We found it in an old fence row while clearing the brush to make way for the new horse corrals; a sandstone with no markings. Just the top and a couple of inches of the sides showed above the Texas soil. At first glance, my friends and I thought it just a rock; some stone that had been moved from the pasture to the fence line to get it out of the way. But it was square and so deeply planted that it did not budge when we pried at it with our shovels.

We left it and went on with our work. At the end of the day, we walked past it on our way to the barn. I had decided it was some sort of boundary marker. My father is a land surveyor
and that made perfect sense to me, yet I could not help but think this was not so.

As I worked at building and clearing my new property, the stone became a constant topic of conversation and speculation. The pasture had small rocks, but no large ones like this bread-box size sandstone. Perhaps, I ventured, it was a grave marker. My friends laughed a the notion, but did not discount it. I got busy with work and the day to day workings of
building a small brood-mare operation and let the stone slip from my mind.

From time to time it would come up in conversation. One of my would friends ask if I had ever found out why the stone was there. The answer would be “no”; and we’d be back at what we’d laughingly call “square-stone one”; once again wondering why it was there.

None of the neighbors knew. It seems most of the acreage around us was owned by folks like us who had only been living here five years at the most. Rumor had it that this had once been part of a large ranch owned by an oil company.

Armed with this bit of knowledge, and between writing projects, I became an amateur sleuth. I asked around at
the small library in the near-by town. The librarian was a young, cheerful woman who had only recently come into the job. She knew little of the area, but was more than happy to help by allowing me to look through old books and papers pertaining to the area. She assured me that soon they would have it all scanned into the computer and any research would be streamlined. Somehow, this just didn’t seem right to me; but such is progress.

In the meantime, I was satisfied to sit and read and
ponder. I began to learn about the rural area to which I had been transplanted. I had thought of it only as a place
outside the city, where I could have room for horses and be far from the traffic and troubles of city life. But as I poured over papers, I was taken further back in time. It made it hard to work on some of the assigned articles I was supposed to be writing. I enjoyed researching for some of the pieces I wrote, but
others left me bored. Sometimes I wondered if I was doing what I was supposed to with my life; that perhaps I would be better off doing something else. I just wished I knew what it was.

My research was sporadic. Squeezed in between real work and chores, it nagged at me when I was busy with something else. I was repeatedly drawn back to it. Each time I went to the pasture to catch up a horse, I would pass the stone and my mind would be set wondering again.

I was sitting at the computer one fall afternoon looking out the window that faced the pasture and corrals, making a sincere effort at writing my column. I needed to check out some facts and flipped to the web to look for the desired information. While clicking through several links, the words genealogy and historical society caught my eye. “You idiot”, I thought out loud; here I’d been doing all this digging on my own, when I could have been getting help from the Historical Society. Three phone calls later, I found myself speaking with Dorothy, president of the county Historical Society. She was surprised because she didn’t get many calls. Seems all the folks involved were slowly dying out or moving away to be with their kids. She welcomed my
interest and told me she would be happy to help in my quest in any way she could.

I told her the story about finding the stone the year before and how it had become a minor obsession with me to find out if it was a boundary marker or what. Dorothy offered to come out and take a look the next day.

To say she was fascinated would be an understatement. No, she had no information on any boundary marker or graves in the area. But she had several resources and together we would pursue them if I wanted. I wanted to, but it would have to wait.

I had a manuscript for a documentary that I had a deadline for and as I worked, winter set in. The documentary was to be about working ranch Cowboys. I was doing all the research and interviews with Cowboys who had worked on ranches throughout Texas in the 1940’s and early ‘50’s. My library research had taken on a different spin. In the course of researching for
references to boundary stones and cemeteries, I had come across several articles about Cowboys and ranches. I made notes and luckily was able to track down several men and a couple of women who I thought would make good interviews.

Most of them were in their eighties, and I was able to speak with them over the phone and get interesting stories from all of them. Several had passed away, though I was able to get a good stories about them from family members and friends. The more I dug, the more Cowboys I found. The one common
thread I picked up was that each of them was proud of the hard jobs they had done and the sense of freedom that came along with their particular kind of work. One even referred to it as “the art of Cowboyin’”. And each of them had a story about another
Cowboy which they personally admired.

