When they finished, with their heads bent against the driving rain carried by the wind, they made their way to Samuel’s home. Louisa waited there along with Melly, and the youngest of his brothers, twenty-two-year-old Steve.
Caddo, Adam’s big, yellow dog with one white paw, greeted them at the door with his tail wagging. The dog was Adam’s constant companion. Wherever Adam went, Caddo followed like a shadow. But sometimes, he would follow Melly too, as he must have done this morning.
Caddo licked a few drops of moisture off Samuel’s hand. Then the dog raised his long snout and howled despondently.
“What’s got into him?” Melly asked as she hurried toward them. She handed each of them a linen cloth. “Here, take these towels and dry off. The three of you look like you’ve been dunked in that river.”
Melly was like a mother to Samuel and his brothers. She had been since they were mere lads. The middle-aged, serenely wise woman had twinkling eyes and thick auburn hair, except for a few strands of gray spreading out from her temples. Both heartbreak and strength had etched her still comely face. She often assisted Baldy with his patients and also served as the area’s midwife.
Melly always helped everyone with nearly everything. She’d even served as a tutor for him and his brothers, making sure they received a first-rate education even out here in the westernmost part of the country. She was always ordering books and insisted that they read Shakespeare’s best works, which Samuel had tolerated, and more recent literature such as Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, which he’d loved.
Samuel glanced down at the numerous puddles the three of them made on the wooden floor. Were the puddles the beginning of the flood that was to come?
“Don’t worry about that water dripping off you. A little water never hurt anything. We’ll wipe it up in a bit,” Melly said. “Go stand by the hearth fire and warm up.”
They removed and hung up their dripping hats and coats. Their wet clothing could wait until later. Samuel wiped down his face and hair and then strode over to Louisa. He stood before her and gazed into her concerned eyes.
Thunder grumbled outside like the hunger pangs of a starving giant. Would that giant destroy all that he’d worked for these past six years?
“Well?” Louisa asked without getting up from her rocker by the hearth. Her long, golden locks lit by the light of the fire were the only bright spot in the dim, shadowy main room. It would take more than a few candles and the hearth fire to brighten their storm-darkened rooms.
He moved a chair closer to her. “Our well-behaved Red is normally polite enough to stay within its banks. This time may be different,” Samuel told her.
Father and Baldy stood in front of the fire, exchanging tense glances.
Melly poured steaming coffee into cups and handed one to each of them.
“How high is it?” Steve asked. He sat at the nearby pine dining table. Like Samuel, Steve was well over six feet and muscular. His black hair hung on either side of his high forehead and short whiskers covered his strong jaw. Also, like Samuel, his eyes were dark blue.
Perhaps because their mother had gone to God shortly after he was born, Steve was the most like their father in disposition. His keen intelligence was coupled with a kind and brave soul. Samuel suspected that the lack of single women in their area was the only reason his brother was still unmarried.
But it could also be Steve’s commitment to fiercely protecting their family, especially Father. Their loyalty to one another was an unbreakable bond.
Father cleared his throat. “Steve, I want you to go tell Thomas that the river is up fifteen feet from yesterday. Tell him to begin making preparations in case we all have to evacuate.”
“Evacuate!” Louisa repeated, disbelieving. “Surely you’re unduly alarmed. It can’t be that bad.”
Samuel took a long sip of his coffee to avoid telling her and admitting to himself, that it could well be that bad soon.
“Steve, take Adam with you,” Melly said. “He’s at the clinic mixing up some new medicine for Abigail’s morning sickness.”
Their brother Thomas and his wife Abigail lived about two hundred yards to the west, closer to the Pecan Point settlement. Abigail also carried the couple’s first child, although she wasn’t as far along as Louisa.
Baldy chuckled. “Adam is at his happiest when he’s conjuring up some new medicine. Makes my job a whole lot easier.”
