I actually returned to Flagstaff the next day, a Sunday. Dad and Alex drove me to Holbrook and I took the bus from there. I was glad to be back.
As for the last week in Grant County, NM, more of the same as prior. I stayed home when the rest were off at school and got most stuff unpacked and put away, cooked meals and when they were there, talked some--mostly fairly easy stuff because for the moment everything seemed to be going well. "Business as usual" was enough for each day as it was lived.
Given that I have no more good photos to share and really not much to discuss, here is an alternative for this week. I've mentioned writing stories in some fairly recent past posts. I had backed off from my YA book efforts for a time but still had ambiitons to find something commericial that I might be able to publish. I wrote several stories, late that second year of college. Each one was different. I was trying to find a voice, a style and maybe a genre that would work for me. I was still a very rank amateur but my skills and abilty had developed a lot with maturity. Just for fun, I will share here one of my 'steno notebook ranch romances' from 1956-58 and an effort at at a western tale that I might have slanted toward the actual Ranch Romances magazin in 1968. Warning!!, between them it is about 3500 words. so longish.
The Guns that Won The West by Gaye Morgan (c: 1957)
On the sprawling porch of the old adobe ranch house, Janet sat. The dying glow of twilight filled the western sky with a rainbow of color. Janet’s raven black hair gleamed in the soft light and her blue eyes looked eagerly down the long road. It was plain she was waiting for something. Finally that something came into view. It was a tall young cowboy on a big bay horse.
“Hi, Mike,” Janet called, gladness clear in her voice.
“Hi Janet,” he replied. There was a tender light in his dark blue eyes as he rode past on his way to the barn and looked down at the young woman.
After he had unsaddled and fed his horse, he walked back to the house and climbed up to the porch to sit by Janet. “Jan, dear,” he said slowly, “I have something to talk over with you.”
“Get busy,” she said lightly.
“I have a duty to do for our country with the war starting. The cavalry commander is asking for volunteers. I want to join but I hope you’ll promise to wait for me no matter how long I’m gone.”
“I promise,” Janet whispered. “I’ll wait. I’ll be proud to wait.” The look in her eyes promised too as she gazed up at him. The next morning Mike disappeared down the road for the last time.
After that, the days dragged for Janet. Weeks slipped past. Then a dashing dark haired, brown eyed young cowboy rode in one stormy night. Janet’s father hired him at once since cowboys were getting scarce with so many off fighting. Janet soon found that Martin was fun and gradually he began to take Mike’s place in her life as well as the ranch work.
Martin had been there several months before he got the wandering urge and decided join the cavalry also. That night they sat together on the porch as Mike and Janet had sat almost a year before.
She noticed that he was wearing a fancy double holster. He took one of the pistols out and showed it to her. “Janet,’ he said, “Look at these guns. I put them up while I was working but I could be a gunfighter. Maybe it’s time to put them to work again. They were given to me by a Texas Ranger. I wasn’t able to save him but I got him to help, hoping he’d make it. He gave them to me when he knew he wasn’t going to survive. Someday they’ll be called the guns that won the west.”
Janet touched one with the tip of one finger and then drew back. She knew guns were needed but she did not really like them very much.
Martin went on. “Will you wait for me until I complete an enlistment and come back again?”
“Just a minute,” Janet said. “I already promised one guy that I would wait for him. How can I wait for two?”
“Well, if he doesn’t come back I will get you, anyway,” Martin said, a little hotly. He gave her a hard, fast kiss before he leaped on his horse and galloped off into the night.
After that, Janet often looked down the road and wondered if someone would ever come riding back and if so, who it would be. Time passed more slowly than ever and it seemed nothing ever happened.
But the same was not true far away on the battlefield. Both Mike and Martin were busy indeed. It happened that they both ended up in the same company and became friends. Together they fought many successful battles and only oncc did they have to retreat. Someday, they both hoped, the war would be over and they could return to the girl who had promised to wait for them. They never talked much about her, not even her name, so they never guessed it was the same girl.
Finally nearly three years had passed. One summer evening Janet sat, as she always did, on the porch as evening fell. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw a rider approaching. Could she be dreaming? The big bay horse with two white stockings looked very familiar. Yes, it was really him!
“Mike, Mike,” she cried as she leaped up and ran to meet him. She met them at the big log gate. As Mike rode through, he swung her up to ride in front of him.
