We knew that the war was coming before the rest of the country. Riders coming from the east had given us the news.
We ran a Pony Express station, a few miles out of Strawberry, California. We were the second relay station after crossing the boundary, 1966 miles east of Sacramento.
The closest the telegraph had gotten from the east at the start of the Pony Express was to St. Joseph, Missouri. The riders carried the mail to Sacramento, California, where the mail would be put on a steamer to San Francisco. Sometimes the riders arrived too late and they would have to carry the mail overland to Oakland.
The poster that brought us the riders we needed read:
Wanted: Young skinny fellows not over 18. Must be expert pony riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans Preferred.
Orphans preferred, those where haunting words, to know that there was no one who would miss these boys should they fall to a highwayman's bullet or and Indian's arrow. On the safe side, for the company, there were no benefits to be paid out to grieving families
One of the riders that fit the bill was a 12 year old local boy, named Heath Thomson. He was a tall, lanky fellow with sandy brown hair and gentle blue eyes. He never spoken much about his family and even at his young age we could tell his life had been hard. He wasn't carefree like most of the other boys that rode for us. He worked hard, riding often, taking runs that the other riders didn't want. or cleaning the stalls, and grooming the horses. He made friends quickly; he had something that drew folks to him. The boy could handle any horse we had at the station, and could he ride! Heath was at home in the saddle. We realized that this was Heath's way of escaping from whatever it was that was hounding him, but it was only to be short lived. In October 1861, the wire finally connected the space in between St. Joseph and Sacramento, and the Pony Express ran no more.
If we had children Henry would have liked to have had a son like Heath. He and Henry would talk non-stop of horses, and the pair often chose the best lot at auctions. Henry relied upon Heath's keen eye for good horses. He stayed on til fall of 1862, and then he too went to fight in the east. Henry tried to talk him out of it, telling the boy he was too young. Heath had agreed, however his argument was that his mother needed the money. We had a feeling there was more to it than what he told us. I never knew for which side he fought or even if he had made it home after the war.
For a year after Heath left, Henry stayed and we tried to raise some cattle and a few horses, but his need to go fight won as well and he left that spring. All though my heart was breaking with the thought of him being so far from home, I knew that he felt it was something he had to do and I knew that I had to let him do it.
There had not been a day that passed that I was not thinking of him. My husband of five years, Henry Roberts, had gone off and joined the Union army to fight in a war. I cried at first, even though I knew it would not bring him home any sooner. The days turned to weeks, and the weeks to months, and they drifted to years.
I kept the ranch going, by not only doing my chores but also those that Henry would have done. I cleaned the house, tended the garden, canned all I could for winter stock, and tended the chickens. I sat up on the roof of the barn replacing shingles, when the wind had blown them off, and I fixed the fence that the milk cow kept escaping through. I had managed to run a small herd of beef cattle and with the help of some local men or the occasional drifter, I managed to put up hay and brand calves. I sold a few head when money was tight. There was no way of paying these men other than trading eggs and baked goods for their labors. I even did their laundry and mended their clothing, a chore I found that most men lacked a skill in.
I would occasionally receive word from Henry. He wasn't much for writing, saying that he was doing well and how much he missed me; he also sent what money he could. In one letter he mentioned a company of sharpshooters.
May, I was surprised when a company of sharpshooters arrived. But I was more surprised that I knew one of the young men. Oh, Em it was Heath - my heart sank to think about the hell this boy was going through just to stay away from home and yet care for his mother at the same time.
They have done their job and are pulling out in the morning, to where they are still unsure. This has been the first time I have had the opportunity to speak to Heath. He is a shadow of the boy who rode for us. The boy is an excellent marksman and is well liked in his company. But I fear for him and what this war will leave in the minds of all that survive it.
Each letter received made me miss him more and I longed for the day he would ride down the road to our cabin. What letters I did receive I treasured, even though at that time I didn't foresee that they would be all I would have left of Henry.
The news came to me by telegraph - one of the boys brought out the wire from town. I read it in numbness, the words blearing, as my eyes filled with tears, each time I read it.
Sorry to inform you that your husband, Captain Henry J Roberts of the Unions 6th Calvary was killed doing his commander proud in Atlanta, Georgia, July 22, 1864.
I just stood in the doorway of our cabin looking at that yellow paper, knowing that my life with Henry was over, unsure of how or even if I could move on. I stepped back into the cabin and closed the door. Laying in the darkness on the bed that we shared, I cried until I could cry no more. All my strength left me. The void of his departure now filled with a wrenching pain so deep that I thought I would never love again. I didn't want to live, not without Henry.
Numbness took over. At first, I stayed in bed not bothering to get up to care for the cabin or myself. All my thoughts were around the one person who now would no longer be returning to me. For three days I stayed in that bed, not moving or eating just laying there remembering the things we would talk about, all our hopes and dreams of a future that would no longer be possible with Henry's death.
