’t go back to her old life as a grown child in her parents’ home.
“Shall I ask the clerk to bring you some water, Mrs. Rose?”
“No. I’m fine. I’m just thinking.” She sat up straight and opened her eyes, somewhat renewed, making a conscious effort to look more possessed of her emotions than she felt.
“I understand.” Mr. Morehouse walked around his desk, sat down again, and waited for her to fully recover.
“Mr. Morehouse, a loan would at least buy me some time.”
“No, Mrs. Rose. It wouldn’t.”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“More money in this case would create the illusion that you have more time. In reality you have eight weeks. More money won’t extend the government’s deadline.”
Mr. Morehouse paused, and in the silence the realization of how little time she had to save her ranch sunk down in Lenora’s mind with an ominous thud, like the clank of a heavy prison door slamming shut on the damned.
“Do you want my advice, Mrs. Rose?”
She was about to lose everything. Might as well listen to whatever he had to say. Things couldn’t get any worse than they were right now.
Or so she hoped.
“Yes, Mr. Morehouse.”
“Make a decision today. Whether your husband is alive or dead at this point is irrelevant.”
Lenora blanched.
“I didn’t mean it to sound so callous, Mrs. Rose. I apologize for distressing you.”
Lenora nodded glumly in acknowledgment.
“What I mean is, having your husband legally declared dead has no bearing on his welfare. This is about saving your ranch, not Mr. Rose. A judicial declaration of death is merely the only path available to you to stop the government from repossessing your land. Once you have the death certificate, the land will pass to you as his widow. If he returns—may God bring it to pass—the land will still belong to both of you. In that happy event, you can take the death certificate and toss it into your kitchen stove for kindling.”
“And if I did obtain a death certificate, how long can I last, Mr. Morehouse, without financial assistance from the bank?”
“Mrs. Rose, it’s not a matter of lasting until Mr. Rose returns. He may never return. And if he doesn’t, you can’t possibly run your ranch alone. You’ll have a child to raise and a foreman whose wages will gobble up every penny you earn.”
“But I would be in charge of the ranch for only a short time until I’ve fulfilled the homestead obligation. I only have to manage it another eighteen months. After that it would be mine and I could sell for a profit.”
“Eighteen months, young lady, is more than enough time for you to run it into bankruptcy. What you need, Mrs. Rose, is a husband. Obviously you’re not suited to running a ranch, especially in your delicate condition.”
Lenora began to tremble with anger. It was hopeless to continue to beg for a loan. This bank would lend her money when pigs flew. She stood up to signal the end of this outrage, gripping the cords of her drawstring bag with such fury that the bag began to sway at her waist.
“I have a husband, Mr. Morehouse,” she said, reaching angrily for her shopping basket. “What I need is money.”
“Mrs. Rose, if you foolishly insist on holding onto your ranch, you must learn to make it profitable without plunging yourself into debt you can’t pay. That’s what other ranchers do in your position.”
Maybe, she thought bitterly, she should ask him to lend her a husband. The return would be better and the application process less grueling.
“Thank you, Mr. Morehouse, for all your time and for taking the trouble to explain the fine points of the Act,” she said, her eyes flashing with anger. “And thank you for sharing all your pearls of wisdom about ranching.”
With that she turned with a flounce, opened his office door without waiting for assistance, and walked out of his office and into the bank lobby. She was struck at once by how much cooler the spacious lobby was compared to the stuffy confines of Mr. Morehouse’s office. The coolness helped to clear her mind. If other bank customers and employees were still staring at the scandal-ridden Mrs. Rose as she entered the lobby, she didn’t notice. She walked straight to the exit door of the bank and reached for the handle.
Funny thing, she thought as she turned the knob. She hadn’t gotten what she had come for, but she was leaving with something perhaps more useful nonetheless.
Chapter Eighteen
A bright midday sun reflecting on the hard surfaces of treeless Main Street caused Lenora to blink rapidly after stepping out of the dim bank lobby. She hoped Deputy Davies would exercise discretion and not wait directly outside the bank door for her. It would be better if their meeting appeared more casual to onlookers.
