Chapter 3

I was up early and went out to the barn to check on all the animals. They were all fine, so I took some time to evaluate the six horses that came to me yesterday and tried to figure out what I would need more horses for. The young man could have a horse, and the young girl might even want one. I doubted that their grandmother would want a horse.

I tried to evaluate the six horses and which two I would keep. None of them were of the quality my roan or Tia’s bay were. One was what seemed like a very gentle mare that looked to be between five and ten years old. The horse seemed to want attention, so it would be a decent addition. One black horse was a little cantankerous and I’m sure would be fun to ride, but we didn’t have other riders who had a lot of experience. One gelding had a personality and I was thinking the horse would have some heart if he was asked to run hard for a while.

I went inside where Tia and the grandmother were cooking some of the bacon we had bought. They were also making real biscuits. They had some milk, so they had all the requirements. I thought I needed to go to the General Store again and get a can of lard or shortening. I did want some real fried chicken.

I told the two kids while we were eating, “We have some extra horses and tack, so I think you could have your choice of the six animals out there if you two wanted to ride. I think I’ve picked out the two best for you, but we’ll see what you think. You’ll need to select what saddles and bridles you want from what’s available. I think they are all too large for you, but you’ll grow into them.”

“Let’s go out and choose an animal and tack, and I’ll take the other four into the livery to trade out. I didn’t see a wagon out there. Do you have one I don’t see?”

The grandmother said, “Those men took our wagon and our team. They also took our buggy that I used to go shopping and to church with.”

“Well then, I suppose that I need to track those two items down. Do you know where their place is?”

Since no one knew where the men’s place was, I figured the saloon where I had shot the two men would know. Tia furiously signed, telling me that she needed to go with me. I finally agreed and she was in her buckskins the same as me. She didn’t wear her beads and had her pistol with the extra cylinder in the pouch on the belt. Her Henry was in the sheath on her saddle.

We rode into town and stopped at the saloon. I handed my horse’s reins to Tia and walked in. What conversation that had been going on stopped. I went to the bar and asked the bartender, “I need directions to where those men who died out by my place yesterday lived. They took a couple of items the Grotowskis need. I need directions to their place.”

The bartender eyed me and asked, “You didn’t have to shoot all of them, did you?”

I told him, “I think half the town was out there to watch those men do to those people and me what they had already done to them. I don’t like that sort of thing, and there was probably no reason for anyone to take advantage of those people. They were peace loving men and women who were pushed to defend themselves.”

The bartender said, “Those people were different. The men didn’t come to the saloon, and the women only went to the stores. They were just different.”

“So does that mean that I can draw down on you if I don’t like the way you wear your vest or that silly string tie you have? I really don’t care for most of the beer that’s served in saloons, so I suppose I can shoot those who serve it. Let me look around and see who in this room should be shot because they’re different. You all need to think why those six men at my place and the other men here last night died.”

I turned back to the bartender and asked, “One last time, where do those men stay?” I unconsciously had my hand resting on the butt of my pistol, and it had a lot of eyes riveted on it.

The bartender said, “Go north out of town about three or four miles. I know they stole the Grotowski wagon, buggy, and team. The livery wouldn’t buy them, so they’re still out there. There might be another one or two of those men out there, so be careful. They could be dead because that guy had a bad temper and shot his men all the time. You did us all a favor. Too bad you weren’t here a couple of weeks ago. The man was jealous that those foreigners built that beautiful house and barn so fast.”

I said to the bartender, “You can let folks know that the house will probably be for sale. Thanks for the information.”

I went out and mounted my roan. I signed to Tia and moved toward the road heading north. All little paths and streets merged into a small wagon track. We followed the road until we were almost on top of a small house with a small barn.

I walked my horse toward the house, and when I was up close I hollered, “Hello the house. Is anyone home?”

No one answered, so we walked our horses over to the barn and found a pair of nice looking draft animals in a small corral. There were three more horses there that I’ll bet belonged to men who rubbed their past leader the wrong way. The three horses that were there didn’t look very good. They were probably just ill-fed.

