7 In 1: A Collected Works Of Jonathan R. P. Taylor: 7 multi-genre works by Jonathan Taylor - an award-winng British singer/songwriter.

By Jonathan R. P. Taylor

7 In 1 - A collected multi-genre work of British singer/songwriter, Jonathan Taylor. 7 standalone titles for the price of 1. Jonathan is an Akademia US winner Dec. 2015. Best folk song: If Only (The Falling Man).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781329351738

Book preview

A Collected Works of:

British singer/songwriter: Jonathan Taylor

AKA: Rev. J. R. Peter Taylor / Odd Jonathan

This publication ‘as a collection of 7 original and individual  standalone works’ was re-edited in 2023. It does not contain any acts of sexual depravity, violence, torture and/or sexual swearing previously associated with the ‘epic’ earlier version of 2016: The

Gabrielites – Meat, Memoirs of A Psychopath. If you are easily and/or personally disturbed by graphic narratives of a violent theme, this is the abridged version you will most certainly enjoy!

You can download a free audio copy of ‘Zombies in Outer Space’ and/or your free audio copy of the children’s story; ‘The Gold Star Kid and the Dream Angel’, here:

https://soundcloud.com/jonathantaylorbulgaria

If you experience any difficulty whatsoever in accessing or obtaining your free audio media, please do not hesitate to contact us immediately. We will ensure that all correspondence is dealt with without delay. From Brittunculi Records & Books - Thank you!

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www.Facebook.com/JonathanTaylorBrittunculi

*PLEASE NOTE: For the title, ‘Meat – Memoirs of A Psychopath’  (Not contained in this edition) please purchase the alternative release: ‘The Gabrielites – Meat, Memoirs of A Psychopath (The Definitive Edition 2016/2023)’. The Definitive Edition also includes the musical/radio play script: ‘Zombies in Outer Space’, ‘Roadkill Recipes’, and the horror filmscript ‘Surge’. In this novel, the reader comes to understand how each of these titles is created, in separate genres and in real-time. All sharing a common ‘horror’ narrative. 

INSIDE THIS EDITION

How to Breed Chickens in Iowa p3

Please Take Care of Bethany p31

Porthole: Paris’s Revenge p101 (Cert.18)

Communists in Outer Space p147

The Gold Star Kid & The Dream Angel p199

The Man Who Buried Himself p216

Pre-Installed Navigational Guidance p262

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ©Brittunculi 2016/2023

Print, Audio and eBook License Notes LULU

PUBLISHING – FRANCE

ISBN: 978-1-329-35173-8

Imprint: Lulu.com

This Book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This publication may not be resold or given away to other people without the express consent of the publisher. If you would like to share this publication with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased or supplied for your use only, you should return it to the publisher and purchase your own copy.

The audio/musical works that accompany this publication are also protected by copyright law. They must not be shared without the direct consent of the publisher. 

www.Soundcloud.com/JonathanTaylorBulgaria

HOW TO BREED CHICKENS IN IOWA

A Bird in the Hand

The mind can achieve any mental-state it desires if you so want it to. We all make the most of life and lie to ourselves when needs must, to create our own false sense of happiness and to twist and contort our own sad realities; all to make life just that little bit more bearable. If this is you, then do continue to dream, go on, get on with it and bury your head in the sand for all eternity. I have no need of escape or of dreams and false hopes. I do have nightmares, why yes of course I do, we all do - but my life is already beautiful and the sunshine of California is something to be most desired. My dreams are my reality and life is wonderful.

Leaving South Wales as a child with my mother and father, an older sister and just three old trunks could have led to disaster, this is true, but it did not. Our feverish voyage to America, as so many others did during the Californian Gold Rush, was quite the experience. Dad didn’t really stop to think about the negative consequences. He had dreams and now he had hope of achieving them. Strange thing was that we never actually made it to California. We went northward to Iowa in the end.

We left Cardiff on the 24th January, 1851, aboard a fine wooden sailing ship called the Adventurer, the name most appropriate to us. Dad had just lost his job. He was a printer for a publisher on South Street, overlooking the docks. He would look out of his workshop window and see the ships come and go.  He’d watch the cargo unload and the people board most curiously as people never seemed to arrive, they just left, one after the other. ’51 was a bitterly cold year and Dad’s aged boss was selling up to retire. No offers to purchase the Blakeley’s firm had been placed and there was to be no more work.

