“I hope so. Despite everything, the man was my father.” She started crying again in earnest as she let loose denied grief. When her tears slowed, she said, “I truly wish I could remember something about him with fondness. But I just can’t.”
He reached for her hand. “The memories are still too fresh. But, Louisa, I promise we’ll make new, good memories to replace the bad ones.”
She sniffled and then smiled a little. “Yes, we will! I know we will!”
“Remember, you have a new father now. And my brothers are now your brothers. You can let that guard down because we will be your guard. A safeguard that will always protect you and Adam with our lives. You also have Baldy and Melly. You and Adam have a big, new family.”
“A peaceful, normal, happy family,” she said. Her face brightened, but moisture still made her eyes sparkle brilliantly. “It’s what I’ve always wanted. What I always dreamed of having. You and your family brought my life out of unhappiness and into happiness. Until I met you, I had almost given up hope of ever being happy…of ever finding my own life.”
He lifted her chin with his finger and gazed intently at her. “A person should never give up, especially on hope.”
She swallowed. “Especially on love.”
He nodded. “You’re so right. If there’s anything worth hoping for, it’s love.”
“It takes courage to hope for love.”
“And it takes courage to embrace love,” he said.
“Once found, though, nothing can give you more courage than love. Or more happiness. Now I don’t have to pretend to be happy. I truly am happy. That’s why I wanted to marry you, Samuel. I know I’ll be content and happy as long as I’m married to you.”
He slipped her gold curls back behind her ears and wiped a finger across her tear-streaked face. “You know, I’ve always thought you were exceedingly smart. Now, you’ve gone and proved it. And we’ve only been married a day. Or is it two days?”
“It doesn’t matter as long as it’s the beginning of forever.”
Epilogue
“Let’s go home,” Samuel said.
Louisa nodded and they turned away from Old Bill’s grave. In the distance, he could hear the Red River flowing strongly once more after the heavy rains. The soothing sound somehow allowed his inner thoughts to be heard more clearly.
As they strolled, the moon and the night’s stars disappeared from the heavens and the light of a new dawn spread across the land before him, bringing the world to life.
Bringing the West to life.
A wilderness dawning.
Like a summons, the dawn’s light called to them. He and Louisa both stopped and turned toward the eastern horizon with quiet expectancy. Like a messenger from God, the dawn offered them the gift of a future. Not just for that one day. For the rest of their lives.
Samuel knew the gift required courage to see it fully.
And now, he understood the future also required love for it to be all it could be.
Hand in hand, they both turned and strode toward their temporary home. It was merely a small, cozy room above a horse shed. But one day, they would have a spacious home to share with a family.
Counting the Indian thieves, Billy and his wife, Mr. Pate, and Old Bill, they’d buried seven people. Samuel sincerely hoped they would be the last for a long while. He had things he wanted to do—a house to build, cattle to buy and sell, and most importantly, a wife to love.
And maybe someday, a herd of children to raise.
Samuel glanced down at his new wife. A wife made even more beautiful by her smile and the soft glow of the rising sun—a ‘smiling morn,’ as the song said.
A feathery breeze, as though made from the waft of angels’ wings, lifted strands of her golden hair. Louisa was a true treasure. Yes, she was a woman, but that didn’t make her weak. It made her strong. Yes, she’d led a life of neglect and abuse, but that didn’t defeat her. It inspired her determination to make a better life for her brother and herself. And yes, in a place like the West, she might face hardships or setbacks in the future. But with her courage, she would not falter.
He had so much faith in her.
And in them.
“Tomorrow morning you can ride your wedding present into the settlement to order what we need for our home. Then we can ride out and check on our cattle,” he said. He emphasized the word our.
Her face filled with gratitude. “I thought of the perfect name for the mare.”
“What’s that?”
“Texana.”
Together, here in this beautiful new land, they could dream big and never give up as they shared a future as wide open at the Texas prairies.
Texas stretched far and wide, but not just east, west, north, and south.
It reached up and into their full hearts.
* * *
THE END
Facts and Inspirations Behind the Story
Believe it or not, in south-central Texas, about 400 miles from the setting of this story, my husband and I live on a cattle ranch in a small country community called Caddo. With a population of somewhere around one-hundred, we have only a few homes and ranches and no stores, but the area has been called Caddo for as long as anyone can remember. I like to believe Caddo was named by my husband’s ancestors who settled in the area in the 1850s. Perhaps they had known a Caddo Indian, maybe one or several, that had helped them when they were living in North Texas. And, when they moved here, maybe they wanted to honor them by naming their community Caddo.
The origin of the community’s name is only a theory or possibly my active imagination. The truth is lost to time, but that theory is what inspired the character of Kuukuh, the Caddo brave. It also inspired me to write Louisa’s promise to herself to be sure future generations knew of the help the brave had been to her.
