Chapter 1

I had no idea when the three dusty, tired-looking riders rode up to Uncle Horace’s farmhouse that summer of 1828 that my life was about to change again.

“Welcome, Harry!” Uncle Horace exclaimed. “I was plumb afraid my letter would get to your place in Alexandria while you were off in Texas! Light and set!”

That was more words than I’d heard from Uncle Horace in the past two months, ever since the rains came and the river overflowed! That’s how I knew that the visitors were important.

I looked on curiously, never having seen them before, but Uncle Horace clearly knew them well. I suddenly remembered that my pa had mentioned a brother named Harold. I’d never met him and the one time I’d asked, Pa had hesitated before answering. “We don’t see much of Harry, Jake. Your ma doesn’t like having him around. He associates with bad companions, for one, and he drinks more’n he ought to. I figured it was easier to not ruffle her feathers.”

That brief explanation and the look on his face had made me curious enough to ask my cousin Pete during our fishing trip east to the Red River. “He’s the family black sheep, Jakey! Every family has one, seems like, and he’s ours!”

That led to a friendly tussle and I’d thought to ask my pa what Pete had meant after I got home, but I never got the chance. Two days later, before we returned from that fishing trip, a tornado tore its way through our farm. The house was ripped apart down to the foundation and when I got back, I found my Uncle Horace waiting to tell me that I was an orphan.

It took a few minutes before it hit me, that I was alone in the world. No family, and me still a kid! Where would I live? Would anybody give me a job? I’d seen orphans a time or two and felt sorry for them, ragged and homeless as they were. They sure-enough had a hard life. Did they live by begging?

But then Uncle Horace continued, so I knowed I wouldn’t starve. “You’ll be going with us, Jake. My brothers and me talked about it and decided that the best thing to do was to just join Hiram’s property to mine for the time bein’. I reckon it’ll be yours one day, when you’re old enough.”

Not that it was ever going to be worth much, far as I could tell. Seemed like the river flooded every two years or so, and soggy fields won’t grow much of anything except crawdads. They’re good for catfish bait, but not much else. But thinking about what had happened back then didn’t take long, and I found myself wondering: could this really be my Uncle Harry?

But I didn’t have to wonder long.

“These must be my nephews Matthew and Mark!” said Uncle Horace. “I haven’t seen you two since you were tots! Say howdy to your cousin Jake, boys!” I took a closer look at them while they sized me up. Uncle Harry had a patch of white in his hair and wrinkles around his eyes, while Matthew and Mark looked to be twins, grown men who wouldn’t be interested in a 14-year-old poor-relation.

I left them to their talk and climbed my favorite tree to look out across the empty fields and think. After dark, when the catching-up was mostly done, Uncle Harry called me in.

I had been leaning against the corral fence at the time, admiring their horses and wishing I had one for my own. Not that that was likely to happen, poor as we were! I looked around for Uncle Horace, but I reckon he was off with my aunt figuring out how to feed his guests. Then I remembered that he still had some cured bacon and two hams left from the butchering last fall. Maybe that was where he was, in the smokehouse.

Things had been mighty slim lately. The rabbits and such we caught by trapping helped feed us, and Pete and me ran trot lines too. Uncle Horace sold the catfish we caught and used the money to buy flour and beans. Uncle Harry interrupted my wool-gathering.

“You’ll bunk in the barn tonight with my boys, Jake,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll see about a horse for you. Can you ride? Not just farm plugs, but really ride? Spend all day in the saddle?”

“I’ve ridden the wheel-horse while we were snaking logs out of the woods,” I confessed, “but nothing like you’re talking about. I’m really going with you? And I’m to have a horse of my own?”

“You are, Son. Horace took you in after Hiram was killed, and ‘twas a good thing he did, but he can’t keep you now. He’s got problems enough just feeding his own family, and next year is likely to be worse. We brought a little money for him, enough for him to pay off his debts and buy supplies during the winter, but things are still going to be tight. The upshot, Boy, is that you’ll be better off with us.”

“I knowed he was having trouble,” I agreed. “Last year and the year before that, I would have been out in the fields by now picking peas and beans or plowing up potato rows. But since the river washed out the crops, Pete and me have been trapping and fishing just to keep the family fed.”

“Trapping,” Uncle Harry was clearly not impressed by what we’d done. “‘Coons and possums, Boy, judging by supper. Can you shoot?”

“No, sir; I never learned, because there was no powder or shot to spare. But I’d prefer you call me Jake, Uncle Harry. I’ve been doing a man’s work since Uncle Horace took me in.”

He grinned at me and my cousins chuckled. “Feisty, you are! Wal, your daddy Hi was the same way! He’d fight a feller at the drop of a hat, and often enough it was the other feller’s hat he dropped! We’ll get along, young Jake!”

