Jodi's Journey Read online

  Jodi’s Journey

  Rita Hestand

  Smashwords Edition March 2010

  Jodi’s Journey is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2010 by Rita Hestand

  All rights reserved

  Published by

  Whimsical Publications, LLC

  Florida

  Available in print at http://www.whimsicalpublications.com

  ISBN-13 for print: 978-1-936167-08-1

  ISBN-13 for e-book: 978-1-936167-28-9

  Cover art by Traci Markou

  Edited by Brieanna Robertson

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  Dedication

  I'd like to dedicate this book to the Cattlemen of Texas who endured the many dangers and hardships of driving a herd north to the rails, and to the modern day cattlemen who struggle to survive in this long-honored tradition of raising cattle.

  May God go with you!

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Early Spring 1869

  Esser Crossing, Texas

  “Your anger is like a dirty quilt, smothering you. It's time to get out from under it and get on with the living again, girl,” the old man muttered with sad regret as he tried uselessly to move something other than his head against the creaking bunk. “The war's been over nearly four years. You have to get over the hurt it has caused; you have to let it go, in order to heal.”

  “Somewhere….deep down inside me,” Jodi said fervently, “I know you're right, Clem. I don't want to grow bitter and hard from it.” She glanced his way, then hung her head. “But I'm not alone with how I feel about the war, or even Hunter Johnson for that matter. As for my brother dying and maybe my father too, it only adds to the misery of it. The entire town has been devastated. I mean, look at them. They all left so proud.” She choked on her own words. “So full of spirit and hope, but now, look at them. Even the ones who did come back, they aren't the same. It's like…they died a little, too.” Jodi looked over at her foreman on the bunk.

  “That's a fact.” He tried to nod, but didn't quite make it. The pained expression he wore was like a slow glacier moving over his face. He swallowed hard. “We got a heap of regrets and unfulfilled dreams to overcome, and now is the time for healing. But before you can heal, you have to forget and forgive. Even the good book tells you that,” Clem muttered thickly, his voice raw with a monstrous pain. A pain they were both trying to ignore, him because it was his body, her because she emotionally felt it too. “Not just you, but everybody else. The whole town has to forget and go on. Otherwise, they shrivel up and die. That’s what life is, going on. Somebody knocks you down, and what do you do? You get back up, that's what you do.

  “And you have to remember that nothing is going to bring them back. Nothing is going to wipe it out. War isn't something that will leave us, girl. There'll be more wars, like the Bible says. And sometimes, I think the leavings of war are far worse than the war itself. We can look back and see we had too much pride…now. It's a little easier to see that now. So, we were wrong…about a lot of things. We were going to give them 'what for'. Instead, it was the other way around.

  “It wasn't just about the slaves—it was much more than that. That's the brunt of acceptance right there. The slaves were merely a reason to go to war. The men didn't come back full of pride, riding on their fancy horses and parading down the streets like they were heroes. Instead, it took all the dignity and brought back the broken spirit. Broken men. That's what losing a war does. But people got choices, Jodi. They can get up off their butts, and dust themselves off, and go on, or they can lie down and die. Ole Har with one arm, young Jesse with no legs, and then there's men like Phillip who run off to the west. Nobody's seen him since. Women left their husbands, husbands left their wives, children got left altogether.

  “Okay, so we lost the war, so what? We was alive before the war. We will be alive now. It's a fact we have to face up to, and the dignity we lost comes with facing the facts, and admitting we lost. It is the first step to healing. We lost our pride in ourselves, which is a sad thing to see. Hunter Johnson didn't come back a hero, or anyone else in this sad little community. War destroys even the ones untouched. Your brother died, that's a fact. Your daddy? Well, we don't know what happened to him. And sometimes, that's best, girl, the not knowing.”

  “And that's why I can't forget, Clem. I won't.” Jody Parker cried, a tear slipping down her pale cheek. “Maybe he's out there somewhere, broken, alone…”

  “And maybe he's dead.” Clem shook his head. “If he's out there, there's a reason he ain't here. Think about that, Jodi. And….we should face facts; he's probably dead by now. If he was coming home, he'd have been here by now.”

  “I won't believe that. Not until I see his body,” she refuted.

  “Now, Jodi! Pick up your feet, girl, throw back your shoulders, and lift that chin. God made you a beautiful young lady. You carry the hate around in you and it will eat you up. You can't end a war unless you let go of it. You didn't fight in it, you don't know. You weren't there, you didn't suffer,” Clem declared. “Ain't anything you can do to change what's happened.” Clem sighed heavily. “You ain't got any choice now, Jodi; you got to wipe it out of your mind. I've seen what hate does to people.”

  “I don't hate, Clem…just people like…Hunter Johnson.”

  “You don't even know the man. How can you hate what you don't know? Besides, those cattle got to be moved and Hunter Johnson is the only man who can do it,” Clem Morton declared, wincing, disgusted with his own pain.