One article from 1980 was about a man, who by my
calculations, would now be in his nineties. The story said he was being honored upon his retirement from an oil company where he had run cattle on company land. It was a long shot at best,
but I called information and asked for him at the address in the article. When I called the number, the phone was answered by his granddaughter. I identified myself and gave a brief explanation why I wished to speak to him. She left the phone and when she returned, she said that he would talk to me, but that it would have to be in person, as he was hard of hearing and didn’t like to talk on the phone. I agreed to come out on Friday and took down directions.

He was sitting on the glassed-in front porch when I drove up and that he was a Cowboy was all evident. Khaki pants tucked into hand-stitched, tall-heeled boots, a white long sleeve shirt and a gray Stetson hat. He, and his obviously old dog, rose and crossed the porch to open the door and greet me as I came up the steps. “Merle, ma’am, and you must be Lynn.” I met his
outstretched hand with mine, looked into ageless, clear blue eyes and knew I had found a friend.

He welcomed me and pulled out a chair from the oak table near the window. Putting a log into the wood-burning stove in the corner of the porch, he smiled and asked if I wanted coffee. I declined. He poured himself a cup and came to sit at the table across from me. “I hope you don’t mind sitting out here on the
porch. I do my best thinking out here. The windows make it seem like I’m outdoors on cold days when I can’t be.” I assured him I was more than comfortable and asked him about the other story I had found in the paper; as well as, telling him about what I was writing. It was like opening a treasure chest.

In the course of the morning he told me about growing up in Texas. His father was a blacksmith who ran a few cows of his own and helped look after a neighbor’s herd. So, he had spent his youth among cattle. He’d had the chance to go to work for the oil company and had taken it . He worked for it for most of his adult life. The herd he looked after ran on oil company land where they had wells. That way they made money from the oil and gas under the ground and from the beef raised on the grass on top of it.

One story after another poured forth, and I was hooked. I was also glad I had brought my tape recorder instead of just taking notes. We moved inside just long enough to get the sandwiches his granddaughter had left in the fridge and to retrieve several old photo albums.

Throughout the afternoon, he talked as I listened and
absorbed all he had to say. Tales of a real working Cowboy who loved the land, hard work and horses. As early evening came on, his granddaughter showed up with his supper. I was asked to stay and was tempted to, but declined. However, when asked if I would come again, I eagerly agreed. He thanked me for coming and asked me when I could come back. I told him I wasn’t sure, but that I would call in a day or two.

As his granddaughter, walked with me to my truck she said, “He has been so excited these last few days. He so enjoys company, but we don’t get much this far out. I do hope you will come back. He’s talked to a couple of people and had a couple of stories in the paper about him, but he’s never talked to anyone like he has you.” Surprising myself, I assured her I would be back. Four days later , I found myself again sitting with him on the glassed-in front porch.

It became a once, sometimes twice, weekly journey. I found that I didn’t mind the two hour drive. It gave me time to clear my head and think about those things that sat heavy in my mind. It seemed the more time I spent listening to him, the better I wrote. My historical research was supplemented and confirmed by his tales of Cowboy days and stories about men and women he knew. When he talked about horses, I was entranced.

My own love of horses goes all the way back to my childhood when I went to spend summers with my grandparents. There were always horses to ride and I spent as much time on horse back as I could. As I grew older, I knew I would have horses of my own one day. I suppose that’s why I chose the type of work I do; so I would have time for my horses and why I chose to move to the country where I could have lots of room to ride. Merle seemed to understand all that, and we began to share personal stories about our families and the things we loved most.

We were talking one day about his property and how no matter where else he had lived while he worked, he had always known he would come back. “The place I’m supposed to be”, he called it. When I started to tell him about my place and exactly where it was located, he got an intent look on his face. I told him about living in the country and how the nearest town was half an hour away by car. I also told him how an oil company had owned my property once too. He listened and for a change, I talked. When I started to talk about finding the stone, he got
a curious gleam in his eyes and looked away out the window. I took it as a signal that he was growing tired.

Gathering my things, I got ready to go. As I started to take my leave, he put his hand on my arm and asked if one day he might be able to visit me. I had never thought the long ride there would have been something he would have wanted to do. I had thought of asking him many times, but he seemed such a part of this place that it never dawned on me that he ever left it. I told him I would love for him to come and would like even more for him to give me his opinion of my horses. Before I left, a day was agreed upon for later in the week.

The next few days I totally neglected writing. My time was spent preparing for his visit. I dug out photos I had not unpacked since moving and planned his favorite, a fried chicken lunch with lemon pie and of course, coffee.

On the appointed day, he arrived in the company of his granddaughter. She helped him bring a box into the house and then excused herself to go shopping in the near-by town. I got him a cup of coffee and we sat for a bit and talked about my house. He liked the big picture window that looks out over the horse pens and pasture, and he liked the looks of my horses.

