I have good news! Each Wednesday DiVoran will share a new Promise Poster~ Rebekah
Category: Creative Life
Blogging, painting and poetry by DiVoran Lites gently wrapped in one of her delightful stories
Go West Chapter 2~Ellie
Go West
by DiVoran Lites
Chapter Two
Ellie
How do, ma’am.” You don’t look much like a ranch hand, the livery owner said.
Ellie opened her mouth to tell him she could handle about anything but the entrance of a young man captured her attention.
“This is Kenny, Donald Fitzgerald’s son” Mr. Leitzinger said.
“How do, ma’am,” the tall young man touched his forehead in a gesture of respect which usually included tipping a hat. She nodded.
“You’ll have to hold Ribbons back a bit,” the boy spoke to Mr. Leitzinger. “She’ll break into a run the first chance she gets.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” He moved past Ellie and reached for the halter and then backed the mare between the wagon traces.
“Put your cape on, Miss Morgan.” Mr. Leitzinger took the satin-lined garment from her arm, opened it, and settled it over her shoulders. She sighed as the warmth spread through her entire body. Capes had been a godsend in the ambulance corps. They protected the women drivers from the cold during the daytime and in an emergency, substituted for blankets at night. They could also be used to staunch blood.
Mr. Leitzinger watched as she pulled her doeskin gloves from the pockets of her cape and smoothed them over her fingers one by one. He looked away when she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze.
He then got busy setting her cases amongst other parcels in the wagon bed. In one graceful move, he was on the narrow seat with the boy handing him the reins.
“Put your foot on the axle and give me your hand,” he said reaching down for Ellie. When he hauled her up by one arm, Mr. Fitzgerald boosted her bottom from below as if she were a sack of goods. The men were so matter-of-fact about the process that she didn’t bother to be embarrassed.
“Take hold of that bar under the seat until we get out on the road,” Mr. Leitzinger suggested. She groped and felt the cold of the springy steel through her glove.
To her dismay, Mr. Leitzinger handed over the reins while he reached for a leather jacket amongst the parcels in the back. When he had shoved his arms into the sleeves, he took the reins again. A clucking noise from his tongue urged the big gray forward and the wagon moved out of the shed.
“You didn’t pay the liveryman,” Ellie reminded him looking back to see if anyone was coming after them. In her grandparent’s store anyone who didn’t pay for services rendered was a lowlife. She hoped this cowboy person did not fall into that category.
“It’s all right, Mr. Solano has me bring him to town once a month so he can pay the bills. At first he never left the ranch, but he’s getting better now.”
“Has he been ill?” she asked with a pang of anxiety. Surely they wouldn’t expect her to add nursing to her other duties. She had developed such an aversion to pain and suffering she couldn’t even listen to sad stories without weeping.
“Signor Solano came to Colorado to get cured of his tuberculosis, and he is getting well.” As he spoke, Mr. Leitzinger pulled back slightly on the reins.
“I thought TB was incurable,” said Ellie.
“People do get well here,” he answered. “It’s the clean, dry air and good food. They might have to stay a few years, and it’s important to take it easy, but a cure is possible. Signor Solano feels that the oranges he orders shipped from California and Florida are the main healers.
They headed straight for the edge of town toward the snow-topped mountain peaks to the west. They passed several small houses that looked as if they had grown out of the land surrounding them. “Those belong to our family,” he said. “The settlers around here started with log cabins. When they prospered in the cattle business, they built big houses closer to the range. Most family members worked the ranches, but when they got old they sometimes moved to town. We have strong families here. Strong families make strong countries, or so I believe. What do you think?”
“I’m in favor of families though sometimes you have to get away from them,” Ellie said. What she didn’t say was that she was also in favor of as much independence as possible.
“It takes guts to leave, but it feels good to come back home,” said Mr. Leitzinger. “Signor Solano’s grandson is coming from Switzerland tomorrow. We graded the road especially for his visit. It’s a good thing the spring thaw is over. Water rushes through the canyons when the creeks flood and it can destroy the roads and the railroad tracks. A gully-washer has taken the tracks out twice.