One of the shipping companies which transported the printed books overseas was keen to use the warehouse space for cargo storage, and as a joke Blakeley had suggested that they take the old printers’ shop workers back to New York with them. The next shipment outward was a mere two days away. Although folly at first, Dad now immediately acted on the idea of a fresh start overseas. He knew that printers were in demand, but he also knew that gold had been found too. What was initially just a joke was now within a day, our reality. Blakely happily signed the rental papers over to Meridian Shipping Corp. only on the strict understanding that the rent included a one-way ticket for four.

With the bitter cold British winter behind us, we arrived in New

York just 7 weeks later, and to a new form of weather, it felt much colder. From there we took an ice-cold and most torturous railway journey, slowly winding our way across four more states;

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Our final leg and fifth state, Iowa now concluded by wagon trail, as the railway companies had not extended that far west as yet. Compared to this, our confined sea passage now felt like an absolute luxury. Explorers and soldiers came and went. So too the prospectors and all other manner of workers, but we were settlers, we were now here to stay. There was no going back now. We all knew this… and it had all started with chickens.

Dad being the canny Welshman that he was, had sold our winter coal supply to raise money for food on the trip, and we had plenty. During this fun, but very over-tiring sail, we had become very close friends to a native born American man called Archie Barnes. Archie was a chicken farmer and was introducing good laying breeds to the new found lands he occupied. Anyone can keep chickens, he would say, but breeding them successfully, well that’s a completely different concern. This is what Archie did. He bred laying hens and sold them out to numerous states, if not to them all. He had travelled back to Great Britain merely to collect six breeding pairs of Australorps as they were known. Their docility and hardiness was an excellent addition to any ranch or homestead flock. With this in mind you will be amazed at how much I came to know about breeding chickens in Iowa, during my sea voyage west.

School had taught me many things about Australia and one of my favourite books, printed by my father whilst at Blakeley’s, was the story of ‘Kingston, the Friendly Kangaroo,’ - though I suspect now, well out of print, for many years. But I had never thought of or read anything to suggest that Australia was becoming famous for its chickens. The Australorps were bred from original Orpingtons that were exported to the colonies from England. Australians were most impressed by its egg-production traits, and following on from outcrossing and selected breeding, the Black Orpington soon began to produce a fine quality meat yield. Another strain however was the Australian Laying Orpington. This breed was, by 1820, divergent enough to have its own classification, the all new super laying Australorp. The bird had become so successful. The American Poultry Association accepted it as a standard breed into the country in 1829.

Archie had a plan. I have personally travelled the Atlantic to select six pairs of the finest English-Australorps I have ever seen, he said most proudly. With these twelve hens I am going to cross again with Campines… Let me tell you about the Campine - he abruptly interrupted himself, and added much more information to the conversation. It is a most beautiful bird, so very attractive, in fact a direct cousin of the Braekel breed. They come from Flanders, in Belgium, do you know? Trying to look interested I continued to smile back. The Braekel enjoys a rich clay soil. They’ve been successful in Belgium since 1416. Its Dutch cousin however, the Campine, can survive on much less fertile land, such as the Kempen region. (I had already figured out that that must be the origin of the name Campine, but Archie insisted on telling us all about that as well.) The Campine hen has been in America since 1793 but it has never really become popular, but it is an awesome layer, Archie saying, as he became more and more excited by the ongoing conversation, yet again all about chickens. The birds over-here are just not rugged enough. Even attempts by poultry-men to breed from English stock have failed but I know that if I cross it with the new Australorps and… well, I’ll be a very rich man by the turn of the decade.

My dad had become fascinated by the Archibald egg stories, and he seemed to be quite convinced that Archie’s super-chicken, this amazing egg-layer with its delicious meat taste and the fact that it was the most beautiful of ornamental bird to look at too, would be a winner also.

To be fair, chickens had not been the only conversation during the seven week voyage. Had this been the case then I fear I would not be here to tell you this story today. No – for I would have gone over-board for certain. Many of the passengers would also talk about Indians, often quite cruelly referring to them as nothing more than cold blooded savages. One story I heard was about the Tamlins of Gloucestershire. They had left Boston for California, at the start of the gold rush about two years before, 1848 or ’49. The narrator of the story could be no more exact than that. This rather silly lady told of how their wagon train had been attacked, Mrs Tamlin was brutally sexualised by several leaving the rest to our own imaginations, and that Mr Tamlin had had his scalp cut off; the skin of his scalp cut clean away as she put it, with a big knife. Mother would just grip my hand tight at such times and whisper to me, Just ignore the silly old fool, she clucks on about it more than Archie’s own chickens, reminding me that, she’s just an ignorant fool, a bigot. Listen no more to her. If there was any truth in the matter we would have read about it back at home in Cardiff before we left.

