Pony Dreams (2 page)

“Them the horses Michael plans to take to The
Pony Express?” Gabriel asked.

None of the Johnsons had any respect for my
family, but he was the worst. By using Pa's first name instead of
addressing him properly, Gabriel showed me how much he despised my
family. He slouched to one side and nodded at the horses. He was a
mean one and took pleasure from causing pain to small children and
animals. I rubbed my arm remembering the time he left it black and
blue from a vicious pinch. I was only seven but knew enough to keep
it covered so as not let on to Ma or worse yet Pa and my brothers
know about the injury.

“Leave the mustangs alone,” I said.

Since Pa signed the Pony contract, the
Johnsons had tried all kinds of dirty tricks. They had dismantled
the fence during the night so the horses escaped or scattered the
hay or filled the water troughs with sand. Mr. Johnson had once
bragged he would do anything to convince Russell, Majors, &
Waddel to give him the contract.

“Ain't no way for a woman to talk,” Albert
said.

“Take her back to our place,” Daniel said.
“Been a while since we had anythin' good to eat. Little Abby would
learn her place right quick after we gave her a few licks for that
sassy tongue.”

Chapter Two

No one knew if there
was a Mrs. Johnson at their disreputable ranch. Those men were all
anyone had ever seen. I backed away from them and looked for a way
to escape but ran smack into the corral fence. Unless I wanted Ma's
hand lighting up my backside for sneaking out, I couldn't let
anyone know the Johnsons had shown up.

“Pa's...” I cleared my throat when a lump
clogged it. “Pa'll chase you clear to Carson City if you don't
leave. That is if my brothers don't do it first.”

The Johnsons laughed, and I took off at a run
while they hung onto the fence to keep from falling over. Their
futile attempts to grab me didn't slow my escape as I raced into
the chicken coop. After slamming the door, I peeked through a loose
board. To my surprise, those men ran past without slowing.

“Guess they're blind as well as stupid.”

I gathered eggs and thanked the Almighty for
my narrow escape.

“Where are you, Abigail?” Ma hollered.

Snatching up the last of the eggs, I walked
as quickly as possible, but made sure the eggs stayed in the
oversized basket woven from reeds that came from a river far from
the Nevada desert. Making another basket was impossible, since we
had no river within several hundred miles, according to Pa and
Adam.

“Please, God, don't let Ma light up my
backside,” I prayed.

When I reached the kitchen, I ducked under my
oldest brother's arm. He tapped the top of my head.

“Where have you been, short stuff?” Adam
asked.

My guilty gulp echoed around the warm room.
He shook his head and turned to Ma, but she kept her back to us as
she flipped ham and stirred grits.

“Set the table, day's a wasting, and we have
to do the wash,” she said.

Grits bubbled and ham sizzled on the stove
while biscuits baked in the oven. I laid out bowls, plates, and
spoons. Every single one of my brothers was already in the kitchen
and ready to wolf down the good meal she had prepared.

“Saw you out the window,” Paul whispered.
“I'm gonna tell Ma you went to the corral.”

“Nah,” his twin, Peter, said. “It's my turn
to tell on the runt.”

Older than me by a year, they were the
youngest of my brothers. Before I found a response to their threat,
Mark settled between them.

“I'll let Ma know you balanced the water
bucket over the privy hole if you do,” he said.

Peter and Paul blushed and stared at the
table. The timing of their move couldn't have been better as Pa
entered the kitchen. He adjusted his suspenders and looked over us
with pride.

“Good morning, family,” he said. “It's
getting late. No lingering over breakfast today.”

I helped Ma serve the food before sitting
down. Quiet descended as we ate.

Right after everyone finished, we assembled
on the front porch.

“Peter, Paul,” Pa said. “I don't want to hear
about you goofing around while I'm gone. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir!” the troublesome twins
chorused.

As soon as Pa turned to Ma, Peter nudged
Paul. They grinned and glanced at me. Certain they had some kind of
mischief planned, I shook a finger at them, but they kept smiling
like silly fools. Their glee drove home how I would have to put up
with their pranks without anyone around to keep me from going
insane. Sniffing, I hugged Adam. At eighteen, he often helped me
with my never-ending chores.

