by Nancy Radke
I was attracted to the quietness of her, and the grace with which she did things. Had her pa not liked her suitors, or had she run them all off, treating them like she had me? Or had she loved a man who got killed in the war? There were many war widows in the land.
One more thing was a puzzlement. The men called her Marianne and she answered to it.
They also bossed her around with a lack of the respect they should’ve showed any woman, much less the boss’ daughter. I was getting my curiosity all worked up, but knew better than to say anything while I was new here. After dessert of dried apple pie, the men sauntered down to the bunkhouse for a game of poker.
They invited me, but I begged off, saying I had no money. The sun was setting and I needed to get some sleep. I was looking forward to that bed.
“We’ll play you for that horse of yourn,” Lewis said.
“And your saddle,” John added.
“Then I wouldn’t have nothing, would I?” I said and moved over to sit by the fire they had going in a small pot-bellied stove. “Count me out.”
Now one thing my Ma taught me, was to not put on airs. She told me when I speak to folks who hadn’t much education, I should slip in a little of my Tennessee mountain talk, so they’d feel comfortable. I’d done it all my life and it came more natural to me than speaking like I had me an education.
I watched them deal the cards. “I’ve got me a question, fellas,” I said. “Why do you call her Marianne? She said her name was Dawn.”
3
“Dawn?” John laughed with a scornful snicker. “That’s her Injun name. Her real name’s Marianne. I bet she didn’t tell you about herself, did she?”
“No.” I didn’t know if I wanted to hear it from him.
He volunteered the information anyway. “She got herself caught by Injuns when she was about five years old. They had her to themselves until she was thirteen. Some soldiers out on patrol spotted her yeller hair and rescued her. She didn’t want to come back. Can you imagine that?”
“Yes.” I could. Dawn had adapted to her new life. This would be a strange way of living now.
“The first time she started one of those Injun chants, her pa knocked her clean across the room. He wasn’t going to have any of her redskin ways. That’s why she’s not married. No one wants her, her and her strange ways. She’s dumb. She don’t even know her letters.”
I bet she could read sign though, and tame a wild horse using just her presence. She would know how to live off the land, where to find water in a dry desert and how to skin a deer.
John didn’t know how wrong he was. Rather than putting her down, he had just made her more attractive to me. Where I planned to go, no gently bred woman would survive. She would have to be as strong as the Texas prairie.
“Thanks for the information. I’ll take it into consideration.” I also neglected to tell him that my grandmother was part Cherokee.
It told me why Dawn was interested in my footwear. Most men wouldn’t wear moccasins, but I found them sturdy, comfortable and incredibly silent when stalking an animal. They weren’t made to ride a saddle in, since they had no heels to keep your foot from passing through the stirrup and getting you dragged to death. The rider’s boot is thin soled so you can feel the stirrup and the heel keeps you alive.
“Mr. Cummings told me to break that young filly while he was gone. I figure she’ll put on quite a show. You wanna watch?” John asked me.
“Is that the one with the white snip on her nose?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Nothing. Just wondering.”
I shut up. While you are getting the feel of a place it pays to keep your mouth shut and your ears open.
The next morning during breakfast, John described how he broke a horse. He tied up one foot, so the horse could only use three legs, then rode it until it gave up.
“You’ll ruin a fine horse that way,” I said, noticing the anguish on Dawn’s face. “Why don’t you let me ride her first?”
“Are you a bronc buster?”
“No. I just like horses. Why I bet I can ride that animal without a buck.”
The bet had him considering me. Dawn looked about to cry when he announced his plan to ride, and after his description, I knew why she had broke the filly herself. She’d done it while everyone was gone, which told me that no one around here took kindly to her Indian ways. Some of their ways didn’t work in our world, but some did, and that way of gentlin’ a horse worked.
“What’ll you bet? You said you didn’t have money.”
I pulled out my knife, which I had won from a soldier from Kentucky, a long, slender-bladed toad-stabber.
“What’ll you put up?” I asked.
He thought about it for awhile.
“That two dollar gold piece I won off’n Lewis last night.”
“All right.” I wondered how often that had changed hands.
We all went down to the corral and John drove the filly in, yelling at her to make her skittish.
Lewis shook out a loop, ready to catch her. I pictured that filly with the noose tightening around her neck, going berserk from fright, and stopped him.
“Don’t bother,” I said, and motioned him back on the rails.
“Don’t look the horse in the eye,” Dawn had told me, so picking up the short piece of rope she had left there, I walked up to the filly’s shoulder, slow and quiet like, keeping my hands down and looking at her shoulder and not into her eyes. She let me come, snorting a little when I rubbed my hand on her shoulder, then up and down her neck. I talked to her some more, hoping she’d respond to me like she had to Dawn. I could tell the moment she relaxed, as she took her weight off one foot.
I eased the rope around her neck, fashioned it into a rope halter, and then led her over to my saddle.
Blanket, then saddle. I set it on gently, rather than throwing it on. Dawn had not used a bit, so I just left my halter on her and climbed aboard. She looked around at me, like she wondered what I was doing up there. But she didn’t buck.
