Dawn's Early Light

By Johnny Sundstrom

The year was 1849. The wagon train moved slowly along the parched Oregon Trail in the empty desolation that was to become known as southern Wyoming. Martha Bradford was told she must discard either her cast-iron cook stove or her pianola to lighten the burden for the oxen. She has them both unloaded and then refuses to go on any further:

“She declared that if the only things that made her life worth living were being left behind, they’d just as well leave both the stove and the pianola, and her with them.”

This novel is based on the next six generations of her family and the first ranch settled in that part of the country. Here are real cowboys and cowgirls, Indians of the past and present, a faith-challenged evangelist, a militant suffragette, newspaper owner, and many others, linked together by their hard work, rowdy pleasures, their spiritual beliefs or non-beliefs, and stitched into a panoramic story-quilt representing the dream of the Morning Star and its hopeful annunciation of a new day rising in the Old West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462866182

Johnny Sundstrom

Johnny Sundstrom is a third-generation westerner and rancher-conservationist who’s been living on his family’s land in Deadwood, Oregon for nearly five decades. During that time, he has seen the collapse of the historic local timber economy, the listing of regionally endangered fish and bird species, and a transformation of the marijuana culture into a legal business model. He graduated from Williams College with a degree in English Literature and has written extensively over the years with seven historical novels previously published and available from the Author at [e-mail], from Xlibris, and from Amazon.

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Copyright © 2011 by Johnny Sundstrom.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/07/2020

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements:

The Bradford/Rasmussen Lineage

Part 1   Shotgun

Part 2   Rifle

Part 3   Pistol

Epilog   Derringer

This story is set in Wyoming,

where the men are tough

and the women are strong.

Dedicated to

Diane Daggett Snyder,

a passionate and professional conservationist,

with a western ranching background.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to give special thanks to Diane S. for her

support and inspiration, and for allowing me to

use parts of her life-story.

I want to thank Sarah H. and Jenny R. for

encouraging me to keep writing,

Robert J. for all of his perceptive suggestions and

corrections, and members of my family, both immediate

and extended, who have been of such great help.

I also wish to express my gratefulness to all of the

animals, domestic and wild, who have had role in my life

and my work.

note to reader:

Your comments, feedback and other responses are welcome.

Also, I am responsible for mistakes in the proof-reading

process.

If you find major errors or inconsistencies and want to

help out, you may contact me with corrections using the

information below.

Johnny Sundstrom

93246 Bassonett Rd.

Deadwood, OR 97430

[e-mail]

cover photo by the author at Heather & Rick Knight’s ranch

photo of author by Amelia Nardinelli

The Bradford/Rasmussen Lineage

Part 1

Shotgun

A shotgun fires its pellets in a somewhat random fashion.

They strike within a pattern that is determined by the

distance from the barrel of the gun. The advantage is that

even at medium range it can often hit its target without

having to be totally accurate . . .

The first section of this book is somewhat like that.

You could see the rain coming for hours before it ever hit. Of course, this is where it almost never rains, but out to the west where the rare rain comes from, it’s all one big flat with a sky so big that the land curves down away from you, and the distant horizon can only push up a low-lying mountain range in an attempt to keep itself visible.

(2003) Her dad always said, Don’t like it. If it rains more than an hour, I get in my pick-up and drive out from under it.

Most of the water they did get came down from the ridges in two small rivers bringing snow-melt from the Canterbury Range to the north. Muddy in the late spring and then clear and cold through the heat of summer. Fall was the hardest time for water and for the cows. Fall, when any grass that was left fell over from being dead all summer, and the dust of the earth picked up and hitched a ride on the wind looking for a new home.

Except for those years at the University and then up on husband Billy’s ranch, Diana never knew any other place in the world and didn’t really want to. She often thought about how people who moved around a lot in life missed their chance to find out who they were. Like the dust on the wind. She wasn’t sure that either of her two boys would feel the same way, although they both loved the ranch and seemed more grown up because of it.

There had been times over the past few years when she wondered if it was too much for them, feeling guilty for needing their help so much. When she finally threw Charley out, finally ran him off, leaving herself with his debts and empty promises, and when he never came back and she hoped he never would, when he’d finally left, she had no one but the boys, neighbors, and occasional hired help to get her through. That was when she could see that the boys got it, that they knew what it was all about and stood up to it. Probably the best thing she ever did was refuse all along to consider re-marrying, even though that didn’t make it any easier. Back when the boys’ father got killed, she’d come straight home to their place and her own folks. Here she’d been taken care of, had a home and a place to be, time to heal. She learned how to take on the ranch’s business, but by the time Charley showed up, done his damage and moved on, her dad was no longer able to work as much, and the ranch was hers alone to run. It was almost too much and there was no longer a place or a time for healing anything. Even now she was still trying to explain things to herself, promising that some day she would take the time to work on herself and maybe understand it all.

