How had I gone over a week, never more than five miles away from the North Platte, without visiting it? Oh, I'd occasionally caught flashes of silver reflection in the distance, from where the tree line marked the river's passage, but I'd had no idea. None.
It would be like spending all your time in Chicago without ever swinging by Lake Michigan, or visiting Florida without checking out a beach. As if, this whole time, I'd been forgetting to breathe.
This river didn't rush so much as meander, but it still made a wonderful, flowing sound. Even the birdsong got louder on approach. In fact, a massive cloud of large birds took flight at our appearance.
"Cranes," answered Jacob, before I had to ask.
And those weren't all the birds hanging around the Platte, or even all the cranes--just the ones close enough for our presence to make nervous. The cranes that took off just relocated some distance off, like stubble on the water. So. Much. Water.
This river was huge, well deserving of having the whole valley named after it, and I kind of fell in love.
The Platte had more breadth than a 10-lane highway. Maybe wider than two of them. But, it wasn't just one river so much as a filigree of riverlets around just as many sandbars. Various streams and channels braided in and out of each other, leaving countless long, thin islands, some little more than bare sand, some complete with weeds and brush, and a few growing honest-to-god trees.
"Too thick to drink," drawled Benj. "Too thin to plow."
"That's just what Jacob said!" When the others looked at me, I added, "I mean – what Mr. Garrison said."
Yeesh! Someday I would get the hang of that.
Mr. Garrison eyed the knotwork of earth and water, then eyed Benj skeptically. "Found a ford," he challenged.
"Indeed I did. Thisaway."
"It looks pretty shallow," I said. But to judge from the tension around the subject of river crossings, this couldn't be so easy. "What am I missing?"
Jacob said, "Quicksand."
Ah. That made all those lovely sandbars a tad less inviting.
We rode along the river's edge in air cool for midday in August, with not a trace of dust, until Benj found a tree that somehow stood out from all the rest—because he'd cut a gash in its bark. From there, Benj turned his gelding and rode right into the water, his mount's hooves making little splashes as it crossed the first of maybe six channels.
He called, "I reckon last week's storm washed some extra bottom our direction, and it settled right along here."
The rest of us watched him as his horse alternately waded or even swam across channels, alternately climbing onto and over islands. At one point, we lost him behind some mid-river trees. But eventually, he rode wetly up the opposite bank, onto firm ground.
He had to cup his mouth with his hands to call, "Easy going!" And I still had to strain to hear him. Part of that was because of the delicious murmur of moving water. Most of it was because of just how far the opposite bank was.
Benj started back, while Jacob and Jorge headed into the water. Jacob turned to point imperiously at me, before I could follow. "Stay here."
So I stayed with Milton. I didn't even dismount and go to the river's edge, despite how badly I suddenly wanted to go wading. I just didn't want to get into another round of who would burn whose saddle if things went south. Still, it was fascinating just to watch.
It would have been interesting just for the number of wild animals that ran away as they realized man had come to their little forest. Deer. Tiny black-horned deer, aka antelope. Even one really big deer galloped out of a copse of trees and away to another one--I think that deer was an elk. Something short and brown and waddly, which from this distance could have been anything from a porcupine to a beaver to a badger, made its escape. And there were lots of birds and, to judge from the occasional flash in the water, fish.
Benj reached our bank again, doffed his hat to me with a dramatic bow, turned around and rode away again. In the meantime, Jacob and Jorge had reached the opposite side and were doubling back--spreading out as they did.
Testing the river bottom, I realized.
The sun seemed gentler, along the Platte's edge. The sparkle of reflected sunshine, nature's twinkle-lights, delighted my eyes after so many days of dust. All that was missing was music. Why yes, I was still hung up on the absence of music around here. But at least I didn't have to fight the urge to burst into modern song--or "Sweet Betsy of Pike."
A vista like this needed nothing less than a full orchestra. Instrumental, all the way. But I was willing to take the birdsong, and the water's whisper, and the buzz of insects that Lady Billie Holliday kept flicking away with her tail.
The air felt surprisingly velvety, instead of hot.
At one point, I had to turn to Milton just to smile my pleasure at being here, watching something happen instead of hiking between endless rocks and yucca plants. He looked startled and shy, and ducked his dark face in acknowledgement, but I thought I saw his lips quirk in return pleasure.
I'd missed out on so much by staying with the calf cart and just following the chuck wagon around! Why did the guys get to explore all this, and I didn't?
Other than, you know, because this was their job. I didn't exactly have a job. And because they were experts, and I was still learning to properly rein a horse. And because apparently I was something precious to be protected.
Don't get me wrong. It's nice to have people worry about you. But I'd had more fun since last night--not just with the sex, but with the stampede that preceded it--than I had since Ogallala.
"Got some quicksand here," called Jorge, maybe twenty yards downstream.
