Authors: Nancy Radke
Misty had moved into the middle of camp, and they were standing
there, looking at her. Dawn whistled.
The filly threw up her head, causing the Indian trying to catch
her to miss, then she ran to Dawn who swung on and rode out, headed down the
trail.
I followed, as fast as I could run, being one jump ahead of the
raiding party. As I reached Hero, I turned and fired into the brush with my
rifle. I heard a yelp, and figured I’d at least winged one. I fired several
more times, then mounted and rode off after her.
Dawn rode Misty as fast as she would go, across the flood plain
and up to the river.
She looked around as I joined her. “How did you cross?”
“Hero swam it. We’re going to have to swim back.”
“There’s no way...”
“Get off.”
She jumped off. “There’s quicksand in this river. And snakes.
Water moccasins.”
Now she told me.
I pulled my rope off my saddle and dropped it over Misty’s
head. Lifting one of her front feet, I made it so the noose wouldn’t strangle
her.
We could hear the Indians coming, their yells of anger preceding
them. They had had to go back for their horses, once they saw us ride off.
I took the rifle and shot in their direction, pumping it to fire
as fast as I could, hoping it would slow them down. It made them cautious, and
they backed off.
“Get on the downstream side of Hero and tie one hand to the
saddle.”
She pulled off her heavy skirt, then tied herself to the saddle
as I put my rifle away.
“Go, Hero.”
I grabbed his tail and smacked him on the rear—I’d never
done that before—and he sprung into the river, dragging Misty and Dawn
with him. I got jerked off my feet, but soon we were all in the water, with
Hero headed to the other side.
The Indians came up to the river after we were twenty feet from
shore, and commenced firing at us. I felt a deep, burning sensation in my
shoulder and arm, the side holding on to Hero’s tail, and pulled my other hand
over to grab hold and help support me.
Misty was struggling in the silt-laden river, but the rope gave
her help. Besides this was her first time across and she was not tired.
I glanced back. Some of the Indians were trying to get their
horses to enter the river. They finally gave up, shot a few more times and
left.
I kicked my feet, trying to help Hero out. He was laboring now,
and we were being carried downstream as well as forward.
When we finally reached the riverbank it was too steep for him
to climb out. He turned and started swimming downstream. I wondered if I let go
of his tail, maybe I could get up on the bank and help him. Then the pain in my
shoulder reminded me I was probably going to have to leave it all to him.
The river curved in a large bend, swinging away from us, so we
were on a shallow side. Hero got a purchase on the bed, struggled through some
deep sand, and flung himself out of the water, pulling the rest of us with him.
He was shaking, tossing Dawn about, and I had to grab his head
and stop him long enough for her to untie herself.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No. They grabbed me, and I told them in the Kiowa language to
leave me alone. They thought that was a big joke, but they just tied my hands
and led me away.” She shuddered. “I didn’t think anyone was following me.”
She put her head against my chest and her body shook. “I don’t
think I could face that again.”
“I know. I wasn’t about to let them take you.”
She straightened and I let her step away.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“I just rode to the fork in the road, then Hero followed Misty.”
“Did Pa send you to bring me back? Cause I’m not going.”
“No. He didn’t send me anywhere. I drew my wages and left.”
“I know it wasn’t right to take Misty, but Lewis would have her
ruined in less than a day.”
“He can’t. I just bought her.”
“Pa sold her to you?” You could tell she didn’t quite believe
it.
“He didn’t have a choice. There’s a bill of sale in my
saddlebags. You own her now.”
“How?”
“The paper says she’s mine, and as soon as I sign it over, she’s
yours. I got her for you. Did you leave because of Misty?”
“No. Yes. She was part of it. But he said you couldn’t teach
me...”
“That was when I decided to leave, too.”
We looked at each other.
“You don’t have to go back to him, Dawn. He’s your pa, but you
are of age now. He can’t control you any longer.”
She started to cry, then collapsed on the ground. It caught me
by surprise. I hadn’t quite realized how afraid she was of him.
I untied my blanket and started to drape it over her. She stood
up and pulled it around herself, then leaned into my arms.
She was shaking, and I pulled her close, wanting to shelter her
from her pa and the Indians and anyone else who might want to hurt her. I
kissed the top of her head, then her eyes as she lifted her face to me.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and low. “Thank you.”
