Saturday's Child (16 page)

❧

Katie took up her pen and wrote,

May 1905

Dear Edith,

It's been too long since I last wrote, I know. I can only tell you that my life has been so full, I seldom have time to draw a breath, let alone write a letter.

I am glad to hear that you and Colin have made peace and that you are seeing him occasionally. I know it's foolish but I do worry about him. He's a grown man, I know, but it makes me feel better to know that he has friends like you.

You mustn't blame Johnny too much for his attitude regarding females working. After all, most men would feel the same. Indeed, many women would feel his position is the correct one.

I agree with you that a century but a few years old deserves to go on without outmoded notions clinging to it from years past. But I think it will be many years before we see changes in the position of women, human nature being what it is. Changes on paper are much easier to make than changes in attitude.

You mention women getting the vote soon, which I found interesting since here in Wyoming, we already have the vote. Indeed, we have had it for nearly forty years. Although I'm sure it's a very good thing and agree that women should have the right to their say, since elections can certainly affect our lives and those of our children, I can't say that my life would be much different if we didn't have suffrage. There's little enough time for worrying about the politicians when I've a house to keep. I suspect it's much the same for other ranch women.

Indeed, between the garden and the chickens and the house, I could make use of several more hours in every day. Quentin has ordered me a sewing machine from the Sears and Roebuck catalog Nearly twenty dollars it's costing, which seems a great deal of money, but he insisted.

We had a terrible hailstorm nearly two months ago and I thought the garden entirely lost. Fortunately, I've found that plants, no matter how fragile they seem, are quite sturdy, rather like humans I guess. Most of the plants survived and they are now thriving.

Life in Wyoming is so different from that in the city, I'm not sure how to go about describing it to you. The first and most obvious difference is the lack of people. Though we have neighbors, I've yet to meet them, for they live several miles away. Spring and summer are very busy times on a ranch, leaving little time for visiting. Quentin says that there is a harvest dance every year, which we will be attending in the fall.

I've seen no one but Quentin and the hands since coming here. I must admit that the solitude can be somewhat wearing. I miss having a chance to chat with another woman. It's a lonely life but a very good one, I think.

I'm afraid my loneliness has made me ramble on more than I should have and I'm sure you have better things to do than to read my meanderings.

Please let me know how Colin goes on. I've had only one card from him since leaving the city and I'm afraid it wasn't very informative. Write soon.

Your fond friend,

Katie.

❧

Katie blotted the last page carefully before setting it aside. She'd been intending to write to Edith for weeks now. It seemed as if there was so much to teil, it was hard to know what to put down.

Of course, the most important news was something she wasn't quite ready to share with anyone. She set her hand over her stomach, hardly daring to hope that her suspicion was correct. Carrying Quentin's child would make her life complete, or nearly so.

"You're a fool, Katie, to be always wanting more than you have," she whispered to herself, trying to banish the melancholy that threatened to darken her mood as she folded the letter to Edith and slipped it into an envelope.

She and Quentin had developed a certain closeness over the past two months. It might not be love, or at least not a grand, passionate love, but it was enough for now, or so she'd made herself believe. Love could grow. That she did believe.

Katie realized she'd been hearing the odd sound for some minutes before she became consciously aware of it. She stood up, crossing to the door and stepping out onto the porch.

It was a beautiful late-spring day. The yard, which had been a sea of mud for so long, had suddenly sprouted greenery that she thought nearly as beautiful as a finely clipped lawn. The roses she'd planted were showing strong new growth, green leaves as delicate as the life she was nearly sure she carried within her. Before summer's end, she'd be able to step out on the porch and breathe the deep, rich scent of them.

The noise was closer now. It sounded, for all the world, like a motor car, a most unlikely thing so far from town. But that was exactly what came into view. A bright yellow automobile, bouncing and rattling its way down the rutted lane.

People. Katie felt her cheeks flush with excitement, her breath catching in her throat. It had been so long since she'd seen anyone other than Quentin and the hands. She'd hardly know what to say to anyone outside that small circle.

A movement on the other side of the barn caught her eye. Obviously, Quentin had heard their visitors' arrival for he was riding down the hill toward the ranch. Maybe this was one of their neighbors, the ones she'd not expected to meet until fall.

It was her first opportunity to meet the people she'd be living among. She lifted her hands to her hair, suddenly aware that it was in a terrible state of disarray. And the apron she had on was dirty. Turning, she ran into the house, trying to simultaneously straighten her hair and untie her apron.

Her hands were shaking as she settled the hairpins more firmly in the hope that they would hold the unruly mass in place. There was only a moment in which to replace her apron with a crisp white lawn one trimmed with a band of embroidery just above the deep hem.

