The Far Side Of The River by Shona Partridge

Betsy dreamed of life beyond the boundaries of her father’s ranch . . .

WHAT’S on the other side of the river, Grandma?” Betsy carefully put down her rag doll and climbed on to the gate to the meadow. She wanted to see as far as possible.

Her grandmother turned from pegging out the washing and looked out beyond the broad river.

“Oh, that’s a wild place, Betsy dear. We don’t want to be having anything to do with it. It’s the frontier, child, not civilised at all.”

She pegged out the next sheet with unnecessary vigour.

“No church, no school, just wild and outlandish. You wouldn’t like it one little bit.”

Far from putting a damper on the child’s curiosity, Grandma Ethel’s words sparked Betsy’s imagination even more.

“Why, I think that sounds right exciting, Grandma. One day I’ll go there, you see if I don’t!”

Betsy climbed down from the gate to retrieve her doll.

“When I’m done with school I’ll go exploring like Lewis and Clark. Pa has promised me my own horse for my next birthday.”

“You’ll be staying right here on our homestead, little missie. Adventures are not all the fun you think they are. The horse is for you to get to school on your own and not for gallivanting about.”

It was true they had a comfortable home, built by Pa and Grandpa with their own hands not long before Betsy was born.

She’d never lived anywhere else, but she knew her parents and grandparents had come from back east. The Maxwell family had come looking for land like so many others.

They’d built the ranch house bigger than was usual as there would be three generations living in it. The L-shaped wooden cabin had three big rooms and an attic which Betsy had part of for her sleeping area.

Yes, living on the ranch was wonderful and Betsy did love it, but there was always a part of her that wanted to travel and explore.

She knew for sure she wouldn’t simply grow out of it, no matter how much her elders told her she would.

Ten years passed and Betsy still felt that call to adventure. Most days she came down to this end of the meadow.

Even now, at eighteen years old, she would stand on the wooden gate and look out across the river.

She’d got her own horse when she was eight, just like Pa had promised. She had loved the added independence this had given her.

And yet, for all the miles she’d roamed between the ranch and school and beyond to the township, she still yearned to go beyond the river.

The river seemed to act like a boundary on her life, as a stop on her dreams. Betsy had to know for herself what was out there in the great beyond. She was determined that, one day, she would set out across the river to explore distant lands.

As a child she had thought that, if she wished hard enough, anything was possible. Now she really wasn’t so sure. But something needed to change around here, she decided.

One day a stranger breezed on to their property. Bo Baxter was looking for work

as a ranch hand. He had chestnut-brown hair and frank grey eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

His rather weatherbeaten face spoke of a life lived in the outdoors, but it was still a young face. Betsy reckoned he couldn’t be more than twenty-five.

“I’m good with cattle and fierce good at the roundups,” he’d said to her father. “I can fix a fence in no time and I can handle a plough and horses. I’m willing to turn my hand to anything, Mr Maxwell. I will stay a year, if you like.”

“So what brings you this far west?” Pa asked him.

“I’m wanting to save money so I can go across the river to the new lands that are opening up. I’m wanting my own place and that’s a fact.”

Bo Baxter turned his hat round and round in his hands, looking nervous.

“I won’t let you down, Mr Maxwell, I promise you.”

So Bo had joined their homestead, living in the bunkhouse with the other farm hands and more than pulling his weight. He worked so hard that Pa declared it was as if Bo was working his own land.

“He’s the very best of all the help we have and that’s for sure.”

Pa and Ma began to invite Bo up now and then for Sunday dinner. Betsy began to look forward to those particular Sundays.

More and more often she would find herself falling in with Bo when she went out riding and he’d be out checking the fences. He was always formal and polite and called her “Miss Betsy”.

Over time they became good friends. Betsy wanted to know all about his plans to forge out his own place.

“How I envy you, Bo, going on your great adventure out there beyond the river.”

The sun was beginning to set, turning the sky and water into a mixture of purple and pink hues. It looked magical to Betsy and she sighed.

“I’m only a girl so I have to stay here. If it wasn’t for my family I would be off on my own adventures. There must be so much to see out there.”

She climbed down from the gate, worried he would think she was being childish.

“I know some women have joined the wagon trains: widows, aunties and suchlike. But Ma and Pa say no respectable woman ever travels without a husband and protector.” She shrugged.

“So here I must stay.” “Oh, Miss Betsy, you’re young yet. How do you know what might happen in your future?”

Bo touched the brim of his hat in a salute.

“I’ll be saying goodnight. Don’t stay out too late. It’ll be dark soon.”

