Authors: Nancy Radke
“The raiders killed our flocks, but I have a goose you could
have. It was a baby when the rest were killed and I hid it in the brush when
the thieves came by.”
“I couldn’t take your only—”
“Simon is going to go get us some chickens and more geese once
the crop is planted. You take that there goose back with you. She will walk
right along if you put a cord round her neck.”
“Then, thank you.”
Things were looking up. Jessica brought out a long cord and we
put a loop around that goose’s neck and tied it with a bowline knot, so’s not
to choke her.
My time was short, so Jessica walked to the top of the ridge
with me and we said our goodbyes there. We used to see each other once a week
at meeting time. I didn’t even know if the church was still standing, and
neither did she. Jessica and I hugged again, and I walked the goose home.
She squawked and waddled, grabbing a bite to eat now and then as
we traveled. Maybe the mountain wouldn’t be so lonely with her nearby, honking
at me. A good goose was better ‘n a watchdog, for it can make an awful clamor
when it’s aroused.
I kept feeling the rocks under my shoes, and when I stopped to
rest, I looked at the hole that was forming there. I wondered if the whites of
a goose egg would act like glue, the way the whites of a chicken egg did. I was
going to try it, for egg white sure did hold well. Jacob had used it all the
time.
One more thing needing fixing. I could feel the weight bearing
down on me.
It was well past dark when I arrived home, as the goose slowed
me down. I’d spent the last half-hour kickin’ the side of the trail to find it,
as it was worn down in the dirt, forming a small ditch. I couldn’t see it, but
I could feel it, and I’d made it home many a times like this.
I expected Aggie to be bawling at me for neglecting her so long.
But she was quiet, not waiting at the fence.
I stopped. Something warn’t right.
A light went on in the cabin and I backed away into the brush,
pulling the goose with me. I tied her to a small sapling, then moved over to a
stand of trees where I could see into the cabin. I couldn’t leave her tied up
for long, or the critters would git her, but she was too noisy to take with me.
Someone was inside and the bulk of the body made it look to be a
man. I warn’t expectin’ no man.
I went back past the goose, skirted the cabin on the far side
and entered the barn. My lantern hanging there had been lit, and I poked my
head in, cautious like.
A horse stood in a stall, unsaddled. I’d never seen it before,
munching away on the grain I’d been so carefully saving. Angry, I went further
into the barn, looking around. Next to the saddle hung a blanket, Union blue.
As far as I knew, my boys had all joined the Confederates.
What in tarnation was I goin’ to do? Hide until he left?
Yet...what if it were one of my boys?
If it were a stranger, he’d know someone lived here. A cow left
unmilked will get milk fever or go dry. He’d be able to tell, from the size of
her udder, that she’d been milked this morning. And that there’d been a fire in
the fireplace last night.
Maybe I should go over to Mally’s house and spend the night
there. It was pitch dark now, and I’d probably break my neck on the rough
trail, but I didn’t want to face a man alone, with no gun.
Suddenly a dog barked, startling me, and as I backed up, it
charged around the corner and into the barn. I turned to run, but it caught my
dress in its teeth and tore it. It was the size of a wolf, and I backed away to
where the pitchfork leaned against the side of the barn and grabbed it with
both hands.
“I wouldn’t do that,” a man said. He walked though the door with
a pistol in his hand.
“Abigail?” he said.
I looked at this stranger with his long beard and Jacob’s voice.
After
five years? Could it be?
“Jacob?”
He put the pistol away. “Yes. Down, Barney. Sit.”
The dog sat immediately. My legs felt so weak I almost joined
him.
“Sorry about him. He’s still young. Aggie was waiting when I got
here. I milked her and hoped you hadn’t got yourself hurt, since you wouldn’t
have left her uncared for. I figured you’d gone to the Buchanan’s and were just
late getting back.”
“I went to the settlements. Got me a goose.”
He nodded. “Where are the boys?”
“Grown and gone.”
