Chapter 3

When I went over to Millie's to pick up Sin the next day, of course Millie came out to say hello. I asked her if she'd like to go with me and you'd have thought I offered her the moon. She ran inside to ask Sally if she could go and was back before I had Sin saddled.

It was a very pleasant ride down to Silas' place. Millie kept her arms around me all the way there. I'll swear the little vixen was intentionally rubbing her breasts against my back.

Silas was right. The young bull was a fine one. We dickered on the bull and six cows for a while. I had brought a raccoon and a muskrat pelt with me to show him what he was bargaining for. I actually ended up getting the lot of them for far less than I thought it would cost me. I found out later that part of the reason was because he and Caleb were cousins.

I told him I'd be back the next day to pick them up and that I'd bring the pelts with me.

The ride back was just as pleasant as the ride down had been. We stopped for a while in a little clearing and kissed and cuddled. "This is the start of our ranch," I told Millie.

"I know," she beamed. "They look like good cattle. Are you going to get more when we get to Oregon?"

"Probably. These cost us a lot of the pelts we have. I'll do some trapping after we get there and we'll see what's available."

"Are we gonna get married as soon as we get there?"

"I'd like to, but we'll have to see what your mam and pap say."

"Are you gonna let me go with you to pick out the land for our ranch?"

"Yep. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Millie squeezed me then asked, "You don't believe women shouldn't have a say in things then?"

"Honey, you have as much say in things as I do. I want you to be comfortable and happy. You wouldn't be happy if I forced things on you."

"Yeah, but most men around here don't think that way. Most men think that women are only good for growing a garden; cooking food; and having babies."

"Well, I like the thought of us having babies, at least the thought of us making them."

Millie giggled. "From the way mam sounds when her and pap are going at it, it must be fun."

"Yeah, even mom sometimes gets noisy when her and pap are messing around. I guess someday we'll find out just how good it is."

When I went over to pick up Sin the next day, Millie was waiting to go with me. I had a pack mule with me and she said she'd lead the mule so I only had to worry about the cattle.

When Silas and I had made our trade and we started driving the cattle back to pap's place, I got a very good surprise. Someone had trained Sin to work cattle. About all I had to do was give him his head and he did all the work.

We made the drive back a lot quicker than I thought we would, mostly because of Sin. We put the new cattle in a pen and went in to talk with mom and Tess for a while.

Tess asked Millie if she'd like to have dinner with us. We looked over at mom and she nodded. "I'll need to go home and let them know," Millie said.

We rode over on Sin. When we got there I went to talk with Caleb while Millie went inside to ask Sally if she could eat with us. Caleb gave me a big smile when he saw me.

"Howdy, Caleb," I said.

"Howdy. How'd your new horse do?"

"I think you made a mistake in selling him to me as cheap as you did. Someone has trained him to work cattle."

Caleb raised his eyebrows. "Really? The guy I got him off of told me that, but I didn't believe him."

"All I had to do was point him in the right direction and give him his head. If any of the cattle got out of line, he brought them back in without me having to do a thing. That was with us riding double and leading a mule."

"Maybe we'd better talk about that deal," Caleb laughed.

"Too late. I wouldn't give him up for ten times what I paid for him."

Caleb showed me what he had been doing on his farm wagon. He had put another course of boards around the top and it was now over three feet deep. He had also tarred the outside of the body and I had no doubt it would float if it wasn't overloaded.

Millie came running back around the house and said she could eat with us. "I think I'm going to start keeping Sin over at our place," I told Caleb. "I'm making trips somewhere every day and I'm coming over here almost every day, so it only makes sense."

Caleb agreed and then he said, "Your saddle looks like it's seen it's better days. Would you be interested in a new one, if the price was right?"

"Yeah, I've been thinking about getting a new one. If I'm going to be ranching in Oregon, I'll need it."

"Abner Greely bought a new saddle for his son just before he was killed in that accident at the mine last fall. I saw him at the store the other day and he asked me if I was interested in buying it. He says it has a scabbard that's big enough for a Kentucky Rifle and a pair of saddlebags with it."

"I'll go down and take a look at it tomorrow. Would you like to go with me, Millie?"

"Sure, if pap says it's okay."

Caleb just grinned and nodded.

We rode back over home and I told mom I was going to be keeping Sin over here from now on. She just nodded. Millie, Tess and I decided we'd take a little walk. Once we were out, away from the house, Tess said, "So, you two are going to get hitched."

"Yep," Millie grinned. "That means you're going to be my sister."

