Jessie Winchester
By
Donna Hernandez
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY:
Donna Hernandez on Smashwords
Jesseie Winchester
Copyright © 2011 by Donna Hernandez
ISBN: 978-1-4661-7287-6
All rights reserved. Except for the use in any review, the reproduction of utilization of this work in whole or part in any form of any electronic mechanical or under means, now know or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system is forbidden without the permission of the publisher and author.
Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
*****
With Thanks to Jesse and Waylon
My two special little men
I love you both
*****
Jessie Winchester
*****
Chapter 1
The lone white topped wagon came to a lurching stop, and Jessie Winchester loosened the reins wrapped around her wrist. She hid the busters on her hands from her aunt and looked across the river where smoke from hidden chimneys curled above the trees.
“There it is Aunt Clara. The Rio Grande. Isn’t it a beauty?”
Aunt Clara sitting beside her on the wagon seat straightened her bonnet. “Yes Jessie. Finally we are here.”
They sat quietly looking at the river. Jessie wished she knew what her aunt was thinking; it had been her uncle Robert who had wanted to come to Texas. He was a schoolmaster at the local schoolhouse and wanted to start his own school before he got too old.
Jessie remembered the letters; her uncle had received from his friend, Marty Joseph, who had gone four years earlier. Joseph had said that Texas was a magnificent country. That with there being no schools a man could start one in no time. Land was cheap and anyone could buy a homestead.
There had been long discussions between her uncle and aunt. He could start his own school, instead of being just a hired schoolmaster. Aunt Clara would have the house she always wanted. They could also take some of the rose clippings and plant them at the new place.
Then the decision was made that nearly shattered Jessie’s world. They were going to Texas.
Jessie did not want to leave the brick house where she had lived since her parents died. She didn’t want to leave her room in the attic where she sat in the window reading and watching the world go by. She liked walking to school with her friends and playing games after school. She liked going to church Sunday mornings and sitting in the pew with all the other children, listening to the preacher.
Uncle Robert said that it would be easier to sell the house and join a wagon train to the west. Aunt Clara said that she could always come back when she was older and go to college. Jessie agreed.
For a girl of sixteen who had never been away from St Louis, the journey became a change and an adventure as the wagon wheels rolled through different places. Sleeping in the outdoors, making new friends, and seeing new places, Jessie soon forgot how much she hated leaving St. Louis.
She danced with the others when a fiddle played around the campfire at night. When the wagon train laid over a day in a small township she raced her horse Ginger against all comers and won.
Then came the thunderstorm, in New Mexico. Her uncle never being an outdoors man fell ill with a fever. Jessie drove the wagon through the heavy mud and rain to the next settlement.
There they left Uncle Robert in a graveyard. Jessie remembered how she had taken a piece of fresh pine board and craved the date, “March 5, 1835” with Uncle Robert's pen’s knife.
There was nothing to do but continue on with the wagon train. After they entered Texas, the others one by one turned off leaving Jessie and her Aunt to travel on alone to the Rio Grande.
“We’d best decide what to do, Aunt Clara.” Jessie said as she looked at the river. She tried to sound responsible and intelligent as her Uncle and Aunt had taught her. “I know that Mr. Joseph meant for us to stay with him on the ranch until Uncle Robert could get a school started. But now---“
Aunt Clara looked up at Jessie, when her voice trailed off so uncertainly. Her dark hair tucked under her cowboy hat, dressed in jeans, cotton shirt and Uncle Roberts’s heavy coat, she looked more like a boy than the girl who left St. Louis. Her face was white and strained with worry.
“What do you think we should do Jessie?”
Jessie began to feel more confident.”We could sell the horses and wagon and go back home by boat. Steamboats come this far. Back in St. Louis I can make a living for us Aunt Clara.”
Aunt Clara looked down at the blanket of wildflowers stretching to the ferry, and listened to the stillness of the woods. “You may be right Jessie, but let’s ask Mr. Joseph first. There comes the ferry for us. Drive down to the bank.”
Jessie looked back into the wagon at the bed and spinning wheel, the churn, the books, the boxes of china, the three trunks of clothing and quilts filling the rest of the space. She leaned over and tucked away the family bible where Uncle Clara had written in Uncle Robert’s death the night before. She wondered if she could get such a load across on the log ferry.
Slapping the horses with the reins, she drove the wagon down the bank, and hoped that the red faced ferry man didn’t know that she had never driven a team onto a raft.
But the ferry man did not even look at her, as he led the horses aboard yelling, slapping and saw that Ginger was tied to the wagon wheel. Then looking up he smiled.
“Don’t you worry none ma’am. This here ferry ain’t going to sink. I‘ve carried heavier loads than this lots of times. Where are you and your son from?”
Jessie shook her head as Aunt Clara started to say something. “St. Louis,” Jessie replied amused at the idea of him thinking her a boy. An idea started to form in her mind.
“ Ya all fixing to stop in the township over yonder?”
“For tonight yes,” Jessie had frequently heard her uncle keep his own counsel with strangers. She decided to do the same.
The man untied the ferry and picked up his long pole. Pushing off the bank, he steered and poled into the muddy water of the Rio Grande.
Seeing that the man knew his business Jessie looked up and down the river. She saw the river flowed grandly, banked by heavy timber and grassy meadowlands.
Suddenly she was aware that they were on the other side and the man was talking. “Here you are. Safe and sound.” As he moored the ferry .That will be let’s see two people, three animals and a wagon, one dollar.”
Jessie gave him the money and shouted to the horse. Slowly they went up the steep rise to the road above. There the creaking of the wagon was still. This was Silverdollar.
The late afternoon sun shadowed the dusty road that stretched for a half mile to the north and south. On either side among the oaks were cabins here and there. Dogs slept in the shade of porches. A cat ran in front of the wagon as Jessie drove into the township.
Jessie didn’t know what she expected, but disappointment settled on her like a blanket. She slumped over the reins not to show what her face could not hide.She looked at Aunt Clara and saw the disappointment in her eyes. Quickly she pulled herself tall in the wagon seat. “Let’s stay at the hotel for the night and drive to the ranch in the morning.”