Cattle Kate (11 page)

He said he could tell that about me from the very first time we talked and it was one of the things he most liked about me.

I don't know which of us blushed more when he talked about liking me, but we both sat silent a few minutes. Then he reached out and took my hand, real gentle like, and tucked it between us so only we would know and nobody had to say anything.

I must admit, I felt something I never thought I'd feel again. I felt safe with a man.

James Averell might not be a big man in size, but right then, I knew he was a big man in my eyes. I had to turn my head away when I smiled at the thought that if he tried, I'd let this man kiss me. But he didn't try. That night.

Instead, he said the most romantic thing a man could say to me at that moment of my life: “Ella, if you want to be a landowner in Wyoming Territory, I'll help you.”

I had to hold myself back that I didn't leap over and kiss him. I just looked at him in awe. I saw a handsome, kind, smart man who was promising me more than a sack of gold or a mansion on Seventeenth Street in Cheyenne.

“You'll help me?” I could barely breathe.

“Yes, I'll help you with the paperwork and I can survey the site for you and in five years you can be the proud owner of one hundred sixty acres of choice Wyoming land.”

He squeezed my hand and it was better than a kiss. I was all warm thinking about what this man was offering. “That's the same size as my Pa's homestead in Kansas,” I told him, to show I knew something about such things.

He surprised me with his answer. “That's the problem. Those men back in Congress don't know anything about Wyoming or ranching—to them, one hundred sixty acres is a lot of land. They'd kill for that much land to call their own back there. But out here, it's a spit in the bucket. But try to talk some sense to them and you might as well be addressing a stump. They won't listen. That's one reason there's so much trouble out here—a man can't make it on just one hundred sixty acres.”

I remember he paused a minute before he rushed back in to erase the frown on my face: “But that's a fine place to start Ella, and for you, it will be fine.” Jimmy Averell could sound real convincing when he wanted to be.

The next night he was at his usual place for supper and he seemed to notice right away that under my white apron was a Sunday dress. Mrs. Hayes had spied it immediately and gotten a sly smile on her face. “I think somebody's sparkin' somebody,” she almost sang and Brenda giggled. I just ignored them, but I am sure I was blushing.

It didn't escape my notice that Mrs. Hayes put an extra chicken wing on Jimmy's plate that night. He winked at me when I put it down in front of him, thinkin' it was my doing. I couldn't wait to tell him Mrs. Hayes was his benefactor and that it was a powerful sign of her approval.

We sat on our bench that night and right away, Jimmy whispered, “I found something for you.” He pulled out a velvet bag tied with a red cord from his pocket and gently handed it to me.

My life hasn't been full of presents you can hold in your hand. From Ma and Pa, sure, but that's where it started and ended. I never got the ring I'd been promised at marriage and now that I think of it, I was the one giving presents in those years I was with him. I don't even like to say his name, but just now I'm adding to my list of grievances that he was so cheap he never gave me a present. And here was a man I'd known only days and he was holding out a pretty green velvet bag and it took my breath away.

“Mr. Averell, I wasn't expecting a gift,” I said, not sure what you're supposed to say at a time like this.

“I hope you'll accept it,” he answered, as though there were a question.

I took the bag and inside was an ivory hair comb inlaid with mother of pearl, and I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. I gasped in delight, but it made Jimmy nervous: “You don't think it's too fancy,” he started blabbering. “It's a proper comb, and I thought it would look beautiful in your hair, but if you don't like it, I can take it…”

“Oh no, I love it,” I gushed. “It's just beautiful. I guess I'll have to go to church now so I have somewhere to wear it—it's not too fancy for church, do you think?”

“No, no, it would be fine in church. I was thinking maybe someday we could go to the Opera House and take in a musical—we have a beautiful Opera House in Rawlins—and you could wear it then, too.”

“I've never been to a musical, outside my Pa and his fiddle, but I'd love to go sometime.” I checked myself because I was startin' to use the world ‘love' a lot tonight. “I would like very much to go to a musical with you.”

