Chapter 11
“Do you promise to do your best to protect the citizens of Angel Falls from any and all harm due to felons coming to our town or from persons not exercising good judgement when they act toward others in the town. You will keep the town safe regardless of your own thoughts or feelings in the matter. Do you promise to do you duty, Travis Buchanan, regardless of any bodily harm you may incur?” Red asked him with Tate and Sam as their witnesses, and of course all five of their children gathered around, too.
“I do.” Travis told him quietly.
“Then I do hereby make you a deputy of Angel Falls. Congratulations, Deputy Travis Buchanan. You’ve become a deputy of the town.
I’m not going to have you riding out to the farmers and ranchers until that leg is healed.
You’ll walk up and down the boardwalk while I do the riding.
As soon as you get the go ahead from Doc Sinclair to do some riding, I’ll let you do some riding out of town.
I don’t know how long we’ll be riding with winter right around the corner.
We might wake up tomorrow morning and we’ll both be snowbound for town, but we’ll cross each day as it comes.
” Red told him and shook his hand and left to take care of some disorderly men in the saloons.
Travis went with him to make his presence known as the new deputy.
Tate was glad that his brother had found a job he liked and was well suited for.
Sam was glad both brothers were happy. She helped clean up after Rusty’s funeral and then took her three little ones in for a nap.
Her older boys were fine to stay outside to play with Tate keeping an eye on them as he worked in the store.
Mavis took her two girls and Lydia back to her store to help people get the last of their winter supplies.
Lydia went back to painting her pottery and wooden items. Mavis was always pleasantly surprised at what she finished with.
She had just completed some jewelry boxes that were going to sell really well and were beautiful.
Mavis was thinking about putting them back and giving them to her own daughters for Christmas, but she knew that they didn’t have much jewelry…
only some pierced earrings. But they had turned out so pretty!
She was still making Lydia learn how to be independent.
She was learning how to make bread, biscuits, gravy, scrambled eggs, cook sausage, bacon, make mush, a roast, make the vegetables to go with it, a casserole, stew, vegetable soup, and to make baked chicken with dressing.
Lydia didn’t like cooking, but she did like eating it afterwards.
She helped scrub the floor of the store and was getting better at it, she hated having to do her part twice.
Her washing of clothes was better, and she had traded many of her clothes into Mavis for some warmer petticoats, long johns, a much warmer coat, boots, gloves, a scarf, a hat, and even boots for the colder weather that Colorado has.
She refused the idea of having to stay inside the barn and house for the next six months.
She made her own bed, washed her own hair, and was getting quite good at fixing it herself.
She did whatever Mavis asked her to do, but she didn’t volunteer to do anything other than painting in the little room that Mavis set aside to clean and repaint the pottery and wooden items she had set aside.
Mavis was thinking of repainting some of the toys she had up for resale.
She could ask a lot more for them if they looked new instead of used. It was something to think about.
She was also wearing the used gowns instead of the voluminous gowns she had brought with her.
They were easier to wash and didn’t take long to iron either.
If it saved her work, Lydia took that path.
She wasn’t that pleasant to their customers, so Mavis kept her in the back room painting instead of mingling with others.
Lydia preferred that, she didn’t like all these locals anyway, although she would like to meet Travis’s sister-in-law.
She heard so much about her from everyone in town.
Sam’s name was mentioned by Mavis and her daughters all the time.
She heard her name mentioned by Sheriff Red when he came to dinner.
“Did you hear what Sam did the other day in their store? Some kids thought it would be fun to egg their signs outside. Only Sam caught them. She took them by their ears and made them scrub those signs off with lye soap. She stood there and watched them and made them do it until they were clean. Then, she marched them off to their parents and told them what they had done. Their parents had them chopping wood for weeks as their punishment. I tell you, they’re giving her a wide berth as they walk around the store these days.
And you have to know that Sam is only about five foot three or four, and those young men were all taller than she was!
But she didn’t back down, and the tongue lashing she gave them as they had to come back and scrub their signs made me feel guilty and I wasn’t the one who egged their signs! ” Red told them as they ate.
“Sam doesn’t back down from anybody. It’s one of the things I love about her. She didn’t even have to use her guns to get her point across to those boys either. She would have if she needed them, but all she needed was right to make her point.” Mavis told him and the two nodded in agreement.
The more they talked about her, the more Lydia wanted to meet her.
It was almost like she walked on water. Nobody in her estimation could be that good.
She just listened and her resentment of Sam kept building up.
She hadn’t even met her, but she decided that she didn’t like her.
The only time that Lydia was at peace was when she was painting.
This was something that she liked to do, and no one was telling her what to do or how to do it.
Martha and Mary didn’t dislike Lydia, but they sure didn’t know how to get along with her either.
She wasn’t like anyone else in Angel Falls.
She hadn’t grown up like they did working.
To teach her anything was a chore. You had to start at the beginning; her parents had treated her like a princess and hadn’t even taught her to pick up her clothes from the floor and put them in the basket to be washed.