I found the wagon behind the barn and the buggy inside the barn. There was a room full of tack, so I separated out the new looking harness that I was sure went with the wagon and buggy. The Grotowskis would have taken care of their equipment. I signed to Tia when I had the tack that went with the two pieces of equipment. “I want to go inside the house to see all the stuff they have stolen.”

Tia didn’t want to do it, so I signed for her to stay out here and watch out for me.

I went in the back door and was prepared with my pistol out and cocked. I looked through the front room and the two bedrooms that only had bedrolls in them. There was a bunch of rifles lined up on the wall and a dozen belts with full holsters hanging against the wall. None of the weapons looked interesting, but just looking at the fireplace had my interest. A big stone that was second up from the bottom on the corner was sticking out almost an inch. I went over and pulled at the stone. It easily slid out. I had to get down on my hands and knees to look in where the brick came out. I could see some kind of pouch. I pulled it out and found that it was mostly full of various heavy coins. I reached in again and pulled out another pouch. Same deal, but these coins all looked like double eagles. I reached in again and pulled out a pouch that was full of jewelry. These men had been busy. I wondered if they raided stagecoaches and wagon trains.

I put the stone back and made sure that it was slid in flush and took the three pouches outside to put in my saddle bags. Tia watched me, but didn’t ask.

I led each horse of the team out and harnessed each one. I led them to where the wagon was and hitched them to it. I pulled the buggy out and had Tia help me lift the buggy into the wagon. The buggy wasn’t heavy, but I still had to throw a rope over a tree limb and use it with a horse to lift one end of the buggy at a time so I could back the wagon under it. I tied it down with some available rope. I then saddled each of the four horses and tied them together with another rope so they could follow the wagon. There were two extra saddles and bridles and some more harnesses, so I threw it all into the wagon too.

I pulled over to the house and put all the rifles and pistols with pistol belts and holsters into the wagon. I put the roan on another long tether and signed for Tia to follow.

I very slowly drove the wagon to town and stopped at the livery first. The man gave me a very poor price on the horses with tack, and almost as much for the extra saddles. I told him that I had another four horses for him. We rode over to the gunsmith where I hauled all the rifles and pistols in to him. I told the man, “I’m sure we can work something out for these. I have some more at the house from yesterday that I’ll bring in shortly. I’ll be giving anything we get for these to the grandmother and kids who are left. They need it more than me.” The man nodded at my intention to help the family.

My next stop was the General Store. The man there also was the local banker, as well as the postmaster. I took the bag of jewelry into the man, and said, “I found this out at the house those men had been staying in. I’m sure that they didn’t honestly come by this. I’m going to entrust this to you to make sure any jewelry that was taken locally gets back to whoever it belongs to. If it doesn’t belong to anyone, sell it and give the Grotowskis credit on their bill.”

The man was very happy to try to locate the owners of the jewelry. He was also happy to be able to have a credit for a customer on the books instead of being owed.

The General Store owner said, “We have a new schoolteacher coming and she’ll need a place to live. Maybe Mrs. Grotowski would be interested in housing the lady. Ask her so that the mayor won’t be worried about that.”

All the business was taken care of, so we drove out to the Grotowski house and parked the wagon by the barn. I unhitched the team and let them have some grain in the barn and water in the corral. It was past lunch time, so I went inside to talk to the family. The grandmother was trying to decide whether to stay in town or go to the farm. The two kids said they would probably miss school and it was getting close to school starting again.

I told the grandmother during lunch, “There’s a new schoolteacher coming to town, and she will need a place to live. The storekeeper asked me to ask you if you would consider a boarder.”

Mrs. Grotowski smiled and said, “That makes up my mind. I want to stay in town. The bad men are gone, there is a nice church here, the shops are close, and the kids can go to school. My sons and nephews still alive after the Indian problems built the huge house for the family and I want to honor them and live in it. The farm would constantly remind me of the Indian attacks.”

I asked the two kids, “Will you two each take care of a horse, or should you only have one horse together?”