I don't know much about men—I've already proven that—but I hoped my feelings were true that a man who'd eat that much pie to wait for you and then give you a hair comb this precious was not the kind of man who'd stomp on your heart.

“Thank you so much, Jimmy.” I smiled at him and he smiled back, pleased with himself, and we sat like that awhile, just enjoying the moment.

He finally broke the quiet with a question even more precious than the comb. “Ella, would you like a little stream by your claim?” It wasn't really a question because the answer was so obvious, and I knew he was playing with me.

“Now, let me think,” I acted all coquettish, “would I like a stream by my one hundred sixty acres? Well, I do believe I would!” And by then, we were both laughing.

“What if I told you there's some land next to mine by Horse Creek that could be claimed?” he got real serious.

“There is?” I was astonished.

“Yes, and it's good land—good pastureland, good farmland. Horse Creek isn't real big—it's a tributary of the Sweetwater, but it runs most of the year and there's plenty of water for stock and crops. Now, there's no trees, but you know enough about W.T. already to know that trees are few and far between out here. But we can plant some around your cabin. ”

In my mind I saw a glorious place—rich land, a cabin with trees that would be big by the time I was an old lady; a little, tinkling creek edged by bushes, because there's always at least bushes by a creek. I asked a pretty dumb question for someone who should have been satisfied with water for stock and crops: “Are there berries by the creek?”

Jimmy grinned and nodded, “I believe there are,” like that was the final selling point.

“I want you to think on it.” He informed me he had to go back to his roadhouse now that his business in town was done. But he'd be back in a couple weeks and hoped I'd have thought it all through by then. I didn't dare tell him there was nothing more to think about because that would have sounded too eager to be proper, and so I stayed quiet and let him think this would take some powerful pondering on my part. “I hope you won't forget me,” he said, as we parted that night.

I turned to him, and in the truest thing I ever said to a man, I promised, “Of course I won't forget you, Mr. Averell. You come back safe and sound.”

I was real glad when he walked through the front door of Rawlins House again two weeks later, and I gave him a piece of pie for free. By then, I had figured out that if I worked here another year, I could save enough for the filing fee on a homestead and the first supplies I'd need to start a house. I figured James would help me with the loggin', and there's always cowboys out of work in the off-season who would help build a cabin for cheap wages.

As we sat on the front bench, I started spellin' out the plans I'd made as I'd laid in my bed every night for the last two weeks going over each detail I could imagine. He let me speak and at times, the words tumbled over one another because I was so excited to get everything out.

“There's a lot I could get done in a year as I save up,” I started. “I could buy a horse and wagon now, I've got enough saved already, and I saw in the paper that there are auctions and these things can go real cheap. If you let me rent a place in your corral for my horse, I could go logging in the mountains and pile up the wood until I can lay a claim. I'm real good with an ax. I just want a small cabin, nothing fancy.”

I didn't think I had to say anything about him helping me with the logging because I couldn't imagine him not. I thought he'd be impressed that I intended to use my own horse and my own wagon, rather than borrowing his, and I hoped his rent would be cheap. I sure didn't want this man concerned that he'd be saddled with a soft woman if he helped me get a claim.

Jimmy smiled as I was telling all this and later laughed that he liked how I was provin' myself up to him.

When I finally took a breath and let him speak, he said all that sounded very fine, but he had another route we could go.

“What if I told you that you wouldn't have to wait a year?” he began. “What if I told you that you could file on land now?” He let the words hang there and hang they did, because they didn't make any sense to me. I couldn't figure out how that could happen because right then, I had saved but fifty-three dollars since coming to W.T. I could pay the filing fee, but I sure didn't have enough to get started and it wasn't smart to file until you were ready to build a cabin and improve the land. After paying for the filing, the thirty-five dollars I'd have left sure wouldn't stretch far enough.

James laid out his plan and I will admit, at first I thought it sounded all wrong.

