Black falcon 11 a whip-round for Nathaniel part 2

 

11 A whip-round for Nathaniel part 2

 

The train journey to Cheyenne was smooth enough. Ida was back in a checked shirt and calf-length divided skirt to disembark, and ready to mount Goldmoon, now bearing the Cyrillic ‘L’ or Л for ‘Levchenko’ brand. He took Ida’s slight weight on his back very easily, and happily now.

“They should be coming out of church when we get to the townstead that is nearest to Nathaniel’s spread,” said Luke.  “I assume you want to humiliate him in public.”

“Yes,” said Ida. “He humiliated me, and I think he made Emma do things she hated, too.”

 

oOoOo

 

Luke’s timing was spot on. The congregation was just issuing forth from the service.

Ida saw Nathaniel Pepper and stepped forward the moment he was out of the church grounds and on the road.

“Nathaniel Pepper!  I’ve come for vengeance for your lewd and vicious usage of me!” she cried. Pepper stopped, and stared at her.  Luke suddenly realised that the colourless, ill-looking woman trailing behind him was the once-pretty Emma.

Pepper gave a shriek of rage.

“You think you can come back, slinking around me, relying on the pity of your sister, you harlot? You left the protection of my house, and you ain’t comin’ back!”

“Do you seriously expect me to want to return to someone who likes seeing little girls naked and spoiling their skin with your belt because you want to touch it?” snarled Ida. “I’ve come to whip you, and take my sister to safety.”

“Oh, Ida, please don’t!” moaned Emma.

“Shut your mouth, woman!” said Pepper. “You raised that girl to be all wrong, we’ll talk about what you did wrong later!”

Emma collapsed to her knees with a moan.

“You bastard!” cried Ida. “You’ve been taking out your anger at me escaping you on my sister! Well, I’m going to take her away.”

“What, to be a whore like you?  And with that pimp of yours?” Pepper gestured to Luke.

“Now that’s fighting talk,” said Luke. “I went along with the brides for sale as a hired gun, and as a hired gun, Miss Ida appealed for my help. So I took her to my mother. She has consented to be my wife, and I object to the filthy names you give my betrothed bride. I suggest you apologise right now.”

“In your dreams, pimp, I’ll kill you!” snarled Pepper. He drew a gun, rather awkwardly.

Luke’s hand barely seemed to twitch, and Pepper cried out, and clutched his hand protectively as Luke shot his gun out of his grasp.

“You can fight me later; the lady has prior claim,” said Luke, folding his arms, and propping himself up against the rail fence outside the church.

Ida loosed her arapnik.

“You enjoy whipping people, Nathaniel; do you like being whipped?” she said.

Emma stumbled forward and clutched Luke’s arm.

“Stop her, oh, pray, stop her!” she moaned. “It’ll only make things worse.”

“When she’s finished, if he doesn’t apologise, you’ll be a widow,” said Luke. “I won’t have him call me a pimp or Ida a whore; don’t you care? You with your fine high-minded sentiments that you had to look after her?”

Emma burst into tears.

The pastor came over.

“My son, my daughter! You cannot be thinking of violence on the Lord’s day?” he said.

“It was on a Sunday that this monster whipped a child so savagely on her bare buttocks that he made her bleed,” said Luke.  “And all the time doubtless fondling himself in the lascivious desires his disgusting acts aroused in him. She seeks retribution.”

“’Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord, I will repay...’” stuttered the pastor.

“All very well, but it doesn’t bring healing to a hurt little girl,” said Luke. “For goodness sake! He calls her a whore, and she might have blossomed with some good food, but she was definitely no woman then. You must see what sort of man he is by the way his bright, merry wife has become old and worn in the last five months!”

“Brother Pepper is a hard man, but he is most Godly...”

Luke sneered.

“Godly? Jesus said, ‘suffer the little children to come unto me,’ but he did not add, ‘so I can break the flesh on their bodies to remind me not to desire it,’ which is what that whipping was really about. He wanted her dressed ugly so as not to be tempted, but he could not overcome his unnatural lusts, whatever.”

Luke cared little whether he had guessed the correct reason for Pepper’s harshness or not; he planned to spoil any shred of reputation the man had left after his sabotage of it the previous year.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel Pepper took off his belt.

“You need to be chastised, wench,” he said, to Ida.

“We’ll see who is chastised,” said Ida. She permitted the man one swipe at her with his belt. Then the arapnik switched out, wrapping around his wrist, painfully.

Pepper dropped the belt with a yell. He glowered; it was a fluke. He bent down for his belt.