Louisa’s brother had a gift for combining wild herbs and other substances like honey and oils to create various tinctures and healing solutions. Much of it he learned from Baldy, some of it from Indian healers, and some from the numerous books Adam read on the subject, including Baldy’s copy of Book of Herbal Remedies, by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.
“How could the river rise that high that fast?” Louisa asked, bringing them back to the potential calamity facing them.
“Floodwaters happen when you have prolonged rainfall over several days or intense rainfall in a short period of time. We’ve had both,” his father said.
“How high can it get before it’s out of its banks?” Louisa asked as she tugged her shawl tighter.
“I’d say another fifteen to twenty feet,” Baldy said.
“Surely we’re safe this far back from the riverbank,” Melly said.
“There’s nothing sure about rivers,” Father said.
“They can change course as quickly as a woman can change her mind,” Baldy said. “And they can double in size.”
Melly, who was a little plump, wasn’t amused and shot him a sideways glance.
Baldy just grinned.
“Our place is about four miles of river frontage and two miles deep,” Louisa said. “And past that, further south, the land is owned or claimed by Spanish or Mexicans. Right?”
“That’s right,” Father said. “I know what you’re thinking. You want to just move about a mile inland. We could do that. We could rebuild everything. But that land is lower and full of marshes. And what will happen when the river changes course, as rivers tend to do?”
“Couldn’t we at least look to see if we can find a suitable spot?” Louisa pleaded.
Steve stepped forward. “Louisa, Samuel and I know this land like we know each other. Father does too. Over the last six years, we’ve scoured the place—all five-thousand acres. About half of our land is within a mile of the river. We never thought it could flood. But it looks like it might. Aside from our homeplaces, the rest of our land is covered in creeks, wetlands, and dense timber. I’m sorry to say, there are no other good spots to build homes.”
“Even now, our cows are standing in water, not grass,” Samuel said. “Standing water is only inches deep now, but it could get much worse.”
Louisa’s face fell. “You’re both certain?” she asked as she eyed first Samuel and then Steve.
“We are,” Samuel said. “We picked this spot to build our homes because it sat on the highest ground.”
Steve took a final sip of coffee, grabbed his long coat off the rack and buttoned it, and then settled his hat firmly on his head. “Don’t worry, Louisa.” He gestured around their cabin. “I’ll help Samuel build another home just like this.”
Samuel knew Louisa wasn’t ready to hear that, but he appreciated Steve’s willingness to help. “Caddo, come here.” He held the dog by his collar until Steve shut the door behind him.
“What happens now?” Louisa asked, close to tears. “We just abandon our homes?”
Samuel had to make her see reason. “What happens when a forty-foot-high raging river knocks at our back door?”
“No, it won’t!” Louisa avowed and shook her head.
Samuel knelt down in front of her and took her hands. “Let’s just hope and pray it doesn’t come to that. But if it does, we will have to leave.”
“No! We can’t leave our home. Look at me. I could have this baby any day,” Louisa said.
“I know,” Samuel said. “This would be the worst possible time for
you to have to leave. But as much as I wish I could, I can’t stop the rain.”
“And the river and the land can only hold so much,” Father said.
Tears pooled in Louisa’s eyes and began to fall. Carrying a babe had made her normally steady emotions far more volatile. But these tears were understandable. She glanced up at Baldy who stood near the warmth of the fire. “Pray. Pray very hard,” she said, her voice pleading with him.
“I have,” Baldy said. “And I will pray without ceasing. We all should. But sometimes not giving us what we want is what we need.”
Both a physician and a preacher, they all looked to Baldy for spiritual guidance. Since Protestant preachers were highly frowned upon by first the Spanish and now the Mexican authorities, he preached only informally among their family and close friends. But when he did, it was with an engaging combination of dignity and humor.
Louisa’s lips quivered. “How can that be? I’m about to deliver a babe. How can bringing our child into a world without a home be what we need? And, Baldy and Melly, your home is the only real home Adam has ever known. My brother will be crushed if he has to leave.”
