When our train left Colorado Springs and headed out into those vast
stretches of the prairie, which spread East like a great green ocean
from the foot of Pike’s Peak, all the sensations of Christopher
Columbus setting sail for a new world, and a few peculiarly my own,
mingled in my breast.
As the train pounded along I stole a look at Owen. He was absorbed in
the contemplation of a map of our new holdings. Under that calm
exterior I suspected hidden attributes of the primitive man. Certainly
there was some reason why Western life was to his liking, having had
the chance to choose.
It was late in the afternoon when we found ourselves on the platform
of the solitary little wayside station. The train went rushing on
through the July sunshine, as if impatient at the stop. Our fellow
passengers had drawn their heads back from the car windows, after
vainly trying to see what apparently sane people could find to stop
for in a place like that. In truth, there was little—a water tank, a
section house, two cottages and one store.
A combination station-agent and baggage-man stood on the platform.
Near a hitching rack a tall individual was waving his long arms about
like a windmill as he beckoned us to approach. Owen picked up the
bags; I trudged along behind with various coats and packages, stopping
midway between platform and wagon to disengage a large tumbleweed,
which had rolled merrily to my feet and attached itself to my skirt.
The tall man took a few steps in our direction, still holding the
reins in his hand. With one eye he gave us a greeting, while he kept
the other on the lunging horses. He was hardly a prepossessing person
at first sight, except for his smile. I felt that his keen black eyes
had sized us up in one quick glance. I became blushingly conscious of
being a new bride, and from “the East.”
“How-de-do? Whoa, now, Brownie. Just get in folks,—the old man had to
go to town, so he sent me to meet you, but he’ll be back by the time
we get to the ranch.” All this in one breath, while he helped Owen
place the bags in the wagon.
“Don’t mind the horses; they’re plumb gentle—just a little excited
now over the train, that’s all. Whoa now,” with decided emphasis.
“Sorry, Mrs. Brook, hope you didn’t hurt yourself”—this last as the
horses suddenly backed and knocked my foot off the step. “Oh, no, not
at all,” I replied, hastily scrambling into the wagon and thanking
heaven that I had landed on the seat before they gave an unexpected
lurch forward. Owen got in beside the driver; the horses reared and
started off. I gripped the seat and my hat, and fastened my eyes on
the horses’ ears. When we had crossed the railroad and the movement
was more steady, I began to “take notice” of things about me, and the
conversation going on in the front seat reached me in fragments.
The driver said he was called “Tex.” He was a true son of Texas, and
it was not difficult to imagine that particles of his native soil
still clung to him. The deep creases in his neck were so filled with
dirt that he looked like a charcoal sketch. As he turned his face,
lined and seamed, I saw that his chin was covered with at least a
week’s growth of greyish-black beard. I estimated his age. He might
have been fifty; very quick in speech and action, yet there was a
subdued power about the man. He managed the horses easily, and I
caught in his drawling speech a casual, half-bantering tone.
“Wonder if them grips is botherin’ the Missus. Ridin’ all right?” he
asked, turning with solicitude to see the location of the bags. As it
happened, they were all located on top of my feet. It was Owen who
removed them, for Tex’s attention was again engaged with Brownie, who
suddenly landed quite outside the road. A cotton-tail had jumped from
behind a rattleweed.
“Quit that now, Brownie. You never did have no sense.” The drawl was
half-sarcastic. “’Pears like you ain’t never seen no rabbits before,
’stead a bein’ raised with ’em.” Brownie gave a little shake of her
pretty head and crowded her long-suffering mate back into the road
again. I was becoming very much interested. This man was a distinctly
new type to me. I did not know then that he was the old-time
cow-puncher, with an ease of manner a Chesterfield might have envied,
and an unfailing, almost deferential, courtesy toward women.
Never shall I forget that first drive across the prairie,—not a
house, not a tree in sight, except where the cottonwoods traced the
borders of a waterless creek. Gently rolling hills were all about us,
instead of the flat country I had expected to see; hills which failed
to reveal anything when we reached the top, but yet higher hills to
climb. An unexpected vastness seemed to extend to the very boundaries
of the unknown, as we looked about on all sides, only to see the soft
green circle of the hills, on which the bluest of skies gently rested,
sweep about us. I felt the spell of unlimited space, and smiled as I
thought of the tearful farewell of one of my bridesmaids. She had
“hated” to think of my being “cooped up on a ranch.” “Cooped up” here,
when for the first time I realized what unhampered freedom might mean
in a country left as God had made it, with so little trace of man’s
interference!
At last we came to a gate made of three strands of barbed wire,
fastened together in the middle and attached to a stick at each end.
It was a real gate when up, but when opened, it was a floppy invention
of the Evil One, designed to tax the patience of a saint. The strands
of wire got mixed and crossed and grew perceptibly shorter, so that it
required superhuman strength and something of a disposition to get the
end of the stick through the loop of wire, which held it in place
again.
This gate marked the Southern boundary of the ranch, ten miles from
the railroad station. We reached the top of a hill and looked up a
long valley, where the creek wound its way, fringed by great
cottonwood trees, until its source was lost behind three prominent
buttes, purple in the haze of the late afternoon. Beyond the buttes
stood Pike’s Peak, snow-capped and alone, guardian of the valley, the
whole length of which it commanded. Through some peculiarity of
position all the other peaks of the Rockies remained invisible, while
this one mountain rose in majestic isolation from the plain.