He told me if I came and cooked at his roadhouse, I could earn my homestead money. It would be good for his business if he offered a hot meal. Cowboys out there didn't have anything but the chuck wagons, and when they were fed and watered (although I knew it wasn't water he was talkin' about) they were free spending on other supplies in the store. The way he saw it, we'd both make good money on the deal. He said he'd buy all the groceries, but I could keep the fifty cents-a-plate dinner charge and it wouldn't take me long to save up. He'd even front me the money I needed to get going, and I could pay him back from my earnings. And he'd see I had a house up by summer.

I could hardly believe my ears. A payin' job and a chance to own my own land right now. That sounded so good, except for one thing. I don't care if this was the Wild West and they did things differently out here, a woman couldn't go off to a lonely ranch with a man and not be his wife, not even in Wyoming Territory. He could tell from the questions in my eyes that this is what I was thinking.

“Ella, as much as I want to, I can't ask you to marry me right off in public because that would mean you couldn't get your own homestead,” he said, lowering his voice and moving a little closer to my ear. “Married folks can only get one claim and since I already have a claim, if you became my bride, that would cheat you out.”

Not since my first husband called me that ugly name can I remember words stinging so much. I had not thought that part through, and for a minute I thought that queered everything.

I sat for a second and then a clever idea hit me: “But what if I file and then we get married, and we could do that right away and everything would be alright…”

Jim started shaking his head after the first couple words, and I didn't feel so clever anymore. “Ella, the law says a claim is filed by the head of the household, and if you file and then marry, the land would revert to me as head. It wouldn't be your land, it would be mine.”

I started thinking, well, it actually would be ours, but I knew I was foolin' myself because I knew of no law that saw an “us” in a marriage. If I hadn't known that, Mr. Pickell sure let me know how iron clad that was and that he was doin' me a big favor by even letting me have my own clothes. No, “us” wasn't real and I already knew how badly a marriage could turn out, and while I didn't think there was a chance Jim would be like that, I also knew what it felt to get burned, and I didn't want to feel that again.

Jim was already talking as I was thinking of all this, and I had to have him repeat himself because I wasn't sure I understood what he was trying to say. He made himself clear when I paid attention. “You can only file for yourself if you're a single woman, and besides, if the law saw us both as singles, we could both file two, three claims under different acts and get ourselves a healthy spread that would support the big family I hope we have one day.” Now he was sounding like a man who had spent considerable time thinking this through, and I especially liked the part about the big family. But I'd heard that promise before, and for a second, I worried it could be a lie again. When I looked into those pretty eyes, they didn't look lyin' to me.

I dropped my eyes and wrung my hands and dared to say in a low voice, “So you do intend to ask for my hand.”

He almost jumped—he reached over and took my hands in his and said, “Of course I want to marry you. I want us to be together forever. I love you, Ella.”

His words made my heart sing.

“I just don't want that to ruin your chances to own the land you want so much. I don't want it to ruin our chances of building a decent life. Ella, I said I couldn't
publicly
marry you, but we could go off to another county and get married and keep it a secret. You and I would know the truth, but the law would still let us file claims and when they were proved up, we could tell everyone the truth, and nobody could do anything about it. I know this isn't the normal way to go, but it is a way for us to get everything we want.”

I still had to say, “James, that's cheating, isn't it?”

He admitted it was. “But considering how the big cattlemen are cheating, this is small potatoes. Do you know what they do? They file fake claims and don't do a thing to till the land. The law says you've got to improve the land and build a cabin, so they put a rickety old building on wooden logs and haul it around like it's a real cabin and they claim they've met the law. When they've filed all the claims they can, they get their ranch hands to file some more for them—I know, I filed one for a man I worked for myself. They've thought of more ways of getting around the law than an honest man can imagine. Hell, oh, pardon my language, between the cattlemen and the railroad, it's a wonder there's any land left for an honest man. We're not cheating like that, Ella. It's not like we're trying to take all the land, we just want a decent share.”