If you could’ve taken all the stoves and furniture that were dropped off along the Oregon Trail and found a way to ship them out West where they were seriously needed, you might have become the richest person in the entire Oregon Territory.

(1849) It was the great-great-grandparents on Diana’s mom’s side that got Oregon Trail fever and left Missouri with everything they could carry and haul, including a cast-iron stove and pianola. As the summer of their crossing wore on and the heat scorched them and everything else, including the oxen and horses, water became scarce and the wagon train began losing animals, a few at first, then more and more. The Bradfords were no exception and when they reached what is now central Wyoming, their wagon was barely being pulled by three failing oxen and a horse. Their family consisted of Carlton, his wife Martha, her brother Paul, and a freed slave named Jackson. Looking back on it, they later agreed that if they’d had children along, it would have been necessary to turn back rather than stay on the Trail, to turn around like so many others had done, like so many others were still doing.

As it was, when the day came that either the stove or the pianola had to be left behind to reduce the weight in the wagon, Martha just sat down on the ground and refused to move on. She declared that if the only things that made her life livable were being left behind, they’d just as well leave both the stove and the pianola, and her with them. When the wagon train resumed its forward movement without them, Carlton unhitched the horse from the harness, jumped on its back and slapped the famished creature into a dust-churning trot toward the distant mountains. Paul told his sister he wasn’t staying behind with a crazy brother-in-law and a stubborn woman, and he headed off after the wagon train. Jackson just started walking in circles softly singing a song about Jesus. The oxen tried to lie down, but their harness held them upright, leaning against one another.

Hours later, as the sun neared the western horizon, Carlton was seen riding slowly back toward the wagon. When he pulled up, he slid off the horse, pointed north and said, It’ll do . . . Now how about some supper. Martha had already gathered some brush for a cook-fire. She lit it and began cooking.

Next morning, they moved north off the Trail and made camp two days later where two trickling streams of water came together, each in its own dry, wide rocky riverbed. 160 years later, the pianola still sat in the corner of the ranch house, even though neither Diana nor her boys ever played it. The stove must have worn out long ago because even her dad couldn’t remember ever seeing it, just hearing the story.

Contrary to the legends of the Old West, most folks were hard-working and never wasted their ammunition on anything but killing for meat and four-legged predators.

(2003) The left headlight on the pick-up was burned out, it needed at least two new tires and an oil change. Chance, the oldest boy, took care of those things when there was available cash and the need to make a run to town. Sylvester, the town, was thirty miles from the ranch and named for the first preacher to settle there. It had been an ongoing debate as the town was getting started as to whether it should be named after the doctor, Richard Ridgestone, M.D., or the area’s first preacher, Dr. Thomas Sylvester D.D. Some local wags had proposed a compromise to just call the place Doctor-Doctor in honor of both of them. Sylvester died first, so that decided it.

Chance got tall late, during his first two high school years, and now topped 6’3. He never forgot a joke. Once he heard it the first time, he’d walk around on his chores telling it over and over to the dog, the cows or the fence posts. At the same time, he was usually too shy to tell these jokes to people in groups of more than one or two or to those older than himself. Folks had learned to drag them out of him, but sometimes he’d just smile and say he couldn’t remember any today. It was that way in the car parts store and at the tire shop. Chance just shuffled a little and smiled as if he were remembering a good one, then shook his head and said, Can’t remember the punch-line."

On the way back to the ranch he flushed a coyote out of the ditch alongside the road where it was chewing on the carcass of a dead bird. Steering with his knees, he yanked the gun off the rack behind his head and leaned out the window with it. He stopped the truck, took aim and then pulled the rifle back inside. Can’t remember the punch-line, he said to himself, laughing out loud, and kicked the gas pedal instead, driving away, leaving the coyote in his dust. His mom always said not to kill’em unless they were bothering the livestock.

He thought of his mom as pretty, in a rough kind of way. The only time she ever used make-up was to redden her lips if they went down to Laramie for something. Her hair was grass-hay colored, but she managed to keep it soft what with all the sun it had to put up with, and like most cow-people she had a permanent hat-line around the back of her head. Sometimes he’d catch her just leaning on a railing and staring out toward the canyon in the mountains. Did she ever cry? Chance had seen nearly all the emotions she ever showed during the years, but he couldn’t remember for sure if he ever saw her cry. He’d just turned four when their dad died and he couldn’t remember much about it. He was thirteen when Charley came and now Mom was looking a bit older, but the crinkles around her eyes just made her look a little wiser and her sons had discussed how she probably still had enough left in her for another good man.