The arapnik landed beside it in the dirt and flicked it away; and returned to strike his bending buttocks. Nathaniel Pepper howled.

There were several laughs from the crowd; the harsh man had not made himself popular, and was known for being free with his hands to messengers, but nobody had dared stand against him.

And this chit of a girl was coolly plying a blacksnake whip to toss his belt ever further, and to sting his buttocks every time he reached for it.   After three attempts, Pepper howled, and launched himself at Ida.

She was able to step back and tangle his legs to pull him off-balance, so he sprawled in the dust.

Ida pulled back her arapnik, coiling it.

“I think you owe me, and Luke, an apology,” she said.

Pepper’s hand went to his other belt, his gunbelt.

“I can whip that out of your hand, too,” said Ida. “I’m not a helpless child anymore.”

Pepper turned, picking up his belt, his hat, and his gun, as if walking away.

Then he spun round, firing deliberately at Ida.

One long leg belonging to Luke kicked her feet out from under her as the older man took up the slack on the trigger, and the bullet flew past her, close enough to feel the wind of its passing on her face as she fell. Pepper went to fan the pistol.

“You do it like this,” said Luke. His pistol appeared in his hand, and he fanned it rapidly.

Nathaniel Pepper went down.

The townsfolk noted that there were five puncture wounds in his forehead within an inch of each other.

They strategically drifted away.

“I’m going to need a statement,” said the man with the star.

“Statement, yes, when I’ve seen my bride treated for shock at being shot at,” said Luke. “If you want to press charges, you’d better hope to be quicker on the draw than me; I’m as good with my left. And I don’t plan to be arrested for killing vermin.”

“He... he fired first,” said the sheriff, unhappily. “But not at you....”

“At a girl not carrying a firearm,” said Luke. “And under my protection.  Are you going to let any man shoot at your wife, tinhorn? Because I don’t. Shucks, you were here; you can write out what happened. I’m taking my sister-in-law elect back to her farm, and you can send someone to organise the sale of it on her behalf because I’m taking her back to my mother too, for healing after this farcical period of unholy matrimony; and if you call a man like Nathaniel Pepper ‘Godly’ I fancy you’ve a damned strange idea of what the Bible is about.”

Emma had collapsed to the ground in a heap, moaning, and Ida went to her.

“What has he done to my merry sister?” she cried. “All of you here, you are to blame, too!  I complained in church that he was harsh, and what did you do, Reverend Green? Did you tell him? It was that afternoon he beat me so hard I passed out, and I don’t know if he did anything to my naked unconscious body.  And he beat Emma, too, I know, and she would cry in pain in the night when they were together. You all know what he’s like, and you are all culpable. And now you slink away in shame because you know it’s true.”

“I could not believe the story you told, child!” said the pastor. “Why, what man would make a child sit on a saddle with tacks through it?”

“A man like Nathaniel Pepper,” said Emma, coming to. “I saw it, Pastor Green! But did you verify it? No! You let him pass it off as exaggeration of slight chastisement! I’ve been praying every Sunday that I might die, and maybe someone would investigate.”

“Dear God!” said the pastor.

“You should be on your face in front of the altar praying to him for forgiveness in failing your pastoral care,” said Luke. “You’re as much transgressors the lot of you as the town who let a single bank robber use children as hostages, and called down their teacher as ‘used’ when he raped her. I hope you all burn in Hell. You deserve it. And you’re lucky I don’t have time to make my disapproval felt, as I have my womenfolk to care for.”

“Are you making threats?” demanded the sheriff.

Luke poked an offensive finger into his face, stopping just short of touching the man.

“I said, I don’t have time,” he growled. “You’ll have whatever passes for a lawyer out on my sister’s farm first thing in the morning to see about selling up, and you’ll write up this filth as he is, or I’ll take your badge from you, and make the lot of you suffer, all within the absolute letter of the law, by demanding fire drills of the fire brigade with a loud bell to call them, every four hours round the clock. Ida will spell me in that.  And every regulation on the books, I will make you all follow to the letter. And I will audit every man’s books to see that they are correct, and measure everything that can be measured, and if it is half an inch outside of a regulation size, that will be a fine or time in jail.  You know how much can be done to make a town miserable, sheriff.  And as I’m a deputy sheriff in the town I call home, and I read every damn statute book there was during the winter blizzards, I know every pettifogging annoyance there is.”

The sheriff paled.

“The lawyer will be with you first thing,” he said. “I... I don’t know who inherits....”

“Was the marriage not legal, then?” asked Luke. “It is a point of law that, as the marriage service says, ‘With all my worldly goods, I thee endow,’ and a wife is the immediate heir. If she is with child, then her child is the heir, and as its mother, she is to administer the properties. I’m not an unlettered, uncouth barbarian like Nathaniel Pepper, and I know my law.”

