This one's a fictional short story, folks. Based on Bess Kale Van De Riet.
Coyotes and Gentlewomen
By Jaclyn H. Day
The first time they met, that November, Mrs. Hudson caught Bess crying into the coyote meat. Her face was sunburned, nose running, and apron and hands too bloody to wipe anything. Harry had told Bess that she was a born crier, and sure enough, there she was, dead on her feet and dribbling away.
“Oh,” Mrs. Hudson said. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
Bess smiled and shook her head in a way she hoped said, “Nonsense.” She set down the wretched knife on the outdoor table and looked around the surrounding woods as if she would find a place to wash, exchange aprons, and pull up a chair for her illustrious guest. Her stomach informed her that her day was not about to improve.
“Please excuse the disarray,” Bess said. She gestured to the carcass, the buckets full of meat and offal, and herself. “Please. Step into my new parlor, Ray’s asleep in the house. There are some stumps here in the sun that the boys have been playing on. I was ready for a rest anyway, so I am so glad you stopped by this afternoon. So very glad.”
The guest chose a stump. She settled her dark plaid skirts around her, folded her neat brown hands in her lap, and gazed around politely. Bess turned to blot at her face with the underside of her apron and wrapped her gore-covered hands into a wad of the same. She hoped her hair wasn’t disastrous.
Mrs. Hudson, on the other hand, was magnificent. She was very tall, not a hair out of place, and her braid thick as a wrist and glossy. Harry had said that her uncle was an old Blackfoot chief, blind now. She looked completely at home, and rightly so. This was the Hudson’s ranch. The Van De Riet’s were just renting a bunkhouse. Bess took a seat on a short, thick stump across from her. At least her work boots weren’t swinging above the ground like a child’s.
“How are you settling in?” The voice was low and patient, as though she was soothing one of her favorite heifers. Not, Bess felt, that far from the mark. Then Mrs. Hudson peered more closely, and Bess met her eyes full on. She steeled herself for a highly uncomfortable conversation regarding the morning’s incident. It involved their sons—two Hudson’s, three Van De Riet’s--a switchblade, a braid, and a hitching post.
But that didn’t come up. Yet.
“You look familiar to me.”
Bess had seen that look and heard a similar question all her life, or at least half of her life. The insidious, “Now which one are you?” People would peer at her, cataloging the clues they saw in her expression, the wave in her hair, the coy tilt of her chin. Her breath caught. She still wanted to be recognized as herself. There was no laughing mirror-image anymore, the stepping on her toe—don’t tell them who’s who! If Jessie were here to take over, she could crawl into the closet and pile quilts over her head. And the boys would never know.
Bess studied the other woman. They seemed to be around the same age.
“Dillon! 1915.” Mrs. Hudson’s wide smile showed a disarming gap.
It was only one night, eons ago. Yes. Bess laughed out loud and beamed. “Oho! I remember! So, you came back here, as soon as you were able?”
“Allowed. Yes.”
Bess swallowed. “You’ve done so well for yourself…this ranch, those handsome boys…” She gestured toward what Harry affectionately called the Big House. Drat. She shouldn’t have mentioned the boys, but now things would be easier.
“Did you teach after all?”
“Yes,” Bess said, “while Harry was overseas. Then we married, and the children came along…” Could she put the rest into words?
“Three boys?”
“Well, yes.” Now. “And another boy and a baby girl, both in Heaven.”
Mrs. Hudson did not drop her gaze. Bess had to open her mouth one more time.
“And also…” she glanced down towards the apron tied around her overcoat. She cleared her throat, softly, willing her to understand. A dimple flashed.
Mrs. Hudson clucked, exhaled. “I think you’d better call me Lavonne.”
“Bess,” she answered in turn, with a gasp. “And I’m so sorry about Harry Jr. this morning! I took away his knife and told him he will take his licking just as soon as his Dad gets home. I don’t know what got into him! Pinning Frank’s hair to the post…and he didn’t even cry! Frank, I mean.”