Tex stopped the horses for a moment, and without a word pointed with
the whip toward a clump of cottonwoods in the distance.
“The ranch?” I asked.
He nodded.
In the beautiful valley it stood, the white fences, corrals and
outbuildings gleaming in the sun. Nestled among the trees, planted so
densely that only a suggestion of its white walls showed between them,
was the house—our first home!
As we drove up to the gate, a short man, with a thick beard, bustled
out to meet us.
“Well, here you are! Got here all right. Sorry I couldn’t meet you.
Come right in. You must be tired settin’.” And before we quite
realized that we had arrived, we were ushered into the house through
the back door.
As a matter of fact, there was no front door. Two outside doors opened
into the kitchen, one on either side, and since the kitchen was in
truth the “living-room,” what need of a front door?
A placid-faced, elderly woman greeted us, and after a few moments
conducted us up a crooked stairway to a room under the eaves.
Owen left hastily “to look around outside,” and I followed as quickly
as possible for I knew that if I looked around inside for any length
of time, I should start back to the railroad station on foot.
Old Mr. and Mrs. Bohm had lived on the place for over thirty years in
this house, which was the evolution of a dug-out, with many subsequent
periods in prospect before it became a possible home. Mrs. Bohm had
recently been having “fainting spells,” which frightened her husband
into a plan to dispose of the ranch and live in town.
It was a wonderful ranch. Acres on acres of richest grass, a wealth of
hay land and natural water holes,—a paradise for stock. To poor
homesick me, this place had no suggestion of paradise. It looked run
down and disorderly; the fences around the house were adorned with
everything from old battered tin buckets and mowing-machine wheels to
the smallest piece of rusty wire. Mrs. Bohm confided to me that “James
liked it that way because everything was so handy.” There was no
questioning that, but as a first impression it was hopeless, and my
heart grew heavier and heavier as I thought of the new house in
Wyoming, where we had expected to be, and the Eastern home I had just
left.
I walked out of sight of the festooned fence and tried to think. Up
the valley the Peak was deep blue against the golden evening sky, and
in the vast, unbroken silence of the prairies I felt the sense of
chaos and confusion give way to peace. The old house, tumble-down
fences, mowing machine wheels and wire took an inconsequent place in
the scale of things compared to Owen’s undertaking. He _must_ succeed.
The undesirable could be removed or made over. We were in a new world,
we had a great domain, we faced undreamed of experiences and
possibilities. My spirits rose with a bound, and I resolved from that
moment to consider our life here in the West, in the midst of new
conditions, a great adventure. At that instant the original Bohm
dug-out would have held no terrors for me.
Perhaps if I had known just how great the adventure was to be, what
varied and nerve-testing experiences the future did hold, I might have
been daunted; but with a farewell look at the Peak and a new sense of
strength and courage, I went to meet Owen. I realized that he knew the
possibilities of the place and that the conditions would all soon be
changed, and I knew, too, that he was distressed at the realization of
how it must all appear to me. He looked troubled, as he came toward
me.
“Can you stand it for a little while?” he asked.
“Of course, I can,” I replied, cheerfully, blindly taking the first
step toward the great adventure.
“It’s all right, dear; it’s going to be wonderful, living here.”
Mr. and Mrs. Bohm, Tex and six bashful cow-punchers were in the
kitchen waiting for us before they sat down to supper. We were
presented to the men, and in acknowledgment of the introduction
received a fleeting glance from six pairs of diffident eyes and a
quick jerk from six slickly brushed heads.
Mrs. Bohm took her seat at the foot of the long oil-cloth-covered
table, and old Mr. Bohm sat at the head. Fortunate for me that Owen
and I sat side by side. If once during that meal I had caught his eye,
I should have disgraced myself forever.
Except old Bohm, no one said anything. Indeed, no one had a chance,
for he talked all the time, telling stories, cracking jokes at which
he laughed immoderately, interspersing his conversation with waves of
his fork, with which from time to time he reflectively combed his
beard. I could not take my eyes off him; there was a weird fascination
in following the movements of that fork. It was prescience which led
me to do so, for old Bohm suddenly ceased using it as a toilet article
and jabbed it into a piece of meat, which he held out toward me.
“Here, Mrs. Brook, have some more beef. I’ve been talkin’ along here
and clean forgot you folks must be hungry.” I assured him I couldn’t
eat another bite. It was the most truthful statement of my life.
That night I lay awake for hours, thinking over the day’s experiences,
and incidentally trying to find a spot on the mattress where a lump
did not threaten to press a rib out of place. At last I fell asleep,
to be suddenly awakened by the slam of a gate under our window,
followed by an exclamation which floated up out of the grey dawn: “By
hell, but this is a fine day.” Then came the squeak of the pump
handle, as old Bohm performed his morning ablutions, more slams of the
gate, and more salutations of the same order in varying phraseology,
but always beginning with “By hell.”
Shades of my ministerial ancestors! Was this the language of the new
country in which we had come to live? Surely the great adventure
promised startling sensations at the outset, to say nothing of a
certain sliding scale of standards.
Owen stirred and asked sleepily what on earth I was doing up at that
hour of the day.
“Changing my viewpoint,” I replied, looking out toward old Bohm’s
shadowy figure on its way toward the corral. “That has to be done
early.”