Jaclene walked slowly through the house being as quiet as possible so as not to wake up her mother and sisters. She knew her father had been up for hours and was already out riding the farm checking on the workers and the new stand of timber he had decided to have cut and shipped out to the sawmill for a large contract he had just signed with the city of Little Rock.

          Things had quieted down since grandfather had been found again in a back street bar in Little Rock. He had come home broke and sick with a fever that had kept him bedridden for weeks and had worked her mother from daylight to dark. Finally Samuel had a serious talk with the old man and he got out of bed and started waiting on himself.  Samuel would not allow her mother to be taken advantage of if he could help it and the old man had been getting on his nerves taking up all of his wife’s time with everyone knowing that he was just playing sick to stay hidden from the people he owed and would kill him if they found him.

Today she planned to have along talk with her father if she could find him before he left from the logging camp.  The time had come for her to take over more responsibility of the workers and some of the duties of the overseer her father had hired to help run the place.  Today was her eighteenth birthday and she intended on taking on more of the work now to allow her father time to rest and spend more time with her mother. 

          Samuel and Jose had worked hard side by side to build the place into a well developed enterprise that would sustain their family for many generations and insure the Lowe name would continue to be a force in the future communities of Damien county. It was time for them to spend some time together before it was to late and Jaclene was going to make sure that happened.  Her father had worked for many years from daylight to dark seven days a week and now it was time to easy up and let her take over the running of everyday activities.

          She had not approached him on the subject for months now but since today was her 18^th birthday it was time to bring up the subject again. Stepping out into the early morning air she could smell the new day and the freshness of the dew on the grass and flowers her mother worked constantly on.  Her horse was already tied up at the door of the barn, having made sure it would be ready the evening before, she wasted no time mounting and heading the horse in the direction of the new boundary of timber she knew her father would be working alongside his men. 

          After riding for over an hour at a slow gallop she finally hear the sound of trees falling as they were being cut by two men using long crosscut saws.  The crew finally came into view as she topped a small hill that ran down one side of a shallow valley.  The area was part of the small farm Samuel had bought from Jaclene’s grandfather and although he would never sell the land he did intend to remove the virgin growth of oak, chestnut walnut and other hardwood trees on the land.  Even in Arkansas the virgin trees were over four feet thick at the base and some rose over a hundred feet high.  In some areas there were trees that were six to eight feet thick at the base and were almost impossible to cut down and transport to the nearest stream bank to await the spring floods that would allow the logs to be floated out of the hollows and hills to the White River.

Jaclene pulled up the horse and threw one leg over the saddle horn and sat looking over the crew of men hoping to spot her father.  It was a sight to see her riding a horse. It embarrassed her mother and sisters because she would never ride sidesaddle as a young lady should, further embarrassment was caused by the heavy blue jean men’s pants and shirts she wore most of the time.   She was not a modern woman of her times and in some ways she was more of a woman out of her generation and century.  Women really did not start to be independent and want to do as men did until the late 20^th century.  Jaclene had no thoughts of being anything but herself and could care less what people thought. She was what she was and no one was going to change her or make her do anything she did not want to do.

Finally she saw her father working one end of a crosscut saw on the other side of the creek at the bottom of the little hollow.  Checking to make sure there were no other trees ready to be felled she pushed the horse down over the ridge and into the hollow, moving down at an angle to the tree her father was busy working the saw into with another man.

Stopping the horse off to one side of her father she jumped down and grabbed the reins and tied the horse to a bush to make sure he did not try to move away and get in the way of a falling tree.  She stood still and watched her father knowing he had saw her as she approached but he would not acknowledge her until the tree was on the ground.

As the tree started to crack and break loose from the few inches of remaining solid wood holding the tree on the stump Samuel stood back and finally acknowledged his daughter was behind him.

“Jaclene what are you doing here this early in the morning?”   

“Father you know I am not one to sleep in when there is work to be done.”

Smiling at his daughter Samuel knew the day had finally come for his oldest daughter to state her intentions and let him know what her future was going to be and also the part he was going to play in that future.

She had been a burden in many ways growing up, not in a bad way but in a sense of trying to be something she should not be.  Of his three daughters Jaclene was his favorite.  His wife had never given him a son to carry on the family name and to keep the family holdings together for future generations but she had given him a daughter who had accomplished more than most men and had the drive and courage to take the place of the son he never had.

Today was going to be the day she would make her desires and demands known, not wishes but demands to take her place beside of him as a ruling member of the Lowe holdings.  Hints had been scattered loosely for the past month and now it was time to face the music.

He knew he had to give up the day of working to spend with Jaclene so he looked around for the foreman of the logging crew to tell him he was leaving and left instructions for the day.

“Come on Jaclene get your horse and walk with me to the chuck wagon to get my horse and you and I will spend the day together looking over the projects I am working on now.”