He opened the box he had brought and from it took
several old tin-type and sepia photos I had not seen before. Setting them on the table between us, he began to talk...

“ This is of my Mother and Father shortly after they were married. Mom was from a fairly well-to-do family. Her Father was a banker. Dad was a blacksmith in a small town outside St. Louis. She came out to spend time with some distant cousins of hers. They were building a new barn and had hired Dad to make the hinges and other hardware. He also did a little carpentry work and ended up working for several weeks on the barn.

Mom was crazy about horses. They say she rode side-saddle better than most men rode astride. She would get up early, go to the barn and spend time with the horses while the sun was coming up. Dad would arrive and find her petting or brushing a horse or simply sitting near them watching the sunrise. He used to say she had the most glorious red hair he ever saw, that it looked like sunlight itself. She would talk to him and was always kind to him and he got to where he looked forward to seeing her each day. Her cousins weren’t all that keen on riding and she couldn’t always get them to go with her. One day Dad offered to go instead. That’s when they fell in love. They both loved horses and they found that they had a lot of other things in common. It wasn’t long before he asked her to marry him.

When he went to ask her Father’s approval he said “No”. Seems he wasn’t too happy about his daughter marrying a man who did manual labor. He refused to allow her to see Dad. But her favorite cousin loved her so and couldn’t bear for her to be unhappy, so he played go-between and carried notes and messages back and forth for them.

Dad worked hard and saved every dime he could get his hands on. He figured if he could save up and buy a small store that it would make a difference to her Father. For a year and a half he saved and wrote to Mom. When he went back to her Father with his proposal for a store and marriage, the answer was still “No”.

But, you see, fate is an odd thing. We may be allowed to make choices in our lives, but our true destiny is God-given. Sometimes we cross paths with folks we know in our hearts we are supposed to be with. If we let others interfere and force us to go separate ways, we end up with deep-rooted regrets. We go wandering from one thing to another with a big hole in our heart that never gets filled. No matter what else we do, we are never satisfied...never truly happy. We find ourselves always
wondering whatever happened to the other, and pining for what could have, and should have, been. We spend our whole lives living on the edge of living, instead of walking the trail we were destined to go down.

Dad had no intention of living life without Mom. He knew she was his one true love and Mom felt the same. They had the money Dad had saved, so with the help of her cousin, they made
their plans. Her cousin asked her to come visit and assured her Father that the blacksmith would not be allowed at the farm. And that was the truth; Dad never set foot on the property again. He
met Mom and her cousin in the next county where they were married by a circuit preacher. They bid a fond farewell to her cousin after promises from him to stall her Father’s knowing where she was for as long as possible. Together they set off for southern Arkansas, where Dad found work with a blacksmith who also built wagons. Mom helped the man’s wife with her
six boisterous kids and did a little sewing. They were happy and kept saving towards their dream of having a place of their own.

Things were hard sometimes, but they kept working at it. Mom had let her family know where she was. But her Father was a hard man and he refused to correspond with her, sending her letters back unopened. Through her cousin Mom was able to send letters to her Mother that she was happy and well-cared for. She sent the message about my older sister’s birth to her family through her cousin. Her Mother sent a tiny christening gown and ten silver dollars. Mom named the little girl after her
Mother.

Things grow...money in the bank and kids...and dreams. Dad heard there was lots of land to be had cheap in Texas. The man he worked for gave them an old wagon that he and Dad fixed up. Together he and Mom partnered up with a small group that was headed out. The trip was going well. They had stopped near a creek where one man had purchased a great deal of land. They camped there while they searched for a place of their own. It was at this place that tragedy struck.

Several of the folks at this small settlement came down with high fever and bad rashes. It didn’t take long to figure out it was smallpox. Out of the seventeen folks there, eleven came down with it. Now, smallpox is controlled today, but back then it was a terrible thing. One of the ways they controlled it was to burn the place where it had been. There was a great fear of what would
happen to the settlement and to the folks who all had it. Smallpox could make you an outcast pretty quick, just from having been around it, even if you never got it. It was decided that they would not let the news out for the sake of the
settlement and the future lives of the people.

