by Nancy Radke
“I do,” I said, and listened to Luke make the same vow. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned on for my wedding day, but I figured if I could keep Luke around long enough to see the plants growing, I wouldn’t lose him. He was a good man, just a trifle misguided by the look of gold.
“I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
It was the first time we had kissed, but it wasn’t anything a body had to learn. We did a good and proper one, and the men all clapped Luke on the back and congratulated us.
“Come sign the paper,” Ron said, and we all walked over to the counter where he had set out a marriage certificate. His name was already there, as the official. We signed. Our witnesses signed. The soldier left, and the customer went to the shelves to pick out what he wanted.
“What do I owe you?” Luke asked the storekeeper.
“For this gal? A million dollars. But since you don’t have it, I’ll gladly do it, free. You take care of her, you hear?”
“Oh, yes. No problem there. I’ll have you know I’m the luckiest man in the west.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“I got you, didn’t I?” he said, lifting my finger and kissing the ring there.
“For better or worse,” I said.
“I’ll make them better,” he said.
CHAPTER NINE
We got on our horses and left the town. We made camp as soon as we could, and had us a whing-ding wedding night. I figure I got pregnant, cause we had our first child, a boy, nine months to the day later.
We returned to the town, gathered a few supplies, and headed west. It was still early spring, and cold, when we passed into the Blue Mountain region, headed to the Willamette Valley. There was a well established fort in Walla Walla, and we stopped there.
Luke looked up the Captain and asked him about the conditions downriver.
The Captain was a burly man, bald, with a handlebar mustache, and a big smile. “What did you say your name was?” he asked.
“Luke Trahern. Luke and Mahala Trahern.
“You got you a brother named Trey?”
“That’s my cousin. Do you know him?”
“Know him? We have a few skirmishes with the Indians now and then. He pulled me out of the middle of a war party that was fixing to lift my scalp. I was a young lieutenant at the time and didn’t realize the trouble I’d gotten myself into. I figured we were facing a primitive tribe, not warriors who made fighting a way of life. Trey came in and offered them two steers for my hide. They could just as easily have killed him, but they figured he was brave to ride into their midst like that and they all sat down and dickered with him. He threw in one knife, but no more. They respected that, and we all went away happy. Me most of all.”
“Sounds like Trey,” Luke said.
“You know he and his wife have a spread east of Walla Walla, don’t you? It would be a shame for you to be so close and not stop by and say, “Howdy.”
I looked at Luke. “You never said you had a cousin out here.”
“I was thinking gold fields, then Willamette Valley.”
“You’ll have to go through town and out the other side a ways. Maybe thirty miles from here. Not far at all. Trey will be glad to see you, I reckon. Someone went through two weeks ago, said they were kin, by the name of Courtney.”
“We don’t have any kin by that name.” Luke looked at him, puzzled. “Are you sure that was the name?”
“Gage Courtney. I’m sure of it.”
“Gage was a neighbor of ours. Not kin. This is strange. I wonder why he claimed he was kin.”
“Not him,” the Captain said. “His missus.”
“He’s married?”
“Yes. Her name was Ruth. She said Trey was her brother.”
“Ruth, and Gage? Ruth?”
“You know her?”
“She’s my cousin. But Ruth and Gage? I wouldn’t have figured on that in my lifetime. Ruth and Gage. Well, I’ll be horn-swallowed.”
“They said they were newlyweds. Acted like it. And they had a dog with them that looked like he could take out a regiment all by himself.”
“Gage and Ruth.” Luke just shook his head.
“What about them, makes you so perplexed?” I asked.
“Those two. They’ve known each other for years, and never let on they were interested in each other at all. We are going to have to go to see Trey just to meet his wife and find out about Ruth and Gage.”
Luke turned to the Captain. “Do you know if they’re still there.”
“Haven’t seen them return, but they could’ve just passed by. This area is already starting to produce more food than it can eat. Why don’t you think of settling down here?”
“I was going to the Willamette,” I said.
“To farm?”
“Yes.”
“It’s good land, but it’s just as good here. Drier, too, I think.”
“How dry?”
“Not bad. The mountains bring the rain, so we’ve never had a drought. People are planting fruit trees. Wheat and barley do just fine. Grazing on the upper slopes.”
“Let’s go take a look,” I told Luke. “I’d like to meet your cousins.”
We changed our route and rode through Walla Walla. I stopped at one of the stores and bought me a dress before we went to meet these kin folks of Luke’s. I’d have to wait until we got there to put it on, but at least I now owned one.
It was a growing town, and thriving. There were settlers along the Walla Walla River and along the little creeks that fed it.
We enquired about Trey and Mally and found they were well known. Evidently Mally was filling in for a doctor, since the country didn’t have one. She rode one of her mules when on doctor calls, and people would know if a baby had come, or someone else was sick, just by the presence of the mule outside the door. Everyone was helpful.
We arrived at Trey and Mally’s new log home at suppertime. Gage and Ruth were there, and we enjoyed quite a reunion. We heard Gage’s story, about how he couldn’t get Ruth to look at him until he chased her clear across the country. We also met their dog, Travers, who had very good manners, although he was large enough to scare the pants off anyone.
