Big Meadows Valentine (Eastern Sierra Brides 1884)

by Zina Abbott

  Without another word, Beth opened her Bible and pulled out some loose papers from the middle. She smoothed them flat on her side of the judge’s desk and slid the top paper toward him.

  “That there is a copy of the contract between James Dodd and my pa. Pa done sold Jim the farm. Jim paid for it mostly by promisin’ to marry me and give me a home there the rest of my life. If you read down a ways, you’ll see where Jim also agreed to let my pa live with us ’til he passed. Plus, it reads he promised to take care of my little sister ’til she marries.”

  “Looks very thorough,” the judge commented as he perused the page. “Written up by an attorney, I see.”

  “I wasn’t much in favor of the arrangement, Jim Dodd bein’ a stranger and all, and me hopin’ for my sister and me to inherit the farm. But, pa knew he was dyin’ of consumption. He figured it was the best way to take care of us, not that he asked me about it first. His way didn’t turn out none too good.”

  Silence reigned in the room as the two men stared at Beth. Beth fought the urge to shrink into her seat. She didn’t want their pity. She cleared her throat.

  “You can see down there at the bottom where Judge Bates wrote a statement swearin’ it’s a full and accurate copy. I paid good money gettin’ that, figurin’ I might need this here contract once I caught up with my husband. Don’t matter he sold the farm. This contract says he’ll support me and my sister and he ain’t been doin’ it for at least three months and the way he done year before that wasn’t nothin’ to brag on.”

  Beth waited a few minutes to allow the judge time to finish reading the full document before she drew his attention to the second paper.

  “This here’s a copy of my pa’s will, includin’ the part where he left my sister her share for when she done gets married. And, there’s where it tells he left a little of what he had left for me. Judge Bates said even though my husband could sell the farm without me havin’ no say, this here proves I had my own money Jim had no right to. Pa done figured out before he died he done me wrong marryin’ me off to Jim Dodd. He told Judge Bates to name Jim by name as having no say-so over my money.”

  “These are very informative documents, Mrs. Dodd. You were wise to have them prepared and brought along.”

  Beth wasn’t finished. She opened her Bible to the inside front cover and flyleaf. After gliding her fingers across the pages in a caress, she turned the book so the judge could read them.

  “I don’t have no copy of our marriage, but here’s what was wrote in my Bible. You can see my name wrote, tellin’ when I was born. Down here, you can see I done wrote the date I married Jim Dodd, and below it, the day my pa died.”

  Charles McLean pulled Beth’s Bible closer to him and carefully read through the entries. At one point, he trailed his finger down the list, carefully reading the first recorded names and dates on the inside cover. He tapped his finger on the last entry at the bottom of the flyleaf page.

  “This last entry you have in here, Mrs. Dodd. I assume by the name and the birth date that this Thomas Dodd is yours and James Dodd’s son. Is that correct?”

  Beth took a deep breath and nodded. She heard Val shift in his chair as he had turned his body and leaned toward her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

  “Yes, sir. I named him for my uncle, but he was Jim Dodd’s and my son.”

  “Thank you. In order to know how to settle the estate, I have to know if your husband left behind any issue.”

  “Issue?”

  “Yes. Children...”

  “Oh, he done left behind his child, all right. He up and left us a month before our son was born. Sold the farm and escaped to Aurora on the rumor of the latest silver strike, not carin’ to stay around for no birth. He never bothered to contact us none after that, not even to learn if I gave him a boy or girl.”

  Judge McLean shook his head, his face expressing his discomfort.

  “I’m sorry to learn of your difficulty over this, Mrs. Dodd, but all I need to know is if Mr. Dodd has a living child.”

  Slowly, Beth stood and leaned over the desk toward the judge. She reached out her hand and turned the page. She pointed to the entry at the top.

  “I see. He only lived the one day?”

