Hoss, My Son

Chapter 2

After breakfast, Hoss always took a few minutes to spend with little Inger. As far as he was concerned, the sun rose and set on his daughter. He had been much too young to remember his mother and he had but one copy of her picture, but he could see her in his child. The three of them shared eyes that reflected the blue of a warm summer's morning, and strawberry blond hair, except that his had darkened to a light brown now, (whatever was left of it). The baby had Prudence's pert nose and good, straight teeth now coming in. In fact, at six months those teeth were making it more and more difficult for Pru to nurse her without being injured, and reluctantly weaning the child was going to be a necessity in the coming week or two.

He didn't mind if Inger wanted to bite down on his thumb to ease her painful gums as another tooth started to erupt. Prudence might remind him to make sure that his hands were clean, and his mother-in-law might admonish him about allowing the baby to get into the habit of gnawing on others or encouraging her to suck on her own fIngers, but he felt it was safer than giving her almost anything else to chew on. Neither he nor Pru held with the home remedy of rubbing whiskey on a teething baby's gums and especially since it was still hot during the day, getting cold, soothing water for her inflamed mouth was near impossible. But he would do anything humanly possible to make his wife and child happy.

Prudence's Ma and Pa would be moving into their own home in Virginia City in just a few days. He hadn't minded them staying with them for the past six weeks. They were kind and gentle folks, like his wife and they had been a help for the new parents. They'd had five children of their own and from treating a colicky baby (and thank goodness, Inger really wasn't one) to getting a child to accept solid food, they were fountains of knowledge. And though his father-in-law John was not a man used to any physical labor like that which was normal on a ranch, he willingly helped out wherever he could. It was a good thing they weren't returning to Ohio. Pru would have missed them something terrible, and so would he.

Gertie, Prudence's youngest sister, wanted to stay with them instead of moving into town with her parents. During the summer, she'd turned her hand to whatever they needed of her, but more and more she helped out with Inger when she wasn't up at the big house watching little Andy. But fifteen was a tough age, especially for her. A year before everyone would have said that her life was mapped out for her, but here she was, no longer with a clear direction ahead of her.

Hoss remembered when he was her age. He was ill at ease in the schoolroom. If he wasn't being compared to Adam, the intellectual of the family, he would be chasing seven-year-old tornado Joseph around the schoolyard trying to keep him from injuring himself. Unless of course some of the other boys were picking on him, trying to goad him into a fight. He was good enough in the classroom, but the older he got, the more diffident he was about learning. He knew that he would not want nor need a college education, like Adam. His life would be working on the Ponderosa. The only other occupation he might have considered would have been as a veterinarian. At the time (and for several more decades) there were few reputable veterinary schools anywhere on the continent. Most farmers and ranchers doctored their own livestock or used the services, such as they were, of itinerant horse- or cow-doctors of dubious ability. If an individual was unusually talented in the care of farm animals and cow herds, he might be a resource to his neighbors in extreme circumstances. Whatever knowledge he might posses he usually passed down to his own children. Hoss supposed that just by working on the ranch, listening to the more experienced hands, and using his own intuition, he'd learn what he needed to know. There was no money and less prestige in going from town to town as a veterinarian. So why did he need to spend any more time in the schoolroom?

Yes, he knew the confusion Gertie was feeling. She, like all the Whitman children, had a mind that could make the most of a college education. But what good was that if she no longer knew what she wanted to do with her life? And what fifteen-year-olds usually wanted to do, was explore what their maturing bodies were priming them for. Oh, Lord! How confused he had been at that age! Suddenly his peach-fuzz had become an adult's beard, and his muscles had become firm and powerful. Girls in school almost overnight became objects of curiosity and desire. Too bad only Cassiopia ("Hawk! Hawk!") Hawkins, with her near-constant runny nose paid any attention to him. He tried to be polite, as he'd been taught, but the girl either was sneezing or hacking up a glob of mucous. And she could spit near as far as he could! He just wasn't that desperate. Apparently, neither were any of the other girls. At fifteen, he had nothing to offer them. And even later, it seemed like women only were interested in him because he was a good dancer and a future one-third inheritor of the empire of the Ponderosa. Of course, all that changed with Prudence. She had seen the Eric inside the Hoss, and he knew as soon as he'd met her that day when she stepped out of the Overland Coach, that he was born for her and she for him. But he'd waited more years than he cared to recall for her to enter his life, and he'd had plenty of work to occupy him in the meanwhile. There was always the comradery and friendship of his brothers, and the presence of a father who also was sometimes lonely. Gertie's family loved and adored her, but her siblings' lives had taken them in their own directions, and her parents were aware that their youngest fledgling couldn't quite decide whether to leave the nest or not and they had to let her come to that decision on her own.