Lavonne nodded, unsurprised. “He said you’d let them go. He cried once he came home. Don’t say I told you. Our big boys, they are trying to lay down the law while the men are gone. They just don’t like that the littler ones don’t pay them any mind. Anyway, Joe was just as much to blame as Harry Jr., the way I heard it.” She clapped her palms hard onto her skirts and rolled her eyes. “It was his lariat that tied the three of them to the post. Even your little one! I came to apologize.”
Bess should have walked Frank back to the Big House after rescuing the young captives, (Ray squalling for his mama like a black bear) but he scampered off, and lunch was on the stove. Harry Jr. took Jack to skip rocks in the creek afterward, by way of apology. Ray needed a blessed nap. Once he was under, she flew outside and began hacking through four coyote carcasses, rather desperately. The hides meant money--and the rest meant meat for the traps and the hounds, who ate like buffaloes.
Hudson’s hired men had retrieved the coyotes and brought them around the evening before. The men rode away, and there they were, raggedy scamps just hanging from the roughhewn cross pole Harry had lashed up. At last, and four at once! But he and John Hudson had left for Alberta. Hudson needed another driver at the last minute, and Harry needed the cash. They’d be home in a few days—if the weather held.
Silly, but Bess had imagined the whole scene. She would suggest to Harry, while he stomped off his boots, that they needed more wood from the woodshed. She’d be rocking Ray by the stove, her eyes half closed, hiding her mouth in the baby’s hair. He would grump his way to the shed, muttering against Harry Jr. and the duties of the hearth. Maybe he’d even stack a few roughly barked lengths of the sweet, crunching pine into his arms before he looked up. There, nailed to the lean-to wall, would be four new pelts. Ears already wrinkling, eyes now slits, their abundant winter-coat tails would sway and roll along the boards with the icy gusts. And she, his porcelain, fresh-aproned wife had skinned them! She could manage things!
Mostly she wanted to surprise him. Before the other surprise she had waiting for him. It was like a sign, you see, a chinook in this new place after the years of winter they’d had. She’d tell him about the baby after the boys were asleep. Otherwise they’d think she was crying about those babies in heaven with Jessie. Or about living in the woods for this half-cracked scheme of their father’s, who, after the war and the loss of two children, was gasping not to be half-cracked himself… No.
She knew she would cry then because maybe it was going to be alright.
“No apology needed. Oh dear, no. Boys!” and that was enough common ground for both.
Lavonne brushed off her lap as she readied to go, but then she said, “I hope it wasn’t the boys who made you cry.”
She’d noticed, then. “No, no…. it’s this.” They surveyed the coyote stretched across the table, paws to the sky. “I’ve butchered one once before, but not while in this maternal condition! I’ll feel better in a few weeks, but for now the smell just—” she had to swallow the rest of her sentence and shake her head to clear the rising bile.
Lavonne laughed sympathetically. “I know the feeling! And you’re probably exhausted besides. And with the boys and the dogs, and John stole your husband away…does he know yet?”
Bess tucked in her lips and shook her head.
Lavonne continued, “When I’ve been unwell my sister has been able to come and stay. She’s not married, you see. She tends to the chores and is a better cook anyway—it’s such a mercy! Do you remember her from that night in Dillon? We were both there. We’re twins.”
Bess shot to her feet. The Fort Shaw twins! That’s why she had trouble placing Lavonne by herself. The night the two schools had met, she’d noticed the sisters right away, even without the matching bows and uniforms. She had cried of course, fresh in her grief. What would college be like without her other half storming the castle?
“I do remember! The two of you were darling. ‘Deadly Duo,’ the papers said. But what I don’t think you know is that I am also a twin! Jessie passed years ago—she was sick. I was just wishing she were here to get me out of this pickle!” The tears welled up again.
Lavonne, eyes wide at the coincidence, also stood. She put her hand on Bess’s shoulder. Then, with a short laugh, “Listen. Maybe your sister on the other side gave Joe and Harry Jr their big ideas so the two of us would meet.”