And he left her there pondering his words.

“What’s your real name, Bo?” Betsy asked him one day when she met him out riding.

“It’s Bo, like you’re saying it.”

“No, I mean what’s it short for? It must be short for something.”

“Well, I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you that. You might laugh at me.”

“No, I won’t. I promise I won’t, Bo.”

“All right, then. My given name is Napoleon Bonaparte Baxter.”

“Napoleon Bonaparte? Now you’re just joshing, surely!”

“It’s no word of a lie. It’s my name and my brother is called Horatio Nelson Baxter. My pa was real interested in the Napoleonic wars.”

Betsy realised he was telling her the truth.

He went on, smiling at the memory.

“Bonaparte and Nelson, the Baxter brothers. It sure made us memorable. Now, don’t you be laughing at me, Miss Betsy, and don’t on any account go telling any of the other boys. I would never hear the end of it.”

“Of course not, I never would. And if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep calling you Bo. You’re not the least like a Bonaparte to me.”

Somehow, knowing Bo’s real name made Betsy feel closer to him. She didn’t question too much why that might be important. Bo was her best friend of all the ranch hands, so of course she wanted to know more about him. That was all.

One night when the moon was full Betsy woke feeling startled. She could hear the horses whinnying all the way from the stables. It sounded like something had got them really riled.

Without stopping to think, Betsy dressed quickly and rushed outside. She found Bo had beaten her to it.

“Miss Betsy, we need to settle the horses. I swear I saw a coyote slink round the side of the stables. It’s gone now, but it’s made them really antsy.”

Together they got the horses calmed and settled for the night.

Outside again, Betsy was transfixed by the enormous full moon suspended over the river. Somehow, they found themselves walking to her favourite spot by the meadow gate.

“What’s that really bright group of stars called, Bo, do you know?”

He followed where she pointed.

“That’s the constellation of Orion, and look, these here are the Pleiades.”

He pointed out more stars.

“I was a sailor for three years and thought I would become a master mariner one day. So I took to studying navigation. I can travel by way of the stars if I want to, and that’s a fact.”

“So, what happened, Bo? What changed your mind?”

In the still of the night, seeming to contain only themselves, she heard a coyote howling far away and she shivered. It was such a lonesome sound.

“Here, have my jacket, Miss Betsy, you’re cold.”

He placed it gently round her shoulders.

“It turns out I was a landlubber at heart, after all. Sure, I voyaged to amazing places, even to the Arctic wastes. But I got a hankering and then a yearning and then a homesickness for dry land that haunted me night and day.

“Well, I left the sea and I left Boston. I crossed the country and now here I am on your ranch. And one day soon I’ll have my own place away beyond the river. My own patch of God’s green earth.”

Betsy was startled by the cockerel crowing the coming dawn. It struck her it wasn’t quite proper to be talking to Bo alone in the fading moonlight.

“Time I went in,” she told him.

Not long after that night their friendship changed for ever. Looking back, Betsy felt it was almost as if the fates had decreed it.

The time was getting closer to Bo’s year end. She knew he was minded to leave soon and she would miss him dreadfully. Like her father, Betsy told herself, she had come to rely on Bo.

She was out riding, as she had been hundreds of times before. Her horse, Star, knew the route they would take and Betsy paid little heed to the path.

It all happened so fast. Suddenly Star was spooked by a snake. He reared up,

Bo quickly proved himself to be the best farmhand they had Betsy knew Bo would be leaving soon. She would miss him

snorting, almost throwing Betsy from the saddle. She managed to stay on, her heart racing from the shock.

I mustn’t let him throw me, she thought. I’ll hang on till he gets himself over this terror.

It was easier said than done. Star shot off at a crazy gallop, the trees and the fences racing by in a blur as Betsy clung to the reins and Star’s flying mane.

She could hear Bo shouting close behind her, over the sound of Star’s thundering hooves.

“I’ll open the gate, Betsy! Make for the gate. Don’t let him jump. You mustn’t let him jump!”

Betsy realised with horror that Star was getting closer and closer to the edge of their property where the highest fence on the ranch could be found. Bo sped by, only slowing his horse so he could unloose the main gate.

With seconds to spare she and Star rushed through the gap. But the horse was slowing at last, and in a few moments Bo was able to approach and take Star’s bridle.

He helped Betsy down from the saddle.

“I’m all right,” she reassured him. “He saw a snake and he bolted. We’re fine now. Thank you, oh, thank you for getting us through the gate.”

