Ticket to Curlew

Ticket to Curlew — page 7 — 2 BY THE TIME all the Ferriers goods were loaded into the new wagon it was late afternoon too late to drive out to their land Don’t worry said Chalkey We don’t have a hotel yet but J T and his wife they’ll look after you Mrs J T a large woman with jet black hair welcomed them We’re always glad to meet new settlers she said It’s no trouble at all We’ve set up cots in the storeroom for folks who get stranded in town I hope you don’t mind the smell of onions She chuckled The last man who slept there swore he’d get a hotel built before winter just to get away from the onions After nights of sitting up on the train I can assure you that a cot in a storeroom sounds like luxury said Pa As for Sam he was so glad to lie down and stretch out that he hardly noticed the smell of onions and leather boots He just fell asleep In the morning Chalkey came by as Pa and Sam were finishing their pancakes and tea at the Pratts kitchen table He took them out and showed them the team he’d gotten for them to use until their own horses came up with the Settler’s Effects Pete was a black horse with a white blaze on his forehead and Goldie’s color matched her name They’re strong said Chalkey and used to prairie winters And they are for sale if you decide you want to buy them later He walked over to where his own horse was tied

Ticket to Curlew — page 8 — I’ll ride along with you and show you the boundary markers of your land It can be a little tricky finding them even when you know where to look This wouldn’t be the first time Pa had seen their piece of land He had come up two years before in 1913 when he heard there was good land for sale in the Canadian west It’s the answer to our problems he had said when he had returned to Iowa with the deed to two quarter sections of Alberta land in his pocket Edward can have this farm and we’ll start over A new start in a new land His eyes had gleamed at the idea Mama had not been quite so sure It’s a risk James she had said and a lot of hard work We don’t know the land or the weather out there But I’m willing to try it It had taken two years to arrange everything Now Mama was packing Uncle Edward was getting ready to move his family into the old Iowa farmhouse and Sam was about to get his first look at his new home It didn’t take long to get out of Curlew Sam sat beside Pa on the wagon seat and looked around It was new country all right he decided There were certainly no signs of settlers no houses no trees not even a plowed field Of course the old farm in Iowa had miles of open fields too But there were elms around the house and a grove of walnut trees Sam remembered Mama saying that Great grandfather had planted all those trees Maybe that land had been just as empty once The sun was hot on the back of Sam’s neck and the dry wind blew his hair into his eyes Some shade would feel fine right now he thought So would some cool water In Iowa there was the creek where shallow water slid over pebbles all through the summer The creek had carved out a little valley in the black earth

Ticket to Curlew — page 9 — It was a sheltered private place Sam and his cousin Zach liked to sit with their bare feet in the water on a hot day and talk Sam looked out over the endless rippling prairie grass Maybe he could find such a place out there somewhere But it didn’t seem likely For a long time they rode in silence Chalkey on his big brown horse led the way along a faint trail in the grass After a while he dropped back and rode beside the wagon This trail runs along the section line that marks the boundary of your land he said Someday it will be a road I guess you’ll want to build your house somewhere near it He reined in his horse Look there’s one of your markers He pointed at a small rectangular stone half buried in the grass Pa said Whoa to the team He pushed back his hat and sat with the reins slack looking past the marker toward the horizon Well Sam he said this is home and you can’t beat the view Why don’t you take a look around Find a good place to build a house To Sam the place where they had stopped looked exactly like the rest of the prairie But Chalkey and Pa knew it was the Ferriers land There was no use just sitting in the wagon so Sam jumped down and began to walk north He knew it was north because Chalkey had pointed out that all the tracks that would become roads were laid out by the compass For the last hour they had been driving west with the sun on their backs But if you were away from the track Sam didn’t see how you would know one direction from another Except for the sun of course Even out on this land with no landmarks the sun would travel from east to west That was a comfort

Ticket to Curlew — page 10 — Sam walked as straight north as he could for about ten minutes Then he stopped and turned around slowly He was in the middle of an enormous circle The horizon might be ten miles away or a hundred There was nothing not a tree not a building not a fence post to give him a guide to how far his eyes were seeing Only grass ruffled by the wind It was a relief to turn his eyes to the south where the wagon the two men and the horses looked comfortingly solid and perpendicular A relief from the flatness all around Sam ran back to join them just in time to say goodbye to Chalkey who was mounting his horse getting ready to ride back to Curlew I expect I’ll come into town tomorrow after we see what we’re missing out here We’ll need to get a well dug first thing said Pa I’ll look you up anyway Chalkey waved and went off his horse trotting briskly as if it was glad to be going back to a more sociable place Pa didn’t look after him Instead he looked out across the expanse of land and nodded in a pleased way Sam guessed he was seeing a house and a barn and plowed fields After a moment Pa turned back toward the wagon and said Now son we have work to do First we should pitch the tent and organize our supplies The tent they had brought was just big enough for them to lay out the two bedrolls Mama had made Their clothes stayed in the satchels

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