Lauraine Snelling (13 page)

“Thank you, son. This has been a real good day. And, Lucas, I thank you for coming for me. I wouldn’ta missed this for anything.”

Mavis stopped them. “Just a minute. I’m not sure if there are enough blankets on that bunk. I’ll get another.” She loaded a couple of blankets and a pillow on Ransom’s arms. “We should have gone and cleaned that place before we put company out there.”

“Don’t you worry none. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

They walked the distance to the bunkhouse, and Ransom opened the door.

“I’ll get a fire going in the stove. You just make yourself at home. Shame you didn’t bring your dog with you.”

“He’ll be right lonesome. He’s good company, ya know.”

Ransom dug the tinder out of the box kept for that purpose, rattled the grate on the stove that hadn’t been used since he couldn’t remember when, and after laying in the tinder, added some small kindling and lit the match. With the flames curling around the bits of wood, he added more kindling, then a couple of small sticks from the woodbox, and put the lids back in place. Opening the damper wide, he turned to see the old man spreading another blanket on the bunk and putting the pillow in place. What would it be like to live alone like he did?

Ransom could hear the fire starting to crackle and opened the front lid to add some larger sticks. “You want to add some more here in a few minutes? I’ll leave the lantern on the table. So when you are ready you can turn it out. Do you need anything else?”

The old man sighed. “Not a thing. ’Night.”

Ransom looked upward as he strolled back to the house. It would freeze again tonight, and tomorrow they’d go look at that timber. What he’d thought to take three or four days was done in one. The stars stood clear and bright in the cold air. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. Now he’d better have a talk with Lucas. Looked like he would be putting the cart before the horse, and they might all be sorry for that.

G
uts. Yards and yards of flat, slimy white guts.

Cassie jerked awake, feeling in desperate need of washing her hands—repeatedly. The smell when cleaning the intestines, even though they’d done it outside, was beyond belief. They’d cleaned out the elk intestines to be used for sausage casings. She understood the necessity, but the process made her want to run screaming back to a Wild West show—any Wild West show.

She had asked to learn how to do all those homemaking things that Mrs. Engstrom did so effortlessly. She was eager to learn, was all excited. Whatever had possessed her? This bad dream that had so violently awakened her was so real she sniffed her hands.

The coals of the fire barely winked, so the room was already beyond chilly. Somehow this winter, they would have to wake up once or twice during the night—maybe even more often—to stoke the fires. But it wasn’t winter yet, and she didn’t want to leave the warmth of her cocoon of covers. Runs Like a Deer lay perfectly still. Had she awakened her with her jerk, or had she dreamed that too? When the hanging elk meat had aged enough, they would be grinding and seasoning the ground meat and running it through a cast-iron machine called a sausage stuffer. Mrs. Engstrom had demonstrated; turning the crank handle is what pushed the meat through.

That part was intriguing. Mrs. Engstrom had said they would hang the ropes of sausage in the smokehouse with the other cuts of elk. She threw out words like
brining
and
packing in crocks
that had no meaning whatsoever to Cassie. She also didn’t understand what Mrs. Engstrom had meant when she said the carcasses hanging in the barn were aging so the meat was more tender.

And today they were to pull trees out of the proposed garden area. Was that like pulling weeds? Weeds that were nearly twenty feet tall? Well, maybe not quite that big but taller than she was, taller even than the roof of the cabin. And spindly. Most were scraggly, with limbs far apart. Others formed a perfect cone of dark green needles. She swallowed a sigh and closed her eyes again.
Think sleep.
She must have returned to slumberland until she felt Runs Like a Deer trying to leave the bed without waking her.

“I’m awake,” she admitted.

“I’ll start the fires.”

Cassie waited only a few minutes before leaving the bed to pull the curtains and get dressed. Today she would ask Mrs. Engstrom if they had a bathtub. Soaking in a bathtub would be the height of luxury. That had been one of her mother’s demands, that a high-backed copper bathtub accompany the show. She had refused to succumb to the barbarian practice, her words, of washing and rinsing standing in a low basin and using as little water as possible. She’d said that washing in the rain was far preferable, but a bathtub would go with her or she wouldn’t go.

But then her mother had always believed that getting all heated up and perspiring and then rolling in a snowbank was a healthful, perfectly splendid idea. Her father never had agreed to that one.

The bathtub had disappeared when her mother died. But then, who would ever imagine, Cassie especially, that one day she would own land and be settling down?