“I know what you’re saying, the roads in France were awful in winter and spring.
As the horse settled into a steady pace, Mr. Leitzinger handed Ellie the reins again. She held them tightly, hoping Ribbons wouldn’t take a notion to bolt.
Mr. Leitzinger pulled a mouth-harp from his jacket pocket and cupping it in his hands he began to play “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” Ellie hummed along. It was a song she knew well from singing with ambulatory patients and off-duty nurses. At those times, she felt as if she were with family members even though they might never meet again.
“That’s a flier’s jacket, isn’t it? Were you in the war?” she asked.
“The Great War. People don’t want to think we’ll ever have another like it.” He slid the harmonica back into his pocket and re-possessed the reins.
“No sane person wants a war.” Hoping he wouldn’t notice, she inched closer to the warmth of his body.
“I wanted to be in the thick of the dog fighting,” he said. “But they needed men who could read maps and memorize terrain, so they taught me to fly and put me in a surveillance bus instead. A BeBe. That’s a pretty good little airplane. My brother was in the infantry, but he didn’t make it back home.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” She felt the sting of tears at the back of her eyes and dreaded the crying she felt approaching. After the war ended, she had spent five years in the beauty salon at the department store. She fell apart every time a patron told a sad story, war-related or not.
Without saying anything further, he shrugged, handed her the reins and took out his harmonica again. He breathed into the instrument and snappy Dixieland jazz emerged.
The lively tune distracted and soothed her. Now she wouldn’t have to make a fool of herself with her tears.
* * *
The wagon turned and dipped under a large wooden board entrance with hieroglyphics burned into it.
“Is that your ranch brand?” she asked.
“How do you know about brands?” He looked at her and smiled.
“My grandfather was raised on a ranch, and he always wanted to go back. He’d tell any callers who came to the house, ‘go west, young man and grown up with the country.” He got that from a man named Horace Greely. I’m Granddad’s first convert, even though I’m not a young man.”
“We’ll have to invite him for a visit,” Mr. Leitzinger said.
“On your sign, I saw an L…? She glanced back, but they were on the other side of it by now.
“Circle L-Z,” he said. “That’s our family brand, but we’re leasing to Mr. Solano for the time being.
They drew up to a large Victorian house with windows across each of three floors. The lights on the ground floor issued a welcome. Large spruce trees grew as tall as the house on both sides.
Promise Poster~I Will Bring the Blind by a New Way
Go West Chapter One~Ellie
Go West
By DiVoran Lites
Chapter One
Ellie
Elizabeth Morgan, riding backward, looked out the train window at a sign that said, Clifton. It was here she hoped to find a plan and purpose for her life. As she stood, she studied the Victorian-style train station with several men milling on the boardwalk. They wore ragged clothes, battered hats, and down-at-the-heel boots. For a moment, she tried to imagine them dressed in well-fitting woolen suits with homburgs or fedoras on their heads. Then shaking her head, she gave it up. All the imagining in the world would not make this burg into downtown Chicago, and that was fine with her. She needed a new life, maybe she’d find it here.
Smoothing kiss curls over each cheek, she straightened her narrow-brimmed cloche. As she reached toward the shelf for her tapestry carpet bag, an arm went over her head and carefully lifted it down. She looked up at a tall man with silver-blond hair and gray eyes that were the kind that turned blue on a sunny day. He now held the carpetbag in one hand and a deep brown Boss of the Prairie Stetson in the other. She didn’t know yet who he was, but she knew from working in her grandparents’ department store back home, that he had good taste in hats. His frayed khaki shirt, however, looked as if it were part of a uniform from the Great War.
“Name’s Aldon Leitzinger, Miss Morgan. The conductor told me you were in this car.” Warmth radiated from his clean-smelling body before he stepped into the aisle and started moving away. Ellie hurried to throw her camel hair cape over her arm and follow.
