Spring 1889
“Miss Bellamy! Miss Bellamy!” The teenage boy called, breathlessly, as he raced up the hillside as fast as his long and lanky legs would let him. When he reached the top, he placed his hand on his thighs to support his torso as he focused on regulating his breathing. “Miss Bellamy.” He swallowed hard while speaking. “Your father is mighty angry to find you left the settlement, once again. I fear you will not fare well if he discovers that you wandered this far away.”
“Call me Lucille or Lucy. Anything, but Miss Bellamy. This is not the first time I have asked this of you, Charles.”
The young man’s face reddened. “I will try to remember, Mi… Lucille.”
Lucy looked down upon the valley below her. Patches of green grass as far as the eye could see struggled against the melting snow as winter made way for spring. Off in the distance, the rugged mountains that had forced them to make camp during one of the harshest winters Montana territory had seen eight years earlier clung to the snow that they coveted year-round at their highest points.
They’d learned of a French settlement not far from Vancouver while booking passage west with a small wagon train and grew excited; as did a few companion French families with every conversation that took place about it. After many longs months of grueling travel across country and the unimaginable hardships that came with it -including the death of her mother and younger brother- many settlers decided to put down roots in the valley they’d been forced to winter in when the thaw finally allowed them to travel on; her father being one of them.
Using his business savvy, he quickly assessed that the best way to live a comfortable life in such a remote mountainside location was to own and operate a small trading post. Little by little, the word spread. The little trading post was being well received by miners and loggers for miles around who appreciated the convenience of not having to trek into Fort Benson for basic staples.
It was already late April. Winter was quick to come and slow to leave in the valley nestled in the mountains, but that didn’t stop the settlers from focusing on building a life for themselves. What proved to be a greater obstacle was the lack of law, unscrupulous men searching for gold, and the skirmishes between the Blackfoot and the Crow Indian tribes. Even so, Antoine Bellamy insisted that the young settlement of Muddy Creek in the Montana territory was as good a place as any to live in such a savage land.
He’d often spoken of returning to their little country estate in France, but Lucy knew that it was simply talk. He thought it was a secret, but she’d known since the afternoon when they packed a few of their most precious belongings and secretly fled to the ship that brought them across the expansive ocean that they could never return. She had no idea what her father did, but he was running from the law for certain. Returning to France would mean his death. He knew it and so did she. In fact, this great secret thing that he did was the reason they’d traveled to such an unsettled and uncivilized territory. Here, he was beyond the reach of the law. More than once, she’d let her imagination walk her through scenarios that would meet the criteria of such seriousness as to force them to flee. Thievery? Debts? Murder?
Seeing the Statue of Liberty standing tall and proud as their ship made its way toward Ellis Island had been breathtaking. She was certain that she wouldn’t see anything so majestic and grand for the rest of her life, but she was wrong. The scene before her as she stood on the flat-topped boulder with the crisp mountain air making merry with her full head of long, blonde hair had to be just as grand and majestic, if not more so.
“Lucille, please. I told your father that you went to the creek to see about catching some fish for supper. He’s expecting me to return with you shortly.”
Lucy pulled the fur collar of her coat tighter around her neck, but not before a gust of cold wind managed to invade the warmth it provided and cause her body to shudder. “What will you say when we return with no fish and no fishing rod?”
Charles grinned at his own cleverness. “Ah, but I have four fish keeping cold in the creek that I caught early this morning. My mother and I only need two. I can give you two of them for your supper.”
Lucy smiled. “You are a clever boy.”
“I’m not a boy, I’m a man,” he grumbled as he hopped off the boulder and started down the hill without waiting for her.
At seventeen, Lucy was only one year older than Charles. It was true that she should no longer refer to him as a boy, but he was still a few years short of qualifying as a man. She sometimes felt sorry for him. He’d lost his father and older brother on the trip west. He and his mother were all that was left to make up a family and he was forced into the position of being the man of the family. The pressures of such a responsibility pushed him into wanting to become a real man and take on the responsibilities that went along with it; including marriage. While she longed to be a young girl again, he couldn’t wait to become a man.
Where circumstances had thrown Charles into the position of being the man of the family, they’d thrown Lucille into becoming the woman of hers. She found it to be tiresome and confining. Her father monitored her every move for fear that some young buck would come along and steal her most precious commodity that was meant for the husband she questioned would ever come; her maidenhead.
