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Remembrance at Dusk
Jantallian
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The door of the Sherman Relay Station house stood wide to the soft evening breeze and the quiet of the day's end. Through it drifted gently from the piano the melancholy, sweet strains of an old song:
I sit beside my lonely fire,
And pray for wisdom yet—
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.
The piano, 'genuine rosewood', had belonged to Miss Essie Bright, travelling preacher, and for a moment or two the pianist wondered if it would mind not playing hymns. But the events of Miss Essie's narrow escape from death at the hands of Roany Bishop were too raw for Jonesy to be reprising hymns. He turned instead to old parlour songs from long ago, which only he remembered, to sooth his heart.
He had not been in love with Miss Essie – that had been Roany's tragic prerogative – but he cared deeply for her safety and, if he told the truth, for the feelings of one Jess Harper, who, to save her life, had had to kill a man to whom he was indebted. Admittedly Jonesy himself had done his part with a well-aimed hymn-book, but it was Jess who grabbed the rifle from Miss Essie and shot with a practised and familiar speed. It was a reflex action and, to some, would mark the boy out as a killer and a dubious asset to a respectable family ranch. Jonesy was unsure. If he read Jess aright, that deed of killing a sometime friend would weight heavy on his conscience.
But the friends he picked! Jonesy felt a burst of fatherly disapproval for that young man's taste in companions, although they were sometimes foisted on him by circumstance. And Jess had arrived at the relay station breathing vengeance on some fella named Pete Morgan … wonder why he never mentioned it more? Jonesy frowned a little, worried about the effect of this wild and unpredictable drifter might have on the man and boy who were his surrogate sons. For that was what they were, even though Jonesy himself would never name them so or think of himself as anything other than the cook and keeper of some form of order in the household.
Jess had, however, shown good taste enough in companions to appreciate the quality of both Andy and Slim and common sense enough to stay when Slim offered him a job. And Jonesy would always be eternally grateful for Jess coming after him as he attended the injured stage guard, taking him aside out of Andy's hearing and asking for his gun so he could light out after Slim to help him capture the notorious Bud Carlin. But, when Jonesy had pointed out that, at their first meeting, Slim had hardly been cordial to Jess, he had not bargained for the blonde rancher subsequently turning up with him in tow for supper – and beyond. What would Matt have made of it? Jonesy felt a sudden longing for the wisdom and knowledge of men which Slim's father had displayed so often. It was, after all, quite tiring keeping pace with the young and working out what was going on in their respective heads! The occasional escape into Laramie to meet up with his cronies compensated a little, but nothing could replace the presence of his long-time friend. Jonesy knew Sherman friendship and lasting loyalty first hand. He wondered if one day Slim and Jess would –
But his affectionate speculations were cut short by sounds ruffling the peaceful dusk as a result of a familiar dispute occasioned when Slim told Andy firmly it was past his bedtime. Andy considered that he was old enough to stay up as long as he liked.
"Aw, Slim! You're gonna be sitting up for hours talking to Jess."
"Bed!" Slim repeated firmly.
"That ain't fair!" Andy scowled. "Is it, Jess?"
His appeal to his ally was, much to Jonesy's relief, fruitless. It was not yet easy to predict how Jess would react or who he would support. This time he just answered: "Bed time and rising time ain't fair, Andy. Why else d'y think I have to get up with the owls hootin' every morning?"
"Cocks crowing!" Slim amended and Jonesy could hear the grin in his voice.
"But you can stay up late," Andy pointed out somewhat crossly. "Maybe you need to go to bed early too? You and Slim've got all day to talk."
"Maybe there are things we need to talk about on our own." This suggestion from Jess seemed likely to provoke more crossness.
"Like what?" Andy demanded jealously.
Jonesy held his breath. This could go so badly wrong. Not least because the two young men were slowly and delicately building a relationship of trust and did not need Andy's emotions putting pressure on them both.
"Like the war," Jess replied seriously and unexpectedly.
"Oh, yeah ..." Andy had forgotten or never thought about the fact that they must have been on different sides.
"Yeah. Or how to deal with pesky little brothers!" Jess suggested, before he added with a chuckle. "But really I'm just gonna be hearin' all about the latest girl y' brother's courtin'."
"Ye-uk!" Andy had no time for romance. "I'm going!"
As he passed through the living room and wished Jonesy goodnight, the old cook could sense that a powerful quiet had fallen on the porch.
Into it Slim asked softly: "Do you want to talk about the war?"
"Not right now." Jess's reply was equally soft. "I was just tryin' to give him a conversation that he'd understand we might not want to share."
