‘Mr Wade, sir.’
Aloysius greeted his assistant brusquely. Fifteen-year-old Hugh Hocking was the son of his closest friend, Clarence, who was also his accountant and advisor.
Hugh placed the day’s mail on Aloysius’s desk. ‘My father called regarding the State Fair.’
‘And?’
A single rifle shot echoed in the distance. Aloysius reached automatically for the colt holstered at his hip.
Hugh flinched. ‘He’s on his way, sir.’
Aloysius turned to resume his perusal of the street as Hugh exited the room. The heady days of shoot-outs in the main street were almost as rare as feathered frogs, but there were still scrapes between liberated slaves and whites. And there was invariably the odd drunken cowboy or old Indian who came into town to pick a fight. Only last week a black had been lynched on the outskirts of East Dallas for insulting a white woman. The Civil War had changed much and Aloysius knew many southerners wished Dallas had perhaps not been so prosperous at the end of the war compared to other southern cities, although the influx of blacks meant there was rarely a shortage of domestics or fieldworkers, even if they did have to be paid.
The war. Aloysius couldn’t think or speak the phrase without remembering his older brother, Joseph. On impulse, he opened the top drawer of his desk and reached for the letter Gregory Harrison had written in 1863 from Fort Sumner. Gregory, an old friend from their Charlestown days, had been killed a few months later, shot through the heart by a Kiowa Brave. Aloysius re-read the letter, as he had every week for the past twenty-three years. It was the last time his niece’s name had been written in ink. Philomena was presumed dead.
We are now facing renewed hostility from the Apache and assume from previous engagements that retribution will be fierce. On that front I was most sorry to hear of your grievous news. In answer to your investigations my advices suggest that it was indeed Geronimo or one of his band who captured your niece, Philomena. The girl’s abduction following the murder of her brother and father is now well-documented in these parts and, although missives have been sent in an effort to broker her return, there is no news.
Aloysius had spent a lifetime revisiting the events that had led to his brother’s death. At the outbreak of war he’d argued with Joseph for the right to join the Confederate Army. Their father had forbidden them to both enlist in an effort to protect the family line. Joseph eventually grew tired of quarrelling with his younger brother and they agreed to toss a coin to see which of them would go to war. Joseph won.
A sharp knock on the door broke Aloysius’s reflections and he replaced the letter in the drawer. Straight-backed, of medium height and brown hair, in middle age Clarence Hocking veered towards being overweight. In comparison, Aloysius in his forty-ninth year remained slim and fit. He rode to work every day and took a constitutional along the banks of the Trinity River after lunch when time permitted. After pleasantries were exchanged, Clarence came straight to the point and handed Aloysius a copy of the financials for Dallas’s inaugural State Fair. Due to open next month, Aloysius was part of the private corporation behind the venture. He and his partners were hoping for crowds that would edge the 100,000 mark, thereby ensuring a healthy profit. Aloysius checked the figures.
‘I have no doubt that we will exceed our projections, Aloysius,’ Clarence explained. ‘We certainly have the necessary transportation in place to bring the masses to our fair city.’
‘Yes, well we are all agreed on that. The railroad has made this town. Believe me, there was a time when I had my doubts as to my father’s sanity when he sent Joseph and I out here.’
Clarence Hocking shuffled papers and slid another document across Aloysius’s desk. ‘And in all deference to your father, I too was a little perturbed when he asked me to join you.’
‘Well, it certainly worked out well, for both of us.’
Hocking’s mouth twitched. It was the closest he ever came to a smile. Five years older than Aloysius, he’d been a widower on arrival, but he’d quickly remarried and fathered seven children, all of whom had survived and most of whom were law-abiding. The hopes of the family lay with Hugh, who’d shown himself to be intelligent and hardworking. Hocking pointed to the document sitting on the desk. ‘I have copies of the profit and loss statements for Wade Mercantile and Wade Grocers & Provisions. Did you want me to run through them?’
