Lauraine Snelling - [Wild West Wind 01] (19 page)

The map in her pocket made Cassie feel far more confident about the rest of the trip. She signaled Wind Dancer to settle into his rocking-chair lope as they returned to the camp outside of Belle Fourche. Runs Like a Deer looked up from the rock she was sitting on with her splinted leg straight out in front of her and nodded a greeting.

“Where are the others?”

“Grazing cattle and horses.”

“Good.” Cassie dismounted and untied the basket Mrs. Hornsmith had sent with her. “I brought supper.” She set the basket on a rock and took Wind Dancer to the wagon to strip off the tack. After finding him a patch of grass, she hobbled his front legs and left him to graze. Pastor Hornsmith had fed him a scoop of oats and hay back in town
. What a good man
, she thought, continuing her train of thought from the ride home. Both he and his wife, so friendly and caring. She patted her pocket, where not only the map resided but a letter to a pastor in Hill City and another to one in Rapid City. Back in camp she decided to go through more of the drawers and cupboards in the wagon, this time with a bucket of soapy water to clean as she went.

“What are you working on?” she asked Runs Like a Deer.

“Mittens for winter.” She held up the rabbit skins Chief had been tanning. “Cold in Paha Sape, Lakota name for the Black Hills.”

“Did you used to live there?”

She shook her head. “No, from Rosebud tribe south of here. Cold there too in winter.”

“Do you want to go back?”

Another shake of her head.

Cassie wished she could get the woman talking about her past. She’d heard her and Chief talking in their language and wanted someone to translate, but they didn’t offer and she didn’t ask. Having someone to talk with was such a delight today. She’d not realized how much she missed the other performers from the show and their conversations when they would sit around after a meal and share stories of their lives. Sometimes on the trains they talked far into the night. Her father had been one of the better storytellers. While he had talked about his valley of dreams, he’d not talked a lot about his life before the Wild West Show, other than his childhood, touring, and then meeting his Norwegian princess. Her mother wasn’t really a princess, but she was of the royal family. She had told stories of growing up in Norway and her love of riding as a girl.

She made Cassie dream of mountains, so when the show train traveled through the Rocky Mountains, both mother and daughter were always at the windows, enjoying the wonder of it all.

Thoughts of her mother made her throat clench. How her life would have been different had her mother lived was something she dreamed about at times. But it did no good. And her father. Here she was on her way to his valley, the special place he had never been able to return to.

Instead of climbing into the wagon, she detoured around it and wandered out to where Wind Dancer was grazing. Her father had found this horse for her and helped her train him. To be honest, he had trained both her and the horse together, which was why they seemed able to read each other’s minds. She leaned against the black-and-white shoulder and let the tears flow.

Wind Dancer turned his head and snuffled her shoulder, holding her in a curve of comfort. When the tears finally dried up, she wiped her eyes and rubbed his ears, scratching down his cheek and under his mane. Heaving a sigh, she wandered over to the creek that chattered over rocks and sparkled in the sun that was beginning to head down in the west. What a pretty place to camp. It was a shame they would be pushing on in the morning. But now that she was confident they were heading the right way, she realized she was anxious to get on the road again.

Get back to work
, she ordered herself. So she turned around and headed back to the wagon, mounting the steps and deciding which doors and drawers to start opening. She went back outside to pour some of the steaming water into a bucket and shave some of the precious soap bar into the hot water. She dug a rag out of the dwindling hoard and started with the cupboards at the front of the wagon. Some were empty, which made her wonder about Jason. It seemed that he had only slept there and had not really lived in the wagon, as she and her family had.

The next row down, she found more papers, a stack of aged white shirts, several ledgers, including ones that bore her father’s handwriting, and a stash of contracts. In one packet she found two twenty-dollar bills.
Thank you, Lord
. They could buy supplies. In another, more money, but when she looked at it, she almost laughed. Confederate money was not worth the paper it was printed on.

When she had to light the lamp to see into the cupboards, she finished up the row she was on. She’d do the drawers another time. Eyeing the piles of paper work, she wished she could just take it all out to the fire and watch it go up in smoke. But what if she found something else of value?

A knock at the door and Chief announced that supper was ready.

“Thank you.” She pulled out a drawer that she knew to be empty and shoved the stacks into it. Now she had two drawers of more stuff to sort through. But finding cash certainly was worth her time. She closed the door behind her and joined the others at the campfire.

A rabbit carcass was sizzling over the fire, and the soup Mrs. Hornsmith had sent was steaming in a kettle. The loaf of bread was on the rock that was their table, waiting to be sliced.