Once every few years the first warm spell came early and melted the snow in the mountains while there were still drifts on the flat. That’s when both creeks became rushing rivers and jumped their banks to merge across the lowest lying pasture. Sometimes after the water went down, there’d be drowned critters and even a few stranded fish out there on the fields.

(2000) Charley didn’t belong. Didn’t belong here or anywhere. What brought him to the ranch in the first place was a mystery in itself and while he stayed on for those years, nothing got any clearer. He was flat broke the day he showed up, asking for work. Said he’d hitched out from town ‘cause he heard she needed help.

Who’d you hear that from? she couldn’t help being suspicious.

Can’t place it exactly, talked to quite a few folks in town, asking around.

Well, they were wrong.

She started to close the door behind the screen, but he turned his back on her, and she hesitated.

Looks to me like they were right, he said. That corral ain’t gonna hold anything that wants to get out. The baler over there better get a tire before the hay’s ready, and that windmill pumping your water is screeching a like red-tail hawk . . . Make you a deal. I’ll go to work for nothing for three days and then we make up our minds as to whether we can stand each other.

Like he said, folks were right and he was right, she did need help. Every day seemed like the one that was going to put her under. She had two Mexican herders up country on lease land watching the stock, but the home place was falling apart no matter what she and the boys did to keep it patched together. By the time fall came if she didn’t have the south side of the barn roof replaced and enough firewood put up, there wouldn’t be a spring for her to look forward to. Both boys needed shoes for school and last trip to the store she ran out of cash before she could pay for new toothpaste to take the place of the salt they’d been brushing their teeth with.

There’s a bunk in that shed over there. Outhouse behind the barn. Three days.

She closed the door, and leaned against it. God works in mysterious ways, but what was she going to tell her dad. He was still recovering from the broken rib a bull gave him last month when he was trying to keep it from getting in with the spring heifers. What she was most afraid of was he’d start in on how they didn’t need the help and it was just ‘cause she needed herself a man. Damn, it wasn’t none of his business. She never got on him about not having a woman, even though it had been four years since Mom passed.

The three days passed and work, lots of work, got done. Neither of them mentioned the deal, Charley just stayed on and Diana kept telling him what needed doing. After the first ten days, on a Friday, he handed her a scrap of brown paper bag with the word invoice scrawled on it. It said, "three days—no charge, six days at $15—$90 food—OK."

She’d been sending one of the boys with food in the evenings and had provided two dozen eggs and a loaf of bread. Diana filled out a check for $90 and wrote a note to go with it that said, here’s a $20 bill for more food. That evening she sent it over to him with Chance and the supper.

At that time Chance was a brand-new teenager and he thought Charley was some kind of man-God. Every time he came back from taking over the supper, he was filled with the latest information from Charley; how to make a branding iron, how to vaccinate a calf holding the syringe in your teeth, how to snug a crazy horse’s head to a rope between his legs and then push him over on his butt until he stopped fighting. Lots of things, even things the boy already knew made fresh through his new hero’s words. Diana couldn’t help smiling a little at the enthusiasm, and little brother BJ was all over every one of the stories, tell me what he said, tell me.

And each day it was like the man and her were big birds circling in the sky who kept swooping and side-flapping away, staying just far enough apart to keep from having to really say anything or acknowledge the other. Both knew it couldn’t last, that they’d have to make allowances, that the other existed as something more than being either the recipient of a list of things to do or a person to turn an invoice in to. So it was no surprise, one day, when he had to call her over to throw the pick-up into neutral so he could pull the driveshaft loose while he was under the rig. It was the first time either of them had heard him say her name and the sharp way he barked it out was all business and get over here quick.

Sorry, ma’m, he said when he’d wrestled the part out and onto the ground. He crawled out from under the chassis and wiped grease from his face. She stood with her hands on her hips, looking down.

That be all? she asked.

Yeah, thanks, I should’ve shifted before I crawled under. Never made that mistake before.

Always a first time. she said, walking back toward the house. After that he was more likely to talk to her by name than call her ma’m. She didn’t know if she liked it better or not.

Cows will bunch up for protection, from flies, snow, wolves, whatever, and it’s hard to separate them from the crowd. Some people are that way, but some are loners, and when it came to settling the West, the loners seemed to be the best at it. Maybe that’s because of all the wide open space, but one thing’s sure, the need for independence is what got Americans into the West in the first place.