‘Are my sons making a profit?’ Aloysius enquired, checking the rows of figures.
‘Joe is overseeing the mercantile end of things very well but, of course, like most businesses everything is on credit. As long as the farmers are productive he’ll be paid in due course. And he seems to be managing the plantation well.’
‘The costs of shipping to the coast are too high,’ Aloysius commented. ‘If the cotton prices ever dropped significantly …’
Hocking agreed. ‘Exactly, which is why Dallas must continue on its path to becoming a self-sustaining industrial city.’
Aloysius had been one of the earlier owners to see the benefit of sharecropping following the changes wrought by the Civil War. Both free black farmers and landless white farmers worked on the Wade plantation in return for a share of the profits, and the arrangement was proving lucrative for the family, although many a time it would have been far simpler to revert to the old ways and simply flog the Negroes who got uppity. Diversification remained the signature reason for the Wade family’s success. It was Aloysius who convinced his father to extend their interests beyond newspapers and into farming and retail a few years after their arrival at Dallas, while Joseph had travelled to New Mexico to investigate the tin and silver mines. Their early business ventures had also been significantly buoyed by two prudent marriages. ‘What about Edmund? Has my youngest lad reached the agreed sales figures?’
Clarence gave a sigh that assumed a father’s disappointment. ‘Frankly the store should be doing a lot better. Settlers are passing through Dallas and heading north into Indian Territory in greater numbers every year. The trade for goods and provisions should be rising accordingly.’
Aloysius selected some newspapers from a side table and spread them across the desk. ‘The Civil War and subsequent restructuring of the South continues to affect many.’ Aloysius pointed at the newspapers, the Cherokee Advocate, the Indian Journal, the Indian Citizen. ‘All of these tribal newspapers talk of the influx of white and black farmers into Indian Territory. The Indians are making a fortune leasing their lands or sharecropping them. Why, the Cherokee lease their six-million-acre Outlet to the Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association of Kansas for 100,000 dollars annually. We’re talking 300,000 head of cattle on Cherokee rangelands.’
Clarence shook his head. ‘I’m not moving to Indian Territory, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘I’m simply saying that there are many inflationary and deflationary pressures affecting people since the war. People are looking for a new start. Edmund should be taking advantage of the situation. You mark my words, the civilising of the West has just begun.’
Clarence couldn’t fault his old friend’s argument. The massacre of buffalo by the military, who knew that the extinction of the animal might well result in the destruction of the Indians by depriving them of a significant part of their culture, had led to an increase in cattle. And while Clarence still owned a ranch, the days of open-land ranching with corrals and cowboys had swiftly changed with the arrival of barbed wire. Cropping farms were increasing and overseas capitalists were making substantial investments in the cattle industry.
‘The government won’t let the tribes keep their land when there are good honest folk willing to make a living.’ Aloysius thumped the table with his fist for emphasis. ‘Why, those savages shouldn’t have any rights at all. If there is money to be made, we’re the ones who should be making it. I still think back to the June of 1876 when we heard of General Custer’s slaughter at the Battle of Little Big Horn and, to this day, I can see no good reason for any Indian to be accorded land or right
s.’
Clarence waited as his old friend calmed. ‘And how will the Indians make a living? I seem to recall them being here first.’ Purple was not quite the word for the colour Aloysius’s face had turned but it was close. Clarence was aware he shouldn’t taunt his friend, not when he knew first hand of Aloysius’s obsession with his abducted niece. He was, however, one for giving his word and keeping it. The Indians had been assigned lands by the government of the day, lands where they could hopefully make a living and live quietly. Clarence considered this a fair result. After all, they may well be savages but one could hardly act like they didn’t exist. ‘My apologies, Aloysius, we have differing views on this subject.’
‘A place for everyone, eh, Clarence? Yes, yes, but as far as I’m concerned the only good Indian is a dead Indian.’
‘Well, in the meantime we have the problem of your son to address. Might I suggest we promote the Harbison lad to store manager and perhaps Edmund should join the newspaper? He’s not been the same since Jenny’s death.’