They looked at each other, and the boy said, “I want to have my own horse. I think the horse I want could also pull the buggy. The horse seems to raise her feet like a buggy horse. She isn’t that big and is very gentle. Can I try her on the buggy before I choose?”

I nodded that it could be done. I looked at the girl, and she said, “I’d love to have that big black horse. He came over to me and I rode him bareback around the corral. He likes to play, rising up on his back legs and prancing around, he is beautiful and I think both of us could ride him.”

I signed what had been decided to Tia, so we went out to harness the little horse to the buggy. To unload the buggy, we reversed the procedure we used to load it on the wagon. The horse wasn’t afraid of the harness which made you think she had seen it before. The boy had sneaked a carrot out and gave the horse a snack.

I climbed into the buggy when the horse was hitched, and gave the reins a flop on the horse’s back with a pull to turn the horse to the left to go out to the road. We rolled right along and I was amazed at how nice the horse seemed to enjoy pulling the buggy. We rode back to the house. Mrs. Grotowski was standing on the porch, and I asked her, “How about taking the buggy for a short ride to see how you like your new buggy horse.”

The lady came out and climbed into the buggy. The girl got in with her and the woman laid the reins on the back of the horse. Off they went going pretty far out. They stopped, backed up a few feet, then turned in a circle and came back at a fair clip.

Upon stopping, the woman said, “Yes, this is a buggy horse. I love the way she anticipates what you want.”

The young girl said that she wanted to saddle the big black horse and ride him. She put a hackamore on him and led him to the fence where she had brought a saddle out. She threw a blanket over his back and then the saddle. She cinched the saddle down as tight as she could, and it looked tight. She was smart to poke him so he couldn’t hold his wind and stay blown up.” She put the bridle on the horse and gently had the horse take the bit. With the horse saddled, she stepped up on the fence rail, then swung up on the horse. Her brother opened the gate to the corral and the girl rode the horse down the road. I knew she was waiting to get beyond eyesight to get the horse to run. She came back about five minutes later and slid to a stop next to us. She was nodding and smiling. She told her grandmother, “I want some buckskins like Tia has. Those are good riding clothes.”

I told her, “You might want to wait until you’re full grown. It would be a shame to spend that much money and not be able to wear them for very long.”

I took the harness off the team and turned them out to the corral. I told the boy that I was going to saddle the other four horses to take them to the livery to sell. We got them ready and I took the six guns and belts with holsters and put them into a grain bag. Tia and I each led two and arrived there ten minutes later.

The livery owner said these were better quality and suggested that I take the tack to the saddlery next door. He said the man buys used tack. I removed the saddles and bridles from each horse as the livery helper put a hackamore on them. I hauled the tack to the saddlery shop and had the man there give me an estimate. Three saddles were average and one was very nice, but for a large man. He ended up giving me good prices for the tack.

We rode to the gunsmith and took the six guns into him. I spread them out for him, along with the three rifles the men had. He gave me a list of what he would give me for the guns I had brought in earlier, and then gave a good estimate for what I had just brought in. I told the man, “I want one of those coach guns with the short barrels that are easy to load. It’s a shame nobody has brought out a shotgun that takes big cartridges like the Henry takes .44s. I’d prefer it in twelve gauge rather than ten. I also want one of those Mississippi carbines that uses paper cartridges. The shotgun is for the house, and the Carbine is for the boy. He’ll need someone to teach him how to shoot it. I may not be here long. Can you teach him so he can shoot some rabbits if I can’t do it?”

I walked to the General Store and asked for a writing pen, an extra steel nib, a small bottle of ink, some paper, and a couple of envelopes. I was going to write my family a letter.

I remade my order from yesterday for about the same. Flour, corn flour, salt, pepper, sugar, a can of lard, several cans of vegetables, and a large flitch of bacon.

With my writing supplies in my saddlebag along with the money I had found, we went back to the huge house to gather the few things we had brought. We put the pack frame on Benny and loaded him up. I wanted to check something, and looked at the grain bin in the barn. There were two of them and both were full. The hayloft was full, so they had enough animal feed for the winter.