          Jaclene never spoke a word just turned around and walked over to her horse untied the reins and pulled the horse in the direction of her father.

She never spoke a word until her father was astride his horse and followed him out of the logging camp.  She was bursting with energy and plans she wanted to present to her father but knew she had to be patient today. Her father was a man who worked things out for the advantage of the land and would allow her only so much leeway in want she wanted to do.  Samuel would hear her out and then tell her how much control he was going to give her over the land. 

          Pulling her horse up beside of his she sat tall and proud in the saddle and was almost as tall in the saddle as her father.  This she was proud of and sat even straighter in the saddle not to impress her father but to make herself feel as if she was coming of age in shaping her future.

          “Jaclene the first place we are going to go to today is the old home place of your mother.  I have been doing some more work on the place to make it a second home that can be used during the fall of the year when we are shipping the crops out of the fields down river.”

          “Why work on that old shack when no one in his right mind would even stay there over night?”

          “I haven’t been working on the shack, it was torn down and replaced with a new house and outbuildings. Your mother has done most of the work on designing the house and where she wanted it built.”

          “I never saw mother working on any plans or even leave the house unless she was going down river with you or my sisters.  When did she ever work on any house plans?”

          “Daughter you are not at home all the time in fact you are never there when you are needed to do housework or help with your sisters education.”  Your mother has almost driven me crazy trying to get me to make you stay at home and be a proper young lady instead of out working the farm like a man. You spend more time in the woods and plowing fields than any man I have working for me and that includes the time I spend away from home.”

‘Father I am today eighteen years old and you know I have never been a prissy girl without a thought in my head.  You have my sisters for that and you know what I am and what I want to be.  I am not a part of my mother but a part of you and this land and I intend to always be a part of the land and make it work for us.”

Samuel never said another word for miles as the horses worked their way through the timber and fields of hay and corn to the bottomland that lay close to the river. Following the river until they came to the stream that emptied into the White River were they forged the small stream and headed their horses south along a road Samuel had been clearing for years.  It was a project he had worked on when ever the men had finished up a stand of timber or the crops had been harvested early and there was still time before winter set in.  The road was now up to the stream and the next project for this fall if there was time was to build a bridge across the stream that would withstand the spring floods and be sturdy enough for heavy loads of freight he intended to start moving toward the home place in a year or two.  

Finally they could see the fence up ahead that now blocked the road to main house site.  Samuel had built the fence without a gate last year to make sure the road could not be used to get to the house until he was ready for it to be used.

“Jaclene before we go to the house I want to show you something you haven’t seen seeing as you spend all your time out in the fields and woods around the main farm. Let’s turn here and go up on to the ridge behind the farm.”

Turning their horses away from the road and the river they moved through stands of small timber until they reach the base of the hills that rose up on each side of The White River.  They could be called mountains by the people of Arkansas but people who lived in the Rockies or the Smoky mountains would rightfully call them hills as they rose only a could of thousand feet from the fertile level land lying along side the White River.  Their horses started to labor as the terrain got steeper and they had to move along side of the hill gradually moving upward until they reach the top of the ridge where the trees were larger and there was no undergrowth.

Samuel turned his horse to the left and moved along a trail worn deep from hundreds of years of use from the people who had made use of the land and its resources without taking more than they needed.  The trail would follow the ridges wherever there was a mountain or hill it could be followed.  Samuel had traveled the same kind of trails as a boy back in Kentucky.  The highways of the Indians was not on the trails that lay beside the rivers but on the ridge tops where they could be safe from enemies and attack.  The tops of the ridges were narrow with no place to hide and the Indians had less terrain to search as they made their way from village to village.

Samuel pulled back on his reins as they came to where the ridge split off to the left starting another line of ridges that would end almost at the waters edge of the White River.  The Ridge was a natural barrier against building a road upstream along side the Main river leaving only travel by boat or horse to make way upstream.

He waited until Jaclene had stopped her horse beside of his and then stepped down from the horse.

“Give the horse a rest Jaclene no use killing a good horse for a joy ride.”

She stepped down from the horse and gave him free rein to feed on the scarce brush and grass that grows only on ridges and mountaintops.  The underbrush was padded by layers of dried leaves pressed on top of each other season after season until they finally became rotted material slowly to be come soil for the mountain trees and undergrowth to obtain nourishment from.

“Jaclene I want you to look around this place and place it in your memory and always keep it there if you someday find you cannot remember what it looks like then come here and spend a few days and camp out or at least spend an entire day here. I can’t tell you why but your memory of this place may someday be the most important thing you have.”

She slowly looked around the area seeing nothing out of the ordinary except for a few large boulders left there by millions of years of erosion. Some were large as a house and some were small boulders no larger than a water bucket.  None were close to each other as if placed there at random by some unknown force.