But truth was that my father had heard of such stories, and upon weighing up the facts, had decided that gold was out, and chickens were now in. Dad had only really joked about digging for gold. He was certain he would find work on the East Coast as a printer again; of this he had no doubt. He would turn to me and say, What uses have I of gold, Goldie? For I have you, and you are called Goldie because you are the most precious gift a man could ever want. Isn’t that true Mrs Davies? Mother turning to us and adding in reply (smiling at both of us young girls with the genuine unconditional smile that came only from a mother, born out of true love of her own daughters). Your father and I are rich beyond all imagination, for we have you two with us. Now less of this nonsense. I’d much rather talk about the chickens. My sister was only a bit older; we were both now in our late teens and to be quite honest, had made no public secret of our intention to find prospective husbands. What I hadn’t realised though was that we were both about to marry into the poultry business.

How about it, Nige? Archie would ask again of Dad. How about it? Come on, come west with me. I need good reliable hands, several in fact. There’s work for all four of you. Good pay considering too. I’ve lost six of my best cowboys this year to Californian gold madness. They’ll not be back for months if at all. Stay in the barns to start with. Its cosy, a stove as well, it’s warm they tell me. We’ll soon knock up a new cabin for y’all over spring. So that was that, Dad looking at Mum for re-assurance and Mummy laughing back, Well I suppose so Archie, after all, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush…

The Cowboys of Carter Lake

After a wagon ride that felt like an entire lifetime had passed before me, we arrived at Archibald’s ranch, Carter Lake. It was the only frontier-outpost west of the Missouri River, so we all remained a little bit nervous given such tales of woe and of the Indian attacks upon settlers. Carter Lake had formed following a huge flood of 1806 which had redirected the course of the river one and a half miles to the southeast. What remained of the old river course, the Saratoga Bend, was now an oxbow lake.

It is beautiful. I wish you could all join us here. Imagine me, a cowgirl from Cardiff. It’s not an easy life but it is a magnificent one. My sister, Izzy, soon married a ranch-hand called Charlie Parker and I, well that’s what I am bursting to tell you. I am so in love with him. He’s a real gentleman and treats me with the upmost of respect. He’s a surgeon. We met when old Dan fell from his horse last autumn. The men were up in the hills, bringing the cows down to lower pastures for winter. Dan was a good man, all the cowboys liked him, and they rigged up a stretcher and dragged him over 30 miles to safety. They are so strong and determined, the cowboys who work on Carter Lake Ranch.

Dan’s horse had startled at a rattler, a strange kind of snake which is, I must add, extremely poisonous, but it rattles its back tail to warn you away from it, making the noise of a baby’s toy rattle, hence the obvious name. It’s most interesting and nothing like I’ve seen anywhere before. Dan smashed his thigh. The bone came out through his skin. The men secured it with sticks and ripped neckerchiefs, but they couldn’t fix it back without risking puncture to an artery. Death would have been certain and within minutes if that had happened. The stretcher behind the horse was lifted up at the far trailing end by the men in turns to keep it clear of the rough terrain, they walked and rode for miles doing this, miles and miles, this to keep old Dan alive. They returned his horse safe and sound too; Barker she was called.

About 12 miles north of Carter Lake is Saratoga Crossing, a very small settlement, but it has the privileges of a doctor, a saloon hotel, an undertaker and several hardware and necessity shops. The ranch-hands got him there as safely and as quickly as able.  Bring him in quickly! Dr Owen demanded. I can’t feel my legs doctor, I can’t feel my legs, such lost pathetic words, so quiet they were almost inaudible, faintly heard coming out from Old Dan. But at least he was finally in safe hands.

Back at the ranch Western galloped in, dismounting and tying up his steed hurriedly, he shouted, Mrs Davies, Mrs Davies… quick, we need you, come quickly! Mum ran out of the cabin. She knew by the tone of his voice something bad had happened. His distress was quite overcoming, not at all the normally quiet, calm, unprovoked Western we expected. It’s bad ma’am, very bad, the doctor wants you now. They need to open old Dan or he ain’t gonna walk again. Whilst Dad had trained as a printer and was now an accomplished cowboy and farmer, he knew nothing of medicine, but of Mother, she had been a nurse for over twenty years whilst back at home in Wales.

I’ll be there straight away, she said, shouting for my sister, Izzy, and adding, I need the cart hitching, now girl, quickly. I need to drive her over to Dr Owens at Saratoga. He’s gonna operate, he needs help, rush girl rush… Izzy hitched the cart to the Broadmoor pair, the strongest team on the ranch. They were called Broadmoor for a very good reason; because they were the only two horses with sufficient strength to plough the Broadmoor Pasture the previous spring. These two enormous Montana stock-horses, Blaze and Trigger, would pound the earth like an earthquake and save Old Dan from certain death.