I took one of the bags of coins into the kitchen and had Tia take the kids out to look at the horses.

“I can’t bring your family back, Mrs. Grotowski, but I might be able to make it easier on you. I found this money out at the men’s house who died in the yard yesterday. There was also some jewelry that I gave to the General Store owner so that he can find the rightful owners or sell it. The income will be put on your credit. This should be enough money to last you several years. You’ll need animal feed, firewood, and your food and clothes. Please accept this as a gift.”

“I don’t need the money, Jeff. My family was very wealthy in the old country. We brought much gold to the United States and traded it for coins to be able to spend here. I have a great amount with the storekeeper, and several times that hidden right here. The man is honest and never talks about anyone’s money. You keep this money to live on. You have been good to us and haven’t asked for anything in return. Please come to town and stay with us during the winter sometimes.”

“Okay, but I have a present for you and the boy. I have this shotgun for your protection should anyone try to take advantage of you again. This is easy to load. Just use the paper cartridges that are full of shot and right amount of powder. Tear the light end of the cartridge – the powder weighs less than the shot – and pour the powder in the barrel, then wad up the paper and stuff the shot, paper wad last, down on top of the powder and tamp it all in with this rod. Put a cap from your cap box on the nipple of the barrel you just loaded. The gun will kick like a mule, but will cut down anyone threatening you.” I had demonstrated the loading process while I described it. I then handed Granny the gun and watched her load it while I coached her through the procedure. “Keep this here in the kitchen or somewhere that’s easy for you to get to. Keep this tin box of cartridges and a cap box nearby.”

“This is a rifle for the boy. It fires small bullets and is easy to use. You don’t have to give it to him yet, but he has to go to the gunsmith for lessons when you do. He can bring squirrels and rabbits home if he learns well. It’s a good gun to learn with.”

I reached in the bag and took two eagle coins. “Give these to the kids to use a little at a time. They can buy clothes and whatever they need with this. Thank you for being so gracious. I hope your lives are much better now. We will stop in to see you again soon, and thank you for letting us stay on your farm this winter.”

Mrs. Grotowski told me to wait while she wrote what was almost a will. She said that I was to take care of the two kids if she should pass. She said that all the farm and city properties should be considered mine as long as I took care of the two grandchildren.

I took the small pouch and went to my horse and put it in my saddle bag. Tia was waiting for me, with the two kids standing there waiting with her. I told the boy, “Make sure you unhitch the horse and put the tack away if your grandmother is finished using the buggy. Be sure to brush the horse and oil the tack.”

That reminded me that I wanted blankets, some gun oil, and some tack oil. We stopped at the gunsmith for a small tin of gun oil. I bought four good wool blankets for an exorbitant price of two dollars each at the General Store next door. I guess the price reflected the cost of getting it out to the middle of nowhere, far from the nearest railhead or steamboat dock. Tia was looking at some women things, and pointed to a comb and hair brush. The best they had was only fifty cents. I bought a can of tack oil down the street at the saddlers. The only thing we might need soon is to have both horses reshod. I asked the livery man, and he said, “The blacksmith at the end of the street on the other side is the local farrier and will usually take care of you fairly fast.”

We were finally on our way home. The one thing we would soon need would be coats. I had ruined my heavy coat and Tia didn’t have one at all. What we needed were a couple of bears to make some heavy coats.

I signed to Tia. “We need coats for winter,” after we were home and the animals put away. “I can get some deer but that won’t be heavy enough. I don’t know if there are bear in this area, but they should be near the bluff along the river. I can go look for sign. What else can we use to make coats?”

Tia smiled and hesitatingly said while signing, “Buff, buff, buffa, buffalo.” She was grinning for being able to get that out. I signed in return, and said, “I will hunt for bear in the morning and then we will see what we have to do to find some buffalo.” Tia wanted to take a bath, saying the river would still be warm enough. We went to the river and washed thoroughly. Tia had me wash her hair using some special soap Mrs. Grotowski gave her. She wanted to use it on my hair, but it was just barely to my shoulders. I was having to sharpen my knife often now as my whiskers were growing fast since I was older. I was sure that Tia preferred my cheeks to be smooth.