Lenora stood on the boardwalk, clutching her shopping basket in one hand and reticule in the other, waiting for her eyes to adjust. When she could see clearly she looked up and down the street, expecting to see Deputy Davies hovering nearby. When she didn’t see him in either direction she felt self-conscious about searching for him. It didn’t seem fitting. So with little ado she started down the street for Aeschelman’s alone, thrown off balance by the deputy’s disappearance. Her disappointment surprised her. Was she disappointed because she didn’t want to brave critical stares alone? She hoped she wasn’t that cowardly. Or was she disappointed at not being able to visit with the handsome, attentive deputy a little longer? The latter was a disturbing thought. She quickly dismissed it.
Lenora had walked about fifty feet when she saw a woman she knew only by name emerge from the millinery two stores ahead of her and begin to walk in her direction. The woman, about thirty, clutched the hand of a little girl about five years old who was dressed in a crisply starched pinafore with matching bonnet. The child’s mother was dressed equally stylishly in a modest but perfectly tailored shirtwaist dress and complementary bonnet. Lenora smiled in greeting as their eyes met, preparing to pass them. The woman looked shocked and abruptly jerked the child’s hand, nearly causing the little girl to fall off the edge of the boardwalk. Lenora watched in horror as the mother dragged the child into the street, scurried to the boardwalk on the other side of Main, and continued in the same direction.
Lenora felt as if she had been slapped. Surely she was being too sensitive. She was imagining things. The woman hardly knew her. She would not intentionally cross the street to avoid passing her, would she?
Shaken to the core and feeling as desirable as last week’s haddock, Lenora continued down the nearly empty boardwalk on her way to Aeschelman’s Mercantile. She was relieved to see few shoppers out and about, though the few she passed looked so uncomfortable in her presence that she felt like she was running a gauntlet. Then there was the problem of the people she couldn’t see, the ones she imagined watching her behind every storefront window, whispering and pointing and clucking judgmentally. She could see nothing in the wavy storefront glass except her reflection, but she knew that inside the shady interiors shoppers and shopkeepers had a clear view of her. Again she wished Deputy Davies had not abandoned her. So much damage had been done already, so many evil stories had been told about her—and them—that a gentlemanly escort down Main Street would make no difference now. She walked hurriedly to the mercantile to hide behind closed doors away from critical stares. Thankfully she arrived in front of Aeschelman’s with no more ugly scenes
. Bracing for whomever and whatever she might face inside, she took a deep breath, turned the knob, and pushed open the door.
The loud jingle of the bell over the door caused Faustus Aeschelman to look up from the counter where he was chatting with Luke. A quick sweep of the store’s interior told Lenora that there were no other shoppers about. Relieved, she walked to the counter, trying her best to appear nonchalant. Luke stopped talking and watched her approach. Mr. Aeschelman spoke first.
“Mrs. Rose,” he said, smiling wide and nodding good morning.
Luke acknowledged her as well, removing his hat and smiling, looking at ease. It dawned on Lenora then that he had been waiting for her all along, just as he had said, only he had done so at the mercantile to avoid more gossip. It also occurred to her that Mr. Aeschelman’s natural, open smile meant he wasn’t privy to the stories about her and the deputy. Likely his weak English kept him from wading into the gossip stream. Lenora felt grateful for that lone smile. It felt like a large, leafy oak tree under which one takes shelter from a driving rain. It was just one tree, but one was enough.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Aeschelman,” said Lenora. She acknowledged Luke with a brief nod, circumspectly keeping her attention on the retailer. “I’ve brought a list.” She pulled a piece of paper from her reticule and handed it to the shopkeeper. As she did she noticed that Luke and Mr. Aeschelman had been sharing coffee. Two cups were sitting on the counter, half full. They’d been chatting a while. No steam emerged from the cups. Mr. Aeschelman looked over the list.
“You look. I shop list,” he said, glancing back at the neatly penned list of grocery and household items. “Ten minutes.” Mr. Aeschelman smiled again.
“Thank you,” said Lenora, pulling the drawstring tight on her reticule.
Mr. Aeschelman stepped away from the counter to begin collecting Lenora’s purchases. Luke’s eyes followed Mr. Aeschelman, waiting for the shopkeeper to move out of hearing range to speak. When the man was far enough to afford them a little privacy, Luke spoke.
Crazy Woman Creek Page 18