I understood why the horses would do anything she asked, because
I felt the same way. “You’re welcome.”
She laid her head against my chest and I wanted it to stay
there. It felt right. This woman felt right.
“There’s something you need to know,” I said. “I checked the
bags in the pantry. When we got back from the store, Lewis put the supplies
away. Whoever filled the bags, filled them wrong. There was salt in the sugar
bag and salt in the salt.”
“So I wasn’t dumb.”
“Not at all. Never was. You need to understand. There’s a whole
heap of difference between book learning and smarts. Hero is smart, probably
the smartest horse in Texas, and he can’t read a word.”
That brought a grin to her face and a sparkle to her eyes. “Hero
don’t need to read. The fillies don’t care. He just flashes those stallion eyes
at them and they line up.”
“You can read a book about how to ride a horse, but until you
put in hours of riding, you aren’t a rider. You know that.”
She nodded.
“Well, you just need more time to be a reader. Then you would’ve
known you weren’t wrong.”
It was just common sense, but she’d been so beat down by the
people at the ranch, that she’d lost faith in herself.
“You know that if you took any of those people back there and
dropped them in the desert, they wouldn’t be able to find water like you can.
You aren’t dumb, you just had a different type of education. One which is very
practical for out here.”
She snuggled close to me again.
“May I kiss you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I’d never kissed a girl, except when I was a youngster on the
mountains, and my cousin Bo bet me I couldn’t get a kiss from Lucy Kendale. It
hadn’t mattered then, but this was different. I felt for Dawn, strong. I might
even be in love with her.
She raised her head and closed her eyes, then opened them.
“Well? Aren’t you going to kiss me after you asked for one?”
I took my hat off, beat it on my leg. “Um...”
“Matthew, are you shy?”
“Um, I think... I love you and...”
She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me soundly. Once
started, I returned the kiss and we went at it for quite a spell. My heart was
thumpin’ and I was a sweating and I just shook.
Here under the Texas stars, I’d found the one woman who spoke to
that part of me that I hid from the world. The part that wanted a companion, a
completion of myself. Someone I could protect and love and serve.
It had been growing, ever since I first saw her in the corral,
and grew even more rapidly now when she kissed me back.
Did she feel the same for me? Her kisses were heating up as fast
as I was. Did she realize it?
She was a fine woman, a noble woman. I had to control myself,
for I wanted her to know how valuable she was to me. I had to protect her from
myself.
“Whoa,” I said. “Back off a bit. I need to know. Are those
kisses because you’re happy or grateful, or because...”
“I love you.”
It was exactly what I wanted to hear. “And I love you. Dawn,
will you marry me?”
She stared at me in the dim light. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. We’ll find us a preacher and do it right proper.”
“You could have anyone for a wife.”
“I don’t want anyone else. I’m asking you. Will you marry me?
Just as soon as I return Hero to his rightful owner.”
“You’d be leaving?”
“I don’t want you to be marrying a horse thief, so I’ll have to
find Trey and give him back. That might take some time. You could go back to
the ranch and wait until—”
“Never!”
I didn’t blame her. “Okay. We can go to Ft. Worth and I’ll rent
a house for you. We can get married as soon as I get back. Then we’ll head
west.”
“I could wait with the Kiowas.”
“They aren’t there any longer. The war was harder on the Indians
than anyone else.”
“Then I’ll go to my aunt’s place. I can stay there while you
hunt Trey. Aunt Mabel’s lonely, with Uncle Tim gone.”
“I can drop by your pa’s place and tell him where you’re at, if
you think he’d worry.”
“No. He’ll find out soon enough. Any idea where Trey is?”
“Nope. He could be dead, but he’d be hard to kill.”
“Why don’t you send out word that you’re holding his horse for
him and need to know where to send it?”
“That would work, but I’d rather deliver him personally.”
I held her, but realized things were getting darker, which was
strange, because the sun had come up.
She pulled back, holding up a hand covered with watery blood.
“Matthew. You’ve been hit.”
“Yes.” I remember saying that, but nothing more.
