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A Land To Call Her Own

By Julie Pollitt

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Denver City, Colorado Territory
Autumn 1865

Tess Porter stared out the window at the darkened sky over snow-capped mountains from inside the Overland Express way station. She pressed her hands together, interweaving her fingers. More than once her grip grew tight. She drew in a deep breath and reminded herself she could now relax.
Tess again studied the vast open land, which held a freedom only she could understand.
A scant amount of people dotted the sidewalks in town, a vast difference from her New York City. She searched the faces for her father, but he was not among them. The fall winds snuck through the cracks around the door and a chill prickled up her spine.
Her eyelids closed, she drew in a deep breath and pictured Franklin Shepherd. A small wave of guilt coursed through her for recanting the arranged union on the morning of her wedding ceremony, only weeks ago. She’d wrestled with the decision to marry Franklin, knowing he would take good care of her. Before leaving her native city, her respect mounted for the man, but never once did her love.
“Miss?” A man’s shrill voice echoed through the empty room, intruding into her thoughts. “Who you waitin’ on?”
“My father. He promised to meet me here,” she said, backing away from the window. She ran her fingers across his worn letter in her pocket. Perhaps something on the ranch kept him.
“Seems like there ain’t nobody else comin’. Maybe you best get a room at the hotel ’fore too long,” the tall, lanky stagecoach clerk said, as he shuffled behind the counter. “I’m lockin’ the door soon.”
“He promised. He’ll be here.” Her voice echoed confidence, if only the rest of her would agree.
“Who’s your father?”
“Ed Porter.”
The clerk’s eyelids fluttered as if surprised by his name.
“Do you know him?”
He paused a moment before speaking. “Yes’m.”
“Do you know where he is?” She lifted her eyebrows in question.
The clerk swallowed, his Adam’s apple sliding down and back. He lifted his arm and slowly moved his finger out, pointing across the street. “He’s... he’s over there.”
She walked back to the window and looked out. “The church?”
“Yes’m,” he said as he nodded.
She tugged at the edges of her white gloves and lifted her small pocketbook into the palm of her hands. “I’ll return for my trunk.”
Why was he at the church? She bit her bottom lip and creased her eyebrows. He’d known for some time she was coming.
The clerk remained silent. He followed her to the door, closing it behind her.
Each of the wooden steps creaked beneath her. She eyed the street before crossing, and dodged the piles of steaming horse droppings. Tess pinched her nose with her thumb and forefinger to lessen the stench.
The jangle of a harness forced her attention up, and she stopped to let a wagon pass in front of her. She lifted the hem of her dress to avoid some of the mud puddles scattered across the dirt road running the length of town.
Three wagons were hitched to a wooden post on the side of the red brick church. She squeezed her hand around the knob of the church door and pushed it open. She stuck her head through the opening in the door and decided it was all right to enter the foyer. A small handful of people were gathered in the first few pews singing a hymn. Her heart fluttered in her chest, knowing her father had to be close. Tess hadn’t allowed herself to get excited, until now.
So many times in her childhood, Tess and her older sister, Francine, peered out the front window of her grandmother’s sitting room. They waited for their father’s promised return after months of absence. Having memorized his figure, Tess would press her nose against the glass and refuse to leave her post until he came into sight. The two young girls would throw open the front door and leap off the steps into his arms, hoping to be held as long as he stayed. Now Tess, her sister Francine, and her family would be joining him out west.
Tess slid into the back seat and tried to remain inconspicuous. She studied the back of each man in the room, slowly trying to recall her father’s posture and mannerisms. None looked familiar.
The music ceased. The preacher walked up the stairs at the front of the sanctuary and stood behind the unadorned wooden pulpit.
“Please be seated.” He waved his hands, motioning for everyone to sit down. They complied with the exception of five men, huddled toward the front of the sanctuary.
As they parted, they revealed a long wooden box on top of a table. A casket. Her eyes traced the familiar outline of the man’s face lying inside the simple pine box. Tess stood up and moved closer. The man’s nose protruded slightly at the bridge, just like her father’s. Could it be? Her knees trembled at the thought.