I helped my cousins lay out quilts on the hay for our beds and we were soon asleep. But not for long; Uncle Harry shook us awake before daybreak. During the night, someone had brought a half-broke mustang in and turned it into the small corral out back. I didn’t know it then, but Uncle Harry dealt in Mexican mustangs; all he’d needed to do was pass on to his partner in Alexandria that he needed one with spirit and lots of bottom, and here it was!

I helped with saddling the ones they’d ridden the day before, but avoided that mean-looking, wall-eyed bronc, wondering how I was going to keep up when they left.

My cousins noticed my expression. “You’ll ride my horse, Jake,” said Mark. “I’ll get acquainted with this critter, and by the time we get to the Sabine he’ll know who’s boss!” I was plumb relieved to hear that! But we didn’t go there right away. Uncle Harry had a nice place just outside of Alexandria, and that’s where we spent the next few days, with me busy learning to ride and shoot.

He gave me a smoothbore musket and a brace of pistols that took the new percussion caps; they’d belonged to my cousin Matt before he got new weapons to replace them. Uncle Horace owned a musket and a shotgun and I’d shot both once. After the smoke cleared away, the target was right where it had been. I’d missed, and that was enough. Maybe, if I’d hit the blamed thing...!

Just as well, far as I was concerned; that musket had bruised my shoulder black-and-blue and the shotgun had knocked me on my butt.

But that had been back when I was still a boy of less than ten years. I reckoned that I could shoot a man’s weapon now. Turned out I was right. While Uncle Harry met with people he did business with, my cousins taught me how to shoot. Not just my new musket and pistol, but also a double-barreled shotgun and Matt’s new rifle too, the first one I’d ever seen.

I tried my best to hit the targets they’d set up, but I couldn’t help flinching. Every time I jerked the trigger, the sights drifted away from the target so that the bullet kicked up dirt three feet to the right! I could tell right off that my cousins were thinking I was never going to amount to much, and maybe they were right.

But after every miss, I refused to rub my sore shoulder like I wanted. Instead, I pulled the ramrod out of its thimbles and swabbed out the barrel, then poured in a full powder charge. They watched me and understood. Reducing the powder charge would have caused the guns to kick less, but I knowed how disappointed they already were in me and refused.

Even though every time I shot, it felt like I was stabbing my sore shoulder with a knife! But I’d been hurt before, and I knowed that I’d be fine in a day or two so long as no bone was busted.

Between all the shooting we did in the morning and riding cross-country for long stretches in the afternoon, I was so sore when we turned in at night that I wondered if I would be able to sleep. But I always did, and woke up the next morning stiff and sore to do it all over again.

Except for shooting Matt’s rifle; that only happened once. It was a pretty thing, all curly maple in the stock and with a perfectly-browned and oiled barrel and lock. I would have shot it again, because it didn’t kick nearly as hard, but he claimed I wouldn’t need to shoot a rifle during the trips we would be making. I would be armed with pistols and a musket, so if I could learn to shoot them that was all that was needful.

I think he just liked to keep that rifle for himself. Jealous, the way I figured it.

I also met Uncle Harry’s two slaves. They would go on the next trip with us. “Jake, Pa and Matt and me will be out ahead, scouting for trouble,” Mark explained. “You’ll follow half a mile or so behind us. You’ll be in charge of our string of mules, but mind that you listen to Tom and his boy Isom. When they tell you something needs doing, you do it, and with no back talk, understand? Tom’s family has been part of our family for years and his wife Maudie raised Matt and me! He knows as much about the trips we make as we do, nearly. Isom’s still learning but he already knows a lot more than you, so you listen to him too.”

I said I would, and thought nothing of it at the time. They weren’t the first colored folks I’d seen, and Pa would have taken his belt to me if I had ever treated a grownup one disrespectful. He might have called them by name, but to me they were all ‘Uncle’ or ‘Aunt’ unless they were really old. After that, I could say ‘Grandfather’ or ‘Grandmother’ and nobody thought nothing of it.

“Something else you should know,” Matt said. “As soon as we cross the Sabine, we’ll be in Texas. Being as it’s part of Mexico, owning slaves ain’t allowed over there, but don’t you worry. They’ll stick by us, because like I said they’re part of the family. You understand what I’m saying? You’re green as a magnolia leaf, but they’ve already been on more’n a dozen trips with us. And every time that we crossed the Sabine, they knowed just like we did that every man’s hand was against us. We won’t be safe until we reach friends in San Augustine, and maybe not even then.

“Part of your job if we run into trouble is to take care of Tom and Isom. Any number of planters across that river came from Louisiana or another place where slavery is still legal, and if they could get their hands on ours we might never see them again. I would purely hate to tell Aunt Maudie that you let them take her family! You understand? If a stranger should come around and show interest in Tom or Isom, well, that’s why we’re teaching you to shoot. We expect you to, if you’re up to it. Killing a man, I mean.”