“Even Razzel?”
“Yes. They didn’t stay any better ‘n you.” I didn’t intend to
accuse him of neglect, but it came out that way, and thinking of it, he had.
“Did you get yourself another man? I wouldn’t blame you.”
“No.” Jacob had always been man enough for me. It was just that
he had to see what was on the other side of the hill.
“You done with your seeing?” I asked him. He had grown older,
there was a touch of gray in his beard, but he still had the size to fight a
bear if he came across one. My boys were all like him, big men who could handle
life. I could only hope they’d handled the war.
“There’s another ocean out there,” he said, his voice glowing
with remembrance, “past some plains and some mountains. When I got to it, I
turned around. Was coming home when a war got in the way.”
“You come to stay?”
I wanted him to. Oh, how I wanted him to.
“No.”
My heart fell. It was as I expected, the wanderlust would never
leave him. I felt like all the gumption had plumb gone out of me. He’d never
settle down until he died and got buried in some foreign land.
He looked me over. “You always were the prettiest gal on the
mountain.”
“I ain’t any longer.”
He shook his head. “Can’t prove it by me.”
“Jacob, I’m the only gal on the mountain.”
That brought a smile to his face. “I crossed many a mountain.
Wherever I went, you were always with me, always talking to me and showing me
your love in the little ways you do.”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other, sort of
hesitant like. “You should see it out there, Abigail. The wind blowin’ off the
water. It makes you feel alive.”
“I like the mountains. And trees.”
“There’s mountains. Higher than these. And the trees are so big
it takes a day to walk around one. If you cut one down, you can build a whole
town with the lumber.”
“So?”
“You were always doing something for someone. I wanted better
for you
—
for us. I built us a place
in California. Near that ocean. Hired a man to care for it while I come to
fetch you and the boys. That is, if you’ll leave this here farm. We’ll have a
fine living on my new place. Soil is good and black. And deep. We won’t have to
plow around the boulders.”
When Jacob had left, I’d refused to go with him. Our youngest,
Razzel, was only twelve, and I had heard of the western lands and the wild
Indians and the blizzards and wildfires. I’d wanted no part of it.
Now, what was here for me? A farm that had taken the best years
of my life and almost killed me a few times? And would certainly kill me this
winter. I didn’t owe it anything. And if it had been the strongest house on the
mountain, I wouldn’t have stayed. If Jacob was leaving, I was going with him.
This time I wasn’t about to be left behind.
“I know you’re attached to this place, but—”
“Not attached. Not any longer. Oh, Jacob, I’ve missed you so
much.” And I started to bawl, louder than Aggie when she wants milking bad.
He stepped near and circled me with those long, strong arms of
his. “And I missed you, too. You were too stubborn to go with me, while I was
bound and determined to find us a better place than this.”
“I wasn’t being stubborn, Jacob. I was afraid.”
But too stubborn to
admit it.
“You? Afraid?”
“I didn’t want to take my boys out in that wild land. This place
was so secure.”
“They went anyway,” he said, leading the way to the house. He
slapped his hand on the side of his leg, and Barney shot out ahead of us, tail
wagging.
“Yes. First Gage, the week after you left. If you remember
right, he was twenty. Then Daniel, then the rest of them, whenever they reached
sixteen.”
We went inside. I looked around. It was the only home my boys
had known. “What if they come back and I’m not here?” I worried.
“We’ll tell the Buchanans.”
“They’re both dead.” I told him what had happened to them. “Only
Mally is alive, and she went to Missouri to live with kin.”
“Good for her.”
“I don’t know how we could leave a message.”
“We’ll tell people as we go along, mentioning California. If any
of those boys do look for you, they’ll come. I ain’t waiting here for ‘em.”
“Then I won’t either.”
He drew me into the firelight, looked me up and down and kissed
me soundly. I loved his kisses. It was how he’d wooed me away from that young
flatlander who thought he’d get a chance with me.
