Chapter 9

September 9, 1848

Willy looked at Ola as if he had been kicked in the balls, "And you believed that?"

"Of course not! They threw me out even after I told them so too! The sheriff said he would be out but couldn't say when. He said this is happening all over the county."

She began to cry, "They wouldn't even let me take our furniture! They said you sold it to them with the buildings. All they would let me take was my clothes."

By this time Willy was getting really mad and I expected to see fire coming out of his eyes from the heat of his rage. Willy didn't say a lot about Ola, but he did love her and would not stand for anyone mistreating her either in words or deeds. Add to that someone taking his land and everything else and Willy was not a happy camper.

I hurriedly told Willy, "From what the sheriff said this is something that the whole county has been going through. Sounds to me like somebody is running a scam on people and selling stuff that doesn't belong to him. Let's see if we can talk to them first and avoid shooting at them later."

It took a while but finally the wives persuaded him to try my approach first. We dropped off the gold and got cleaned up before we left for Willy's claim. When we approached his cabin I saw a man followed by a younger looking copy come out of it. They were carrying Ola's dry sink and were about to load it into the wagon. This really pissed Willy off and he drew his pistol and was ready to shoot either or both of them. I told him to put the gun away and we rode closer.

"Hello! I'm Alex xxxxxx and this is Willy, the owner of this place. I understand you claim that you bought this place from him."

The older man looked at Willy and then at me, "This isn't the man we bought the place from and it belongs to me and my boy. I paid for it and it's mine!"

"I'd like to see this bill of sale and the claim he gave you before we have to start making this thing worse than it is right now. Mind if I get down?"

He looked at me as if he thought he should recognize me from somewhere. His son suddenly started and began whispering in his father's ear. He looked at me again and then looked at my holster and pistol. He got a little pale but spoke grudgingly, "And if I don't I'm dead! Is that it? I heard about you in Oregon City. You kill men for making remarks you don't like!"

I looked at the sky while still being able to see the pair in front of me, "Why is everyone so ready to call me a killer? I'm as mild as milk to everyone but those who try to hurt me or mine. All I want to do is defuse this before it goes any further."

He looked dubious, but not being able to find anything to object to, agreed to let me see the bill of sale and the land claim "title". After we got in the house, he pulled a couple of pieces of paper from a saddlebag and displayed them to Willy and me. I looked at it and I wasn't sure if I should laugh or cry. The papers were amateurish copies of a land claim without either stamps or the correct signature. An X signed the sale document with two illegible names next to it as witnesses. I realized at that moment, he probably couldn't read as no one who had seen a real land claim would ever have thought this was real.

I looked at him with sympathy in my eyes and he must have seen that. Taking off his hat he threw it on the floor and started cursing. After a while he began speaking again, "Now what happens? I gave him all the money we had but for $50 dollars. All that's left is our wagon and the team."

"I'm sorry but unless someone catches him before he leaves Oregon or spends all the money you're not going to get anything back. I can offer you work through the farming season on my farm, but you'll have to put everything back in and leave the cabin. I'll let you build a cabin on my place to use until you get something more permanent but that's the best I can do."

"What about the gold diggings? I've heard that anyone can make a fortune just picking up gold from the surface."

Willy and I told him about what we had seen in the camps and how late it was in the season to start over the Siskiyou Mountains right now. He had heard about the Donner party and blanched at the prospect of getting snowed in for the winter while going through the mountains.

"There's still land unclaimed to the north of here in the next prairie that you can file on. You'll need more than $50 to live on before you can get a crop in though." I looked at him and decided he needed to see a real land claim before he got cheated again. Reaching into my pocket I pulled out my claim and showed it to him, "This is what a real land claim looks like. Make sure that the clerk signs it in all the underlined spaces and stamps it or it's worthless. You need to report the man who sold you the fake claim to the sheriff in Salem and in Oregon City. You may not get anything back but it will put him in prison longer if he's caught."

I turned my attention to his son for the first time, "How old are you, boy?"

"17."

"Can you read?"

"Some, but not much."

I turned back to his father, "I'll hire your son through the harvest and pay him $40 a month until you get back from Oregon City and filing for a land claim in the next prairie. Has anyone told you what you need to do to make a claim?" He gave me a garbled version of what he needed to do so I told him of the requirements for a land claim, the clear description and markers on the corner of the claim as well as the size that he could claim.

He thought about it for a while and turned to his son, "Josh, I want you to do the best job you can for this man. He's paying you a good wage and should get a good job in return for it. I'm taking one of the horses and going over to this prairie they're talking about and look at it myself. If it looks good I'll be heading to Oregon City to make the land claim."

I looked at Josh, "We'll make sure you get good meals and a clean place to sleep, although you might want to sleep in the barn if listening to babies bothers you. We have three in the house and they can really make a racket when they all get upset."

He looked astonished; "Your wife had three babies at once?"