Aloysius was not immune to Clarence’s placating tone. Gathering up the newspapers, he sat back at the desk, his gaze wandering absently over the framed headlines from the earliest editions of the newspaper. Edmund, Aloysius’s youngest son, had been slow to mature and even slower to marry. With his wife dying in childbirth along with their hoped-for first child a year earlier, it was time the lad selected a new bride and got down to the business of successful breeding. ‘He needs a wife. There’s nothing like children to keep a man at the office. God knows, Annie and I managed three girls and two sons, which was enough to keep my nose to the mill.’
‘So you’ll speak to him?’ Clarence confirmed.
‘I daren’t send him out to the plantation or the farm. He’d be just as likely to give half the cotton and wheat we produce away.’ Aloysius poured two whiskeys from the cut-glass decanter on his desk and slid a tumbler across to his old friend. ‘What? You’ve got that look in your eye, Clarence, like you’re intending on a lecture.’ Aloysius took a sip of the strong spirit.
‘I was thinking about the past, specifically your family’s,’ Clarence swallowed the whiskey in a single gulp. ‘I know how much you hate the Indians.’
‘Apaches, I hate the god-damn Apaches, and I’ve every right. Twenty-three years, Clarence, and not a single word,’ he replied, clutching the glass.
‘Until today.’
Aloysius sat forward in his chair, a lock of greying hair fell across his brow. ‘What are you talking about?’
Clarence withdrew an envelope from his coat and held it across the desk. ‘The letter came to my office,’ he stated by way of explanation. ‘Geronimo has surrendered.’
Aloysius stared at his old friend as if the contents could be discerned from the intelligent eyes opposite him.
Clarence sat the letter on the desk. ‘A Captain Henry Lawton and First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood have led an expedition that has brought Geronimo and his followers back to the reservation.’
Aloysius reached for the envelope, flicked open the broken seal and unfolded the paper. ‘Why didn’t you tell me of this immediately?’
‘Because wanting something doesn’t mean it will happen,’ Clarence replied. ‘There was a white woman with the Apaches.’
Aloysius stood, his chair falling backwards to land with a loud thud on the timber floor. He scanned the contents of the letter.
‘The similarities are strong,’ Clarence said evenly, ‘but obviously we cannot be assured that the woman mentioned is –’
Aloysius tapped at the letter. ‘They say she is blonde-haired, striking in appearance,’ his eyes grew misty, ‘and aged in her thirties.’
‘The details are compelling, I admit, but I urge you, my friend, not to get your hopes up,’ Clarence replied carefully.
‘It’s her. It’s Philomena.’ Aloysius’s voice grew tight with emotion.
‘I know how long you have prayed for this moment, Aloysius, but the probability that this woman is indeed your niece remains slight.’
The single sheet of paper trembled between Aloysius’s fingers. ‘They have found my dead brother’s daughter.’ He looked to the ceiling. ‘God be praised.’
‘If it is her,’ Clarence cautioned, ‘if it is indeed your niece, as your friend I can only advise you to temper your happiness until you learn the true nature of her state.’
Aloysius frowned. ‘What rubbish are you speaking of, Clarence?’
‘It is over twenty years since her abduction.’
‘And I have never stopped thinking of the child. She is my brother’s blood.’
‘She has been raised by savages,’ Clarence countered. ‘Please, dear friend, I share your joy if indeed the woman is Philomena, but I also urge you to prepare yourself.’
Aloysius folded the letter, returned it to the envelope and tucked it inside his suit coat. ‘I have been preparing for this moment for twenty-three years, Clarence. My niece was born a Wade and no Indian, Geronimo or not, can ever take that away from her.’
No, Clarence thought, they can’t take a name but they can take other things.