Run like the wind Trigger, run fast Blaze, and this they did without falter, almost as if they too could sense the looming danger for Old Dan. Whilst Izzy had harnessed up and hitched the team, I had collected clean sheets and bedding, soap and all other necessities. Mum itemised and checked her medical bag, including a sterilised saw just in case… The fact of the matter was that she was amply qualified as a doctor, but times being what they were, she was not allowed to practise at home or even now, in the new America. But Owen knew of her skills and waited patiently for her to arrive.

With sweat and perspiration causing a mist to rise high above into the air, the Broadmoor pair drew to a standstill, with a single stamp hard to the ground, a single stamp of off-side front hoof, Blaze announced our arrival. We rushed in. Dan was nearly gone on heaven’s door, tired and weak. Quickly, it’s now or never, shouted Dr Owen, and so we began.

I’d always known that Owen liked me. A cowgirl can tell these things. I’ve seen him stare, and without wishing to make you blush, I’ve even caught him looking downward too, down my top. He thinks that I do not notice but I do. I can feel him undressing me, slowly.

I wish you could have seen him working on Old Dan. He was like a Roman God, so determined and precise – and Mum, winking at me, her daughter, just to let me know that Dan would be fine now, he was in the best of hands. Old Dan, by now a very happy man having drunk almost one whole bottle of Copper-Mist, a very fine local bourbon… so called because it was distilled in copper stills and had the habit of completely removing all trace of memory after one awoken from having drunk it.

After we all knew that Dan would be fine, Mum went back to Carter Lake. It had been a long night and she had much to tell the eagerly awaiting ranch hands. These moments were always wonderful, when the cowboys would all gather around a central point, an open fire-pit out-front of the main house, sharing the day’s news and stories, drinking, laughing together and playing guitar and harmonica. It was always Nanook’s accordion that made me smile. It was so old and tattered, the canvas bellow moth eaten and holed. Sometimes it sounded just like a squealing old hog meeting its maker at dinner time, but Nanook didn’t care. He was an old Indian from the Báxoǰe tribe. He would smile out from beyond an old clay pipe and say, If it pleases the ancient spirits of my father’s then it pleases me. If it didn’t they’d have had me killed off years ago… always giggling to himself afterward, as if without a single care in the world. There’s much to learn about Nanook.

I stayed at the crossing with the doctor, I agreed to stay until Old Dan was ready to go home with me – I was now Nurse Goldie. It was the following day, whilst Dan, our only patient, had slept for twelve hours without awakening, that Dr Owen took the opportunity to show me something pressing… There is a technique, Chand’, he whispered. I could feel his hot breath drift across the bare flesh of my exposed neck. Standing behind me, his arms wrapped either side of my torso, holding out a bandage in front of me. I could feel his eyes peering down from behind, over my shoulder, looking deep down into my welcoming cleavage.

I knew that he appreciated the fact that my blouse was now two buttons undone, from the top and limping over, off my left shoulder. A tourniquet is always looped under and across, like this Chand’, over and across, Owen would never use my full name, as if he knew we’d always been so much more than just friends from the very beginning. Over and across, now you try… With his hands stretched out in front of me, his wrists out flat, upward facing just below my begging breasts, I tried to emulate the procedure. Our hands now tripping and falling quite clumsily all over each other’s, as you expect of the legs of two drunks trying to hold one another up after a night out on Copper-Mist.  As he clasped mine, firmly, but also most gently, until his thumb just clipped the end of my hard nipple and… there, instantly, something else was pressing with an urgency up against my Grand Canyon.

Let me tell you more about the cowboys, there are six who deal only with the cattle, and with the crossbred cattle, the possibilities are endless. But really, I don’t want to sound like I’m talking all about chickens and ranching again, but this is important. Crossbreeding is the only way to create an Iowa efficient brood. Purebred lines are still important, but they are definitely not for Iowa!  Jank, he’s in charge of the cow-herders, told me this on the first day we met, – he said, Quality purebreds make quality crossbreeds that’s the truth. Cattle, horses or chickens, there ain’t really a whole load of difference; you gotta crossbreed to get it right.

The horses are tough, spending most of the year out on the prairies up north, Tilly, Ornesto and Slide take care of all that. They live most of the time out there too. Horse-rustling is a real problem, especially during the fall months. Two stay out whilst one rides in, they take it in turns so there is always two remaining with the horses when one is on down time. That’s three days every second week. The downer returns, taking fresh supplies back with them and so on (The 14th day is known as Towning Day for shopping). Each man works ten days non-stop and then takes three off to rest plus the additional paid Towning Day.