“I, er, yes, of course, the marriage was legal,” said the sheriff.

“And so is the widowing, and don’t forget that either,” growled Luke.

 

oOoOo

 

Emma remained quiet and chastened, despite that one burst of spirit; but Luke had no doubt that his mother would heal her.

“Did you mean it, about marrying me?” asked Ida.

“I’d be honoured, but not until you’re a year or two older,” said Luke. “And used to being in the saddle all day.”

Ida nodded.

“I’m not ready, either,” she said.

He kissed her cheek.

“I’ve not been celibate,” he said.

“Oh, I never supposed you would be,” said Ida. “But if you catch anything I will not be pleased.”

“Oh, I’m careful,” said Luke. “And don’t you go thinking that anything that fellow did to your sister is necessarily normal.”

“Oh, I assumed it wasn’t,” said Ida. “I expect Mama Jane will explain things more fully to me if she thinks you’re planning on covering me at any point.”

“I don’t think it’s called ‘covering’ for any but stallions and bulls,” said Luke, cautiously.

“Well, you knew what I meant,” said Ida, and then blushed.

“I did,” said Luke, also blushing.

 

oOoOo

 

The farm was on the market, and a man engaged to see to the animals in the meanwhile; and Luke sighed in relief that the whole of that business had only taken three days. Gradually, he found out from Emma that Pepper had been married before, and his first wife had died in childbed. The boy had been mentally defective, and had died one day, having got himself locked in the woodstore.

“And if you ask me, that man damaged his own seed in the womb, and as good as killed his wife,” said Luke to Ida. “And then doubtless beat the boy and flung him into the woodstore, and at some point hit him on the head, maybe hit him about the head and face the way he did to you, but harder, for some failure to understand, and the poor brat died of bleeding on the brain.  And he should have been taken up and questioned about it; but people don’t take much notice of children who die at the hands of their parents.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re wrong,” said Ida. “I am looking forward to being away from here.”

“And as well Blackwind will accept being harnessed to a buckboard, for your sister is too weak to ride,” said Luke, grimly. “We’ll have to take the extra quilts as luggage on the train, to pad up the buckboard for her, and a hay palliasse; we can buy another buckboard, and a tick to fill with hay at Burlington.”

 

Emma recovered some of her colour and spirit carried in the lap of luxury in the Pullman coaches, and if the last part of the journey, in a makeshift bed on a new buckboard purchased in Burlington tried her somewhat, the thought that she was free of her husband buoyed up her spirits. 

Luke took her directly to the hospital, and left her in the charge of his mother and her nurses, a mix of European and Cherokee girls.

“I am surprised Two-Moons did not come,” said Luke.

“Oh, Emma told me he did, and Nathaniel threatened to shoot him,” said Ida. “She did not want to go off with an Indian, anyway.”

“More fool her,” said Luke.

Ida sighed.

“I fear so,” she said. “I did sound her out about running away with me, but she said she had made her bed and must lie on it.”

Luke manfully suppressed a snort.

“Well, you will see her healed in spirit as well as body, here,” he said.

“Yes, and though I want to come with you, I also want to help her,” said Ida.

“You’ll learn a lot about nursing, which will do you no harm,” said Luke. “I will go back to Eastbend for a while; and then, I think I’ll go wandering again, pick up some bounty, help out here and there. I don’t want to settle yet; there’s so much of this big country to explore.”

“And later, I will join you,” said Ida.

“If you still want to,” said Luke.

She stood on tiptoes to kiss him; and then whirled away.

Luke raised his fingers to his lips as if to capture the kiss.

It was a kiss which Luke was amazed to feel burning many times, long after he had returned to Eastbend, and even after he moved out on other adventure bent.

 

The end of the beginning.

 

Black Falcon 11 a whip-round for Nathaniel part 1

 

11 A Whip-round for Nathaniel part 1

 