Garrison, wet from his chest down from swimming his horse, called, "Mark it!"
Milton rode that way and notched a tree approximate to where Jorge's horse stood in the flowing water. Then the men went back to crossing and recrossing the many layers of the Platte.
"Here it is," called Jacob, well upstream. Milton headed that direction to blaze another tree.
Finally, the men agreed that everything between the nocked tree upriver, and the one downriver, had "good bottom." Then they returned to me, all three of them, in wet, clingy clothes. Don't think I didn't appreciate that, especially one broad-chested cowboy in particular. Every one of them glistened with water from the ribs down--including the horses.
"Told you so," grinned Benj. "I ain't much one to believe in miracles, but we got us a ford."
Jacob ignored him so deliberately that Benj laughed.
"Let's get them beeves across afore we lose that miracle," decided my husband. And he looked... happy. Not smiling, mind you -- I hadn't fallen into a fantasy world where woodland creatures dance about and trail-boss husbands smile! But he seemed supremely satisfied.
He held his shoulders easier than he had in awhile.
His gray eyes practically sparkled.
Unlike when he'd been stuck with the other trail bosses, he was in charge, able to bend the universe to his standards. Not surprisingly, he liked that. Even better, he had a challenge to confront and overcome.
I was thrilled to see him so happy--but it was kind of a gut check too.
I'd had nothing to do with it.
He might like me, and all, but I suddenly doubted I could ever compete with a river crossing in frontier Nebraska. Especially after he glancedmy direction, as if surprised to remember me there -- and something clouded his pure pleasure.
Just a little.
Just enough to worry me.
* * *
I spent most of the actual river crossing sitting on the wife cart beside Amos and behind Lulu, just downstream of the blazed tree marking the east end of safe passage.
Amos made a great narrator.
"See that big steer, up front? Brindle feller with the solid red spot on his withers and black up his left rear hock?"
I wasn't wholly sure what withers or hocks were, but....
"You mean the one wearing a bell around his neck?" I tried not to smile, but barely managed not laughing. The beast had to weigh nearly a ton, and his horns spanned almost six feet from tip to tip, but he wore a belled collar like one of my cats, albeit with a clangier bell.
Were they afraid he would chase birds?
"He the lead steer. Judas steer, they call him. His name Sam, after Mr. Houston. Been with Mister Garrison for years now, 'cause he don't flinch from a challenge. You just watch him lead the rest of them beeves across that there river."
And he was right. Jorge, one of the point rides, led the collared steer. But it was Sam whose easy acceptance of the water as just another passage seemed to reassure the cattle who followed.
"He's got the bell on so the others can hear where he is!" I realized out loud.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Why do they call him a Judas steer?"
Amos rubbed the tops of his thighs with his gnarled hands. "Most of them other drives he done led weren't to no ranch, child."
Ohhh. He'd led his fellow cows to slaughter. "But Sam didn't know any better! He's just doing what comes naturally." And doing it really well, might I add. He'd swum two channels and reached the other side of the Platte and begun the climb onto the north bank, a half-dozen big, river-swimming steers at his black heels, and the rest kept coming.
"Reckon so. That there's a valuable steer. I wonder if your husband gonna send him back to Texas, like before, so's another boss can use him, or put him out to pasture when y'all found that ranch."
"Sam might have to walk back to Texas?!"
"No, ma'am. Jest as far as Cheyenne. Steer like that gets to ride the train with the cutting horses."
Only the cutting...? "What about the other horses?"
"Generally the boss sells 'em, end of the drive. Likely Mister Garrison keep his for the ranch."
Nothing would be the same for either my husband or Sam the Judas steer after this drive, would it?
The swing riders--Juan and Swede--had taken up positions over halfway across the river, between the slow stream of crossing cattle and the invisible do-not-cross lines indicated by the notched trees. The flank riders, Romero and Milton, sat guard about halfway across. Jacob and Benj set themselves only a little way into the water, facing each other, guarding the herd's entrance to the river.
I'd rarely been this close to the cattle, not since the first week of my arrival, and I took advantage of this up-close look. Longhorn cattle are kind of amazing. Male or female, almost all of them have the horns, usually in wide crescents--like parentheses or lazy bracket marks--but sometimes with curves, or swoops, or even spirals that don't match. The horns seemed particularly crazy when the animals waded into water over their heads and kicked off to swim, only the ridge of their spines visible behind their horned heads, like a river of broken rocking chairs. But even the "muleys," the outcast cattle without horns, were distinctly longhorn.
See, longhorns were distinctively rangy cattle. Long-legged. Knobby kneed. Broad-sided. In coloring, no one animal seemed to match another, but you could tell they were the same breed.