The Caddo Nation is now a confederacy of several southeastern Native American tribes. Their ancestors historically inhabited much of what is now east Texas, Louisiana, and portions of southern Arkansas and Oklahoma. They called the confederacy the Tejas...yup, Texas is a Caddoian word. It means "those who are friends.” In the 17th century, the Spanish knew the westernmost Caddo peoples as "the great kingdom of Tejas" and the name lived on to become the name of the 28th state of the United States—Texas.
Historical geography is an important element of this book. Just as the French had disputed Spain's claim to the Red River area, so also did American settlers, who rightly believed the land to be part of the Louisiana Purchase, as shown on the map at the beginning of this section.
According to the Texas State Historical Association (https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcr05), American hunters and traders were active in the north Texas area by 1815. By 1818, permanent settlement was underway at Burkham's Settlement, Jonesboro, and Pecan Point when the real-life Stephen Wiley (my husband’s 4th great grandfather) and his sons joined other actual settlers like Claiborne Wright, George and Alex Wetmore, and William Mabbitt, all of which inspired minor characters in this book.
By the mid-1820s, these first-wave settlers began to move out onto the Texas prairies. When the United States government refused to issue land titles to these settlers, many of them turned first to the Mexican government and then to Benjamin Milam in an attempt to obtain valid land titles. These efforts were unsuccessful for the real-life Stephen Wiley and his sons.
Louisa was my husband’s third great-grandmother, but her father’s character is entirely fictitious. Unfortunately, we know nothing about him. But the concept of arranged marriages on the frontier is based on fact. Frontier marriages were often practical unions characterized by strong patriarchal authority, and marriage was frequently viewed as a business transaction. Parents could control their children’s ability to marry before the age of twenty-one. And until the first half of the 20th century, arranged marriages were common in migrant families.
Herman H. Long’s character was, in part, inspired by James Long (ca. 1793–1822) who led an actu
al filibustering campaign, the Long Expedition, an early attempt by Anglo-Americans to wrest Texas from Spain. On his return to Nacogdoches, Long found the settlement nearly deserted. In his absence, the Spanish soundly defeated his forces, killed his brother, and captured most of the settlers. Long’s wife, child, and a few other survivors fled to Louisiana. Long was forced to cross back over the Sabine into safety and rejoin his family. His efforts to take Texas from Spain met with one setback after another. Long remained convinced, however, that the paradise that was Texas was there for the taking. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qyl01
The character of Old Bill Williams was based on the trader William Williams (1747 – 1849) a noted mountain man and frontiersman who was fluent in several Native American languages. He served as an interpreter for the government and guided several expeditions to the West. The real Williams died at age 62 when ambushed and killed by Ute warriors.
The song sung and played at the tavern by Claude O’Neil, a man who was too fond of the bottle, was composed by my husband Larry and is about a long lost relative.
To learn more about the old song sung by Cornelius, ‘Hail Smiling Morn,’ go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hail_Smiling_Morn. You can also listen to several versions on YouTube. The song was composed in 1810 by Reginald Spofforth, an English musician and composer.
This is the second time a cougar has appeared in one of my books. Also called a mountain lion, panther, catamount, or puma, they were a definite threat to early settlers and lived throughout Texas. In 2018, a 200-pound cougar was killed just west of Fort Worth. And just recently, Colorado wildlife officials were forced to trap and kill five mountain lions after aggressive behavior by the predators. Unfortunately, capture is not always an option. Capturing a wild cougar that is accustomed to traveling great distances and then confining it to a small enclosure is not a humane option.
According to Texas State Historical Association Trammel’s Trace, the road the Spanish soldiers took was an early road into Texas that ran from the Red River to Nacogdoches where it met the Camino Real de los Tejas, the Old San Antonio Road. The trace had two points of origin—one at Pecan Point, Texas, and another at Fulton, Arkansas, where it connected with the Southwest Trail from Memphis. The trail began as a series of Caddo trails which were first used by Anglos in the early 1800s for illegally smuggling horses from the Red River prairies in Spanish Texas. Trammel’s Trace was the first road to Texas from the northern boundary with the United States and was used for migration from Arkansas, Missouri, and Tennessee before Texas became a republic.
Regarding the Spanish Army soldiers, when war broke out with France in 1808, the Spanish Army was ill-prepared and deeply unpopular with citizens in Spain, Mexico, and the Province of Texas. Leading generals were assassinated, and the army proved incompetent to handle command-and-control. The officer corps was selected primarily on the basis of royal patronage, rather than merit and junior officers often received no formal military training. Some officers from peasant families deserted and went over to the insurgents, both in Mexico and Spain, and later in Texas.
In Baldy’s apothecary, he kept a supply of malaria pills containing quinine. The pills were not actually available for another fourteen years. In 1832, John S. Sappington developed a pill, using quinine taken from cinchona bark, to cure a variety of fevers, such as scarlet fever, yellow fever, and influenza. He sold “Dr. Sappington's Anti-Fever Pills” across Missouri. Demand became so great that within three years Dr. Sappington founded a new company known as Sappington and Sons to sell his anti-fever pills nationwide. The anti-fever pills were popular in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Although Dr. John Sappington’s successful creation of an anti-malaria pill did not eradicate malaria, it did help save thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lives. The cause of malaria, mosquito bites, would not be discovered until 1897. Quinine is still one of the most effective antimalarial drugs available today.
