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Prairie Wind
Prairie Wind
Prairie Wind
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Prairie Wind

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The year is 1895. Leah Worth, widowed at nineteen, must take over the reins of the large cattle ranch originally inherited from her uncle. Burdened with grief and pregnancy, she is faced with the dangers and entanglements of the far-reaching community. she deals with rustling, drought and those forcing their way in to take control of the free range. Leah proves a young, pretty woman can hold her own in the man's world of her day. In the process, she not only finds excitement and success, but new love. This is Book Two of the Sandhill Trilogy. Book One, Come Green Grass and Book Three, Shifting Sand, follow the adventures of Leah's family through World War One. All three books are favorites of Isackson's loyal fans.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 12, 2012
ISBN9781476331621
Prairie Wind
Author

Maxine Isackson

Maxine Isackson is a retired farm/ranch/wife/grandmother who lives with her husband in Nebraska. Always enthrolled by the stories passed down by those who settled the Sandhills of Nebraska and created their own unique way of life, she has turned their histories into exciting and vivid fiction.

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    Prairie Wind - Maxine Isackson

    PRAIRIE WIND

    by

    Maxine Isackson

    Copyright 2011 Maxine Isackson

    Published on Smashwords

    * * *

    All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

    Smashwords Edition License Notes

    This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to wherever you bought it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

    PRAIRIE WIND

    Chapter One

    Oct. 1895)

    A young woman stands in the wind; honey blond hair tangling, seemingly unaware of the gritty sand particles peppering her face. The sand whips the heap of barren soil covering the grave at her feet. No tears streak her cheeks--she is empty of tears. Empty. That is how she would describe herself if any asked. Her wind-chapped lips move shaping the words. Empty. Hollow. A shell. That is all that is left of me, not even pain. I am as dead as the man beneath that strip of blowing earth.

    She lifts her eyes to the blue dome of prairie sky. Why, God? WHY? She demands. What have I done? She lifts her hands to her breast as though in supplication. If I love them…you take them! WHY? The beseeching figure takes no notice of the rider on a horse who has arrived at the base of the hill, or of the stocky, middle-aged woman who has walked up the incline, until she speaks.

    Leah, you know better. You know God didn’t take Ty from you. Life did that, honey. Life took your folks and it took Simon from the both of us. God don’t set out to deal us grief. Sometimes, we bring it on ourselves but most times it gets dealt to us while we’re doing our level best.

    The older woman wraps the younger one in her arms. Holding her close, she continues, You’re Simon’s daughter. You know what he’d tell you. ‘Quit whippin’ yourself and just face what you have to do, then do it. They stand there with arms around one another’s waist--eyes gazing out across the hills.

    I don’t want to face up to anything. I don’t care anymore.

    Fiddlesticks! Of course you care about the Diamond C. You’ve got to take care of it for Simon and what about Ty’s horses? Dollar’s Worth? Ty’s dreams of building up a fine herd of horses to leave for his offspring.

    Leah Worth lays a slender hand on her stomach. All that remains of her husband’s love grows there. She lifts her head to meet Maude Henderson’s troubled eyes. Do you think it might be a boy? A son for Ty?

    Can’t say, but boy or girl, Ty left it for you to bring up…to plan for and build for. Make up your mind to it. You’ve got a job ahead of you. These men we’ve laid here expect it of you. Maude nodded to include the grave a few yards away where a few skimpy blades of grass had taken root, You can’t let them down. You’ve got to care!

    I can’t! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to, but I can go through the motions. I can do that.

    There isa slight flicker of a smile on the older woman’s own wind-chapped lips. She drops her arm and steps back, reaching up to anchor the old felt hat threatening to blow away, satisfied with the response she has received. Going through the motions would be a start. After all, a goodly part of life consisted of just that very thing.

    The two women walk slowly down the hill, their boot heels sinking into the sandy soil where the sparse fall grass clung, curing to pale hues of amber and wine. At the foot of the hill, they pause and look back at the week-old grave of Leah’s husband, Ty Worth, and that of Simon Clayborn who had lain on the hillside for the span of a year. No other graves as yet mark the hillside that had been chosen as a cemetery at the time of Simon Clayborn’s death.

    There had been a time years before when Simon and his close friend, Cecil Henderson, would meet on this very hill. They would sit on their horses, according to Maude, and discuss the weather, the condition of the range grass and whatever else cattlemen had uppermost on their minds. Cecil had been gone a good many years and was buried on his own land, but his widow, Maude, had suggested the hill when Simon died. They’d even spoken of the time this spot might become a cemetery for any in the far-flung ranch community who should choose to be buried here. Folks might even decide to build a church close by, if and when, they recovered from the years of drought that had gripped the area until the past year.