  “You ask too much…I can't do it. You can't ask it of me!” Jodi sighed heavily, her mind working furiously as her foreman groaned. The bunk creaked as he tried to move, and he winced once more. The pain was unthinkable. Jodi watched as a slow trickle of sweat rolled down his cheek, unchecked. Or were they tears?

  “What if I made you a board to fit your back and tied you in the saddle? Wouldn't that work?”

  “Dad-blame it, girl!” Clem's eyes flared with anger, as his body kept him at bay. “Ain't you got any eyes? Can't you see? I'm done in. I can't get in no saddle with a broke back. I can't even get out of bed.” This time, a real tear rolled from the corner of his gray eyes, eyes that raked her with frustration and anger.

  The catch in his throat made Jodi realize that he was in a desperate position. She knew he couldn't before she’d asked, but she had to ask. She needed him so. She'd always had Clem to count on, always.

  Jodi shook her head and squeezed her eyes closed. She couldn't look at his pain any longer. It was too unbearable. “This is more intolerable than anything I've ever done. I can't ask him, Clem. You and I both know what kind of man he is. He's a no good coward.”

  “Oh, Jodi.” Clem sighed again, a little too weakly, and his words seemed pulled from his helples
s body. Determination and grit seemed to prod him onward. “That's just gossip, girl. I thought you knew better than to listen to the town gossips. We don't know what really happened. War ain't got any rules. Remember that. You never been in a war, you wouldn't know. But I do. It ain't fair to judge a man on hearsay, neither. You and I, we weren't there. We don't know what happened. A decent man probably wouldn't tell it. And it ain't our place to decide if he's a coward or not. Besides, we have to face facts, Jodi. We need help. And we can't be too picky when we're in this kind of predicament.”

  “Don't you go preaching the good book to me now.” Jodi frowned down at her foreman, seeing the dismay in his eyes and wanting to wipe it away, wanting to wipe away the nightmare of the last few days. She loved this old man more than she could say, and to see him this way, all broken up, was unbearably hard, but at least he wasn't dead.

  “The truth is—somebody's got to do it. I'm as good as any. You don't have any ma or pa now. So you listen to me, and you listen well, girl. If you don't want to lose everything, you've got to get those cattle moved to the railroad.” Clem tried to relax a little, but his facial expression mirrored his success. “It's a chance, a chance for a lot of people around here. And there ain't anyone around these parts, except Hunter, who is able to help you. So just bite the bullet and go ask the man.”

  “But Clem, the man is such a no-good. My brother lost his life in this danged bloody war, maybe my daddy too, and you want me to go groveling to that coward for help?” Jodi couldn't believe Clem's hard-headedness. She'd get those cattle moved—somehow.

  Clem leaned his head back on his pillow, his eyes staring up at the ceiling, glassy-eyed. It scared Jodi. Her breath caught in her throat. Was Clem dying on her too? She hated that lifeless, glassy-eyed dead look.

  “Your pa isn't dead. Least ways they didn't send us a body. So there's hope on that one. I'll give you that much. But you have to get what that high falootin' cousin of yours from New York thinks about people out here off your mind. That girl ain't seen anything of life. She's just a little snot-nosed kid who thinks she's better than everyone else. She can't even wash her own clothes, and you listen to her. How could she know what Hunter Johnson is like? You think she's actually met the man? Why, she wouldn't be caught dead near him.”

  Clem was angry and Jodi hadn't meant to make him so. Perhaps some of what he said was the truth, but everyone knew Hunter Johnson was a no-good.

  Clem's eyes followed her, and the pain etched on his face was enough to make Jodi cry. She didn't want to stand here arguing with him about the war. She wanted to make him better so they could take care of the cattle together, as they'd always done. But the look on his face told her that wouldn't be happening.

  “I'm done in, Jodi!” he said with tired exasperation. “And the only way to help you now is to steer you right. So I'm steering you to Hunt Johnson. Ah, give the man a chance, for my sake, give him a chance. There isn't a soul on this earth who doesn't deserve a second chance.” Clem strained to look at her, masking the monster riding his back as best he could from her. He strained to get the words out. His body shook, but he endured while his tongue lashed at her like a leather whip.

  “The men folk around these parts are scarce. We not only lost the war, we lost the will to go on, girl. A lot of men that had backbone when they left came back with none. You've seen them. Are they so grand? Men came back from the war, broken, beat, with no will to carry on. Some lost their kin, and some their homes, and even more—their lives. We didn't just lose a war, Jodi girl. Take a look around town. There isn't a choice of prime men to move those cattle. Esser Crossing is a bend in the road, not even a town. The bank shut down, the mill is gone. Old man Esser, he tries, and keeps on trying to get a town established. At least the man tries. He doesn't give up. They mock him too, but at least he's trying to do something. It's more than a lot can say. They can't even decide on a name for the place for some reason. Look at the people here. Old Minnie, Doc Fargate, Jude, and Wes are all counting on you to take that herd north. You, a woman…barely. It's the only chance this town has to survive. But you can't do it alone. Heck fire, even I couldn't do it alone.”

