Portersville, J.W. Osborn [free ereaders txt] 📗

away from her. She had me and I had her. Doc and Victoria were back in Portersville, settling into a new life on the former Double J ranch. I missed them and I knew Sam did too. I hoped that not too much time would pass before we saw them again. Victoria had her baby and all was well, according to the last letter I’d received from Doc and Sam would have to be told about her father, the man she believed to be dead for these many years. I hoped Scrub Pot wouldn’t go anywhere when that time came because I knew my wife would not take this well. She would need her Grandfather to help her sort it all out. Doc had not been convinced that the drifter we took in the day of our wedding was really the long lost Joe Dodge, but Scrub Pot knew and believed that a miracle had occurred and his son had come home. I guess in a way, I agreed with him. I had a father, and a good one too. Sam deserved that much. I had seen Doc’s face that day when he first set eyes on Dakota Joe and I think that deep down, he knew too., but Doc Stevens was a man who had to have proof. My prayer was for a reconciliation to come for Sam, Brian and their father. Maybe with God’s help, all the questions that kept me awake at night would be answered .


Dakota Joe was a hard worker, but he was often taken ill with blinding headaches and sometimes seizures. He had regained some of his memory, but it seemed that was as far as he would recover. Those times when Joe was down, Sam always took care of him, and though she has really grown to love him, and care very much about him, Joe Dodge still had no memory of her being his daughter or Brian his son. That part of his mind was still in the darkness of whatever it was that was holding him back from recovery. Later Sam’s brother , would discover what was causing his father’s illness and be able to put into motion the events that would bring Joe Dodge back to his father, his children and a whole new life. But that had not happened yet so we all just kept Joe in our prayers, loved and appreciated him through the good days, and stood by him in the bad ones. I love my wife and I wanted her to be happy and I wanted her to have a relationship with her father too. But my Sam was one stubborn woman and knowing Joe Dodge as well as I had come to know him, I could see that she came by it all naturally. I think we started to become a family on that dark rainy night, that winter, when Cactus Nell foaled.

For days, Nell had been showing signs that she was going to foal just about any time. She was big and sluggish and though she was usually a good natured mare, she was grumpy. I felt sorry for her, Desert Rose and the two other mares that were also in foal but not as far along as Nell was. These babies, if they all survived would be our first crop so speak, and from what Scrub Pot told me about Trouble, there was no doubt he’d thrown some fine foals. Scrub Pot knew the lineage of that red stud and the black stallion that sired him and Doc Stevens’ Smokey Joe too.
Black Joe Diamond was the stallion’s name, and he’d been the pride of the Dodge family. He belonged to Joe’s wife Sarah Stevens-Dodge. Joe Dodge had given Sarah the choice of a horse from his herd when they married, and she chose Black Joe. But so much about a horse who had been gone for so many years. His blood line survived in the two last colts he had on the ground. Now Sam was mighty particular about those mares, and she was out in the barn with them for hours on end.

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“Come on Jerrod,” Sam said as she turned to look up the stairs at me. “I have plenty of blankets and we won’t be too cold, I promise. ”
Outside the cold rain poured down and a strong wind flung it against the windows. “All right,” I agreed “But if it gets too bad out there, we are coming back in.” The thought of abandoning the warmth of the fire that blazed in the big stone fire place in the ranch house was disheartening. But I had given Sam my word, that I would be with her when Cactus Nell gave birth. Dakota Joe had retired to the bunk house, and his vigil in the barn would begin about two o’clock in the morning if the foal had not been born yet. I was hoping our shift would be short and I could go back to the house and climb into that big four poster bed, with the thick feather mattress and nice warm quilts that Sam and I shared.

Nell was up and down half the night but the foal had not been born yet. I wrapped myself in thick wool blankets and dozed off while Sam waited by the birthing stall, watching the mare and waiting. She’d done birthing before, so I knew she would be able to manage if I fell asleep. It was darn cold out there in the barn, and the rain drummed on the roof, but sometime after midnight, Sam shook me awake. She was pulling the blankets off me. “I need to wrap the foal,” she said worriedly. I got up. “What is wrong?”
“ She dropped him about twenty minutes ago and he won’t get up to nurse. It’s gotten colder than I thought it would and he is freezing to death.” Worried I went to the stall and there on the thick straw lay Nell’s new born foal. The little sorrel was barely breathing and shivering as Sam went in and carefully wrapped him in a woolen blanket. Cactus Nell nosed at her baby and looked so sad.
“Jerrod,” Sam said looking up at me with this dark eyes filled with worry. “Go get Dakota. He will know what to do. I can not let this little fellow die.”
I did not have time to think, and I did not even realize until it was too late that I was sprinting across the one hundred yard distance between the barn and the bunk house barefoot and in my long johns. It was much colder and much wetter than I had ever imagined. In a few minutes later, I was heading back to the barn with Dakota Joe ten steps ahead of me.
Sam was in the birthing stall holding the little horse in her arms. He was wrapped in the blanket, his little head resting on her shoulder. He was no longer shivering. Sam whispered to him the whole time and his mother stood by wanting him to get up and nurse. Joe spoke to the mare in the Black Foot tongue. Gentle words, almost like a prayer. Cactus Nell lowered her golden head and sniffed her baby as if whispering encouragement to him.
“He’s still alive,” Sam said quietly as she looked up at Dakota Joe. “But he never got up after she birthed him. I do not know what is wrong.”
Dakota looked down at the dark head and wispy suggestion of a forelock. “Go get some rest Missus,” he said. “I will take care of this little one.”
“He won’t even try to nurse,” she said.
“I think he will eat when he is ready, Missus,” Joe replied. “Now you and your husband go back to the house.”
Sam lay the sleeping foal down on the straw. “Send someone for me if anything changes,” she said “This little sorrel is our first and I don’t want to lose him.”
“Faith, Missus,” Dakota replied as he began to unwrap the blanket and gently start to massage the baby. “Now go. Let me do my job. It is what you pay me for.”
“He’s stopped shivering,” Sam observed as she turned to leave.
“That is because you were quick to wrap him in this blanket.”, Joe replied. I could tell that Sam did not want to leave, but she was worn out and needed to sleep. “Come on, honey girl,” I said as I put my arm around her. “Dakota will do all that he can for that baby.” We left the barn, and returned to the house. Scrub Pot met us on the steps. “What has happened?”
“The foal didn’t get up and would not nurse,” I told him as I ushered my wife passed him and into the warmth of the house. When I turned back to speak to him again, he had vanished like a ghost. For the life of me I never could understand how he did that, but I knew where he had gone. Sam was all ready in bed and asleep when I went to our room. Quietly I slid in next to her, pulled up the quilts and said a silent prayer that Dakota Joe and his father would be able to work their magic and help Catus Nell’s baby to live. It was nearly dawn when I closed my eyes and fell into a worried sleep.
While we slept, Brian Dodge returned from an emergency at a farm a good two hours away from Bently-Dodge. It was he, who walked into the barn hoping that there had been a successful delivery. There stood Scrub Pot at the door of the birthing stall watching as Dakota Joe let go of a hungry baby who cautiously took his first steps, found his mother and began nursing. “Praise God,” the old man said.