Without a female in the family to explain just exactly what a woman’s maidenhead was and how it was stolen, Lucy was left to her own devices to figure it out. She had a feeling it was connected to that time of the month when she bled. Molly Ambers had been on hand for her to run to when the blasted bleeding started. She’d assured Lucy that she was far from sick and was definitely not dying. She was simply becoming a woman. She called this time her “menses” and said that most girls started their menses at a much younger age than Lucy and she should be happy she was spared the years. Sadly, Molly passed away of consumption two winters ago, and, since her father only recently started obsessing about her maidenhead, she hadn’t a clue who to ask. There were other women in the settlement, but none she felt comfortable enough to discuss such a sensitive topic with.
The responsibilities of the woman in the house fell on Lucy at the tender age of fourteen, so she really didn’t realize the extent that her life would have been different, had her mother lived. Although she didn’t find caring for the house and tending to her father’s needs to be burdensome, she had no desire to take on the role of wife of a new household. Things were running just fine as they were. She guessed that her father wasn’t in a hurry to lose her any more than she was in a hurry to leave him. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so worried about her preserving her stupid maidenhead in a settlement that rarely saw an eligible, husband worthy man pass through it.
Charles was long gone before she forced herself to trek back down the hillside toward the part of the creek that she knew he favored for fishing. Her mind worked to think of something clever to say to take away the sting she’d given his sense of pride by calling him a boy. She was so preoccupied with this that she didn’t hear the horses and their riders approach until they were upon her.
At a glance, she guessed there to be at least a few dozen men in the unsavory looking group. Most of them rode on, but half a dozen stayed behind. They circled her with their horses, moving quickly to and fro to prevent her from escaping while they laughed and chattered about wanting her to be friendly.
She wasn’t sure why she was so frightened about the concept of being friendly to them. She was congenial to everyone who came through the settlement. It was a necessary type of retail politics. Not only was there was something about the way they said the word that gave her the impression that their idea of friendly and hers wasn’t the same, but their filthy, rag tag appearance revulsed her with every step their horses took to close her into a tighter circle.
Most who came to the trading post were trappers, miners, and loggers. They were hard working men who were often in need of hygiene lessons, but they were well mannered and respectful for the most part. These characters were not only smelly and filthy, but they were bold and uncouth in their mannerism toward her.
When one of them lept off his horse and tossed her to the ground, she quickly learned what they meant by being friendly. Although, still untouched, she’d seen it done often enough with the livestock to understand what was happening.
Breath that stunk of unbrushed, rotted teeth and chewing tobacco turned her stomach as he forced his kisses upon her lips and person. The sound of tearing fabric echoed off the hillside while icy cold air assaulted her frim breasts. The snow beneath her stung her exposed flesh. She suffered pain both inside and out as each man took his turn with her; some more than once.
They not only enjoyed forcing their peckers into every orifice she possessed as hard and fast as they could, but they accompanied the sexual assaults with blows from their fists and deep, vicious bites from their filthy, rotted, teeth. By the time their lust and need for violence was satiated, she lay naked, bloody, bruised, and barely conscious on the unforgiving hillside.
The last thing she recalled before the world went black was the sound of their laughter and crude comments about what they’d done to her and the overwhelming smell of smoke coming from the settlement.
Early Summer 1899The settlement of Muddy Creek had long been destroyed, but that didn’t stop Ian from traveling there to inspect his newly acquired property. It was part of the parcel he’d recently purchased. The Union Pacific purchased it on speculation that the railroad would go through. When a more forgiving and favorable terrain was acquired, this land was considered good for very little and, thus, sold to Ian for a very appealing price. It may not have looked like it was worth much to the railroad, but to Ian Murry it had the makings of a good and solid sheep domain to add to his already established cattle ranch.The remains of the burned and abandoned settlement were positioned on the far west of his newly acquired thousand acres. More mountainous and hilly than his five-thousand-acre cattle ranch, it was the reason he intended to raise sheep on it. For a cattle rancher to pair his stock with sheep was unheard of
