Chapter 1
August 1, 1845
We walked up onto the rise where Millie said the house should be built, and just stood and looked out over the valley.
"Welcome to the Tackett-Ware ranch," I said.
The 'Ware' portion of the name came from my sister Tess, and her husband Jonathan Ware. The Tackett portion of the name comes from me, Jase Tackett, my wives, and our adopted daughter.
Wives? Yes, I have three wives. Millie is my first wife. I have been crazy about Millie since we were little kids in Kentucky. When my parents and Millie's parents decided they were moving to Oregon, I decided it was time to start courting Millie. We ended up getting married on the wagon train on the way out.
Lettie is my second wife. Millie and I took her in when her husband was killed by Indians. He wasn't much of a loss and he hadn't been much of a husband to Lettie. She was still a virgin when we married her, because her husband liked boys better than he liked girls. We fell in love with her very quickly.
Emma is half Indian and was married to a white man. He was killed by Indians, while guarding our livestock, on the way out. She needed help after that, especially after some of her husband's supposed 'friends' found out she's half Indian. We didn't have any problem with that, since Tess and I are half Indian, too.
Abby is our adopted daughter, and the light of our lives. We took her in when her father killed her mother (who was the camp whore), and then killed himself. We've never for a moment regretted taking her in.
We would have liked to have spent the entire day looking over our home site, and checking out our valley, but we knew Ab (the wagon master on the trail) had to get back to the wagon train as soon as possible.
We talked it over, and decided that we'd leave all of the wagons in the valley and that Millie and I would follow Caleb and Sally (Millie's parents), on over to the valley Ab thought they might be interested in homesteading.
The rest of my family - and John, Tess, and Ab's family - would use the time Millie and I were gone, to set up a permanent camp. We had decided, while we were still on the trail, that we'd use Emma's wagon as our 'farm wagon'. So part of setting up our permanent camp, was moving everything in Emma's wagon over to Abby's wagon. All of our drivers agreed to help with moving things around.
It was late afternoon when we reached the valley that Ab figured Caleb would want. The entrance to the valley was a little wider than ours, though the valley itself was not quite as wide. It was every bit as beautiful, though. Sally fell in love with it immediately.
We talked over supper about how we wanted to work things. Caleb said he'd like to spend a few days just exploring his valley, before we started any work.
"Then I think Sam and I will start cutting trees for a cabin, and gathering stones for the foundation. Matt doesn't know it yet, but he's going to be a big help in gathering stones."
"That makes sense," Caleb said. "We'll probably start doing the same thing, soon."
"When you get to the point you're going to start putting the logs in place, John and I will come over and help," I said.
"Yeah, we'll do the same for you. That'll make it a lot easier than for two people to try to get them raised up," Caleb said.
We all looked around Caleb's place a while after supper. It really was a nice valley, and I'd have been happy with it for our ranch if we didn't like the other valley so well.
Millie and I had forgotten to bring our tent with us, so we slept under the stars.
August 2, 1845
We got up the next morning and Millie helped Sally fix breakfast for everyone. At this point, it wasn't any different than being on the trail. Ab, Millie and I ate quickly, and headed back towards our new home.
Ab decided to stay overnight with us, and head out in the morning to rejoin the wagon train. Ab went exploring with John and me, looking for timbers for building a temporary house, and bigger timbers to build the permanent one. We made a circle around the entire valley before the day was over.
"Ab," I said. "Do you suppose we could impose on you to do us a favor when you come back from taking the wagon train on in?"
"How much lumber do you want me to bring back?" Ab laughed.
"How did you know what I wanted?"
"It only makes sense, Jase. I don't have a problem with doing that, as long as you furnish the wagon and the oxen."
"Okay, we'll clean out a wagon before you leave in the morning. I'm sure one of our drivers will take it on to the end of the trail for you. We'll give you enough money to buy the wood, and pay off the driver. Get as much good dry pine lumber as you think the wagon will haul."
"That reminds me," Lettie said. "We need to pay off all of the drivers."
I nodded and said, "Give Ab a hundred. Do you know how much to pay each of the boys?"
"Yeah, I've got it all figured out. I'm going to give each of them an extra ten dollars."
"You're reading my mind, woman," I said, smiling at her.
Lettie got up and went into our wagon. When she came back out, she went around to the drivers, and gave all of them their wages. She handed ten gold eagles to Ab, then she went around to the drivers again, and handed each of them a gold eagle. They were all thrilled.
August 3, 1845
We all got up early, and Ab and his crew got ready to take off. There was a tearful goodbye between Ab and Pris. Wanda and Lelah shed a few tears as well. I think Timmy was a little angry that Pris wouldn't let him go with Ab.
