Cattle Kate (14 page)

“Now, I'm not sayin' my Ma isn't a good cook. She is, yes, ma'am, she is a very good cook. And she can sew better than the dress shops in Cheyenne. But I have to report, Miss Ella, that even though my Ma put a right good meal on the table, there were some very disappointed cowboys who come by for one of
your
dinners!”

He could have been a boot-licker, making points with the new Lady of the House, but this was another moment that endeared me to this skinny man.

Officially—and for anyone who came in for dinner—I was still living in the room behind the cookstove, but at night, after everyone had left, I'd join my husband in his home.

“It's
our
home now,” he told me, and I liked the sound of that.

This time, marriage was a totally different thing. My man did not turn into a monster once he had me hitched. He wasn't a rough man. He never hit me. He didn't treat me with disrespect in our marriage bed. I never laid there with my eyes closed, hoping it would be over. There was no routing pig in my marriage bed now. There was a loving man who made me realize what it was about marriage that was so pleasant.

Chapter Nine—My Claim, No. 2003

Business was good at the roadhouse before I ever got there. It was strategically located at two major roads—one north and south, the other east and west—so there normally was healthy travel most days. Jim stocked up the kind of supplies travelers and cowboys needed—cans of Arbuckle's of course (his number one seller, but anyone could have predicted coffee would lead any shopping list); Greeley Snowflake Flour (cowboys said it was better than Nebraska Flour for biscuits); Kirk's soap, Fairbank's Lard, Michigan Salt, four kinds of canned beans.

Business got great when I started cooking. There was no place else to get a hot meal for miles—unless you had your own stove or campfire or a good woman at home. But not only cowboys came to have their noon meal at the roadhouse. So did neighbors, first the men and then they brought their wives, sometimes their children. Of course, never on Mondays, as that was the dreaded wash day that left women feeling “worse than a stewed witch.” It was Mondays when I usually made Ma's Irish potato soup that hit a home spot with most cowboys. Whether their own Ma had made it or not, it tasted like something a loving Ma would make, and that was good enough for men who made their living punchin' cows.

If women came to join their husbands for dinner it was usually on Wednesday, and so that was the day I planned my best specials, for obvious reasons. It was one thing to please the belly of a cowboy; it was quite another to satisfy a cook whose own stove produced delicious delights. The kudos that really mattered to me came from my neighbor ladies.

I varied the menu so folks could taste it all after several visits: fried chicken, beef loaf, steaks, baked chicken and dumplings, beef stew, stewed chicken—the list went on, depending on what I had on hand or could kill. There were always corn muffins at every meal and I found folks were wild for my escalloped corn—my secret was the bits of real butter I put over the top that made the dish so good, grown men were seen licking their plates. I usually had a pot of soup on the back burner—I threw everything left over into the pot and it cooked up real nice—but my tomato soup with its secret teaspoon of soda was a favorite. And of course, nobody went away without a piece of pie. Once I decided to make cake instead of pie and while they ate every crumb, one cowboy after another politely asked if I could please have pie the next time they came. I scored big with my pig's foot jelly.

I got to know our neighbors through these dinners, although “neighbor” in these parts meant folks who lived miles and miles away. I was disheartened that the only exception to that rule was the big cabin on the Broken Box Ranch of one A.J. Bothwell which sat between the roadhouse and my claim. Darn, why did
he
have to be my only real neighbor?

It was at a Wednesday dinner that I first met Canzada Earnest, who became my favorite person on the Sweetwater. Mattie, as everyone called her, was older than me, but of the same sturdy stock. She always wore a sunbonnet and a smile on her face, and the stories she could tell! I could sit forever and listen to this woman tell about the adventures of her life. My favorite was the time she was traveling by stage from South Dakota to her sister's in Texas and ran into bandits. She had been warned the Indians were on the warpath and road agents were holding up stagecoaches left and right, but that hadn't stopped her. She sewed her fortune—three thousand dollars in gold!—into her petticoats and put two dollars in her purse. Sure enough, here came the road agents and they ordered everyone out and told them to hand over all their money. Mattie started to cry and asked if they'd take a poor girl's last two dollars, and danged if they not only gave her back her money, but five more dollars besides! Folks would cheer and chuckle for a half-hour over that story and Mattie would just smile like it was something any brave girl would do.