“I love you, Mrs. Courtney. I’ve been a long time waiting. I’d
‘ave been back a lot sooner, if I could’ve. Got swept up into that there war.
Man with a gun said I either joined them or I was the enemy. So I became a
Union soldier. Wasn’t particularly fighting for anything, except to stay alive
and get back to you.”
I believed him. “I love you, Jacob. Just don’t leave me again.”
“Never.” He pulled off his boots and I shucked out of my dress,
then stood there in my raggedy chemise, as he took off his shirt, then his
britches.
I was thinking hard. I knew I’d forgotten something.
As he grabbed my hand to pull me into bed, I stopped him,
saying, “Wait! Jacob, the goose!”
THE END
THE BEST FRIENDS IN THE
COUNTRY
(A
short story exclusive to The Trahern Collection)
By
Nancy Radke
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
“So long, Charlie Web.”
They were a’leaving and I
was purty glad to see ‘em go. My job was over. I had brung those pilgrims out
from the east, tenderfoots all, across the breadth of the land. It took me a
heap of patience, for some of their crazy greenhorn stunts would’ve tried a
saint.
I’d always crossed the
country with just me and my horse. I figured followin’ the wagon road would be
a bit easier than some of them Injun trails I’d ridden over, but it warn’t.
Things were fine till we
hit the Rockies. We finally had firewood a’plenty, but the goin’ got worse.
I knew those mountains, and
they were as hard as their name. Solid granite and straight up. The first time
we come upon a canyon, those men all looked at me like I knew what to do. The
wagon road stopped at the top of the rim and started up at the bottom, and I
figured it started up again over there on the other side. In between was enough
space to put a whole town. Even the horses couldn’t get down by themselves at
this point.
Well, we could tell other
people had done it, although I could see the remains of a few wagons down at
the bottom.
“Get out the ropes,” I
said, since no one else was a’sayin’ it. “We’ll take them down one at a time.”
We looked the situation
over. We could see where certain trees had the bark removed, probably from
where the ropes were wrapped around to lower the wagons.
We lowered two men on
ahead, to hold ropes to keep the wagons from banging into the cliff. Then we put
ropes on the wagons, and let them down, one by one. Next we lowered the team
for each wagon, one animal at a time. Then our riding animals. It took us five
days.
We crossed the floor of the
canyon and found a foot trail to the top. We carried up our ropes, and the
strongest men pulled up a few of the mules. We used the mules to pull up the
other animals. Then all the animals, hitched into two teams, to raise the
wagons. That took a full week.
We went on for a few days
and came to another canyon. We had to repeat the procedure. After awhile, we
got purty good at it.
We almost lost little Wylie
Gunther on the second cliff. He fell and luckily landed on an outcrop. I had to
drop my rope to him, get him to tie himself on, then pull him up. I was the
only one who heard him shout. I’d gotten used to listening for him.
He was not quite seven, and
would follow me around when I was in camp, trying to see what I was doing so he
could copy me.
He was the kid everything
happened to. Snakebite? He got bit. I had to put a tourniquet on him. Tossed
out of the wagon on a rough patch? He came flying out and fortunately landed on
his head. River crossing? He couldn’t swim, so I had to lasso him and pull him
out. Twice. Bee stung? He was climbing a tree and fell on a hornet’s nest.
Stung every part of his body. We made a pool of mud, stripped him and put him
in it while the mud dried.
That kid was plumb lucky to
survive, but he made it when others didn’t. Some stayed in the wagons with
their mother, and were killed with pneumonia. Others fell off a horse and were
killed. But Wylie fell and bounced and got back up again. He was one tough
little kid.
When we reached the Grande
Ronde Valley, the whole wagon train got together and made a big dinner. Some
had been able to get fresh vegetables for the pot, so it tasted wonderful
—
we call it hiyu muka muck.
After dinner we all shook hands and said goodbye. Some were going north, and
others down the Columbia to farm along the western rivers. The Gunthers headed
to Oregon. Wylie wanted to come with me, and I had to persuade him to stay with
his family.
