The Jewels of Nebraska, Episode 1 -The Telegram

This is a new series I will be updating with a new episode every Saturday at 3PM Eastern/Noon Pacific. These episodes will be shorter than my blog has been in the past and easier for both you and I to manage. My goal is for each episode to be a five minute read.

Yay! 

I can't say how long this series will last, like on television, it will depend on interest. That said, I anticipate several months of episodes.

Enjoy...

The Jewels of Nebraska

Episode 1, The Telegram

It was just like the telegram, early in the afternoon, but the thunderstorm storm made it nearly as dark as night. The sound of the Model T plying it's way through the mud track could barely be heard above the din of the wind and rain.

It wasn't only those similarities that had Ruby's mind stewin' with worry. She and Billy had been alone in the Nebraska farm house since the day before. Their Mama was in one of her states and took the truck to town. No one in their right mind would come out in this storm unless it was news, bad news.

The Sheriff stood on the porch holding his dripping hat in both hands when Ruby opened the door.

“It's your mom. She's alright. She's... safe.” The sheriff said, “Ruby, I had to lock her up, she was really scarin' folks this time. They're coming to take her to the state hospital tomorrow. I had to do it Ruby, you understand.”

“Yup, fraid I do.”

“Why don't you and Billy come back to town with me, you can stay at my sisters till social services can...”

“That's okay Sheriff, uh, Henry is going to check on us later, we'll go back with him. We're closer to home that way.”

He looked back at the storm to hide his relief. “Maybe that's best.”

You can't blame her fer lyin' no sir. They'd had a taste of being wards of the state before fer a spell. Them kids had been on their own in any practical sense since that telegram. Their mama, god love her, had never been the same after that day: July 19^th, 1917; I had been dead in France for nearly two weeks before my family knew a thing about it.

“Is Henry really comin' by?” said Billy after his sister closed the front door and stuffed the edges back up with rags.

“No.”

“What'll we do when those people from the county come by?”

“We won't be here.”

I s'pose if I'd know'd their Mama was going to have the time she did loosing me and being left to raise a nine-year old girl and a five-year-old boy, I'd have rotted in shame in some jail cell before goin' off to fight the Kaiser. Least she'd know'd I was okay and those kids would have a papa again some day.

My dear Lottie did the best she could for five years, but I guess she just run outta steam. Lord knows the medicine she got from that travelin' show didn't do her no good. She took too a strong liking to it and when it run out, she used whatever she could find.

The next morning, before dawn, Ruby and William crept through the Alliance switch yards. Ruby found a Westbound boxcar. She helped her brother in and darn near missed it herself with the train pulling away. Good strong legs that girl, even though she's still kinda small and skinny.

She had a feelin' her mama wasn't coming back this time round. I suppose there was somethin else that made her jump that train. That girl and her brother snuck into the pictures every chance they got.

“Where we goin' Ruby.”

“Hush! They beats them that rides the rails, if they catch 'em.”

“But what about my dog, and my climbing tree?”

“You'r dog'll be fine, the Hendersons will take it, and everything else I s'pose, before the bank comes. You don't need a climbing tree where we're goin anyway.”

“But where's that?”

I had never been much further West than Alliance, Nebraska myself. I was born in 1888, about the same time the railroad came through, but I was born back East in Omaha, same as our Ruby in 1908. Alliance was still considered the frontier when we bought our farm, when Ruby was just a baby. Billy came about four years and three still borns later. Maybe I shoulda known Lottie wasn't right before I got drafted in '17. Farming is a hard life. Loosing a baby is harder, but there were crops to tend and there wasn't much time to grieve. My wife worked as hard as anyone and didn't let on how much she hurt I don't reckon. When William was born strong and healthy, she was so happy and I thought she'd be right as rain again.

Then my number came up and I was on a train to Georgia. She was scared but I promised her I'd be back.

I had only been in France a few days when it all ended, but I kept my promise. I kept it the only way I could.

I could feel Ruby was scared but at peace somehow for the first time since the telegram. She was sleepy too, but being the big sister she was, she watched over William, his head on her lap. The boxcar was windy and noisy. It smelled of sawdust and coal smoke. The sun got higher behind them, it was already warm. The sky was the bluest it had been all summer, not a cloud in sight. Fields and farm houses passed by endlessly. She wondered about the girls her age on those farms. They had papas that came home from the war, and mamas that didn't cry for hours every day. She wondered about the people they would meet in their travels. She hoped they'd be the kind Christian sort.

The train crossed a switch and jostled Billy awake.

“Where's Hollywood Ruby?” He said inside of a yawn.

“California, a long way off yet. I don't spect we're in Colorado yet,”she said.

“We're gunna be in pictures?”

“That's right.”

“And you're gunna be Lillian Gish?”

“That's right.”

“Who can I be, Charlie Chaplin?”

“No, Jackie Coogan.”
"Jackie Coogan?"
"Yeah, you know, the Kid."
"Oh. I remember."
"Get some sleep Billy. Dream of California."

Bodene Kruger stepped out his automobile stood toe to toe with the sheriff. The Sheriff took a step back. “You did what!” Bodene said.

“How was I to know she was lying about being checked on?” said the Sheriff, “you saw the weather last night.”

“I saw it alright.” He kicked at the mud clots on his Daimler. “That family owes my bank over ten thousand on that farm and they're holding out on me, she was from money back East, part of of why I let em sign. Those Newberry kids have jumped on their debts, and with a bundle of cash or stocks or something, I just know it.”

“I don't know bout that Mr. Kruger. Did you see how those folks lived? Wasn't always food on the table. Sides, what do you expect me to do. I can't just go chasin' after a couple runaway kids. If they're in Box Butte County, I'll find em, but otherwise...”

“Put out a wire, a wanted poster.”

“ 'Wanted, dead or a live, fourteen-year-old girl and her ten-year old brother'? They haven't broken any laws, you have no proof that they stole anything. I'll notify Morrel, Scott's Bluff and Sheridan maybe, but that's really all I can do.”

“If you're not going to do your job Terrence, I'm just going to have to find a man who will, and I think I know just who.”

The Sheriff looked up for the first time. “I sure hope you're not talking about who I think you're talking about.”

Continued in episode 2