“We are gathered here today to honor the life of our dear resident, Ed Porter,” the preacher said, confirming her worst fears.
“No!”
Her echo rang across the church. As people turned, a multitude of faces pressed on her, like a weight. Tess swallowed hard. She took a deep breath and gripped the back of the pew with her hand to steady herself. Her feet inched slightly toward the aisle.
As she neared the casket, she looked inside the pine box at her father. The man who always used his hands when he talked, spoke without reservation, and loved without apology, lay motionless in front of her. The air left her lungs like a blow to the stomach.
“Miss?” the preacher said, standing in front of her. “Miss?”
Tess tipped her head up and turned her gaze to meet the preacher’s face, ignoring everyone around her. Her lips parted, but nothing came out. She looked back down at her father and tears stung her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
Tess felt a young woman pulling her to the side. She led Tess to sit on the front pew. Numbness covered her. The woman’s voice came in a delicate whisper. “Do you know this man?”
Pa. The word reverberated in her head, but she couldn’t speak. She drew in a breath hoping she could fill her lungs and nodded her head.
“What’s your name?” The woman rubbed her arm in a soothing motion.
“Tess… Porter.” She bit her lower lip and tried to keep the tears from pouring out. It was no use. She covered her face and sobbed into her hands.
“Your father?” the woman pushed a handkerchief into her folded hands and curled her fingers around it.
“How can this be?” Her words were barely a whisper as Tess looked up at the preacher. “He sent for me. He can’t be dead.” She studied the casket again.
The woman slid her arm around Tess, squeezing her shoulder. Tess pressed her eyes shut and tried to will away the fact that her father was dead.
“What do we do now?” Someone whispered.
The preacher knelt down on one knee in front of Tess. “Should we go on with the service then?”
Her mind felt as though she were lost in a dense fog, drifting at sea.
She paused for a moment as she stared at him. “What else is there?”
Francine. Her sister entered her thoughts. How would she tell her? Francine, her husband Luke, and daughter Lizzie would be arriving soon to finally live together as a family.
She wanted to start a new life with her father. Tess had felt a freedom arise in her heart when she broke the engagement with Franklin. Now, she was away from her belittling, contemptuous grandmother and the possibility of a loveless marriage.
When her father wrote to her, desperation filled his letters. He wanted her to come and live with him and create the family they were meant to be so many years ago.
He rarely came to visit. When he did, words were rarely spoken between him and his own mother, Eliza Porter.
Francine and Tess lived with their grandmother while he wandered from place to place—always with a jug of whiskey in his hand. This letter seemed different and more caring. Sober.
Tess wiped her eyes with a soft handkerchief. Now she would never know what drove him to send for her. The relationship she had dreamed about for so long slid through her hands like water. Her hopes lay drenched and gone on the church floor in front of her.
The pain of his death felt like a thousand bee stings. Tess concentrated on breathing, pulling air into her lungs, just to survive the moment.
A chorus of voices singing startled her from her thoughts and she glanced up. A man picked up the lid to place it on the wooden casket.
“Ian, wait,” the preacher said, holding out his hand to stop Ian from covering Tess’ father for eternity. “Let her look… one more time.”
How could this be true? Tess hadn’t seen his face in years and now she had to look at him for the last time. Sadness engulfed and pressed in on her, and her father couldn’t wrap his arms around her to give comfort. She needed his shelter. But it was gone.
Tess stood to her feet and peered into the casket. His aged face was identical to her loving grandfather’s. Memories flooded back into her mind of her father’s whiskered chin tickling her soft cheeks. Her eyes traced his face, trying to memorize every feature.
The black suit he wore had to be a gift. The sleeves stretched down past his knuckles. She couldn’t recall a time he dressed so fine.
Years of whisky abuse and solitary life were evident in his face. His cheeks were thin and the sun parched his skin. The evidence of time was written around his eyes and mouth.