When I woke up, we were traveling. I was on a travois she had
rigged from brush and buckskin cut from my shirt. She had used her underskirt
to bind my wound, and wrapped me in my blanket, and was now riding Misty,
astride. I glanced at her, saw her bare legs, and looked away, embarrassed. She
was quite some woman. She had done what was necessary to save our lives. I
passed out again, and when I came to, we were at her Aunt Mabel’s house.
George was there, yelling at her, when Mabel came out and
shushed him up.
She sent Dawn inside and looked me over. “I guess you’ll live.
What happened?”
I told her as best I could, going into and out of consciousness.
She made George support me and put me into her bed. “It’s the only one of a
size to fit you. You are a tall thing, like my husband was.”
I remember Dawn, wearing one of her aunt’s dresses, bathing my
wounds and settling me down. She figured the Indians shot me with her rifle.
She got out the Bible and read to me, with Mabel correcting some
of her words, but she was mostly able to read it. The sound of her voice was
comforting, especially when the fever was upon me.
I must have rambled on about Hero, because next thing I heard
was George, declaring he was going to hang me for stealing Hero.
Mabel said she would have none of that talk, and I heard
hoofbeats as he rode away.
“He’s going to get Pa,” Dawn said, her face white. “He wants Pa
to hang you or put you in jail.”
I’d been waiting for this moment. It almost seemed unreal.
Mabel came in to the room. “Did you steal that horse?” she
asked.
“Yes, Ma’am. It was during the war.”
“What side were you on?”
“Confederate.” I hoped I had given the right answer.
She snorted. “What happened?”
So I told her about my cousin, and Hero, and having to escape.
“He was just a standing there, all saddled and ready to go. He even had a
bedroll on him. I’d like to give him back, now that the war’s over, but I don’t
know where Trey is. It’s been two years.”
I passed out again. Next time shouts woke me. Dawn was there,
and I asked her what was going on.
Dawn smiled, looking happy. “You missed all the fun.”
“What happened?”
“Pa came and Aunt Mabel loaded her shotgun. She told Pa to turn
around and go home. That I was here, nursing you, and he wasn’t going to get
either one of us. That we could figure it all out when you were well enough to
talk.”
“Oh. She also told George to go stay with my Pa until he could
get the noose out of his rope. Then I stepped out with a rifle in my hands.”
“Pa said he was quit of me, riding through the countryside with
no clothes on.”
“I said, ‘I guess you’d have rather I drowned in the river.’”
“He said, ‘What did Trahern do to you?’ And I said, ‘Saved my
life. I didn’t see you tryin’ to save me from the Indians.’”
She smiled at me. “He doesn’t have a hold on me anymore. It’s
like you said. I’m of age. I can choose my own life now.”
“You don’t want to choose a life with a horse thief,” I said,
leaning back into the pillow. I felt so weak and tired, I wouldn’t be able to
stop a kit fox right now.
“I’ll do what I choose.”
Now when women set their mind on something, you’d best get out
of the way. Seems she and Aunt Mabel had decided on me for her.
I fell asleep wondering what I should do. I wanted Dawn, more
than any woman I’d ever seen, but I didn’t want to drag her into my life if it
meant jail.
The next day Dawn was laughing. She told me the news as she
changed my dressing.
“Aunt Mabel’s corrals weren’t high enough. We found Hero in with
Misty this morning, acting all important like.” She handed me some broth to
drink. “I guess he’s done what he set out to do.”
“He is for sure the smartest horse in Texas. Now when I send him
back to Trey, he’ll leave a part of himself behind.”
“Once we find out where Trey is.”
I nodded. “And if he wants to press charges.”
The cloud hung over me as I
tried to get well. Get well—in time to hang?
Three weeks later I got ready to leave.
I didn’t want to leave Dawn or give up Hero, but I had to. “Trey
might throw me in jail. I don’t think he’ll have me hung.”
“Your cousin? I wouldn’t think so. He should be glad to get Hero
back.” She looked at me with those big blue eyes of hers. “Do you really have
to go?”
“Yes. I’ve been having a hard time livin’ with myself. I have to
do the honorable thing. No matter what the cost.”
“I’ll wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”
“I don’t deserve you.”