John suddenly jumped off the corral fence and yelled at us, waving his hat. The filly jumped sideways, then spun around and looked at him. She was quivering and I put my hand on her neck to steady her, talking low. One ear flicked back, the other cocked toward John.
“Back off,” I told John. “That wasn’t in the bet.”
“You been riding her?” John demanded.
“No. Absolutely not.”
“I don’t believe it.” Lewis said. “We jist brought her off the range the day the boss left.”
“I only got here yesterday,” I said. “Late afternoon. Just before you rode in.”
“What did Cummings hire you for?”
“To keep the books.”
The expression on his face was comical. Nothing added up and I wasn’t about to help him. I figured if Dawn wanted them to know what she’d been doing, she would tell them.
“Walk in front of her, give her someone to follow,” I told him.
He turned and walked around the corral while I urged the filly to follow. She was a smart girl and picked up the rein signals right away. I worked with her for a half hour, then got off.
“If that don’t beat all,” John said. “Who’d a thought it?” He pulled out the gold piece and handed it to me.
“I ain’t never seed anythin’ like it,” Lewis said.
Dawn was standing behind them, a smile on her face. She winked at me. I had no idea why she didn’t want the credit, but it seemed to be so. I took off my saddle and turned the filly loose.
The rest of the day I took one of the ranch horses out and got the lie of the land. Cummings had a big ranch with the Rio Brazos providing plenty of water as it meandered past. I’d never seen so many streams that couldn’t make up their minds which way they wanted to go as I’d seen in Texas. My Tennessee rivers had all been in a hurry to get somewhere, dropping down the mountains as fast as a hawk swooping in to catch a rabbit.
The saddle creaked
as I shifted my weight. A creaky saddle meant the leather was getting dry. I needed to take it apart, clean it and oil it. I’d never had my saddle creak and I wasn’t about to start in now. It gave you away when you were hunting or being hunted. It was a sign of a careless horseman. While I was waiting for Cummings to return, I’d clean it up. I would also check Hero’s shoes.
After supper, the two riders took off towards the bunkhouse and I lagged behind with Dawn, helping her clear off the table.
“What’s with the secrecy? I take it you don’t want them to know what you did?”
“They think I’m strange. Anything that I do that don’t fit in with their ideas, they scorn. Thank you for not telling them.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. I thought it a thing of beauty, the way you worked that horse. They missed out.”
“Pa, too. Don’t tell him.” There was fear in her voice and I wondered why she should fear her pa in this. Hadn’t she just told me earlier that her father was the one who had taught her how to train horses?
I looked at her, trying hard to live in two worlds. “Would you like to learn to read, ma’am?”
“Yes!” She said it with an intensity that only those who can’t read feel.
“Then come outside.”
I walked over to the horse trough, to where the water had leaked out and formed mud. I picked up a piece of wood, just barely more than a shaving, and scratched in the mud.
“Our language is written with letters. This one is an A.” I drew it on the ground. So is this and this.” I drew the small letters, printed and written. “Just different forms of the same letter.”
It was the way my mother had taught me. I learned to read and write at the same time. Mom let us kids make letters out of clay and even bread dough. We didn’t have pens and paper much, and she wasn’t going to waste them on teaching.
She had taught us the most important letters first, as parts of words, so that’s what I did with Dawn.
“It’s a type of sign language, just more complicated than what you’ve seen.” I picked up some clay and formed an A. “Try it this way, if you want to.”
She formed an A, then a little a.
I wrote her name, Dawn, then asked her to form it in clay. She did, and I told her the names of the letters.
It took us all of five minutes. I don’t know why anyone hadn’t taken the time with her before and said as much.
“My pa tried, but he used a pen and paper and the words just ran all over the paper. These stay still.” She waved at the clay letters. “I can see these. I think I can remember them, too.”
“Then do them this way. It’s how I learned.”
“D A W N.” She smiled and stroked the letters carefully as she said their names. “Thank you.”
I nodded. “We can add a few every day. I can show you numbers, too.”
She smiled even more broadly, the light sparkling in her eyes. She was beautiful and I caught my breath. The loveliness of her face, the grace of her movements entwined me like a cowboy’s loop dropped over the head of a stray.
The stillness that had spoken to the filly now spoke to me and bonded me to her as if I was a wild horse she meant to tame.
I shook my head to deny the spell she cast over me. I was my own man. I was headed for the far western lands. To take anyone with me, much less a woman, was not in my plans.
And yet this woman...with her I might consider it.
“Goodnight,” I told her, and headed for the bunkhouse.
Inside, John and Lewis were still talking about the filly. I washed my hands and face, pulled off my boots and was asleep before I lay down.
I woke at daybreak and joined the two men getting ready. We had breakfast with Dawn and the men left to work.
I found Mr. Cummings’ office and opened his books.
I worked on them for most of the day, taking a break for lunch and a quick reading lesson with Dawn. She took hold like a dead snag hit with lightening. She could have taught herself, given any type of start.