Her knees trembled and she wondered if her legs would hold her. She’d never see his smile or feel the weight of his arms around her again. She held in the tears and the pain burned within her. His low, soothing voice would never course through her ears again.
Why Lord? Why are you letting this happen?
Tess took a step back and looked at the men standing around the casket. The man who held the top of the pine casket stared at her with his ocean-blue eyes, waiting for her approval to lay it on top of her father.
For a brief moment, as he watched her, she felt a covering of peace. Tess turned her face away from his penetrating glance. She wanted nothing more than to be alone. The intrusion of people around her suffocated her thoughts.
He set the wooden lid on top, scraping it against pine beneath. As they hammered the nails, it felt as though someone were hammering the finality of his life into her soul one nail at a time.
***
“Will you be all right out here on your own?” Catherine Bishop, the preacher’s wife asked, jarring Tess back to reality. “We can stay out here at your father’s… I mean, your cabin, a spell longer.”
Tess smelled the cornbread Catherine placed on the table inside of a small basket. Her stomach grumbled in protest, but she ignored it. “I’ll be fine.”
Thomas, the preacher, came through the door with an armload of wood and set it down next to the hearth. He made a pile of twigs in the bottom of the fireplace before setting larger logs on top. He struck the match against one of the rocks lining the fireplace and held it underneath the stack until a small flame flickered. The fire grew and warmed her skin as the heat traveled across the cold room.
“I’ve put your trunk next to the bed,” he said.
Catherine placed her hand on Tess’ arm. “What else can we do?”
Bring back my father. Tess took a deep, shuddering breath, knowing it was impossible. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“We hope to see you in church on Sunday,” Thomas said.
“Right. Church.” Tess looked around the room at her unfamiliar surroundings. The cabin should’ve felt comfortable and inviting, but she missed her father. Fear churned in her gut. Nothing felt the same.
Catherine wrapped her arms around Tess. “The Lord will watch over you. He won’t let you down. Even in the midst of your grief, He will be there.”
Tess knew the truth in that statement, but God felt farther away that moment than ever before. A twinge of anger rose up inside of her. She knew He wasn’t to blame, but where was His control? She never understood how people could doubt God and His plans, until now.
Catherine and Thomas left, closing the door gently behind them. Tess heard the jingle of the horse’s harness pulling the wagon away, and the sound of clomping hooves drowned in the distance.
The one-room cabin was far from the comforts of home and the finer things she was accustomed to. The bed was merely feet from the rickety table in the middle of the room. The table looked as though it was made from scraps of wood. Rust crawled up the edges and the sides of the old black cooking stove.
Her mother’s faded yellow patchwork quilt lay across the bed. Pa wanted this family to work. She covered her mouth with the palm of her hand to stifle the cry that threatened to come out.
Tess gazed around the small room. On the mantle, above the crackling fire, sat a framed picture of her family taken almost twenty years ago. She stared at it. In the black and white Daguerreotype, Tess rested on her mother’s lap and her older sister Francine stood next to her. As usual, her father was absent.
Footsteps on the porch pulled her from her thoughts. Before she could move, hinges on the door squeaked, and she watched it creak open one inch at a time. A stream of light filtered into the room and spilled on the floor.
A man in a stiff stovepipe hat entered the cabin. Once inside, he looked around the room until his eyes fell on Tess. His mouth twitched in surprise.
“Who are you?” Tess demanded.
“What are you doing here?” He asked. His robust shape filled his meticulously-ironed jacket.
“This is my father’s cabin,” she said. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Clearing his throat, he pressed his fingers along the front collar of his suit jacket. His chest rose. “I’m Henry Barrington. I own the ranch north of here.”
“Why are you here?” She stammered to find the right words. Tess started to remove her dust-covered gloves, but changed her mind. She kept her eyes on him.
“I came to check on the place.” He said.
“You’ve heard my father is dead?”
He nodded.
“Do you know how it happened?” Tess asked.
“No. Someone found him dead. He must have fallen.”
She recalled the strangers staring at her during her father’s funeral, shaking their heads, murmuring they were sorry. What had happened? When she asked, no one seemed to know.