The area where the ridge split off was level and was almost an acre across. It was swaybacked and each trail had a steep climb up to the level of the next ridge trail. 

“What is so special about this place father?”

“All I can tell you now is that it may be the key to your future, God knows it is the final resting place of my past”

“What do you mean?’

“Nothing daughter just do as I ask and look around for a while placing landmarks into your memory for the future while I rest these old bones for a few more minutes.” Samuel walked over to a small square boulder and sat down watching his daughter as she moved about the flat stopping ever so often to study a certain tree or large boulder.

Jaclene had learned through the years to never question her father, she did this not out of blind faith or fear but because she trusted the man with her life and future.  The thought of questioning what he asked of her had never entered her mind for a second. She worked at what her father told her to do and made sure she would always remember this place. Perhaps not because of a certain landmark but because it was the first place she had been with her father as she charted her new life.                       

She had finally worked her way around the flat and back to where her father had sat down. Stopping in front of him she kneed down and placed her hand on his knee. “Father I am ready to go now. I have this place in my mind for life because you were here with me.”

“Ok daughter now we will let you look at a surprise I have been saving for months to show you and it has been a trial keeping it a secret.”

“Oh father you don’t have to give me a surprise for my birthday to spend the day with you traveling over the land is more than just a day with you it makes my birthday and it also allows me to have you to myself for some serious talking about what I want to do now that I am eighteen.”

“Hold up there now daughter I know what today is about and I have been waiting for this day to. I knew months ago you would ambush me and try to take the farm away for your own use.” Laughing he couldn’t help but see the angry starting to glow in her dark green eyes and figured it was time to let her off the hook or he would not survive to get home.

“Let’s go I want you to see what you are going to be doing for the next couple of years and hopefully for a long time to come.”

He walked over to his horse and stepped into the saddle before she could react or respond. He had learned his daughter over the years and knew when to make a fast retreat on his thoughts and actions. She was as headstrong as any person man or woman he had ever met and there was no give in the girl. She would never wrong a person but she would also not allow her self or anyone else to be wronged if she could control the problem or situation.

He turned his horse to the left along the new ridge path and toward the back of the farm that lay to the left side of the ridge and the hills below.  They traveled for about a mile before he turned his horse down off the ridge and started angling toward the flatlands below. Finally the farm could be seen through the trees as they started a steeper path down the hill.

Jaclene had not been to this area of her father’s holdings for many months instead she had been focusing all of her attention on traveling the areas of the farm where there were workers and exciting things going on. She knew the farm was there and it belonged to her mother. She did not thing it was an important part of her father’s life or that it had too much importance to the main farm. 

They rode up to the front of a new house that had a long sweeping porch around all four sides of the house. There were two smaller buildings set down the lane from the main house and across from them was a large barn that still shown the bright yellow of fresh cut lumber.  Small fields had been cleared on each side of the lane and were freshly plowed.  A larger field was cleared and fenced at the end of the main house.

The horses were tied up to the new picket fence that had been placed around the house. Samuel walked up to the gate and motioned for Jaclene to enter.

“Welcome to your new home daughter.”

“What do you mean father, I live with you and mother.”

“Not anymore you now have a farm of your own to take care of. This place belongs to your mother and the deed is in her name.  I am going to have it changed to also include your name on the deed and at your mothers death you will become the sole owner.  Everything here is new, the houses barns and fences. We have had a time keeping you from this area of the land until the project could be finished and now it is your place.

“I could use you on the main place but a farm with two bosses makes for a farm with problems. When I die you will have both places and this will give you the time to get some more experience working on your own.”

They walked toward the house and went inside were the smell of fresh paint and fresh sawed lumber filled the air in each room. New furniture had been put in place and curtains were over each window.

“I will have the desk in my study moved here for you tomorrow there was so much to do and we ran out of time but it will be here tomorrow.”

“Father I can’t take your desk you have always had it in your study, it is a part of you.”

“Daughter that desk is also a part of you and you have spent more time setting in front of it than I have.  I will have another one made just like it. We are now setting up a mill that can plane the wood and a new crew is coming in to build a kiln to start drying lumber.  We have so much scrap wood I needed some way to get rid of it. This way we can burn it and heat the kiln.”

“Father how can I ever repay you for giving me this change to show you I can run a farm and just a good as you?”

“Jaclene I know you can run a farm and I don’t want you having to wait until I die to take over, this way you have a place to run and a life of your own. Now if you would just give me a few grandchildren to help take over after we are both gone that would be nice.”

“Sorry father you will have to look to Leanne and Lisa for the grandchildren I now have my lover right here and I don’t intend to look for another one.”

“Yes well we had better get back you mother has been working all morning to get a party ready for you big birthday.”