And then we have the chickens. That’s my mum and dad’s job. And with me and my sister, who do the ranch house chores and cooking, and of course Archie the owner, that makes a lot of workers altogether. There are loads of visitors, girlfriends and family who come from time to time too. None of the cowboys are married except Charlie Parker who married my sister, Izzy. They say, It is not fair to the wives. They work for many years and save up, and that’s when they move-on, get married and build their own places.

Obviously Mum and Dad are married, but Archibald is a widower. He doesn’t want to re-marry, he says; It’s either a new woman or the chickens. I can’t be hen-pecked by both. He is away most of the dry months travelling too so she’d have to be a very patient woman to put up with that, and he did once say to me, Look at it this way Goldie. I get to travel all over the world with as many birds as I wish this way. Nah, I’m better off single now, I think. His wife’s death was all very sad and that’s how he met the Indian, Nanook. He stayed on as one of Archie’s cow-men afterward.

Nanook

It was during The Fall of 1849 that Esther, Archie’s wife had died. She had been a seamstress from New York and had moved west with him to settle on the great prairie. They had left the new city so full of hope, overcome with dreams and ambition, intoxicated by their love of each other. Nanook had never spoken of this story directly. It was Charlie Parker, his son, Izzy’s husband, who told us, and we have never really questioned anybody further. It’s not our place or business to do that. 

Apparently, having been only 6 weeks off from, and away from the east passage plain, the wagon trail was struck down by a dreadful illness. There were 5 wagons, 16 adults and 9 children (and not to forget, 12 horses plus 3 dogs).  Held-up for many more weeks as tragedy upon tragedy struck, the convoy was quite unable to continue its journey as winter now set upon them hard. It was not so much the illness that took them all but the inability to fight it in such harsh conditions. Frostbite took many fingers and many toes, and as horses would collapse from exhaustion, trying impossibly to pull their load as it sank deeper and deeper into thick snow. Sadly the horses, one by one, became the only source of food for the now trapped-fast pioneers. 

Esther had been among the first to go, to pass on as Archibald would say, to the great prairie in the sky above. Charlie told us that Archie had said he was pleased with this outcome, and as he himself had repeated in his own words to him, for if she’d lived a single day more to see how they suffered, I feel sure her own life she would have surely taken. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when Charlie retold us this story. Charlie Parker was Nanook’s only son.

One morning, having barely survived the extreme sub-zero temperatures, Archibald had taken one of the drivers out – removed his body from the wagon, the last of that particular family to die, to bury it amongst the snow out yonder. By now only three wagons remained, four of the children had died along with seven of the adults. Esther had caught the illness from the Browning children who she had tried so hard in vain to save. Three children died from that family and a fourth from another, the Wilsons. Two wagons had been stripped and burnt by now for firewood and shelter, the canvas having been used to make a wind break as they had been halted by deep snow drifts, long having lost track of the trail. Remaining huddled together inside the three remaining wagons and without any other food, the horses now numbered only four, now just skin and bone and at the point of starvation. As tragic as the story was, if it had not been for the ready availability of horse meat for sustenance, all of the pioneers and children would have long perished. This was a sure thing.

Archie was pleased that Esther had never lived to see them all reduced to killing and eating the horses.  And the dogs had long been taken away by the wolves, who seemed to smell the blood of a fresh kill from miles away. Within an hour of a horse being bled, they would soon arrive. As much as they tried, the three dogs were no match against them.

This particular morning as Archie buried Travis among the others in the snow, smashing away at the frozen ice with a pick-axe as it was snow as hard as canyon-rock, and afterward carefully replacing the broken fragments back a-top to cover the body with as much dignity as possible, something felt different. Archie was a strong man, in physical strength and in mind too. Most were by now too weak to dig and it was pointless that any unnecessary leaving of the wagon should take place. Archie was happy to do this alone, as he had done before for the last in the family lines. He wanted them to be together in death, the families reunited as they, the pioneers, would no longer be together in life. One thing was for certain, he thought, there would soon be nobody left alive to bury Archie, – and as he so desired to be beside Esther again, he had made his decision. When he was the last, he would lay down beside her and with finger upon trigger, he too would sleep.