Melony Jameson paced the porch in nervous agitation. Ian was late. He’d promised her father that he’d come for dinner. She’d spent days scheming for ways to hint marriage to him and finally came up with a viable plan. Her friend, Sally Conway just got engaged to the eldest son of the Bar X ranch. It was the perfect bit of news to lead into a conversation that would hint on him asking her for since she’d returned home from school in the east. It was time to take things further. She’d worked it all out in her head, but how could she put it into motion if he didn’t show up?With summer on the horizon, the sun was setting later and later. For a young woman who came from means with time on her hands, this wasn’t always a good thing. Life could prove lonely. Any man worth a grain of salt would take advantage of the extra daylight to squeeze in a bit more work. For most ranchers, days wer
Ian was so tired from the grueling schedule he’d kept in making ready for the arrival of the sheep that he stumbled just a bit when he got off his horse in front of the little house he’d decided he’d occupy while in the newly cleaned up, former settlement of Muddy Creek.Roy, his cook’s helper who was sent there a few weeks earlier to cook for the clean-up crew, limped out onto the front porch of the house they’d salvaged for him. It was slightly larger than the one Ian would occupy, which was good since it was to serve as a mess hall as well as a bunk house for Roy. By the expanse of space that looked like it once had structures on it between that building and the one that Ian would occupy, he guessed two, possibly three buildings had once stood. Opposite the cook’s mess house was a freshly repaired house that would serve as the bunk for the eight hands. “Over here’s the cook’s hut, boss. I got a pot of
Ian refused to succumb to the desire to stay in bed when he heard his men rousing outside. He sat on the edge of the narrow cot and focused on getting his bearings straight while he watched Roy fill the pitcher on the washstand with warm water.“Mornin’, boss. Looks like it’s gonna be good weather for the sheep delivery.”“Your job is to cook, not be my manservant.”“Jackson put the word out for a housekeeper to tend to the cleaning and stuff like this, but nothin’ yet. I don’t mind helpin’ out.”Ian ran his fingers through his thick, brown hair. “Finding a man willing to do that type of work won’t be easy and I’m not sure a woman would want to come this far away from civilization.”“We heard tell of a widow some miles up north who might work. Her man was killed by a bear last winter. She’s got three
The old cook had removed Ian’s coat and covered her with a clean sheet. “I don’t feel right washin’ down such personal parts, boss. I ain’t no doctor. It don’t seem fittin’ touchin’ her there.”“It’s good of you to respect the lady’s modesty, Roy, but if we don’t get her cleaned up, she’ll surely die. Those bites look angry.”“Ya’ve got blood on yer coat. If I don’t tend to it right away, it’ll stick,” the old cook whined.Ian heaved a sigh. “Okay. You tend to my coat and I’ll clean the girl up as best I can.”“I’ll wash her for ya, boss,” said a young man who Ian had yet to be formally introduced to. By the lecherous look in his eyes, Ian knew he’d have to refuse the help.“You men get back to business. I’ll tend to things here. Let me
The crew may have been smaller than Ian intended to start out with, but they settled the sheep into their new home with remarkable speed and competency. Ian felt even more confident about his decision to raise sheep by the end of the day than he had in the beginning. The satisfied smile he’d worn during their evening meal stayed put right up until he entered his house and came face to face with a very beautiful, but frightened, young woman crouched in the corner of the room.He chastised himself for getting so involved with his sheep that he forgot about the poor girl. He couldn’t believe how callous and self-indulgent his behavior was. He hadn’t even been thoughtful enough to bring her dinner. When he spotted the remnants of the same meal he’d just eaten on a plate sitting on the small table, he breathed a sigh of relief. At least Roy kept his presence of mind and looked out for the girl. He’d also provi
The smell of fresh coffee permeated the air as he dragged his lean, muscular body out of bed the following morning. Fresh water was in the bowl and pitcher on the washstand and, if his nose was correct, bread was baking. He had a pump in the kitchen section of the main room, so the water was easily explained. As for the bread, since he had no oven, he couldn’t imagine how this could be.He quickly washed up and headed out to the main room His face lit up when he saw the old, cast iron bread roaster that hung on the wall being used in the large fireplace.The young woman was putting the fireplace to good use by scrambling eggs in bacon grease in a large cast iron frying pan that had also been pulled from its hook on the wall.“Smells good,” Ian said as he accepted the mug of coffee she offered. “We have a cook and a mess house for food. You don’t need to put yourself out like this.”“It feel
Roy stretched his legs out in front of him as he sat on the bench that was positioned beneath his window on the porch. “Mornin’, boss. Did the gal manage yer breakfast ok? I didn’t have the heart to say ‘no’ when she asked for supplies.”Ian stopped in front of the mess house and propped a foot onto the edge of the porch that was only inches above the ground and lit a cigarette. “It was damn fine. A real surprise.”“I ain’t gonna lose my job to her, am I?” Roy asked, worriedly.“This camp is no place for a pretty young girl. I’m off to see if I can track down who she might have been with. They probably got separated and are worried sick.”“Does she remember anything, yet?”Ian shook his head. “She didn’t even know she was attacked. It’s a damned shame. It’d be a lot easie