And dad-burn Joseph! He had to go and show the youngster some attention at
Adam's wedding and then go back to treating her like just a friend who helped him care for Andy! No wonder she was confused. Hoss decided that it probably would be best for the girl if he convinced her parents to let her stay with him and Prudence. It would give her the distance and quiet to find her own mind and they would keep her safe and loved.

After he'd spent some time playing with Inger, he decided to head up to the big house. He was thinking it was time to purchase another Clydesdale stallion. Jack had sired all the foals born so far and Hansel wouldn't reach breeding maturity for another four years or so. The fillies could be bred when they were a year to a year and a half old, but it was bad practice to back breed, so another stallion was looking like a necessity.

XXXXXXXXXX

Since Adam decided not to pursue his father and Joseph to view the wild horse herd, he went into his father's office alcove to start going over the books and review the current contracts. The Army had a standing order for as many green-broke horses as they could provide, hence the inspection of the wild herd. The Union Pacific was reviewing their response to a proposed contract for railroad-tie lumber and once fall started to settle in, there would be proposals coming in for beef cattle. Outside, Gertie walked with Andy, attempting to keep the boy occupied and relatively quiet so that Adam could work. They went to the chicken coop to feed the birds, which the boy enjoyed and provided some good teaching opportunities.

"Here, tickee, tickee! Here, tickee, tickee!" he cried as he dropped clumps of corn on the ground.

"Let's try throwing it so more of the chickens can get to the corn," said Gertie. She filled his small palm with more kernels and then grasped it in her own. With a smooth movement, she swung his arm upward, but he didn't understand that he had to open his palm to release the corn at just the right moment. Explaining again what he needed to do, they were more successful on their second try. She picked up some more corn but put it in her pocket while they went to sit on the porch. They were just about to try counting the kernels, when Andy's ears picked up the sound of a horse coming in. Like his father, he had the uncanny ability to recognize the canter of all of the family's horses and even before the rider came into view, he crowed, "K'l H'Ssss!"

Once again, Gertie had all she could do to keep the child from dashing out to the middle of the yard, but as soon as Hoss had Chubb's rein wrapped around the hitching post, she released Andy into his uncle's waiting arms. Hoss tossed him high into the air, earning a good laugh and a loud, wet kiss from his nephew.

"Horsie ride?"

"Sure thing, little pardner. Where's everyone else?"

"Baba 'n G'ba go see horsies. K'l A'am inside."

"Well then, Andy, let's take a ride and go see Uncle Adam." Hoss circuited the yard twice with the child on his shoulders, snorting and bouncing like a real horse and then cantered toward the front door. Gertie swept it open for him and he pranced inside, arriving at the big desk with a loud neigh.

"It's 'Hoss', not 'Horse', I thought," Adam stated good naturedly as his younger brother stood there, "pawing" the ground with his "hoof", much to Andy's enjoyment.

"Which am I, Andy?" the big man asked.

Laughing with delight, the little boy answered, "K'l Horsie!"

"That's enough of that, Andrew," said Gertie as she reached up for the child. You were making a joke, right? Uncle Hoss is not a horse, is he?"

"No," he said contritely. "He K'l Hoss. He nice. K'l A'am nice too."

"Yes, they are. Now let's go into the kitchen and see if Hop Sing has a snack for you. I think Uncle Hoss and Uncle Adam need to talk."

"Hop Hop!" the boy cried, visions of cookies filling his thoughts as he ran for the kitchen, Gertie at his heels.

