A Land Remembered, Volume 1, page 16
“Yes,” Tobias answered. “We need to go on and get across the river.”
As soon as the wagon was loaded they moved up the road to the ferry. The ferry tender looked curiously at the “MacIvey Cattle Company” sign on the wagon, at the four new black felt hats, the wolf-dogs and miniature horse, the lanky, bearded man and the giant black man. He said, “That’s a might fancy stove you folks got there. When I first seen you coming I thought it was a calliope.”
Tobias drove the wagon onto the barge as Zech and Skillit plunged their horses into the river and swam. When the ferry reached the other side the tender said, “Where you folks headed?”
“Over to the Kissimmee,” Tobias replied. Then he whipped the horse and moved up the bank.
The ferry tender shouted, “Good luck, folks!” Then he continued staring until they turned past a clump of palmetto and passed from view. As he started back across the river he muttered, “Shoot! I thought for sure it was a circus coming.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Spring 1875
Tobias roared. “They done it again!”
He kicked the stump of an orange tree and said, “Cussed cows! They’re stupid critters!”
He was inside a three-acre plot surrounded by a split rail fence. A half dozen cows were standing in a group, swishing their tails and looking at him. Rows of small orange trees had been eaten to the ground and looked like dead sticks protruding from the sandy soil.
Tobias jerked one tree from the ground and threw it at the cows, causing them to wheel quickly and trot off to the far side of the fence. They turned, faced him again and shook their horns menacingly.
“Cuss you!” he shouted as he left the plot and walked hurriedly back into the hammock.
The house was three rooms larger now, one a kitchen built especially for the stove, another a bedroom for Zech, and a storeroom containing two steamer trunks. The palmetto thatch was replaced with cypress shingles, and there was a porch across the front of the house. A cabin had been built for Frog and Bonzo, and Skillit had added an additional room to his cabin. There was also a barn down by the garden area.
Tobias stomped into the house and said, “The cows has et my orange trees again! That’s the third time I’ve planted them, and them stupid critters has done it ever time!”
Emma continued chopping onions as she said, “Why don’t you keep the cows away from them.”
“Man who sells them to me says if I don’t put cows in there to do the fertilizing, the trees won’t grow. And that makes sense.”
“Then buy taller trees.”
“Taller trees,” Tobias repeated. “How come I didn’t think of that! If the trees is taller than the cows, then the cows can’t eat them. That’s what I’ll do! Buy taller trees! I’ll send Skillit for another wagonload.”
Emma smiled as Tobias walked out briskly.
***
Tobias had made four more drives into Punta Rassa, each one larger than the one before. He now had regular buying points along the trail, and his last herd numbered over three thousand. Predators still stalked them, and many nights they kept fires burning to turn away wolves, but there had been no major disasters.
The old army horse died and was replaced by a tall black mare, and Tobias also purchased a buckboard and another horse to pull it. He bought two oxen which were used to pull the supply wagon during trail drives and when they followed grazing herds in summer months.
Other than this and the purchase of orange trees, the money from the sale of cows had been stockpiled, and now one steamer trunk was filled with sacks of gold doubloons and another started. Frog and Bonzo were the only ones interested in the coins as something to spend, and for two weeks after each drive they disappeared. To the others, the doubloons were just something to pile into a trunk and exchange for supplies when needed. The MacIvey clan’s lifestyle changed none at all.
Zech had grown along with the homestead and was now as tall as his father and ten pounds heavier. But unlike Tobias, his hair turned a sandy brown. The most visible change in Tobias was the white specks that invaded his black beard.
***
Tobias found Skillit down at the barn, mending a harness strap. He said straightaway, “I want you to take the wagon and get me some more orange trees. Same place as last, out west of Fort Pierce.”
Skillit noticed the agitation in Tobias’ voice and manner. He said, “Them cows done et yo’ trees again, ain’t they?”
Tobias ignored the question. “This time get taller trees. I don’t want nothing less than six feet. Stand by each one of them, and if one’s shorter than you, don’t buy it. Get all you can cram on the wagon. Emma will give you the money.”
“All right, Mistuh Tobias. I’ll start right away. But would it be O.K. if I stay for a day or two? I got a chore to do while I’m down there.”
“What kind of a chore?” Tobias asked, still agitated. “You been saying now for over five years you got a chore to do ever time you leave the hammock, and you ain’t done it yet. If you got something you want to do, why don’t you go on and do it ’stead of just talking about it?”
“It ain’t never worked out yet,” Skillit replied. “Maybe this time it will.”
“Must be some chore,” Tobias muttered. “Take what time you have to, but don’t be gone too long. Soon as they get in with this last bunch of cows, we got to move the herd to grazing ground. Ain’t enough grass left here for a billygoat to eat.”
“Sho’ ain’t,” Skillit agreed. “We don’t get some rain soon, the whole place gone look like a frost hit it. I ain’t never seen it be this dry for so long this time of year.”
***
Zech popped the whip just over the cow’s head, turning it sharp right and into the pen. He leaped from the saddle and closed the gate, then he called for the dogs to leave the cows and come to him.