We teased around for a while then went back to the house. After dinner, I took Millie home. We stopped short of their yard so we could kiss goodnight without an audience.

Millie and I took along two pack mules when we went to Ab's the next day, since we were going on from there to the general store. The saddle was a nice one. It wasn't fancy, but it was comfortable and the saddle bags and scabbard were top quality. I traded him three beaver pelts for the lot.

Mom wanted me to pick up 200 pounds of sugar, a hundred pounds of salt, two pounds of saleratus, and five pounds of pepper at the store. It's a good thing the pack mules I took were young and strong.

We were still unloading the pack mules when pap pulled into the yard on one of the biggest wagons I'd ever seen, pulled by eight good looking oxen. He was acting like a little kid as he showed it off to us. I could tell that this was going to be pap's big adventure, at least until the going got rough.

"This here's bigger than most Conestogas," he said with a satisfied look. "It's twelve feet long instead of ten."

"How could you afford something like this?" I asked.

"I sold the farm to a city slicker in Wheeling," he said. "He paid me five hundred dollars for it. I got some other stuff inside the wagon."

We looked inside and I was knocked over. He had six, hundred pound sacks of flour and about a hundred pounds of coffee. There were also a bunch of packages.

"What's all that?" Tess asked, pointing toward the packages.

"Just some stuff I got for you guys," he said. He picked out three of the packages and handed them to me. "These are for you, Jase."

I took the packages over to the porch and sat down with Millie to open them. I opened the heaviest one first. It was a .36 caliber Patterson Colt Revolver. I'd heard about them, but I'd never seen one. It was pretty simple to figure out how to use it though.

The second package contained a pistol belt and holster. The third had a bullet mold, a sprue cutter and a powder measure. "This stuff cost a fortune," I told Millie. "This revolver costs $40 or $50. My new saddle didn't cost more than five dollars brand new."

Millie was as surprised as I was. "He's never given you much of anything," she told me. "Just thank him and take it. Maybe he's trying to make things up to you now."

I did go over and thank pap for the revolver and the other things. He showed me what the salesman had told him about how to load and fire it.

After dinner that evening I told him Caleb and I had been talking about sharing Caleb's farm wagon. "You'd have a lot more room to take trade goods," I told him. "There might also be room for you and mom to sleep in the wagon that way." He readily agreed.

Before we went to bed, he had to tell us all about his adventures in Wheeling. He said we were all going to be traveling by flatboat from Catlettsburg to Evansville, Indiana. "It'll cost us five dollars a wagon, but it'll save us almost two weeks of traveling."

I told him Caleb was a little short of money and he said he'd pay for Caleb's wagons. That's one thing you could say about pap, if he had money, he was generous with it.

March 2, 1845

Well, I never thought it was going to happen, but the day we were going to leave finally came, March 2nd, 1845. We had to be at Shorts Landing in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, in three days. It's only about twenty miles, so I knew it wasn't going to be a problem.

We had quite a collection of people, wagons, and animals as we left from Caleb's place. There were eleven people, twenty-two horses, twenty-four oxen, eight mules, twenty cattle, twelve hogs, twenty chickens, five cats, three wagons and two dogs. The Johnson's were going to meet us at the landing.

Sin proved his worth within the first mile. He helped keep the cattle, horses, mules, and pigs moving in the right direction. Caleb was riding his stallion, so there wasn't a problem there. I had no doubt who'd come out on top if Sin and Thunder got into it, but I didn't want to see either one of them hurt. Caleb's dog, Bullet, was also a big help with the livestock.

Millie started out riding on their wagon, but after about a mile, she jumped off and motioned me over. "Would you mind if I rode with you for a while?" she asked.

Of course I didn't, so I helped her up behind me. "Jase, Tess tells me that your mom made her three or four buckskin outfits with pants instead of a skirt. Would you mind if I wore one of them?"

"Not if you don't mind me staring at your limbs," I teased.

Millie blushed and said, "No, I don't mind that. I'd claw another man's eyes out if he did it, though."

"You wouldn't have to, Honey. Just point him out and I'll take care of him for you."

Millie giggled, "I know you would. Let's ride back to your wagon and get the outfit."

Pap was driving our wagon, so when we pulled up beside him I asked, "How's it riding, Pap."

"It's riding real good. Your ma gave me a cushion to set on and it's just fine."

Tess peeked out to see who was talking, so Millie asked her for the outfit they'd been talking about. "Are you gonna put it on right now?" Tess asked when she passed it out.