“You cut it.” Chief nodded to the loaf.

Cassie picked up the loaf of bread and inhaled the yeasty fragrance. Nothing smelled as good as fresh bread. She took up the long-bladed knife and sawed off the heel, then three more slices. Bread was worth savoring and saving for the next meal. Wrapping the loaf back up in the towel, she returned it to the basket and opened the jar of preserves.

“Do you all want jam on your bread?” At their nods, she spread jam on each slice and handed them around. She then dished up bowls of soup and sat down to eat. While the others wolfed their bread, Cassie nibbled at hers, savoring every bite. Chief broke the rabbit into pieces, and they devoured that too. All those years she had taken meals for granted. Food, good food, just appeared at the right times. Her only duty was to go to the dining tent, dish up her plate, sit down, and eat. Thinking back, she could not remember a single meal that her mother had cooked. They always ate with all the other performers and crew, just like a huge family.

No wonder she was lonely now.

And they would all still be there if Jason had done a decent job of keeping the show going. Anger flickered like a flame and caught hold to burn underneath her awareness. It was a good thing Jason was gone, probably never to be seen by them again. Did the others feel the same way she did? Or had they gone on to work for other shows? Most of them were most likely having a hard time too, since most Wild West shows shut down until spring. Lockwood and Talbot had continued through the winter by moving south to the warmer climates.

“More soup?” Micah asked.

“Yes, of course.” She picked up the ladle and refilled his bowl. “Anyone else?” As the kettle emptied, she dug into the basket to bring out half a gingerbread cake, which she split in four and handed out. She decided to save the pickles for another meal, along with the cookies and the hunk of cheese. Tomorrow they could have the leftovers. Thank you, Mrs. Hornsmith.

Bar E Ranch

I
f you cut up the elk, I’ll bring down the applewood.”

Ransom stared at his brother. While Lucas liked hunting elk, once he gutted and hung the carcass, he liked to leave the remaining work for someone else. Usually his older brother. After all, who else was available? “I guess.”
Which means I have to put off cutting those trees another day.
And they still hadn’t run the fence line. “Fine. I’ll do that, and you ride the fence line at the same time as bringing down the applewood.”

Lucas gave him a disgruntled look.

Ransom heard his mother chuckle at the stove behind him. It took some thinking to keep ahead of or even up with his younger brother. Often he thought they should have named him Jacob, the wily son of Isaac in the Old Testament. But then, he didn’t feel like the other brother, Esau, so there you had it.

Mavis laid a hand on his shoulder as she placed a new platter of sliced ham on the table. “I could go ride fence, I suppose.”

“No. I’ll do it.” Lucas stabbed a ham steak. “Is this the last of the ham?”

“Yes. I still have lard to render, so we’ll have chitlings for a while. Maybe I’ll do that today, and we can have fried cornmeal mush tomorrow. It’s so much better with those crunchy little bits in it.”

“That old sow is getting mighty big for farrowing. She laid on three of her last litter. We should have kept one of the gilts.” Lucas buttered and spread raspberry jam on a biscuit.

“Maybe we can trade half of the sow for a gilt.” Mavis pulled another pan of biscuits from the oven. “More?”

“Yes, please.” The only thing Ransom liked better than fresh-from-the-oven biscuits was fresh-from-the-oven rolls. He took two right off the pancake turner and dropped them on his plate, shaking his fingers.

“Hot?”

“Right.” He grinned up at his mother, who had rolled her lips together to keep from laughing.

“Some people never learn.” Lucas stuck a chunk of ham in his mouth. “You want to brine some of that elk, Ma?”

“Not a bad idea. How about one or both of the shoulders? We can smoke the haunches right away. I’m frying part of the tenderloin for supper. Good thing it’s cold enough at night to freeze it.”

Ransom sopped up the last of his fried eggs with the biscuit and heaved a sigh of contentment. His mother was known as the best cook in the area, and they ate the benefit of her talent all the time. Other than when Gretchen cooked, which thankfully was not too often. “Okay, let’s get that carcass up on the cutting table, and then you head out.” He nodded to Lucas. “The saw is hanging in the springhouse?”

Mavis nodded. “I’ll sharpen the knives while you get set up.”

“That’s okay. I’ll use the grindstone.” Ransom pushed back from the table. “Come on, little brother. Up and at ’em.”

The two brothers headed for the barn and, after letting down the winch, hauled the wrapped carcass over to the table they used for cutting meat.