Luke adored his family, but it was not entirely duty which sent him back to Eastbend after Christmas.  There was more of a frontier feel, as yet, to Eastbend, which the Levchenko ranch did not have, despite being somewhat isolated. Dmitro Levchenko and his English wife were extremely efficient, and the ranch might as well have been a small town, for having all the facilities any farmer could want, save for a store. The hands made their own vodka, mead, and beer, and their common room was a bar, a music hall, a theatre, and a meeting hall. The little chapel saw to their spiritual needs, and any other socialisation was around the blacksmith’s anvil, in the big stable block and barn, which served as a rather noisy warming house in the winter, and where tall tales were told, songs of more or less ribald nature sung, and much business accomplished in a convivial manner. The barn was used for sabre drill, target practice, and hopak. The forge fire also heated water for the wash-house and steam bath house, which had a women’s room and a men’s room, and was backed by the hospital where Jane Levchenka presided at need. The hospital was tiled with locally made salt-glazed tiles, not as fine as white porcelain, but easier to keep clean than wooden walls. The blacksmith’s forge was given over at times to the making of pottery, to make such tiles, and simple storage jars, and the blacksmith himself presided over tinker-work in the mending and making of pots and pans, his numerous children as his apprentices.  The schoolroom had at first also been run by Jane Levchenka, but now had two full-time teachers, for those aged five to ten, and the seniors, eleven to fifteen.  One of the older girls was learning teaching in giving a class to those preschool children there were, in learning their letters and numbers, and in bad weather, the children slept in the schoolrooms rather than risk travelling to outlying buildings. All that was needed was bought in by mail order, and twice a year, Dmitro drove forty miles to the railhead with wagons to collect what had been sent. Inside the stockade of what was known as Kozachi Laheri, the settlement was defensible and self-sufficient. Covered ways and underground tunnels made going out into the snow unnecessary.

It was a wonderful place; but in some ways, it was too cosy for Luke. He felt a need to cut loose; and his father understood this, that he had a need to go Cossacking as Dmitro had done in his own youth. Luke was grateful that, although his mother did not fully understand, she accepted.

It meant that he was happier to come home to visit; there were no tears and exhortations to stay, which he had heard from some young men was the way of many mothers. So Luke drove off, using the sleigh with its tent, and extra poles for a horse shelter, with Blackwind tethered behind, and came into Eastbend to lodge with Big Betsy in her new tea rooms and boarding house, where Carrie and Marilla might earn their way waiting, cooking, and singing, and any other arrangements being of a private nature.

All of them hugged him.

This was extremely gratifying, and Luke was not about to complain.  He knew he would have a welcome with either Sam or the banker and his family, but Luke felt that was an intrusion. And the girls needed the custom.

“Now, tell us all about that nice little girl who looked like she was in a claiming mood,” said Betsy.

“I don’t know about that; I helped her to rescue herself from as nasty a piece of dung as I have ever met,” said Luke. “How a man who preaches the Gospel like a preacher can simultaneously fondle the bollocks of the devil in taking delight in the torture of innocents is beyond my ken.  Surely anyone who believes in the love of God must be filled with joy at His infinite mercy and grace, not be made dour by the contemplation of the perceived sins of others? Are we not all sinners, who but strive? How can he hope to please the Good Lord by such?”

“Oh, sweetie, you are such an innocent,” said Betsy, plying him with tea and lemon cookies. “There’s them as have such small faith they fear Hell, and seek to mortify themselves in life, to avoid punishment in the afterlife, and seek to find virtue in pointing out the motes in the eyes of others.”

“It seems a very silly way to worship, to me,” sniffed Luke.

“Well, Falcon, your faith gave me more than I’ve had for years,” said Betsy. “And we all goes to church these days, respectably clad, no bar-girl clothes for three nice refined ladies with a teashop, mind you.”

Luke hid a grin, as Carrie had uninhibitedly pulled up her skirts to show him that she was wearing the lacy stockings he had bought her.

“All very well, but are you going to marry her?” demanded Marilla. “That Ida child, I mean.”

“I... the idea had never occurred to me,” said Luke, shocked, going red at the thought of having woken up in a most improper embrace.

“Isn’t it sweet? He blushes like a schoolboy,” said Carrie. “What Marilla means is, are you off-limits?”

“Not until Ida grows up and we can re-visit the idea then,” retorted Luke.

This might not have been the right tactical move, as both girls squealed and kissed him.

 

Luke was firm, when invited by both Sam and by the Spences to stay, that he must make his own way, and would consider throwing up a home of his own come spring.

Moreover, Betsy and her girls appeared to have a rota to make sure he felt welcome, and Luke was as happy as any man to enjoy a healthy relationship with no strings attached.

He did have to insist that he would pay for his accommodation, even if the attentions of the women was on a purely voluntary basis.

If no money changed hands for anything but board and lodging, nobody could accuse Betsy of running a bawdy house.

 

Spring came to Eastbend, and with it, a letter for Luke.

“Dear Luke,

Papa Dmitro will not permit me to come on my own to meet you, but perhaps we could meet in Denver? He is willing to see me to Denver, whilst selling horses. I have been practising with arapnik and I want to rescue Emma.