Jonesy's head nodded approvingly. Matt would have been pleased that Jess not only considered Andy's feelings but believed he would understand the deep seriousness of such a conversation between his elders. Slim evidently thought so too, because he murmured: "Yeah, you did." There was silence, then: "And that was a very clever way of driving him off to bed too!"
There was another little pause, followed by the sound of a rocking chair moving suddenly and a muffled yelp from Jess. "But this," Slim told his ranch hand as he administered some retribution, "is for sticking your nose into my affairs!"
"Affair?" Jess taunted. "Didn't know she was married!"
At this, the tussle began to get lively. Jonesy limped out onto the porch to umpire. "Quiet, the pair of y'" he warned, "if'n y' don't want Andy comin' back out to investigate who's murderin' who."
Murder there was not, at least not immediately. But he was somewhat surprised to find Slim belabouring Jess about the head with a cushion. After a second's thought, he figured Slim must be pretty confident about how the quick-tempered Texan would take it. To his relief, smothered laughter came from under the cushion.
"Gerroff me!" Jess spluttered as he grabbed Slim by the wrists and wrestled against the cushion, emerging rather red-faced but grinning from ear to ear.
Jonesy was pretty certain Jess enjoyed getting a rise out of Slim enough to risk the consequences. That, after all, was part of building trust – at least, Jonesy hoped it was. Jess was still a loner they knew virtually nothing about. Like his poker play, he did not give anything at all away. Was that a good thing? There'd been plenty of men like him on the trail, men who signed on for the cattle drive, did their work with varying degrees of skill, took their pay and, at the end, disappeared into the vast wilderness, owing loyalty to no-one. Jonesy reckoned Jess would always turn in the best day's work he could, given what he had done on the relay station so far. But would he turn out in the end just to be a loner, a drifter, with loyalty to himself and no-one else? They'd all had more of a shock than they'd bargained for when Jess apparently lit out with Roany, even if it was only to get him away from Andy. Jonesy's tender heart for Andy's feelings made him pray devoutly against any such final parting now Jess had been offered a home so readily. Would Matt have risked taking him on? Yes, without doubt, for a cattle drive – but into his home? Well, Slim had inherited his father's good sense, even if Andy had the larger helping of his mother's intuition about people …
And just as this thought came into his head, there was the sound of laughter from the porch and two chairs creaking as their occupants settled down again. Slim spoke and the amusement was still colouring his voice: "The rate you get through women, I can't see you having the patience to court anyone."
Jess chuckled. "Waste o' time, if y' ask me. Now you're so slow, you'll miss all y' opportunities. Take that widow woman at –"
His advice was cut off by the sound of a heavily thrown cushion. But Jonesy was not listening. Despite his good intentions, his eyes drifted up to the photograph Slim had placed on top of the piano.
That widow woman! Or Mary, to be more precise. He wished the photograph was not on the piano. He knew why Slim had put it there: because Mary always longed for a piano in the house so they could have something of the gentle, civilised music she remembered from back east. And of course, because she knew Jonesy would love it and relish playing it! Mary always held close to her heart the needs of those she … cared for.
But he wished the photograph was not there. It was not of Mary the rancher's wife, as he had known her during what were to be the last years of her life. No, this was a much younger Mary, taken at some party or wedding. Clearly in her very best linen. A little stiff. A little formal. But with that radiant grace and kindness which shone from her despite holding such a rigid pose for the camera. She was no great beauty if you just looked at her figure and features, but, beyond the photograph, alive and taking with patience, resilience and good-humour all that life could throw at her – yes, then she was beautiful indeed. The young Mary, with her unexpectedly adventurous spirit, has stolen into his heart from the moment Matt had brought her to meet Jonesy and the trail crew and declared frankly to his friend that this was the girl he loved and was going to marry. There was no mistaking the love between them. It was strong and deep-rooted as the Rockies and there was no chance for anyone else. So Jonesy had courageously buried that kind of love and made himself become the friend they needed: faithful and reliable, a little eccentric, a sounding-board for their plans and a stalwart in carrying them out, standing alongside Matt against hostiles and outlaws and all opposition. A young man with a twisted spine who would never ride a horse or herd a steer with the required skill and endurance, but who instead learnt how to keep body and soul together in the wilderness, with plain food, homely remedies and soul-cheering tunes, so Matt would return to Mary. Except that one last time.