“I love you, Matthew Joseph Martin Trahern,” she said. “Now get
that horse returned and get yourself back to me so’s we can get married and
start some little Traherns of our own. I expect I’ll breed as fast as that
filly.”
My face grew hot. “Yes,
ma’am. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
We went inside and I washed up while she and her aunt put the
food on the table.
The dogs barked and I walked over to the door, checking the
rifle standing next to it.
“Hello, the house.”
I looked out and there was this handsome gent all dandied up,
but looking like he knew how to get things done, sitting on a long-legged horse
near Mabel’s front gate. Now it always pays to call out when approaching a
house or a camp, because you might get welcomed with a gun.
“Hello, to you,” I said.
“This the Cumming’s place?”
“It’s Mabel Cumming’s place. You looking for work?”
“Not me. I’m headed to California. Looking for Matthew Trahern.”
There was only one reason I could think of why anyone would be
looking for me. I took a deep breath. “That’s me. How did you know...?”
“I heard some talk in the bar, back in Ft. Worth, that Matthew
Trahern was working on the Cumming’s place. I was wonderin’ if you were any kin
to Trey?”
“Yes, I’m his cousin.”
“I’m Gage Courtney. Trey said he had kin all over. I’m headed
down the road, but thought I’d stop and say howdy. I know Trey would do it for
me, if’n things were switched.”
“Get down and stay awhile. Rest your horse. There’s hay in the
barn and good water for him.”
“Thanks.”
“Traveled far?”
“Purt near the whole country. I come back to Tennessee looking
for my Ma, Abigail Courtney. She was gone. But I ran into your brothers and
sister, and they said that my Pa had come back to get her. We thought he was
dead. My folks left me a message with them for me, that they’d moved to
California. He’s got hisself a place there.”
“Which of my brothers and sisters?”
“There was a new preacher in the area, holding both a wedding
and a meeting, so it brought the folks down off the hills like a swarm of ants
finding a picnic. A bunch of your kin was there. But I’m speaking of Ruth and
Jonas.”
“That’s Trey’s brother and sister. Not mine.”
“Luke?”
“He’s mine.”
“He was the one who mentioned you were somewhere in Texas.”
“Yes. I saw him before I left.”
We moved toward the barn area with his horse, a black and white
paint with albino blue eyes.
“I left Trey and his wife in Washington Territory to go get Ma
in Tennessee. I could’ve saved myself a long trip if...”
“Trey is married?”
“Yes. Things happen,” he said, as he unsaddled his horse and
turned him into the corral.
“Where’d you leave him? I’ve got a horse belongs to him.”
“Walla Walla. His place is east of the town that’s growing
there. They’ve got themselves the makin’ of a fine ranch in the foothills of
the mountains. Trey plans to put in some hay and grain crops on the lower
acres, and raise cows and horses in the foothills. You say you’ve got a horse
of his?”
“Yes.”
“Hero?”
“Yes.
“Which one is he?”
I pointed him out. “He’s hard to miss. I sort of lifted him from
Trey. Never felt right about it.”
Gage laughed. “He told me about that. Had you caught good and
proper, didn’t he?”
“Yes. But it just don’t set right with me, having a horse I
don’t rightly own. Saddle and all. Now that I know where Trey is, I can return
everything to him.”
And a whole lot faster than if I’d had to hunt all over the
country for him.
We walked back from the corral.
“I don’t think he expects him back.”
”What makes you think that?”
“Trey tied that horse near you, so you’d be able to escape.”
“Why would he do a thing like that? He’d just caught me.”
“He didn’t realize who you were until he had you caught. He knew
that men were dying at the prison camps in huge numbers, and he didn’t want you
going there. Especially Camp Morton, the one where they would’ve sent you. It
was a death sentence.”
“How’d he know I’d get loose?”
“He put the most inexperienced private he had to watch you. One
he said couldn’t tell one end of a gun from the other. And he saddled and
bridled Hero and left him as close to the edge of camp as he could. He knew
Hero could outrun any other horse there, so if you made it to him, you were gone.
He watched you go.”
“I wondered at the ease of it all. As I left, he yelled, ‘Don’t
shoot my horse.’ I thought he was more worried about Hero than about me. But
still I’d stolen his horse. So I need to get Hero back to him.”
“Didn’t you find the note?”
