Chapter 8

It was late afternoon when Caroline drove the single horse gig into Sweetwater township and all the way through to the livery stables on the western edge of Main Street, where Alice said she had hired the rig. Caroline had never been to the Liberty Livery Stables before, although she knew from going through the ranch’s books with Sam, in her first few days out at the ranch, that her father Jed had a 50/50 stake in the business with Jerome Maclean, who ran the stables. The wooden building was fairly new, as was most of the town, although the original orange paint was almost sunbleached white on three sides of the building. It was a substantial stable, Caroline later noting it had room inside for thirty horses, plus a corral in the open out back. On the western side of the plot there were a couple of large carts parked up, painted on the side, ‘Joshua Matthews & Sons, Hauliers, Sweetwater Valley’. And beyond that, a dirt road that appeared to be going South. Well, that answered her question about how bulk goods got into the valley.

“Howdy, Miss Bradshawh,” said Jerome, a grizzled old character who only had one tooth in his lower jaw, just to the left of centre, which wobbled as if it was about to be spat out as he spoke. Caroline had conversed with him twice before, once in the store and once in the Hotel dining room, and knew that her eyes would be inexorably drawn to that tooth like a magnet, she just couldn’t help herself. “Have any trouble with Dotty here?”

“Hi there, Mr Matthews,” she replied as she checked the brake was full on before accepting Jerome’s hand to step down, “no trouble at all, Dotty would have got me here safely, even if I was asleep the whole way!”

“Yeah, she be a sweet mare, is Dotty. How’s yorn Miss Wells, now, she’s one fine filly!”

“She’s fine, I left her at the ranch. I was worried about her running around, with rustlers about.”

Caroline looked at this old man Jerome, wondering why he was so free with his sexist remark about Alice, maybe it was just a sign of the times. A male-dominated place like this. The old man was busy unharnessing the mare, and seemed lost in his own thoughts.

“That mother o’ hers. Damn! She wus a wild ‘un in her day, Ma’am. Pretty, mind, like Alice is now, but that whole fam’ly, the Dentons, wus as poor as dirt when they fust came here. I mean,” he said as he lead the pony away, Caroline following. “The Marshal ain’t done so bad fer hisself, an’ your young Alice has got her head put on straight, but her Grandpa wus one o’ them silver miners, an’ they alwise wus trouble.”

“What was the town like in those days?” asked Caroline, “did you know my father well?”

“Know yer Pa? Oh yeah, yah Pa wus the best thing ter happen ter this town. Back in them days there wus more whore houses, if yah beg mah pardon, ma’am, than saloons, and there wus more saloons than quills on a full-growed porcupine. The town wus all tents in them days, too, cos there wusn’t no decent timber hereabouts. I started a haulage business bringin’ in tent poles before we ever had the Stagecoach running. I wus runnin’ out of a barn at the back o’ the old injun tradin’ post. That wus knocked adown when theys builded the Sweetwater Valley Bank & Loans Company, an’ they went an’ knocked that old barn I used down too!”

He chuckled away to himself, a raft of memories flooding back through his ancient mind.

“So, the place has changed a lot since you’ve been here?”

“Yup, an’ it’s all down ta yah Pa, Jed Pinner. He weren’t like none o’ them other miners. I mean, he wus lucky an’ struck the silver motherlode within the fust few spadefuls o’ dirt an’ quit when he reckoned he had dug out enough. It wus a murderin’ place round ‘ere back then, an’ he had ta gunfight his way through every day to stop his claim bein’ jumped. He wus so quick on the draw, that the folk here in town offered him the job as Sheriff, an’ he took it. Sure cleaned up the town real quick. He bought mah Haulage company off me an’ bought up the wagons an’ mules off o’ them what came here ta settle, an’s sellin’ ‘em back as they left when the silver ran out. I bought this land here an’ ya Pa paid teamsters ta haul lumber up here tah start buildin’. By the time the timber got here, he had marked out the lumber yard an’ a saw pit an’ he started on buildin’ mah barn fust and the the Main Street of the town”

“How long did it take to build the town?”