Jonesy's heart was suddenly as cold as that winter he remembered. It would be less painful to forget. Not just Matt's death, but the brief time when he and he alone was Mary's sustainer and companion. Struggling home through the fierce winter weather, bringing in a wagon-load of desperately needed supplies from town, he had arrived by twilight at a place he did not recognise. Oh, it said 'Sherman Ranch', all right, but without the father, the founder and visionary of the little family and their dependents, it was hollowed out, an empty shell. As devoid of life as his friend, lying icy and silent in the freezing calm of the vacant bunkhouse to which, with much effort, they had carried his rigid corpse. It was too cold. The earth too hard. They could not even bury him.
Jonesy's fingers moved automatically over the piano keys, the words of the old song suddenly so vividly appropriate:
'The streamlet now is frozen,
The nightingales are fled,
The cornfields are deserted,
And every rose is dead.'
A whole world was dead and finished. Yet for those few precious days, something lived. For those few precious days, Jonesy's were the arms in which Mary wept, trusting her old friend to understand. His were the shoulders that carried the burden of what must be done, his crooked spine notwithstanding. His were the hands which helped sooth young Andy in his troubled sleep. His the supervision under which a party was eventually assembled to tackle the arduous task of laboriously digging Matt's final resting place in the iron-hard ground above the house. He had read the burial service as mother and child stood close to the raw earth mound in the biting wind. And coming back at last to the lamp-lit ranch house, it was Jonesy's simple cooking that comforted and strengthened them all, allowing Mary a time and peace to grieve which the routine of everyday life would certainly not have had space for. It was lucky it was a hard winter. They simply endured together, carrying out the essential tasks as best they could with the intermittent help of neighbours, until more hands could be hired to deal with Matt's precious cattle.
Hiring hands brought Jonesy right back to present reality from that far, cold place which his mind wanted both to forget and to remember for ever. The newest hand at the Sherman ranch was currently telling its boss, in no uncertain terms, to quit arguing over their different attitudes to women.
"I ain't takin' orders about none of 'em, so save y' breath f' coolin' your porridge!"
"You take orders?" Slim chuckled. "I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion the only way to get an order into your ornery head is to beat it in!"
This was something they had all discovered quite rapidly. Jess had told Slim he liked to be his own boss and he clearly meant it. He was a quick, thorough and skillful worker, who gave all his considerable energy to the task he had chosen but he preferred to make his own decisions about how he worked – and sometimes when. It was a miracle of co-operation that he actually did respect Slim's rights and responsibilities, but then it was hard not to respect Slim's rock-solid reasonableness and honesty.
"Them that tried it, often didn't live t' tell the tale!" Jess's tone was a mixture of amusement, challenge and a hint of remembered pain.
Jonesy scowled, for the talk brought to mind Jess's accusation to Slim, that very first day, over disciplining Andy: "So you can start beatin' up on him?" Did he think this was what Slim had learnt from his father? As if Matt ever raised a hand to either of his precious sons! Not that they were ill-disciplined. Matt had a way with grown men, never mind children, which made them understand the value of discipline and the nature of true freedom without hardly raising his voice, never mind his hand. Slim hadn't quite got there yet and was sometimes set fair to lose his temper with Andy's shenanigans. He was young enough himself, the good Lord knew, although his serious bearing often made you forget it. But he would never, ever beat Andy, even over the business of lying for Jess. He might threaten a leathering, but it was not on the cards that he would carry his threat out.
Why should Jess expect Slim to do anything of the kind? It didn't, in Jonesy's mind, say much for Jess's parents, although he had to admit Matt and Mary Sherman were pretty unique. But would they have been able to manage the wildness which Jonesy sensed was deep at the core of Jess's being. And had the young Jess ever obeyed rules just because they were there or taken any order without wanting to know why? If he, Jonesy, had been Jess's father, would he have been tempted to take a belt to him? He rather thought he might and that Jess himself was not above pushing someone so far, just to have his right to break the boundaries which he would not acknowledge.
Was he going to encourage Andy to push the limits of discipline, just as Jess undoubtedly would? Jonesy found that he had been unconsciously following the conversation on the porch, which had turned from women to children. More particularly, how you dealt with the burgeoning independence and self-determination of one Andy Sherman, a child who would not be one for much longer.
"Slim, the kid's gotta learn!" Jess was protesting against some rule or other of Slim's.
Jonesy wondered how Jess learnt and who from. What did he mean when he said he couldn't remember how long he'd been on his own? Was he just trying to keep Andy from believing he was old enough to leave the relay station? Or was it true, chillingly true? How long had he been on his own? Through the war? Before? He'd have been just a kid himself, then.
