On Her Way Home (4 page)

“Couldn’t resist, huh?” Jo nodded at the bars with a grin.

Pa kicked a chair out and slid a fork across the table to Jo. She took a gooey bite. “You’re up late tonight, Jo, couldn’t sleep?” Pa questioned.

Jo sat, contemplative. She slid the tines of the fork along the wood grain of the table in a slow methodical way. “Pa, I feel like a piece of drift wood jammed up in the river; everything is flowing around me, but I’m not moving with it. I’m stuck.” She looked up at him through deep blue, somber eyes. The tick of the clock from the dining room was the only sound in the kitchen while Pa mulled over what Jo had told him.

He cleared his throat, “Most people get jammed up in the river at some point or another in their life; some stay where they are and watch the water ripple past every year, and some break away to see what lies downstream. I know which one you are,” he said with feeling, “and so do you.” He nudged her shoulder with his own.

From then on Jo went over every detail of her plans with Pa. They delved into the hundreds of brochures Jo had been collecting in her room, they counted money, they mapped out routes, and they collected and read newspapers from out west. Pa always pretended to be as excited as she was; only once did she catch his eyes misting up when she joked that she had so many places to see she would never make it back home. Now he was gone, and Jo missed his insight, his enthusiasm, his wisdom.

Sitting at the table with Leif and Kirby, Jo pictured a piece of water-logged driftwood in her mind. Then decidedly, she said, “One hour. I can be ready to leave in one hour. Will you have room for my luggage?” Leif assured her they did and after making plans to meet at the hotel in an hour, Jo quickly left the café and hurried back to her room to pack her things. She had broken away to see what lies downstream.

Chapter Seven

Leif was still rethinking his rash decision to hire a woman when he and Kirby entered the General Store. Figuring if he was going to hire a woman, he might as well hire a schoolboy too, he said to Kirby, “Let’s hurry up and get this seed, and then I think I’ll drive over to the Webster’s and see if Charlie still wants a job.”

Fifteen-year-old Charlie Webster had ridden out to the ranch not two hours after Leif had posted the ranch hand advertisement in town, and he’d cut school to do it. Charlie’s pa was a lawyer from back east who had moved out to Montana to represent J.W. Hamilton, a railroad tycoon worth big money. No one in town cared much for him, with his city ways and high-handed attitude, especially after he had successfully defended a law suit brought by local ranchers, claiming the increased railroad shipment prices were against government regulations. Unlike his pa though, Charlie was well liked in town. Generally, Leif avoided shady characters like Mr. Webster as much as he could, but Charlie had practically begged for the job.

Leif walked to the store counter where Miss Aimee Tucker greeted them with a friendly hello and a bat of her eyelashes.

“Leif, it’s
so
good to see you. It’s been too long since our last Sunday drive. Did you hear? Papa’s putting a telephone in at our house. Of course, I’m sure you know that since practically everybody in town is getting hooked up through the P&P Company. Last week Norman came by and asked me to the Grange Hall on Saturday night…I told him I would go, of course that depends on whether or not you had plans this Saturday.” Aimee took a much-needed breath and looked provocatively up at Leif.

Kirby thought he was going to be sick. Listening to that chatterbox go up and down and all around was worse than the bumpy ride to town this morning. He watched as Leif turned on his lover boy act and flirted with the featherbrain.

“Aimee, now why would you want to go dancing with Norman when you can go driving with me on Saturday night?” Leif looked up at her, injured. Leaning over the counter, he put his lips right up next to her ear and whispered to her in a low voice. Aimee giggled and slapped playfully at him as he stepped back from the counter.

“I’m waiting in the truck,” Kirby muttered, as he hobbled out the front door.

Five minutes later, Leif strolled out of the store, with a bag of seed thrown over his shoulder and a naughty smile plastered on his face. He winked at Kirby while starting the truck up, “People sure are friendly in town today.”

Unimpressed, Kirby replied, “The only thing worse than a man chasing a slow-witted
duck, is watching him do it.”

***

An hour later, Jo was in the hotel foyer waiting calmly with her luggage. The previous hour had been a dizzying whirlwind of packing her luggage and writing to her mother, followed by a brisk walk to the post office to mail her letter and a hurried shopping trip at the General Store. Most of Jo’s clothing was travel clothing and her dresses she wore to teach school. She hadn’t planned on ranch work. During her brief stop at the General Store, she had acquired three pairs of men’s dungarees, three button-down shirts, and a pair of western leather boots with swirls and loops stitched into them. She had paced back and forth wondering if she should purchase the costly boots, but knowing they were needed, made the investment worthwhile. The pants, however, would require a severe hemming in order for Jo to wear them, and she was glad she had packed her sewing case. She had also purchased soap, stationery, ink, work gloves, and a few sweets she couldn’t resist, namely, a bag of lemon drops and several strawberry-flavored candy sticks.