I headed up to Fort Walla
Walla with the portion of the train that had decided to go north, which had
better grass and water. They chose to cross the Snake at the Three Island
Crossing. The crossing was dangerous, but not as bad as when I’d gone east and
the water was higher. We blocked up the wagons carefully and took them across
one at a time. Most floated purty well, but one took on enough water to almost
swamp it.
I’d told Trey and Mally to
go to Walla Walla, mentioning the fine land just east of the little settlement.
I went there now and looked around. They weren’t there of course. I was ahead
of them, and didn’t know if they would come or not.
It was no longer a small
settlement. It had growed like many western towns that almost spring up
overnight. The place had a favorable location, and many people, bound for
Oregon, stopped when they got here.
The land was there, waiting
for someone to clear it and use it for either farming or ranching. I’d been a
mountain man for too long to want to do anything but hunt and trap, but this
would be a fine place to come to when I got older and needed to retire. Just
enough land for a house and a garden. That was all I needed.
I knew my wife, Kimana,
would be concerned when I was late getting back, but she was with her tribe,
the Shoshone, and her folks could use some money. The settlers had paid me well
to be their guide, and I had been careful to make sure I didn’t betray their
trust.
After buying the land I
still had a little money left, but a little money was all that was needed to
buy food at the end of the winter when supplies ran out. It could be the
difference between living and dying for some of her people.
My pa had died, so I’d
traveled to Kentucky to bury him and straighten out his things. My brother came
to help me. We’d spent one evening recalling some of the childish pranks we’d
done. I gave him all of Pa’s things, keeping only the silver ring Pa had given
my mother. I had it in my saddlebags, in a small pouch. If Kimana didn’t want
it, I’d keep it for our children when we had some.
I bought some provisions in
Walla Walla, and took enough time to look around and buy ten acres on Mill
Creek, out by Kooskooskie. I said ‘Hello’ to my neighbor, Alan, and let him
know I’d be back. Then I headed into the mountains of Idaho.
Kimana’s family group had
moved, but I asked around as I traveled, and finally caught up to someone who
was sure they had gone up the Columbia River to fish for salmon. So I reversed
direction and followed the Columbia north until I ran into her family group.
They all came out to greet me, but Kimana wasn’t with them.
I was about ready to panic,
when her father told me she was out with a cousin, picking berries.
He pointed out the
direction and I fairly ran the whole way. I missed that gal, and the closer I
got to her, the stronger her pull on me.
Her name meant “butterfly,”
and she was aptly named, being both beautiful and gentle. I stopped when I saw
her, then ran on down the hill towards where she was picking. She had a
cradleboard strapped to her back, and I wondered whose baby she was tending.
She looked up as I rushed towards her.
“Kimana!”
“Charlie! Oh, Charlie.” She
started to cry. “I didn’t know if you were coming back.”
Now lots of things can
happen to a western man, especially in the wilds. He can have his horse stumble
and fall on him, get snake-bit, scalped, et by a mountain lion or a bear, or
shoot himself accidentally-like. Or he can just not bother to come back. I had
told Kimana I expected to return in two months, and it was almost six. It had
taken me a long time to find them, onct I got back.
Autumn was finishing up,
along with all its color. Her family would be retuning to their home at the
bottom of the Snake River Canyon, where it stayed warmer during the winter.
I ran the last ten yards to
Kimana, threw my arms around her and hit the papoose. The baby started crying.
I’d forgot about it, and
asked her, “Whose kid is this?”
“Ours,” she said.
You could’ve knocked me
over with a bent straw. “What? When?”
“I knew before you left,
but wanted you to go honor your father. I expected you to be back sooner.”
“I would’ve, if I’d
a’known.”
I stepped around her and
gazed at the crying child. Lots of black hair and a tiny nose. Beautiful child.
Mine. I think my love for Kimana doubled, if possible.
