Chapter 13

We left the house and before we got into the Model T, mother checked the back seat and found the large picnic basket and the large glass jar of tea. She carried a small case out with her, placing it on the floor of the back seat, before we got in. She drove us away from the house, away from town and up into the foothills overlooking Boise. Being a warm and sunny day we didn’t have to worry about muddy roads, besides where we were driving, there weren’t many tire ruts. Finally, she turned onto an old fire road and mother stopped the car and she turned to me.

“Paul, we are now surrounded by a national forest. Because of something I’m about to tell you, we own a big piece of the land in the middle of it. It will always be ours for as long as there are O’Dells.”

She started the motor again and we drove through some short brush, then through a stand of tall, old trees before coming out into a beautiful meadow. It was a good two hundred yards long and wide and butted up to a lake on one side. The rest of the hilly meadow was surrounded by forest on the other three sides. There was a small log cabin near the lake. Looking at it from the lake, the cabin would have been located on the front right quadrant of the property.

She parked the car to the side of the cabin and instructed me to go back to the road we came in on and check that the car’s muffler hadn’t started any grass fires. It never occurred to me that the heat of an exhaust pipe could light up the dry grasses or underbrush. Seeing no fire, I returned to the car.

“It looks clear, Mother. Is this something I should normally do when driving out here?”

“Yes. While you were gone a truck drove around a part of the forest and started a huge wildfire. I don’t want to go through that ever again. Paul, let’s go sit in the shade, this is going to take some time.”

“Should I take anything into the cabin?”

“No, I’ll show you around after we’ve talked. Just grab the basket.”

Mother had the tea and I had the big picnic basket. We walked to the edge of the lake, laid out a big blanket, and sat in the shade. She poured us each a glass of tea and then set the jar in the lake water to keep it cool. Once she was settled down and seemed comfortable, mother looked at me with a sweet smile and shook my world like an earthquake.

“Paul O’Dell, you are one of the richest men in the Western United States.” She paused for a bit to let that sink in. “I’ve told you a little about your father and his brothers, but what I’ve told you is not even close to the whole story.”

With that beginning, my mother told me the story of the O’Dells and about her being a whore and my father’s rescue of her and her surviving friends, who became my aunts. She told me about the land grant and the plain and the gold and the battles. The whole thing. We moved the blanket several times to stay in the shade as the sun traveled west.

She explained how the OA&P Mining Company had become the O’Dell Clan Foundation. She explained how the Foundation had been set up and who was in charge of it until I, or Pauli or Michelle, came of age and took over the administration of it. She also talked about my father’s desire that his family be raised to be honorable men and women, and in some way serve their country.

Mother explained that when they turned twenty-one, she had given Pauli and Michelle the same information she was giving me. That was when she told me that the Foundation was to remain a secret from our spouses or partners until we’d been together for ten years. The strict rule to not say anything to Juanita until they had been together ten years, caused Michelle to immediately decide that she didn’t want to be burdened with the responsibility of running the Foundation.

Instead, Michelle took a yearly stipend from the Foundation for herself and Juanita, and opened up a bakery in Boise, wanting the two of them to live a simple live that would draw no attention to themselves or their intimate relationship.

Pauli told Creighton what she was allowed, that she had a trust and that they’d have money, but not the extent of the wealth. She and Creighton were doing well on their own, Creighton having opened a building supply company. The Treasure Valley was growing fast, so the trust was never a large factor in their lives.

Ultimately Pauli decided to accept the stipend until she and Creighton had been married ten years, not simply living together. My mother’s feelings were that she and Creighton would also back away from the Foundation because Creighton’s company was doing so well on his own and having time to run the Foundation would be difficult.

Mother told me that neither Patty nor Charles knew anything of the trust or the foundation. Which was a small reason why she wouldn’t marry Charles. They just knew that the former Widow O’Dell was rich enough to be comfortable.

“So there you have it. Your father would have been proud that you served your country like he and his brother did. He would be proud of the man you’ve become. I decided that I would honor your father and raise you and your sister and cousin until you all turned twenty-one, then I would take care of myself. That’s why I finally said yes to Charles’ proposal, although he doesn’t know yet that my acceptance will be of a commitment and not a marriage. I’m never going to stop being an O’Dell. I won’t be buried next to Paul with another man’s last name. Now you have to make some choices.”

“Choices?” I thought, then it hit me. “This is why you talked Patty into getting a degree in business administration, isn’t it?”

“Actually her degree is in accounting. The business administration part was a sideline that she liked. It seemed to make sense if you and she got married. And if you didn’t, she would still have a great skill for the rest of her life.”