(1849) Carlton put a bell on one of the oxen and let all three and the horse go to graze. He had saved back a little cornmeal for catching them. There didn’t seem to be anything out here for building any kind of fence unless a fella could round up and hold onto enough tumble-weeds, and somehow lace them together. But fences would have to come later. There was the need for a house, a shelter from the weather, especially the wind. That would come first, but again, no materials from which to build. The only rock of any useful size was in the riverbeds and was too flat to make much of a wall. The idea of a sod shanty just didn’t appeal and the ground was too crumbly anyway. So, there was only the wagon, its canvas and boards until he could figure out some alternative.

One afternoon the sky in the west turned black and within half an hour they were treated to heat lightning, sheet lightning and just plain flashing bolts of lightning. Then five minutes of rain so thick you couldn’t see through it. They’d never seen such a storm before and when it was gone it was like a dream that almost couldn’t be remembered. The dull roar of the thunder fading in the east and the quick-drying ground was all that remained to prove that it had been there and that they had felt it. Jackson seemed to stop talking from then on, except for the briefest and most necessary of words. It was only a week later when it happened again, and this time one blinding bolt hit the wagon which was setting up on a slight rise, caught the canvas on fire and scorched the lumber. Nothing else was burned.

Guess we won’t be livin’ in a tent, Carlton observed as he yanked the charred remnants of the fabric from the hoops that once held it taut. Might just as well start digging a hole.

In the meantime, while waiting for an idea or a solution to the house problem, he hunted. The deer and antelope he killed were sliced thin by Martha and hung in strips to dry in the heat of the sun. He also kept his eyes on the southern horizon where a cloud of dust would let him know when there was a wagon train coming. His oxen had put on enough weight that he thought he could trade one of them for two run down animals off the train. One day when the dust cloud showed off in the distance to the east, he saddled the horse, roped an ox and led it down the riverbed toward the Trail.

Late that day he topped a rise and could see that the train was making camp by the small springs that popped out of white clay flats by the boulder fields. He pushed on through the darkening evening until he got close enough to holler and get himself invited to join one of the small cooking fires. He tied the ox to a large sagebrush and hobbled the horse. He traded a small bag of their dried meat for some leftover rabbit stew supper and had to explain what he was doing clear out here.

When dawn came he found a couple of men checking over his ox. One of them offered a worn down milk cow, which is what he’d decided he really wanted, but he held out for more of a deal. Finally, he accepted the cow and a bag of feed corn Martha would have to pound and soak in order for them to eat, but it would help out their diet some.

When he got back to their place, Martha told him she was pretty sure she was in the family way, for the first time.

He looked into her eyes. Guess you’ll be needin’ this milk cow then, he said.

It was wind that gave the place its character, like rain in a rain forest or waves of tall grass on the prairies. Wind, ceaseless wind, that would vary only in its direction and velocity, but would never stop altogether unless there was a big thunderstorm on the way. You either hated it, got used to it, or both.

(2003) Chance never played school sports until he got his learner’s permit to drive. Then, when he could drive himself and BJ home from practices, Diana figured that BJ knew enough about driving to qualify as Chance’s licensed instructor on back roads, and they both knew enough about how to keep the old pick-up running that she wouldn’t have to worry about why or when they were late getting home.

The boys had nailed a basketball hoop to the old barn, and like kids all over rural America, they learned how to keep air in the ball and to shoot in the dark and cold. Chance was a sophomore when he started playing on the team, having missed football because of the heavy schedule of fall ranch work. It turned out that he was better than anyone expected at basketball and had a natural flair for defense under the hoop which he’d never been able to practice when he was only working out with BJ. The coach was pleased, but rode him hard, always saying Kid, you got a lot of catchin’ up to do.

In his junior year, the Sylvester team made it to the state play-offs in their division. Charley had left at the end of the summer before and all the craziness of that mess had again kept Chance off the football field, and primed him even more for the competition and excitement of the basketball season. Most of the guys also played football and baseball together. Some ran track in the Spring, but again that was a heavy work time at the ranch and he couldn’t leave his mom and BJ all alone with it. So for him, it all came down to how well he could show his stuff at roundball. When their team won the league and made it to State, it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. For one thing, once they got there, he’d never seen so many high school girls in one place in all his life. It was weird, but he stopped looking at any of the rest of them once he’d seen this one girl cheerleading. That was the night they beat the Reservation team for the semi-finals. She was tall, Indian-dark with long black loose hair that she could twirl round and round with the cheers. She had a smile that seemed to split her face in two parts, top and bottom. During the game, he tried not to run that sideline any more than was necessary, but since he had to take some route down the court and he kept hoping she’d give her smile to him if he came close enough, while passing her by on the run. His team, the Sylvester Elks, won the game in overtime, and then he was back the next day when the Indian team played their consolation game in the loser’s bracket. His friends and team-mates went to sit on the side of the gym with the other school, from over near Medicine Bow. Chance made some excuse and ducked them for the Indian school’s side of the gym. He sat high up in the bleachers where he could watch her jumping and shaking her pom-poms and maybe, just maybe, catch that smile if it happened to come his way.

