by Nancy Radke
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.
8
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
But not the end of your reading, if you wish to read a short story. There is one included in this book that is part of The Traherns Series, called The Prettiest Gal on the Mountain, about Gage’s mother. There are also a couple of samples from other books. Next on Amazon is Ruth’s story, The Prettiest Girl in the Land, Traherns # 3, then The Luckiest Man in the West, #4 about Matthew’s brother, Luke. All these take place in the late 1860’s. When I write a series, such as this one, I usually write three or four books at the same time, so I can hopefully keep the facts straight among the characters. There are four more stories in this series, bringing it up to the modern era.
The Best Friends in the Country (short) is about Web and his Shoshone wife, Kimana. This will be an exclusive story in The Traherns Collection, which I hope to get up before the end of April.
The Happiest Man in the Territory, is set in 1888, during the advent of the railroads. Brynn brings out a bull, Sir Galahad, from Baltimore to the Trahern ranch in Walla Walla.
The Stubbornest Girl in the Valley, (short) is about Barnabas Trahern, in 1925, and Samantha Web, the granddaughter of Charlie Web and Kimana.
Appaloosa Blues is the modern day story of Adam Trahern, the great, great, great grandson of Trey and Mally, and Charlie and Kimana.
Appaloosa Blues is also the end book of the Sisters of Spirit Series. Unlike the rest of the Trahern series, it is written in third person and is much more of a romance story.
Thank you for reading “The Smartest Horse in Texas.” If you enjoyed this book, I would appreciate it if you'd help other readers enjoy it too by recommending it to friends, readers' groups, and discussion boards, or by writing a short review on Amazon. Thank you.
Also, if you have personal knowledge about the Rio Brazos that I missed while doing my research on that area, I’d appreciate a note. The joy of putting out an ebook is that they can always be corrected, if some fact is in error. Email me at [email protected]
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OTHER WORKS BY NANCY RADKE
(Prologue) Songs for Perri
The Prettiest Gal on the Mountain (Short pioneer story)
WORKS BY OTHER AUTHORS
(Prologue) Kill to Inherit
THE SISTERS OF SPIRIT SERIES
SHOW & TELL BIBLE SERIES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CONTACT INFORMATION
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
DEDICATION
OTHER WORKS BY NANCY RADKE...Sisters of Spirit Series
Boxed set of #1-4 of the Sisters of Spirit novels. This gives you four super reads, ranging from a simple love story in Turnagain Love to a life and death struggle in Courage Dares. All are sweet, contemporary romances with lots of action but without the language or sex o
ffered by many authors. These are safe to give to teenagers, grandparents, and anyone wanting pure romance.
All sweet, all contemporary, and this one with mystery and suspense. The Sisters are in danger again. Pick up SPIRIT OF A CHAMPION, #7 Sisters of Spirit Romantic mystery, contemporary. Stormy is a veteran crusader, and when she discovers the danger her brother faces, she flies to the rescue. No one believes her. She gets help from Hugo and her cousin, Perri, whom you met in Songs for Perri.
SAMPLE: SONGS FOR PERRI
PROLOGUE
Tragedy gave no warning.
Slamming the door on her mother’s new Range Rover, twenty-six year old Perri Linn started to pull on her much-traveled suitcase, then paused to watch the swiftly approaching car.
Her step-father's home was perched on the edge of the mesa near Phoenix, and was the last house on the road. If the car passed the next driveway...which it did...it must be coming here, to his place.
Squinting to see better through the heat waves, Perri recognized Walt's silver gray Mercedes. She knew they weren't expecting her yet, so why would he and her mom be coming home in the middle of the day? Could it be an emergency—they were traveling awfully fast?
They must slow down to turn into the driveway!
As if in defiance, the car roared on past and smashed into the large rocks set as a barricade on the mesa's edge. Red dust swirled upward towards the hot Arizona sun, cloaking the twisted metal.
With a noiseless scream, Perri raced down the gravel drive. A woman lay half out of the car on the driver's side, her light golden hair, so like Perri's own, revealing her identity.
The wreck burst into flames, but Perri ignored the furnace-like heat and half-carried, half-dragged her mother out of danger; then used her hands to snuff out the fire on Crystal's dress.
Blood. Everywhere. Flowing from Crystal's face and arms and body—mainly her head. Perri yanked off her own blouse to press against the deepest wound. "No...no...no," she whimpered, trying vainly to stop the torrent. Wasn't anyone around to help? She didn’t have her cell phone, she had dropped her purse as she ran.