“Let me scrub that first.” Mavis met them at the table with a bucket of soapy water.

“Well, hurry. This thing is heavy.” Lucas propped the carcass on the edge of the table to take the weight off his arms.

Mavis scrubbed and then sluiced the remainder of the bucket over the heavy-duty table her husband had built years before. With posts for legs and wheels on one end so it could be easily moved, the table was used at both the barn and the house, doubling as a serving table for their annual barbecue. She stepped back, and the men hefted the carcass in place.

“He’s sure a big one.”

“Probably a well-grown three-year-old, judging from his horns.”

Lucas headed out to the corral to bring in his horse, and Ransom took the knives over to the grinding wheel to put an edge back on them. He sat down at the seat, lifted his feet to the pedals, and cranked the wheel up to speed. Holding the knife blade with both hands, he held it at just the right angle to the spinning wheel. Sparks flew and the wheel screamed as the knife returned to sharp. Ransom sharpened four knives, took out a whetstone, spit on it, and worked the blade edge in a circular motion to put the final edge on it. When he finished, the knives could slice paper or remove the hair from an arm. His father had taught him well.

His mother brought out several enameled pans so he could put the bits to grind for ground meat into one and the cuts in the other. He sliced the loin into steaks, left the brisket whole, and after cutting off a couple of roasts, left the remaining haunch to be smoked, along with the shoulders to brine and then smoke. He cut up the big bones for soup, tossing one to Benny to gnaw on. Ransom wrapped the haunches in the sheeting again and hoisted the bundle closer to the rafters for safety. Coyotes had been known to worm their way into the closed barn to ravage the meat. Carrying the two pans to the house, he set them on the counter in the kitchen.

“What smells so good?”

“Rendering the lard in the oven.” Mavis pulled open the door and brought the shallow pan out to set on the top of the reservoir. With a cooking spoon, she dipped out the golden liquid and poured it into a bread pan, then slid the big pan back into the oven.

“Interesting how golden it is and yet it firms up white.” Ransom dug under the counter in the pantry for the meat grinder and clamped it down on the edge. “You want me to grind?”

Mavis stared at him.

“No, I’m not crazy. I saw how hard you had to work at the sausage, so I’ll grind if you want me to.”

“Thank you. I’ll cut, then.”

With the two of them working at it, the meat was ground in time for a late dinner. Mavis had a kettle of soup simmering on top of the stove while the lard simmered in the oven. “I was going to bake bread, but this old oven can only do so much at a time.” She set the soup-filled bowls on plates and carried them to the table.

“I’ll fill that last crock with ground elk patties and pack it in lard. Good thing I’m doing both things on the same day.”

“Put it in the root cellar or the springhouse?”

“The cellar. I have more potatoes to dig yet. The deer mowed down the chard row last night. It’ll come back if we have enough warm weather yet this fall. Say grace, will you, please?”

Ransom nodded and bowed his head. “Heavenly Father, thank you for this food, for Ma being such a good cook, and for keeping us safe as we go about our chores. Amen.” He looked up to find her looking at him with shiny eyes.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

Mavis heaved a sigh. “For being such a considerate son. Some woman is going to have a wonderful husband one of these days.”

His snort was drowned in his first spoon of soup.

After they finished eating, Ransom pushed his chair back. “Tell Lucas that if he gets back before dark, to come help me cut those pine trees down.”

“I hate to see you go out there by yourself.”

“I’ll be careful. I’m just going to wedge them before we use the crosscut saw to bring them down.”

Ransom whistled as he saddled his horse and hung the ax from the latigo. Swinging aboard, he trotted out of the yard and nudged the gelding into a lope. Maybe he should have encouraged his mother to come along. She’d not ridden since the time they rode up and got the deer. She’d had a great time then. He heard a hawk scree high above, so high it was lost against the sunlight. Often they saw eagles, especially farther up in the hills.

When he arrived at the stand of pines, he dismounted and tied his horse to a low bush. Taking the ax, he strode to the first tree he’d marked, decided which way he wanted it to fall, and swung the ax on the first cut on the side of the tree he wanted to hit the ground first.

He was on the third tree when his horse whinnied. Ransom tipped his hat back and looked down in the valley to see Lucas loping toward him.

“Hey, thanks for coming.”

“You’re welcome, but I’m on my way up to get the applewood. How many you planning on taking out?” Lucas asked, nodding at the stand of pines.

“Ten to start with.”

“You do know this is the most insane idea you’ve had so far?”

“Don’t get me started.”

