Читать книгу Last Dance - Cait London, Cait London - Страница 9

Town of Freedom, 1882

From the journal of Magda Claas

We named our valley Freedom, and our town, too. There were ten of us at first, that hot, dry summer of 1881. We found ourselves by chance, gathered in a small beautiful valley, sharing what we had to survive. Beautiful, snowcapped mountains soared along one side of the valley and there was a lovely lake and lush wild grass for our stock. We came from all parts of the world, women with children, women who had lost families and who had seen the darker side of life. Fleur Arnaud, unmarried, had lost a child by a man who took her against her will. Anatasia Duscha’s husband and son died in the wars. Beatrice Avril was a bondwoman, preyed upon by men for her pretty looks and dainty ways. Jasmine Dupree, full with child, had come from the poor South. Cynthia Whitehall came from Boston for freedom her family would not give. China Belle Ruppurt had run from buffalo hunters who had used her poorly. Fancy Benjamin’s father sold her to a farmer for a sack of oats, and widowed Margaret Gertraud’s breads and rolls didn’t save her or her children from thieves who took everything and left them starving. We know little about the woman called LaRue, except that she had loved and lost.

Magda Claas is my name, and I know how to work. I want a man, the man I choose for a husband, not to see me as a cow in the field or a servant, but as a woman with a heart and pride. I wish to be treated gently, as I have seen men honor their wives. At the end of the day, I crochet lace with needle and thread, and dream of the man I will accept into my heart.

What a strange mix we were, some of us with children clinging to our skirts, or nursing at our breasts. All ten of us without men and not caring much for those that came calling with crude ways.

We wanted to choose our lives, and so it was that day with rawhide men and drovers and rapscallions circling us, that we decided to act. By the end of summer, we knew what we had to do to live as we wished, as we dreamed, and so we made our laws for men who came wife-hunting.

We were not helpless women to be preyed upon by these rough men. Each of us knew how to protect ourselves, and together we were strong as a family.

So it was that we decided to come together, farmers and mothers and women with pasts. We became a community of women who helped each other, governed by the Women’s Council. For we would be free women, to set the rules of how we should be treated as wives. For be it known, that to take a dear wife from our circle, the husband-candidate will have to follow our rules and customs, abide with those rules in the marriage, passing our inspection. Else there would be no marriages or wife-taking in Freedom. We stand together in this, women deciding to marry as we wish, protected by our sisterhood.

Magda Claas, Midwife and Healer and Butter Maker

Town of Freedom, Freedom Valley

Montana Territory, July 1882