  “Who says?” Jodi rocked on her booted heels, determined she could do the impossible, her thick blonde hair falling in a wave down her back as she yanked the string from it.

  “I say! Now stop stalling and get on over there and ask him.” Clem's voice held no humor. She saw his face contort, and she eased up a little on her own pride.

  She'd pushed him too far. He was almost coming up off that bunk. Jodi raised her hands to stop his movements. “Okay—okay,” Jodi said with a reluctant nod.

  After a moment of silence, she eyed the old man once more, fighting the urge to run to him and hug him closely. “But this is about the most intolerable thing you've ever asked of me, and you owe me.”

  “Reckon I do, that's a fact.” Clem sighed and scooted down a bit in the bed, his face wracked with unspoken torment. His clear gray eyes registered a fierce pride, but he never voiced it. Jodi was glad. She could barely stand to see her best friend in the world bed ridden.

  As she turned away, she wiped at her eyes, her thin shoulders bearing the tension this conversation had produced.

  She looked down at her clothes, muddy and dirty, and dressed like a man, but she lived in a man's world now. She had for some time now. That didn't matter. There was no time for frilly dresses and perfumed baths. That had stopped the moment her ma had died.

  “Well, spit it out, girl, I'm tired,” Clem barked, rubbing his chin against the quilt.

  “I—I hate to leave you—here, like this...” Her words died in a whisper on her lips. If he saw the tears, he'd spit at her, and she knew it, but she couldn't hold them in any longer. She turned away, wishing there was something she could say or do for Clem.

  Clem cleared his throat, not daring a glance at her. “I'll miss you too, kid. Now, go on!”

  Jodi whipped around and saw the old man cover his face with the back of one hand. Without blinking, she reached for the laudanum on the table. Her hands shook as she poured him a swig of it in a cup. She gently reached to hold the back of his head up, and held him so his lips could sip the intoxicating liquid.

  He looked at her once, and then he closed his eyes. She slowly backed out of the bunkhouse. “I love you…Clem,” she whispered after the door shut.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Clem was right. Esser Crossing wasn't much of a town, not legally anyway. It had been Henderson Crossing before old man Esser bought up the land. Most folks still considered it Guadalupe Valley, Jodi acknowledged as she rode her horse into town. A town that, since the war, didn't move much, didn't breath, didn't grow.

  Despite the despair in her heart, she could still hear the mockingbird singing his lonely songs in the top of the old oak tree that graced the front of Main Street. She glanced up. The trees still held their magnificence, even against the harsh, cool winds of a winter that was finally over and a spring that was beginning. The countryside was greening with the breath of life about to arrive.

  The Swede, the blacksmith, was pounding out his metals as a chicken scurried across the road. Dust flew from the north, making Jodi aware that winter still left its reminders.

  A preacher had moved to town, and he was sadly trying to erect a church with the help of a few farmers who came to town on Saturdays. It would be a lot of Saturdays before the church was built, from the looks of it. Oddly, some people just stood and watched as the preacher worked so hard to get it ready for his people.

  Jodi wondered why everyone in town didn't pitch in and help the preacher, but they didn't. They just watched and waited.

  The sun shone down on her with a hint of warmer weather to come, but Jodi's journey would not be a pleasant one this morning, and she refused the symptoms of spring fever. Even a smile would be a façade.

  The sound of her boots clopping on the boardwalk made her tense even more, if that were possible. She watched as other
girls her age, in pretty petticoats and bonnets, crossed the street to the General Store. She sighed, envying them for their innocence.

  She had to do this before she chickened out altogether. Each step brought her closer to the Silver Cup Saloon, such as it was. In the beginning, it had been a general store, but later, as people moved around the town, the need for a saloon grew with the cowboys that stopped off going north to the trails before the war. During the war, though, Esser Crossing seemed more like a ghost town. Old farmers came to town once a week for supplies, the women still gathered for their sewing and quilting parties once a month. Some would sit around the fire at the general store and talk about old war stories or about the Indian raids. Life had gone on, but progress hadn't.

  The wind whistled a lonely tune as Jodi came to a dead stop in front of the saloon.

  She had hated saloons from the first taste she'd had of them, collecting her drunken father too often. And he'd cursed her and embarrassed her till she hated admitting he was her father. She'd thought those days were over.

  Jodi was out of her depths in here and knew it. She didn't know what to expect of Hunter Johnson. Her cousin hadn't described the man to her. No one had. Perhaps Clem was right about that. Maybe her cousin had never met Hunter Johnson either.

  She'd donned her father's responsibility long ago, and this was something she had to do.

  Music filtered the dusty air as her gloved hand touched the saloon's glass knob of the door. The music, although lively, brought nothing to the heart, Jodi noted. It was more a banging than music. She allowed the tune to flow over her before she took a deep breath and opened the huge, glass door. Old Hal, the barkeep, had ordered that door special from Denver. She marveled at how no one had shot it up yet.