They had to teach her how to make her own bed.
About the only thing she knew how to do was brush her own teeth, but she wanted some expensive toothpaste…
she didn’t want to use baking soda on her teeth.
Mavis told her that when she could afford the expensive toothpaste, she could use it, until then, she would use what they did.
She didn’t like it, but she also didn’t like bad breath.
She didn’t like the dances they did, and she didn’t want to learn them.
She didn’t like to read or write letters to anyone back in New Orleans.
She didn’t want to go for a walk. She didn’t want to meet others her age…
men or women. She didn’t like the people of Angel Falls…
they were all too countrified for her tastes and they were certainly too poor!
She didn’t want to spend her life not having enough money to even afford a water closet.
Having to go to the bathroom in an outhouse was the worst thing she could think of.
She hated it and put it off until the last possible minute and then ran to get it over with as quickly as possible.
She was so embarrassed to have to use an…
an outhouse for her bodily needs. She couldn’t see why her aunt hadn’t built a water closet into her home.
Surely she had the money to install a water closet into the bunkhouse for the girls and herself. Why hadn’t she done so?
She finally had a few minutes to herself.
She bundled herself up and took off walking toward the mercantile.
She was going to see this icon of womanhood for herself.
She headed toward the mercantile. She had heard that Sam often sat on the porch of the store watching her children play.
The cold didn’t bother her at all it seemed.
Today was no different. Five children played in the fenced yard in front of the store.
Three small children were in a sand box.
Two were smaller than the other little girl.
The two girls had curly hair and even the little boy had curly hair.
They were beautiful children. And they were having fun running the sand through the funnels they had to play with.
The older girl told them they were making cookies with the sand.
The littlest girl kept giggling, and it was infectious.
Lydia wanted to giggle too, just listening to it.
Two older boys were up in the tree house playing.
It was a peaceful scene, even with the beagle dog running around barking at all the customers coming and going into the store.
A very pretty lady sat on the steps of the store sewing.
She talked to most of the customers entering the store.
It looked like she was mending pants, shirts, and even socks of her family.
Sam was multi-tasking. She could watch her kids, sew, and talk to those coming and going at the same time.
Lydia also noticed that she wore two six guns around her waist. That was alarming to her.
What woman wore two six guns to watch her children?
But the woman drew Lydia like a fly to a flame. She couldn’t help herself. Sam saw her and smiled as she came close to the steps of the store.
“Good morning. I don’t recognize you as someone I’ve seen before. I’m Samantha Buchanan. My husband owns this store. These are our children.” Sam told her with a smile.
“Hello, I’m Lydia Hatcher. I’m Mavis Lowen’s niece. I’ve been working with her since I came here from New Orleans.” Lydia told her. She couldn’t help but smile at her friendly manner. “You have beautiful children and they sure play well together.”
“Thank you. I will be honest with you; they do argue and have their usual brother and sister mischief. But on the whole, they do get along well with each other. I love taking care of them. There is never a dull moment! I sit here and help keep up with my mending which is a never-ending job.” Sam told her.
“One or several of them, rip a hole in their pants, shirt, or both as they play each day, or they lose a button, and I just can’t keep them in holeless socks.
Sitting here watching them, gives me time to catch up. ”
Lydia actually liked talking to Sam, which was a first for her in the sleepy little town.
She made herself leave her and go into the store.
She was surprised that it was so clean and had so much merchandise in it.
She actually found the toothpaste she liked in it, but she couldn’t afford it.
So, she left empty-handed. She walked by Sam as she left.
“It was nice meeting you, Sam.” Lydia told her and smiled as she was back to sewing.
“You, too, Lydia. Don’t be a stranger.” Sam told her and waved as she walked back to the resale store. “Tell Mavis hi for me.”
Lydia nodded but had no intention to tell Mavis hi for Sam.
She didn’t want to let them know that she had walked to the mercantile or had met Sam.
That was her secret. She also didn’t want them to know that she liked the woman.
She hadn’t wanted to, she was Travis’s sister-in-law, after all.
And she hated anything to do with Travis.
But she was so nice and she didn’t seem like she was judging her.
Everyone else judged her and came up not liking what they saw. But not Sam. She was just nice to her.
Two days later, it started snowing. It looked pretty as it came down and started covering the ground.
It was cute to see the kids trying to eat it as it fell with their mouths open and they tried to catch snowflakes as they ran around trying to eat them.
But it was different for the grown-ups. They were running ropes from their houses to the barns and to the outhouses and to the smoke houses.
Lydia thought that was funny. Why run ropes?
But the snow kept falling…and falling…and falling.
The snowstorm lasted for four days. The kids no longer tried to catch snowflakes, and Lydia found out why they ran ropes to the outhouse.
If she didn’t hold on to the rope, she could get lost going to the outhouse.
This was maddening! It was so cold, she felt like she was going to freeze just going to the bathroom.
As soon as she made some money, she was going to put in a water closet whether Mavis liked it or not!