When the two men came home, I asked where Elmer, the bookkeeper, was. John said he’d gone to Ft. Worth right after Mr. Cummings had left.
It made me laugh. “He’s gone for good. You won’t see him again.”
“Why not?”
“Because he was stealing.”
They looked at each other.
“Elmer?” Lewis said. “I wouldn’t of thunk he had it in ‘im.”
“That little varmint?” John said. “How was he doin’ that?”
While waiting for James Cummings to return, Dawn and I worked on her reading.
The hummingbirds had decided the cattle trough was a great watering hole and every morning and evening they descended in large colorful numbers.
We were often there, forming letters and then numbers out of the clay, and they would dart around us to get their drinks.
Other birds came too, and when they saw we weren’t paying them no mind, they became bolder and drank while we were there.
We needed the mud to make the letters and numbers out of until she learned them. When we were done, we erased them with a little water. She wasn’t dumb and I almost couldn’t teach her fast enough. Once she had worked out the letters in the mud she was ready to put them into words.
I took my small Bible out of my saddlebags and commenced teaching her words. I remembered my mother starting us kids in 1 John, so started her there also.
Cummings had several books in his house, mainly the Bible, Shakespeare, a couple of Dickens and Blackstone, but she didn’t want to touch them. Not until she could read better. And she didn’t want Lewis or John seeing her reading.
The next morning I pulled all of Hero’s shoes off, trimmed and rasped each hoof to the right angle, then put new shoes on him. He was a large horse with large feet, and I had to do some extra smithy work to make the shoes fit. I put some extra depth on them, to protect him more on the stones.
After I put him back in the barn, Dawn showed up, leading Misty.
“Isn’t she lovely?” she asked.
“Yes. She is.” So are you. “Hero thinks so, too.”
“She’s in heat.”
“For sure. He tried to take the barn down last night.”
“I heard him. That’s why I waited until you put him away.”
“I don’t want to leave him in the barn. It’s too dark in there and I don’t want to affect his eyesight if I stay here awhile. Is there a corral I can put him in during the day?”
“The one next to the house is strong. It’s not used much.”
“It’s too low. I’ll add some more rails.”
She motioned towards Misty. “I suppose she’ll need shoes.”
“Depends on how hard her hooves are. But she might as well get used to someone handling her feet. You hold her head while I pick them up.”
She stood there, talking nonsense to that mare, and I almost forgot what I was doing, listening to her. I tapped the filly’s hooves as I picked them up, so as she wouldn’t get frightened when she did get shoes.
Later that day, Dawn called me to the house.
“We need supplies. We’re running low on things like salt and flour and sugar. Why don’t you take the buckboard to town and pick up what I need? I’ll tell you what I want and you can make the list.”
“Will do.”
“It’s eighty miles, so you’ll need to leave first thing in the morning and come back tomorrow.”
“Do you want to come along?” I asked. Most women love a trip to town so they can see what other women are wearing and pick up some women things they didn’t want a man to get.
She thought it over. “I could make supper in the morning in the bean pot and set it on the back of the stove. Yes, I’ll go with you.”
That evening, when told of our plans, John frowned. “I should go,” he said.
Dawn looked at him. “Last time you went you didn’t come back for two weeks.”
“I won’t drink that much agai
n,” he said. “It was stronger than what I was used to.”
“Pa’s going to need help branding the calves. He’ll be mad as a wet hen if you’re gone.”
He pointed at me. “How do you know he won’t get drunk and drive into the river?”
“Well, we’re certain you will, so I’ll take my chances with him.”
4
The next morning I got the buckboard ready and hitched the horses to it. I threw in some extra food, ammunition and blankets, for I knew that a trip doesn’t always end like it is supposed to.
The horses John pointed out as the ones they used on the buckboard had evidently not been used for some spell. They reared and kicked and fought the traces, so that I had to hogtie each one before I could get both of them harnessed up at the same time.
As soon as I tried to drive them up to the house, they panicked, scared to death of the contraption following them.
I stopped them, got off the buckboard and looked at the mess they’d made of the harness.
About that time Dawn came out carrying a small tote bag, dressed in a lovely dress of blue. I pointed to the horses and shook my head.
“They don’t seem to like this very much.”
“You’ve got the wrong horses. Those were just brought off the range a week ago. I suppose John said these were the ones to use?”
“Yes. I guess it was too bad he wasn’t here to see the fun.”
“Oh, he was watching. Up on the ridge. I saw him out my window and wondered why he was staying around.”
“Well, I’ll get these untangled and put the regular horses to it.”
“You got them harnessed.”
“Yes.”
“Untangle them. Then you lead them while I drive. We’ll use John’s horses. They look to be good stock.”
“Ma’m, that might not be safe.”
“Life isn’t safe. Especially out here, where a rattler can hit you while you’re in your own garden. We’ll take these horses.”
I had thought about trailing Hero along behind us, and that cinched it. I untangled those two, and while she held their heads, I saddled Hero and rode over. Grabbing the headstall of the bridle on one, I cinched his nose close to my leg. Dawn climbed in the wagon, gathered the reins and away we went.