It didn't bear thinking about. Jonesy was no sentimentalist where children were concerned. Life on the frontier made hard demands of everyone, young and old. But for a child to be thrown on his own resources, with no-one to care ... Jonesy'd been there when Matt's first son was born. The one who bore his name. The one who was so like his father that sometimes it hurt to look at him. The one Jonesy had helped to care for and raise. And the one who, now he had the responsibility of raising his little brother, must necessarily be a constant reminder to his brother of the father he had lost. While Andy had been growing, Slim had been at war. He had returned a hero, but with the hero's knowledge of the actual cost of war. He had returned to the grave of his father and to a mother who could now relinquish her custody of that father's dream to his son.
Grow with Wyoming. Your pa and you always wanted to be ranchers. Jonesy's own words seemed to be shining in his mind this evening. Matt's dream. And Slim's dream. But Andy? Andy, the child who he had nurtured through bereavement and uncertainty. Andy, now faced with the apparition of a brother physically so like the father they had lost, but whose life experience so far had given him a very different kind of wisdom from that of his namesake. Andy, who wanted wider horizons and different challenges and who might well find them in the two-legged stray he had so blithely invited into their quiet household.
And the experiences this two-legged stray had been through did not bear thinking about. If Jess had been on his own for so long, so young, in a wilderness and a war, who had guided his choices and set his standards? Who had shown him what integrity meant and where true loyalty lay? Who had given him an ideal of how a family should be and a father behave? In some ways Jess was scarcely much older than Andy, yet in others he had a maturity and resilience which could only have grown through a savage and uncompromising reality. Whose son was he? And what had that father taught him about fatherhood?
"My pa had pretty strict ideas about what a boy could and should do." Slim spoke quietly but with the absolute conviction which arose from his trust in his father. "I'm not saying he was always right, but he was right enough to make me believe and trust that the principles he taught me were good for life."
Slim's statement made Jonesy smile a little. If there was anything obvious about Slim, it was his principles and his willingness to stand by them, however hard it got. He was Matt's son in that too. Mary, bless her, had been able to see more of the complexity of human feelings. The kind of feelings which made Jess lie to protect them all from Roany and yet led him to respond sensitively and responsibly to Roany's growing paranoia.
"Guess you'll never ride far from them principles of yours."
Jonesy was surprised at the admiration and warmth in Jess's voice. Mind you, he tried to disguise it by adding: "Sure makes y' stiff-necked, though. And when it comes to y' land-rights, you're real stubborn!"
"Me? Stubborn?" Slim objected. "You were trespassing!"
But Jess was right. Slim would not give way on principles and, in the not too distant past, had stood firm even against his own father. Slim's eagerness to join up had gone ill with Matt's plans for creating a thriving, prosperous cattle ranch and they had not parted on good terms. It had been hard for young men during the state of war, Jonesy knew, but equally hard for the parents at home waiting for what little news there was. Matt had been reticent, even with Mary, about whether he and Slim made their peace by letter, but Jonesy doubted it. Every letter which arrived was shared with those who loved Slim. He knew in their hearts father and son would each forgive the other, but neither of them would abandon the principle they had chosen, so it was left until the day came when they were able to talk it through in peace. But the sun of that day never rose. Though Matt, like the father in the parable, would often sit on the porch at dusk, his gaze fixed on the road south and the possibility of running to greet his returning son, military leave was hard to come by. The Wyoming Company was far to the south, at one point even penetrating deep into Confederate-held territory. At the end, Slim would not have been able to obtain leave to attend Matt's funeral, even if the news could have reached him in time and the burial could have been delayed until he came. This was one clash of will and principle which would need the calm of eternity to resolve.
Now Slim was asserting truthfully: "And if it comes to stubborn – I can't hold a candle to you!"
"I've been plenty of places where backin' down's the quickest way to get killed," Jess agreed, "and some where seein' what's right ain't so all-fire easy either. But here ain't one of them."
"It isn't?"
"You told me yourself – finest country there is." There was a little pause. Jess murmured. "People are pretty fine, too."
Fine fathers make fine sons! Jonesy believed in his heart, as his fingers continued to travel softly over the keys. He had no doubt that Slim would find and fall in love with his own Mary and raise his sons and daughters with honour and integrity second to none. He would be at the heart of the community which was being built in Laramie and deeply influential in shaping the character not only of his own children but of the society in which they were raised. Such intuition gave Jonesy heart for the future after the bitter struggle of the war and the damage it had done to families, friendships and the firm foundation which pioneers such as Matt had tried to establish.