“I offer my deepest sympathies, and I am terribly sorry for your loss.” He removed his hat and held it under his arm. Lines from his comb had drawn tiny furrows though his silver-streaked hair.
“Thank you.” Tess said.
“Please, sit down.” He pulled out one of the chairs and held out his hand for Tess.
She took his hand and sat down.
“Can I offer you a clean handkerchief?” He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a folded, pristine white cloth. He unfolded it, handed it to her, and smiled sympathetically.
She took the handkerchief and dabbed it against her eyes. “I’ll never get to see him again.”
“Death of a loved one is never easy, Miss.” He spoke quietly. “It takes time to grieve.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded her head.
He offered a few moments of silence. “You’ll probably want to head back home,” he said, the words sliding off his tongue like butter.
Tess wasn’t sure how to respond.
“I can help you sell the place,” Henry said. “You could make a healthy start for yourself back home, where it’s more comfortable,” he paused for a moment. “In fact, to help you, I’ll buy the place, take it off your hands. It’s not necessary for a young woman like you to get your silky white hands dirty with ranching. A nice lady like you needs the finer things . . .”
Sell the place? Was he serious? She just arrived and this stranger had no inkling of what she needed.
She couldn’t go back to the possibility of a loveless marriage. After her grandmother practically threw her out, Tess knew the possibility of going back to New York City was out of the question. Her chest tightened and her hands shook in her lap. She intertwined her fingers hoping he wouldn’t see her shaking.
Tess slipped her hand into her skirt pocket and felt her father’s letter crinkled inside—the letter she’d waited so long to receive, asking her to join him out west, to live with him as family. But it was just a letter. Her father was dead. He couldn’t protect her now.
“You have no need of this land. There are vast amounts of fresh water here for my cattle.”
Tess felt her insides twist with anger. How could he make such an assumption? He knew nothing of her situation.
“This property is not for sale.” She stood up so fast her heels came off the ground.
He narrowed his eyes and shot her a look that would stop a train dead in its tracks.
“You’ll get a fair price,” he said. A twitch replaced the crooked smile.
“It’s not for sale,” Tess said through gritted teeth. She looked him in the eye. “My father had a plan for our family.”
Henry stepped closer. Her cheeks flushed as he drew even nearer. His nostrils bulged. His lips tightened. The wrinkles around his mouth turned white. “Your father’s cattle are unhealthy. You’ve no hay in the barn. Winter is coming and the Colorado Territory is harsh and unforgiving. The barn was barely finished after he wasted all his money in the brothels… when he wasn’t too drunk to walk.”
“How dare you speak of him in such a manner.” Her body stiffened and her voice grew deep. Deep enough to scare herself.
Yet what he said was probably true. Her father’s drinking followed him, alienating him from his children and all he ever held dear.
“There’s no way you can run this ranch by yourself, Miss Porter. ”
She knew he was right, though she dared not tell him so. She’d never been out of the city. She knew about parties and school, not running a ranch.
Her lips pressed together. “I will find a way to run this ranch successfully.” She’d read about families who’d gone west to start a new life. Women died everyday in this land. The odds were against her.
“Those animals will either freeze or die of hunger—that is if nothing were to happen to you first. You’re quite a spunky young lady,” he said, sarcasm dripping off his words. He took one step forward and she could feel the vibration of his heels scraping the floor. “Spunk will not get you far in ranching. It takes guts, knowledge, and money.”
“I will not sell. This is still my father’s… my father’s land.” A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed hard and blinked back the tears.
Henry slapped his hand around her wrist and squeezed, pulling her body toward his. His teeth clamped shut, but the words came slithering through. “Mark my words, it will belong to me.”
“Let go of me.” Tess pulled her arm back with all her might, but she was unable to free herself. This time she used her body weight to pull back. He tightened his grip, pinching her skin between his fingers. Spit rolled off his bottom lip as he laughed.
“Let her go Barrington.” A deep voice accompanied the crack of a rifle cocking across the room.

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