Suddenly she was in Bo’s arms and he was kissing her.

“Betsy, Betsy,” he murmured against her hair. “If anything had happened to you, I don’t know how I could live. I love you, Betsy Maxwell, and that’s a fact.”

He held her at arm’s length, looking down at her with steady grey eyes.

“If I’ve overstepped the mark, I’ll understand if you want me to leave. I got such a fright that I just don’t know what I was thinking.” He took off his hat and smoothed his hair.

“You tell me what you want me to do, Betsy, and I will surely do it. I’d do anything for you.”

“Oh, Bo, of course I don’t want you to go.” Betsy’s next words surprised even herself. “You’ve said you’d do anything for me, Bo. Does that include marrying me, one day?”

Maybe this was one way to keep him in her life, because she didn’t know how to live without him, either.

“Betsy, I’d marry you tomorrow if I could. But your pa would never allow it. I’m just a hired hand round here.”

“You know Pa relies on you a great deal and thinks right highly of you. Why, you’re as near to being the ranch foreman as makes no difference.”

“Well, Betsy, if we ever did marry you would get your wish to go beyond the river.”

Betsy barely slept that night.

Oh, you fool, she told herself. What sort of girl goes and asks a man to marry her? Have you no pride at all? What on earth will he be thinking?

She lay awake until she could hear her ma and grandma in the kitchen below, starting on making breakfast. It was only then she slept for a few minutes.

Betsy was dreading seeing Bo. It was simply too embarrassing. She did her best to avoid him all that day until she was forced to ride out with a message from her father about moving some cattle to the water meadow.

“Well, I’m right glad to see you, Miss Betsy,” Bo greeted her.

After listening to the message, he helped her down from her horse.

His next words proved he had taken her seriously the day before.

“If you really want for us to marry, Betsy, then we need to be strong. I know your father is a good man and he trusts me. But as a husband for his only child, well, I’m not sure I would be his first choice for you.”

He took her hand, but only briefly. The other ranch hands would be able to see them, although they were not close enough to hear their conversation.

“I have a decent amount put by. I can provide for you until our ranch is up and running, making a profit.”

She nodded firmly. “We’ll have to tell my parents, Bo, but not yet. My father won’t like it and he’ll probably tell you no. I promise I’ll get round him eventually, don’t worry. But let’s make our plans stronger first so we can never be shifted.”

Betsy stood on the gate at the end of the meadow.

So, the dream of her girlhood was coming true after all. She would go to the other side of the river and with a new husband.

It just went to show, she thought, what could happen when you’d really made up your mind to do something. Grit and determination could conquer almost anything.

Now she was going indoors to dress for her wedding, and next week she and Bo would set off for their new life together.

In the end, Bo had stayed two years, not just one as he had originally intended. There was so much planning and organising to do before their wagon train headed out. And now there was a wedding to plan for, too.

Bo and Betsy had waited nearly three months to tell her parents of their plans. After all their worries there was nothing but congratulations and praise for Bo.

“Yes, it’s certain sure we’ll miss our daughter. But Bo is the salt of the earth,” her father had said, giving his blessing.

“You’ve always had that pioneer spirit,” her mother told her, as she helped Betsy get dressed in her white lace gown. “You had that sense of adventure, even as a little girl. I was so like you in that regard.

“It took me a long time to get here from the busy streets of Boston, but I got the life I wanted with your father.”

She set the veil and orange blossom on top of Betsy’s hair.

“Your father probably never told you that he was a ranch hand himself when he was young and that Grandpa was not best pleased when he proposed to me. But look at the success he’s made of this place.”

“Yes,” Betsy’s father added as he entered the room. “That’s how I know Bo will be a wonderful husband and provider for you. I trust him to look after you, Betsy. And to think you both kept silent for so long, worrying what I would say, thinking I would have said no!”

He gave her a hug. “A father’s advice to his daughter on her wedding day – never assume to know what someone else is thinking. Always ask, especially when it’s something of great importance.

“And that includes not assuming you know what your new husband will be thinking as you go through your lives together.”

He turned as Betsy’s grandmother came into the room with the wedding flowers.

“I’ll leave you girls to talk, but don’t be too long. The carriage will be here any time now.”

Not a soul but Bo heard what Betsy whispered to him very, very quietly just before the minister began the wedding ceremony. Looking into his kind grey eyes, she smiled.

“I love you, Napoleon Bonaparte Baxter, and that’s a fact.” n

“I’d marry you tomorrow, but your pa would never allow it” “Never assume to know what someone else is thinking”