Portrait of Words

This is my first go at Portrait of Words. I've been looking forward to this writing challenge. I hope you enjoy this story.

Rita & Ellen sat by the creek, listening to the water run by as they talked, catching up on years of life, passed since last they met. Oh, they had known what was happening in each others lives, for the most part, as word ran through the grapevine of family members, yet they had been too busy living their lives to actually get together... until now. It's amazing how a death in the family will bring family together like it had these cousins.

"It's really hard to believe that Grandpa is gone," remarked Rita after a short silence as they sat watching the creek run past.

"Ya. Life will just never be the same without him. He has always been so strong, so full of life," replied Ellen.

Rita blew her nose into her handkerchief, then, "How will we go on without Grandpa? Without his jokes, his advice, the way he was always here for each of us, no matter what happened."

Silence again settled upon the scene as both young women watched the creek, each lost in her own thoughts and memories of growing up on their grandfather's ranch. Granny had been gone for some years now and life had never seemed quite right since she passed on, but their grandfather had always been the family rock.

As Rita & Ellen began to talk again, they started to share their memories about thier grandfather, and all the stories they'd heard. William 'Paco' Smith, had built this house when the ranch could finally afford the expense, and until then had lived with his wife and children in a log cabin he'd built when he first arrived from Texas in the late 1940s. As the family grew, so did the cabin with its add-on bedrooms. It still stood to this day, down by the meadow, and was lived in by the ranch foreman and his family. When Grandpa Paco had built this new house, he had made sure it had enough bedrooms for all his children to come home, and to bring their families along. It also had the most up to date appliances in Grandma May's kitchen. Now, until the reading of the will, no one knew what would become of the Bar WM Ranch, never mind this beautiful home.

When Paco had left Margaritaville, he had purchased a second hand school bus, packed it full of his belongings, leaving just enough room for himself to sleep at night, and of course for his old dog, Rex. He's fueled it up and headed north. He was fed up with the growing population in Texas, and felt that his life was just wasting away. It was time to find greener pastures, much larger greener pastures at that. Paco had driven across the United States, diagonally to Washington State, then headed north into British Columbia, Canada. Arriving in the village of Osoyoos, Paco took a job with an orchardist from Portugal, planting acres of apple trees, then more acres of peaches. He liked this village in the middle of the desert at the southern tip of the Okanagan Valley, yet after some time decided it was not to be is new home. He was a rancher at heart, not an orchardist, and he'd heard stories of the Cariboo.

Ellen remembered how Grandpa Paco's next stop of any length had been Williams Lake.

"Isn't that where he worked in that mill?" queried Rita.

"Yes, I think it was. He sure didn't enjoy that job," Ellen replied as the two women laughed. Grandpa Paco had never pulled any punches regarding what he thought or felt and had made it quite clear that mill work had not been for him.

"At least it gave him the chance to earn the money to fix the transmission in the bus, and buy more food for him and Rex," Rita pointed out, " and to gossip with all the locals."

"Oh, but it wasn't gossip, remember, it was his way of learning about the area," Ellen said, laughing.

"So he always said," acknowledged Rita. "And yet, he still couldn't make up his mind as to where he wanted to ranch. Should he head north east to the Likely or Horsefly areas, or north to Quesnel, or even west towards Bella Coola."

"Ah yes, but an evening in the local drinking establishment, talking to Chief White Buffalo Man Many Feathers helped him make the choice to come out here."

"True, Ellen, though not until he competed in the Williams Lake Stampede and took first place in the Saddle Bronc competition."

"And in the calf roping, and steer wrestling too, don't forget." Ellen supplied.

They spoke of how thier grandfather had lived with the Indians, in the small Shuswap Settlement down by Soda Creek, for several months as he cut trees to make a road he could drive on to his new ranch. He had then built the one room cabin and started life as a trapper for the winter, to earn money to return to Texas. By the next spring he was able to head out with the bus filled with bales of beautiful quality furs to sell in Williams Lake, then he and Rex headed back south to Texas.

"I always loved the story of how he drove all that way back just to marry Grandma May, it's so romantic."

"Oh, Rita, you always were a softy for the mushy romantic stuff," teased Ellen. The cousins had been close until their teens when both had moved away in opposite directions.

"Ya, I know, but hey, think about it. He had several women in Williams Lake that would have loved to have married him, not to mention a few of the young native women. He could have had his pick of women in this area, but he had never forgotten May Ward, so drove all that way back to see her again, and to marry her."

"True. Okay, Rita, I agree that it was a pretty special connection they had, and after 50 years they still were very much in love, right until the day Grandma May died."

Again, silence settled on the women as they each were alone with their thoughts for a few moments, then Rita broke the silence with "Life as Grandma knew it sure ended the day she married her Paco." The cousins both laughed.

"It sure did. That long drive up here in that clunky old bus, stopping to work from time to time to earn enough money to buy more gasoline and supplies for the road," Ellen said.

"Sleeping in the bus among all her belongings, and cooking on an open fire. Nothing May Ward had ever known existed, never mind been prepared for!" Rita chuckled, admiringly.

"They must not have had much room to sleep. Grandma brought a lot of stuff along from Texas."

"And don't forget Rex was still with them then," reminded Rita.

"And yet, somewhere along that trip in the bus, they managed to concieve Uncle Bill," Ellen added.

Rita smoothed her shiny red hair back, tucking a strand behind her ear as she said, "Speaking of Uncle Bill, I guess we should be getting up to the house. Everyone will soon be arriving. We should go help our mothers get some lunch ready for the masses."

Ellen agreed, as they got up from their seat on the rocks, dusted the seats of their slacks, and wandered up towards the house, taking with them the potatoes, carrots and two kinds of beans their mothers had sent them to pick. As they walked, they talked of how Grandma May had always planted a garden and grown such wonderful vegetables, and how, after her passing, Grandpa Paco had continued to plant and harvest the crops. May had brought seeds with her all those years ago when she left Texas for the wilderness of BCs Cariboo region, and each fall since, she had carefully collected the seeds her beloved plants had produced so that each spring she would have them to plant new crops. Even with all the little packets of seeds for sale in the stores now days, May had still lovingly saved her own seeds from her plants, insisting that Texas vegetables were the best and she was not going to settle for anything less.


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