“What note?”
“A bill of sale. He wrote you one and tucked it into the
saddlebags. He didn’t want you shot as a horse thief. Hero’s yours.”
We stepped inside the house and my heart was pounding while I
tried to act unaffected. “Dawn, this here’s Gage Courtney. He’s a friend of my
cousin, Trey. And this is Mabel Cummings.”
“Hello,” Mabel said brightly. “Come and eat with us. I’ll put on
another plate.”
As she was getting the table ready, I walked over to where my
saddlebags hung. I’d never completely emptied them out, as I might grab them
for a sudden trip and I always kept some pemmican and a flint for fire
starting, a knife and a few rounds of ammunition in them.
So I carried them to a bench, turned them upside down and
cleaned them out.
No paper. I looked up at Gage, defeated. He was watching me.
“What about that?” he asked, pointing to my courier pouch.
“I know what’s in there,” I said. “I got that after I escaped.”
“Look anyway. Trey wouldn’t have told me he did something if he
hadn’t of done it.”
I open the oilskin pouch, and pulled out all the papers. There
was my army discharge papers, my bill of sale for Misty, my last letters from
my mother, a letter of recommendation from General Lee.
The last item was a small folded-up piece of paper. A bill of sale
for Hero, made out to me. The thief must have tucked it in there when he’d gone
through my saddlebags, probably looking for money.
I wasn’t a thief!
The
release of guilt made my head swirl.
I held it up for Gage to see, grinning ear to ear like an idiot,
then handed it to Dawn. Her squeal of delight told me she was able to read what
it said.
He smiled. “Trey does things like that. I found he’d given me
wages for all the time I helped him, and we never had such an agreement. Just
put money into my bags, so when I opened them up, there it was.”
I nodded. I wanted to do something for the man.
“You going back to him?” I asked.
“Maybe, sometime. I was supposed to take Ma back there to live,
but seein’ she’s hooked up again with Pa, I guess I won’t. At least not until I
catch me a sharp-looking woman like you’ve got.”
“Yes. Things happen.” I put my saddlebags away. “Don’t wait too
long, Gage. The sharp-lookin’ women get taken while you’re not paying
attention.”
I determined right then and there that as soon as we got some
colts from Hero and Misty, I would have Dawn train them and then we’d send them
to Trey. He wasn’t the only Trahern who could be generous.
And honorable. He’d given me back my honor and I would always be
thankful to him for that.
Talking to Gage, finding out about what Trey had done, lifted a
huge weight off my shoulders. In one way, because of the war, I hadn’t
considered myself a thief, yet in another way I had. Knowing that Trey put
temptation in front of me, and I had acted on it, still galled me somewhat. I
shouldn’t have... No. It was war. It was my duty to escape with whatever means
possible.
Trey knew that. That was why he’d set Hero up so handily for me.
I was taking the horse of my cousin, not of some stranger. And putting that
bill of sale in my saddlebags might have saved me a hanging, if someone
recognized Hero and wanted to hang me.
I thought how strange life could be. If Gage had come one day
later, I would have been gone, riding out without any direction, just going
from town to town asking about Trey until I’d found a trail, then started
following it. It might have taken a year or more to find him and return Hero.
A year or longer in which Dawn would have had to wait for me. I
didn’t want to wait.
“Gage,” I asked, “would you like to be best man at our wedding?”
“Naturally.” He grinned. “How soon?”
I looked at Dawn. She was smiling at me, the lights dancing in
her eyes. “As soon as we can round us up a preacher. If’n you don’t mind
waiting.”
“I don’t mind.” He got a funny look in his eyes. “You know, this
will be the second Trahern wedding this month. I’m thinkin’ I should turn me
around and head back to the hills and grab me a wife while one’s still there.
There’s a sharp gal back home who’s been a challenge to me ever since she was
knee high to a ground hog. Her sister just got married—your cousin
Mary—and I got me a suspicion she ain’t agoin’ to wait around for me.”
“Who you talking about?”
“Trey’s sister. Ruth.”
“You sweet on Ruth? Well, I never.”
“Only gal who wouldn’t look
twice at me. Like you said, if I wait too long, I’m gonna miss out. And it
would be a shame to miss Ruth.”
THE END