Chapter 104

Crow Valley August 3, 1889

“Would you just look at this? The vaqueros have already finished the entrance gate and connected the fences,” Pike said as they saw the wide double gates across the wagon road leading into their property.

The main gateposts were tall and connected across the top with a long timber. Suspended from the center of that timber by chain links was a large Longhorn steer skull and horns, affixed to a heavy board. Hanging below the skull and horns on two more chains, was a split cedar log ten feet long and two feet wide, hand hewn from end to end with letters a foot tall carved out then burned and blackened deeply into the wood

VALLE DE LOS CUERVOS

“Valley of the Crows — that is so beautiful!” McKenzie McInnis told them as they stopped to look up at it.

“Just look over here would you? We now have our own railroad spurs. One headed east and one headed west!” Isaac yelled. He had opened one side of the main gate and had ridden through the entrance when they saw where the railroad crews had already laid track for close to half a mile north along the bottom of the west slope of the valley.

There was another wide gate closing off the two spurs just west of the main entrance that would be opened for the trains to enter and leave east or west.

“Is this the river where all of you swim?” McKenna asked as she and her sister looked at Ruby and Kit. The four of them were laughing when the others looked their way.

Samantha looked at Ezra and smiled before she spoke “McKenna, I suppose those two have already told you about us swimming naked in the river each evening? That’s the way we bathed when we were here before.”

“Samantha, we’ve already told them that they may as well get ready, we’re not at all shy when us girls go to the river to bathe,” Ruby told her.

Riding north alongside the spur, they could see corrals and loading pens under construction in the distance. There was already a loading dock built high to offload their building materials from the flatcars and stacks of lumber that had been offloaded and placed near the edge of the dock to be loaded onto wagons.

“I’d say Dad was the one to have this built so quick. Now we’ll have a place to unload all our supplies and even our purchases from Kansas City when they arrive tomorrow without needing to be in such a hurry. Now I know why the depot agent was smiling when I told him we’d need plenty of notice before the boxcar that’s on the sidetrack there in Tulsa was brought here,” Little Eli told them as they stopped to look the place over.

They had ridden north close to three miles on the west side of the river when Kit yelled.

“LOOK! I can see one of the housetops from here.”

“OH YES!” Ruby yelled as she too saw the rooftop of the tall two-story house.

“Whose will this one be?” Cecily asked Pike as they rode up to where they could see the top of the house in the distance.

“Ours,” he answered, and smiled when her eyes flew wide open.

“Oh Pike, really? You mean our home is about built already?”

“Looks like it from here. Ours is the first property inside the main gate. We got here just in time to start settling in, didn’t we?”

“Cecily, I want to do a sketch of your new home. I love the way it sits back against the slope like that, overlooking the river below with a view north and south along the valley,” McKenna told her.

“YES. We want you to sketch it for us and we want to hang it in our new home.”

When they had first spotted the new home being built from a distance, the Bucks rode their horses across the wide, shallow river to the east side and up the slope a ways to get a better look.

The house looked just like the one at Pecan Ridge and the one Eli and his family lived in at Crow Ridge.

“Come across the river and get a look at it from this side, Cecily,” Pike yelled.

“That is so beautiful,” Samantha said as she rode up next to Ezra. “Will ours look just like it, Ezra?”

“Just like it. Do you think we’ll ever fill it up with kids?” he asked and the two of them laughed as they rode on north up the valley.

The house looked big when they first saw it from a distance. By the time they were close enough to spot the workers, it loomed large where it sat back against the western slope of the valley.

“Don’t you just love those two big front porches?” Belinda said.

“I especially love the porch on the second floor with the rail around it. I can’t wait to go up there and look out over the river and the valley from up there,” Cecily told them.

“We better tell them to build rails around the bottom porch too, we’ll be having babies in a few years,” Abigail told them as they stopped to look at the house again.

The outside looked to be nearing completion, with the cedar shingle roof already in place. The doors and windows had already been installed and they knew this one was getting close.

“What’ those big bundles stacked over there on the four wagons?” Ruby asked as they rode past the front of the house on the opposite side of the river.

“Those look like twenty-foot-long quilts or something like that. Wonder what they’re used for?” Kit asked.

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I see Williams, your dad’s main carpenter there on the porch where the men are handing the bundles of quilts to him,” Pike told them and cut his horse wide to let him wade across the river. The water was belly deep on his horse there in the shallows and Pike raised his feet to keep his moccasins dry.

The others watched as Pike rode up to the tall porch and stopped to talk to the man. He was there only a few minutes before turning his horse to ride back to the river at a gallop, then let his horse wade the river slowly.

“What are they, Pike?” Cecily asked before he’d even ridden up beside her.

“He said that was wool and canvas. It’s insulation quilted together to put inside the outer walls to make the house warmer in winter.”

