Page 6 of Shoshone Sun (Native Sun #3)

- Peter Jacobs Land Claim, 1866

Ninety miles west of Fort Laramie –

The day dawned crisp and clear, the sun rising in a burst of fire that cast long shadows across the open plains. Peter Jacobs stood outside his uncle’s cabin, his hands on his hips, surveying the stretch of land ahead of him. In front of him lay vegetable gardens, fenced pastures, a sturdy new barn flanked by a work shed, a stone well, several chicken coops, pig pens, and rabbit hutches. Beyond those, a vast expanse of meadow spread out, eventually giving way to forest, then to mountains rising majestic in the background.

Peter admired what his uncle had built, and had claimed his own piece of this glorious wilderness. With his uncle’s assistance and the help of his family, Peter would create a homestead of his own.

The morning was still young, but the air already carried the promise of hard labor. The wind relayed with it the scent of pine from the hills in the distance, and the occasional call of a hawk above. The land seemed to breathe with an ancient rhythm, and Peter could feel it in his bones.

Paul came out of the cabin, his boots scraping on the dirt as he walked toward his nephew. He was dressed in worn, sturdy clothes—sleeves rolled up and gloves tucked into his belt. The hard work ahead of him was nothing new. He had worked alongside his father in England, though that had been a different kind of work. There, the land had been farmed for generations. Here, they were starting from scratch. Every tree felled and every fence post driven into the earth carried with it a sense of ownership, a testament to resilience.

Peter turned toward his uncle. “Morning, Uncle Paul,” he said. Then his eyes swept back to the land as he squinted into the sunlight. “What’s the plan today?”

“First thing’s first, we clear the brush along your river today,” Paul said, referring to a strip of trees that bordered Peter’s land. “Once we have that cleared, we can start physically mapping out where the cabin’s going.”

Peter nodded, his senses buzzing with excitement. “Clearing the land ... that sounds exciting, and it should be fairly simple.”

Paul chuckled, the sound deep and rich. “It’s simple in theory, but it’ll take every bit of muscle we have to get through it. The undergrowth is thick, and we’ll need to bring down a lion’s share of trees to get the site clear. You ready for that?”

Peter grinned, lifting the axe he’d taken from the shed. “More than ready.”

Mary, Susan, and Jane came out of Paul’s cabin together, Jane carrying Petey. Mary and Susan carried baskets of food that would sustain them and the men for the day’s work at Peter’s land claim.

Paul turned to Peter. “Harness the horses to the wagon while I gather up the tools we’ll all need.”

Two hours later the family arrived at Peter’s land. The men had previously cleared a patch of earth about an acre in size that would mark the location of the cabin and outbuildings. Today they would be clearing a path from there to the nearby river and as much brush and timber as they could from the river banks.

The women hopped off the wagon and immediately began their own tasks. While the men felled trees and cleared land, the women were setting up the foundation for the homestead’s more domestic needs. Mary was in the newly plowed garden with Susan, breaking up any clods left by the plow into fine soil so the ground would be ready for seeding. The cool morning air filled the garden with the earthy fragrance of damp soil, and the steady rhythm of their work brought a quiet peace to Susan’s mind.

“How’s the garden looking, Mary?” Susan asked about the portion they had previously planted, wiping her brow as she bent over to break up a particularly stubborn clod.

“It’s coming along,” Mary replied, her voice warm. “With what we can still plant here, supplemented by our crops back home, you’ll have plenty of vegetables to last you through the winter, so no worries on that end. And it’s a blessing that the soil isn’t as rocky as it was back home in England.”

Susan nodded. “Yes, it’s a bonus not to have to haul rocks out of the fields non-stop. But, in the end, they did make lovely stone walls!”

Mary agreed. “The look of green fields bordered by neat stone walls is indeed a sight I miss.

“The timber will make good strong fences though. The stones were a lovely touch, but backbreaking labor and not needed here.”

“They were a good use of the stones from the fields though,” Mary observed.

“That they were. Waste not, want not. The ones we do find here will help build the cabin’s foundation. And there are more in the river!”

“Yes, nature offers us everything we need.”

“Do you think there’s much we can plant this late that we can harvest before freeze-up,” Susan asked.

“Lots. For one, your favorite … radishes!”

Susan smiled. She did love a good radish sandwich. “Yes. They mature so fast. With the winter coming, we’ll need all the food we can grow.”

Mary began counting on her fingers. “We can also plant turnips, spinach, mustard greens, cabbage, bush beans, Swiss chard and beets. They’ll all mature before winter sets in.”

“Mmm. You’re making my mouth water. We’d best get this field ready and the seeds down as soon as possible.”

“Don’t worry. I have plenty of seeds of all of those vegetables in the wagon!”

“You’re sure you can spare them?” Susan asked.

“Of course. I always gather at least three times as many as I need. There’ll be plenty for your spring plantings as well.”

Susan took a deep breath and straightened. “This place just seems to be too good to be true!”

“Well, you haven’t weathered a winter yet,” Mary warned. “This won’t be like a Somerset winter where one might, once or twice, get a skiff of snow overnight that melts the next day. Here, we get several feet over the winter. Sometimes the snow will cover our windows!”

Susan gasped. “Really?”

“Yes. The temperatures will fall to 10 during the day and minus 20 overnight!”

“That’s something we’ve never experienced.”

“Prepare yourself. Also, with the cold weather, the wild animals come closer to our farms looking for food: mountain lions, wolves, bears.”