Her team won the game, and he managed to make it down to the sidelines while the celebration was still going on. She had gathered up her stuff and seemed to be looking around for someone when he walked up behind her.

Excuse me.

She spun around and put one hand over her mouth as she said, Oh, it’s you.

Chance stared at her thinking how she must be only about three inches shorter than him so why didn’t she play girls’ basketball.

She looked down and mumbled, I mean, hello, who are you?

Chance Rasmussen, I play for Sylvester.

I know, she said. You almost ran over me last night.

Sorry . . . Can I help you carry some of that stuff.

No thanks. She giggled, It goes in the girls’ locker room, and then we’re going out for pizza. But I’ll still be here for your game tomorrow. See you then. She smiled and tossed all her hair at him as she turned away and walked off toward the locker room.

Chance felt like he needed to sit down, but shook it off and finally focused on his team-mates who were yelling for him to hurry up. They ended up at the same pizza shop as the Indian kids, but there was no way for him to connect again. She didn’t even seem to know he was there, but he didn’t think she’d noticed him the night before either, when he almost ran her over.

You can’t always tell a book by its cover, a cow by its pedigree or a gun by its holster. Some surprises in this life are like cracking open the fourth egg into a bowl and having it be a rotten one that ruins the rest. Some surprises, of course, are like Christmas presents or sunny days after a week of snow, but the main thing about a real surprise is that you never know it’s coming.

(1999) BJ was for Bradford James, a good name with family history, but neither part of it was handy for everyday, so they just called him BJ. There were two things that he really hated. One was when his mom washed behind his ears with soap and a cloth, the other was reading. His ears were his property and he felt he should be able to take care of them however he wanted. He tried to explain to her that if they fell off it was his problem, but if she scrubbed them off, it was her fault. And reading? He always felt that words on a page were like ants on the counter, better to squash them than to let them take over. What he liked was songs. Any song he ever heard he knew most of the words, and the tune, after the first couple times through. Diana often told him that most songs got written down so people could keep track of them and he should learn how to read better so he could learn more songs. His answer was, If it had to be wrote down, it was ‘cause nobody could sing it right. So she finally gave in and asked him if he wanted a guitar.

No, he said, let somebody else play the guitar, I’m just gonna sing.

It was Charley that really taught him songs. Once they got to know each other, they spent hours listening to the Top 20 Country hits and making sure that they learned the words from the scratchy little radio in the shed. Charley played harmonica and guitar and could pick out just about any tune right after he heard it, so the two of them did real well at quick-study and jamming by ear.

One night there was a special program from the Grand Old Opry that was counting down the Top 40 songs from the past twenty years. Neither one of them was keeping track of the time and it got pretty late. When Diana showed up, it was down to number three, Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler.

I don’t mean to intrude, she said, after knocking, but BJ’s got school in the morning and it’s late."

Mommmmm.

"You’re right, ma’m, we just let time slip away when these songs kept comin’.

Sorry about that, but there’s only two to go."

She crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. BJ went over and stood with her. Please, Mom.

Just two more.

The commercial ended and Dolly Parton’s Jolene came on at number Two. The sound faded in and out, but the message was clear, Jolene better leave Dolly’s man alone.

You bet. Then came some commercials.

It seemed too strange for her to be standing in Charley’s room. Although she’d never tried to imagine it, it did just fit him. Simple, clean, nothing extra. He was nothing if not right down to essentials. Just then the electricity flickered and the lights went out. Radio too. Not a regular thing, but it happened often enough to be a bother.

Guess that’s it, she said. Get goin’, son."

Mommmm.

"You heard me.’’ BJ slunk out the door and then raced across the barnyard in the bright light of the moon. Diana hesitated, deciding whether to say goodnight or just leave.

Charley lit a kerosene lamp, and spoke first. You ought to come by more often, he said. When the lights are on, that is.

She looked full at him, then turned and left.