Bess sniffed. “The tricks were usually her idea.”
Lavonne agreed. “Susan likes to say, ‘Tricks are just using your advantages.’”
Bess stationed herself grimly behind the critter. “Mm. I’ve played a trick today—on myself! I so wanted to finish these carcasses before the men come back. Maybe if I wear a kerchief over my nose?”
Lavonne hesitated, “I could—”
“You’re kind, but no. Harry would…have my hide if I let you lift a finger. He’d be embarrassed. If I get any worse, I will just hang this one back up until he gets home.”
The women watched the few remaining birds flit through the trees. Lavonne turned her face toward the Big House and readied to leave. “Sounds like the boys are playing again.”
Bess had been hearing a regular crash-bang sound but couldn’t quite place it.
“They seem to like the new hoop. John hung it on the barn last week. She took a step then whirled back. “I have an idea!” She listened again. “Are you feeling well, besides the smell getting to you?”
Bess’s brow furrowed. “Well, I tire easily, but yes, I can do things. I rode the horses for the last time with Jack a little yesterday. It was fine other than getting too much sun.”
Lavonne was nodding. “Leave that,” she shooed at the buckets of flesh, “and come with me.” She swung her braid over her shoulder and tugged at Bess’s sleeve.
Bess stood and followed, partly from curiosity, partly from delight. A twin to boot!
After checking on Ray at his nap, the women strode toward the enormous barn. Around back, they stood at the perimeter of a clearing. Joe Hudson, Harry Jr., and some of the older neighbor boys were passing around a basketball. The smaller boys watched, piled with the dogs on the sidelines.
“How is the new hoop?” Lavonne called out pleasantly. A few of the boys glanced their way, expressionless, not wanting to halt their play. Joe noticed his mother and Bess together.
“Just fine!” When Bess and Lavonne continued to watch, he nudged Harry Jr. and approached for the impending judgment.
“Boys. Mrs. Van De Riet and I have been getting acquainted this afternoon.”
Harry Jr. kicked at the dirt with his toe, his ears turning red. A long silence stretched out. Finally, Joe asked, “Are we in for it, then?”
Lavonne smiled. “Well,” she put one hand on each boy’s head. “Let’s have some fun with this. Shall we?” The boys looked at each other, alarmed. Lavonne beckoned for one of the boys to bring her the basketball. What was she doing? Bess took a step back. She wouldn’t! But hadn’t she said something about tricks and--advantages?
“Boys, how would you like to make a bet. A real bet. Not with money—that would be gambling, and we don’t hold with that. If you win, you’re off the hook.”
Harry Jr. tilted his freckled face. He wasn’t sure how to read this. “But what if we lose?”
Lavonne rubbed her mouth and chin and made considering sorts of noises. Bess hid a smile but started flexing and drumming her tingling fingers inside her skirts. “You’ll have to do a Man’s Job for your mama. Her choice. The both of you. Agreed?”
The boys considered, nodded. They’d hauled wood lots of times before.
“I hear this is the ‘wild west?’” Lavonne passed the ball hard and fast to her son. She flashed the gap in her teeth. “Ever been in a shootout?”
Bess closed her eyes and prayed.
It was late, and the snow was dropping hard. John Hudson had predicted a three-dog night, for cold. Right again. Harry grumbled to himself, stomping to the woodshed. He hadn’t even washed his face or kissed his wife yet. Bess looked so sweet and homey there in the rocker with Ray. Why was he running errands that his sons should have done while he was gone? He had hoped this winter would make a man out of Harry Jr., but obviously, it was going to take a little more of a father’s guiding hand. Too much of a boys’ paradise, this place.
He didn’t want to trip over a tree root in the dark, so it startled him when he looked up and saw four coyote pelts nailed on the plank wall. He put his hands on his hips, staring, then reached out to feel the rich tails.
Bess was creeping up the path behind him, arms wrapped around herself for warmth. She laughed softly. The snowflakes melted and sparked on her forehead.
“Did you do this?” he pulled her toward him, under the shelter of the lean to.