Fathers make sons. Or maybe not. Jonesy was still puzzled about what Jess's family had been like, although he knew better than to ask. Jess was willing enough to spin a yarn for Andy about places he'd been and scrapes he'd got into and out of. But he never spoke of roots or kin or any ties or any early influences on his life.
Maybe he didn't have a pa? Maybe that was why he was so alone? Somewhere he'd learnt the hard lessons which made him wary and wild and unwilling to trust easily. Yet he was capable of caring even for those who, like Roany, he knew to be deeply flawed. And in situations which, as he had said, it was not easy to know the right action, Jonesy recognized already that you could count on Jess to act with loyalty and a total disregard for his own safety. But the safety of others, and especially a youngster like Andy, Jess guarded fiercely. As, no doubt, he would guard his own sons and daughters as long as they needed it. But they would not need it long, Jonesy was pretty sure, because Jess would see to it that they gained the necessary skills and experience by, in his own words, learning for themselves. Part of that learning would be judging when recklessness would pay off and when there was nothing to be gained from it. Jonesy remembered Jess's words to Judge Wilkens: "Acceptin' what has to be ain't bein' a coward." Jess had shown unexpected compassion for the old man's dignity, but Jonesy wondered if he had spoken for Andy's ears too, trying to prevent the youngster's precipitate reactions and perhaps explaining his own caution? If so, Jess might have more of a good father in him than Jonesy had initially given him credit for.
A companionable silence had fallen on the twilit porch, broken only by the soft grating of the rocking chair on the boards. Matt would not look out from there again in the dusk for his son to come riding north nor Mary stand and rattle the iron which summoned her men to eat. But, on evenings like this, Jonesy felt their presence strongly: in the ideals which gave their children deep, true roots to grow from and mould their own future, and in the benevolence and generosity which could see beyond appearances and offer welcome and acceptance to a stranger. The old tune drifted from his fingers:
'To gather gleaner's measure
Of the love that fell from you.'
The words were truer than the writer of the song knew, Jonesy reflected, for love was not lost while those who were loved lived on in the memory and the behaviour of those who honoured them. It was a grief to him stronger than the ever-present pain in his back that Mary was buried up on the ridge beside her beloved Matt, but she had left her sons, their sons, a living gift to the future. Jonesy was deeply thankful for courage to forget the hurts of the past and for calmness to remember, in the dusk after a long day's work, the vision and the love on which this ranch had been founded.
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NOTES:
For the record, I haven't read Kierysrielle's latest, so any similarities must be due to that old Laramie magic of original writers who created consistent characters.
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For this story, grateful thanks go to Laramie Station, Yankee01754, Westfalen, Mariewarner.18, and anyone else (PM me if I inadvertently left you out!) who set me straight on where to find information about Slim's father. Investigation shows that the 'facts' we get in different episodes are not very detailed and, in some cases, contradictory, so this story is mainly based on 'The Last Battleground'. Even in that, there are some discrepancies. In Slim's account, for instance we don't see Matt's gravestone, which is odd and Mary's gravestone has 1810 – 1863, but Slim says she was alive when he came back which must have been 1865. We know Jonesy and Matt worked together, so it seems logical that he was round at the time. And where was Andy while all the stuff with Matt was going on? A question for the Laramie forum perhaps. (My dvd of this episode packed up after I'd reviewed it, so I may not have got the dates right).
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Hamilton Aïdé, Remember or Forget, 1830.
I sat beside the streamlet,
I watched the water flow,
As we together watched it
One little year ago;
The soft rain pattered on the leaves,
The April grass was wet,
Ah! folly to remember;—
'T is wiser to forget.
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The nightingales made vocal
June's palace paved with gold;
I watched the rose you gave me
Its warm red heart unfold;
But breath of rose and bird's song
Were fraught with wild regret.
'T is madness to remember;
'T were wisdom to forget.
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I stood among the gold corn,
Alas! no more, I knew,
To gather gleaner's measure
Of the love that fell from you.
For me, no gracious harvest—
Would God we ne'er had met!
'T is hard, Love, to remember, but
'T is harder to forget.
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The streamlet now is frozen,
The nightingales are fled,
The cornfields are deserted,
And every rose is dead.
I sit beside my lonely fire,
And pray for wisdom yet—
For calmness to remember
Or courage to forget.
Acknowledgement: For all chapters: The great creative writing of the 'Laramie' series is respectfully acknowledged. My stories are purely for pleasure and are inspired by the talents of the original authors, producers and actors.