    The two women are a study in contrast as they stand by their horses: one with weathered face, short, stocky body clad in man’s apparel, a few inches of bobbed gray hair visible from beneath a worn felt hat--the other barely out of girlhood, a petite figure in a shirt and riding skirt, honey blonde hair and wide set brown eyes. Though they differ in age and appearance, the pair have a great deal in common--not only do they share a love of the wide expanse of ranch country located in the Nebraska sandhills, but both have loved the two men buried on the windswept hillside.

    Leah reaches for the reins of the little chestnut mare that tosses her head with lady-like movements, though, like most well trained ranch mounts, Fleet could be trusted to wait with dropped reins. Do you have time to stop for coffee, Maude?

    Wish I did, honey, but I need to check the home pasture windmill. It’s acting up again. She gathers her own reins and swings up on her gray gelding. I had a feeling you’d be here this afternoon, so I just rode over this way.

    I appreciate it. I don’t think I could hang on if it weren’t for you.

    Course you could, but that’s what family does for each other. Oh, I know…we aren’t family in the true sense of the word…seems like it, though."

    Leah steps over and puts her hand on the denim-clad knee of the mounted woman. You are family, Maude. Maybe not by blood, but in every other way.

    A callused hand covers hers. And I’m here for you. Remember, I’ve dealt with sorrow—our babe, Cecil, and then Simon. I know what it feels like—like you died, too. Every time it does. But, believe me, honey. The time comes when you can live with the pain. It don’t seem like it, not now. But you will survive and you will live life again.

    Maude receives a wan smile in return and doubt clouds the brown eyes gazing up at her as Leah steps back to swing into her own saddle.

    The women ride off, each taking the direction to her ranch home, pausing to wave just before a rise of ground hides her view of the other.

    Chapter Two

    (More Fall Days)

    Leah could not approach the headquarters of the Diamond C with its huge red barn with the brand painted in white on the haymow door, the bunkhouse, blacksmith shop, sheds and corrals with the small, shimmering lake pushing up close, without remembering her arrival that spring evening in 1894.

    It was after dark when Ty had halted his team and wagon at the yard gate of the white, two-storied ranch house. Ty Worth who had a small neighboring ranch had been going in to town for supplies that day and had agreed to pick up the Clayborn orphan niece coming in from Ohio on the train. Simon hadn’t been too eager to go plus he had gotten himself stove up from a horse fall. A lump rose in her throat as she recalled those first meetings. Ty, one of those men with the lean, craggy handsomeness that caught the female eye and held it, had been tolerant but seemingly indifferent to his friend’s niece. But, thinking back, Leah realized that from the very beginning there had been a spark between the two of them.

    Uncle Simon had been gruff and uncertain of what to do with a female invading his man’s domain. It had not been an easy task to prove herself--that a city girl could learn to ride and work cattle--could earn her uncle’s love and he her’s. She’d done it, though. She’d proved that like Uncle Simon, she had taken after the strong side of the Clayborn bloodline.

    It was not until Uncle Simon’s death in a gunfight, however, that the family secrets had been revealed. It was then she learned that in fact he was her biological father and she was his heir. There had been a time when Simon Clayborn and Elizabeth, Leah’s mother had been engaged. Simon had wanted to go to Nebraska and get started in cattle ranching. Unbeknownst to Simon he had left Elizabeth with child and she, not sharing his dreams, had turned to his willing brother, Martin, for a solution. When Simon returned, it was too late to protest. Martin and Elizabeth were married. The child, as many first babies are prone to, would arrive early, but Martin would love her as his own. All they asked was that Simon leave them in peace. Let them raise the child without interference for all their sakes. Simon had abided by these stipulations until he was notified that his seventeen-year-old ‘niece’ was an orphan without funds. It was then Simon had sent Leah a ticket to Horse Flats, Nebraska.

    They had had a rocky beginning, but quickly came to love and respect one another. The year-and-a-half Simon and Leah had had together had been all too brief. Leah had been eighteen when Uncle Simon was killed--Ty nearing thirty. Ty had almost come to terms with their age difference. When she’d inherited the Diamond C, the budding romance had suffered a severe setback. No one was going to say Ty Worth had married a woman, much less a girl, to get his hands on her ranch. It had taken some sage advice from Maude, who was more or less a mother figure to both Ty and Leah to defeat this last obstacle.

    A man has to feel needed, Maude had pointed out. She had warned Leah of the danger of being ‘too capable’. How a woman had to always let a man know that her world just wouldn’t turn without him.

    With the Diamond C thrust upon her, the banker had pointed out that Leah was inexperienced, which she was, and recommended she hire a manager, at least in the beginning. She needed an honest man and one her cowhands would respect. Presenting her problem to Ty he had capitulated, agreeing to help her out instead of heading off to the panhandle with his horse herd. By Christmastime, Ty had asked her to marry him in the spring. Leah was more than ready to say, Yes.