And then Boney Earnest would chime in with praise for his wife. How they'd hunted together and she'd fought Indians and herded cattle and they both knew a whole cast of colorful characters. “Like who?” somebody always asked, and that opened the door to stories about Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill.

One day, this stranger who was visiting one of the ranchers sat there with a pen and notebook all afternoon, writing down what Mattie said. When Boney called him on it, he introduced himself as Owen Wister and said he was a writer and found the West fascinating. Boney snickered and said it wasn't so fascinating when you were living it, and then everyone slapped their thighs in agreement. Yes, when the Earnests came to dinner, I knew to put on an extra pot of coffee and cut some more pie because it was going to be a full afternoon of stories.

I always hoped that Tom Sun would bring his nice missus to dinner so I could tell Mrs. Sun how we had the wonderful Mary Hayes in common, but he never did. The one time I brought it up to him, he screwed up his nose like he wouldn't want his wife to associate with me.

Things got even better at the end of June when Jim was appointed postmaster and the new Sweetwater Post Office opened in the roadhouse. Now folks came here to get their mail and darned if they didn't time it so they could have dinner, too.

At fifty cents a meal, my money box was filling up fast. Jimmy teased me about my growing wealth. “So you think you're rich now, do you?” he'd coo, and then tell me about the astonishing kinds of money some folks had.

“Well, you aren't exactly Andrew Carnegie,” he told me one day as he shared the news from the local paper that the industrialist was on another spending spree. “He already gave a half million dollars to Pittsburgh to build a library—do they have gold desks or what?—and now he's giving one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars to Allegheny City for a library and music hall.” Neither of us could fathom that kind of money, especially money that could be
given away
!

I came up with a great idea.“We should tell him about Rawlins. They could use some of that money. They don't have a library either.”

Jimmy agreed. “I bet if he knew what a fine town we had, he'd really think about it. Just think, Rawlins is only eighteen years old and they already have an Opera House, and poor Allegheny City, which is probably a hundred years old, doesn't.” Jimmy smiled at his fine point and I hoped that would remind him he'd promised we'd go to the Opera House one night so I could wear my beautiful hair comb.

Jimmy and I saw eye-to-eye on most things. But not on the Statue of Liberty. I was surprised that not only had Jimmy not contributed—Pa had proudly sent fifty cents—but he thought the effort was a waste of money. “You don't give somebody a statue and then tell them they have to build the pedestal for it—that isn't a gift,” he argued, and I knew that logic held sway with a lot of Americans who still sat on their pocketbooks. “And a bronze woman—what does that mean?”

I thought it meant a lot. I was proud that the symbol of our country would be a woman holding a torch of light. I started to say so out loud and then thought better of it. But I'm convinced if France had given America a military man on a horse, there wouldn't be all this fuss about raising money for the pedestal to put it on.

The loan Jimmy gave me to get started was all paid up by the time the new post office opened, and now my money box was dedicated to the two-room cabin Fales and I would build. Every day after dinner, I'd ride over to my land and help until sundown. By the third trip, I vowed to get myself a western saddle, hang it if it wasn't lady-like, because this sidesaddle-riding was ridiculous out here. A new saddle went on the wish list.

I know I amazed Fales at how strong I was, and how I could work like a man. “Your Pa sure raised you right,” he complimented one day. I'd spent most of my life working with Pa and my brothers, so I knew how to work with men to get things done. First thing, you can't be bossy. They don't like that. They'll do something the wrong way rather than take a bossy command from a woman.

“Fales, do you think we could do it this way?” That's the way to get a man to do it how you want it done.

My knowledge of men didn't work on Bothwell. I didn't know for a long time that he was harassing Fales, but finally it all came out when progress on the cabin seemed so painfully slow.

“Miss Ella, Bothwell has been around making trouble. He pulled up one day and sounded like he was the law. ‘And what do you think you're doing'?” Fales could imitate Bothwell dead-on.

“I told him that I was building a house for that nice Ella Watson who was filing claim on this land under the Homestead Act. Well he huffed and puffed like he was going to have a stroke, right there on his horse, wearing his red vest.

“He spat at me, ‘You know you're right in the middle of my grazing land.' I wanted to laugh out loud, but I've lived in these parts long enough to know that wasn't a smart thing to do.