Millie, Tess, Lettie, and Emma went off to decide where they wanted the temporary house to go, and where they eventually wanted the big house set. It wasn't long before they called John and me to take a look. John and I agreed they couldn't have made a better choice.
"I think we need to make a shed. Then we can store everything out of the weather, before we do anything else," I said.
"We've got the canvas from two of the wagons, and several tarpaulins," John said. "Why don't we make a frame with some poles and cover it with the canvas and the tarps?"
"That sounds good. Then we can lay some poles on the ground for everything to rest on. That'll keep everything out of any rain water."
John and I started cutting poles from the areas where the houses were going to be. The women went off and started looking for sources for sand, clay, and stone. Timmy helped by dragging the poles over to where we were going to make our canvas covered shed.
We figured we were going to need less than twenty poles, total, for the shed. We'd probably need that many again, for our makeshift floor. John and I were both wielding axes to cut the poles, and trim off the branches. By noon we had enough poles cut for the frame, the floor, and the roof.
The women made us a nice lunch. We all talked as we ate it.
"There's plenty of sand and creek gravel along the stream right below us," Tess told us. "So far we haven't found any clay or many stones I think we could use."
"Jase, do you remember going by that place with all of the stones yesterday? It was on the other side of the valley and about a mile north," John asked.
"Yeah, you might try over there ladies. We're going to be wanting stones as flat as we can find them. We can use the hand sledges to shape them some, but I don't want to do any more of that than we have to," I said.
Lettie hugged me, and kissed me on the cheek.
"We're not totally dumb, Jase," she said. "We'd already figured that out."
After we finished eating, the women took off exploring again, while John and I started digging holes to set the four corner posts. We needed four holes about two feet deep and twelve feet apart. We had them dug within an hour.
We had selected our corner poles so that they had a good sized branch we could lay the front and back top poles in. We cut off the front posts so that approximately nine feet of the posts would be sticking out of the ground below the fork. The back posts we cut off at eight feet.
We positioned the posts in the holes, and tamped dirt in around them. We laid the front and back top poles in the forks, and tied them in with wet rawhide strips. Then we started laying the rafter poles into place. We tied them with wet rawhide as well.
Getting the canvas into place, and getting it tied down so the wind wouldn't take it, took almost as long as putting the frame up. By the end of the day, John and I were exhausted. But, we had a shed we could start moving things into tomorrow.
After supper, Millie told us they had found the rocks we were talking about, but they were still looking for clay.
"There looks like there are plenty of flat stones. I'm not sure how many we'll need, but there are thousands we can get to easily."
"We're going to need quite a few," I said. "We'll have to dig down about two feet to start the foundations. It has to be below the freeze line. The foundation will be under all of the outside walls."
Millie looked stunned. "That IS a lot. Well, I still think we'll have enough. Are you still thinking of making our temporary house twelve by twenty-four feet?"
"Yeah, we'll put a partition at the mid way point so John and Tess can have some privacy."
"Tess and I have been talking about that, Jase. I think we can get by with just a tarp separating things for this winter," John said."
"How many logs are you guys going to need to cut?" Tess asked.
"We'll need twenty at twenty-four feet, and twenty at twelve feet, for the walls. We'll need another six twelve-footers for the gables. We'll need six twenty four- foot ridge beams, and we'll need about two dozen fifteen-footers for rafters. That is over seventy logs, just for the temporary cabin. I hate to think how many we'll need for the big house," I said.
"That's a lot of work, guys," Emma said.
"Yeah. Then we have to peel the bark off of all of them, and a lot of them we'll have to square up on one or more sides."
"We'll do anything we can to help, Jase," Lettie said.
August 4, 1845
In the morning we started loading barrels of flour, sugar, corn meal, molasses, and dried fruit, into what was going to be our farm wagon. We hauled them up to our shed. We had four wagon loads of stuff to put in the shed. I was thinking we probably should have made the shed bigger, before we got it all in. We only managed to get it to fit, by stacking barrels on top of each other.
We grabbed a quick lunch, and continued through the afternoon. We finished long before supper;, but John and I were so tired, we decided to wait until tomorrow before starting anything else.
"You need to hunt in the morning," Millie told me as we were eating supper.
"Okay," I said.
"I'll do it this time, Jase. I think it's about time we started trading off hunting," John said.
"That's fine, John. I'll start cleaning off the area where our first cabin is going to be. Maybe I can get Abby and Timmy to help me."
"Lelah and I will help, too," Wanda said.
"Thank you, Sweety. I'm going to start cutting brush, and I'll need all of you to drag it off and make a brush pile."
