BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 33

1906

NORA AND DANIEL

On the way down to Livingston's camp on what would soon be the Lowline, Daniel and Nora came upon a loose herd of cattle. Driscoll's Herefords grazed along the unfinished canal bank, the beeves barely acknowledging them with more than a glance between bites of winterfat and bunchgrass. Daniel took the lead, pushing through the cows on the pathway, stopping at a cluster of them that had no intention of giving way to the intruders.

At the small fill ahead, a bull was nosing the urine spewing from under a cow's lifted tail, the splash sending his upper lip into a sneer. He stepped closer, put his head on her back, she raised her tail further and to the side, and in but a moment he was mounting her, his penis a well-aimed projectile of a length that still astonished Daniel even though he'd seen a similar event numerous times.

Nora rode up alongside, remarked,"Puts ideas in your head, doesn't it?" She reached over, put her hand on his thigh.

His silence and deep blush provoked her to laugh. "You're a city boy yet, aren't you?" she said. She moved her hand up to his face, curled it around his ears. "Vermont, those ears are about the same color as that bull's instrument of pleasure," she said, causing his ears to deepen in color. She moved on ahead of him, forcing a way through the recalcitrant herd.

He rode along, abashed by his realization that his northerner roots remained, that staid primness and properness he thought discarded yet a part of him. Denied, those Presbyterian portions of him posed no problem, but now, once erupted, they made his mind a jumble of past and present, of an old self thought abandoned, but instead kept, and a new self considered wholly inhabited but only, apparently, partially moved into.

He could not call her brazen, but his family would have. Glen Bothwell kept two lacquered bull prick canes on the wall of the office, just behind Nora's desk, their color black and brown rather than their natural pink. Another woman might have balked at the presence of such objects but they didn't bother Nora. And her uncle T.R.—a fellow engineer—while protective, knew better than mollycoddling her though she was in his charge.

Daniel was told that when Nora first showed up and saw the objects, she inquired as to what they were. The crew in the office just snickered. Olin Lankford, a teamster who just happened to be there, pulled one off the wall. "It's a cane, honey," he said, handing it to her. "Haven't you ever felt one?"

That drew a raucous laugh but, being quick-witted, she immediately discerned not just its use but its origin. She put her hand around the shaft, moved it back and forth suggestively and slowly as she eyed the men. "That is a fine piece of equipment," she said. "And look at it, it almost looks like candy, it makes you want to almost lick it."

That shut the men up, though they repeated the story to every new employee.

They stayed silent until they reached sight of Livingston's camp. Twenty tents with all the attendant features—a stack of hay to feed the horses, a small, shabbily built structure for the cook and foodstuffs where the men could eat, if in tight quarters, a couple Fresnos not in use while the others were at work. Nora carefully eyed the area, her gaze darting back and forth as if she were taking notes—which she was, she told Daniel when asked, registering each stake at the corner of the quarter sections. The markers had the Township, Range and Section numbers on them, and Nora had been keeping track of them though most were too far out of sight to read.

"I assume you're ready for payday?" he said.

She rubbed the satchel slung on her shoulder. "Right here."

Livingston, having seen them, rode to greet them. "Miz Jones," he said, tipping his hat. "Mr. Blossom."

The work had all but stopped. The men, too, recognized Nora's and Daniel's rides and had been expecting them. Most, if not all, were behind on payments for one thing or another and anxiously awaited their checks. They preferred cash but the twenty miles from a bank was a day's ride and the Canal Company didn't want responsibility for a possible robbery. Some of the payees would take the rest of the day off to make the ride to either American Falls or Blackfoot, others would do trading with others to do the task, some would sign their checks over to a man who hung around back at the camp—he would cash their checks on the spot for a fee of ten percent. It was possible that some of the workers who didn't have a team, the men who shoveled or did other jobs by hand, would be gone today, once paid, and never return, while some might decide to get drunk and be of no use for at least a day.

Nora signed the checks at the office and distributed them at the camps—Daniel had found that her presence mitigated problems, just a little feminine persuasion evidently enough to civilize the men. Occasionally a worker or teamster showed up at the office and she gave out the check there—as she did for the eighty teamsters working and housed at the Big Fill.

"You know I could disburse them checks," Livingston said. "Save you the trouble, Miz Jones, of gettin' dusty."

"I know how men keep books, Albert," Nora said. "I like to keep mine straight, have each man sign off so there is no dispute." She paused. "Besides, I like a little sunlight." She raised her arm to the sky. "And I don't mind the dirt, either."

"I guess I'm not accustomed to a woman appreciative of nature," he said. "You're welcome to a spot on the ditch, we can always use another shovel."

"I'll consider the offer."

"And I'm not used to clear thinking about bookkeeping." Livingston laughed. "Or actual checks. The job at the United was three-quarters I.O.U. Not even warrants. Prayer, however, that was all but required."

The work started back up in a disarrayed fashion, a few men traipsing away on the most rideable horse of their team, leaving the rest at the feeding grounds and their Fresnos parked.

"Pay day's difficult," Daniel noted, speaking to Livingston.

"Is," Livingston said. "I've acquired patience, however. This is year number ten, I believe, since the Skeens started up, and I reckon there's a good three more to go. Rome was not built in a day, as they say."

Nora laughed. "I would not have thought of Rome."

Livingston chuckled. A wish he was unaware of swept through him—a woman's laugh was a rare thing here, it had a cleansing effect. "I best get back to running the show."

He rode off, Nora and Daniel watching for a minute.

"Hey Nora," Daniel said in an inquisitive manner.

"Yes?"

"Are my ears still red?"

"In fact, no."

"I'd be interested in seeing a bit of Nebraska," he said.

She stopped her mustang, cocked an eyebrow.

"And I know a place just over the bluff you might be able to take the Vermont out of me, if you were so willing."

She was.

© 2025 Ralph Thurston