Frog wheeled his horse and said, “That’s the last of this bunch. We can start back tomorrow.”
The corral held sixty cows. They had spent idle winter months building small pens ten miles apart along the areas of the spring roundup, using them to brand and cut the cattle as they caught them and also contain them at night or while they hunted others.
Zech rode over to a nearby cypress stand and tied Ishmael; then he gave each dog a strip of dried beef. It was late afternoon, and long flights of herons and egrets drifted eastward. The sky in the west was cloudless and streaked with red and orange, marking the time when day creatures retreated and night dwellers emerged. Zech watched with amusement as a mother raccoon ambled by with her brood, chattering a loud protest of his presence.
Frog and Bonzo rode to the stand and dismounted. Frog stretched and groaned, and then he said, “Ain’t nothing but a fool makes his living rubbing his butt against a saddle all day. Sometimes mine feels like it’s busted. What you got left in the way of grub?”
Zech said, “Nothing but a couple of strips of dried beef and a few biscuits, and they’re as hard as hickernuts.”
“Don’t even have that,” Bonzo said. “Just one scrap of meat that looks like it ought to be buried.”
“You want me to kill a rabbit?” Zech asked. “If you do, I best see to it now before it gets too dark.”
“What I miss most out here is Miz Emma’s vittles,” Frog said. “I ain’t got nothing left. We ought to have brought more supplies or turned back two days ago. We could have come back and got them cows some other time.”
“Pappa said we’re not coming back after this,” Zech said. “We’re heading out for grazing. And besides that, none of these cows is marked yet. You and Bonzo’ll get credit for all of them.”
“Maybe so,” Frog said, “but that don’t help my belly none. I’d a soon have a big bowl of Miz Emma’s hot stew just now as the sixty dollars over yonder in the pen.” Frog scratched his head in thought, and then he said, “I got a good idea. We couldn’t be over a hour’s ride from Fort Drum, maybe less. We could go over there and get some fresh grub and be back here not long after dark.”
“What about the cows?” Zech asked. “We can’t go off and leave them unguarded.”
“They ain’t going nowhere inside that pen. And I ain’t seen a wolf sign in three days. We could leave the dogs tied to the fence to watch after them.”
“That’d be like using Nip and Tuck for fishbait,” Zech said, shaking his head in disagreement. “Some bears or other varmints come in here, the dogs wouldn’t have a chance tied to a rail. We’d have to take them with us.”
“Ain’t nothing going to happen to the cows,” Frog insisted. “We can build a fire on both sides of the corral. That would keep off anything that comes around till we get back.”
“You two go on and I’ll stay,” Zech said. “I’m not all that hungry anyway. I can make do on what I got.”
“We ain’t about to leave you out here by yourself. If something happened to you while we’re gone, your Pappa would raise more hell than you ever seen. Either you go or nobody goes.”
“You think I can’t handle things by myself?” Zech asked angrily.
“It ain’t that, and you know it. And there’s no use in getting riled up. Your pappa wouldn’t want nobody left alone at night on the prairie, not you or me or Bonzo. We going to go or not? If we ain’t, then you might as well shoot that ole rabbit.”
“Well, if your belly’s in that bad a shape, I guess I’ll go,” Zech said reluctantly. “But I don’t like it. I’ve seen what can happen to a cow at night, and you have too.”
“Ain’t nothing going to happen,” Frog repeated.
As soon as the fires were glowing they rode eastward, cantering the horses as the dogs followed, moving at a steady pace across the palmetto prairie. The sunset reflected light ahead of them, a dim glow rapidly fading into the tops of cabbage palms; and cypress stands stood out like darkened castles looming upward from the flat land.
Just as the last sunbeam died they spotted a bonfire a mile to the north. Trading posts in the wilderness often put out such beacons at night, guiding unfamiliar travelers to a spot they could never find in darkness.
The horses panted slightly when the trio rode in and stopped in front of the store. Soft coal oil light spilled out from the two front windows and the open door, and several men sat on the building’s porch, chewing and spitting silently.
Zech followed Frog and Bonzo inside, still doubtful about the journey and wishing he had remained behind. He wanted them to make their purchases quickly and head back to the corral.
Frog said to a man wearing a white apron, “You got cheese?”
“Enough to stop up a horse. How much you want?”
“Three pounds. And six cans of beans. You got bread and tinned sausage?”
“My wife bakes bread ever day, and we got sausages.”
“Three each.”
The man put the order into a brown sack and said, “Be anything else?”
“Them men out front just chewing their cuds like cows, or is that tobacco?” Frog asked.
“Tobacco.”
“Then throw in a twist.”
“That’ll be two fifty,” the man said, putting into the sack a link of twisted tobacco that looked like smoked sausage. He took the money and made change from a small wooden box. “You men just passing through?”
“Naw,” Frog responded. “We got some cows penned out on the prairie west of here. We ran out of grub.”
“If you ain’t in a hurry, they’s going to be a hoedown here soon as the folks come in out of the woods. You’re welcome to stay.”
Frog’s face brightened. “You hear that, fellows? They’re having a frolic here in a little while. You want to stay?”
