Chapter 19

Just so you know ... in 1990, thirty isn’t old. If your genes are good and you haven’t any children, thirty isn’t awful ... thirty is pretty damn good. Hygiene and diet ... exercise and support garments ... a thirty year old doesn’t look... thirty, an experienced 22 year old ... maybe.

Not so in 1851. Nope ... thirty is pretty ancient ... half way to the grave. Thirty is middle-aged ... especially in the Great American Desert. Constant worry, constant danger, situational awareness, daylight’s excessive heat, the just about freezing at night, too much sun and never-ending abrasive wind ... nope ... thirty is past rode hard and put away wet. Added to the work involved in bathing ... Saturday night bath ... if that.

So ... Seven and I show up ... the product of clean living and no kids. Well ... we shined. Diamonds of the first water. Beauties ... clean ... sweet smelling babes. The only female that even came close was the 17 year old schoolmarm. And she was rapidly wearing out. She had the school board to worry about ... and cowboys ... bankers ... storekeepers ... miners and every one of them willing to help her break her schoolmarm contract.

Ya see ... to get the job ... she had to sign a “morally straight” contract.

She couldn’t be seen hanging out with men ... or drink liquor ... or beer ... and she couldn’t marry. If she did anything like that ... including marry ... she couldn’t teach young men or teen ladies. Mostly because she’d have to explain the modifications to her shape. In 1851, sex guaranteed pregnancy ... and we can’t have a teacher in an interesting condition. Her morals had to be better than the men ... school board ... who hired her.

For Seventeen and 1851, Marnie Taylor had remarkably straight teeth ... and a half way decent complexion ... Only lightly poxed and carefully arranged hair hid most of the scars ... Miss Taylor, schoolteacher, was considered a “catch.” Besides that, Marnie was clean. Marnie had a secret bathing spot ... with hot water.

ot water.

The west abounds in thermal hot springs ... well ... maybe not abounds ... but they’re there, if one knows where to look. Steam in the winter ... early greenery in the spring and fall ... and memory in the summer. And Miss Taylor was local. She had an attribute. Marnie was the result of a tragedy. The 1836 migrant wagon train heading to Oregon lost a couple of wagons ... and that pair lost one husband and one wife. Mrs. Taylor died, worn out, and Mr. Arbuthnot met an irate buffalo. Mrs. Arbuthnot couldn’t go on ... she needed a mourning period. And that didn’t suit the wagon master. He wanted Everybody to make Oregon and waiting wasn’t in his timetable.

“You go on ahead ... we’ll catch up,” said Mr. Taylor. And just a few days later ... catching up ... darkness fell ... and the pair made a wrong turn. Well ... Hell ... it was a full moon and the trail was plain ... couldn’t miss it.

Can’t miss. Sort of like that famous Southern Phrase...”Hold my beer and watch this.” Murphy is not a modern invention ... nope. The trail they couldn’t miss turned right ... but the trail they took was an old fur trade trail and it went straight, and then turned left. Left was aimed at what would be called Lake Tahoe and Carson City. At this very moment in time the city was in the almost dead center of Northern Paiute hunting territory.

So ... a pair of wagons, two teams, a widow, a widower and two teen aged Northern Paiutes out looking for trouble soon evolved into open conflict. The pair of young indians had bit off more than they could chew and were left, unburied, in the desert. Don’t think that it was Mr. Taylor that did the rescuing. Mrs. Arbuthnot was a crack shot and accounted for the pair of rambunctious teens. Mr. Taylor and Mrs. Arbuthnot celebrated their survivorship in a time honored manner. Generally, conflict with the possibility of death results in copulation between male and female survivors. Mrs. Arbuthnot became Mrs. Taylor by connivence ... or necessity ... and Marnie Taylor was born in a one room house constructed of wagon lumber, rock and canvas on the banks of Lake Tahoe.