Perhaps she could wash their clothes down at the ranch house too, so they wouldn’t have to haul water in the barrels to do the wash. Could they dig a well up here? They hadn’t dug down very far for the outhouse when they hit solid rock. A well would surely do the same. Perhaps someday they needed to build a house down on the valley floor. Oh, the ideas that flowed through her head as she pulled on and laced her boots.

A breakfast of sliced, fried cornmeal and syrup, eggs, and chipped venison slid past. Cold weather aside, they were eating like royalty. This was delicious.

The men went out to work again on the corral, nailing long, thin poles to the posts and wrapping wire around the joints, lest rambunctious horses pull the rails down, nails and all. While Cassie cleared away the breakfast things, Runs Like a Deer added flour and water to the sourdough starter she had inherited from Mrs. Engstrom. Tomorrow they would have sourdough pancakes for breakfast. The leftover dough, with more flour added, became a combination between biscuits and buns, baked in a covered cast-iron pan, which Cassie learned was called a Dutch oven, on top of their stove. A stove with a real oven was already on her someday list.

While washing the dishes, she thought back to something the younger Mr. Engstrom had said. What kind of a plan was he envisioning? He’d mentioned talking to a man who might sponsor a shooting match. Was that a possibility? She
humph
ed to herself. She didn’t even have the shells to practice with. While she had downed that elk, shooting falling objects rapidly was not the same. But if she couldn’t enter shooting matches, how could she make the money to help them through the winter?

Othello barked, announcing visitors. Obviously he knew them, because there was no trace of menace in his tone. She went to the door to see Mrs. Engstrom driving the wagon and the others on horseback.

“Good morning.” Her greeting brightened an already lovely morning, with frost etching each grass blade and the air nipping any exposed body parts. One no longer ran to the outhouse barefooted.

“Are you ready to pull trees?” Mavis called as she stepped to the ground.

Anything sounded better than cleaning intestines. Cassie snagged a flannel shirt off the peg and shrugged into it as she stepped outside.

“Mornin’, little lady,” Mr. Arnett said from horseback. “You might rather want to come look at trees with us instead. Pullin’ ’em is hard work.”

“Don’t scare her away, Dan,” Mrs. Engstrom scolded. “We need to get that garden plot ready.”

Lucas had dismounted and was unhitching the team while Ransom dragged the chains out of the wagon. Micah brought out the saws, axes, and some other tools.

“I will stay here,” Micah said with a nod to Cassie. “They can go talk hunting and trees and who, or rather, whatever, lives up there.”

Mr. Arnett gave a laugh that ended in a hoot. He sure seemed to be enjoying himself this morning.

He rode over to where Ransom was giving Micah advice. “I think you need to top those taller ones. If they land on those horses’ rumps, they’ll be down the hill and in the next county before you know it.”

Ransom nodded and took one of the saws. “Lucas, you take the other one. Micah, go along and pull the tops away from the saw blade.”

With a deft flick of the wrist, Lucas tossed a looped rope up over one of the larger trees.

“Weed trees,”
Mrs. Engstrom had called them. Trees? Mere weeds?

As nimbly as a ten-year-old, Lucas scrambled up the tree, the saw under his arm. When he got up to a skinny part of the trunk, he began sawing while Micah pulled on the rope. With a crack, the top broke over, although not all the way. It hung there, forlorn, almost like the hangdog look Othello offered when he knew he’d been a bad fellow.

Lucas clambered back down. “That’ll do. Next one.”

Ransom was not the tree-climbing squirrel that his brother was, but he got there. The top he sawed through fell to the ground.

Cassie watched carefully. If she was to become a rancher, she might be called upon one day to top trees. So far, it did not seem too onerous a task. As the tops fell, she and Mrs. Engstrom gathered them into a pile. Some were surprisingly heavy.

Mrs. Engstrom pointed. “Let’s put the pile nearer to the house, and it can dry for kindling. You can never have too much dry tinder.”

Ransom cinched the chain around the nearest tree, snugging it about a foot up from the ground. “Micah, you take one of those axes, and as the roots start to break free, you can chop the big ones. We’ll stack them over there to dry.”

Micah nodded casually and stood near the tree of the moment. Cassie wondered what he was thinking. Micah had joined the show in his youth, and like Cassie, he had known no other world for many years. Now here he was on a hillside in the middle of nowhere, ripping trees out of the ground. What strange turns their lives were taking!

With the chain hooked over the whippletree, Mavis flicked the lines slightly and clucked the team ahead. The chain tightened down, the horses dug in and leaned into their chest collars. The tree shook but otherwise refused to budge. The trunk didn’t even tilt.