“OK, Mother. One more question and then I think I’m going to be done for the day. What is all this for?” I waved my arm around the meadow and the lake as I spoke.

“Paul, the time your father and I had on the plain was the most wonderful of my life. We were able to get the Federal Government to deed us this land, in perpetuity, in exchange for some of the granted land we still held in Western Colorado. I wanted my children to have the joy of spending time in this sort of an environment. I already had the cabin built here while you kids were babies, and over the years I came out here alone to remember those days.”

“You were always gone on you and father’s anniversary.”

“I was,” she said thoughtfully. “And now you, and your children, and their children can expand on it. All I ask is that you always keep this place a family secret and allow it to be your refuge from the real world. The park rangers will know of its existence and will check on it when you are not here, but they have no authority here and won’t bother you, unless something specifically falls in their purview, like fire or blizzard.”

That was all she said before standing and stretching her “tired old bones”. Then to my surprise she walked over to the lake and right there in front of me, she hiked up her dress and peed in the lake. I stared at her.

“Paul, I was a whore remember. I’ve been seen by a lot of men and I’ve seen everything. I’ve done a lot as well. Taking a piss in a lake, in front of my son, is no big deal. Go on, I know with all the tea you drank you have the need as well.”

I stood and walked to the lake. In the army taking a piss in front of people was commonplace, although I did have a little hesitation pulling out my penis in front of my mother. She watched with interest and nodded, approvingly.

“I’m proud to admit that my son is a little bigger than his father. I’m glad I taught her about the cucumber. That thing should keep Patty very happy for a very long time,” she said and then with a wistful look on her face asked me a question I didn’t understand. “Did I ever tell you about my mule, Thumper, and your father?”

We stayed at the cabin that night and talked more about our family and Charles and Patty and yes, she was giggling when she told me how she took some time to teach Patty how to swallow a whole cucumber.

In the morning I found that my mother had clean clothes packed in that small case she brought out to the car last. We went to the lake and washed in the cold water. For some reason, it didn’t feel strange to be naked in front of my mother. She was a frontier woman and washing in a cold stream or lake was not a new sensation and soldiers learned to wash when and where the opportunity presented itself.

When we were dressed, I looked around the cabin and found that it was stocked with enough staples to make pancakes, so we ate breakfast and she told me the stories about her mule, and the crazy things she and my father did with each other before I was born. It kept me laughing and in tears most of the meal, especially the story about my father showing his penis to her mule and making it depressed.

The drive home was easy like the drive up, and we talked further about the family and the various things going on in town since I’d left. We even talked about the Happsmans and the sad demise of their business after the death of the family. Once at home, Charles and Patty made no attempt to delve into the contents of our talk, but there was an enormous amount of affection being shared in the house the rest of that day and night.

Compromise is a sign of strength or weakness depending on your point of view. If you have a strong position and back away it can be seen as a weakness. I wanted a small wedding at the house. The upper levels of society in Boise wanted a huge wedding to be held outdoors, actually on the steps of the State Capital building, so they could be seen with the power elite of Boise.

My mother had told Charles that she would not marry him but would be proud to make an official commitment to him in front of the whole State; he compromised so he could spend the rest of his life with her.

As for me, screw compromise! I told Patty that we should just run away together. She wanted no part of that idea. She said it would seem like we were cowards, running away. Besides she had fallen in love with the idea that her father and my mother would commit to each other in the same ceremony as her and I. And she thought that facet alone should make it an epic event.

We finally compromised and decided to be married inside the State Capitol rotunda. There was enough room for a couple of hundred people. So the uppity-ups got their societal boost and yet it was small enough that Mother, Charles, Patty and I felt the setting was intimate and private.

In hindsight, it was very memorable. All in positive ways.

We figured that Patty got pregnant on that very first day I arrived home, when she dragged me to my room and coerced me into proposing to her. Yeah, that’s right, I was coerced! Mother was excited and was in tears when she talked about wanting so many more babies with my father. Patty told her she would just have to be happy with a whole lot of grandchildren.

Pauli and Creighton had a daughter while I was in Europe and again just after Patty and I got married and again shortly after we’d had our son. He was born in 1920 in the cabin at Patty’s insistence. Something about wanting to be awake and alive when the baby was born and not unconscious as was the common practice in hospitals. I think she had spent a lot of time talking to my mother about the joys of childbirth when the mother was wide awake.

I was scared to death approaching Patty’s due date, mostly because every time I asked my mother for advice, she told me to deal with it as my father had. I delivered the baby, like my father had delivered my sister. Mother and Charles never warned either of us about the large amount of screaming and cursing, but Patty impressed me, with her knowledge of words that I thought only soldiers used.