Chapter 2
October, 1886 – Dallas, Texas
Aloysius examined the miniature of his long dead brother. Joseph’s portrait was painted on enlistment and remained the sole rendering of his beloved sibling. Aloysius ensured the keepsake remained safely encased in a slip of velvet in his study desk when not on his person. The second portrait was of his sister-in-law, Ginny. Blonde-haired, beloved Ginny – she was the only woman his dear wife Annie had ever come second to, both in appearance and devotion. The squeak of the desk drawer broke the evening silence as Aloysius returned their portraits to safety.
The house was quiet. It was a stillness Aloysius had never grown used to following the departure of his adult children. Raised in a busy Charlestown household with four older sisters vying for husbands from an early age, a socially adept mother and a formidable businessman for a father, Aloysius and Joseph barely enjoyed a quiet moment until their formal education began. Then, after the books and the learning, they were sent west, where the adventure of a frontier life and the establishment of their varied business interests morphed into marriage and children. Now, these many years later with the children grown and long settled into family lives of their own, only Edmund shared the substantial walls of the Wade family home. Their youngest had returned to the fold following his bride’s death and, far from providing a pleasant diversion to the long evenings Aloysius and Annie shared, Edmund remained a melancholy addition. Annie was intent on finding a suitable new wife and had gone about the task with considerable determination, much to Edmund’s disinterest. Not that Aloysius cared about the future Mrs Edmund Wade. His thoughts, this past month, were only for Philomena.
Since the receipt of that single, miraculous letter, he’d existed on possibilities, concentrated on a future in which all things were put right. He would restore his brother’s daughter to the bosom of the family and, in doing so, he would be gifted with the presence of Ginny’s daughter. Every day, Aloysius had thanked providence while counting down the hours until his niece was reunited with his family. Then, this morning’s mail had arrived with its distressing contents. It seemed it was not going to be the reunion he’d hoped for.
Picking up the letter, he slipped the scant lines between the pages of a diary. It was the diary that he had taken to writing in following the demise of his brother and family. The burgundy leather book, once heavy with grief, was now the keeper of Aloysius’s hopes. It calmed him to re-read the entries, to watch the steady progression of his thoughts from despair to anger to a grudging acceptance of the events that had taken place so many years earlier. It was an acknowledgement of the past tinged with faith, for Aloysius never gave up believing that one day Ginny’s girl would come home.
On the open page beneath his hand he started to doodle, a shape taking form. Aloysius cocked his head to one side, his eyebrows joining in a single line. The dr
awing was of an eagle. He shook his head and turned to the diary.
September 1886
I remain indebted to the very fine men who led the expedition that brought Geronimo and his followers back to the reservation. And although, Christian of good faith that I am, I would have preferred Geronimo to be dead, we have at last had the very good news that we long since gave up hoping for.
My niece, Philomena, the last of my dead brother’s line, has been found, alive. It is indeed extraordinary news, for it is now 23 years since her most dreadful ordeal began and I wonder at the strength of her being for a woman to have survived so long under Indian captivity. I remember her as the child she then was, bright and cheerful of disposition and angelic in appearance; a mop of curly silver-blonde hair and hazel eyes rendering Philomena in the image of her mother.
Lifting a pencil, Aloysius made a new diary entry. He couldn’t help it. The reality of his brother’s death and Philomena’s capture was forever imprinted in his mind and yet even after so many years he still couldn’t make sense of it.
October 1886
Joseph should have been with his troop. He should not have deserted his post to travel into the territory of New Mexico. An ailing wife drew him southwards and later, after Ginny and her stillborn baby had faced the great ordeal, Joseph set about bringing his remaining children, a son and Philomena, back to his post at Fort Washita. They were ambushed en route. There were reports of a Confederate Union encounter at the time, of which they were involved, but no matter the situation the end result was the same. Philomena was abducted by Apaches, my brother and young nephew killed.
‘You will wear the words out with re-writing, my husband.’ Annie stood in the study doorway, the silk of her lavender gown shimmering from the combined attentions of the dying fire in the hearth and the flickering lamp on the desk. ‘Is everything all right? You were not yourself at dinner.’
The Great Plains Page 2