But this particular morning something strange happened. As he stood up to read from his New Testament, and to say a few words for driver Travis, a strange black figure caught his eye. He had spent many hours looking up at this very same ridge and had never noticed such a thing before. At first he thought it was some kind of bear, standing up on its hind legs, with long darkened fur, but as his eyes adjusted and having now been dried of his tears of sorrow – no, This was actually a man, he told himself. Hello, hello, can you help us, please, help us? He shouted out and up toward him. The figure initially remained quite silent and motionless but after a short pause another figure arrived, and then a third.  A man and a woman were now clearly visible and standing there, much shorter, between them, a child. I mean no harm. Please, we are ill and stranded, where have you come from, is there a town here? Archie now became quite frantic in his plea.

The male walked down toward him, slowly, as if a ghost in and out of sight between the trees, cautiously appraising the situation, taking his time. The other two remained upon the brow. Realising that this figure was somewhat fearful of him, Archie threw his gun away out in front of him, a pistol with five loaded chambers, a rather expensive Colt, in a sudden gesture that could have proved quite fateful. I mean no harm. Take my gun, keep it, please I mean noharm, he continued to blurt out. As the man approached, standing still as he reached the site of the discarded revolver, all became clear. This was no bear or spiritual aspiration or hallucination, it was a man as he had first believed, and it was an Indian, a real Indian wearing long darkened brown bear furs.

By now both men were equally fearful of each other, but both had little wish for violence and none more so than Archie.  Leaving the gun, he beckoned the Indian back toward the camp, and upon seeing it and all of its inherent horrors, in return he beckoned Archie to follow him. He led him to an area way up beyond the ridge, a gorge that was sheltered and quite out of site. At its base was an opening to a small cave, some of it remaining in its natural prehistoric form, but much now cut away by human hands, like a series of rabbit burrows long enough only to sleep in - And in the centre of it a large open chamber, within it a natural spring heated from volcanic forces below. The pioneers were now saved from certain death by an Indian brave they came to know only as ‘Nanook of the North Ice.’ 

Nanook was an indigenous Báxoǰe native of what would later become known as the lands of Canada. He had been named after an ancient legend of an Eskimo King, a famous fearless warrior, as passed down amongst his people. His Báxoǰe tribe had gradually, over many thousands of years, moved south to find warmer climates. Eventually he and his family had settled locally, due to the abundance of buffalo and the prominence of warm volcanic springs. He lived in isolation from his tribe as a Holy man, a man in possession of great spiritual powers, a healer of the mind and spirit. Had the pioneers found themselves just 3 miles farther north, they too would have stumbled across this volcanic miracle wonderland of warmth and shelter. Sadly they had not, and this error had cost them dearly. Archie had always blamed himself for this, for it was he who had demanded the convoy stop and rest until the illness had cleared. By the time came round when the reality of their situation eventually sank-in, the fact that illness was not going to pass, they were by now all found stranded in the treacherous winter conditions that made it quite impossible to proceed as planned. 

Nobody really believed it was his fault. He wasn’t to know. These were new, un-chartered lands, and the severity of winter quite unrecorded. Nanook had brewed a tea he had made from pine needles, and it was this that eventually lifted the illness. They rested through the remainder of winter until spring finally arrived. Archie most enjoying learning the ways of the Báxoǰe tribe, ecology and preservation, man living in harmony and perfect balance with nature. Taking and eating only what they needed and only when they had to. Much of their diet was fish. The warm springs had eventually opened up into streams, the warmer waters encouraging many different species to swim within the confines of its clear, pure natural source.

As the snow cleared, Nanook, Archibald and the others recovered the bodies of the dead and reburied them. The new cemetery remains to this day. It is simply known as Esther’s Ridge. But all travellers who come to pass this way know of it, and of the protection from cold in the valley beyond. It is also considered to be a place of good luck and of heavenly blessings, a place of magical things and happenings – and this is due again to Nanook. For as the bodies of the pioneers were reinterred to the ground, and as Nanook sang in ancient tongue, the spirits of the dead could be seen dancing above the flames of the fire which he had laden with ceremonial woods of varied purpose and type. Charlie Parker even told my sister and I that Esther had been seen to blow a farewell kiss to Archie as she ascended to heaven above, but sometimes Charlie is a little prone to exaggeration… and as he is Nanook’s son, he would ‘big it up’ somewhat wouldn’t he? What we do know as truth is that many travellers thereafter have claimed to have seen the spirits of the dead dancing in the sky at the moment the sun goes down and settles for the evening over Esther’s Ridge. 

Nanook led the remainder of the wagon trail to safety that spring – guaranteeing safe passage for all with his own tribesmen and others. You see, what you know of history, the real truth, well really it is the bit that you don’t really know at all. Indians scalping people, whatever next? That stupid old fool on the boat. How she had tormented us so with her stories of the Tamlin’s murders. What utter garbage. 

