Go West Serial Novel – Page 10

Go West~Chapter 21

Go West

by DiVoran Lites

Chapter Twenty One

Ellie

Ellie and Aldon had fallen into the habit of starting their days together. The sun was not yet up, but it was time to meet in the kitchen for coffee and a chat. Aldon sometimes prayed and sometimes read a bit of the Bible to Ellie, but mostly they admired the sunrise and talked about their lives and their dreams.

“We’re going to catch Chief’s brother, this time around,” Aldon said finishing his coffee. For this particular day, June 21, Ellie’s birthday, he had invited Kenny and her to help capture some wild mustangs. “Chief was once the leader of the band. Bill and I caught him after I came back from the war.” Ellie saw Aldon’s excitement sparkling in his eyes. “Man, do I ever love chasing those beautiful animals and bringing them home to train.”

“But doesn’t it mean that you’re breaking up a family?” she asked.

“In a way it does, but after the colts grow up, they don’t seem to care whether they’re with their mothers, as long as they can be with other horses. And we’ve got to keep the herd culled so that it doesn’t over-populate the range. Any land can only support so many large animals or even small ones for that matter. For example, at one time we had too many rabbits in the valley. That caused the loss of whole species of plants, including some trees because the rabbits eat bark and root sprouts. They caused erosion because the topsoil became exposed, and blew away. The land hasn’t recovered yet. It could be even worse if we got too many wild horses, so I say let’s cull a few and give some people the pleasure of riding them. Or we can send them out to Hollywoodland. Bill says he can make them into movie stars and sell them to the studios for westerns and historical movies.”

After they’d left the kitchen as tidy as they’d found it, they went out to the barn. From there, they heard Kenny’s motorcycle roaring up the drive. They went out to meet him as he pulled up.

“Get a horse,” Aldon joked. Kenny waved happily and went on his way to saddle the horse he boarded at the ranch.

The three of them rode up past the line cabin to the first stand of aspens where Aldon expected to see the mustangs. As the trio paused in a copse of trees, the ranch horses were careful not to step on crackling sticks, or to whinny, or to make any noise at all. They had found a place where they were well-cared for, and their wild blood had been tamed. The first mustang Ellie saw was a palomino standing apart from the rest of the herd guarding her colt. Close by, with heads bent to graze, were forty or so wild mustangs in a variety of colors from sorrel to the browns, blacks, and whites of appaloosas.

“There he is, that black stallion with the main herd.” When Aldon leaned over to speak to Ellie, the leather of his saddle creaked slightly; and the horse raised his head and sniffed. As quick as the wind, he bolted followed by the herd, which made a river of horses flowing through the meadow and down the slope of the mountain. Aldon and Kenny took after them immediately while Ellie, stunned, looked on. As soon as she realized what was happening she nudged Ribbons with her boot heels and they followed not far behind the palomino and her colt who had fallen behind.

Aldon and Kenny, by driving them, guided the wild herd into a narrow box canyon at whose end the family had built a rough-hewn corral.

Before going into the corral, however, the lead stallion made a quick turn and led the herd back past their would-be captors. A wily old horse, Ribbons moved as close to the rock side of the canyon as possible in order to stay out of their way. When he palomino saw the herd coming back toward her she tried to turn too, but by that time the men had their ropes around her neck and their horses were digging in their hooves to stop her progress. Once she realized she was caught, she began to rear and twist. The colt danced to stay out of the way of his dam’s flailing hooves. They were both so beautiful as the sun bounced off their white manes and tails and highlighted the molten gold on their sides that Ellie breath caught in her chest. Back at camp the mother and colt went into a small corral, and Chief sauntered over to inspect them over the rails.

Ellie recalled everything Aldon had told her about horses. He’d said that they needed to be with other animals — almost any creatures from dogs to goats to humans would do. A human was preferable to no company at all. Ellie thought such neediness put the animals at a disadvantage, but the knowledge of it touched a deep place in her soul and she knew she was needy too. She could hardly wait to get to know the beautiful palomino better. Suddenly it became clear — it’s not just the company of a horse I need. It’s Aldon, too, and he’s my friend now. The thought gave her a fine, warm feeling.