They could be any mix of red, black, brown, tan, cream, whatever. Some were speckled, some splotched, or splashed, or puddled, or just dusted with different colors. I saw cows that were red from the heavy shoulders up, but white everywhere else. I saw steers with a black saddle of color, and long black legs, but otherwise cream-colored. Some were solid, and some looked like badly sewn patchwork quilts. And all of them just kept wading right in, although a few changed their minds once they got halfway across. That's where Jacob or the other cowboys rode after them and persuaded them to keep calm and carry on.
Several of the cows turned their heads to stare at me and Amos as they moseyed by. Their ears stood straight out with interest, and I wanted to wave at them, like you'd wave at little children in a parade, but they had to contrast on defying gravity with the help of little more than buoyancy and instinct.
"Jest look at them boys," marveled Amos, shifting his weight on the cart seat. He meant the cowboys and, yeah, they were pretty fascinating too. "You wouldn't guess they's more afeared of that river than them animals are."
"Really?" I definitely would not have guessed it. "Why?"
"Most of them boys cain't swim."
Benj had told me something similar, back when he took me to a swimming hole, but I'd forgotten. Now I watched Jacob go after a trio of cows that slipped off downstream. He rode deep into a channel to cut them off, until his horse was nothing but a head above the water, towing Jacob by his grip on its mane. He still stretched forward with his free hand, as they intercepted the runaways, and smacked at the cows' noses with his coiled lasso, splashing them and shouting his displeasure.
These cows were bigger than the horse, and much bigger than him. But at Jacob's rebuke, they saw the error of their bovine ways and veered back toward the far bank.
And he couldn't swim? Most of them couldn't swim?
What would they do if they lost their grip on their horse or, worse, got body-checked under the surface by a thousand pounds of cow?!
I breathed easier as Jacob hauled himself back into his saddle. His mare found solid ground and emerged onto another small island, water pouring off her flanks.
Right there and then, I took off my boots and set them in the cart behind us. "I can swim," I explained grimly. Hell, to get my summer camp job, I'd had to earn Red Cross certification!
"Not in them long skirts." Amos averted his eyes so as not to catch a glimpse of my stockinged toes peeping out from under the hem my dress.
He was right, of course. If I went in the water like this, I'd probably sink as fast as Darling Clementine.
"Wait here," I said, and hopped of the cart. So much for this pair of stockings.
"Mrs. Garrison, you'd best stay--oh!" He must have caught sight of me starting to hike up my skirt as I ducked behind some trees, because he quickly turned his face back to the river. But he did call, "I supposed to watch you, child!"
"I'll be right back," I called--and I was. After I'd removed both petticoats, folding hem into a little bundle that I then wadded into my carpet-bag that, when not in the tent, resided in the Wife Cart. Just now, the tent resided in the Wife Cart, too.
"Now if I need to go in, I only have to ditch the dress," I explained, hoisting myself back onto the seat for a better view. It's amazing how much cooler the air felt, going from three layers to one.
"Oh, Missus, don't you go in that water! Or take off-- that is-- child, no! I'd lose my job for sure."
"I won't do anything unless I'm needed," I promised. "Anyway, your job shouldn't have anything to do with my modesty or swimming."
But something about the way Amos looked away again, toward the crossing cattle, tweaked my instincts.
I mean, yes. So Amos insisted on setting up and taking down the tent for me, despite my regular offers to help. And he spent much of every day with me. But that was because we were friends... wasn't it?
My heart sank at the likely truth.
"Amos, your job is to drive the calf cart, isn't it? Not to watch me."
"Ain't no more calves, child." Amos looked out across Platte, but I don't think he was noticing the show. He blinked quickly, and I heard a waver in his voice as he continued, "Too late fer spring, too soon fer autumn. I figured Mister Garrison, he put me off at Ogallaly with my pay and mebbe even a train ticket home, him bein' a good boss."
A good boss, to give him the same treatment he gave his lead steer and his cutting horses?!
I shook my head, feeling guilty for not noticing what my friend had been going through.
"When he said he keep me on, afore he left for Julesburg, I near to cried," confessed Amos. "But I ain't got no job 'cept to drive this old empty cart. I tried ridin' drag, the day the heard head out of Ogallaly, but it seizes my spine up somethin' awful to sit a horse. Next mornin', Mister Benj and Mister Murphy got to lift me into the wagon, to keep from leavin' me on the ground."
"Oh, Amos." I took his dry, dark hand in my pale one. He seemed so humiliated, as if his aches and pains were somehow his fault. I already knew he'd been stomped on by a horse while cowboying, some years back. That's why he didn't ride much, anymore. In my era, he might have gotten workman's compensation or disability.
I reminded myself that this wasn't my era. In any case, he hadn't been cast aside. He had a good boss to count on. Just one more thing to make Jacob my hero.
And yet--hadn't Jacob sent him to hold our herd last night?