Mom and little Evie were both taken bad with it. Dad took care of them as best he could. There was no doctor to be had. Nine of those eleven people died. One of them was little Evie. Mom was so ill when she died, and they buried everyone quick so as to stop the spread of the disease. It had also been decided not to mark the graves. It was drastic, but in a time when so much was a stake, these were the only things they could think of
to do. Mom never really got a chance to say good-bye like you need to when you love someone so much. She recovered, but was sort of frail after that. Dad cared for her and loved her, and she got stronger as time passed. And she kept insisting that her precious girl have some sort of marker.

The settlement died out, and the survivors moved away. That’s the way it is...sometimes it’s best to just leave the hurt behind and start new. The land was sold and passed through a lot of hands. Dad and Mom moved to where I live
now. I was born there two years later. After me there were my two younger brothers. Mom was good to us boys. She spoiled us awful, but gave us good manners and a desire to learn. Dad blacksmithed and raised cattle and took care of a neighbor’s small herd too. There was always room for one more at the table. Folks thought a lot of Dad and Mom. We had a good life. But sometimes, when she thought she was alone, Mom would sit by a trunk in the little storage room at the back of the house where she would hold this and cry.”

From the box he produced a tiny christening gown and laid it on the table between us. It was yellow with age, but delicately sewn with small pleats, and a design of flowers done in tiny embroidery stitches. I reached out, gently took it in my hands and felt my heart in my throat. Proof of her child’s existance, it was her one connection to her little girl and he was sharing it with me. I didn’t understand why and I didn’t care...I knew this special moment was sacred, so I just listened.

“When I was fifteen years old, my Dad passed away. I was left with my Mother and two younger brothers to care for. The boys and I worked our cattle and the neighbor’s, and my youngest brother became quite a hand with horses. When Cowboy work got scarce, I wrangled a job with an oil company taking care of their cattle and keeping up the fencing on their property.

That piece of property included the site of the old
settlement and because I worked for the company that owned it, I was able to go there. I took Mom to see Evie’s grave several times before she passed away. It wasn’t hard to find. Dad loved Mom so much that he would have built a tower above that grave if she had wanted it. What he had done was plant salt-cedar
and wild roses around a plain sandstone pillar he hewed out and buried deep and flush with the ground. They grew up like wild things will and kept watch over the precious spirit they had left there. The last time I was there, was just before I retired in 1980. The land was being sold to a developer. There wasn’t
anything I could do to stop it and I figured anything they found when they were building would remain a mystery; just the way the folks from the settlement wanted it so long ago.

I know our paths crossed for a reason. I appreciate all the time you have spent with me and all the things you have written down. We are true friends, you and I. I’m deeply indebted to you and want to venture to tell you this one last thing. Never stop doing what your heart tells you is the right thing to do. It’s
all a part of that destiny we talked about. It’s all your trail to walk, and that little voice inside...well, it’s just telling you the way, even if it doesn’t make sense at the time. Sooner or later it will all start to fall into place and in a heartbeat, you will
know what your true God-given purpose is. It’s just that easy. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a little walk out to your horse pasture and visit with my sister.”

As he walked from the room, I was overcome with emotion. I had been given the greatest of gifts...words. He had placed into my heart and soul, his heart and soul. I held the small gown to me and felt a rush of gratitude. This symbol of great love between a mother and child, this precious garment, was now my connection to him. A man, who so completely understood what love really meant, that he had preserved those things that
meant the most to those he had loved. All of his stories came into a different light. He hadn’t told me about himself; he had been telling me about them. Giving me the words to write down that would make them live forever.

I finally understood my purpose. And I had him to thank for it. I had spent my whole adult life letting others tell me what to write about, instead of writing about what I loved. I knew the trail I would walk and at that moment, the hole in my heart was filled.

I joined him outside and we talked and laughed and enjoyed our friendship. We would enjoy it for one year more. I spoke at his funeral. I told those assembled what he said about fate, destiny, and love. His granddaughter “Evie”, came to stand by me afterwards and told me there was a box waiting for me at the house. I drove on out and carried away Merle’s final gift to me.

Today I got a call from Dorothy, the lady from the Historical Society. If I was still interested, she had a man with a metal detector and other equipment, who thought he could tell me if that stone I had in my pasture was some sort of boundary marker or perhaps an unmarked grave. I told her we found out it was just an old hearth stone and thanked her for her help. Picking up my work gloves, I came outside. My heart tells me it’s a beautiful day to be out here in the fresh air. There is much to do, and I have some wild roses I need to get transplanted. I’m putting them next to the salt-cedar that was left for me in a box on the glassed-in front porch.

~ DCH ~
Copyright© 2001 Debra Coppinger Hill
All Rights Reserved