Chapter 52

Crow Ridge Tulsa, Indian Territory February 14, 1885

Shawn Michael Crow, Eli’s sixth son, was born kicking and screaming on St. Valentine’s Day as Eli held Miranda’s hand while Rose stood beside her holding her other hand, wiping her forehead with a cloth. Doc and Lettie were there to deliver the baby boy as all the girls looked on. This was their little brother and was he ever loud and rowdy, kicking his blankets off as fast as they covered him.

“He’s going to be a tall handsome Buck, just like his daddy and his brothers, Miranda. I’m so proud for you and Eli” Rose told her.

“Eli needed you in his life and now you and he have brought a son into your lives and we’ll have another Young Buck when he grows up,” Rose added as she sat on her bedside.

“Thank you, Rose. I hate to think of what direction my life would have taken if I had not met you and the others in Kansas City that day. I am still as thrilled to be here with all of you, as the first day I stepped off that train and saw Eli and his boys and girls. I want to sit with Clarissa one day and get her to write down my part of her story about the Crow family, how I came here and especially my love for Eli. I have so much in my heart to tell her so she can record it with the rest of her journals.”

“Now that Shawn Michael is here, you can sit with her and tell her your story. I’ll keep the baby so you can tell her all about it.”

“You’ll be having your baby in a couple of months, Rose. Then Shawn will have someone his age to play with,” Miranda told her.

“Yes, Doc and Lettie have told me that it should be about the first week in June. Then Clarissa will have her baby in the fall, with Doc and Lettie’s being born soon after, so we’ll have the four of them within a year of each other.”

Crow Ridge Indian Territory February 17, 1885

“Dad, here’s what we’ve all been waiting for,” Jon David said as he rushed into the dining room to find Eli sitting at the table with Jefferson and Howard.

“What is it, Jon David? Is the steam shovel on the way?” Eli said as he jumped up to see what Jon David was so excited about.

“It sure is and according to the date on this operator’s manual and paperwork from the bank, they will deliver in ten days.”

“Howard, Jefferson, what do y’all have planned for the next two weeks? Let’s all pack a wagon and a couple of tents and head up that way day after tomorrow.”

“We were just talking about that yesterday, Eli. We’re ready and we have two men hired already who have been factory trained and each of them has one year of experience operating one back east,” Jefferson told him.

“Where are the men you hired?”

“They’re both in Kansas City, waiting on our telegraph message telling them to meet us there at the strip mines. They’re both already on the payroll.”

“Send them a message, tell them to get over there and start earning their money. We’ll get our gear packed and leave out early, day after tomorrow. Jon David, I want you there too with that camera. This will be big stuff for our mineral rights and coal exploration company.”

When Eli walked into the kitchen, the new mommas were nursing and taking care of the babies, as Tin Yu, Catt, and Eva were cleaning up the kitchen and starting dinner.

“Where did my Crow girls get off to?” He asked.

“They just now ran upstairs, Eli.”

“I’ll go get them. We’re leaving out for the strip mines day after tomorrow early. The new steam shovel is on the way and will be there in ten days or less.”

“Be sure and take a lot of photographs of that machine, Eli. We want to see it, but we’ll never get up there with all these babies,” Rose told him as he ran up the stairs.

“I swear. that man never slows down!” Miranda told them and they all laughed.

Eli heard his girls laughing and talking before he reached the top of the stairs. They were all in one room, playing with Maryanne and her little dog, Pepper.

“Lee Yu, come here I got something to tell you,” Eli said as he walked up to the door and stood watching as they played in the floor.

“What is it, Dad?” She asked as she ran over to him.

“Don’t talk where Maryanne can hear you, but you girls get packed for about a ten day stay. We’re going up to the strip mines day after tomorrow early. The new steam shovel will be there in ten days or less.”

“OH YES! I mean alright. I’ll tell the others and we’ll be ready,” she whispered as she hugged his neck.