We truly made love that night. When we went to bed, Tia said, “Kiss.” It was amazing how much you can say with one word. We pleasured each other long into the night

It was raining hard the next morning, but the little cabin stayed dry. I lit the woodstove and put some water on to make coffee and tea, and made a fire in the fireplace to take the chill off. Tia had gone out to gather three days of eggs, so we had some of the bacon and a lot of scrambled eggs. We had a loaf of bread that Mrs. Grotowski had made. I put some on the stove to toast it.

We decided to explore the other two houses since it was raining. The big house was two floors, so we spent time looking in the rooms up there. This house must have had the best beds, as all of them were gone. What wasn’t gone was a lot of clothing in some of the closets. There was both men’s and women’s clothes. I wondered if these were the clothes of family members the Indians killed.

The rooms downstairs were the same. Stripped except for one room where there were clothes. I found some heavy clothes and coats in this closet. There was an excellent heavy coat with a hood that fit me perfectly. There was a women’s coat that fit Tia. There were heavy pants and some boots that might fit as well. This room had a very nice bed. It didn’t have a straw mattress, but one made of some kind of down or feathers. It was actually almost too soft. Tia thought it funny how you sank down into the bed. We took the heavy coats and thought we might come back for the heavy clothing later.

We took those to the house nearest the barn, and then went to look at the last house. This one looked like someone had just left and would be back any minute. It had two bedrooms. The one bedroom was empty and the other had a good bed and a full closet. There were another couple of coats, one light and one very heavy. The women’s clothes were big on Tia, but we looked through everything anyway. Tia found brushes and combs in the bath area next to the kitchen along with a lot of soap. The kitchen still had the stove and what looked like all the pots, pans, dishes, and eating utensils. They had a cistern outside their door that collected rain water. It looked clean and tasted clean. I used some stove wood and made a fire. There was coffee, so I made a small pot. Tia said, “We will come here to bathe when the weather is too cold. There are many towels next to the bathing room. Look at this, a razor for you with a brush for the soap for face. The man has a leather to make his razor sharp.”

I signed to Tia. “How do you know about razors?”

“Mountain men stay with us. Almost all cut hair on face with sharp knives. Women they stay with not like hair on face.”

I had never used a razor and was a little afraid I would cut myself. I nicked myself with my knife and was afraid I would cut my throat with a razor. I would give it a try to see if it was easier to use.

We had some coffee and then went back to the house we were using. Tia signed and said, “We should bring that bed here to use. That mattress was nice and was probably made of a lot more feathers, enough that you didn’t sink down in them. They have those little mattresses for your head. I said ‘pillow’ to her several times.”

I fed the horses and Benny, and spent a few minutes oiling our tack. It had been a long time since either of our saddles had been oiled and the leather sucked the oil up. I would have to do this again soon.

Tia had put a large pot of beans to soak yesterday, and had them cooking now. She didn’t want them to boil, so she only had fire in half the stove. My woman had a lot of various greens that she wanted to mix in with the beans. She also put some bacon in. This was a huge pot, probably two gallons.

The rain had stopped, but the wind had picked up. I had this feeling something was going on outside, so I took a Henry and checked to make sure it was full of cartridges. I also put my pistol on, but I liked the Henry because I could keep firing without having to muzzle load.

I walked around the barn and all looked everywhere. I put the three animals inside and shut the door just to be sure. I walked around all the houses and came back to stand on the porch of the house we were using. I heard the grunting. I knew that grunt wasn’t a bear, and I thought for sure that it had to be hogs. Just what we needed; the meat is good to eat, but cleaning a hog is a chore.

I went inside and signed to Tia, “Hogs outside.”

Tia asked, “How many?”

I signed, “Don’t know, but many.”

Tia grabbed her Henry and we went outside. You could hear them rooting where the garden had been and I instantly knew they were after any potatoes, carrots, turnips, or onions. I sighted in on a medium-sized hog and fired. He immediately lay down. Tia fired at a big one who bellowed. She put another round in him, but he was already dying. She looked at me and signed, “We should get and smoke meat.”