“I won’t. See you back at the house.” Lucas turned his horse away and headed farther up the hills.

Don’t let him rile you
, Ransom reminded himself.
Just don’t. Now, why didn’t Lucas take the wagon up there? Could have brought a lot more back that way.
Never would he understand his younger brother, not in a million years.

He remembered the day he and Lucas had been playing, against their father’s orders, at the opening to the mine. They’d pretended to be miners and dug into the mine floor with their shovels. When the light glinted on a piece of rock in their hole, they laughed and said they’d found gold, certain that it was quartz. They carefully dug it out, but they couldn’t show their pa because he’d said that if he caught them playing in the mine, he’d whip them within an inch. An inch of what they were never sure, but they weren’t going to take a chance on finding out.

So they dug out their little rock and took it to the house to hide it in their secret place under the bed. Ma found it one day when she was cleaning and polished it up before showing it to Pa.

“Where did you find this?” he roared at the two of them.

“Don’t know. Just with some rocks.” Ransom tried not to flinch.

“And you?” Ivar glared at Lucas.

Lucas shrugged. “Just rocks.”

Ransom was never sure if Pa believed them, but when he took it in to be essayed, it was real gold. They still never told him they’d found it in the mine, and Ivar always told people his boys had found it while out playing with some rocks.

To this day, Ransom dreamed that there was more gold where that had come from, even though Ivar had mineralogists come search the mine for any further sign of gold. They always said no, that rock the boys found was just a fluke. It had probably been dumped by a glacier or by a flooded creek or maybe a landslide, like so many other places where gold was found in the Black Hills years earlier. The nugget had helped pay for groceries one bad year.

As the light started to dim, he stopped notching trees and, hanging the ax in the latigo again, mounted and headed for home. He’d not seen Lucas come back with the applewood.

Hauling his saddle in to hang on the brace on the barn wall, he heard Gretchen talking to the milk cow. She sat with her forehead planted in the cow’s warm flank, milk pinging in the bucket.

“I thought Lucas was supposed to milk tonight,” he said.

“He was, but he hasn’t come back yet.”

“Sorry.”

“Nothing new.”

“How was school?”

“Fine. Jenna and me got in trouble.”

“You got in trouble?” His little sister was not one to disobey or cause a ruckus.

“Jenna sent me a note, and I sent one back. Mrs. Micklewhite saw us. I knew better, but—”

“What was the punishment?”

“Stay after school and clean up the classroom. We had to clean the erasers, wash the boards, and even sweep the floor.” The last was muttered with disgust. “I’m mad at Jenna still. It was starting to get dark before I got home, and Ma was worried. Now she’s mad at me.”

Ransom fought to hide a grin. Gretchen did not like people to be mad at her. “She’ll get over it.”

“But now I have a mark against me at school.” She stripped out the teats and pulled the bucket off to the side. Heaving a sigh of disgust, she got to her feet and hooked the stool over the nail on the post. “She’s not giving much milk anymore.”

“She’s due when?”

“Not until February. What’ll we do for milk until Rosy calves in November?” Gretchen handed him the bucket and flipped open the stanchion to let the cow loose.

“See if we can buy some from—”

“With no money?”

“Gretchen, that’s not for you to worry about.” Together they shut the barn door and strolled to the well house.

“I’m not worried. It’s just a fact.” She opened the door into the stone building next to the windmill and stepped down inside. “Dark in here. You have a match?”

Ransom lit a lantern and hung it back on the wall, watching his little sister set out the pans for the cream to rise. She poured the milk through the strainer setup, and it flowed into the pans.

“Do we need to take some into the house?”

“No. Ma said we have a pitcher in the icebox.” She motioned for him to leave and followed him out, shutting the door behind her. They heard Lucas whistling down at the barn as he stripped the tack off his horse. A stack of applewood branches and a section of the trunk sat beside the smokehouse.

“Smoking that elk?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I could stay home and help you.”

“Gretchen.”

“Worth a try.” She pushed open the door to the kitchen. “Mmm, smells good in here.”

Ransom hung up his hat and coat and crossed to the sink to wash his hands. “Lucas is home.”

“Good. Gretchen, help me get supper on the table, please.”

“You want me to slice the bread?”

“Please.” Mavis gave the brown gravy another stir and then poured it into the pitcher. “The steaks are in the oven, potatoes all drained and ready to dish up.”

When all four of them had sat down at the table, Mavis smiled at each one of her children. “Thanks for the help. All of a sudden I got behind. Lucas, please say grace.” She bowed her head.