Yours, Ida.”

“Maybe she is a catch at that; she has the virtue of brevity,” said Luke to Betsy. “I don’t want her to be hurt if she comes here.”

“Oh, we’ll be discreet,” said Betsy. “A man is entitled to relaxation when he’s single.  Mind, if you marry her, and visit my girls, I’ll beat you black and blue.”

“I’d deserve it,” said Luke.

He sent a wire back.

 

“Ida,

I know Papa’s habits. I’ll be there.

Luke.”

 

oOoOo

 

Luke wondered why he was feeling nervous as the train pulled into Denver. He had sent ahead a wire to say he had boarded the train at Burlington; the wire would be in Denver hours ahead of him.  His father stayed as a matter of course at the Windsor Hotel since it had opened, to take advantage of its Turkish bath house, being similar enough to the Cossack way.  It was a luxury hotel, but Dmitro was sufficiently used to the fine things in life to fit in as seamlessly as he did when living rough, droving cattle.  Dmitro had written separately to his son, explaining that they were taking cattle to Denver to sell for meat, after the long winter, and anticipated fair profits for having good, well-fed beasts, as a result of having prepared, like Joseph in Egypt, for lean years. The Bible provided good lessons on how to live one’s life, and be prepared, if one only read the stories and absorbed the message.

Luke crossed himself and kissed his crucifix; God was indeed good.

 

Ida waited for the train, wondering why she was so nervous and why she had so many butterflies in her belly.  She was beautifully turned out; Mama Jane had declared that no daughter of the house, adopted or otherwise, was going to give the folks of Denver any cause to look down on her, and she smoothed the pretty blue and brown flannel plaid overgown which was matched by the cuffs and facings of the bodice, and a wide ruffle on the blue skirt of the main body of the dress. She felt a real young lady.

And she did not mind being a real young lady, since she was permitted dungarees, Cossack trousers, or divided skirt on the ranch, and when droving the cattle.

She had been paid for it, too; twenty dollars for an apprentice hand. Even though most of her duties were in helping with the chuck-wagon, and any sort of errand-running that might be needed; the same job, Kyril,  whom she thought of as the Ranny, whatever he called it in his own tongue, told her that Luke had done a few years previously. Ida was glad to be able to do a real job of work.

 

The train snorted and puffed its way into the station, and after it stopped, Ida saw Luke’s tall, handsome figure climb down, typical of Luke, helping a woman with a gaggle of children as well.

Ida had promised herself she would not squeal or run to him, but she did both, and launched herself on him.

Luke caught her, and swung her round, then set her down to look at her.

“What’s this? Where’s my little buddy?  You’ve gone and fledged into a woman just because I’m away a couple of months,” said Luke.

“Oh, I am your little buddy too,” said Ida, fervently. “But Mama Jane said I should dress as a lady in Denver.”

“Oh, I suppose she’s right,” said Luke. “I’m not sure I approve of you wearing one of those corsets with stuffed bosoms though,” he added, looking at her figure with a frown.

“I’m not!” said Ida, injured. “I sort of increased my figure since you felt it on the way home, and... and you hadn’t noticed.”

Luke went scarlet.

“I apologise for that,” he said. “I hoped you hadn’t noticed. I didn’t want to embarrass you, or frighten you into thinking I was the sort of man Nathaniel might well be.”

“I wasn’t frightened,” said Ida. “I know you’re very proper when you’re awake, but your hands like me.”

Luke flushed again.

“Tarnation! You’re too young for my hands to misbehave like that!” he said, angrily.

“My bosoms forgave them,” said Ida. “I know you would not cross the line and do anything I did not like. But there is more of them now.”

“We won’t be sharing a tent, again, then,” said Luke.

“We won’t have to; we can have separate bunks on the Pullman,” said Ida.

“You’ll have your own compartment,” said Luke. “I need Blackwind; he’ll be cross if he gets left in the caboose.”

 

Dmitro was removing Blackwind from the caboose, and he caught Luke’s eye. Luke blushed.

“She’s become a woman, since you saw her, you know,” said Dmitro.

“She still has some growing up to do, and if her sister comes with her, she’ll want to look after her. And I’m too young, too,” said Luke.

Dmitro nodded.

“Another year will make all the difference to both of you,” he said. “I’ll be waiting here for you to send her back, with Emma, if she’s coming, and if Emma wants to marry someone else, well, she could do worse than Kyril, who is wistful about the idea of sons. I’m guessing you’ll be about returning to your friend, Sam?”