She shot another good-sized hog and I put my second one down. The hogs were getting the idea that this might not be a good place to be. Then the work began. I went for some rope and hung the first one up from a low branch. I dug out a little under him and began. I gutted the animal and was going to begin scraping him. Tia took my knife and began skinning the beast. She had the hide off the meat really fast. She showed me a big heavy wire screen in the barn, and signed that it was what was used. She signed to dig hole, put logs on four sides. Make a fire of old dry wood, and put the meat on the wire. It was best if we had a tepee to put over the meat so the smoke gets into the meat.

That was what that building behind that last house was for. It was a smoke house. I took Tia to see the smoke house. She signed that it should work.

We cleaned all four hogs and hauled all the pork to the smoke house. I built a fire under the smoke house in the tunnel entrance where you could tell many fires had been before. I next had to haul all the offal to the river to feed the catfish. That was a nasty job.

Tia was scraping the inside of the pigskin. She signed that pigskin made good moccasin soles. I soon had the heads, feet, and tails to toss into the river. I made sure that I tossed everything farther downstream than we bathed.

We washed up as best we could and put our clothes near the door to take for washing. We were too tired to play this evening and were instantly asleep.

Waking up just before dawn gives you a chance to see the world the way nature made it. There was an occasional bird calling their young, an animal making noise to attract their young or scare a predator off. I could hear the animals being restless in the barn, so I opened the doors. I put some grain and a little hay out, and filled their water trough. I used the shovel to scatter dirt over all the blood that had poured from the hogs. I went to the smoke house and put some more hardwood under it to keep the fire going. I kept thinking that we needed to wrap the meat and keep it soaked with salt water. There was a huge stack of burlap bags in the barn, so I took them and a bucket of water with animal salt to the smoke house. I would soak the bag and then wrap it around the meat. It took a long while to get four hogs wrapped, but I thought that would help.

I went inside to see how Tia was doing and she was angry. She signed to me that we missed and she was unclean. I didn’t understand, and she said plain as day, “Missed, baby. Must wait more.”

Oh shit! She thought we were making babies. I think there is a special time of month for that to work. I guess we’ll just have to make love a lot all month to get her pregnant.

I didn’t tell her my thoughts and stayed away from her because I knew she was concerned about a baby.

I took a bunch of the big bags and the largest bucket I could find after breakfast and took it out to the wheat field where I kept shaking the heads off into the bucket. I would put the wheat into the bag when the bucket was full. I had eleven bags by the time I finished knocking the wheat off. I had the big needle and heavy twine to sew the bags closed. I wish I had the wagon now. I went for my roan and made a travois. I made it heavy so I could put two bags on at a time. I had the roan pull the two bags first and then I took Benny out and had him do the heavy work. I finished getting all the wheat to the barn.

We had a late lunch that was almost supper. I told Tia that I would start on the corn in the morning. I wanted to check something, so I walked out to the corn field and pulled three ears of corn. I brought them back and offered an ear of corn to Benny and each horse. They crunched up the corn and the cob. I doubted it would hurt the animals.

I told Tia that night that I wanted to go to town to see if I could borrow the wagon and team to haul the corn. It would take too long to haul it all back in bags. She understood and said she would stay while I went in. I didn’t care for that but she knew what would be safe or not.

I wrote a long letter to my folks, brother, and sister that night. Dear Folks, It’s been about eight months since I left you and a lot has happened. I have met an Indian widow woman who was going to attack me for my food, but I stopped her. I fed her and she later said with sign language that she belonged to me because I had saved her. I told them she was still with me and we were staying in an abandoned farm with the permission of the owner. I had come about a couple of horses for us, and bought a pack frame for Benny. I still rode him when I need to haul something at the same time. Thank you Mom for teaching me to cook. I now can make some decent hard tack but liked to use a little more water. An egg in the batter makes it even better. We have a smoke house here and we are smoking four wild hogs. We are lucky because there are a lot of chickens so we have eggs and chickens to eat. What we need is beef.