ONLY THE NAMES ARE CHANGED

I Just Want To Be a Cowboy and Rope and Ride

Memoirs 5 — Go West Young Man

As he talked to my mother, my dad told her he was going out west to set up what would be their home on a ranch. He told her she would get to come to him as soon as he had it arranged with the owner of the ranch. He promised her they would only be apart for a few weeks, a month at the maximum. Then, they could have their own home in which to raise their boy, a home in the clean air of the countryside.

And so he left after La Fête des Rois, January 6th, 1950. The weeks passed with no word from my father. February passed, and with it their first anniversary, with still no word from him. As February turned into March and still no letter from him, my mother sank into a deep depression.

She felt abandoned by the man she had trusted, to whom she had willingly given her body and her love. No one in the house seemed to be able to pick up her spirits, not even her baby, me.

It wasn’t as if I was suffering for her attention. I had all the other women in the house at my beck and call, with even my little uncles just five and seven years old taking some time to play with me.

With the arrival of a letter at the beginning of April 1950, my mother was flooded with guilt. My father hadn’t forgotten her or abandoned her at all. The letter talked of how the rancher was hoping to get that place for them once the cattle were turned loose onto the prairie hills where they would pasture for the summer.

A big sigh of relief relieved her from the constant anxiety of wondering if he was okay, was released. My father’s dream was actually beginning to come true. My mother shared the happy news with everyone in the family. In the letter there was a cheque and a promise that more money would be coming. He also promised he would send a rail ticket for us in his next letter.

My father went on to describe cowboy life and how he was learning how to break horses and wrangle cattle. He wrote of how he was also learning the ropes so he could take part in some rodeos with the prospect of being able to earn big money quickly at those rodeos.

The money and the news was enough to rekindle high expectations for the whole family. There was a belief in the family that when my father struck it rich, they would all share in those riches.

Then, it was as if my father had disappeared. No one really knew where he went. There were no more letters. And, my mother had become pregnant.

The discovery of my mother’s pregnancy had been first greeted with joy. But, that joy soon turned sour when my grandmother realised that my father couldn’t have been the one to make my mother pregnant. He had been gone for two months before my mother likely conceived her second child.

It didn’t take Mémère long to root out the truth when she found out when had her last menstrual cycle. My mother confessed that she had been unfaithful, but unwillingly. However, she never did say who the father was nor how the betrayal had happened.

My grandmother, was furious. Who was the father of the child growing within my mother? Since my mother had rarely left the house other than to go to see her mother, there had to be someone to take the blame. Somehow, this had to be kept quiet if possible. My father would be furious if he found out, perhaps so mad that he would abandon the family. Who was to be blamed?

My brother grew up believing that it was his uncle, mistakenly thinking it of the youngest uncle as we never knew about an older uncle when we were growing up. That youngest uncle would have been six years old, so that wasn’t a possibility.

I never knew about or had met my father’s brother until I was nineteen years old. It was as though my father had never had an older brother until that Boxing Day in 1968 when his older brother came to our house.

My father returned to Ottawa in July with his arm in a sling. He had broken his arm trying to ride a bull in a rodeo. Because he was unable to do his job as a ranch hand, he lost the job. Regardless of the fact that he was out of work, he returned home as if he was a hero.

He carried his broken arm as if it was a trophy. He had tales to tell everyone about the biggest meanest bull ever to be part of the Calgary Stampede. He told them how no one had ever managed to ride that monster of a bull. And of all those who had tried, he lasted the longest on the bull.

He told everyone he had returned to spend time with my mother and me before returning to work on the ranch in the fall. He promised he would be taking us with him. All he had to do was wait for his arm to heal and be strong enough for the hard work of being a cowboy.

My father never noticed his older brother’s absence and no one mentioned it. My dad did notice however that my mother was pregnant. He assumed he had made her pregnant before he had left for Alberta. He was home and he was a hero, and he was again the centre of attention.

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Previously

Carrie, Block Wife, Benighted, Britt H., Benjamin Workman, Robert, James Grigg, Diana Meresc, Ridge, Margie Willis, Adrian CDTPPW, Luis Rosa, Patrick OConnell, Maddy Mirza, Jorden House-Hay, and Adrienne Beaumont