  “Twenty-seven hours,” Beth croaked out as her esophagus began to close. She cleared her throat as she sat back down in an attempt to loosen her vocal cords so she could speak. Her body began to tremble, the shaking becoming more pronounced the longer she spoke. “He come into the world a month early, his little lungs struggling to breathe from the start. The midwife said that happens sometimes when they’re born early ’cause they ain’t strong enough, yet. I kept him bundled next to me, tryin’ to keep him warm, watchin’ him fight to live. Even blew air in him, tryin’ to help him breathe ’til he got stronger.” Beth’s voiced hitched as she struggled to continue. “Didn’t do no good. I was holdin’ him in my arms when I watched him pass. Don’t reckon Jim even knowed the baby died. Not that he cared.”

  Val reached over and grasped Beth’s hand. She tightened her grip, clinging to him, sensing in him a lifeline. Staring at spot on the desk in front of her, Beth took a deep breath in an effort to fight back the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her.

  “It’s okay to cry, Mrs. Dodd,” Val said quietly. “With all you’ve been through lately, it might do you some good.”

  “No!”

  Beth closed her eyes as she choked and gasped, working to swallow the tears. She rocked back and forth, her chest heaving while she struggled for breath. “I know what you men go thinkin’ when us women cry. You figure it proves we’re weak. We ain’t strong enough to get by on our own. We can’t do nothin’ without no man tellin’ us how. I ain’t cryin’! Swore it off when Thomas died, and I didn’t dare say nothin’ ’cause all I got from my husband’s aunt was her complainin’ about how her scoundrel nephew up and dumped two weak and useless females on her instead of takin’ care of his own.”

  The next thing Beth knew, Val pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her, crushing her body to his. With one hand, he pressed her face into his neck, refusing to let her go when she struggled to break free of him. She felt her hat being pushed to the side by his cheek pressing against its edge, pulling her hair loose from her pins along with it.

  “Let it out,” his quiet voice murmured into her ear. “Stop fighting it and let it out. Your child died, Elizabeth Dodd. That kind of loss is enough to break down a grown man and drive him to tears. Mourn for your son.”

  The flood of emotion she had been holding inside for months broke loose, overwhelming Beth. Sobs wracked her body to the point she feared she would shake apart. Both of her fists grasped the leather on the back of Val’s jacket. She clutched him in a death grip as the strength went out of her legs, leaving her in fear she would drop to the floor if Val let loose of her. She soon realized Val was not going to let her go. While rocking her from side to side, she sensed he held her as tight as he dared. She pressed herself against the rock of a man that she felt at one with, although she had not known twenty-four hours earlier that he even existed. The tears bathed her face as she lost track of the time while she purged her body and soul of its pent-up grief.

  Finally, Beth felt she had worked her way free of the turmoil of unexpressed sorrow that had consumed her the previous fourteen months. As she gradually relaxed in Val’s arms and felt the strength in her legs return, he slowly loosened his grip, finally allowing her to pull away from him.

  Soon, Beth’s sense of relief battled with her feelings of embarrassment, preventing her from looking Val in the face.

  “You better now, Mrs. Dodd?”

  Keeping her eyes cast down, she nodded.

  Can’t rightly figure what they must be thinkin’, me here over a dead husband but grievin’ over a dead child.

  “You got a clean handkerchief on you, Charles? Mine’s not fit to offer.”

  The judge rose and removed a folded white cloth from an inner pock
et, which he then handed to Val. Val pressed it into Beth’s hand.

  “As soon as you’re ready, Mrs. Dodd. There’s no rush, so take your time. Unless you want to put off our meeting until another day...”

  “No call for that, Judge. Won’t be no time at all and I’ll be with you.”

  With that, Beth slipped out of Val’s arms and, keeping her back to both men, stepped into a corner of the room. She wiped her face and used her fingers to try to put her dislodged hair back to rights. She blew her nose as softly as she could manage. After taking a deep breath, she wadded the cloth in her hand. Beth turned and walked back to her chair and sat down.

  “Thank you kindly for the use of the hankie, Judge. I’ll be stayin’ in town, so I’ll get it washed up and brung back to you.”

  “No hurry, Mrs. Dodd.”

  “I know I plumb used up all your patience, so I reckon we best get back to seein’ where I stand in regards to the death of my husband.”