“I know you won't say anything to Pa,” he
whispered. “Tell me if the monsters act up.”

“I will.”

“Be good,” Bart said.

He and Charles, seventeen, tugged out my
hairpins and stuck them back in at odd angles. After straightening
my hair, I retaliated by snatching their soft, floppy hats from
their heads and hiding them behind my back.

“We'll leave anyway, but it'll get mighty hot
on the ride if Bart and Charles don't have their hats.” Mark,
sixteen, plucked the hats from my hands. “Sorry, Abby, we can't
stay. Pa needs help with the herd.”

After Pa hugged me, he went to the corral
with most of my brothers. I stood beside Ma while Peter and Paul
leaned against the porch railing. The others rode past with the
mustangs.

I waved at my menfolk, even though they
didn't acknowledge my farewell. Before their dust cloud settled,
she made a beeline for the kitchen door.

“Peter, stoke up the stove in the wash
shack,” she called over a shoulder. “Paul, get water and don't be
stingy with it this time. I don't want to have to stop in the
middle of the rinsing to round you up for more water.”

I followed her inside, with nothing but
chores in my future. Before the door closed, a voice hailed us.

“Morning, Miz Weston. Do you have a cup of
coffee for a lonely old man?”

Trapper Andy, the biggest scrounge in the
west, limped into the house. He took Pa's chair and regaled us with
tales of misuse by trading posts and Indians until Ma handed him a
plate of food. With him around, I'd never get my chores
finished.

“Why just look at you, Miss Abigail,” Trapper
Andy said. “I can't believe my eyes.”

Peter and Paul pressed their noses against
the kitchen window when Ma faced me. The boys' merry expressions
put deep fear into my heart.

“Don't swell up Abigail's head with
outrageous compliments,” she said. “She's not used to men like you,
Andy.”

“I never expected to see her looking so grown
up.” Trapper Andy shoveled a forkful of ham into his mouth, chewed,
and swallowed. “I've never seen a prettier young woman.”

Delighted warmth bathed my cheeks. It turned
into embarrassed, fiery heat when Peter and Paul hooted with
laughter.

“Those chickens won't feed themselves,” Ma
snapped. “I'll find my broom if I hear you two goofing off
again.”

It was my turn to laugh when they ran off. Ma
turned her anger on me.

“There's a whole basketful of sheets you
didn't iron yesterday,” she said. “I've already put the iron on the
stove.”

“Yes, ma'am.” I filled a water pitcher from
at the pump on the sink, dunked a wooden dowel with a cone-shaped
end into it, and snapped out the sheets.

As soon as she wiped the table, I laid a
sheet flat, tested the iron, sprinkled on water, and set to work.
The most awful stench of hot cotton hit me hard. I wrinkled my nose
but nothing improved the horrific smell.

“Grace!” Trapper Andy gasped.

“Don't you dare!” Ma screeched. “Get outside
right this minute, Andy.”

She shooed him out the door. I kept ironing
but listened hard to figure out what had just happened.

“She looks like my Grace,” he said in a
broken voice.

“You can't talk about that with Abigail,” she
said. “Don't break your word, Andy, or I'll have to tell you to
stay away.”

“I miss them so much,” he moaned.

“Hush!” She peeked through the window.

I pretended to be very busy.

“She doesn't remember,” she said. “Don't
remind Abigail about that time. It's hard enough on her, being a
girl on the frontier. Don't make her life more difficult by making
her remember she was the only one to survive that day.”

I couldn’t help eavesdropping but stilled at
my mother’s words.
What? Who does she mean?

A mystery had just appeared in the middle of
my boring life. My mind whirled with how to solve this mystery,
which apparently had a lot to do with me remembering something that
happened a very long time ago.

There was no time to worry about mysteries
now. Ma would come inside soon, and I needed to have at least four
sheets ironed and folded before she did.

* * * *

The next three days, I wondered about the
mysterious conversation between Ma and Trapper Andy. Why did he
call me Grace? That was my middle name, but my family avoided
calling me by it no matter how bad I messed up.