“Oh Janet.” “ Oh Mike.” They both spoke at once. “I’m so glad to see you. It’s been so long.”
Together they unsaddled the bay and fed him. Then they walked slowly back to the house and sat down side by side. Suddenly Janet noticed the guns and holsters that Mike wore.
“Mike, where did you get those guns? “
“It’s a long story,” Mike said. He took a deep breath and then he began. “Over a year ago a new man joined our company. His name was Martin and we became friends and fought together. One day he told me how he’d gotten this special gun outfit from a Texas Ranger. He said after the war, he was going to move on and win the west with them. Then in our last big battle, Martin was shot.
“I got him back behind the lines but he knew he was dying. He told me to take the guns and use them for good and always to remember him and how he got them. I cleaned them before I put them away until I mustered out. In the barrel of one I found a gold button. It reminded me of the ones on a dress you often wore, the blue one I liked so well.”
“It may have been,” Janet admitted. “Not long after you left, Dad hired a cowboy who rode in one stormy night. We got to be friends. The night he left he showed me his guns and told me the story. It must be true because he told you the same one. I’m not sure how he got the button but I did find I had lost one off that dress. He wanted me to wait for him but I told him I was already promised. He said then that if you did not come back he would return to me, but it was him who never returned.”
She heard Mike sigh and felt a little worried. “I didn’t really forget you but I was lonely and he was nice. Can you forgive me?”
“Why would you think I wouldn’t? “
“I don’t know. I never stopped loving you but I did get lonesome.”
“Maybe this will convince you that you’re forgiven.” Mike took her in his arms and kissed her eagerly. He didn’t stop with just one, either.
When he lifted his head, they were both breathless. “I guess it does,” Janet said with a small laugh.
“Most gals get a certain reward for waiting for their guy,” Mike said. “Could you wait about a week for that reward?”
Janet looked at him, confused. “A reward?”
“I mean getting married if you’ll have me.”
“Oh! That’s the best reward I could hope for. But please, don’t go out with those guns on looking for any trouble. The west is about won already.”
“I won’t go anywhere without you and I wouldn’t put you in any danger,” Mike promised. “I love you too much for that.”
Just an aside--this is almost a very condensed novel. I did not develip the characters much or really give it a strong plot but a whole tale is there, for what it's worth--an effort, an experiment!!
The Fighter by A.A.Ransom (c: 1968)
He walked rather slowly, with a firm, deliberate step. He was a tall man, rather stooped and thin, slow spoken and easy going, calm and slightly withdrawn. Somehow the western clothes he wore sat a little strangely on him and under his sunburn was still a hint of indoor pallor.
He stepped put of Bryan’s General Mercantile and shouldered the box of supplies. At the end of the block, his team waited, fidgeting from the sun and the flies. He carefully placed the last of his month’s purchases in the buckboard, bracing the crates together against the roughness of the road out to his little homestead in the foothills.
Unwinding the lines from the hitching rack, he vaulted up to his seat and clucked to the bays. A slight shake of the reins started them down the road at a brisk single-foot. They were good horses, about the only good thing he had now. But his health was improving and his little band of cattle was growing. If the rustlers and the big ranchers would just leave him alone, he might get somewhere. So far, he was beneath their notice.
He drove as he walked, not forcing the horses, but with a purpose and decisiveness. He savored the growing coolness that heralded the coming of evening and absorbed the vivid pattern of the sunset, touched for a moment by a pang of loneliness that he had no one there to share the beauty with him. It reached a hidden sensitivity, buried beneath his placid and matter-of-fact exterior.
It was nearly dark when he got home. Unharnessing the team, he turned them into the little pasture along the creek and began to carry his purchases into the adobe hut that was home. He sensed an unfamiliar presence in the room but it was not until he lit the lamp that he saw her. She seemed to be asleep, huddled in his rawhide laced chair, bent over a tightly clasped bundle with her bright hair spilling down over her face. She seemed slight and small, her dress torn and dirty and her moccasins were shredded as only miles of walking could do.
As he looked at her wonderingly, she stirred and awoke, coming suddenly to her feet, her eyes wide and fearful. Looking into the light he knew she could only see his bulk and could not read the gentleness of his face
“I won’t hurt you,” he said softly. “You’ve no cause to spook and shy. Just sit down now, and tell me who you are and how you got here.”
She dropped obediently back into the chair but did not speak. He set the lamp down on the table and pulled up another chair for himself. “Did you run away from home? Won’t your folks be worried about you?”