Melly and Baldy had taken Louisa’s now sixteen-year-old brother, Adam, into their home when he was eight and adopted him. He couldn’t be more their child or more loved if Baldy had delivered him from Melly’s own womb. Since he was eight, alongside Baldy, the scholarly young man had studied medicine and had become skilled at doctoring both humans and animals.
Samuel stood and raked his fingers through his damp hair as he paced. “If it comes to that, we can build again,” he told Louisa. “We built these homes and our cattle company from nothing.”
“Yes, but what about our herd?” Louisa asked.
“We’ll move them further south if we need to,” Samuel said with more confidence than he felt.
“But Mexican officials won’t allow us to move south without approval,” Melly said. “And I’m afraid we can’t count on them.”
What Melly said was true. The majority of Mexican authorities scorned Americans and repeatedly accused settlers of planning rebellion and trying to steal Texas. There were exceptions, but most Mexicans believed protestant Americans would be the ruin of Tejas, as they called it. Yet they encouraged American settlers to come. When settlers were denied land, they petitioned Mexican government officials at Nacogdoches for redress of grievances. Their petitions were ignored.
For the most part, settlers considered Mexican officials to be autocratic, intolerant, and unreliable. They often made promises one day and the next conveniently didn’t remember their agreements. And it annoyed Samuel to no end that they still wouldn’t officially recognize the south side of the Red River as part of Miller County, Arkansas. Pecan Point settlers paid taxes, served on juries, and held county offices in Miller County while Mexico’s control of its Red River holdings remained lax and in a sort of political limbo.
Melly twisted a dishtowel in her work-hardened hands. “And things are even worse to the north of us. I just read a newspaper article about that Choctaw Treaty. If it’s passed by Congress, and it may be by now, the treaty will take all the land to the north of us for the Indians. Those poor settlers on the north side of the Red will be losing their homes soon even if the river doesn’t rise.”
With a solemn expression, his father nodded at Melly. “The treaty will render invalid the land claims of all the settlers in the Arkansas Territory. It will cede to the Choctaws all the land west of a line one hundred paces east of Fort Smith in Arkansas and running due south all the way to the Red River.”
Samuel and his brothers, along with dozens of other settlers, had signed a petition to the President protesting the treaty but he feared their appeal would prove unsuccessful. The government sought the gradual assimilation of Indian tribes, a priority shared by few people outside of Washington. The government would be taking land and homes away from settlers who were told it was theirs and relocating and restricting Choctaws to that land.
“The treaty is unfair to both settlers and Indians,” Samuel said. “Most tribes are used to roaming the plains. Comanches especially are nomadic.”
“Indeed,” Father said. “Our Indian friends have told me the Comanches pushed down from the great mountains to the southern plains in pursuit of both buffalo and fresh grass for their large horse herds.”
“And from the opposite direction, Europeans and Americans have pushed west,” Baldy said. “Now the Arkansas Territory and the Texas Province are caught in the middle.”
Samuel could not imagine a situation more likely to pit one people against the other. And the unfortunate settlers in Arkansas would pay the price for a solution that would please no one. Would the same thing happen in Texas?
“Why can’t everyone just share the land?” Melly asked. “There is more than enough for everyone. Hundreds of miles and thousands upon thousands of acres stretch endlessly to the western horizon and to the south.”
“Men are as territorial as dogs,” Baldy said. “And Texas is likely to be a juicy bone.”
Now was definitely not a good time to have to relocate. The Pecan Point Settlement was being squeezed from all sides. Settlers here were caught between an arrow and a tomahawk. Although the country was deeply committed to westward expansion, hostile Comanches blocked further settlement to the west while the Caddo and other tribes occupied lands due east of them.
And now they were caught between Mexican controlled Tejas and a rising Red River. Not exactly the devil and the deep blue sea, but certainly a chaotic country and a deep red river.
If they had to leave, there were no good choices. The least objectionable seemed to be taking their chances in Mexican Tejas.