On the fourth day, I went and sat on the porch looking at nothing, thinking nothing. I sat there all night and well into the next day when finally something snapped in my head. I looked out at the empty corrals and then down the lane.
There was something there! A horse and rider coming were coming down the lane! My heart pounded knowing that it had to be Henry, even when my mind was telling me he wasn't coming home. My heart whispered a hope that the telegram had been wrong, they had made a mistake.
Then he was in front of me.
My Henry - standing in front of me, looking just the way he had when he left. His green eyes were looking into mine and with that slight smile he always wore, even when he was mad. The light brown hair was slicked back under his sweat stained hat. He looked at the empty corrals and the barn that was in need of repair and when he looked back at me, I could see the disappointment in his eyes.
"I didn't expect the place to be so in need." He looked at the house and my unkempt self. "You'll need some help around here, May." He always called me May even though my name was Emily Sue. I didn't mind though, it showed me how much he loved me.
Henry took a step onto the porch and spoke in almost a whisper. I could feel his breath against my skin as he spoke.
"We didn't come all the way from Indiana; suffer through drought, flood and snow to have you quit now. You're a strong woman, May, that's one of the qualities I love about you." He paused and placed his hand over my heart, I could feel it thumping in my chest, "I may be gone from this earth, but I will live forever in your heart."
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and when I opened them, he was gone. I knew then, in my mind and heart that he would never come home. I sighed and turned to go back into the cabin, thinking over his words. I had a week worth of cleaning to do and a ranch to put back together.
It took me over ten years to pull this ranch out of the hole it had been in. With very little money, I had managed to turn the place around. Before they had gone off to fight in the war, Henry and Heath had bought some young stock. Henry said they were the best cutting horses he had seen in some time.
I had hired a man to help around the place; he would break the young stuff and help with the breeding, and anything else that needed to be done. I found an outlet for my horses every year at the sales in the area. Not to be bragging, but most of the time my stock had the highest bids.
Out of the blue, the hired hand up and left. But he didn't go empty handed. No, he took my stallion and four fillies. Without that stallion my future was sunk. Once again my ranch sank into disrepair, I was scratching out a living or something that came close to being called living. I had sold off the last of my small herd of cattle and I was hard pressed to take care of the horses that I had left. Finally I had turned them out onto the range in hopes of finding someway to save my ranch.
Strawberry had at one time been a booming town. When the mines played out, the town began to lose its citizens. Folks headed off to other parts looking for a way to feed their families.
Now the little town was almost empty. It still had a hotel, a dry goods store, a saloon, and little else to offer. Occasionally a stage would rumble through but it only stayed long enough to get fresh horses or have something repaired.
It was getting close to dinner time; as I turned to go into the cabin, I noticed a horse and rider coming down the lane. He rode slowly, looking at the ranch and its ramshackle state. There was something familiar about this young man, and it nagged my mind, trying to place him. He stopped a few feet away from the porch. I couldn't make out much of his features; he had his hat pulled low.
"Can I help you?" I asked being friendly. He didn't answer right away, just sat there looking at the cabin and me. His gaze made me very aware of my disarrayed state.
"I had heard in town that you raised some of the best horses in these parts," he said. He had a soft drawl, the kind of drawl a girl would swoon for every time he spoke.
"Whoever told you that must not have heard that I had some of my best stuff stolen, about a month or so back."
The man had been leaning on his saddle horn while I told him that, when I was done speaking, he had straightened up, picked up the reins, and made as if to go. But he continued to look at me.
"Right sorry to hear that, I was lookin for some good horses." He nodded his head, and turned the bay. It was then I noticed the brand on the left shoulder it was the Slash B. I searched my memory and knew I had seen that brand before. It was the Barkley brand. We had done some business with a Tom Barkley down in Stockton years before. But word had come up that Tom had been killed and the sons had taken over the ranch. The Barkleys frequently attended the horse sales, usually buying all the best stock they could lay their hands on, mine included.
"You're with the Barkleys?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am we're looking for a place to hold our horse herd for about a month." The bay he was riding shifted his weight and turned its head to look back down the lane. The sound of thunder came down the lane. I looked to see a herd of horses, close to thirty head of some of the finest stock I had ever laid my eyes on, come into the yard. The bay and its rider had moved over to the corral and opened the gate. The herd swung into the pasture heading to the pond to drink and as the last horses passed through the gate, the bay's rider swung it shut and waited for the two riders that followed.
Now I was stormin mad! No one rides onto my place and just makes themselves at home unless they've been invited. I went into the house and grabbed Henry's old scatter gun I kept by the door. As I made my way across the yard, I could see the rider on the bay talking to the two other riders who'd come into the yard. . The man dressed in black and riding the liver chestnut gelding looked my way as I approached with the scatter gun ready to defend my ranch. He made a quick gesture with his hand causing the other two to look up. The man riding the chestnut with the wide blaze on its face questioned the rider on the bay, who looked my direction, then pushed his hat back so that I could see his features. My hand went to my mouth. I recognized the rider now!
Heath Thomson!