“Are you from Spruce Creek Ranch?” she asked. He paused to toss an answer over his shoulder.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m foreman there.” He moved on. When he got to the exit, he jumped two feet down onto the boardwalk and turned to help her. She hesitated and before she could discern his intention he jammed the hat on his head and snaked an arm around her to lift her down and deposit her on the boardwalk. Her Russian boots wobbled on the uneven platform.
“Whoa there.” He steadied her. “Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to the altitude.” He put a hand under her elbow, but she shook him off.
“It’s not the altitude. I wasn’t ready; that’s all.” She had meant to be courteous, but she found herself irritated by this lanky, confident cowboy.
“You’re as scrappy as a banty hen, aren’t you?” He grinned.
“What is the altitude here, anyway?” she asked to cover her outrage at his arrogance.
“Right here we’re over eight thousand feet above sea-level.” He started walking toward the station house and she stepped quickly over the uneven boards trying to keep up. He pointed at a range of mountains in the distance. “The ranch is at ten-thousand feet and some of those peaks go up to fourteen thousand. What’s the altitude in Chicago?”
So he knew not only her name, but where she had come from. Maybe as foreman he’d read her resume. No harm in that. She knew she’d been hired not for the words on a slip of paper, but mainly because of Granddad’s love of the West.
“Five hundred eighty-six feet.” Fortunately, Granddad had read that statistic to her from the morning paper five days ago before she left their home in Chicago.
“Did you bring any more baggage?” He stopped at a wooden bench outside the office and motioned for her to sit down.
“A trunk,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll be a minute.” Setting down the carpetbag and her violin, he strode off toward the last cars on the train. She was deep in thought when he returned with her Douglas Vulcanized Wardrobe Trunk on his shoulder. He picked up the carpetbag and was off again.
“Those mountains are beautiful,” Ellie said as they stepped onto the sidewalk that lined one side of the only block of Main Street.
“That’s the Sangre de Cristo range.” His body exuded the same kind of nonchalant confidence she had noted in Cooper Randolph, her favorite western movie star. Before she left home, Granddad had taken her to see him in “The End of the Trail,” at the converted Palace Theater, which only a few years ago had been dedicated to burlesque.
“The name means blood of Christ. You see how the snow turns reddish as the sun goes down?” I heard pride and tenderness in his voice. Are you hungry?”
“Yes. I missed lunch in Pueblo because the whistle blew before we passengers got our food. I paid in advance, too.” That still rankled. She believed in fairness in business.
“The springboard’s at the livery here on Main Street. We’ll be at the ranch in half an hour. Molly can give you some supper—and she won’t make you pay first, either.”
The broad gravel street still held faux-front buildings even though it was already 1924. To Ellie, the town looked old and shabby. Several farm type wagons with their teams of horses waiting patiently were lined up on one side of the wide street. On the other side, she saw turn of the century Model A and Model T Fords angled toward the buildings.
Mr. Leitzinger carried her trunk into a livery stable full of warm animal smells and dust motes. A dappled gray horse thrust its long nose over a stall door and Ellie stepped back a pace.
“Do you ride?” Mr. Leitzinger inquired.
“Do I have to?”
“Most ranch hands do ride. Besides, horses are mighty fine creatures once you get to know them.” He opened the half-door of the stall and pulled the big horse out by the rope halter. “Pardon me for saying so, ma’am, but you don’t look much like a ranch hand.”
“Oh, I can do anything I set my mind to.” She said eyeing the horse warily. “Besides, I’m supposed to help the housekeeper and act as lady’s maid to the woman of the house.”
“Evenin’, Aldon,” A man wearing suspenders over a long-sleeved undershirt came out of the livery office. “Who’s this purty lady?”
“Miss Elizabeth Morgan.” Mr. Leitzinger put extra emphasis on the Miss. “She’s our new ranch hand.”
Ellie choked and started coughing. Those words reminded her that if she were to fail here, she’d report straight back to Grandmother to work in the department store beauty salon again. Once there, she’d give haircuts and machine waves until such time as Grandmother could find the proper husband for her. He would be a man so politically adept that he would end up in the governor’s mansion with Ellie as wife and chatelaine.