In this book, the Wyllie’s best bull was a Longhorn. According to the Texas State Historical Association, the Longhorn is a hybrid breed resulting from a mix of Spanish stock and English Longhorn Hereford cattle that American frontiersmen brought to Texas from southern and midwestern states in the 1820s and 1830s. Spanish cattle had roamed free in Texas probably before the eighteenth century. We have no idea if the real-life Samuel Wiley bred one of his family’s bulls to a Spanish cow and created a Longhorn, but I like to think that he did.
Finally, I chose the title RED RIVER RIFLES for this book, because Americans should appreciate and remember the importance of guns in our history. The Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the settlement of the West were influenced by the gun in ways most people don’t recognize. Then, as now, real freedom must be won and defended. That does not mean that as a nation we can afford to be careless or irresponsible with our guns or gun laws. As with all our other freedoms, we must guard the freedom to own guns with wisdom.
Dear Reader,
A million thanks for reading my novel! If you are interested in reading my other novels, they are listed on the next pages. The first series—AMERICAN WILDERNESS SERIES ROMANCES—are novels about each of the Wyllie brothers, starting with Samuel’s father, Stephen. And the second series—WILDERNESS HEARTS—are stories about their grown children, though the Wyllie brothers are also major characters in each of the second series books.
I hope you will long remember RED RIVER RIFLES, Wilderness Dawning Series – Book One. If you enjoyed reading this story, I would be honored if you would share your thoughts with your friends. Regardless of whether you are reading print or electronic versions, I’d be truly grateful if you posted a short review on the book’s page on Amazon.com. Reviews are so helpful to both authors and readers. It helps the works of authors to stay visible on Amazon and it helps readers find books they will enjoy.
If you would like to contact me directly, please send me a note through my website http://www.dorothywiley.com under the ‘Contact’ tab. Under that same tab, you can also sign up for my Newsletter to receive special offers for free or discounted books.
To receive notifications of my new releases follow me on Amazon at www.amazon.com/author/dorothywiley.
Thanks for your support and your review!
Blessings,
Dorothy
Also by Dorothy Wiley
All of Wiley’s novels, in her closely related series, are available in both print and eBook, and many in audiobooks at www.amazon.com/author/dorothywiley
* * *
AMERICAN WILDERNESS SERIES
Book One — the story of Stephen and Jane:
WILDERNESS TRAIL OF LOVE
* * *
Book Two — the story of Sam and Catherine:
NEW FRONTIER OF LOVE
* * *
Book Three — the story of William and Kelly:
WHISPERING HILLS OF LOVE
* * *
Book Four — the story of Bear and Artis:
FRONTIER HIGHLANDER VOW OF LOVE
* * *
Book Five — A story of Sam and Catherine and the entire family:
FRONTIER GIFT OF LOVE
* * *
Book Six — the story of Edward and Dora:
THE BEAUTY OF LOVE
The story of the Wyllie family continues in the second and third series
WILDERNESS HEARTS Series
* * *
Book One — the story of Daniel and Ann:
LOVE’S NEW BEGINNING
* * *
Book Two — the story of Gabe and Martha:
LOVE’S SUNRISE
* * *
Book Three —the story of Little John and Allison
LOVE’S GLORY
* * *
Book Four—the story of Liam and Polly
LOVE’S WHISPER
About the Author
Amazon bestselling novelist Dorothy Wiley is an award-winning, multi-published author of Historical Romance and Western Romance. Her first two
series, the American Wilderness Series and Wilderness Hearts Series, are set on the American frontier when Kentucky was the West. Her third series, Wilderness Dawning—the Texas Wyllie Brothers, continues the highly-acclaimed Wyllie family saga but brings some of the family to the new edge of the West—the Province of Texas. All of her novels blend thrilling action with the romance of a moving love story to create exceedingly engaging page-turners.
Like Wiley’s compelling heroes, who from the onset make it clear they will not fail despite the adversities they face, this author is likewise destined for success. Her novels have won numerous awards, notably a RONE Award Finalist, a Laramie Award Finalist, a Chatelaine Finalist for Romantic Fiction, an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Quarter-finalist, a Readers’ Favorite Gold Medal, a USA Best Book Awards Finalist, and a Historical Novel Society Editor’s Choice. And Wiley’s books continue to earn five-star ratings from readers and high praise from reviewers, including several Crowned Heart reviews from InD’Tale Magazine.
Wiley’s extraordinary historical and western romances, inspired by history, teem with action and cliff-edge tension. Her books’ timeless messages of family and loyalty are both raw and honest. In all her novels, the author’s complex characters come alive and are joined by a memorable ensemble of friends and family. And, as she skillfully unravels a compelling tale, Wiley includes rich historical elements to create a vivid colonial world that celebrates the heritage of the frontier.
Red River Rifles (Wilderness Dawning—the Texas Wyllie Brothers Series Book 1) Page 26