Missouri Kate Callaghan

 Missouri Kate Callaghan

Amiville trapper, hunter and gold panner

I arrived in Amiville Colorado on the 8^th day of February, dusty from the trail, thirsty and exhausted.
I immediately set about earning some money and finding out about the local area from the townsfolk. Seemed like a nice friendly place and they were very helpful. There was no end of permanent work available here from Bank Clerk to Showgirl but all I wanted was a few odd jobs so that I could replenish my supplies.


My second day was spent doing all those odd jobs around town trying to make enough money to buy vitals and equipment ready for the Spring when I would set off for Oregon and fulfil my Husbands desire to find Gold. Personally I did not imagine there would be much left. Far as I heard the fur trade had died long before we even reached Missouri let alone my arrival in Amiville and as for the Gold, I just wasn’t that lucky.
However, I had a mule full of trapping and panning tools and they were the only things I did have. With the money I earned since my arrival I purchased a new outfit and shoes and rented a room at the Hotel. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture but after twenty two years on the trail I didn’t much care.
That thought stuck in my head a while.
Twenty two years? We had married when I was fifteen years old and moved in with his parents at Lafayette. I had never seen a house so big but even so, three years later it was ours following the death of his parents. A few months later he devastated my life when he announced that we were selling the house and travelling to Oregon to seek Gold.
That was back in fifty two and now, here I was in seventy three at the ripe old age of thirty six. I no longer ‘Aquired’ things, I ‘git’ them. There was no longer Good Morning, Afternoon and Evening, there was only howdy. I stunk like a racoon in a mud hole and I cussed like a Cavalry trooper. I could shoot my Husbands Sharps rifle without falling over and I could track a Mouse in a sandstorm.
My fine lace garments and ruffled petticoats were a thing of the past. I still had one gown packed away, which I absolutely refused to leave behind. I figured that there would be occasion to wear it. Such finery would resurrect my Southern airs and graces.
The saloons of Missouri had stopped us in our tracks. I lost my Husband and gained a drunk.
In all the years he spent in the saloons, I spent outside of town under an oil cloth tent. Starngers would pass me by on their way to town and wave at me as they went back through on their way West and in all those years, no one even knew that I had a Husband. I became known simply as Missouri Kate.
When I finally persuaded him to leave Missouri and continue to Oregon we had not been on the trail for more than a week or so when he simply fell off his horse, stone dead. Even the pack mule couldn’t believe it. I could see it in his eyes.
After I dug him into the ground and said a few words, I looked back the way we had come. Didn’t seem much point returning to Lafayette because there was no house, he had spent most of our money on drink and the few items that remained were strapped to the back of this mule who didn’t seem to care much which way we headed.
I followed his lead. Turned to the West, took a last look at the grave and dug my heels into the horses’ side.
When I returned from my walk the room had been cleaned and furnished with a fine new bed, a mighty comfortable chair and a closet big enough for my humble belongings.
Exhausted, I lay on the bed and drifted, thinking of all the work I needed to do before spring. I had discovered that the best trapping was now South of here rather than all the way over in Oregon and that the proprietor of the local Inn hires Hunters to provide fresh goods so things were looking up.
But for now the sound of voices below my room in the Hotel foyer and the sound of the Piano playing merry tunes, had me drift off to sleep.