“It was nice to meet you, Mr. Wilson,” I said, and headed out of town.
That evening we had company. The Ute chief and my young friend came by. The chief said that he just wanted to meet me since I helped his son. He heard about us and he was happy that we settled here. He said it was not easy to get along with some of the Mormons, some were very good people but others were not. We invited them to eat with us. We had a mess of beans with ham and bacon pieces in it.
They wanted to know where the Fox ranch was. Buck said he would show them where it was located and that it was just south of us. They went to Dave’s and talked to them; Betty always liked Buck and they spoke Pawnee together. The chief was impressed.
“How come your father is a white man and you are an Indian?” the chief asked Buck.
“I grew up in his teepee. He gave me my first rifle and my first horse. I am now his son and partner. He was a chief with the Pawnees once and had a Pawnee squaw. She was killed down in Texas by twelve Kiowa. Those Kiowa’s are now dead. He also has a daughter, she is Pawnee like me. We did not have a mother and father, so he raised us.”
“Where is your sister?” he asked.
“She is with his white wife. She is going to school. His white wife is a big boss with the railroad.”
Chapter Twenty Five
After a couple of weeks, I left everything to Buck and Moses and took the east bound train to St. Louis. Liz was happy to see me, and so was little Liz. Mary and Vicky were home, so we had a regular family get together. Mary told me that Jeff wanted to marry her and that she wanted to come back with me to be closer to Jeff. I told her that if she came back with me she would be doing the cooking. She said that was fine with her.
After ten days I headed home with Mary. Everything was fine on the ranch. We settled down for the winter. We all went to cut more firewood and cedar posts for next spring. Buck wanted to ride with Dave when the wild herd came north. He wanted to add ten mares to our herd. Jeff was saving up for a house and he planned to have corrals for his teams and would operate out of here. Mark, on the other hand, wanted Jeff out west. Mark owned some of the teams and wagons, so he had a lot to say about what they had to do. I did not stick my nose into any of this.
I went to town to wire Liz and she wired me back saying: I sold the farm and bought seventy-five Durham cross cows, two bulls, and thirty heifers just weaned off. Arranging transport to San Rafael siding. Three cars and my private car. Baby kicking. Will wire arrival ETA. -Love Liz and little Liz.
I wired back: Great, will have crew to take them west.
Four days later, I got a wire saying that she was in Avon, Colorado loading cattle, and would be here in one day. I got three Ute boys and Dave and we went to the siding and camped out. I came with the buckboard and food, so we were all prepared for our cattle. They had a loading chute ready for us too. The train finally arrived in the evening and they wanted the cattle off. The train backed into the siding and lined up to the chute. They opened the door and the cows came flooding through. As soon as the first car was empty, they moved the train to the next car at the chute and more cows came. I checked and then gave the signal that it was empty. Then they lined up the third car. Liz said they would stay the night and then leave in the morning. I told Buck to take the herd to water and hold them there for the night. Tomorrow, they would go on the east side of the river and that would be their home.
I stayed with Liz all night. Little Liz went riding with Buck. Liz and I talked about everything. I told her that we would be in the cattle business now, especially with the next calf crop. We said our goodbyes and the train went west. Then she was going to be coupled to the east bound passenger train going home.
I hooked up the traces on the buckboard and headed after Buck and our herd. We took all the cows over on the east side of the river and we kept the calves on the west side with all of our young critters and horses. After three days, I let the boys go. The cattle settled down nicely. Buck and I rode around them every morning and they were in good shape. There was a lot of grazing on the east side. The wild horses mostly stayed on the west.
I went out one morning to ride after some cows that had drifted too far west. I rode by a big ditch and saw a bunch of bones and an old saddle green with mold. I got off my horse and looked. There were bones of a horse and underneath them were the bones of a man. I was thinking that had this happened many years ago. The man had an old rusty flintlock rifle, and on the saddle were two flintlock pistols that were also rusted. I pulled the saddle off the bones. I figured that it could somehow be cleaned. It had saddlebags and was very heavy when I lifted it. I opened it up and there was a lot of old Spanish gold inside. I took a coin out and it was a Spanish gold piece with the year 1742 stamped on it. I figured that this man died sometime in the 1700’s when it was all Spanish territory back then; it was probably before the Louisiana purchase.
I took everything home and dumped the gold out on the table. There were also some silver Spanish dollars in there. I knew that the 13 colonies used Spanish dollars before Philadelphia had minted the first dollars of our own back in the 1710’s. This was old stuff that I had found. There was some gold dated 1757 and 1769; so this had been in that ditch after 1769. The gold coins were about the size of a double eagle, and I estimated that I had over 2,000 dollars.