    They’d had a small wedding in the parlor of the ranch house with only the ranch crew and close friends present. Their honeymoon had been Leah’s choice, a camping trip to the cow camp along the Niobrara River. A spasm of grief gripped her throat at these memories--those wondrous star-decked nights--tender lovemaking beneath a canopy of moonlight--their soft murmurings, the songs of the coyotes, the munching of their horses grazing nearby. And though Leah could have sworn she had not one more tear left to shed, she felt her eyes well up and the trickle of tears down her cheeks. She choked back a sob and attempted to swallow the knot in her throat for she saw the figure of Nettie, her housekeeper and friend, waiting at the yard gate. Poor Nettie was worried to death about her. There was no point in letting Nettie see her break down again. Leah pasted a smile on her face and rode up to the gate after furtively wiping at the tears.

    I thought I saw you coming. Nettie’s eyes searched Leah’s face as she added, I’ve got the coffee ready to pour and Frances baked some butterscotch pies.

    Nettie, a small, plain girl with a crippled leg, had been on the ranch about the same length of time as Leah. She and the ranch cook had married back in February. Everyone called her husband Frog, however, his youthful wife always referred to him as, Francis.

    Shortly after Leah had arrived at the Diamond C, she had ‘borrowed’ her uncle’s favorite mount to go riding. At that time, Simon Clayborn had considered his niece a spoiled little city girl not up to riding or much else. It was on this first forbidden venture--there would be others--that Leah had rescued Nettie from the clutches of a despicable creature known as Pike Jenkins. Nettie’s father, old Otis Kruper, had actually traded his younger daughter with the gimpy leg to Pike Jenkins in return for illegal favors rendered.

    The run-down Kruper Ranch at that time was known to supply both liquor and women for those so inclined. Nettie’s two older half-sisters had been forced into the profession. Due to her age and the gimpy leg, Nettie had been spared this fate until the deal struck with Pike Jenkins. After she had been dumped off at the Jenkins homestead, Nettie had managed to escape. She was running with Jenkins in hot pursuit, when Leah rode up, grabbed Nettie and took off. Nettie had been at the Diamond C since that day.

    That day had also been the beginning of the hatred Otis Kruper developed toward Leah and her uncle. It was this hatred that had culminated in a gunfight and the deaths of Simon Clayborn and Otis Kruper. So it was that the friendship of the two young women, though not a lengthy one, was one that had been fraught with danger, fear and heartache. There had been good times--they’d both found love, but tragedy had already stolen Leah’s. It was little wonder that neither friend put a great deal of trust in fate and the future.

    One of the ranch hands appeared from the direction of the corrals as though he, too, had been watching for her return. Let me take the mare, Miz Worth. You take yourself on in out of this wind. It was Moon, a tall, gangly cowboy who had been with the ranch for several years. He gave her his slow grin and offered a callused hand to help her down. Won’t be none of us late for supper if I pass the word a that butterscotch pie.

    Thank you, Moon. No. Frog’s never made a poor pie and his butterscotch is one of his best.

    Nettie was holding the gate open, a cat rubbing ingratiatingly at her skirt. The two young women walked up the path to the kitchen stoop situated on the west end of the house. There was an open porch that ran the full length of the house on the south side where the outer doors of the living room and parlor opened but these were seldom used. It was the kitchen door everyone used at the Diamond C.

    They entered the kitchen where the scent of pie and boiling beef met them. The kitchen was a large room dominated by a huge, black Majestic range sitting along the south wall. A heavy worktable sat at the west end of the stove between it and a doorway that opened into the room that served as the ranch office. A wooden box loaded with dried cow chips sat conveniently at the other end of the stove next to its firebox. There was a small window above a wash bench next to the outside door and tall, double-sashed windows at either end of a mammoth wooden cupboard on the north wall. The windows were framed in blue checked curtains.

    The far end of the room had two doorways. A heavy wooden door opened into a large pantry and a pair of slatted swinging doors into a dining room. A long table surrounded by sturdy chairs, a kerosene lamp hanging above, sat in the middle of the room.

    A man of thirty or perhaps a few years more, stood in front of the stove stirring a steaming kettle with a long-handled spoon. It was not difficult to guess why he had the nickname of, Frog. He had a round flat face, wide mouth, pug nose, thin brown hair parted in the middle and slicked back, wide shoulders, virtually no hips and thin legs. If a hoarse croak had issued from his mouth, no one would have been surprised. No, Frances or Frog, whichever you called him, could not win any awards in the looks department, but he had a heart of gold with a sense of humor that is essential in a ranch cook. Best of all, Frog could cook--all but coffee. His coffee would grow hair on a fence post or so the men declared. Leah had never been certain if he simply couldn’t make decent coffee or if he made his

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