When it comes to a lot of ranch work, there isn’t a big difference between boys and girls. Everybody’s needed during times like branding and round-up, and any girl who could ride a horse was just as valuable as anyone else. Maybe that’s part of why Wyoming’s women were the first ones to get the vote anywhere in the USA.

(1982) When she left for the University of Wyoming, it was understood that she might not come back home. One of her brothers was already a beginning lawyer in Denver, and the other had gone off to graduate school in Oregon. Even though he was studying to be a rangeland scientist, it was more likely that he would end up working for the Bureau of Land Management or some other agency then come back home to their ranch. Her dad was resigned to it, and when he drove Diana down to Laramie and dropped her off, it was as if the loneliness that was always part of his character was now partially her fault as well. Her mother wasn’t as much help for the ranch work anymore, although she was always there for the branding and the haying, and cooking for the crew. Most of the time, though, she ran the household and worked with the church. Diana knew that once his girl was gone, her dad wouldn’t have anyone else to ride range with him, either in the pick-up or out on horseback.

Her mother was the one who’d inherited the ranch. She was a Bradford and had married a Rasmussen. The Rasmussens were newcomers, her dad only their second generation hereabouts. They’d moved in from Kansas just before the Depression. The Bradford ranch, or Circle B, had expanded to over 4,000 acres during the years since Carlton Bradford and his wife had settled it after dropping off the Oregon Trail in 1849. Combined with 7,000 acres of Bureau lease allotments, it was a big enough spread to make a living on, but not big enough to retire from. So, when her dad left her off at the University, and gave her a quick hug, she knew he was returning to the loneliness of the ranch which was all he’d ever known since he married it and her mom at the same time.

For Diana, going off to college and being gone from home was both an adventure and a heart-ache. It was all so new with people and experiences and living in the dorm and everything, but it would never be as comfortable as her bedroom and the window that she had loved looking out of all her life.

She decided to major in some kind of business degree so she could run a ranch on her own, but the first economics course she took had nothing to do with any of that. Manufacturing and merchandising and their effects on the marketplace. The next term she would have to take labor law and the second level of manufacturing finance. Her other courses were more general and dealt with history, art, and beginning chemistry. She took the chemistry because she had some idea of wanting to go into veterinary as a back-up and it was a required pre-course.

She couldn’t make up her mind whether to rush a sorority, and since she didn’t really know anyone who was in one, she decided to wait a year at least. Her room-mates were good students, one from Montana and the other from Cheyenne. They got along well enough, their worst bickering was over what music to play in the suite. After awhile, she got really close with Marty, the girl from Montana, and they would room together the second year. Both of them got good enough grades the first year that they planned on going out for the rodeo team as sophomores. Only problem would be having to get back to school early when it started while there was still summer work to do on the ranch.

She met William Billy Ockham that year, travelling with the rodeo team. He was an all-around competitor, roping, and riding both saddle and bareback. She raced the barrels and did some breakaway roping events. The UW had been to the National College Finals almost every year with one or both of the men’s and women’s teams placing high. Diana easily made the team but missed part of the season with a sprained wrist that she caught on the horse’s rigging jumping off in roping practice. She could ride the barrels with her other hand holding reins, but she couldn’t slap the horse with the sprain. Billy was nice enough, carrying her saddle and stuff sometimes, walking along with her, but mostly he hung with his buddies. She was still too shy around strangers and upper classmen to try any flirting, but he did seem pretty nice. His family had a place up near Yellowstone in Cody country.

When he finally asked her out it was to go to a birthday dinner for one of his friends. He picked her up and they went out of town to a bar-b-que dance hall with a special roped off area for their group. He hardly looked at her the whole evening and since she didn’t know but one other girl, it was all kind of boring and awkward. At the end of the evening he took her out on the floor for a slow dance and they moved cautiously with the music, careful not to step on toes and looking away over each other’s shoulders. She had just about decided that he was sorry he even brought her and was beginning to wish she had another way home. One of the other guys even made fun of them for being the two quietest people at the party. His name was Tracy and he was, if anything, the loudest one there. When it came time for the last beer toast of the night he let out a screeching yodel and poured his beer down the birthday guy’s neck. Diana quickly got up and backed away, afraid it might turn into a brawl or something.

Come on, I’ll take you out of this, Billy said quietly in her ear.

Then as they were leaving, Tracy let out another yodel and toasted Billy-boy and What’s-her-name, the two most likely to kiss goodnight with their mouths closed.

It was a terrible moment. Billy tensed up next to her, then just took her by the elbow, saying, let’s get out. Laughter followed them out, but at least the night air felt fresh and it was silent when they reached his rig in the parking lot.

Drinks too much, Billy said as he helped her up into the big truck’s cab.