  “I’m sorry I brought up the question about your son, Mrs. Dodd, but I had to know. You see, California is a community property state. That means that anything you or Mr. Dodd bought or earned after you married is half yours upon his death. He can will the other half as he chooses once his debts are paid. But, if he dies intestate, which it appears has happened since no one has been able to locate a will, that means that the other half is split between his parents and his children after debts are satisfied.”

  “Well, can’t say I know of no other young’uns, living or dead. Best I know, both his ma and pa are gone.”

  “Next would be siblings—brothers and sisters.”

  “He’s got him an older brother, Joe Dodd. Joe inherited their family farm up a piece from where we used to live.”

  Joe’ll take all of Jim’s money he can lay his hands on, but he sure wouldn’t give no home to his brother’s wife and kin.

  “We’ll have to search the brother out. First, we have to determine what assets Mr. Dodd had and see if it is enough to pay the debts he owes.”

  “Works different here than back home. You got a pencil or ink pen, Judge? Need to add to my Bible.”

  Without a word, McLean pulled a bottle of ink, a blotter and a writing nib attached to a shaped holder out of his desk. He set them before Beth. Then he handed her Bible back to her. She wrote “Waverly, Ohio” after the death date for her son.

  “What day did you settle on for my husband’s passing, Judge?”

  “January third, ma’am. And you know the year, 1884.”

  “And Lundy’s got no ‘a’ in it if I recollect. Reckon I’ll put in the place he passed, so as to record when we up and moved west.”

  Got to get Zelly out here. Then we’re done with Ohio.

  Beth blew on the ink to dry it and handed the writing supplies back to McLean.

  “So, why ain’t the law out here like it is back home, Judge?”

  “Most law in the United States is based on English law. But, thanks to the Spanish influence, there are a handful of states that have adopted a big part of Spain’s community property inheritance laws.”

  Beth thought a moment, then couldn’t resist asking, “Tell me something, Judge. If it was me what died, not Jim Dodd, would he get half of what we got while we were together and the rest go to my family?”

  “No. When a woman dies, everything that is not her separate property goes to her husband.” At seeing Beth’s disgruntled expression, Charles explained further. “You see, Mrs. Dodd, it is assumed that the husband is the one who takes care of all the family business and creates any debt in the family. If the wife goes into debt, it is her husband’s responsibility to pay them, not hers. That is why the wife only gets half when her husband dies. There has to be some way to pay what the husband owes without taking from what the wife needs to live on.”

  Beth eyed the judge as her brain started processing what she was learning.

  “But a married woman can still have her own separate money from before she married?”

  “Yes. Anything that was hers before the couple marries stays hers just like anything that belonged to the husband stays his separate property. Or, in the case of a separate gift, like it appears your father gave you, where the terms specifically excludes the husband, that stays with the wife and she can determine by will who gets it after she dies.”

  “Jim Dodd done lit out of Ohio with the money from the farm, all but what he done give his aunt for a year of our keep. He still have any left on him when he was found?”

  “It appears he left some estate. He had some money on his person, some I.O.U.s owed him, plus he holds shares in a mining operation.”

  Beth pursed her lips while she thought it over.

  “I’ll try to figure out how much of your portion you might have coming so I can release part of it to you as soon as possible, Mrs. Dodd.” Charles Mclean assured her. ”But, it will take awhile to determine all his debts.”

  “He’s square with the Blue Feather. Done got that straight from the madam. Val, here, can vouch on that.”

  McLean jerked his head toward Val who nodded in agreement.

  “I’ll make a note of it. Also, Mrs. Dodd, there is the cost of the coffin. Plus, I won’t know how much it will be to hire men to bury him until it is time for that to take place months from now. We also have to figure out what those mining shares are worth, if anything.”

  Beth leaned forward and took back the two papers she had given the judge to read, folded them and put them back inside her Bible.

  “Reckon I’ll keep these here papers with me, Judge, so’s I can prove the debts I got against Jim Dodd. Reckon I’ll put in my claim along with the others.”