She shook her head. “I’ve got no folks, not anymore. I sneaked a rid on the stage from Socorro after my money ran out, but the driver caught me and put me off.” Her voice was soft and low-pitched. “So I just starred walkin’. I got off the road ‘cause I didn’t want nobody seein’ me, and I finally got h ere…kinda late. I was tired and thirsty and figured maybe I could rest a bit, but I didn’t see nobody around. I came in to make sure and then I just sat down a minute. Reckon I fell asleep.”
He still doubted her, so strange just appearing there. “Where were you going and where did you come from?”
I cam from El Paso just now and I ain’t going anywhere particular except as far from there as I can get. Oh, I was raised up down by San ‘tonio but I left home last year ‘cause I couldn’t stand my new Ma. I ran away with this man then, but that didn’t turn out too good, so I’m running from him now.”
It was an almost incredible story, told quickly and a little jumbled, but some inner sense told him she was not lying. Under the dirt she was pretty in a wild sort of way, like a stray filly he saw once. Her face was sharp and finely boned, and bore the shadows of half-healed bruises. That someone had used her roughly seemed unquestionable and she appeared scarcely more than a child.
“How old are you?” He asked it suddenly, like he’d question a horse trader to surprise out the truth.
“Going on eighteen,” she answered. She studied his face, openly now instead of from beneath the fringe of black lashes as she had at first. “”Let me stay awhile,” she said, suddenly. “I can cook and tend a garden and do a lot of useful-type chores. This place is kind of off the trail and I don’t reckon you get much company. It’s unchancy he’d look for me here.”
“It wouldn’t be right,” he protested, though half-heartedly.
“Oh\, foot! What I’ve done ain’t been right in a long time. It’s righter here than with him. ‘Cause I’ll lay a bet you won’t beat me up if I do somethin’ that doesn’t suit you.” She was defiantly persistent yet humbly imploring at the same time. She came top him and knelt on the rough plank floor, clasping her hands over his. “Please.” she begged. “I promise I won’t be no trouble, and if I am, you can send me off anytime.”
He drew a slow breath, weakening, remembering those lonely hours with no one to talk to but the horses, remembering the dismal feeling of coming home at night to the silent darkness of the adobe. “What’s your name?” he asked, stalling.
“Sarah Jane,” she replied. “The last name…I don’t think the folks would want me using theirs no more and I sure don’t want to use his.” She said “him” and “his” like they were cuss words.
He stood and pulled her to her feet. “All right, Sarah Jane, you can say for awhile, until those blisters under your moccasins heal and you mend that dress. After that, we’ll see.”
“You won’t be sorry, Mister. I promise that. I’ll earn my keep. I really will.”
“My name’s Wesley.” he said, a bit gruffly. My friends back home used to call me Wes. Mister sounds pretty strange to my ears.”
The blisters healed and he bought her a new pair of moccasins. The dress was almost beyond repair. He bought a length of calico and she made a new one and then made curtains for the window with the leftovers. Days became weeks and weeks became became months. He knew he could never send her away. She earned her keep and more. She filled the empty spot that had long haunted his life, and pity turned to liking and liking deepened into love.
On the long evenings she told him of her childhood, of her mother’s death and her father’s new wife, of the gambler with whom she had run away, still only ‘him’--never a name. Her tale reflected her fear, her hate, and she painted him in shades of villainous black on every story. But even her new security did not lessen her eagerness to please, her efforts to prove to him he worth.
What her words did not say was said by shining eyes and a thousand little chares and favors and finally a warm and willing body that he could no longer resist claiming. She refused just one thing, to wear a ring or share his name. No amount of coaxing or even mild threats could change her adamant refusal. Finally he gave in, satisfied she no longer watched the road or hid when hoof beats sounded or a spiral of dust proclaimed someone was coming, At last she would even go to town with him.
It was spring then, and the cows were calving. He was busy, granding each new arrival as soon as he found it, stretching new fence, and finally trading a cow and her calf for an old mare, a trained cowpony, heavy in foal. She tended the garden she had created and a afew chickens and alwayshad a hot meal for him when he got done and came in. For awhile he had not really looked at her but finally she could hide her secret no longer. When she confessed he was proud and humble and as awed as most fathers-to-be. He wanted to shelter her, but she insisted on maintaining her routine.