Trey was the oldest, in his early thirties, strong looking, although not quite what you’d call handsome. Gage was almost his age, then Luke. Mally, Ruth, and myself were almost the same age. All of a sudden I had four cousins, just like two sisters and two brothers, and was told there were more back in Tennessee.
“Trey’s family is bigger than mine,” Luke said.
Trey started immediately into changing my mind about going to the Willamette.
“Look at our view,” he said. “And wait till you see our sunsets.”
I helped Mally and Ruth put the food on the table. There was plenty, and a variety.
“This is just starting. People barely make it the first few years as their apple trees and wheat crops are small. Each year they plow up more ground, and the little fruit trees get bigger. Our first year would have been harder, but I’m in the foothills here. I get deer and elk and bear, and usually shoot enough in the fall to see us clean through the winter. I bought a cow when we first arrived, and Mally got some chicks as payment for saving a boy’s life, so we have both milk and eggs. And chicken.”
I glanced at Luke. I could see he’d like to settle here, and although I could be as contrary as all get out, I most certainly wasn’t going to take him from here. Kin like this are hard to come by, and mighty nice to have handy.
“I don’t have to go on to the Willamette, Luke,” I told him. “I am footsore and weary. This here area is mighty fine. I’m ready to stop.”
“I’ll help you find a place,” Trey said. “We just found land for Gage and Ruth. We’re not only building strong, we’re spreading out.”
True to his word, Trey helped us find farmland. We got five hundred acres for a down payment of some work Luke did, Rosie, and the money that I carried in my b
elt. The flood of immigrants followed a month later and the land price tripled. We lived in a small cabin on Trey’s land, while Luke worked off the down payment for our land. Our first child, Hayden, was born there.
We raised enough steers to be able to sell some to the miners, and made good money on them. It didn’t hurt that, while coming back from one of his trips, Luke picked up a rock lying on the road that he was tired of bumping over, and found it to be a fairly large gold nugget. We cashed it out and sent the money to John, along with some of the proceeds from selling cattle. John used the money for schooling and became a lawyer, and later a representative of Alabama, where he lived with his wife, Judith.
The people soon discovered that this soil and climate was ideal for growing wheat. Its golden grain brought a different kind of gold to our land.
Luke never did go hunting for yellow gold. He said he had found it in his land, his wife, and his eighteen children.
We loved to spoon.
THE END
THE HAPPIEST MAN IN THE TERRITORY
The Traherns #5
By Nancy Radke
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
*1*
I turned the letter over in my hand, considering the words. “Please come see me, Brynn,” Lizzie had written. “I so miss you and all my friends in Baltimore! You must come and bring your sunshine! It is so dreary here!!!” Every other word was underlined two or three times.
Lizzie, my best friend, had married a man who promptly moved west. Not just slightly west, like Ohio, but west, west. Clear across the continent to a place called Walla Walla. The letter had taken part of a week to arrive.
My mother knew Lizzie well and sympathized with her. “Poor Lizzie, out in the wilds. You should go visit her, Brynn, and cheer her up.”
“But Mother. I have no desire to go there. Indians. Cowboys. Endless plains. You read her letter.”
“I’m sure Lizzie is only feeling lonely, so things seem bad to her. She always makes out that things are worse than they are. You know that.” She lifted her finger to beckon Midge to come finish doing her hair. It looked perfectly groomed to me, but she had evidently found some flaw.
“Your father wants you to go,” she said. “It will broaden your horizons. Make you more aware of the world. He will get you a separate sleeping car, and Nell can go with you. Would you like to have Edna too? Nell is only sixteen, and an older woman might be more help.”
Two maids were better than one, so I nodded. “Yes. We can keep each other company.” I wondered if I should take my other friend, Justine, with me, but Lizzie and Justine didn’t get along very well, so I decided against it.
I wrote back and let her know I would come. And then father announced he would make use of my trip. He asked me to wait a week and I found out why.
A man who lived in Walla Walla, named James Trahern, had ordered a bull. My father raised Herefords, a breed he had brought over from England, and Mr. Trahern asked that one be shipped out to him on the train. Father shipped his bulls all over. He even had a special cattle car fitted out with doors at each end so the attendant could reach the bull easily. It had a padded stall and a manger built in. The bulls were expensive, and Father refused to ship them any other way. The week’s wait was for the car to return and to be cleaned and made ready for this bull.
I was used to overseeing their care, making sure the feed was measured out correctly by the stable hands, and that they were properly groomed. One bull in particular had taken a liking to me, whom I had named Sir Galahad. I had raised him on a bottle when his mother died, and halter broke him almost as soon as he could stand. He would do almost anything I asked him to.
“Dad, you can’t sell Sir Galahad,” I protested, when he told me of his plans.
My father gazed at me over the top of his glasses. “I already did. You knew he would have to be sold someday. Don’t you want to take him to his new home? I’ll send a groom with him, if you like. Francis could go.”
“No, thanks. I’ll care for him.” I couldn’t stand Francis and neither could Sir Galahad, and Father knew it. Francis was a shiftless worker, but he was also the son of one of our oldest and best grooms, and father kept him around just because of that.