“She might have gone off with Two-Moons of course,” said Luke. “We’ll find out.  If she has, I’ll send Ida back to you and check if Emma’s happy.” He considered Dmitro’s question. “I’m building a house in Eastbend. Though I probably will go wandering when this business of Nathaniel is sorted out. I’m getting itchy feet.”

Dmitro laughed.

“Isn’t it a good job that Danko takes after his English half, home-loving, and a born farmer, so that you can take after your Cossack half, my boy,” he said.

Luke joined in his laughter. His father’s mirth was always infectious. 

“I am your falcon, I always have been,” he said.

“Aye, and you bring down prey relentlessly. Will you kill this Nathaniel?”

“Not unless he demands a gun fight,” said Luke. “I was going to let Ida whip him for the pain and humiliation he caused her, nothing more, and remove her sister to safety unless she is fool enough to cleave to him.”

“As well to be temperate,” agreed Dmitro. “Don’t let him rile you, now.”

“I won’t, Papa,” said Luke.

 

Black Falcon 10 ppart6 delivering the females

 

10 Delivering the Females part 6

 

Luke approached the horse, speaking softly in the soft, musical tones of his father’s tongue, soothing and reassuring words. The roar of the crowd did not help the poor creature, which was terrified.

“O, my brother, you will understand the thrill of working together, neither one of us the master, but in partnership,” he murmured. “Miy brat, miy druh, miy dorohiyy,” my brother, my friend, my dear one. Then with one leap, he was on the palomino’s back, holding with his knees, anticipating the horse’s frantic bucking, moving to keep balance purely by the leaning of his body. Luke did not holler or shout, he was not about to disturb or upset the horse whose movements he read through his legs, and with whom he became completely in accord. The palomino bucked for a while, and then stopped, puzzled, since the weight on his back rode easily and without being a foe. Luke leaned forward to pet the horse on the neck, continuing to speak softly. The horse slowed its frantic movements, and stood still.

“You beauty,” said Luke.

“It’s a fix!” yelled the man Luke had bet against. “It’s all a dog-blamed fix!”

Luke’s well-honed senses registered a gun being drawn and he held tightly with his knees, and threw his arms round the palomino’s neck as the pistol was discharged, the shot taking his hat off. The palomino, not unnaturally, bucked wildly, and charged in the direction of the assault.

“Good instincts,” muttered Luke, crouching into his seat towards the mane as the infuriated horse cleared the high fence, leaning back as it landed. There was a cry and a rather wet squelching noise, and then he was clinging on for dear life as the horse burst out of the warehouse where the competition was being held, and headed  across the train tracks and out of town.

“By George, we’ll do very well together,” said Luke, “But we need to go back and get my stallion and a human filly, my dear, my love, my brother.”

He managed to turn the palomino, and they returned to the site of the competition trotting, a rough muzzle band and rein made by Luke’s own lariat.

There was some uproar there.

“Didn’t I say he wasn’t stealing the horse?” said Ida’s shrill voice.

“The hell! The horse stole me,” said Luke. “I give my word, I haven’t been off the back  of the horse in this time, I think I’m in with a good chance of winning.”

“Nobody else wants a devil horse that kills,” said the former owner, shaken.

“Kills?” said Luke. “I think he went for that fool who tried to murder me; if he didn’t I bloody well want satisfaction from the fellow.”

“And I’m telling the lawman here, that you didn’t ride him down, but that the horse is wild,” said the owner. “Your hat; it has a hole in it.”

“As I said, the fellow shot at me for being a better horseman than his fool brother,” said Luke.

“It don’t look like a wild horse to me,” said the sheriff.

“Well, friend, I’ve stuck on and ridden a lot of wildness out of him, but if we go back into the rodeo arena, why don’t you see how long you stick on him?” said Luke.

“I’ll do that,” said the sheriff.

The palomino gave Luke a reproachful look on being taken back into the arena, as Luke dismounted. Luke patted him on the neck, and the sheriff vaulted onto his back, about to make scornful comments.

He came to, lying on his back, wondering if he was still alive.

“D’you seriously think I’d be selling a chance to stay on at five dollars a time for a thoroughbred that wasn’t wild?” said the owner.  “I’m still obliged to offer the chance to anyone else who paid.”

Only one other person took up the offer; and stayed on for thirty seconds.

“My horse, I think,” said Luke. “Does he have a name?”

“Buttercup,” said the owner.

“I think he found that an affront to his dignity,” said Luke. “Here, kid, what shall we call him?”

Ida was standing beside him, clinging to his arm. She regarded the horse, a pale palomino whose golden coat was like silver gilt.

“Goldmoon,” she said.