She hesitated and then answered, “No. Joe Hudson and Harry Jr. did the skinning. Joe only had to show Harry once—he caught on pretty quick. It was a good use of that hunting knife you gave him.”
He wondered if the hunting knife had given any grief. Bess nestled into his coat. “I finally met John’s wife. She’s wonderful. Did you know she is a twin? Well, I shouldn’t say I met her—we met years ago, actually. She and her sister played on that basketball team from the Fort Shaw Indian school. You know, the one that made the headlines all the time? They certainly put on a show in Dillon. We lost. Handily. But, I think it was my highest scoring game. She seems to remember me better than I was.”
“That right? Well, I bet she remembers just fine. You were a hot shot. It was the bloomers and the banners you wore. They definitely improved your accuracy.”
She shoved him a little, and they turned back to the shed wall.
“Four coyotes, whaddaya know? First day I was gone?”
She nodded.
“Rascals, aren’t they?”
She snorted in agreement and pointed to each hide. “Let’s name this one Harry for sure, this one Jack, this one Ray…,” she swallowed, “this one, if it’s a girl, we could call her LaVonne.”
HISTORICAL NOTE
The germ for this story came from a colorful phone interview with Aunt Bonnie. She asked if I knew where my Grandma LaVonne got her name. I primly told her it was after her grandmother, Lavina.
Bonnie cackled.
No, she said, she was named after a Mormon Indian woman named LaVonne Hudson. Harry and Bess had met her when they were up coyote trapping in Babb, Montana, and Harry was bootlegging on the side. Betcha didn’t know that!
I didn’t. I had only vaguely heard of my great-grandparents’ magical time—a gap year really-- on the Galbreath Ranch. And I certainly hadn’t heard of any woman, let alone a namesake who was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the same church Grandma would join as a young mother and raise her family in.
Bess would have been pregnant with my Grandma LaVonne during the coyote adventure, right in the prime of her first trimester. Oofda. I don’t know much about trapping coyotes, but I have carried six children. (Bess carried nine.) The story was born.
Fact-checking further revealed that, like most family lore, Bonnie’s version was a gumming together of the interesting bits. So, I thought it only appropriate that the Lavonne of my story be a compilation of several real figures. The real Lola Lavon Hudson WAS also a twin. She was sister-in-law to a well-to-do Blackfoot man, Jack Galbreath. The Galbreath’s were Latter-Day Saints. Any bootlegging done under their noses would have been particularly ironic.
The Fort Shaw Indian school had a world-famous women’s basketball team—literally. They were on exposition at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, a decade before Bess would have played against them. The girls were not usually enrolled in the school by choice. Basketball was a less-restrictive activity (considered as ladylike as tennis) that they welcomed. I wanted their prints on my story as well.
Grandma, who also played basketball and was an avid fan, loved to visit the ruins of the old Fort Shaw school—St. Peter’s, and talk about “Big Minnie”.
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| LaVonne is holding the ball |
Harry and Bess’s situation was as described. Mostly. They had lost two children. They were a little strapped for cash. Harry was a veteran and didn’t like to talk about his WWI experience. Bess did attend Normal School at Dillon (teacher college) and played Women’s Basketball, bloomers, headbands, and all, in 1915. Her twin, Jessie, had died in 1913 of a bone infection linked to tuberculosis.
(The banners the girls are wearing reflect their year of graduation, not the current year.) Bess is bottom right.
Marie Van De Riet Schnee Kenyon
The biggest omission for the sake of this story was the presence of the Schnee family—Harry’s in-laws. Bailey was a friend of Harry’s before marrying his sister, Marie. He was most likely the mastermind of the whole adventure (and misadventures). The couples shared a duplex on the massive Galbreath ranch on the Blackfeet reservation. Hopefully, Marie was able to help Bess during the pregnancy.
Harry Jr. did tie one of his new friends to a hitching post. By the braids.
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| Ray, Harry Jr., Jack Van De Riet |
Read more about the Van De Riets and their time in Babb in an earlier post.