If Francis came, I would constantly be having to check that he had done something right, and hadn’t hurt Sir Galahad with his slipshod work. I might as well do it myself.
I didn’t know what to take with me, so in the end just packed everything. I had a steamer trunk and five cases. Jeremy, our butler, took me and my maids to the train, and made sure we were settled before he left. A grand adventure. By this time I looked forward to it. Conditions out west couldn’t possibly be as bad as Lizzie said. She did tend to exaggerate.
I supervised the loading of Sir Galahad. He didn’t want to walk up the ramp and I finally had to lead him up myself, with the promise of some oats when he got into the special car. I stayed with him during the first few miles, getting him used to the motion of the train. It jerked and puffed and soon we were moving. I would have waved to Jeremy, but couldn’t see anything outside the special car. Mother had a headache from helping me get ready, so hadn’t come.
Nell was excited. It was her first train trip. I had traveled with Mother to see Aunt Agatha in upper New York, so knew what to expect.
I didn’t expect Nell to get extremely sick the first day out. We decided it was something she had eaten before we left, then became worried that she had contacted some disease.
I put her and Edna off in Cincinnati, telling Edna to take Nell back to Baltimore on the next train. The conductor assured me that the station workers would help them get on it. I bought them each a ticket and wished them well.
So I stayed and they left, and all of a sudden I was alone. Just me and Sir Galahad.
Now a bull isn’t much company, but he does attract attention. I tried to pay someone to clean out his stall during the trip, but found I had to do it the first half, as those men were afraid of him.
He was a big bull, and when he snorted and rolled his eyes, they ran. I think he only did it to make me stay around and humor him.
“You’re a big fake,” I told him. “Stop chasing off my help.”
Things changed when I reached St. Louis. A group of cowboys got on and the conductor told me about them. He sent one of them to see me.
It was a tall, lanky gent who looked as if he couldn’t pull up his own weight. Somebody hadn’t fed him for a long time, I decided. He wore pants that looked too tight and high heeled boots that were worn down thin, a floppy hat and a shirt with buttoned cuffs. Also a belt with a handgun stuck in it. I had never seen anything like him before.
Did I dare let him near Sir Galahad? I didn’t want him shooting my bull if he got scared.
“Hello,” I said.
“Howdy, ma’m. I’m Shorty.”
“You’re a cowboy?”
“Durn tootin.”
I took that for a “yes.”
“So you’re familiar with cattle?”
Shorty nodded.
“Well, I’m taking one out to Washington Territory. I’ve been feeding and watering him, but I need someone to muck out the cattle car.”
He shook his head. “I’m a cowboy, not a stable hand.”
“It would just be a few times,” I pleaded.
“I don’t work unless it’s from the back of a horse.”
“Oh. Well, would you just come and see Sir Galahad? Maybe you could ask one of your friends to help me. I’ll show you what I need, then you ask them. I’d pay two dollars just to get it done.”
He shook his head, but followed me to Sir Galahad’s special car.
“That’s a bull!” he said.
“Yes. Didn’t the porter explain?”
“I don’t think he knows a bull from a turnip. He said ‘cow.’ But Ma’am, this here is unlike any bull I ever saw. He’s huge.”
“He is that. And I’ve tried to hire different folks to take care of him this trip, but he scares them. I
was hoping a cowboy wouldn’t be afraid.”
Now that I was appealing to his manliness, he changed his tone.
“What do you need done?” he asked, careful-like.
“Just to have his stall cleaned out. I would stay here with him, while you did it.” I walked over and scratched Sir Galahad behind his ears, which he always liked. He tossed his head appreciatively.
Shorty stared at me. I only stood five-foot-three on my best day. Sir Galahad was as tall as I was, and I hate to think how much he outweighed me. I wore the clothes from one of Baltimore’s finest shops, as it was the only place my mother would go. I hadn’t expected to be doing so much of the work, or I would have brought my apron along. So I guess we looked an unlikely pair.
The cowboy walked gingerly over to Sir Galahad and patted him on the rump. “This bull is pure steak,” he said. “The cows I’ve been droving are more bones and horns than meat. Do you mind if I bring the rest of the crew to see him?”
“Not as long as I can get someone to help me out.”
“We’ll all help you, Ma’am, and be happy to do it. If any of them objects, I’ll shoot him. They need to see this car too. I’ve never seen anything so grand, just for an animal.”
He left and I hoped he didn’t mean what he said, about shooting his friends. I didn’t know if he was kidding or not. I didn’t have too long a wait.
There were six of them, two looking like they should still be in grade school, and all dressed in tight pants, with a gun stuck in a holster. All looking like they needed feeding. Same hat, same style shirts, and a colorful bandana.
There the similarity ended. They were tall and short and in-between. Several different nationalities. Shorty was the tallest and seemed to be in charge.
“Fellows, this is Miss Brynn Porter, out of Baltimore, and this is Sir Galahad.”
I had given Galahad some oats, and he was munching away at them. Flicking his tail now and then at an imaginary fly. When they moved closer, he tossed his head at them and shook it.
