The Texans Read Online Free Page A

stopping to shovel out what he had broken loose. By the time he’d managed to dig down three feet he was heaving, and he sat down with his feet inside the grave. His labor had milked him of whatever feeling he had left, and he could once more think with some clarity. A cold, vicious seed of vengeance began to sprout within him.
    Once his strength had returned to him he rose and went to his grandfather. He tried not to see the man as he was, but instead as he had been. The slashed and hacked body was not the man that he loved. He wrestled the tortured, bloody hull to the grave and laid it there. The sound of the first shovelfuls of earth falling on Pappy’s body quickened his heart like cold water hurts your teeth.
    He took up his Bishop rifle and stood long over the fresh mound of earth, studying the wagon seat spring he’d driven at the head of the grave to mark it. It might be a long time before he came back, and he didn’t want to forget where it was. The man lying underneath that Texas sod had taken him in and finished raising him when there was nobody else left that an orphan boy could call his own, and he knew nothing was ever going to be the same again.
    He said his good-byes and headed west along the river in a steady jog with his rifle clutched in his right hand. His meager supplies consisted of a half-full powder horn and enough bullets and shot to load his gun a few more times. He’d salvaged some dried ears of corn from the charred remains of the crib, and he carried them in a burlap tow sack slung over his shoulder.
    Odell was a traveling man, but even his long legs were no match for a Comanche on horseback. Nobody ever had much luck riding down a raiding party when it knew it was being followed. The Comanches traveled light, and when unencumbered by plundered stock or a village in tow, they could sometimes make better than eighty miles in a day. His only chance was to borrow a horse, and a good one at that. He had no money and could only think of one place where he might beg himself a mount.
    The Wilson place came into view as the trail he was on entered a clearing where Massacre Creek emptied into the river. Red Wing was stirring hominy in a lye pot in front of the house, and she shaded her eyes with one hand and watched him come. He stopped before her, not quite sure what to say. Something about the look on his face must have told her all she needed to know. She stepped forward and wrapped him in a hug. She squeezed him tight while he let his arms hang at his sides, feeling startled and surprised at her actions. He’d often thought about what it would be like hugging her, and now that it had happened he wasn’t sure what to do about it. Tenatively, he placed his left hand on the small of her back and pulled her tight into him. He could feel the quiver of her body beneath his palm, and warm tears soaked through his shirt where her face rested against his chest. They stood like that for a long moment, and he felt strength return to him, as if he fed from her concern.
    She finally pulled away from him and held him by his shoulders at arm’s length. She made no attempt to hide the tears that ran down her cheeks. “We saw the smoke coming from your place this morning.”
    â€œIf I’d been there, Pappy might still be alive,” he said.
    â€œOr you might be dead.”
    â€œI almost wish I was.” Odell was looking over her head at someplace far, far away. “I still remember when he showed up to get me in San Augustine. He didn’t ask about my mama or my daddy, or try to pump me for information. He just said, ‘I’m your grandfather. Come on, boy, let’s go home.’ Now that I think about it, he never asked near as much from me as I thought he did.”
    She knew how great his loss was. His family ties had been almost as shifting and traumatic as her own. His parents had started west from Georgia with everything they owned in a single