“Goldmoon it is,” said Luke. “Miy Kohaniy, you are a Cossack horse now. Sir, can I stable him with you whilst I buy provisions?”

“Not likely, it took two hands with him well roped,” said the former owner, signing the bill of sale to Luke. Luke turned to Ida.

“Well, then, I must give you the money for supplies, my boy, while I walk with Goldmoon,” he said.

“Take him to Blackwind; I am sure he will tell him to behave,” said Ida.

“He might, too,” said Luke, leading the palomino. “I need to buy a horse for you, as well.”

“Help me onto Goldmoon,” said Ida. “He’ll take me.”

“You might break your neck when he throws you,” warned Luke.

“He’s sniffing me; he knows I’m with you,” said Ida, holding out her hand to the horse. Luke was horrified; but the palomino did not bite.  Against his better judgement, he lifted Ida onto his back.

The palomino nickered; but walked to Ida’s foot urging him.

“Well, I’m damned,” said Luke.

“He likes the ladies perhaps,” said Ida.

“You aren’t riding an unbroken horse all the way home, however he feels about it,” said Luke. “But you can curry him in a stable next to Blackwind, and if you train him, he’s yours, so long as you’ll put him to stud with our mares.”

 

As Goldmoon was happy to be fed and watered, he was quiescent enough in the stall with Blackwind; and Luke negotiated for a gelding for Ida to ride, and a pack horse. They would require more provisions if not going by train, and Luke shopped, explaining to Ida what he was getting and why. An army surplus officer’s tent pleased him no end, as well as canvas for a shelter for the horses. The high plains of Colorado were dry, and plenty of canteens were a necessity. It was a long way with few settlements, and Luke planned their route with care to take advantage of such watercourses as they could find, without going out of their way by following the Platte.

“At least it’s likely to snow, and we can melt that,” he said, with heavy irony.

“I am sure we will be safe in your care,” said Ida.

“If necessary we can dig in and use sods,” said Luke. “They build their houses of sods out there, anyway.”

“I suppose it would be warm,” said Ida.

“Yes, the earth is insulating,” said Luke. “Spades are necessary, and we can take some kerosene, and get some heat from a lantern or from earth soaked in kerosene. We’ll have a dutch oven as well, because so long as it boils, if then packed well in hay in a hole in the ground to stop it cooling down, it will carry on cooking. We do that last thing at night, it will save fuel and give us a hot breakfast. You’ll have to share a tent with me; I can’t risk your life for propriety.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” said Ida.

“You’re a little trooper,” said Luke.

He sent a telegraph message to his parents before they left, telling them his anticipated route home with a refugee and a stud colt.

“Papa will look for us in three days, and if we have not got home, he will come looking,” he said.

“Mr. Sokolov,” said Ida, “It may be foolish of me, but as there seems to be snow already on the ground, if we took a sleigh, we could pack more, and put the tent over it to keep us off the ground at night.”

“Ida, you’re a clever girl,” said Luke. “A sleigh we shall have; and you shall drive it, whilst I lead Goldmoon.”

The pack horse and gelding were traded back for a pair trained to pull a buckboard or sleigh, and Luke was pleased to find a good, sturdy sleigh with wheels that could be added to make it a cart.

 

oOoOo

 

The weather was bitter, and Luke insisted that Ida wear a snow-veil to drive.

“Nobody’s going to question it being a bit girly,” he said. “There’s nobody to question it.”

Ida acquiesced.

Soon she was singing.

 

“Dashing through the snow
In a one-horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bobtails ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A sleighing song tonight!”

 

Luke joined in the chorus,

 

“Oh! Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh, hey
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one-horse open sleigh!”

 

“We can’t sing too much, though, Ida,” said Luke. “Because we’ll waste water, drying our lungs in this cold, dry air.”

“Yes, of course we will. I’m sorry, it just seemed so right,” said Ida.

“It was lovely,” said Luke. “I love to sing when I’m riding. Perhaps we can sing in the tent.”

 

The December moon was waxing, and would be full in a couple of days’ time; and Luke planned to make use of the light of the moon to go as far as possible, pitching camp in good time to see by it, before it set behind them. By the time they left it was well up, and the daylight gone, but there was no point trying to stay in town with an unbroken horse.