What we know of fact is this. In return for saving the lives of the wagon trailers, Nanook was promised work, food and shelter by all, whenever he needed it and from that spring on, until this very day and beyond, he and his family would always come to pass Carter Lake. They would stay long enough to earn more than enough money to take home with them and to trade with passing pioneers over the coming winter months. He even bought and learned to play an accordion. He wrote a song called Esther’s Heaven and apparently now has seventy-three chickens, each one of them is called Archibald. They are quite the breed to have I am told… 

My Wedding Day

I am going to marry this year. Dr Owen has proposed and I feel ready for this commitment. My mother and father are delighted for me and Isabella is so excited too. Izzy is already married. It was a wonderful day, seeing her and Charlie so happy at last. They had an amazing traditional Indian wedding and ghost dancers and spirit raisers came from all over the county. We built a large open-plan barn, no sides, just a roof, and put together a new stage. The music was a mixture of ethnic American and something everybody is now starting to call new jazz. Not that there is any old jazz of course, but it’s a new musical phenomenon spreading fast up from the south. I find it somewhat confusing; very noisy, too many notes all played at once, but when the band really gets going it’s wonderful to dance to.

People often ask why Nanook named his son Charlie Parker, and I wish I had an amazing story to tell but really it’s quite dull. The first ever white man that Nanook met was called Charlie Parker. He was a railwayman, a surveyor who was cutting the new navigation through the settled lands to the east. That very same day Nanook’s wife, Wind Whisper announced she was pregnant - and that was that, he took it as a good omen and named his son after the railwayman. It could have been worse; after all, Charlie could have been called the ‘Railroads a’ comin’. But as time came to pass, Wind Whisper too did consider it to be a blessing. Charlie was the perfect healthy son and they would have no more children. As a Holy Man, Nanook must pass his seed but once according to ancient tradition. Upon his father’s passing, tradition also dictates that his son will inherit great spiritual powers, as Nanook had done so from his father and so on. I’m not so sure that Charlie will make a very good Holy Man. He swears like a Missouri Trollop, but he’s a fantastic loving husband to Isabella, my big sister, he is.

I want my dress to be just like Izzy’s. I want Owen to slowly undress me, to ravage me afterward. I know he would like that. Off the shoulders and a long, long train and I must wear a veil, that’s exciting. He can be such a real man sometimes. Mum says the secret of a successful marriage is to keep his stomach full and his balls empty. How I did chuckle when she told me that, but Mum and Dad are so happy together so there must be some truth in it. When we are married I will ensure that he hungers for nothing. I do love him so very much.

Children? Absolutely. I want two boys and two girls. The first born son will be called Owen after his dad and the second after mine, Nigel. The girls I will call Cerys and Isabella after my mum and sister. Owen Jnr. is going to grow up to be a great surgeon and they will name a new hospital after him. Something to do with curing consumption I hope. I think Nigel, his younger brother, will be a great pianist and will play in all the greatest music halls of America; no, actually damn that, the whole world! My dad was an amazing composer and I’m sure his grandson will inherit his ability and traits. Cerys will be a psychologist just like my mum and Isabella, a founder and campaigner for women’s rights. There that just about does it – it’s a wonderful life isn’t it?

To the wedding will come all the cowboys and cowgirls from the Carter Lake county limits and all my husband’s most esteemed medical colleagues. Nanooks tribe too – everybody. There’s gonna be a five-tiered cake and as much Copper Mist as you can drink; that’s actually not a lot. Afterward, at exactly five in the afternoon Owen will whisper gently into my ear and take me to his bed and make me his…  Chand’, he will say, take my hand. I want to take you on a journey, a journey in which you will want for nothing and have everything. I will make you the richest woman in the world. I am rich Owen, I reply, as rich as a woman can dream to be. I have you and that is all I require. I have everything in the world already. I am rich beyond my wildest dreams. He takes my arm and pulls me so manfully away out of sight and into the cabin, where there the bed awaits us. It is ready, warmed by the fire lit in preparation and the sweet smell of rose petals scattered like carpet across the floor. He lifts me into his arms and carries me over the threshold, placing me gently on the bed. His mouth lunges forward and with a strong solid embrace kisses me to last for all eternity. I want you, I want you, I must have you Chandelle, now, I must, and he takes me. I hear every angel in heaven sing and God’s voice blesses our union with child. He is in me so deep, ravishing me, making me gasp for every breath. I am his, and I feel him sow his seed in me. It is the most beautiful moment I have ever experienced in my entire life and he looks deep into my eyes and says, Have you any idea just how much I love you my dear?  Yes, I reply, and we will live happily ever after.