The sound of the automobile sputtering to a stop in front made her fingers fly as she tied the apron strings. Giving a last pat to her hair, she hurried outside. The car had drawn to a halt in front of the steps. There were two people in it, both so swathed in dusters, goggles and gloves it was difficult to tell anything about them except that one was male and one was female.

"Hello there. You must be the gal Quentin married." The driver was extricating himself from behind the wheel as he spoke. "I'm Angus Campbell and this is my wife Louise. We're pleased to make your acquaintance."

He tugged off his gloves and hat and tossed them into the seat behind him. With only the goggles, he looked rather like an insect and Katie was hard-pressed not to giggle, more from nerves than amusement.

Then his wife spoke. "Take off those silly goggles, you old fool. You look like a bug-eyed monster. Probably scaring the girl out of a year's growth. And come help me out of this contraption. Every bone in my body is shook loose, I swear."

As the man hurried around to help her, Quentin rode into the yard. His horse took instant exception to the bright yellow vehicle, backing and fighting the bit, convinced he was facing something dangerous. Quentin swore, but didn't try to force the pony any nearer. He swung down from the saddle and turned the horse, giving him a swat on the rump that sent him trotting toward the barn.

"I do believe that creature has more sense than this husband of mine," Louise Campbell complained as her feet touched solid ground again.

"Now, Louise, you're the one who said we had to come meet Quentin's bride."

"I don't see why we couldn't have come in the buggy, just like civilized folks," she complained good-naturedly as she shed her driving hat with its veil.

She was something above middle age, Katie guessed, a sturdy woman who seemed very comfortable with who she was and with her place in life. There was warm good humor in her face.

Quentin strode across the yard, gesturing for Katie to come down off the steps as he and Angus shook hands. She moved to his side, feeling as shy as a child at a party. Quentin put his arm about her waist, his pride obvious to their visitors, if not to Katie herself.

"Katie, this is Angus Campbell and his wife, Louise. They're our nearest neighbors, about fifteen miles to the east. This is my wife, Katie."

"Pleased to meet you," Katie said slowly.

"Well, I can tell you that Louise is more than pleased to meet you," Angus said, reaching out to take her hand and shaking it with the same enthusiasm he seemed to show for everything.

"She's been nagging at me ever since we heard Quentin had brought himself home a wife. This is the first chance we've had to get away. I must say, if I'd known how pretty you were, I might have made it a point to get here a little sooner. Pretty as a prairie flower, you are."

"Leave the girl alone, Angus. Can't you see you're embarrassing her." Louise shifted her stocky husband aside, taking Katie's hand more gently, her faded blue eyes kind. "But he is right that I've been anxious to meet you, my dear. There are few enough womenfolk out here. It will be nice having a woman so close."

"I'm very pleased to meet you. I was beginning to think no one else lived in Wyoming. We haven't had any visitors."

"Well, you'll have a few this summer. Once the spring work is over, we manage to get in a bit of visiting. Not as much as you're used to in the city, but a bit. Folks out here tend to be pretty friendly. There's few enough of us that we don't get on one another's nerves."

"So, what do you think of her, Quentin?" Both women turned as Angus patted the front of the bright car with the same fondness he might have shown for a child. "She's a Pope-Toledo, made just last year. Got her in Denver for hardly more than a song from a fellow who'd just bought himself a brand new Daimler. Wife said two cars was an extravagance so he sold me this one.

"Had it shipped to Laramie by rail and just picked it up two weeks ago. She's a mighty fine piece of equipment. Mighty fine."

"A song," Louise snorted. "Cost every penny of two thousand dollars and can't do as much as a four-bit horse. A toy, that's what it is, Angus Campbell. It's a toy."

Angus was not visibly dashed by her scolding tone. "She won't admit to it but she enjoys it almost as much as I do. I've been trying to talk her into taking a trip in it, maybe all the way across the country. Couple of fellas did it two years ago in a Packard. New York to San Francisco in fifty-two days."

"It looks like a fine automobile, Angus," Quentin said, circling the vehicle slowly. "But it doesn't seem very practical. If it gets stuck in mud, you've got to have a horse to pull you out. Seems easier just to take a horse to start with."

"You wait, they'll be the wave of the future. Won't be very long before horses are a thing of the past."

"Maybe in the cities," Quentin agreed. "But I think there'll always be a use for a horse in the country."

"Let's leave the two of them to their talk about that silly machine and go into the house and have a comfortable coze," Louise suggested.

"Will you be staying for supper?" Katie asked as they climbed the steps.

