Chapter 4

Cindy and Judy were pretty subdued for the next three days. Christmas was almost here and the sadness was on them. I was trying to build the girls a room in the loft so they could be by themselves. I caught them at breakfast. "Tonight you will be sleeping on robes in front of the fireplace. I'll be lying with you. We have to talk."

They looked at each other. Judy spoke, but I knew it was really Cindy speaking, "Sam, Jessie ain't going to like that at all."

"I told you we were a mixed up bunch. You are going to be living here so you might as well know what is expected of you. You can't know without some background."

"Okay, but you watch out for Cindy. She just adores older men." Then came the giggles. I shook my head.

I came back with, "Cindy, I know it is you who is talking. I know which one of you is Cindy and which one is Judy." This shocked the two girls. Sure they were identical, except they were mirror images of each other. Cindy was left-handed and Judy was right. Sometimes it took me a minute to figure out which was which, but it never took long.

"Jessie is going to get you under the blankets and I'm going to be lying on top between you covered with a buffalo robe. I'll have to get up to feed the fireplace during the night and I won't want to wake you. A lot of what I'm telling you is history. Some about the Indians and a little about the people who live here. Mary Eustis has a chore for you and I'll see you this evening."

Mary Eustis sent them over to Pete's valley to thank the Indians for attending their mother's funeral, just saying this was highly unusual for Indians to attend a white person's burying. We figured that the three cowhands who were Indians had told their people about the two girls and their loss.

I came down to find Pat and Gramp standing in the ranch yard laughing. "What's going on?"

"Them two girls stole your Jim horse. I thought you said no one but you could ride that animal?"

"I didn't think anyone could."

"Well them girls saw you slipping him some sugar and they copied you. They been all over him for the last two days. They been tying a blanket on him and getting on and off. This morning they came out, threw a blanket on him and we boosted them on. Jim, he just raised his head and cantered off. I tell you, boy, things are going to be different around here with them females. I don't know as we will survive or not."

I was anxious, but not overly concerned. We didn't see the girls until the middle of the afternoon. Both came happily into the barn and slipped off. They now were both dressed in buckskin dresses and leggings. I laughed for they smelled like the Indians. The dresses were none too clean and had been worn, but all in all it was a nice gift.

"Sam, we have to go shopping if you have any money." Both girls looked expectantly at me.

"Well what did you have in mind?"

"I thought maybe we could go buy some cloth to give to the Indians. The only Indians that knew what we were saying were the kids that Kenny has been teaching. They said it was a wonderful idea. The Indian teepees and everything in them are so dark and dreary. If we gave the squaws some bright cloth, they would be so happy."

"Well, I was planning on going into Button Box tomorrow. I have to buy presents myself. Maybe we can find something in the General Store. Go ask Mary Eustis and Jessie if they have a list. Oh, and while I have you right here, you know you should be horsewhipped for stealing Jim."

"But Sam, Jim said that he needed the exercise and you haven't ridden him in days. I think you should be paying us to take care of him for you." Pat and Gramp were correct. These two young females were turning the ranch upside down.

The girls were curled in front of the fire which was blazing away. I lay down between them and they giggled. I ignored this. "First, someday people may ask how Kenny came to have this valley for a ranch. It is almost unheard of for a man to have deeded land especially of this amount that the ranch encompasses.

"It goes back to just after the last Indian uprising. The tribe was totally defeated and the Interior Department set aside the land where the reservation is at present. At that time this valley where our ranch is located, was included. But there are always crooks in the world and the commissioner who managed the reservation was one of the worst.

"He had a friend named Boyle, who was extremely wealthy, so the commissioner sold his friend the land here in the valley and pushed the Indians back into the hills where the Silvercloud clan, now only remnants of a tribe, still live. Boyle wanted a solid deed from the territory and the commissioner arranged that as well. The Interior Department started an investigation a couple of years later and the Commissioner was removed.

"Boyle never gained much either, for within five years he was struck by lightning while riding across the valley and died on the land he so coveted. He had an older aunt and Kenny approached her about buying the holdings. Kenny may have mentioned how powerful the Indian Gods were while talking with her and that it was so unusual to have lightning strike a man on a horse. Was it the Indian Gods? Long story short, this became the Kenny Ryeback ranch.

"Kenny hasn't had that amount of good luck either. He fell in love with a married woman and her husband was killed in a fight over her. This landed him in Territorial Prison where I met him. There was another force at work before that happened, which is more difficult to explain.

"An Indian maiden was in love with Kenny. She had the presence of mind and a dream of the future to know that the best for her people held with Kenny, who now owned the land that used to belong to the Silvercloud clan. While he was away, she held to that belief. She waited for him, saving some of his cattle and the horse herd for when he returned from prison."

"That's Mary Eustis, isn't it?"

"Yes. Of all the people I know and have ever met, Mary Eustis is the most intelligent."

"You sound as if you are in love with her."

"I am, but not for the reason you might think. She has done much for me. I treated her people in a fair manner and she rewarded me by inducting me into the Silvercloud clan. This makes me a brother to all of the Indians and they trust me to speak for them. Someday I may have to defend their interest before the white man.

"And she has done more for me. Look at Felicity. When I first saw her, she was wasting away, being dependant on a wet nurse for survival. Mary Eustis following another of her dreams had given me a potion that corrected the problem immediately. This made it possible for me to marry Jessie and bring her here to live with me.

"Kenny Ryeback, who holds the land here, is interesting in that he is Mary Eustis's mate. He has been a long time friend of her people by letting them use his land for their hunting ground. They owned it in years past and lost it. Now they have use of it again and actually are better for it in that he allows them to own and run some cattle to feed their people. You will see the Silvercloud clan increase in population now that they all have access to a plentiful food source. Already there are three squaws with child, one of who is Mary Eustis.

"Chet Comstock, who is my grandfather by marriage, has done much for me as well. He and Jessie caught me, along with two other men, killing one of their beef. I could have been hung, but instead they spoke for me and I was only sent to Territorial Prison for two years."

"We know all about that. Jessie told us how you prevented her and Gramp from being killed. Why wouldn't they speak up for you?"

"Whatever. Did she tell you about writing to me in prison?"

"Of course. She was in love with you. She admitted to making a mistake and getting married, but it all turned out great when you came after her and you asked her to be your wife. You have taken little Felicity for your own and that means so much to her. Tell us about George Wilcox who was at Mama's funeral?"

"He is Felicity's grandfather and came north with us when he sold out and didn't want to travel west with his wife. He blames her for allowing their son, Brad, to go bad. Not only that, she wouldn't have anything to do with Jessie, and has never seen, or had the desire to see, her grandchild. He, on the other hand, came north with Jessie and helped her and Felicity while I was with the herd."

"So he isn't married to the woman named Bertha?"

"No, but he is happier with her than he ever was with his wife. One other thing you should know. Has Jessie said anything about her father?"

"Not too much. She said she thinks he will be getting married in the spring and is hoping to travel down there to be with the woman as her matron of honor."

"I didn't know that. I mean that she wants to go south. She will be big with child by that time."

"You better plan on it, because she has already said Cindy and I could go and be in the wedding. I bet you didn't know you were going to be in the wedding too. That was my idea. You're going to be best man."

"Judy, why did you do that? Christ, John hates my guts."

"No he doesn't. I think he thinks he has a very sharp customer for his son-in-law. Jessie showed me the letter she got from him."

"Well we will see. I guess we had better go to sleep if we are going into town tomorrow. Girls, you wouldn't have any idea what I should get Jessie for a Christmas present do you?"