We don’t want presents for the wedding, we will have quite enough I think. But I’d like us to save up for a car and I would like a puppy. I’m going to call it Goldie Two-Shoes. Goldie, like the nickname Dad gave me, because she will be golden-brown in colour. I don’t want a big dog, just one that is not too big or too small. I’d like to be able to lift it up and cuddle it without too much difficulty and I want her coat to be as smooth as silk when I stroke her. We’ll all travel together as one big happy family all over Iowa, maybe even further, discovering many new things and places. Perhaps all of the guests would give us some money instead of gifts and we could put it toward our savings – I bet Archie gives me a chicken! He is so funny. I wish y’all could meet him one day. One day too, we will have enough money to sail back to Cardiff. I want to show all of my friends and family my children and tell them how wonderful my new life in America is.

And what of me? What will I do with my life after I am wed? I will be the happiest woman in the world, but I will probably open a little haberdashery store. I will sell items collected from all over the known and new world – it will be the best in America. I want people to come from miles around just to see it, but really, just to see me. What’s the point of such happiness if you can’t share it with others? I don’t want people to feel jealous of my success, no, not at all, as that would be very unchristian of me. I want them to strive to be me, to see what they can become, what real genuine happiness is and that it costs them nothing to believe in themselves. 

Western

Western, our ranch hand, disappeared one year. I remember it very well. There was so much snow that year, we were snowed in for months, out on Carter Ranch. The wild bears were starving, but Dad being Dad, did what he could. He would drag old live-stock carcasses up into the woods to feed them. We always thought that the bears had taken Western; but we were wrong.

As the snow cleared in May, the following year, he reappeared walking out from the wilderness toward us as if he were a ghost. He was frail and tired and clearly hadn’t washed or shaved in weeks. Nanook’s wife, Wind Whisper, made several potions for him and he soon started to recover. Dr Owen did what he could to treat the frost bite, but Western eventually lost four toes and his little finger of his left hand. We all knew how lucky he was to be alive.

He’d been up with the cattle on Beaker’s Glen, not so far away from the ranch, maybe just 12 miles or so. Jank was off on his Towning Day and Old Dan, although still as keen as ever to help, had not fully recovered from his fall. He hadn’t been able to ride and was still recovering some eighteen months later. He would stay back and do chores around the place, gently, step by step trying to bring the feelings to the nerves in his thigh back. It was to be expected, after all Old Dan was called Old Dan for a very good reason. He was very aged, but nobody knew his true years.

Western had been all alone the day he went missing. Slide had stayed with his grazing horses whilst his friends, Tilly and Ornesto, undertook a search. It was a complete mystery. The cattle were fine, none were missing, and there was no sign of a bear attack. The heavy snows arrived just a couple of weeks after he had disappeared, and any hope of finding him was soon lost. But there he was, the following May, found when he had returned again safely to us all.

He had fallen from his horse, banged his head on a rock and lost his memory. He had vague memories of his life but was mostly, confused, not knowing truly who or where he was. His horse had returned all by herself to Jank, and that’s when the alarm had been raised. Western had wondered off into the wilderness, in quite the wrong direction, and had become lost in the hills. When the snow arrived he had bedded down in an old mine shaft cabin. It had been disused for many years. The miners had never found anything of value there and had long moved on west to the Klondike in search of other riches. Western had fed on rabbit and squirrel. Using a snare, they had proved easily caught. Slowly but surely his memory had returned and as the weather improved, he made the decision to attempt his return to Carter Lake. His belief was that as the snow thawed, the bears would soon come out of hibernation. It was now or never, he had said although his journey had taken several weeks more than he had expected.

He told us so many stories. The snares had been made from old telegraphy cables left behind by the miners.  They didn’t use them for cabling, but for charges to detonate the gunpowder kegs. They were capable of producing a most impressive spark, we were told. He had explored the mine several times over using an old whale oil lantern that he had found in the cabin to guide his way. The deeper he went the warmer he felt. It was deep down in the shaft that he had discovered fresh spring water, flowing freely through a crack above his head. Most of the lower depths were flooded, but the abundant supply of drinking water which he had found, had undoubtedly kept him alive.

Water wasn’t the only thing he had discovered though. We didn’t realize it yet, but Western’s disappearance was soon to prove to be a blessing in disguise. In the flooded shafts there was found to be a dark congealed pitch that floated on the water top. It had reminded him of the old tar pits that were common back in his homeland, Rancho La Brea (a Mexican land grant in southern California). He said he would scoop it up and strain it through small pebbles. Then, having soaked old pine cones, ignite