#4DR Maggie

[jackcowboyhero]

Did you know any real-life cowgirls out west?

YOU BET I DID!  And they were just as great as the dime novels said they’d be.

The ones I knew best were Maggie Randall, the ranch owner’s daughter, and her best pal, Florence Hurtado.  (Don’t even THINK about callin’ her Flo!)  Maggie’s a little older than me, and Florence is my age, but she got married when she was seventeen, so by the time I met her she’d been married for two years already.  I asked her for lots o’ advice about Sarah, ‘cause back then I didn’t know what I was doin’, and Florence had her life together real well.  (Gettin’ married meant her last name changed from Griego, which means Greek (which is great an’ all, but I didn’t see any chimeras or Trojans in Santa Fe) to Hurtado, which she said means TO ROB OR STEAL.  Can ya blame her for wantin’ to take that name as quick as possible?!  Talk about a dime-novel handle!)

But just ‘cause Florence was married don’t mean she hung up her spurs to cook and clean all the time.  Heck, no!  Her husband, Jerónimo(ISN’T THAT ANOTHER GREAT NAME?!?!  And it’s his birth name, too.  Some folks got all the luck.) is the foreman o’ his pop’s ranch, and even though Florence makes a mean carne guisada, she’s just as likely to saddle up an’ ride out after stray calves or break a new colt.  (One o’ the best Sundays I ever had was when Florence faced off against Maggie’s cousin Flash, who’s a rodeo cowboy, to see who could ride broncs the best.  And guess who won?  OUR GIRL FLORENCE, THAT’S WHO!!!  Even Flash had to admit it–and makin’ Flash Randall admit defeat ain’t an easy task, even when everyone else sees it real plain.)  In fact, Florence said one o’ the conditions o’ marryin’ Jerónimowas that he wouldn’t stop her from doin’ whatever she wanted to do.  She’d grown up helpin’ her thirteen brothers (YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT!  THIRTEEN!) with all sides o’ the ranch, she said, an’ she wasn’t about to stop just ‘cause of a ring on her hand.  (Florence was real big on talkin’ things out before marriage.)

Maggie, on the other hand, doesn’t have any brothers or sisters, so she grew up with a bunch o’ cowboys.  So she don’t got a problem holdin’ her own–she’ll give ya what-for if ya do somethin’ dumb.  (I got what-for a lot, but she helped me out a lot, too.  Sometimes girls are better teachers than boys are–’specially when every guy out there can’t imagine bein’ born without a gun in his hand and a bronc underneath him.  Maggie’s who taught me to shoot a pistol so I could take care o’ rattlesnakes.)  She’s nice, though, when she ain’t throwin’ punches–which is also true about Sarah, and’s prob’ly why they were such great pals when we went out west for our honeymoon.  Puttin’ up with dumb boys gives girls lots to talk about, prob’ly–an’ also Maggie gave her a pattern for a split skirt, which Sarah thinks is a real good invention, and they had lots o’ fun explorin’ the ranch while I tracked down an’ caught up with every single horse that’d been in my string.

Maggie ain’t married, an’ she ain’t sure she wants to be–right now she’s in line to inherit her pop’s ranch, an’ that’s the height o’ fame and fortune.  (Also, if ya get married, you’ll prob’ly have kids, an’ there comes a point when some ladies get too big to get in an’ out o’ the saddle.  Florence told me it happened to her too, although only when it turned out she was gonna have twins–with her most recent kid, she was able to keep ridin’ right up to the mornin’ she was born.  Florence ain’t easy to hold back.)  So that’s an important thing for a girl to consider. 

But maybe you’re wonderin’ about all the romance that shows up in dime novels, an’ if it’s possible to mix characters like a smart, capable, beautiful rancher’s daughter (Maggie) an’ a charmin’, darin’, handsome stranger (me) without sparks flyin’ just like they do in books.  So I’ll tell ya: yeah, it is.  ‘Cause all Maggie an’ I ever were is pals.

I meant to tell ya this story a long time ago, but I think I forgot, so I’ll tell ya now.  When I was gettin’ ready to leave for Santa Fe, me and Sarah knew there was somethin’ between us–we even knew we loved each other.  But I didn’t know what’d happen after I got out west, and Sarah didn’t know what would happen in New York, and one mornin’ while we were takin’ down the laundry on the roof, Sarah asked if I’d rather be free to court somebody out west.

And when she asked that, I thought she was sayin’ she might rather be free to find a new, better guy in New York.

That was a real hard conversation for both o’ us.  (We coulda used Florence’s help, that’s for sure.)  ‘Cause we both loved each other real well, but sometimes lovin’ somebody means lettin’ ’em move on to better things, and we both were afraid it meant maybe not us.

But I didn’t want nobody other than Sarah, and there’s nobody better, and we ended up agreein’ to stay together with the condition that if later on either one o’ us decided we wanted to take a break, we had to say so.  But that didn’t happen.  Santa Fe made me even more sure I wanted to marry Sarah, and Maggie always just treated me like a kid brother.  And even though Sarah coulda found someone a lot better than I was, or am, she didn’t want to.  And I sure ain’t complainin’ about that.

So, that’s the story o’ my two favorite cowgirls, but all the women out there were amazin’.  Maggie’s ma, who was born in Texas back before the Civil War and knew all sorts o’ stories about cattle drives, once shot a mad wolf who was tryin’ to get in the cabin while her pop was away.  She was ten years old when she did that.  And her ma, who came from the same part o’ Ireland as Pop’s folks did, went completely blind after catchin’ a fever, but still managed to cook and sew and manage a ranch just as good as if she’d been able to see.  (Hoosegow’s a good enough cook for us boys, but it weren’t a real party unless Margaret McClintock was cookin’.)  And all the ranch women were like that–all worthy o’ their own dime novels, ‘cause ya can’t survive out there if ya ain’t.

But just in case ya don’t live out west an’ are givin’ up hope o’ ever seein’ a real live cowgirl, don’t!  ‘Cause ANNIE OAKLEY came right here to New York, and she’ll show ya the talent, beauty, an’ brains o’ Western cowgirls from the comfort an’ convenience o’ your own home state.

(But, I mean, if you get the chance to go out west, do that too.  Annie’s great, but she can’t bring mountain air an’ desert sand with her.)