There was a stark beauty in driving and riding over the frozen prairie, as the moon shone on Goldmoon and brought out the beauty of the pale golden horse with white mane and tail.  Luke had a rope between the noseband on Goldmoon and himself, and had thrown a bight of the rope over his own saddlehorn. Blackwind was no novice at transporting and breaking wild horses; both Luke, and his brother, Daniel, had gone out to capture wild horses for breeding stock if nothing else, to add the Spanish strain.  The Spanish horses, which had gone feral, bred well with the steppe ponies which Dmitro and his men had brought with them. They were capable of the faster ambling gait of the five-gait Kentucky riding horse, which Dmitro had been keen to bring into his stables as well. Blackwind covered ground hour after hour at a steady eight to ten miles an hour, a ridiculously high speed for a riding horse over long distances. The stage managed eight miles an hour, with frequent changes. Had he been on his own, Luke would have set out to cover the distance home in one day; and as Blackwind would then have had a long rest at the end of the journey, expected to cover it. As it was, he anticipated camping two nights on the high plains. And he expected more comfortable night sleeping in the sleigh with the tent over it than otherwise. It had been worth taking the time to have a blacksmith put sockets front and rear of the sleigh for the tent poles, and eyelets for the guy ropes.  The tongue of the sleigh and another pole held on it would make a rough shelter for the horses

He was looking for a bluff against which to camp, and though there was little in the way of eminences, a winding stream bed gave them some shelter out of the wind. Luke dug into the side of the low cliffs and filled with sand an old corned beef tin in catering size he had filched from the rubbish of the hotel.  He poured kerosene into it, setting it in his rough chimney, and preparing a meal of hash whilst Ida dug a rough latrine pit, using one of the wheels from when the sleigh was a buggy to prop between the back of the sleigh and the bluff, with canvas over it, as a rough shelter. They put the tent up together, fed the horses warmed bran mash from the fire Luke set in the kerosene fireplace, before putting their hash on to cook. Warm bran mash and hay from a bale tied on the back of the sleigh satisfied the horses, though Goldmoon was wary. Luke made a rough halter, and tied it to a stake he hammered into the ground; if Goldmoon was serious about escaping, he probably would, but Luke was hoping he was now seeing them as his herd. Most horses liked being near him, and the palomino had taken a liking to Ida.

 

Luke woke up warm and rested, not usually a given when travelling over the prairie in winter.  He was embarrassed to discover that he had his arm over Ida, and was cupping one small breast. He snatched it away in a hurry; his wayward body had noticed that she was on the verge of womanhood.

He turned over hastily to hide the morning reaction.

Ida wondered whether she disgusted him, that he should move away so quickly from what had been a most exciting position; and then remembered how careful he was with all the ladies, and suppressed a sigh that he was looking on her as a sister.

Perhaps in a year or two....

In the meanwhile, they were good comrades and worked well together, and he had said she would make a good wife.

And she had a lot to learn in the meantime from his mother.

 

oOoOo

 

The weather was bitter, but the sleigh skimmed the flat prairie, less set with treacherous bottoms filled with hay holding up thin snow such as might be found in less arid regions. Again, they drove on into the night, and Luke woke again in a compromising position.

At least they should make it home, today.

 

Pushing on brought the cavalcade onto the Levchenko ranch not long after midday.

Luke submitted to being hugged by his mother and sisters, passing Ida onto them, and willing hands took the horses as Luke and Ida were drawn inside the large log cabin by laughing, friendly people.

To call it a log cabin, thought Ida, would be to call one of the fine brick buildings in Denver a town house.  Set around a courtyard, stables and barns ran off one wing, and various other people seemed to live in the other wing, whilst the main family house was two storeys high, with perhaps half a dozen rooms on the ground floor, which were amply filled by the family.

 

“You’re staying for Christmas, of course?” demanded Dmitro.  “My son, what were they thinking, putting mail order brides in your care?”

“I delivered them all,” said Luke. “Ida’s sister is married to a nasty piece of work and she ran away. She needs to learn arapnik to go back and rescue her sister. And yes, I wired Sam that I’m staying here for Christmas, but I may go back to Eastbend after.”

“Yes, yes, when you get bored,” said Dmitro. “But now, welcome to you, and to my new daughter, and let us enjoy the season!”

“And you must tell Ida how you and Mama spent your first Christmas camping in an abandoned Tatar village,” said Luke. “I have precious little in the way of gifts for anyone, I was more concerned with getting supplies to get home with a wayward colt that Ida would have me win. He’s hers if she can break him, but he’s ours for stud.”

“Well, I am sure you have many tales to tell us,” said Dmitro.

 

Ida loved it.  The family were loud, but loving, and sang a lot, and made her welcome. And to Kalina, she confessed her hopes regarding Luke, and Kalina squealed with delight.

It was the Christmas of a lifetime... marred only by wondering what dour sort of Christmas Emma must be enduring.

 

I am working on the final chapter[s] - i have not had my head well in order though so I will try to have one for tomorrow but don't guarantee it