One summer evening when he got home, she did not come running to meet him and no tempting scent of dinner waiting floated on the still air. He left the mare saddled and ran too the cabin. As when he had first seen her, she was huddled in that old chair, a piece of paper crumpled in her hand, her face frozen as in fear. She looked up at him with eyes drowned in anguish.
His voice came, rough edged in fright. “Sarah, what’s wrong?” He gathered her into his arms and held her tightly. “Tell me, Sweet, tell me so I can help you.”
She unfolded the paper, a letter, and let him read it. Then she told him of the stranger who had brought it. “I’ll go,” she murmured. “If I don’t, he’ll come get me. There is nothing else to do.”
“No! You will not go.” His words rang defiantly in ears. Her heart ached with pride at his love but froze with the terror of the consequences inevitable at his defiant defense.
“I must,” she said desperately. “I can’t see you killed over me. If I don’t go, he’ll come for me, for revenge or spite or --whatever. You can’t stop him, stand against him. He’s a gunfighter, a killer, You don’t even have a Colt.”
“I’ve got the carbine and the old shotgun. I won’t let him take you. Somehow I’ll manage it. Trust me, Sarah. You’re mine now and he can’t take you away.
She stayed. She thought of trying to run away again, but he kept close all the time, almost always in sight of the cabin and the carbine was always at his side. She couldn’t leave him, especially now that she carried his child. It would be a horrible theft to take that unborn baby. She did not have much longer to go, she knew, and she prayed “he” would wait until it was born. But her luck ran out.
No one could say which of them saw the dust first, a slow spiral far down the road. He reached the cabin before the sound of hoof beats broke the stillness and fond Sarah standing, white and tensed, in the doorway. She ran to him and reached for the rifle but he caught her in the other arm and held her.
“Don’t fight, Wes, she begged. “Please, just let me go. I promise I’ll send the baby back to you as soon as it is big enough. He won’t want it. Maybe he’ll even let me stay until it comes.”
“I want you, Sarah, you and the baby, but you first and most. Get back in the house now. He’s coming fast.”
The huge black horse was foam flecked, tossing his head, open mouthed at the bite of the cruel Spanish spade bit. He almost sat on his tail at the rider’s signal. Wes stood with his feet apart and the rifle loose across his arm to look for the first time upon the man, the villain Sarah so feared. He saw that her stories had not been exaggerations. No human should have eyes that cold and dead. They bored into him while they swiftly skimmed the area, searching around. The voice matched the eyes, chill and flat. “Where is she?”
“She’s safe and she’d where she is going to stay,” Wes answered, thankful his tone stayed calm.
He felt her close behind him, peeing through the door. Without a word, he sensed she had never loved him more than in this moment which she clearly felt would be his last.
The deadly stranger looked through and past Wes as if he had not hard. “Sarah Jane, he called, his voice louder but still flat and cold. “You’ve got thirty seconds to get out here.” He shifted slightly in the saddle while his right arm flexed, hand dropping slowly. Wes heard a muffled sound behind him and swung the rifle up. The roar and she smoke and the sharp tearing pain were all one. He knew his shot had been wild, too late after the other man’s bullet found him and yet in the last instant before blackness closed in, he saw the mounted man suddenly spill out of the saddle inn an explosion of scarlet.
Sarah shut her eyes for an instant and bit hard on her lower lip to fight the wave of dizziness. The double barreled shotgun slipped from her numb hands and clattered to the rocky earth outside the doorway. Her eyes sprang on]pen at the sound and she moved, dashing to where Wed lay. She ripped off a handful of her petticoat and crushed it into the wound to stop the blood.
The black horse sidled, emitting a nervous snort as it shifted away from the crumpled bloody mass that had been his master. The mare whickered temptingly, edging back with her reins still trailing. The horse answered and started toward her.
Wes opened his eyes, felt the throbbing hollow in his shoulder and tasted the salt of Sarah’s tears as she bent over him. He smiled past the pain and slowly tried to struggle up. He sensed the shot was safely high; he could recover. Sarah moved to help him and then tucked her shoulder under his good arm. Halting yet together, they stumbled into the cabin. It was going to be hard but they would manage, together. The fight was over.
Again, dancing around the idea of building 'real' people and putting them in 'good trouble' where they can grow and develop and earn their happy-ever-after. I was not there yet but finally made it, My first novel was published in 2001, 25 years ago in August. That was Powerful Medicine. I suppose I could improve it today but I am not unhappy with that story, I did learn to be a good story-teller if not a great writer..