"Jase, I can cut brush," Timmy said. "I helped dad out last year."
"Okay, Timmy, but don't over do it. When you start feeling tired, take a break."
The way we were living, there wasn't a whole lot of privacy. We did get our bed back into our wagon. Millie and Abby slept under the wagon that night. I was so tired I could hardly even appreciate the fact I was in bed with two lovely and naked women.
Both of them worked on me until I responded, then Emma mounted me while Lettie kissed me, and teased me with her nipples.
August 5, 1845
I had just gotten started clearing the area for our cabin, when John came riding in. He was grinning from ear to ear, and he had a large antelope draped across Jughead. I went over and admired his kill, then the women took over. They started skinning and butchering it. To be honest with you, I didn't think antelope meat was nearly as good as elk, or even venison; but I wasn't about to let John know that.
"Do you want to go on clearing the cabin site, or do you want to go and cut some logs?" John asked as he took the packsaddle off of Jughead.
"Let's cut some trees," I said with a big grin. "Throw that pack saddle on one of the other mules, and I'll get out the tools we're going to need."
I went to the shed and got out a crosscut saw, two "H" framed bucksaws, two axes, and a large coil of rope. I knew this wasn't all we were going to need, but I felt it was enough to get us started. I also got out a pulling harness for the mule, in case we needed to pull one of the fallen trees out of the way.
As we were loading the mule, Timmy came over. He said he was going to keep working on clearing the cabin area. I was a little reluctant to let him keep working by himself, but Pris said she'd keep an eye on him.
The area John and I had decided to start cutting, was about half a mile from the cabin. It was a side canyon that was about a hundred yards wide. There was a small stream flowing down the south or left hand side of the canyon, and the right hand side of the canyon had a stand of Ponderosa Pine that was just the right size for our purposes.
The majority of the trees were between six and ten inches in diameter. They were straight and tall with very few limbs on the bottom twenty feet or so.
"How do you think we should go about this, John?" I asked after we had the mule unloaded.
"Well, these look good for the walls. We'll have to find some that are a little smaller around for the rafters. I'd say we should try cutting two or three down at a time. Then we'll trim them off, and drag them over to that open area over there with the mule. If we cut any more than that at once, they'll just get all tangled up and cause us a world of problems."
I had to admit that sounded like the best way to do it. We had to cut half a dozen smaller trees and some brush that was blocking our efforts.
My heart gave a little jump when the first tree fell. I felt like we were really doing it. We only had six trees ready to be hauled down to the cabin when the women brought us some lunch. It felt good to sit down and rest while we were eating.
"You guys are really doing good," Tess said as she hugged John's arm.
"We'll do better tomorrow," John said. "We'll get an earlier start, plus we won't have to clean out the brush and stuff."
"Yeah," I said. "I think tomorrow we'll bring a yoke of oxen to do the pulling too. The mule can pull one of these logs out, but he has a hard go of it."
"Would you like for us to bring you back a yoke of oxen when we leave?" Millie asked.
"It'd be a big help, Honey."
"Okay, we'll do that. Then, I think we're going to take the wagon over and bring back at least one load of stones. We'll let the kids all help us load and unload them."
"Don't try to haul too big a load at once," I said.
"Jase, you do your job, and we'll do ours," Lettie said, then she leaned over and kissed me.
I loved the fact that all of my wives were as feisty as all hell. I think a submissive woman would have turned me off.
I kissed Lettie back and said, "Lettie, don't let Millie do too much. I worry about her hurting our baby."
"We've all talked about that, Jase. Pris is going to keep an eye on her. Pris will make her stay in line."
I had to agree. Pris is a strong willed woman.
By the time we had three more trees on the ground, Tess was back with a yoke of oxen. She kissed John, and took off to meet the other women. Things went a lot faster in the afternoon, and we had twelve more logs in the cleared area when we stopped for the day.
On the way back to camp, John and I decided we'd take the bark off of the logs before we brought them to where we would be building the cabin. That way we wouldn't have as much to clean up at the cabin area.
"You know, after we get the cabin up, we should cut as many more logs as we can this fall and winter," I said. "That will give the logs more time to dry out before we start building the house."
"That makes sense," John said. "Three or four more days and we'll have enough cut for the cabin."
"Yeah, and then we have to dig the footer. I'd say two feet wide and two feet deep should do it."
John let out a big sigh and said, "That's a lot of work, Jase. It has to be done, but I dread it."
"I do, too. It'll probably take us at least a week, especially if there are a lot of roots to cut through, or if the ground is rocky."