“Maryanne, you and Pepper come go with me. We’ll go get him a bone in the kitchen.”

Eli squatted down and scooped her up in his arms when she ran to him. She had her little dog, Pepper in her arms and he was licking both of them.

When he walked down the stairs carrying them, the women looked up and started laughing. Tin Yu was the first to speak.

“Eli, who has who?” she asked and they all laughed.

“If you get one of them, you get both of them,” he told her. “We’re looking for a ham-bone or something to keep the little one busy.”

“Here’s a pork chop bone. Take him out on porch to chew on it,” Tin Yu said, handing him a bone for the little dog.

“Maryanne, it’s too cold out there for you, we’ll just let Pepper outside to do his thing and he can chew on his bone too.”

“Not cold to me,” she said and he had to laugh when she looked up at him.

“Yes it is too. We’ll sit over here by the stove while Pepper goes out. He’ll be back inside shortly, ready to play.”

“OK,” she agreed. When he sat down, she turned to straddle his knee, bouncing up and down as he held her hands.

“Ride that horsey, Maryanne,” Rose told her.

“Eli, are the girls packing?” Miranda asked as he rode Maryanne on his knee.

“Yep, they’ll take more than they need, but let them pack for themselves this time. I expect we’ll be gone about two weeks, so don’t look for us for a while. If there’s a telegraph up there where the railroad comes down, I’ll get a message to you.”

“Where are the Bucks? I know they’re going or they’ll chase you down before you get there,” Grandmother said.

“Joe has gone to round them up. They’re like me, all it takes is a few changes of buckskins, some underwear and an extra pair of moccasins and they’ll be ready,” he told them.

“They wouldn’t miss this for nothing, it’s all I’ve heard since we told them we were getting that big machine.”

“Eli, I’m going up there and make sure those girls pack plenty of warm clothes. It’s still cold at night and the weather could turn bad while you’re up there,” Grandmother told him.

“Go ahead, Grandmother, but first, just see what they’ve packed. They need to learn to pack up and be ready, no matter how cold or how hot.”

“Eli, they’re not boys, you know!” Rose told him when Grandmother had gone upstairs.

“I know, but I want my girls to be as rough and tough as my boys are. This is still a wild country and the more they stay home, the less they’ll be prepared for when they get grown and have to make all the decisions for their family, like y’all do.”

“If you ask me, they are half boy!” Clarissa told him and the others laughed at her.

“They need to be. They need to be able to go where we go and they need to know how to handle themselves when they get there. When they find a boy they like, then they’ll know how to handle him too!” he told them and they laughed when his face turned red.

“Eli, those girls could handle most boys their age now, if they just had a chance to,” Catt told him.

“Don’t you two start on me about my girls handling boys!” he turned to where Catt and Eva stood smiling at him, both with their hands on their hips.

The trip up the Arkansas took them five days, traveling the same wagon road that Eli and Duncan had traveled many times in the past as they rode up to the Kansas border on a mission.

Though the nights were still cold with temperatures close to freezing in late February, the days were warm and sunny with light winds blowing most of the time.

They made camp on the south side of a bluff where twenty to thirty feet of topsoil had been scraped away to expose the rich coal deposits. From here, they could see the dummy-line railroad that runs all the way through the coal fields, joining the mainline of the ATSF Railroad on the north end. With spurs off to either side of the dummy-line, they could stage in excess of one hundred empty coal gondolas inside the loading site.

Howard and Jefferson had leased a switch engine from the railroad to keep the coal cars pulled into position, as the steam shovel loaded them. The men who had designed this operation for them had done the same back east and readied this coal field for production. Their largest customer was the ATSF Railroad, and the freight rates had been negotiated beforehand.

This was the first coal excavation operation the ATSF had not been able to buy outright in the entire southern Kansas, northern Indian Territory area of coal deposits. Their freight rates were paid in coal, with fuel coal being furnished for the steam locomotives used to pull the coal to markets in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago. In return, Crow Coal Corporation was the sole provider of fuel coal for the ATSF between St. Louis and Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory.