He peered out the window at the rain pouring in a silver sheet off the roof. Samuel suspected their destiny may lay waiting in the vast open prairies of Texas…as he preferred to call it.
Chapter 2
Early Monday morning,
Red River at twenty-five feet
The wind rose during the night and seemed to come from both the north and the south. And with it came more swirling, blinding, hard-striking rain. A true deluge that woke Samuel from his restless sleep, it pounded on the roof as if the storm were demanding entrance.
How high was the river now? The question had been his last thought as he drifted off to sleep last night and his first thought upon waking.
Louisa still slept deeply beside him. He hoped the storm wouldn’t wake her. She needed all the rest she could get. When lightning lit their room, he gazed at the swell of her belly that held their child. He placed the soft touch of his fingertips on the miracle he had prayed for. He already loved this child with all that was within him. He wanted a child so much his heart ached with the need to be a father.
And Louisa felt the same deep yearning. Motherless from a young age, she desperately wanted a chance to be the good and loving parent her treacherous father was not. Baldy had told her that everything was fine and she should deliver a strong, healthy child. But the doctor had taken Samuel aside and, appearing to choose his words carefully, said that Louisa’s malnourished early years had taken a toll on her petite body. That was why she had miscarried several times before. And her small frame and narrow hips could make a safe delivery challenging. He’d said he would do all he could to bring their child into this world safely including praying daily for the babe. But he wanted to prepare Samuel for possible complications.
Ever since then, terrified that she would lose this child too, Samuel sent a prayer for Louisa and the babe up to heaven every morning and every night, and often in between. Childbirth took so many young women from their husbands. He refused to accept that Louisa could be among them.
Inside the cabin, it was dark, almost black, as the dense clouds blocked out the morning light. He lit a candle and dressed quickly. Afterward, he built a fire in the hearth and made coffee before stepping outside.
From the covered porch at the back of his home, Samuel stared into the
rain and the struggling dawn. Beneath a brooding gray cloud layer, his beautiful cow pasture now looked more like a weeping field—every blade of grass bent and wet and every tree sodden and dripping, their boughs swaying in the strong gusts.
One by one, the cattle hands on the day shift all emerged from the bunkhouse and went to feed and saddle their mounts in the long horse shelter behind the bunkhouse. Hollis Connally, his foreman and top hand, always waited for the nightshift hands to return to receive their report before he left for the herd himself.
Father came out from his cabin and strode toward the already hitched up wagon team. “Going to town for supplies,” he yelled over to Samuel. “I’m out of coffee and Melly is about out of flour.”
Samuel waved. “Need help?”
Father shook his head and pointed to Baldy’s cabin. “Steve’s helping Adam and Baldy. Their clinic roof is leaking badly.”
Samuel glanced toward the cabin and saw Steve and Adam on Melly and Baldy’s roof nailing long hand-split shingles with their hammers. The strong winds last night must have blown a few shingles off. He didn’t envy them, having to work in these conditions, but Steve was handy with carpentry work and would likely have the leak repaired in no time.
Samuel turned back inside and joined Louisa to help her make breakfast. When they finished eating, he went to work at his desk reconciling his cattle accounts. After a couple of hours, he took a break to check the weather again. While he’d been working, it had continued to rain and grew darker by the hour.
Through the downpour, he saw that Steve and Adam were now digging a trench. It appeared that they were trying to divert rainwater away from the clinic door, which sat on ground a little lower than Baldy’s adjacent cabin. If they got much more rain, even the trench wouldn’t help.
Hollis returned and rode up at a pretty good clip considering the conditions. He stepped off his mount and pushed his hat down firmly. “I thought I’d go check the river level,” Hollis said as soon as he stepped under the cover of Sam’s porch. “The men and I are all gettin’ a bit worried. Even the cattle seem anxious. They’re trying to graze but they are seeing more water than grass.”
LAND OF STARS: The Texas Wyllie Brothers (Wilderness Dawning Series Book 2) Page 2