Enter Marty Cartwright

Chapter I
(In which the Ponderosa Cartwrights meet a new Cartwright relative.)
A young woman surveyed the surrounding scenery impatiently and loosened the string under her chin from her hat.
            Peggy, a pretty, blond haired woman in her mid-twenties smiled up at the girl on the red and roan quarter horse/mustang as they loped alongside her buggy.  “We’ve been on the Ponderosa for a good half hour or so.  The Cartwrights have a little over one hundred square acres of land.  It takes a while to get to the house.”  Peggy grinned at the surprise on her adopted sister’s gray eyes.
            The girl gently asked the bulky paint gelding to a slow jog.  Peggy smiled again.  The three quarters Bannock Indian girl had a deep understanding of animals, especially horses.  Quiet as she was it was difficult to get her to say more than a few words to people, even to her own family.  But she seemed to be able to speak and understand horses. 
            At long last the main ranch house greeted their searching eyes.  Peggy drew a breath.  “It’s just like I remember.”
            The younger woman’s eyes scanned the big house slowly, before settling on the big barn and corrals.  “Everything here is big.” She thought to herself.  She gently urged the mustang into a walk.
            ”I’m sure that we’ll have lots of new cousins to meet.  I bet Adam won’t even recognize me.”  Peggy giggled a little at the thought.
            As they drove into the yard, two boys looked up from a game of marbles.  Mike and Carson Cartwright called out to the house, “Grandpa, visitors!”
            An old man, with hair snow white from years of hard work, came out of the house.  His dark eyes still flashed with fiery life, even though he had begun to bend a little from age.  He studied the visitors intently before a smile broke over his face.  “Peggy Dayton!  Goodness, it’s been ages.  We haven’t seen you since Will and Laura’s wedding.  How are they?”  Old Ben’s voice was still as deep, as commanding, as caring, and comforting as it had always been.
            Peggy was smiling so wide that the younger of the sisters thought her lips would split.  She sat quietly while her sister answered the man’s questions.  These visitors caught the attention of four men from the corrals.  One was a giant of a man, another was little shorter and older, the other two were shorter still.  One had dark hair; the other had red hair and freckles. 
            “Boys, guess who’s come to see us?”  Ben called out.
            When the men finally realized who it was, they broke into smiles and strode forward.  Jamie, the youngest man, with the red hair stood behind his older brothers.  Obviously they knew these strangers, but he did not.  He studied the dark haired girl sitting astride the copper gelding.
            She looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, with red skin and jet black hair.  Her face was round, and thin, with high cheek bones.  Her eyes were gray, the color of a light storm cloud.  From where he stood, Jamie guessed her to be about five-foot-four. 
He then turned his focus to the horse.  The gelding was muscularly bulky, with sloping shoulders and hind quarters.  The horse’s confirmation was compact and well built.  The face was full of intelligence.  From head to withers he was as fiery red as a horse could be.  From withers to hip, he was red roan, and fro hip to tail he was red again.  He had a wide, white t-shaped blaze that ran from the top of his forehead to his lower lip.  He had four white socks on his legs, taller on the hind legs, shorter on the front.  There was a reddish-brown spot on the inside of one hind fetlock.  Three horizontal bands started at the top of the base of his tail, smaller at the top and growing larger; two large white spots splotched his belly; his mane and tail were a strawberry flaxen.
Jamie walked closer and offered his hand for the horse to sniff.  “Quarter Horse?” He asked.
The girl nodded, “And Mustang.”  Both snapped to attention when their names were called.
“Jamie, why don’t you take the horses to the barn and turn them out for a bit,” Adam, his oldest adopted brother suggested.
“I’ll go with him.”  The girl stated quietly.
When Jamie opened his mouths in protest, Peggy spoke up.  “I’d take her up on it.  She won’t rest easy until she has seen your horses.”
Jamie seemed as surprised as the other men, but he took the bridle of the buggy horse, and led it to the barn, the Indian girl close behind.  When they were gone, the adults started talking again.
“Peggy, what brings you and your friend our way?  Who is she anyway?”