Go West~Chapter 20

Go West

by DiVoran Lites

Chapter Twenty

Aldon’s letter to Ellie’s Family

Dear Mr. Cameron, Mrs. Cameron, and Mrs. Morgan

How do you do? It’s good to meet Ellie’s family. I hope all of you are in good health and prospering. You have a fine daughter and granddaughter in Ellie, who has certainly made a place for herself here. This morning, she asked me to write you about my wartime adventures. She thought her grandfather, particularly, might be interested in them. There isn’t much to tell, but I’m happy to tell what there is.

I flew a Nieuport Bebe in France. It was retrofitted with camera equipment so we could get photographs of what the enemy was doing. By the time the war ended, I was twenty-five. That was considered an old man by the flyers and photographers because not many of us survived to that age.

We were billeted in a small chateau in a pear orchard away from the front. It was spring, and my window framed clusters of white blossoms on the trees. My room had a linoleum floor, a chifforobe for clothes, a table and chair, and an electric light. The bed was lumpy, but the feather quilt (they called it a duvet) came in handy for cold nights. We slept whenever we got the chance. The doc said that was the way we got our energy back after being in danger for such long hours.

I did wish they had a horse or two around there. I could have ridden or spent some time working with them. By that time, they’d all been eaten. I understand the French still eat horse meat. I guess you’d have to develop a taste for it, and forget you’d had several best friends who happened to be horses.

I missed my family while I was gone, but they wrote and sent packages when they could. Ma and my Aunt Molly knit a lot of socks and what they called balaclavas for the soldiers, and I got my share of those. I guess about everybody knows what a balaclava is, but in case you don’t, it’s a warm cap that comes down over your ears and up onto your chin.. In case you’re wondering what I did with them all, I passed them around. A good, thick balaclava can come in handy in the wintertime.

Ma and Molly also sent a homemade cake packed in popcorn. By the time we opened the package, the popcorn had worked its way into the cake. We ate it anyhow and the boys went crazy over it. I’ll bet they never get another one like it.

Many pilots started out as photographers. I hear tell that the Red Baron fellow started out as a photographer before he became an ace fighter pilot. Most of us had only seen a camera once or twice – when the school photographer, or the man with the goat cart came around. We had a lot to learn, but our lack of knowledge didn’t count against us. They constantly changed out the equipment and we had to figure out how to use it.

When I became a pilot they kept me in surveillance. In Belgium, my passerger could hardly find anything to take pictures of. The countryside was desolate as far as you could see. Once in a while you might catch the stump of a burned tree or a bombed out building, but most of the landscape was just wet mud or dried mud – not much variety in that.

I’m thinking the following is the story Ellie wanted me to tell. If it was a school essay, I suppose I’d entitle it, “My Closest Call.” It happened while the photographer and I were flying behind the lines. The place hadn’t been destroyed yet, but the Huns were doing their worst. Our engine started sputtering, so I shut it off and looked for a place to land. It was quiet then — just us and the wind whistling past our ears. We lost altitude fast, so I decided to set down in a field. That all went fine until the bus picked a downhill slope and flipped when it landed. We were upside down with two wings broken by the time we stopped sliding. Fortunately, the bus did not blow up — probably because Somebody reminded me to turn off the gas. A group of resistance folk saw us coming down and got us out of the airplane and into a barn tuit de suite as they say in France, toot sweet. The next thing I knew, the Bebe was hidden under a sort of haystack. They didn’t have much vegetation, but they put canvas and branches over it so no one could spot it from the air.

They brought us stew with plenty of turnips and not much meat and were we ever glad for it. They got word to our side right away. A crew came in a big truck and hauled us and the Bebe back to base. I kept on flying and even taught a few pilots until the war ended. That’s it for now.

Come on out to Colorado and see us. Come in the fall if you can, the quaking aspen is most colorful at round-up time.

DiVoran’s Promise Posters, Paintings from Go West as well as other art can be purchased as note cards and framable art

Creative Arts

Go West~Chapter 19

Go West

by DiVoran Lites

Chapter Nineteen

Ellie’s Diary Continues

We went into a former stall in the barn that had been made into a cubicle. I’d seen it before when I learned how to milk the cow. In the cubicle, a shelf was attached to the wall with a piece of mirror over it. I noticed right away that it was a poor, cloudy, mirror. Thinking a man like Aldon deserved better, I decided to ask Grandmother to send a new one in a fine silver frame. Perhaps it would be our store’s first mail order.