"That's about what I figure. Then we'll have to take all of the topsoil out of the inside of the cabin. After we get the foundation up, we'll have to fill the inside, until the floor is a couple of inches above the ground outside the foundation. That's what my pap told me anyway. That way the floor isn't going to get wet when it rains."
"That makes sense. I sure do hope the women find some clay. We're going to need it for sealing the foundation, and for daubing between the logs. We'll also need it for making a fireplace and a chimney."
"I'm sure they'll find some, Jase. There seems to be every kind of soil there is around here."
As we rode into camp, I was really impressed. The cabin area was completely cleared, and the women had brought in an impressive amount of stones. John and I both praised everyone for what they had accomplished.
August 8, 1845
John and I spent three more days cutting logs, while the women hauled stones. Timmy dug out the roots of the brush we had cut in the cabin area. When we finished today, we felt we had enough logs cut for building the cabin.
"So, do we start removing the bark tomorrow?" John asked as we were eating supper.
"I was thinking we should start digging the footer tomorrow," I said. "I figure it's going to take at least a week to get that done. Maybe by then, the bark will have started loosening up some."
John groaned. "I was afraid you were going to say that. I really dread it, but there's no getting around it."
I had to laugh. John was as hard a worker as anyone I'd ever seen. I dreaded it as much as he did.
Millie said we needed to hunt again, so I asked John if he'd do it, while I laid out the cabin. He was more than willing.
August 9, 1845
John was already gone to hunt when I got up this morning. I ate a quick breakfast and started laying out the cabin. I had Timmy help me, and he was fascinated by how I did it. I wanted the corners to be as square as possible, and that was the hard part.
We set one stake solidly in the ground at the back, left corner of the cabin. That one and the other back corner, were the only ones I knew wouldn't change. I marked off fourteen feet and twenty-six feet on a rope. I used the rope to measure forward from the stake fourteen feet, and lightly set a stake there. Then I measured twenty-six feet to the right of the main stake and permanently set a stake there. I measured forward from that stake and placed the last one.
"Now comes the hard part," I told Timmy.
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Well, we need to measure from the back left corner to the front right corner. Then we measure from the back right corner to the front left corner. If the layout is square, the measurements will be the same."
Of course, they weren't. John came back with a deer, then he just sat back and watched us, with a big grin on his face. It took almost two hours to get it just the way I wanted it. Then I used a sledgehammer to drive all of the stakes deeply into the ground. I stretched a rope around all of the stakes so we'd have the outside line of the footer.
"Nice work," John said as he got up, and came over to where Timmy and I had been working, "are we ready to start, now?"
"Yeah, we're ready to start. I need a drink of water first, though."
Millie saw me coming, and had a dipper of water in her hand when I got there. I looked around as I was drinking, and asked, "Where's Abby?"
"Her and Lelah and Wanda went over there about a hundred yards to gather hickory nuts. She says they're all over the ground already."
"Are they safe over there?"
"Yeah, Tess went over the area. She says she didn't see any tracks where any large animal had been in there."
"Where is the lovely Tess?"
"Her and Emma and Lettie went looking for clay again. Lettie and Tess both have guns."
"Okay. I know it's been pretty quiet around here so far, but there's always the chance they could run into a bear, or even a band of Indians. Ab says there are several tribes in the area."
"We'll be careful, Jase," Millie said, then kissed me.
John and I started digging and digging and digging and... It really wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. There was about six inches of topsoil. The subsoil was sandy. We did hit a lot of roots, which we had to remove. Some of them we got by digging them out, others we just chopped off.
Timmy asked what he could do.I told him to ask Millie where she wanted a garden next spring.
"Get a bucket and a shovel, and start removing the top soil inside the ropes. You can carry it over to the garden area," I told him.
I really didn't think he'd get much done, but he surprised me.
By the end of the day, we had the topsoil removed from the footer area, all around. Timmy had even made a dent in the topsoil in the floor area.
I got Pris off to the side after supper. I told her I was worried Timmy was trying to do too much.
"Jase, Timmy is trying to make it up to you for what he and his dad did to you guys. A little hard work won't hurt him, and I'm sure it is making him feel better about himself. I'll keep an eye on him. If I think he's getting too tired, I'll make him stop for a while."
I guess I couldn't argue with his mother, so I let it go. John and I had cut a couple of measuring sticks two feet long. We used them to keep track of how wide and deep we were making the footer. We used them a lot over the next two days, keeping track of how we were doing.
When we thought we had the footer deep enough all the way around, Millie and Tess told us we were taking a day off, whether we wanted to or not. Neither John nor I argued very hard.
Edited by TeNderLoin