“I’ve never heard of that before. Whose idea was that, Pike?” Caleb spoke up.

“He told me that John L., the man wiring the houses for electricity told him about it. He said they used it back in St. Louis in all the new homes now.”

“How did they get it here, I wonder?” Belinda asked.

“He said they sent a message back for Mr. J.M. Hall to order a boxcar load for now and another for next month. He told me one carload would do three houses on all four sides, top to bottom, and in the attic too.”

“Looks like they’ve used cypress board and batten on the outside walls. Could you tell if it was for sure, Pike?” Eli asked as he looked through his spotting scope to get a good look.

“It is, Eli. I asked about that too and they had it shipped in here from down in Louisiana. They have enough ordered to build all the houses, barns and sheds with enough left over for a good-sized house each for Manuel, and Martinez Delgado.”

As they rode north up the valley, they stayed on the east side of the river. After riding for another five miles or so, they saw another rooftop off in the distance. When they’d ridden closer, they saw that construction on this one was farther along that the first one.

“Whose will this one be?” McKenna asked as they rode closer and closer.

“This is Lilly Beth’s and Ladd’s home,” Ezra told her, remembering the maps.

“THERE SHE IS!” Kit screamed and rode her horse into the river at full gallop.

Lilly Beth looked up when she heard the scream and started running toward the river to meet Kit.

The others rode their horses out into the river and across to the other side as they watched Kit bail from her horse to tackle Lilly Beth as she stood in knee-deep water. They were still hugging and laughing as the others rode up.

Little Eli swung his leg over Cheyenne’s neck and slid into the water to grab Lilly Beth as she turned to see him.

She was soaked from head to foot as she grabbed him and held on. He led his sister from the river and the others gathered around to greet her.

Caleb and Micah looked toward the back of the house when they saw someone walk around the corner. There stood Ladd wearing his buckskins and moccasins with no shirt. He had rushed out to see why Lilly Beth was screaming and now stood smiling as he saw the others.

The brothers walked over to Ladd and shook his hand. The first thing he wanted to know was why they had bandages on their hands.

The told him briefly about their troubles in Texas, then asked where Lee Yu and Lane were.

“They’re up at their place. It’s finished now and we just put their kitchen stove and heater-stove in yesterday. Their furnishings and ours arrived by train two days ago and we have ours just sitting all around in the rooms, waiting for our inside walls to be completed inside. Their house is complete and we’ve been staying with them up there.”

“How far is it?” Micah asked.

“Just about a good rifle shot away. That’s the way we tell each other that we’re coming over,” he told them, laughing with them as they laughed at him.

“Get your rifle, Ladd. Tell them we’re coming to see them,” Caleb told him.

When he came back out, the six Bucks were waiting on him.

Micah had explained about the rifle shot and they were laughing too.

Ladd raised his rifle and fired two shots into the air. The girls jumped and looked around. Lilly Beth laughed and told them that was the way they let Lee Yu and Lane know they were coming for a visit and to get their clothes on.

“You’re kidding Right?” McKenna asked, but she was smiling as Lilly Beth grinned and shook her head.

“Damn, I just love it here,” McKenna said just as they heard the reply of two rifle shots off in the distance.

“Let’s go see Lee Yu and Lane,” Ezra said and started toward the horses.

“Have Kia and Michi come back yet?” he stopped and looked back to ask.

“They have and their homes are just about as far along as ours. Their furniture and stoves haven’t arrived yet though,” Ladd told him.

“Both their homes?” Eli asked as they walked around the house with Ladd to get their horses saddled.

“Yep, we have six carpenter crews up here now plus Manuel and all the vaqueros helping most of the time now that we’ve got the gates up and all the gaps in the fences closed.”

When they walked around the house, Neva and Perla ran out onto the back porch, then stopped quickly as they saw others here.

“Eli, you and Ezra remember Neva and Perla, don’t you?” Ladd asked as the girls quickly recognized the two Crow brothers.

“ELI!” Both of the cousins screamed as they recognized them.

He turned just in time to catch both of them as they launched their bodies at him.

“Hey, girls. You both look like you’ve grown since we’ve been gone,” he said as he hugged them,

As soon as they had hugged Eli, they turned on Ezra and grabbed him, hugging him and yelling his name.

Ezra looked at Eli and grinned. His bandaged hands were on both their backs and when they squirmed against him, the buckskin shirts of Lilly Beth’s came up to expose their brown butts.

“You’ll just have to get used to them, Ezra. That’s all they wear since Lilly Beth gave each of them one of her shirts,” Ladd told them and grinned at Ezra and Eli.

The girls came around the house when Lilly Beth told them who it was that had yelled Eli’s and Ezra’s names.

The two Mexican girls remembered Kit and Ruby and ran to hug them. When they saw the four Texas girls they ran to them too as they laughed and hugged them.