“Here’s the razor,” Lia said, picking it up and handing it to me. It had been next to a bar of soap and a rose patterned, china shaving-mug with a hog’s bristle brush projecting from it. Granddad used something like that a long time ago. I would watch him whip soap into a lather with the brush and apply the froth to his face to make the razor glide over his whiskers.

“I wonder why Aldon has such old-fashioned shaving equipment,” I said, opening the razor. “During the war, The Gillette company issued safety razors. That’s what most men use nowadays.” I moved the blade vigorously over a strop hanging from a nail on the wall –swoosh-swish until I sensed it was sharp enough to cut Lia’s hair.

“Aldon is – how you say – sentimental,” Lia answered. “The shaving equipment was his great grandfather’s.” Once again, I wondered how she knew so much about the man’s personal life.

We moved the desk chair to the middle of the floor, and Lia sat down. Laying an extra towel over a stack of hay bales, I began by parting off sections of her head to work on. The razor had been sharpened so many times that the edge was thin and sliced through the hair as if it were butter. At the first stroke, Lia started talking. That always happened in a beauty salon; it was as if our patrons’ need to communicate was connected to having their heads touched. We stylists had been trained to listen like amateur Freuds without much comment or advice.

“I learned to pick grapes when I was five-years-old,” Lia mused aloud. She paused to watch me drape the first long strand of dark wavy hair over the towel covered bales. I was glad she didn’t panic when I started as so many others had when their life-long growth of hair was assaulted. I hoped Signor Solano would be as happy as she was about it.

“Papa taught me to work hard when we lived on the Solano estate.” Lia went on. “He was their vineyard manager at the time. Because his parents were dead and he had no sisters or brothers, my job was to play with Signor and Signora’s grandson, Enrico. We were the same age. No matter what we did, his grandparents never got angry because he was their prince. But when we slid down the banisters and landed in the potted plants scattering dirt, the servants took revenge by hiding our favorite toys, or persuading the cook to hold back dessert. Without me Enrico would have been a lonely, small boy and without him, I was only a fat child.”

When I started to protest, she held up her hand to stop me. “But my mama and my papa loved me.”

As she talked, I cut and laid locks of hair alongside each other on the towel. As I looked at the shiny treasure, I realized it would make a beautiful wig. Grandmother had made sure I had classes in wig-weaving so I could fill orders for wigs and postiches. I was a qualified posticheur.

“Would you like to have a wig for special occasions?” I asked Lia, pausing in my cutting to wait for an answer.

“Why would I want a wig?” she inquired tilting her head in puzzlement.

“You might want longer hair for dress-up occasions.”

“I might want longer hair if Signor is too disappointed that I have cut it. Yes, you may make me a wig. I will pay you for it, but I don’t know if I will wear it or not. What I truly want is a marcelled bob like I have seen in the magazines.”

“All right, that will be easy with your naturally wavy hair. And thank you, I will work on the wig in the evenings. I’ll send for my equipment right away.” I was excited. There was nothing more soothing than tying wigs. It would be a good way to support myself when I grew old, that was if I didn’t end up in the department store. I’d have to mind my manners to make sure that didn’t come to pass.

“Now let us change the story. I am looking forward to the grand musicale,” She looked up at me. “Will that not be divertimento?”

“Yes, it will be fun,” I said. “I hope Aldon won’t be angry about our using his razor. I’ll definitely leave it sharpened when we’re finished.”

DiVoran’s Promise Posters, Paintings from Go West as well as other art can be purchased as note cards and framable art

Creative Arts

Go West~Chapter 18

Go West

by DiVoran Lites

Chapter Eighteen

Ellie

I have decided to start keeping a diary of the things that happen here. The latest is that Signora wants me to call her Lia. It’s her Christian name and she says we are girlfriends now .

Lia takes up a great deal of time that I feel should be spent doing real work to earn my pay. I am with her six or so hours every day and what do we accomplish? Nothing.

I’ve been working since I was old enough to stand on a chair beside Mother and wash dishes, while Grandmother and Granddad went downtown to tend the store. Later, I ran errands downtown. I then became old enough to learn the routines in every department, so that someday I could take over.

When I joined the The Women’s Ambulance Corpse during World War One, in my first attempt at independence, I worked harder than ever before. When the war ended, I went back to the store for several years, but by then, I’d had a taste of being my own person, and I needed to get away again. Granddad, who knew Signor Solano in bygone days, helped me get this job on the ranch. He said the work would be demanding, and at first it was. Now, however, I feel useless.