The stately grandfather clock in the hotel foyer chimed on the hour. Leif and Kirby should be around to pick her up any minute. Jo felt a moment of disquiet when another thirty minutes passed, and they still hadn’t arrived. Surely, they wouldn’t forget her or worse, change their minds about hiring her. She was pensively waiting in a soft, upholstered settee, worrying over her new expensive boots and whether or not the General Store would allow her to return them, when Leif and Kirby finally appeared. As Leif came through the hotel door, Jo was flooded with relief. She would have hated to part with her beautiful new boots.

“Sorry, we’re late, Jo. This is Charlie Webster.” Leif gestured to a lively young man, who followed him. “We decided while we were in the business of collecting ranch hands, we might as well fetch Charlie too,” he said good-naturedly.

It was obvious to Jo that Leif believed she wasn’t going to cut it on the ranch, and that’s why he’d hired Charlie, but she said nothing, vowing inwardly to prove him wrong. Shaking hands with Charlie, she couldn’t help but notice the excitement dancing in his brown eyes.

“Miss Swenson, Mr. Hawkins told me about you on the way to town. I look forward to ranching with you. I traveled to Montana by train too, only—when I was eleven. It was the most exciting two weeks of my life, well, up until now that is. I just know this summer is going to be the best time I’ve ever had.” Charlie’s enthusiasm was infectious.

“I’m sure it is,” Jo replied. “I have high hopes for it as well.”

Leif, Kirby, and Jo each carted a piece of her luggage to the truck and handed it up to Charlie, who had swiftly vaulted over the wood rails and into the back. Stacking Jo’s bags neatly by the wheel well, he perched himself against the back of the cab, like a puppy impatient to leave. Leif took his place behind the wheel while Kirby held the passenger door open for Jo to climb in. She suffered a moment of reticence as she realized she would be wedged in between Leif and Kirby on the drive to the ranch. Left with no choice, she climbed in anyway. The engine chortled to life, and the four of them were off.

The mood of the group was cheery. Leif was surprisingly pleased with his new employees despite the fact that they were a woman and a boy. Charlie was bright with enthusiasm for the ranch and a summer free from his pa. Jo was alive with gratitude for a fresh path in life, and Kirby was just happy to be leaving town. The truck wound its way down Main Street, and turned right at the big post office. As it passed a few stores Jo had yet to see during her exploration of town, one in particular caught her eye. Right next to the theatre was a large overhead sign that read “Rendezvous Dance Hall” in gold and silver lettering. Jo’s interest was piqued, as she recalled the advertisement for a dance hall girl she had seen.

“You have a dance hall here?” She asked, dipping her head in the direction of the building.

“Yep,” Leif responded, as images of Aimee Tucker kicking up her heels in a slinky flapper dress dashed into his mind. Then glancing slyly at Kirby, he hinted, “It’s a nice place to go if you like dancing. It’s respectable, not like some of those ropey joints on the county line selling moonshine and other goods, eh, Kirby?”

Kirby colored. “I wouldn’t know. I ain’t ever been to either one.” Leif snorted, and Kirby sent a glare his way.

“Why do you ask? Do you like to dance?” Leif asked Jo.

Now it was Jo’s turn to snort. Secretly, she enjoyed dancing and moving along with the music, but dancing in front of people was a fate worse than wearing spectacles. “No, not particularly,” she replied. “Let’s just say I was considering it as an occupation at one point.”

Kirby rudely scoffed, “You don’t got the legs for it.”

Caught off guard by Kirby’s blunt observation, Jo gaped. Then raising her eyebrows and leveling him with her most threatening schoolteacher stare, she said, “No…but I can kick! So mind your manners.” She almost pulled it off, but a snicker escaped on her last word.

Kirby and Leif chuckled, surprised and pleased with her sassy retort.

Jo’s reticence on entering the truck had been warranted when, after fifteen minutes of driving, the black Ford turned off the main road and was now bumping up a narrow lane.

Jo gripped the dashboard with her hands, trying to avoid knocking into either Kirby or Leif. One minute she was shoulder to shoulder with Kirby, and the next she was jolted across the cab to be elbowed by Leif as he steered the overcrowded prison. Without the constant jostling and her worry over touching either of the men, the drive would have been pleasant.