“Frightening!”

“Indeed. Not to mention the Indians. We are in Shoshone and Blackfoot Territory. Both fearsome tribes.”

“Do they bother settlers, I mean settlers like us?” Susan asked shakily. Their wagon train had thankfully avoided any conflict with Indians on the journey out here, a fact to which she would be eternally grateful.

“Sometimes, unfortunately. But they are more likely to fight with rival tribes. The soldiers based out of Fort Laramie react quickly and unforgivingly if and when they attack any of the white settlers.”

Susan cringed at Mary’s words. Mary put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We haven’t had a shred of trouble in the five years we’ve been here. We see them ride by on their ponies sometimes, but they barely give us a glance.”

Susan gulped. “Good,” she said, and tried to put thoughts of hostile Indians out of her mind. As it was, she prayed to God nightly they didn’t attack her family.

Just as the two women were finishing up in the gardens, Jane emerged from down toward the creek, carrying a bundle of freshly cut firewood under one arm and Petey on her opposite hip. Her face was flushed from the exertion, but there was a look of quiet determination in her eyes. The work had become second nature to her now. She didn’t mind the physical labor—there was something grounding about it. She knew that she, too, was part of this great effort. Not just as a helper, but as a builder of their new life.

“How’s it going, Jane?” Susan asked, wiping her hands on her apron as her sister approached with her son.

“I’ve been chopping and stacking wood between my babysitting duties,” Jane said, her voice bright despite the weight she carried. “I’m hoping to get enough together before the snow starts falling. The last thing we need is to be caught unprepared.”

Susan gave a reassuring smile. “You’re doing great. We’ll be fine. All of us. It’ll be worth it once we have this homestead up and running.”

Jane didn’t reply, but the look in her eyes said everything. They were in this together, and that was all that mattered.

The men worked through the morning, their axes biting into the thick trunks of trees, and the air filled with the rhythmic thud of their labor. Peter found the work harder than he had anticipated, but he was determined to prove himself. He was not a farmer by trade—he had grown up in a city—but the land had a way of drawing out strength he didn’t know he had. And he had five years of farming experience under his belt in England. The difference was that he hadn’t needed to clear a virtual forest in Somerset!

As another tree came down with a crash, its trunk splitting with the force of the fall, Paul gave Peter an approving nod. “Good swing, lad.”

Peter wiped the sweat from his brow, his hands aching from the strain. “I wasn’t sure I could do this at first. But it feels good. Feels ... right.”

Paul smiled. “You’ll get used to it. You’ll learn to listen to the land. It speaks, you just have to know how to hear it.”

They moved to the next tree, taking turns with the axe. By noon, they had cleared a good section of land, and Peter felt a sense of accomplishment. The pile of felled trees grew larger, the brush in the area thinning out as the day wore on. It was hard work, but the progress was visible.

Midafternoon, they paused for a brief break. The women had set out a spread of bread, cheese, and apples, and they all gathered around the small campfire they had lit to heat coffee.

As they sat down, Paul spoke up. “We’ll need to build a foundation for the cabin before the walls can go up. Along with any stone cleared from the fields, we have plenty of stone in the river bed that we can use, but it’ll take time.”

Peter nodded, chewing a hunk of bread topped with a slice of cheese. “We’ll get to it soon enough. We can use timber from the trees we’ve felled for the frame, walls and roof. We’ll need a solid base, though. I don’t want the cabin to shift or sag.”

“True. We’ll need to insure that it’s level, so we can’t rush things,” Paul began and then continued with advice on building the cabin.

Peter listened to the older man carefully, his mind already whirring with the plans he’d need to put into motion. The more he worked, the more real this all became. He was going to build a cabin for his family. Not just any cabin—a home that would shelter them through every storm, every winter, every challenge the land threw their way.

The next few days passed in a blur of activity. The men continued to clear the land, chopping down trees and dragging logs to the side to make way for the cabin. Susan and Mary worked in tandem, their hands skilled at turning the earth into sustenance. Jane kept track of Petey and took on what responsibilities she could, fetching water from the creek, hauling firewood, and assisting wherever needed.

The work was grueling, but there was a sense of camaraderie that kept them moving forward. They ate together, laughed together, and found strength in one another. Each evening, they would gather around a fire, sharing the day’s successes and frustrations. The cabin was slowly beginning to take shape in their minds, and every log that fell brought them closer to their goal.

It was a simple life, but it was their life. And every day, they were carving out a future.

By the end of the week, they had cleared all the trees and brush they needed to, and had begun to lay the cabin’s foundation. Peter started to map out the basic dimensions of the house, using stakes and twine to mark out where the logs would sit. The stones for the foundation had been gathered, and though they were rough and uneven, they would hold.

The promise of their new life was becoming real—each swing of the axe, each stone placed, each turn of the soil was a step toward making this land their own.

In the evening, back at Paul’s cabin, Peter stood on the front porch, looking out at the land. The sky was painted with shades of pink and orange, the air growing cooler with the approach of evening. Behind him, the sound of happy voices—gentle laughter and the clinking of dishes—carried through the air.

He could already picture it: his own cabin, standing tall and sturdy, the garden flourishing, his children running through the grass. This land, which had once seemed so wild and untamed, would soon be their home.

Peter smiled to himself. They were doing it. They were building something that would last.

And he couldn’t wait to see it through.