Here’s the problem: Lia has me wake her at ten with breakfast in bed. She then wants me to discuss clothing and jewelry so she will look nice for her step grandson, Enrico, when he comes to spend the day with her. When she is dressed to the nines, I’m to go and knock on his door to wake him. Once he’s up I go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast for him and bring it up to Lia’s suite. He keeps late hours away from the house. I don’t know where he goes or what he does, or even how he found something to do in this small community. Most of the day Signor is in his office, or out-of-doors with Aldon.

When Enrico comes to the suite, he brings an air of sensuality that melts me into a trickle of molten wax with no sense of boundary or direction. He takes my hand and raises it to his lips while looking deeply into my eyes. I must admit a frisson of pleasure runs through me when he says. “You are a most beautiful lady.” No one has ever told me that before.

“Lia’s perfume is Acqua de Parma Colonia which clings to her person, her clothes, and my nostrils. It affects me like the champagne I tasted once at a celebration.

Enrico and Lia drink wine and eat biscotti every afternoon, and they invite me to drink with them. I refuse. I think perhaps Enrico has had too much experience with women, and that for a married woman, Lia may not know much about men.

The records they play affect me deeply as well. Granddad took me to the opera many times, and when I hear Verdi and Puccini on Lia’s Victrola I fall in love with the composers over and over again.

I open the windows to let in a fresh breeze. That helps, of course, but Lia and Enrico soon call for me to close them. It’s not as if the room were a dark bistro, though. Lia, being a painter, loves splashes of light and shadow. She calls them chiaroscuro. That is why she arranges the curtains and dressing screens to provide a changing French Impressionist painting.

It is beautiful. Once I am in it, I hate to leave, though I must drag myself away to bring up their afternoon tea and sandwiches. Molly complains about having to cut off the crusts. When I go down to help her with supper, she grouses about my defection, as she calls it. I have to admit that my daytime activities do verge on debauchery. I have no idea where it will end.

I love to dance and have been teaching the two of them the Charleston and the Black Bottom. Lia purchased jazz records by mail before I came. She reads magazines and keeps up with what’s happening in the world of music. Enrico and Lia are like small children wanting the constant attention of an adult, and for some reason, I’ve been elected the adult.

“Please, Ellie,” Lia said one day as Enrico stepped away to put on a new record, “You will make me a flapper like you by cutting my hair?”

“I don’t think of myself as a flapper.” I objected. “But I will be glad to style your hair.”

“I do not mean to insult you. I want only to be modern millie for my Giovanni,” she pouted. “Before bed, he sits in my low rocking chair, his legs in their fine trousers stretched into the middle of the room. He watches me brush my hair. He says, ‘Oh, Lia, your hair is so long, and so curly.’ But he cares not a whit that it is heavy and hot. When he leaves to go to his own bed, he gives me a small kiss on the cheek. I feel then, like an abandoned rose in a garden of love. I sit in the chair where he has sat and look out at millions of diamonds in a black velvet sky, then I lie down in my bed alone.

I was taken aback. It seemed all her thoughts were of her husband. That was good, but it made her behavior with Enrico all the more puzzling.

“You do have wonderful hair,” I said. “Are you sure Signor won’t mind if we cut it? I turned her so I could study the shiny curls she now wore hanging to her waist. “I didn’t bring my hair cutting tools from the beauty salon. Can you wait until I send for them?”

“No, no, no, it must be cut this minute. I am sick to death and perishing from the heat. Look,” she parted the curtain of hair hanging down her back so I could see the redness on her neck. “Heat rash is it not?” she demanded.

“Yes, you’re right. You’ll be much more comfortable with it short and you will look just as pretty. I wonder where we could get a razor.”

“Let’s go. We’ll be back in a while, Enrico,” Lia grabbed me and pulled me toward the door. “Aldon has a straight razor. I saw it in the barn when I was with him.”

“You…?”

“Come, along, Aldon’s riding fence today, he will not miss a little borrow.” She grabbed a comb and headed for the door, and I followed, stunned. Aldon and Lia? No, it couldn’t be.

“We can’t go into Aldon’s quarters and take his razor without asking,” I said, as I followed her down the hallway.

“Oh, pooh, come, do not do the dawdle.” She waved her hand in dismissal of my scruples.

“Wait, we have to wet your hair, first.”