No wonder he kept shifting and squirming on the seat beside me! "You must be in terrible pain today! Why didn't you say something?"
Amos patted my hand, as if I were the one who needed comforting. "A body needs somethin' to do, child. You recollect me tellin' you that, first week you joined us? It shamed me, bein' kept on to drive a empty cart, but I ain't knowed what else to do. Then your husband rides back into camp, all married and proud, and he hires me to look after you. He says to wash out the cart good for yer baggage, and tend to yer tent and anythin' else you need."
He grinned his mix of gray and missing teeth at the memory. "'You jes' keep her from getting' scalped or took,' he says, 'And make sure she eats some.' Ain't cowboyin', but that's fine with me. Jes' fine. I got me a real job ag'in."
I... didn't know what to say. Oh, sure, "Thank you" came first, and I did thank him. I tried hugging him, too, but he shook me off, either from shyness or self-preservation, this being such a stupidly racist time. But I also couldn't help but think: I had a babysitter?
I would not believe that Amos had merely pretended to be my friend, and wouldn't insult him by even implying it. But the idea felt vaguely... demeaning. And not just of him.
Maybe I couldn't keep myself from getting scalped or taken. But nobody else on this drive needed a nursemaid.
Or, worse, a servant.
"He worries about me, huh?" I asked, trying to see the bright side of this. We both knew to whom I was referring.
"Yes ma'am, he do that."
Because he cares. I wasn't so desperate as to go fishing with that one. But I thought he did care, my Jacob. He cared so much that he'd avoided sex, for fear of hurting me. He cared so much that he'd nearly had a stroke when he learned how close I'd gotten to last night's stampedes.
He cared so much that he'd threatened to burn my saddle if I put myself at risk -- and he'd relegated me and Amos both to the sidelines of this amazing river crossing, where we could watch but weren't in the path of trouble. We weren't part of the actual crossing at all.
Maybe Jacob showed it badly--but I did matter to him. And that was a good thing, wasn't it? Also good? The last of the cows crossed the North Platte, without a single drover needing rescue from a watery grave.
So why did I feel dangerously close to disappointed?
Jacob rode up to the calf cart, wet and weary and supremely satisfied at what was apparently a great feat in the cattle-drive world. "Ready to cross this here river, Mrs. Garrison?"
Was I? What else would I do--complain about people guarding my safety?
"How?" I asked, instead of trying to put words to my wordless dissatisfaction.
He scooted back in his saddle, to make room for me in front of him. "Likely get wet," he warned. He, personally, was dripping.
"I've been wanting to get in that water for hours," I assured him. With his steady help, I settled myself onto the wet leather in front of him--with my legs to the left, of course, not straddle. That would be crazy inappropriate, to sit straddle in a skirt... almost as crazy inappropriate as me wearing pants. "Well, maybe not that water...."
The cattle had definitely stirred up the mud, adding their own poopy ingredients to its mix, and that wasn't the worst of their damage to the ford. Several of the sandbars were no more after their passage, and several grassy islands had been stomped to sludgy memories of what they'd once been.
Jacob wrapped one arm around me, his skin warm under the extra cool of his damp shirt, and used the other to rein. He clucked his mare into a mucky walk west until we reached the edge of "good bottom," far enough upstream that the longhorns hadn't soiled or destroyed anything. Then he turned his mount into the water. "Hang on."
Darn, did I have to? Just kidding. Of course I hung on, encircling my arms under his, around his wet shirt, and leaning into the breadth of his powerful chest. The sunshine still sparkled off the moving water, so that I had to squint up at Jacob's ruggedly handsome, bearded profile above me as he calmly rode into a situation that, in a crisis, he could not control, maybe not even survive. We splashed from one little island to the next, the mare wading deeper and deeper until we reached one of the main channels.
The gentle but determined push of current rose over my legs. My butt. It completely covered the saddle, and my hips, and Jacob's waist.
At first, I clung even tighter to him, despite that I could swim--maybe because he couldn't, or maybe because I would take any opportunity to hold him this tight. And then his mare stepped off of solid ground and began to swim, only her head above the water that lapped at our ribs.
We were weightless as she carried us forward, suspended in the water. I leaned greedily back into the arms of buoyancy, spread out my arms, let the river catch my hair....
"Ho! 'Lizabeth!" Jacob yanked me back up against him, not about to risk me, even to the freedom of floating.
I felt gravity change as the mare found her footing again on solid, submerged bottom and the river began to melt away from us.
"I'm fine," I tried to reassure my husband. But I knew he wouldn't hear it. To him, the river was a danger to be surmounted, not embraced.
Since my words weren't doing much to relieve my husband, I said, "Kiss me."
He squinted down at me. "Kiss you."
"I'm in your arms, and we're dripping wet, and we just crossed a river. Kiss me."
So he did.
And it was my favorite moment of the cattle drive yet.
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