They rode back to town in silence, with her sitting halfway between him and her window, staring out at the stars, and him looking straight ahead at the road.

When they got close to her dorm, he parked under a big tree and turned to look at her in the shafts of street-light that came in through the windshield.

I’m sorry you had such a bad time, he said.

I didn’t . . . she started to say.

Yeah, you did. So did I. He paused . . .Maybe we could try again sometime. Do something you want to do.

Maybe, she said, not having any idea right now what she would want to do.

He climbed out his side and came around to open her door, helping her down. He held on to her hand and looked into her eyes, for what seemed like the first time.

You’re pretty. She looked down. He tipped her chin up, I’ll keep my mouth closed if you kiss me, he said.

That seemed so funny to both of them that they laughed out loud, then stopped laughing at the same time. She looked up at him, and they kissed very lightly, and with their mouths firmly closed. Then he pulled her arm and they kind of jogged toward the dorm entrance.

His last words as he left her at the door (no men allowed inside) were Seeya again sometime? He left quickly. She watched his back until he reached the truck, turned, and waved. So that was that, first date, first kiss, first nothing. Just as well, she didn’t like his last name anyway.

Sometimes the sky above will be pure blue but the ground blizzard nearly blocks out the light of the sun. The icy snow particles get to blowing up from the ground hard and thick enough a man could get himself lost and turned around so many times he’s better off to just settle in and wait it out, even if it takes a day or two.

(1850) Their first winter seemed to never end. Going into it, Carlton had built his little herd up to a total of seven, one of them the milker, two oxen, and best of all, a bull. Although the cows had fattened some on the grass growth of the first fall rain, he didn’t think any of them were pregnant, except with luck, the milker. But if they could just make it through the winter, there was a good chance the rest of the bunch would breed in spring. In the meantime, there had been the question of what he could feed them when the snows came, and come they did. Once they finished throwing together the dug-out house, he and Jackson, who had now gone completely silent, spent the ever-shortening days scything and dragging in anything that grew within range of their ‘settlement’ near the confluence of the creeks. They even went up some of the sidehills and stripped branches from the scrubby trees, packing them on the backs of the two mules Carlton now owned.

Martha continued to grow outward as the baby grew inside her. She seemed healthy enough, but the cold kept her shivering, and while she didn’t complain, it was obvious that she was having a hard time staying warm. There was plenty of dead wood on the nearest ridgeline, but the travel back and forth seemed to take forever. Finally, Carlton got desperate enough to salvage and splice together enough of the burnt wagon into a makeshift two-wheeled cart with which to haul home the dry wood.

There wouldn’t be any more wagon trains until summer and that meant there wouldn’t be anything more to trade for. However, once Carlton got the cart running good he did make a couple of forays down to the Trail and gathered plenty of discarded stuff, most of it consisting of broken harness or discarded furniture. However, once in awhile along the several miles he explored in either direction, he would find a tool or a piece of hardware that could someday make a difference to someone like him with blacksmithing skills but needing a forge.

The first blizzard taught them more about the country than they’d learned in the whole time they’d been there. Just breaking ice for the animals at the nearest accessible creek bank proved to use up much of a short day’s light. During one thaw, the men finally fashioned a short channel that diverted the water into a small depression they could clear of ice without having to stand knee-deep in the frozen creek, but it didn’t take long for the shallow, collected water to freeze over again.

Their dugout was somewhat protected and could even get a little bit warm. A good enough fire kept it above freezing most nights. During the days, Martha was kept inside by the winds and snow, where she’d spend most of the day wrapped in a down quilt she tied around herself and her swelling belly.

Conversation between them was rare. Oftentimes, Carlton would read aloud from the Bible that had been in his family for three generations, and Jackson would seem to be listening hard as he rocked back and forth rubbing his hands together or carving on a stick. One of Carlton’s favorite passages was from Chronicles and he would read it in a firm, loud voice: Also he built towers in the desert, and digged many wells: for he had much cattle, both in the low country and in the plains . . .

You see Martha, that’s gonna be us. This here is good country, I know it is and with God’s promises we gonna make something for ourselves here. ‘Much cattle’, d’ya hear that. I didn’t come here to quit, I didn’t come here to fail, Martha. I’m here to make this land prosper and glorify Him who created it, I am. And here in the Bible, Martha, here when God blessed Hezekiah, it says, ‘Moreover, He provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance: for God had given him substance very much.’ Yes, Martha, we are gonna see the coming time of abundance, very much. We are. Amen, Amen.