“‘Bout five year I reckon. By the time he’d done, we had the buildin’s an’ sidewalks, piped water from the mountains an’ proper outhouses out the back fer all.”

“So when did he start the Lazy C Ranch?”

“It wus the Wavy Zee in them early days, run by Zachary Buckie. Boy, was he one hot headed cowboy! He had trouble with the Injuns, who wud come through the pass in winter an’ teke a few cows. He rounded up a posse o’ local ranchers and rode into their camp, all guns ablazin’ an’ findin’ all the Injuns had gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yup, not a one single Injun there!” He grinned, “Them Injuns could hear Zachary comin’ as soon as he left his ranch, which weren’t nothin’ but a log cabin then. So them cowboys rode out of camp a lot slower than they went in, with their guns empty, an’ the horses blowin’ fit ter bust. An’ then them sneaky Injuns popped out of cover where they’d bin hidin’ and shot every one o’ them.”

“Yeah, Buckie’s widder wanted out, as do some of the widowed neighbours, but no one desired that spread cos o’ them Injuns, so yah Pa bought it fer a song an’ the Widder went back East, happy ta git anything fer her old man’s spread. Then Judge Makepeace came up by Stagecoach, cos the service wus up an’ runnin’ bah then, an’ he judged it wus self defence on behalf o’ the Injuns for the attack on Buckie and friends, and drew up a full pardon which yah Pa took to the Chief. We wus still Injun country before then, but with the Peace Treaty yah Pah signed with the Injuns, the Judge declared this place a Territ’ry an’ appointed yah Pa as the Marshal.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Well Ma’am,” he cackled, “I had five teeth back then an’ I reckon I lose one ev’ry five years, so I reckon it wus high on twen’y years ago. I remember a delegation came up from the Injun village, the fust we’d seen since the old Injun tradin’ post closed a couple o’ years before. In that party was young Sam’s mother, a pretty young squaw she wus then. Boy, I ain’t never seen a man so smitten before, like ya Pa wus. It sure put a burr under Kitty Malone’s saddle, I kin tell yah!”

“Kitty Malone?”

“Well I ain’t one tah tittle tattle, but she wus the Madame of the Kitty Kat Klub House across the street from the Marshal’s office—”

“The Courthouse?”

“Yeah, that’s what it is now. Those two women fought over Jed in the middle o’ Main Street, there ain’t bin nothin’, not one gunfight, tah match that cat fight.”

“I take it Dove Feather won?”

“Yup! Real sneaky them Injuns! She went an’ beat the livin’ daylights out o’ her, like it wus the other way around, that she were tryin’ ta keep hold on her man, yet ev’ryone knew it wus Kitty what had her claws into ya Pa. So Kitty was run out o’ town with her tail between her legs an’ Justice Makepeace joined the happy couple together in holy matrimony, seein’ as how we ain’t never got around ta employing a minister an’ building a church hereabouts! Dang, Miss Bradshawh, things wus a mite more excitin’ round here than they has bin fer many a year!”

Later that day, Caroline spoke with Haulier Joshua Matthews, who ran once a week to the railhead at Colby, taking out wool and cow hides, and bringing dry goods, fashions, and even more ginger “firewater” for the saloon. The wagons leave in convoys, three days to the railhead and three days back, with a rest on Sunday. He was given a list of scholastic supplies to fetch and in turn she was promised no problem for delivery the week after next.

She slept at the Hotel that night and caught the Stagecoach at noon, which traveled along the road for a couple of hours away from the town through the cold desert, until it reached the end of the line, where the stagecoach driver and guard just stopped and fell asleep. Caroline tried to fight the sleep, to see what happened, but it came on her anyway and she woke up in the dream car in her garage. She removed the Stetson, feeling refreshed and went into the house.

Caroline checked the calendar. It was Sunday and she has noted that she had invited Dr Peter George round to Sunday tea, at 3 o’clock. And, of course, she had nothing in the house to eat. She checked her bank account on line, which was actually quite healthy, she had hardly spent anything on food for the last month and she had lost so much weight, that she was almost as slim as her Sweetwater self. She dashed around to the supermarket for bread, ham, eggs, scones, jam, double cream and milk.