The two brothers sighed simultaneously.

"I can't wait for Inger to be that age, talking and running around…" said Hoss.

"You'd never get any work done," Adam answered. "But I'd love to have a little one sooner rather than later." He actually looked misty-eyed, something that Hoss had rarely seen in his older brother.

"You're gonna make one hell of a pa, you know that? Your child's feet wouldn't touch the ground for years, you old softy!"

"Me? Soft? Never! Now, what did you want to talk about?"

"It's time we bought another stallion for the herd of Clydesdales. I heard about one who's just old enough to go to stud; he's in St. Louis. He's got really good bloodlines, shares a great-grandaddy with Jack, but he'd cost a thousand dollars. That's way more than we've spent on all three mares combined. But we gotta get some new blood into the herd."

Adam whistled. "That is a very large amount of money. And while he's old enough to be used as a stud horse, he's too young to work. His skeleton won't be matured for another two or three years, so he'd better be good with 'the ladies', as it were."

"If he is, we'll rename him for you, brother," joked Hoss.

"Thanks," Adam replied almost sourly. "Well, unless Pa has some other plans for the money, we can afford it. I'd feel better, however, if you arrange for the seller to accept a refundable binder and then go to Missouri and go over that stallion with a fine-toothed comb before making the sale final.

XXXXX

"Missouri, I tell you! That's as much as any one of us knew. He was born somewhere in Missouri on the trail west. His mother gave birth to him in the back of a Conestoga wagon. We couldn't register the birth, none of the children who were born on the trail ever had a birth certificate. The best we could do was write down births and deaths in family bibles and journals."

"I'm sorry, Ben," Judge McAllister said as he sat in the big house's great room. "All of us can vouch for Hoss, the bank says your money draft is good, but this seller, this Ward Beaulieu, seems like he just wants to make it tough."

"Why didn't you register Hoss when you got to a town?" asked Roy Coffey.

"By the time we got to a place with a town clerk, my wife was dead, and I was barely hanging on to my sanity. It was hard enough for me to wake every day, see that there was enough food for my boys and my animals and to continue on. I never thought about registrations or birth certificates." What he didn't say was that it was almost too hard to look at the infant that reminded him so much of his wife. If Adam hadn't taken up caring for the baby, he would have given him to any family that wanted him and forgotten he'd had a second child.

"Well, if you have that journal someplace and it clearly states the date and approximate place of birth, I can record Hoss's birth and we can be done with all this nonsense," McAllister offered.

"Alright," responded Ben. "I have it here, somewhere. Give me a moment." He knew exactly where the journal was. Once it had been rediscovered in an old sea chest stored in the barn, he had brought it into the house, up to his room. He had started it while he was still first mate to Captain Stoddard, Adam's grandfather. He wrote about courting Elizabeth, their marriage, and his dreams about the child that they were bringing into the world. And then she died, and he stopped writing. At first it was too painful and then there was no time. He concentrated his thoughts on only two things: his son Adam and making their way west, toward his dream. That dream drove him to work long hours doing whatever he could to earn a few pennies to keep body and soul together and to afford to move a little farther west. And then came Inger Borgstrom. She seemed to make the clouds part. Life was still tough, but she believed so completely in him, anything seemed possible once more. He started writing again, encouraged that together, the dream would become reality. He remembered that early morning that Eric had been born. Dawn was promised but had not yet arrived as he paced. The stars were still bright in the sky. Out on the prairie that night, it had looked like a canopy protecting them all, with the Milky Way contrasting with the brightness of the North Star. Inger had endured her labor stoically. They knew the child would be big, but Ben tried to tell himself that his wife was a sturdy woman, and she would survive the birth with ease. When the women came to tell him that he had another son and his wife was resting easily, he quickly pulled out his pocket watch. It was quarter-to-five in the morning, and as he looked to the eastern sky, he thought he saw the barest tinge of dawn breaking. A dawn baby, always to be blessed with the possibilities of a new day.

He came slowly down the stairs, book in hand. Judge McAllister sat at Ben's desk and recorded the information.

The next day, Eric Cartwright's birth had been officially recorded.