“Back off and relax. Then try again.”

“Okay, boys, let’s get this done.” Mavis flicked the lines again and kept encouraging the horses, calling them by name to “get up! Get up!” The ground quivered, buckled, and the tree gave a groan. “Come on, boys, keep it up.”

Nothing moved.

The horses strained, one hoof slipped and regained footing. They lunged against their collars.

“Let’s add a rope. Miss Lockwood, you want to ride and pull?” Ransom nodded toward his saddled horse. He retrieved a rope from the back of the wagon, cinched it around the tree just above the chain, and handed it to her to tie around the saddle horn. “Pull in tandem with the team. I think that should be just enough extra to make it work.”

Cassie nodded and did as he said. Her saddle moved; the tree did not.

“Wait! I need to tighten the cinch.” She dismounted and, lifting the stirrup, tightened the cinch and remounted. Again the team hit their collars and she nudged her horse forward. The rope lay across her leg. Her horse snorted and dug in, straining against the pull. With a mighty groan, the ground gave way, released the tree, and a mass of roots threw dirt to all sides. The tree came swishing down, missing the horses’ rumps by inches. There it went, sliding after the team, dropping dirt and stones as it dragged across the smashed grass and weeds. The smell of fresh dirt filled the morning air.

“We did it!” She patted the horse’s neck and unwrapped the rope from around the horn.

“You can go,” Mavis said to Ransom as she and Micah prepared the next tree. “We’ll do fine.”

Ransom hesitated, but at his mother’s insistence mounted his horse. “Fire your rifle if you need help.”

“Yes, of course. Show Chief where the deer bed down in that copse over the hill. And look for those walnut trees up amongst the oaks in the coulee. I wish we could send the hogs up there to gorge on the acorns.” She turned to Cassie. “Pigs love rooting around for acorns. Our oak tree by the house doesn’t produce enough yet to keep them happy.”

Pigs? She hadn’t seen any pigs down at the house. “Where do you keep them?”

“Out behind the barn. They eat all our dinner scraps and turn them into bacon. Everybody needs a pig.”

They watched the riders head on up the hill, Lucas’s laughter ringing back behind them.

Mrs. Engstrom commented, “Lucas likes nothing more than riding up into the hills. I’m surprised he doesn’t have his rifle along.”

“He has a shotgun. I saw the scabbard on his saddle.”

“Some birds would taste mighty good.”

“I shot some grouse on the way down here. They’d roost in the trees. They weren’t too hard to hit.”

Othello whined at Cassie’s side. “What is it, boy?” She looked up the hill to see what he was watching. “Ah, you wanted to go along. Sorry. You and I’ll go another day.”

“Well, we had a breather. Let’s get on it.”

By the fourth tree, patches of glistening sweat darkened the horses’ flanks and shoulders, as they all stood breathing hard.

“I think the horses are due for a rest, and we are due for a cookie break.” Mavis pulled a basket from the back of the wagon and opened the tin of ginger cookies, offering it to Micah first.

“Mrs. Engstrom?”

“Cassie, dear, let’s drop the Mrs. Engstrom, please. My name is Mavis, and I’d like for you to call me that.”

Cassie swallowed. “Ah, all right. Do you know what the younger Mr. Engstrom is trying to make happen?”

Mavis rolled her eyes. “Lucas is hoping to get Josiah Porter, who owns Hill City Hotel, to sponsor a shooting match so you can compete.”

“I see. There is a problem, however.” Cassie could feel her face growing hot. “Uh, I . . .” She heaved a sigh. “This is embarrassing.”

“Spit it out, girl.”

“I don’t have enough shells to practice with. I’m rusty. Shooting grouse is easy. A contest isn’t. I can’t go into a match without practicing. So he probably better reconsider,” she finished with a rush.

“We can buy shells at the store in town.”

“I can’t.”
Go ahead and tell her why; you’re in this far.

“You don’t have the money to buy shells?”

Cassie nodded.

“You can put the shells on our account at the store. We’ll be your sponsors.”

“But . . .”

“No
but
s. You can pay it back from your winnings if you feel the need. So don’t worry about it. And until we get back into town, you can borrow a couple boxes. I’ll set them out for you soon as I get back, so we don’t forget.”

But what if I don’t win?
You can’t let yourself even think that. What would Father say? You have won many matches through the years; you’re a show star.
Not only one voice, but several. This was getting worse.

Othello yipped and looked up the hill, ears full up. At least the one that stood up did, and the other was at attention.