The town sat in a valley the shape of a “T”, with a wide fast-flowing river winding through it. The gravel road leaving town twisted and turned between grassy farm fields, their green stocks gently swaying in unison. Gradually, the truck started to climb, winding up the mountain to look out over the fertile fields. Jo’s luggage in the back of the truck slid toward the tailgate as they chugged up the steep hill, leaving town. It was a heavenly view, although Jo wished she were sitting by the door so she could see it better. Leaning forward and gazing past Kirby out the window, Jo tried to capture as much of the scenery as she could. As they drove around the last switch back, the valley disappeared from view. This was about the same time that the drive started to get uncomfortable for Jo. Heavily wooded trees rose up on either side of the lane, and with nothing to distract her out the window, she couldn’t help but notice that her thighs were smashed right up next to Kirby’s and Leif’s.

Jo had always been sensitive to the space around her. When she was a school girl, she admired how some of the girls were so confident around the boys her age, pulling their caps off and running around with them on the schoolyard, getting tagged or tackled, whatever the game might be. They never seemed to notice or feel awkward touching a boy, but Jo was always acutely aware of everything involving boys. She thought she must be odd that it mattered to her where her knees were or whose hand she was holding when other girls didn’t seemed to take note.

When Jo was in the fifth grade, the most popular recess game, “Red Rover, Red Rover,” was played holding the hand of the person next to you. She remembered her classmates joining hands casually, but Jo was very aware that Billy was standing next to her, and she was going to have to hold his hand. She was embarrassed by her thoughts and figured she must be strange and slightly bad to even feel such things at her young age. When she was older and experiencing her first crush, she was even more convinced of her abnormality. When he was in the room, she was intensely aware of it; when their hands innocently touched, she appreciated the feel of it. She often wondered if it was just her or if all people had these heightened senses in the presence of the opposite sex. That was part of the reason she was so uncomfortable dancing; she could never relax and forget that someone’s hand was on her waist. Because of the internal embarrassment this caused her, she generally avoided the exact circumstance she was presently in. She envied Charlie, who had the truck bed all to himself, with only the luggage to share his space.

Kirby noticed Jo’s hands gripping the dashboard with all their might and the tense look on her face. Every time their knees banged together, she sent an apologetic glance at him and sucked herself into a tighter ball to take up less space. She was barely covering her third of the seat as it was.

“I hate this danged road. As soon as we get that tractor, I am coming to grade it,” he ranted.

Leif didn’t want to hear any more complaining from Kirby about the road. He was certainly grateful that he had two new hands and wouldn’t be making another trip to town with Kirby for a long while.

At long last the black truck cleared the woods, and the road evened out, turning onto a smoother lane with grass growing up the middle of it. Leif pointed to a white house a few hundred yards in the distance. “That’s the ranch. This road is the start of our land. It runs about five hundred acres east and west of this road and north up that ridge line.”

The road to the ranch house was surrounded by pasture with a herd of cattle grazing intermittently in the field. A barbed wire fence ran along the perimeter of the field both east and west with a partially finished rail fence bordering the road. The path to the house took a little dip down a hill, where a new calf and her mother were enjoying some shade, and then up again, opening into the yard of the ranch. Leif swung the truck in a wide circle and came to a stop. He and Kirby opened their doors, and the three of them all but fell out of the truck like yeast foaming over the bowl.

A two-story white farmhouse with dark green shutters welcomed visitors to the ranch. Three wide steps led to a covered porch supported by straight white columns wrapping around the whole house. The front door was stained a deep walnut color and had simple diamond shapes carved in straight lines. Extending from it were two long, narrow windows of the same rich woodwork. The rest of the window casings and trim were painted a dark green. On the second floor, directly above the front door, stood a gabled balcony and two dormer windows on either side of it, perfectly symmetrical. On the right side of the roof, a gray stone chimney rose in the air.

The newness of the house was surprising to Jo. She had assumed it would be a much smaller, older structure, not this large inviting house that stood before her. The yard wasn’t nearly as welcoming as the house. If the rocks and dirt piled in long rows on each side of the house were any indication, Jo guessed this house was built rather recently. Excepting one large aspen tree, the yard was untouched by human hands, with no grass, flowers, or plants of any kind occupying the space. About a hundred yards back and to the left of the house stood a large weathered barn with a corral. Unlike the house, it appeared to have withstood many seasons on this land. There were three other buildings on the property: a chicken coop with a dozen hens clucking around the yard, a small bunkhouse with a freshly shingled roof, and an outhouse. Jo heartily disliked the idea of using the outhouse. The smell always reminded her that she was sitting where others had sat, especially in the heat of the summer. She was a ranch hand now though, and the obvious proximity of the bunkhouse to the outhouse left no question in her mind that it was for the use of ranch hands.