“Boy or girl?” I asked.
“Girl. I hope you don’t
mind.”
“Of course not. What’s her
name?”
“We haven’t given her one.
I thought it best to see what you wanted to call her.”
Me, a daddy.
“I bought some land for us
to live on,” I told her. “I led a wagon train out from back east, and they paid
me. I figured we could use the money.”
“Land? For us?”
“Ten acres.”
“The land belongs to
everyone.”
“Not in a white man’s
world. And by the looks of the wagon trains comin’, it will soon be that.”
“My tribe has a place now
where we have agreed to live. Wind River. With another tribe. We agreed to this
rather than fight your army. Our chief got us land where we already lived. It
is our land now.”
I hoped it would stay that
way
.
“Because we are married, we will live on my land. I bought a place next to a
stream with a good current flow, so I can build a mill there, if we wish. The
soil is good and deep and we can grow enough to always have food. And we are
right at the edge of the forest, so I can trap and hunt and add to our food
that way.”
I was glad I had gone back
and seen my brother. He was the one who had showed me the sawmill he owned. The
water ran the mill. You could hold the logs in a water pond while waiting to
cut them. I had looked it over carefully, thinking that it was something I
could do once I got old.
But with a child, I didn’t
want Kimana traveling all over the country where I couldn’t find her. I’d seen
how readily the settlers looked for a gun when an Indian came around.
Greenhorns, they couldn’t tell one tribe from another, so didn’t know a
peaceful tribe, like the Shoshone, from a warring one.
Kimana started picking
berries again and my daughter stopped crying. She looked at me with big eyes.
She was beautiful. What should I call her?
She was going to live in my
world, so she better have a Christian name. Sarah? It was my mother’s name and
meant princess. Knowing my mother’s generous heart, she would want her name on her
granddaughter.
I told this to Kimana and
she smiled and agreed.
“I want you to choose a
middle name for her. A second name, for her to have, too. How about your
mother’s name?”
She smiled and nodded.
I could already see the
toll the constant traveling and hard work was taking on Kimana’s mother. She
looked ten years older than when I left. Most Indians didn’t live to be fifty.
They looked older than they were.
I didn’t want that hard
life for Kimana.
That night I told her
father what I was going to do, and where I had bought my land. I gave them all
the money I had left over, so that they could buy supplies if the winter proved
longer than their food. They had their salmon dry and packed, ready to go, so
the next morning he led their family toward the Wind River country and I took
Kimana south to the Blue Mountains.
I brung her home,
careful-like, her on the horse and me walking. It took us nigh onto a week to
get there.
All that traipsing around
took time, and when we got to my place, it was beginning to freeze.
Kimana helped me build a
wickiup, a temporary shelter, then I cut some trees to build a cabin for the
winter. I was trimming them with my axe when it glanced off and caught me in
the leg.
I was trying to hurry. I
knew better.
I ran inside the wickiup to
where Kimana was nursing the baby. “I need a clean cloth,” I told her.
She pointed to where they
were. I used one of the baby’s wipes to wash off the wound, then bound the
hanging flesh back to my leg. Thankfully I had missed the bone, but I was
really going to be slowed down now. I wondered if I’d get a cabin built before
it started to snow.
The answer was no. It
started snowing that night. The wickiup was cold and the baby cried, even
though we took turns holding her to keep her warm. I’d had no time hunt or
trap. No time to bring in any furs or meat. No money to buy blankets.
I was a poor excuse for a
husband.
The snow soon stopped and
started to melt, making things all wet. My neighbor, Alan, rode by on his way
to town, and stopped when he saw the bloody bandage on my leg.
“What happened?”
“Working too fast. Whacked
myself with my axe.”
“Did you call the doctor?”
“I thought we didn’t have
one in this neck of the woods.”
“She’s just as good.”
“I can’t afford anyone,” I
admitted. It hurt to say that. I’d always been self-sufficient. In trying to
care for my wife and child, I’d failed them both.