“I did tell him, polite like, ‘Mr. Bothwell, this ain't your land. This is homesteading land and Miss Ella is going to be our newest homesteader.' I thought he was going to pistol-whip me right there. He swore instead and said, ‘We'll see about that. This has been my pasture for a long time and I intend to see it stay that way.' And then he galloped off.”

“Oh, I can't stand that man.”

I don't think Fales was even surprised the next day when he found everything he'd done had been torn apart. He only got things back together because he brought his friend, Frank Buchanan, to help out. Frank was always our fall-back guy when we had extra work, and Fales now knew he'd need to keep Frank on for awhile.

Frank was convinced the worst was over. “Bothwell has got to accept that when this cabin is up, the claim is real, and there's nothing he can do about it.”

But everything was torn apart the next day, too, and so Fales decided to camp on the land at night to keep away the “critters” who liked to throw logs all over the place. He set up his sleeping rug beside a partial wall and sat there all night with his rifle resting across his lap.

I knew the men could use my help, so I hurried after the noon meal each day to get out to the claim. I was mixing mud the day four cowboys rode up and acted like ruffians. I didn't bother wondering who had sent them.

“So now you've got a woman mixin' mud for a house that's never gonna stand,” one of the cowboys said, and the others screamed like it was funny.

“We're building my cabin,” I told them, as though this were news.

“Lady, you're never gonna live here in the middle of Mr. Bothwell's pasture. This isn't a place for a lady on her own, is it men?” All four of them grunted agreement.

“I hear there's Injun pox in the soil,” one of the cowboys said. “They liked to bury their dead around here and a lot of them had the pox and I'd be real scared to dig where I could get smallpox.” I had never heard of such a thing, but the look on Fales' face said there could be some truth in that.

“If I were you, ma'am, I'd just move on or go back to Rawlins and forget this cabin out here and forget any claims. You know this is all Mr. Bothwell's land.”

I knew it would do no good to talk back, so I kept working and wouldn't look at them and eventually their game got tiring and they rode off.

“Ignore 'em,” was all Fales said about the visit that day.

The next day there was a skull left where my front door would be—Fales insisted it meant nothing, but I knew it was a death warning. Then there was a skull and crossbones. Then some more vandalism. If we went two days without a warning sign, we were lucky. I found myself having second helpings of second thoughts.

“Maybe my claim is in the wrong place,” I offered to Jimmy one night in bed, and I thought he was going to go through the roof.

“Is Bothwell scaring you? You know he's all bluster. That isn't his pasture land. That land belongs to the government of the United States of America and they have offered it for homesteading. If you don't claim it, somebody else will. If Bothwell had any sense, he'd have filed a claim himself. But no, he thinks he's due the land because his cows like to graze there. Too bad. That's not the way it works anymore.” Jimmy was so hopped up, I double-assured him I wasn't too scared. I swore I'd never give up my claim. I knew every word he said was true. And most of all, I sure didn't want my new husband thinking he'd married a coward who could be run off by a bully. But in my heart, I knew Bothwell was more dangerous than Jimmy wanted to allow.

There is a comfort in knowing you're on the right side of the law and your enemy is on the wrong side. In any decent society, being on the right side is exactly where you should be.

When Bothwell couldn't scare me out, he changed tactics. He showed up at the roadhouse one day, all nice and gentlemanly, ordered dinner, and then started up a friendly conversation.

“You know, Miss Watson, I run my cattle out there by that land where you're plannin' a claim, and I know it's a great inconvenience to move, so I'd like to offer you top dollar for that land—now I know it isn't rightly your land, but you have made an investment in getting those logs and hiring those men and I want to make it right by you. So I'll buy the land from you and you can find yourself another nice spot somewhere else and we'll all be happy.”

“Mr. Bothwell, I'm very happy with the land I'm claiming,” I spoke slowly and evenly. “But thank you for the nice offer.” My heart was racing so hard, I feared he could hear it. But again, I was proud of myself for standing up to him.

He tried another day, this time coming at me like I was the object of his heart. “I have a beautiful ranch house up the way—I know you've admired it on the way to that land—and it needs a woman like you to make it a real home and I'm hoping you will consider that seriously, Miss Watson.” I hardly knew what to say. It was nothing but an obscene offer. Jim walked in right after that speech and although he was a lot shorter and smaller than Al Bothwell, he looked like he wanted to punch his lights out.