The day the steam shovel was to arrive, the Young Bucks and the Crow girls were riding along the bluff, looking down on the vast strip mine with teams of mules and horses pulling large scoops filled with coal to ever growing mountains of rich, black coal near the empty rail where the steam shovel will be parked upon arrival.

The sound of a train whistle miles in the distance caused them to stop and listen.

“He sure is pulling on that rope. I hope that one is bringing the steam shovel in,” Pike said as they all looked to the east for the long trail of black smoke associated with the coal fired locomotives.

“There it is!” Lilly Beth yelled as she rode to the highest point and looked back.

“Do you see the steam shovel on the train?”

“I sure do. That’s the only thing the on that train too. They’re pushing the steam shovel and there’s not even a caboose behind the locomotive. That thing is huge too! It’s as big as our house, sitting on that rail car,” she said and rode back down beside the others.

“I can see it now,” Little Eli said and pointed to the north.

“That railroad must curve way over there, if he’s coming here with that big machine,” Ezra said as he looked through his spotting scope.

“It does, there is a big curve back this way. You can see it good from up there where I was,” Lilly Beth told them.

“Look, here comes Jon David and Dad. They have the camera!” Micah told them, pointing down to the camp.

“That’s gonna be some picture from way up here,” Michi told them as they watched the steam locomotive slowly make its way around the last bend to where the dummy-line started.

Jon David and their dad were riding up to the top of the bluff where they all sat on their horses watching the steam engine as it slowly rolled through the switch off the mainline onto the dummy-line.

“Jon David, you better hurry, they’re just about to the end,” Lee Yu told him as he set his camera up.

“We wanted to get two pictures from up here, then go down and get some closer,” Eli told them as he sat on his horse, grinning, as the huge steam shovel slowly rolled into place.

“Look, there’s a man sitting up in that little house on top of that thing and it’s already got steam!” Ezra yelled as he looked through his spotting scope again.

“It sure does. Jon David, get that camera loaded back up and let’s get down there. I see Jefferson and Howard already walking toward that thing,” Eli said as Isaac and Little Eli helped Jon David fold his tripod and wrap up the camera box.

When he was on his horse, they handed the camera up to him and all of them took off down the slope as if they were racing.

Jon David and Eli rode their horses out to where Jefferson and Howard stood talking to their new operator. Howard took the camera from Jon David and held it until he was on the ground. Another man walked over after stepping down from the locomotive and introduced himself.

He was the second operator. Between the two of them, they would load coal night and day.

The Bucks and the Crow girls left their horses back away from the huge piles of coal and ran to get a close up look at this monster of a steam shovel.

“Line up in front of it, I’m going to set the exposure and get in the picture myself,” Jon David told them and waited until they were all in place.

“Hold your positions, here I come,” he said as he ran over to stand beside his dad. They stood shoulder to shoulder, smiling at the camera, until they heard the loud click as it exposed the plates.

“One more, just in case,” he said and ran back to reset the camera once more.

When they’d taken that one, they turned to the men who were to run this monstrosity that would load coal cars as fast as they could spot them.

“Mr. Whitehead, we contacted that other operator you asked us about. He’ll be here in a week, he said,” one of the operators said as they all met in person for the first time.

“Will three operators be enough? Can the three of you run it and keep the coal loaded, or do we need to hire one more man?” Jefferson asked.

“Three of us can keep it running day and night. We need the money and we’ll load more coal than they can haul out of this place as long as you have men to fire the boiler on this rig and keep it oiled.”

“We have those men hired and on the job too, they arrived yesterday.”

“Are we ready to load our first gondola? I see you already have a head of steam,” Howard asked the men.

“We can get started right away. We need to get this big baby loosened up and get her used to hard work. Looks like you have enough coal here to load for a few years to come.”