Martha would toss and turn on the small bed, trying to get comfortable and warm at the same time, and the wind would howl past the low sod roof and she would think how he almost made it sound like it was his idea to stop here, at this place. And how it wouldn’t do no good to remind him that he’d been the one saying God wanted them to have a piece of the great Oregon land, and how God was gonna give them abundance in faraway Oregon. Yes, she could remind him, but it wouldn’t change the story any, and it wouldn’t change the freezing cold that kept her from sleeping and kept her from crying, and kept her from just about anything a woman might want to do for herself. But let him think whatever he wanted to. Her time was coming, it would be coming soon enough and then the world couldn’t slow up from becoming springtime and the cold would have to give way and couldn’t stop her, and her baby would have to be born, abundance or not.

As winter went on, there was cold on top of cold, snow on top of snow. The two men found themselves hauling wood whenever the snow blew clear enough to allow the horse or mules to move about. That, and keeping ice broke off the water and handing out the scarce supply of fodder for the animals was enough to use up each one of those short winter days. The dried meat was holding out well and although none of them much liked the sage taste of the local antelope, there was fresh-killed meat once in awhile. Just before the snows began in earnest, Carlton had made a trip back down the Trail to Fort Laramie and bartered some of the harnesses he’d found and repaired for a few bags of corn, sugar and salt. Without any way to grind dried corn, they soaked and mashed it enough to get a paste they could fry in a skillet. It had almost no taste at all, but it was food just the same.

Finally, when the days began to grow longer, bare patches of old, dead grass and low shrubby plants were exposed and the cows began ranging a little further out to feed themselves. Carlton kept the milk cow close because she definitely looked pregnant now, bulging out below the ridges of her ribs. He promised himself that she’d make it through even if he lost the rest of them. Martha was weaker and more awkward now and having to struggle just to make fires in the stove. Sometimes when he was alone on horseback, checking on the cattle, he’d look skyward and make promises to the Lord.

Lord preserve us, take us through this vale of tears into your promised land. We will never forsake you, we will build a temple to your glory in this place. Lord, preserve us and the children you shall bring us.

One day he found the weakest cow down on her knees, unable to stand. He dropped to his own knees and raised his arms high in supplication, shouting out, Lord, if I’m not your chosen one in this land here, Lord, if I’m not tough enough and smart enough and just plain stubborn enough to make it here, Lord take me, but save my wife, save my baby. But O Lord, if it be your Will, let me be your man in this place.

And then he bent down and slit the cow’s throat with his knife, skinned her out as fast as he could and cut quarters and ribs into pieces he could drape across the saddle wrapped up in the hide. He shoved the heart, liver and kidneys inside his shirt. Maybe that way they wouldn’t freeze before he got them back to the stove for cooking. He knew he’d be racing dark to get back on foot leading the loaded horse or he would have taken the time to strip the sparse amount of meat from some of the bones he’d had to leave behind. But those ribs and the neck would freeze overnight and he could come back for them. Even a wolf couldn’t chew on it once it froze hard.

The cow’s meat was tough, what little of it there was, but it was a welcome change and made for good stew. As he’d suspected, that one cow hadn’t been pregnant so the loss wasn’t so much and Martha seemed to take something hopeful from the familiar taste of beef, even stringy beef. On one of the first warming days, a coyote climbed up into the wagon where the frozen meat was hung, sniffing and gnawing. Jackson shot it, and brain-tanned the hide. When it was done, he let them know from signs with his hands that he wanted to give it to the new baby. He laid it out near the little crib Carlton had fashioned out of a dresser drawer brought back from down along the Trail.

The winter passed on in discomfort and cold for all of them, as they huddled around the small stove. The men spent days going further and further for wood to feed it. Martha was more and more burdened, but she wouldn’t take to bed and wouldn’t let the men cook the endless stew of cow bones, antelope meat and boiled kernels of corn. One day Jackson came in with some little green grassy buds and offered to add them to the meal. Martha took a bite and tasted it, and started interrogating him, Where? Where’d you get this? Is there more? Can we get more?

He pointed out toward the far ridge where they’d noticed the cows had found some clear windblown patches of last year’s grass. She took the two handfuls from him and put them in a separate pan for boiling.

Get more, Jackson, you done good, get more.

He nodded and went out to bring in some wood.

It was just after that the first thaw came, and the ice on the creeks broke up into chunks, flushing downstream, grinding and crashing into one another. The ice set up in a dam at the confluence of the two rivers and backed water up as if it was a flood. The cows were caught on the far side of the flow, but as long as Carlton could count them, there wasn’t much else he could do about it. The force of the backed up water finally burst through the dam