Peggy smiled.  “I might as well tell you everything.  You won’t get a word out of Marty.”  Peggy told them everything that had happened since they had last seen each other, about twenty years ago.  “After the wedding we moved around quite a bit. Papa joined a business and we traveled all over the place.  A few years ago we reduced our traveling to just Missouri and westward.  Mama started a little business of her own.  I took over eight years ago when I turned eighteen.  Two years before I took over the business, Mama wanted another girl; but her health wasn’t good, and the doctor told her she couldn’t have any more children.  They went to an orphanage, and met ten year old Martha Gray Horse.  She, along with seven other children from her tribe escaped the outbreak of a plague in their village the year before.  About a year after Marty was adopted, Mama’s health became even worse.  She died six months later.  Now it’s just been Papa, me and my little, adopted sister.”
“She isn’t full Indian, not with eyes like that.”  Little Joe commented.
Peggy nodded, “Her mother was full Bannock, and her father’s mother was an Indian who had married a wagon train scout.”
Adam remembered years ago, he had almost married Peggy’s mother, but before the wedding they realized they were not right for each other.  Laura had married Will Cartwright, their cousin.  “She kind of reminds me of you, Peggy, when you were little; riding her horse.”  He said
“She’s more like Papa.  She’s a girl of many talents, but she loves horses.  She won’t talk to people, but she’ll speak to the horses.”  Peggy returned to the previous topic.  “Papa made a lot of profit out of his business, so he has to go east for a few months to deal with some men.  Poor Marty doesn’t want to go.  She’d have to go to a girl’s school, and she’s digging her heals deep against the idea.  She’s stubborn as a mule, and fights like a rattle snake.  Her heart is out here.  She’s tied to this land.  But I can’t take care of her; I have a new obligation now.”
“What do you mean?”  Hoss asked his blue eyes were curious.
Peggy held up her left hand. A ring glinted on her third finger.  “This is why we came to visit.  I wanted to invite all four of you to the wedding, but I don’t know if all your families will fit in the church.”
The men laughed heartily.
“We’d be delighted to come,” Ben confirmed.  “Don’t worry about the family.  We’ll work that out.”
While the others went inside to prepare for their guests, Adam and Peggy walked down to the corrals.  “It’s been a long time since we’ve talked.  I remember when you were this tall.”  Adam held his hand low as a measurement.
Peggy smiled.  “I remember, I also remember when you gave me Traveler.  I still have him too.  He can’t do much more than hobble around the barn yard.  He won’t be around much longer, though.  Marty rode him until she outgrew him.”  Peggy laughed.  “Ever since she came home with us we haven’t been able to keep her away from working with Pa.  She’s really an interesting girl.”
Adam nodded, “Sounds like it.”
Suddenly Jamie bolted out of the barn.  “Adam, where’s Hoss?”
“Inside, why, what’s the matter?”
“You know that mare that was due to yesterday and she didn’t deliver?  Hoss thought the foal would be still born today.  She’s started to push, just now.  Marty’s still with her, I gotta tell Hoss.”
Adam watched his youngest brother run up to the house.  “Does your sister know how to deliver a horse?”
Peggy grinned.  “You’ll find that whenever Marty is with animals something special happens.”  They both headed down to the barn.  Marty sat rubbing down a pair of dark gray foals.  As they watched the girl push the cloth over the babies they realized that one was a colt and the other a filly.  The little horses had black flea-bitten coats, and identical off center black stars on their foreheads.
The mare, a dappled gray, groaned as she got up and began licking her young.  A chorus of voices announced that the news had spread through the family.  Several young, curious faces peered through the barn door.
“Well, I’ll be.”  Hoss said as he lifted his hat and scratched his head.
Marty pushed her hat back till it hung from its string around her neck.  She left the stall and returned to where she had left Sundance.  The red paint gelding had stood patiently where Marty had left him.  The Indian girl unsaddled the mustang/ quarter horse, whispering Bannock words in his ear.  Marty led in to an empty turn-out corral. The buzz in the barn held no appeal for her.   Marty seemed lost in her own world as she brushed Sundance until his coat gleamed in the afternoon sun. 
After some time Hoss shooed everyone out of the barn, saying, “That mama wants to be with her young’uns, y’all kin see ‘em after supper.”
Most of the grandchildren mounted up and rode to their own homes for supper.  A few of the older ones stood over the fence, talking about all the unexpected arrivals, Peggy, Marty, and the twin foals.  Eventually they and their parents returned to their homes.