"No, my three wives had one baby around the same time."

This time his father looked at me, "You're a Mormon? I thought you had to wear beards?"

I laughed something I didn't think would happen when we began, "No I'm a free thinker and I've got two Methodists for wives and Louise is a Baptist."

I looked at him again, "When you make your land claim, come see us again. We are starting a bank in the town and we will make loans to people of good character who have assets. It won't be a lot but it will be enough for you to live on and make a start of farming before you have to start repaying. We'll take a portion of your next crop for payment. That means that for every four bushels you manage to grow we get one until you pay the bank back. If I'm not here come to the schoolhouse in town and come to my office on the side. I'm the town doctor."

Josh and his father went out and began to bring the items they had removed back into the house. I left Willy there and went to get Ola and bring her back to her home. I also needed to tell my wives that we were going to have a young man around the house for a while and to keep the worst of their teasing toned down until he had a chance to get used to us.

After I got Ola back home, I led Josh and his father to my place and introduced them to my wives. Louise was a shock to them, but they didn't show any obvious scorn for her being black. Elizabeth and Claire especially got Josh's attention and from the way he walked did something else as well. By the time he saw the babies, Josh would have done anything for them, especially Elizabeth. His father noticed as well and gave him a nudge. Elizabeth and Claire pretended not to notice his obvious admiration and made sure to give me lots of close attention. I invited them to come in for breakfast after checking with Louise. I wished them a good night and went into the house with my wives. Once in the house behind the closed doors, they broke into giggles.

"Did you see that young man's bulge? I wonder how long it's been since he saw a young woman around his age?"

"And did you see his eyes when he looked at you, Elizabeth? Any wider and I think they'd fall out."

"Don't forget how they looked when Alex introduced you as his wife, Louise."

I just looked at them and sighed to myself. I didn't think the time they toned down the teasing was going to last very long.

September 10, 1848

We spent the night with our preferred partners, Elizabeth and I in one room, while Louise and Claire slept with the babies. How much sleep they got I don't know, although Elizabeth and I didn't get a whole lot that night. We talked more than we made love. Elizabeth told me that the farm was doing so well with the new equipment that she worried that there wouldn't be enough labor to harvest the grain when it ripened next year. I knew that I had to get either a thresher for the fields made or see if McCormick had made one yet. My problem was how to get the straw out of the thresher before it went through the fans. Somehow I had to change a continuous one-way motion to a sideways raking motion.

We spoke about Josh and I warned her about the lust/admiration I had seen in his eyes, "You need to find him a girl closer to his age to spark." She got a speculative look in her eyes and I knew the matchmaker gene had kicked in. I just hoped she picked one he liked because once Elizabeth started plotting the poor boy's choices were gone.

All three women had a satisfied look on their faces when Josh and his father came in for breakfast. Both their eyes lit up when Louise served them buttered biscuits with grits, ham and eggs with red eyed gravy. They ate until I thought they'd bust. Josh and his father looked at Louise with something more than polite acknowledgment now, "That was the best meal we've had since his mother died," his father said.

"Thank you Louise." His father harrumphed.

"I'm sorry. Miz. Louise."

"You're welcome," Louise replied.

I interrupted the conversation, "We are abolitionists in this household. If you can't accept that, then we can end this association right now."

Josh spoke up, "I'm sorry; I just haven't met too many black people before. We and our neighbors never saw or met any before we got out here."

"What do you think about slavery?"

"Never really thought about it at all. We were too busy trying to grow enough to survive. That's why we came out here, to get land that would grow enough to live on. After Paw worked in Ohio for a farm there, we decided we had raised enough rocks in Kentucky."

"Here everyone is equal in my eyes, just because someone is a different color or religion doesn't mean anything to me. Anyone who wants to work for me, or with me, has to accept that."

Josh's father told him, "That's fair. You work for a man you accept his values while you do. If you can't, then you find somewhere else to work."

Louise was making up a packet containing some food while we were talking. She handed it to Josh's father. He tried to turn it down and she glared at him, "No man or child ever leaves this table hungry without taking something with him! You're not going to be the one to start!" He took the packet and thanked Louise for it. Hugging his son he left for the next prairie and Oregon City. That was the last time we saw Josh's father.

Josh looked somewhat lost until Elizabeth called him to follow her while she showed him the chores she wanted him to do today. As she talked and gestured he followed her like a small puppy. After they were gone, Louise and Claire giggled again, "That's so cute!" That was the start of Josh working for us.

October 4, 1848

The sheriff finally came around to see Ola and was pleased that the situation had been solved without bloodshed. After talking to Josh about a description of the man who sold Willy's farm to his father he came to me with a surprising proposition, "I want to hire you as a deputy." He explained that his previous deputy had quit to go to the gold diggings in California and had left him to handle the county by himself. He needed someone to work with who knew when to shoot and, more importantly, when not to. He offered me a salary of $80 a month for the job.