“I do,” Bonzo said quickly.
“What’s a frolic?” Zech asked, annoyed that something might change their plans to leave immediately.
“Fiddles and dancin’,” Frog responded. “Ain’t you ever been to one?”
“If I had, I wouldn’t ask what it is. We need to go now. We ain’t got time for such stuff.”
“Cows ain’t everything, Zech. Just take it easy. We’ll stay for a short spell and leave. You might enjoy it if you’d try.”
They went outside, sat at the edge of the porch and started eating. People drifted in out of the darkness, on horses and in ox-drawn wagons, and soon a milling crowd filled the clearing.
Several men threw more logs on the fire, bringing the front of the store into focus; then three men with fiddles mounted the porch and played briskly. Another shouted cadence as men grabbed women, starting the first round of a square dance.
Zech watched sullenly as Frog and Bonzo joined the line of dancers, kicking their boots into the soft dirt, swaying, linking arms, then swinging down the line as they changed partners again and again.
He was unaware of the girl’s presence until he looked up, and he wondered how long she had been standing there. She had flaming red hair that flowed past her shoulders, pale green eyes, and white skin not burned brown by prairie sun. A blue cotton dress came down to her shoes, and she wore a matching ribbon around her slim waist.
She said, “It’s better on a wooden floor where you can hear the shoes tapping. The men are going to build a meeting hall soon so we can have the frolics inside. You look like you’re not enjoying it. Don’t you feel good?”
“Well, I . . . I . . .” Zech stammered, unable to form a coherent answer.
“I’ve never seen you here before. My daddy owns the store, and I usually know everybody who comes to the frolic. My name’s Glenda Turner. What’s yours?”
“Zech,” he managed to say. “Zech MacIvey. We came in for food. We’ve got cows penned out on the prairie.”
“You live nearby?”
“Up on the Kissimmee, about a day’s ride from here. We’re in the cattle business and we’re finishing the spring roundup.”
She waited for him to ask, and when he remained silent, she said, “You want to dance the next one with me?”
Zech felt like he had swallowed a pine burr that lodged in his throat. He forced out the words, “I don’t know how. I’ve never been to a frolic before.”
“That’s too bad. Would you like some punch? I helped my mother make it and I know it’s good. The bowl is on the table at the end of the porch.”
“That would be fine.”
Zech was still sitting, and when he got up to follow her, she came only to the top of his shoulder.
When they reached the table she filled a cup with red liquid and handed it to him. He downed it in one gulp and said, “That’s real good. I’ve never tasted anything like it.”
“It’s sugar that makes it sweet. But it’s better if you just sip.”
His face turned crimson as he said, “I’m sorry I drank it so fast. Next time I won’t.”
“Here, let me get you another. How old are you?” she asked for the second time with no answer.
He shook his head, feeling as if he had jumped a ten-rail fence. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you at first. I’m seventeen, going on eighteen.”
“I’m fourteen, but my mother says I look older. Do you think I look older than fourteen?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been around girls. Only my mamma. But you look fine to me.”
“Thank you. I’ve never been around boys very much either. There’s not many young people in Fort Drum.”
The music stopped between dances, and Zech noticed Frog and Bonzo out by a wagon with several sweating men, drinking from gallon jugs. He started to go to them and insist they leave, but said instead, “You want to see my dogs? They look like wolves. They’re on the other side of the store.”
“I’d like to. I’ve never seen a wolf, or a dog that looked like one.”
They walked past the crowd of people and found the dogs sitting in the shadows, waiting patiently as Zech told them to do. He said, “This one is Nip, and that one Tuck. They’re the best cow dogs that’s ever been.”
“Aren’t you afraid of them?” she asked. “They’re so big.”
“They’s good dogs. They won’t hurt you. Touch one.”
She put her hand on Nip’s head, causing his tail to wag vigorously.
“See. I told you. He likes you. You want to see my horse too? His name is Ishmael, and he’s a marshtackie. The Seminoles gave him to us.”
They went to the rail where Ishmael was tied. Zech said, “He’s little, but he runs like the wind. I won a race with him in Punta Rassa. Outran a big Tennessee bay twice his size.” Then on an impulse he said, “You want to ride? We’ll just go a short piece and come back.”
“If you’ll help me in the saddle. I can’t get up there in this long dress.”
When they came back to the store and the people and the screaming fiddle, he was jolted back to reality. He jumped from the horse, lifted her down and said, “I’ve got to find Frog and Bonzo and go now. There’s bears and wolves out on the prairie, and the cows might be in danger. I didn’t mean to take you so far.”
“I enjoyed it,” she said. “Will you be coming back soon?”
“I don’t know. We’re taking the cows grazing soon as we get back to the hammock, and after that we’ll go to Punta Rassa to sell them. If I don’t come back this summer I will in the fall.”
“If you do, I’ll teach you to dance. Will you promise me you’ll try?”
“I promise. And I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Frog and Bonzo were still at the wagon and Glenda watched as Zech turned quickly and walked straight to them. He said, “We best go. We’ve been here long enough. We’ve got to see to the cows.”