A hint pushed through the murky memories of
my childhood, I must have been about five. At some time, there were
two other children in the house. I remembered laughing with them,
and running around the corral after Pa brought home a large group
of mustangs with Adam, Charles, and Bart. Some of the horses had
screamed with what sounded like terror. Pa, Ma, and a couple of
other adults had shouted. Flying hooves had descended toward my
face and then there was nothing but blackness and incredible pain.
Without thought, I rubbed the side of my neck, where I had a scar
no one had ever explained.

“How did I get this?” I whispered. “What
happened?”

The scar was shaped like a horse's hoof,
actually more like the shoes all horses wore. The impression of the
steel shoe was only half there, as if only part of the foot had hit
me. A horse had never hurt me, as far as I remembered.

Lost in thought, I stared out the kitchen
window and tried to drag those memories out of my brain.

“Best get moving,” Ma snapped as she trotted
past with a load of men's underwear. “I don't want to have to
remind you about putting up those beans and peas Peter and Paul
brought in from the garden.” She paused at the door. “Don't step
outside until I have these unmentionables decently hung.”

She never called underwear anything but
unmentionables. Ma even went so far as to forbid me from touching
any of them but the bloomers she and I wore. According to her, I
had time enough for handling men's unmentionables as soon as I had
my own home and children. It was one of the many things I couldn't
know about—as if it didn't exist until after I had a husband.

I went into the pantry and found the canning
things. After lugging crate after crate of glass Mason jars into
the kitchen, I pumped water into a large pot and set it to boil,
and then used a knife to scrape lye soap into the dishpan. On the
counter beside me, a mountain of beans awaited my attention. All of
them needing their ends snapped and then I'd have to break them up
into mouth-sized bites. An even bigger pile of peas filled half a
dozen buckets beside the door. I had to shell those before putting
them in jars. My fingers ached thinking about this chore. If I was
very lucky, I might finish in time to fix supper and clean up
afterward.

“It isn't fair.” I poured some of the now
boiling water into the sink and swished until bubbles formed, and
then I started washing the jars and lids. “Boys get to have all the
fun.”

The kitchen window offered the only escape I
had from my boring existence. I stared out at the desert landscape
while cleaning every inch of the jars. If I missed one single spot,
the food inside them would go bad, and we might not have enough to
eat. Despite that, I couldn't help looking at the only thing in the
world I wanted to do, and fume about how Peter and Paul ignored the
horses.

“Pa'll land on them like a duck on a June
bug,” I said. “He'll want those horses trained when he gets back,
but Peter and Paul won't work unless he's out there with them.”

Mustangs capered around the corral, testing
the fence's strength and rearing up. I lost myself in memories
about the two children, and the day I received the scar on my neck.
Trapper Andy's broken voice came back to me, only it was stronger,
happier. He sounded like a man satisfied with his life, a man with
nothing to lose. There was a woman beside him, next to Ma and Pa on
the porch. They smiled at us as we scampered around in the yard.
Warnings came when we moved too close to the corral.

“Don't upset those horses,” Pa had called. “I
have to start working with them in the morning. A couple of
ranchers offered me a good price.”

“Mayhaps I should join you,” Trapper Andy
said. “Sure don't have much else to do these days. Everyone in
these parts is far too healthy.”

It almost sounded as if he was a doctor. Now
if that wasn't ridiculous, I had no idea what was. Shaking off my
dreamy attitude, I dried the jars and set them on a clean cloth.
One look at the beans reminded me of my chores, and I sighed.

“Nothing stops those darned beans from
sprouting more and more. It's like they hate me.”

I cleaned out the sink and pumped cold water
into it. After scrubbing dirt and grit from the beans, I started
snapping off the ends and tossing them into a bucket at my feet.
The chore occupied my hands, but it left my mind free to drift to
another day, one where all I had to worry about was playing. The
woman with Trapper Andy had come off the porch to adjust the hair
ribbons on the girl with us. The other child was a boy.

“Don't mess up your Sunday dress, Grace,” the
woman had said. “Your pa and I bought it special for you.”