"We'd take it kindly. It's a long trip back and I'd not like to do it on an empty stomach."

Later, when she had time to think about it, Katie was surprised to remember the instant kinship she'd felt with Louise Campbell. Maybe it was the similarity of their situations—both women isolated in a land that seemed more suited to the male of the species. Or maybe it was the warmth that Louise seemed to radiate.

Whatever it was, within a matter of minutes, Katie felt as if she'd known the older woman for years. They worked together comfortably in the kitchen, preparing supper, which was suddenly-a festive meal. Louise had brought pies and some of her special chokecherry jelly.

There was so much talk and laughter at the table that it didn't seem as if anyone even noticed the food but the men certainly devoured plenty of it. Some of the talk was about what was happening in the world beyond Laramie.

J. Martin had ridden Agile to victory in the Kentucky Derby. President Roosevelt had visited Colorado only a month before, hunting bear. It was beginning to look as though the Russians had lost their war with Japan. Admiral Togo had destroyed their last hopes in the Strait of Tsushima. Now President Roosevelt was trying to negotiate peace between the two nations.

Angus felt that it was best if the United States kept to herself—"No need to go interfering in the rest of the world's business," he said. "If they want to go to hell in a handbasket, that is certainly their privilege." Quentin argued that, if the United States was going to be a world power as the war with Spain had certainly proven, then certain responsibilities went with it.

But most of the talk centered around the ranch: how the grass looked this year, whether or not next winter was likely to be a bad one. There was only one uncomfortable moment and that was when the talk turned to the ever-present conflict of sheep versus cattle.

"I say we ought to lynch the lot of them," Angus declared angrily. "Damn sheep come in and ruin the range so it's not fit for a jackrabbit to live on. And they stink."

"Cattle are hardly sweetly scented," Quentin said mildly. "And there's a lot of land, enough I suspect for all of us."

"There ain't never been enough land for cattle and sheep to exist side by side. You mark my words, there ain't never going to be enough land. Damn sheep-herders ought to be run out of the state before they do more damage."

"Remember what happened a few years ago when Tom Horn tried it, Angus. He got himself hanged for it. Times are changing. The days of cattle ranchers being able to ride roughshod over everyone around them are over. Like it or not, we're going to have to learn to live with the sheepherders."

"Well, I don't like it. I still say, if we'd just all get together, we could run them out, lock, stock and barrel."

"You'd have to count me out of anything like that, Angus." Quentin spoke quietly, but there was an undercurrent of steel in his words. "We don't own this land. All of us are grazing on government land. You can't run people off land that doesn't belong to you."

There was an uncomfortable silence, which Louise broke by standing up and announcing that it was time for dessert. It didn't take long for the earlier atmosphere to be reestablished, but Katie remembered the scene. She'd been proud of Quentin for stating his case so calmly. She didn't understand the details of the conflict but she had utter confidence that her husband was in the right.

After the meal, the gathering moved outside. Some of the hands started a game of horseshoes and Quentin and Angus were soon pitching the heavy shoes, arguing good-naturedly over the scores. Louise and Katie sat on the porch, Katie with a pair of socks she was knitting for Quentin to occupy her hands and Louise piecing together scraps of fabric to form a quilt square.

"Around harvest time, we usually have a quiltin' bee or two," Louise said, her eyes on her work. "There's a bunch of us and we usually manage to get quite a bit done in amongst the gossip, which is the real reason we get together."

"I'm afraid I don't know how to quilt," Katie admitted.

"Ain't nothing to it. Simplest thing in the world. You just sketch out your design, if you're of a mind to do something fancy. All it takes is a few scraps and an eye for puttin' them together."

Katie doubted that it was that simple, but she watched the pieces coming together under Louise's fingers and decided it was something she could teach herself, what with her stitching skills. It would be nice to have a quilt she'd made herself for their bed. And for the child she was nearly sure she carried.

"I tell you, Quentin, that horse is a killer." Angus and Quentin had left the horseshoes to the hands and spent some time down by the corral. Now they settled themselves on the shady steps, accepting big glasses of iced lemonade from their wives.

"There's nothing can be done with a horse like that," Angus continued. " 'Cept shoot him or geld him, begging your pardon, ladies."

"He's too valuable to do either," Quentin said, leaning back against a post. "If I can get his bloodlines into my stock, I'll be able to get top dollar for his foals."

Katie looked over their heads to the golden stallion who paced the perimeter of his corral, tossing his head in their direction as if he knew they were talking about him. The play of muscles under tawny hide and the sunlight catching in paler mane and tail made him seem like an exquisite statue come to life.

"He's not so bad," she said without thinking. "He's just a little cranky."