Page 19 of So Right
Gram’s eyes rounded. “Oh my goodness, you really are Alaina Pierce. Kelsey told me you were a friend of hers, but I just couldn’t quite believe it.” She laughed as she sent Kelsey a look of apology.
Alaina laughed. “I’m plain old Alaina Archer around here. It’s nice to meet you.” She shook Gram’s hand, and Gram looked a little starstruck.
“Good morning.” A masculine voice broke up their grouping, and they all turned to see the new arrival. He was a beefy fellow, probably in his fifties, with a shock of white-blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m Darryl.”
Kelsey reached out and shook his hand. “Hi, I’m Kelsey McDade. Thank you so much for meeting with us.”
“My pleasure. I have everything ready for you, if you’ll just follow me.” He led them down a hallway and to the right into a conference room. A large table was covered with several maps.
Darryl moved to one end. “Down here is the oldest map—from 1880. I believe the homestead you’re looking for is here.” He pointed to a black square on the yellowed paper.
They all gathered around and looked down at the map, which showed the topography of the area as well as what Ribbon Ridge had looked like at that time. There were maybe a dozen black squares around the present-day town.
“Wow, there’s hardly anything there,” Crystal said.
Darryl nodded. “Early days for Ribbon Ridge. The place you’re looking for—the Bird’s Nest Ranch—is one of the first homesteads built in the hills.” His fingers moved west over the map. “Here’s the first one. That belonged to the Archers. This structure is still standing.”
“And it’s still in use,” Alaina said. “My daughter likes to play pretend at what she calls ‘the old cabin.’”
“Remarkable.” Darryl’s tone reflected his keen appreciation. “As you know, the Bird’s Nest Ranch is long gone. If you look over the maps, you’ll see it just vanishes somewhere between 1901 and 1919. We can’t find any maps from between those years, and it’s not on the 1919 map.” He walked to the other end of the table and smoothed his hand over the place where the homestead would have been.
They moved as a group to the 1919 map. “Well, this gives us something to go on,” Brooke said. “At least we can narrow our research to this time frame to try to find out what became of Dorinda.”
Crystal looked around at them. “I wonder what happened to the homestead?”
“Don’t know,” Darryl said. “But I did find a death certificate for Dorinda Olsen. She died in 1902.”
There was a collective intake of breath as they all looked at each other. Sadness was reflected in their gazes.
“Did it say how she died?” Brooke asked softly.
Darryl shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“I don’t suppose you could find out if she had any offspring?” Kelsey thought they could maybe track down the family and see if they had any knowledge of what had happened.
“Not that I could find. I admit I did a bit of research since I spoke to you the other day. I love this sort of thing. From what I could dig up, Dorinda’s husband, Hiram, died in 1881, and she lived another twenty plus years at Bird’s Nest Ranch.”
“By herself,” Alaina mused aloud, saying what they were probably all thinking.
“I can’t imagine her working that land alone,” Kelsey said. “But perhaps she had help.”
“Or not,” Gram interjected. “I ran our little farm for a couple of years after your grandpa passed. Granted, it was just goats and chickens and some trees we sold to a local nursery. My point is, don’t discount Dorinda because she was alone, and definitely don’t do it because she was a woman.” The fire in her gaze warmed Kelsey’s heart. Gram was so strong and independent. Hopefully these were traits Kelsey had finally learned to take advantage of.
Alaina looked at the others. “So what do we do now?”
“I’d still like to try to find the house,” Crystal said. “Maybe we’ll discover something helpful.” She moved back to the other end of the table. “This shows us where it was.”
They all gravitated back to the first map.
Darryl flicked a look toward Alaina. “Did you say you planned to hire an archaeologist? I can give you some names.”
Alaina nodded. “That would be great.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He walked from the conference room.
They broke off into smaller conversations, and Kelsey took a picture of the location of the Bird’s Nest Ranch homestead with her phone. Then she meandered to the other end of the table to look at the newest map.
Brooke joined her. “Your grandma seems pretty great.”