“Wait until my wife sees this,” I thought to myself. “Liz will be surprised.”
I went home two weeks later and took the old saddle back with me, all cleaned up of course. I asked Liz if she needed any money. She said “give” and I handed her the saddlebag. When she dumped it out she said it was a fortune. My mother and father all got involved. My dad said it was worth more that the weight of gold.
“You should take one each year to a collector that I know and get a good idea on how much they are worth,” he suggested.
Liz and I took a buggy ride in to town and stopped at the collector’s place. He collected stamps and money. He had enough Confederate paper to buy Virginia. I had one piece of gold of all different ages, three silver dollars, and four different Mexican gold pieces. He started figuring on a piece of paper, stopping every once in a while to study a coin with his big magnifying glass. When he finished he said it was worth 800 dollars.
“If you leave them with me right now I will give you eight hundred and fifty dollars,” he offered.
“I will leave that up to my wife,” I said. “It is her collection.”
“Is that your best offer?” Liz bartered.
He looked at us for a while and said, “Nine hundred.”
“I will take the nine hundred, but don’t give us any of the Confederate bills,” Liz said.
He paid Liz and said that if she had any more to please bring them to him, he would give her the best he could.
“I may have more, so if you are willing to increase the price write me a note.” She pulled out her card and said, “I work for the Union Pacific.”
“You mean that you are the director of the Union Pacific?” he asked.
“Someone has to run that railroad.”
“Amazing,” he marveled.
On the way home, I asked her how long before the baby comes. She said according to the doctor, about five more months. I told her I would come by more often to be with her.
I went to see a well driller that day and we talked wells. I wanted a pump well at the house, so we didn’t have to go down to the river for water. I was interested in windmills pumping water, so he showed me three sizes of windmills and asked me where I was located. I told him, and he said that he would have to come with the train to bring his piping. He would have to drill four wells if he came out that far. It would take two flatbed cars to take his steam engine, drill, and the piping, plus a boxcar for his horses. I told him that I had teams and we could use my horses. We talked money, it was expensive alright, but I decided to go for four wells.
The next two days, I stayed with Liz and David. I talked to my dad some and then I got on the passenger train back to the ranch. Everything at the ranch was in good shape. All of the cows settled down on the east side and were doing well. We had some cold weather now, but there was plenty of feed to graze. Little Liz wanted to cook for us and she cooked a good stew. She wanted to know where her house would be; she wanted to be Buck’s wife. I told her she had to be 16 before she could marry.
It took the well driller a month to get out there. We towed them in from our siding. We started at my house and drilled for a pump well. The next would be a big windmill in the corrals, then a big windmill over on the east side where Buck’s house would be, then another windmill where Mark’s house would be. There would also be one on the east side. We would have to build more corrals.
I told little Liz that I would be ordering more materials for Buck’s house. She insisted on coming with me to get everything right; just like big Liz, she felt that she should be in charge. After the house was built, the furnishings came. She knew what she wanted in her house and she got it. She bought a lamp with some pesos that I had given her in Texas.
In talking with my dad, he said that he would build a retirement cabin on the ranch. David Vandorn came out on the train and stayed with me. Before he left, he homesteaded a section. The land commissioner had been out at the ranch and saw the nice houses and certified everybody as proved up; my father and Vandorn too. We were getting bigger all the time. I told Vandorn that I was getting mares and would breed them to the thoroughbred stud. He told me that after I had my 30, he wanted 30 as well and he would send a stud for them when he got home.
After they were gone, I went to visit Liz; she was getting pretty big now with the baby. She said that it wouldn’t be long. She told me that Mr. Vandorn was retiring from J.G. Whitney Company and may come onboard with my dad. She told me that she wanted to come home with me. I told her that there was no doctor out at the ranch, and it was for the best to have the baby in St. Louis. I told her after six months when the baby was healthy they could come home to the ranch. My mother would be there in St. Louis, and so would Vicky.
“Little Liz wants to be there, and I will be there with you,” I promised.
When the baby was born, we were all there. It was a little girl. Liz asked me what we should name her. I suggested we name her Dolly. When little Liz heard that, she came and hugged me. I told her that big Liz would be our chairman of the board. She wanted to know if she could be on the board too. I told her that this ranch would need her too, so everything would be running right. Life was good on the ranch.
The End
Sheriff Tucker Page 16