  “I don’t know if that’s legal, you being his widow and all...”

  “It’s legal. This here contract between Jim Dodd and my pa says so. He owes me and my little sister bein’ provided for, and he ain’t done it. My own money I used to live on is owed me, just like them other debts you say needs repayin’. Then I got my extra expenses from chasin’ him down these here past months. Then there was my chickens he done up and sold away.”

  Val tipped his head back and laughed out loud which drew a narrow-eyed glare from Beth.

  “You makin’ fun of me, Mr. Caldwell?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m just glad to see the Mrs. Dodd I thought I knew has returned.”

  “Weren’t the chickens part of the farm livestock, Mrs. Dodd?” asked McLean.

  “I hope to shout they wasn’t! Done paid for every one of them chicks with my own money.”

  “How do you plan to present me with an accurate claim, Mrs. Dodd?” asked the judge, perplexed. “Surely you can’t remember every little item.”

  Beth pulled open the drawstrings on her reticule that had been hanging from her wrist the whole time and pulled out a small bound journal. She waved it before McLean’s face. “Don’t got no need to recall every little item. It’s all wrote down, right here.” Beth paused as another thought came to her. “To be fair, since we was married when I done earned that money over Christmas, I reckon that has to be figured in, too.”

  Charles looked over at Val, shaking his head. “Sure you want to get mixed up with a woman like this? Looks like she’ll write down every little needle and hair pin she figures she’s got coming.”

  Val responded with a chuckle. “It could have its advantages, especially when it comes to keeping track of farm expenses and freight records.”

  “Who you think managed the farm when my pa took sick? Now, concernin’ my husband’s debts, his cousin done paid for my stage ticket from Reno to Aurora, so that’s owed out of Jim’s portion. I reckon he don’t owe for the derringer his cousin done give me, seein’ as how that was a gift to me. Then again, I reckon that’s part of that joint pot you was talkin’ about.”

  A smile on his lips, Val raised an eyebrow at Beth. “You have a gun?”

  Beth turned and looked at him like he had grown two heads. She pulled her derringer out of her pocket and set it on
the desk.

  “Reckon I’d be plumb crazy not to. If you recall, Mr. Caldwell, I done been visitin’ every saloon and whorehouse from Reno to Mammoth and back. Havin’ a gun handy has proved right helpful at times.”

  “Having a gun is one thing. But, do you know how to use it?”

  It was Charles McLean’s turn to get the stare.

  “Judge, I done growed up on a farm not far from hill country. With no livin’ brothers at home, who you figure done all the huntin’ for our family, especially once my pa took sick?”

  Beth’s response set Val to laughing out loud again and the judge to shaking his head.

  “Mrs. Dodd,” Judge Mclean said, “I’ll take your word for it. Why don’t you just put that derringer away? Since that was a gift, don’t even bring it into the mix when we figure all the assets and debts for your husband’s estate. Now, I hate to end this meeting, but I have a butchering job I have to get back to. I’ll see what I can find. Why don’t you add up all your expenses you figured you’re owed, along with what they’re for and we’ll meet again in a few days. Hopefully, within a week or two, we’ll know if you have any money coming.”

  “One last thing, Judge. Reckon I best see my husband’s body.”

  Charles McLean stared at Beth for several seconds. He glanced over at Val before he looked at her again.

  “What for, Mrs. Dodd? A dead body that’s been frozen isn’t really something you want to see.”

  “I done seen death before, Judge. Helped wash and lay out my pa when he died. Plus, I done took care of my baby myself. I don’t relish lookin’ on him, but I figure it’d be right smart of me to be sure that dead body belongs the same Jim Dodd I married. I’d be right discomfited to start puttin’ together my life only to have my husband turn up alive tryin’ to lay claim to what I got while another Jim Dodd lays froze solid over to the morgue waitin’ to get buried.”

  The two men stared at each other until Val shrugged and cocked his head. “She has a point.”

  Charles McLean heaved a sigh of resignation. “All right. Let’s get this over with. After you, Mrs. Dodd.”