Just then, Dayme spied Ace Hopkins playing poker. She rushed over to inquire but he shook his head. “Figured he’d be here before now, the celebration and all,” Ace replied after removing his hat and running his fingers through his hair. “Any o’ you fellars seen Morgan?”
“Saw him about an hour ago,” Jake Kuhl drawled. “Headed for the river.”
The sun sunk in a reddish orange haze behind the mountain. She left the wagon where it was parked and walked down to the river. Seeing the sorrel tied to a tree, she knew Morgan couldn’t be far away. She wondered if he was with another woman and hesitated rushing down there when she heard the strumming of his guitar. It was a tune they had enjoyed dancing together, “Little Wildwood Flower.” Peeking through the branches, she saw that he was alone sitting on a blanket spread over soft green grass. Nearby was an apple box covered with a white linen cloth, also a picnic basket. He stopped picking as she approached, but he didn’t get up. He grinned broadly revealing his deep dimples. “Back already? Figured you’d be halfway to Mason by now.”
“So. Who are you waiting for? All dressed up for the dance? Don’t try to tell me Ruby Blackmon just brings you eggs,” Dayme replied in a tone tinged with jealousy.
“I’m not trying to tell you anything, Hon,” he replied matter-of-factly, a grin playing on his lips. “You jealous? Why? You took off after Ben Farrington like a Comanche chasing a buffalo. Thought sure you’d lose a wagon wheel.”
“Stop teasing me, Morgan. I never want to see Benjamin again…ever!” She dropped down beside him and placed her arms around his neck. “Please, darling. I love you so much. Please don’t stop loving me.”
Morgan studied her face for a long moment before he spoke. “Ben’s a very rich man,” he finally said.
“I don’t care,” she cried. “I’d rather live in a tepee in the wilderness with you than with that cotton-hearted snob in a mansion.”
“Do you mean that? Is my nightmare over?” he asked huskily after hugging her close and kissing her. “I can’t take anymore, kitten. I can’t stand another man in your heart. Does this mean we’re finally really married? Man and wife as God intended? Forsaking all others?”
“Yes, yes!” Dayme murmured, her heart singing as she nestled against his chest. “Only you, dear heart. No more mine, no more yours just ours.”
“Does that include your double bed?”
Dayme nodded. “Oh my darling,” she whispered. “I hope so.” Her heart was in her throat with the knowledge of how close she came to losing him.
Morgan’s eyes misted as his arms tightened around her. “Well, I’ll be damned. Biggest gamble of my life, and I won! That old Indian legend is still working. The fool. He won’t be back. He was afraid to drink San Saba River water. ‘Once you taste San Saba’s water and go away, you’ll be ever athirst until you return to the same river’. When you took your first sip of San Saba River water, sweetheart, you became a child of the river…the San Saba’s own. You couldn’t go very far away and stay. You’d have to keep coming back from time to time for another sip. That old Indian legend has been handed down for years, and it’s the gospel truth.”
Dayme giggled, remembering Benjamin’s canteen. “So, you’re the man who….”
Morgan nodded, grinning impishly. “Had to. I didn’t want him to ever come back. It was my hole card. The stake was too high.” He smothered her moist, supple, inviting lips with another kiss, another and another. It was that special time at twilight when they made love, blending together like two piles of honey.
The sound of music from the barn dance drifted over the rippling shoals. The crowd began to gather at the livery stable in the wagon yard across the river and up the hill where people would dance until dawn. The couple on the blanket was in no hurry to join them. They were really one, completely consummating their marriage, to have and to hold forever.
It was moonlight when Morgan lit a lantern and opened the picnic basket. There was cheese, caviar, soda crackers and two long stemmed glasses. He walked down to the cool, rocky shoals and returned with a cold bottle of champagne.
“What is this black stuff? It’s good?” Dayme asked her husband.
“Caviar, my darling.”
She laughed. “Caviar! It is expens…. Morgan! Did you find the Lost Bowie Mine?”
His soft velvet brown eyes twinkled, and his dimples deepened. A smile spread across his happy face. He shook his head. “No, but I’m through prospecting. I don’t need to that now you love only me.” He hugged her close and looked deep into her loving eyes. “Let somebody else find The Lost Bowie Mine. I’m holding a bigger treasure in my arms…two shining emeralds smiling up at me. All the treasure I ever really wanted.” he whispered.
THE AUTHOR
Wanda T. Snodgrass was born November 14, 1927 and reared in Menard County, Texas, the setting for the second half of this novel. A 1944 graduate of Menard High School, she had a Business College education and worked for many years in the secretarial field.
In 1972, she went to work for the Globe of the Great Southwest Shakespeare Theatre in Odessa, Texas where she served as Executive Secretary and Publicity Director for the first producer/director of the Shakespeare theatre, Charles David McCally. She promoted the world’s most authentic replica of Shakespeare’s theatre to newspapers, travel agencies and magazines all over the US and in London. For seven summers, she wrote the Summer Shakespeare Festival souvenir book that sold in the Bard’s Barter Booth. It was about the professional casts and the plays. Later, she served as the first coordinator of The Odessa Brand New Opree, a country and western fund-raiser for the theatre. She scouted for entertainers and staged the shows. Professional entertainers, as well as amateurs filled the open thrust stage, balcony and two corner stages of the theatre on a weekly basis when plays were not scheduled. All donated their talents for the publicity. She was inducted into the Opree’s Hall of Fame in 2005.
Later, as Executive Director of the Odessa Cultural Council, she promoted all the arts organizations in Odessa. In 1981, she co-authored Odessa 100 with the late John Ben Sheppard, former Texas Secretary of State. This was a light-hearted centennial history book. A golden spike edition of the book is buried in a time capsule at the Ector County courthouse in Odessa, Texas.
A member of West Texas Writers and the Permian Basin Chapter of The Poetry Society of Texas, Wanda has many poems and a short story published in various anthologies. She has several books on the back burner…a camping and fishing guide with outdoor recipes, a children’s book, two Biblical plays, and is in the process of writing her memoirs The Cloud Painter and On the Coattails of Jesus. Child of the River is her first novel.
U.S. CIVIL WAR – TEXAS FRONTIER
CHILD OF THE RIVER carries the reader from war-torn Vicksburg, Mississippi, to a plantation of Big Black River, a KKK meeting in an unnamed southern city to Boston, Massachusetts, as well as to Menard, Texas, a quaint little town at the extreme edge of the frontier and Comanche Indian country. Old Fort McKavett and area ghost towns come to life in this novel.
FIRST EDITION
Child of the River Page 38