The Texans Read Online Free Page B

wagon. They had stopped in Louisiana to resupply before crossing the Sabine River, but they never made it into Texas. His father had gotten trapped in a crooked card game and stabbed to death with some tinhorn gambler’s Arkansas toothpick. His mother, weakened by the loss of her husband and ready to quit, fell victim to the typhoid fever epidemic that was sweeping the settlements. At thirteen Odell was stranded in a strange land, and the only family he had left was a man he didn’t know and had never seen before.
    â€œThe men left here at daylight,” she said.
    â€œI saw them.”
    â€œWhat about the Youngs?”
    Odell couldn’t meet her eyes. “They’re all dead.”
    â€œIs Father on the Comanches’ trail?”
    â€œHe is.”
    She bit her lower lip and tried not to start crying again. The fear of losing another family was so great in her that she almost couldn’t bear it. She took a deep breath and tugged at Odell’s sleeve. “Come on up to the house, and I’ll feed you. I feel better with you here to watch over me and Mama.”
    Odell didn’t budge out of his tracks. “I need a horse.”
    â€œYou need to stay here. Those Comanches are probably long gone, and even if you could catch up to them, you’d just get yourself killed.”
    â€œI have to try.”
    â€œIf there’s any chance of catching them, Father and Karl will get it done.”
    â€œYou mean we should leave it to the men while I stay here and tend to the butter churning,” Odell said bitterly.
    â€œI meant nothing of the kind. I just don’t want to lose anybody else I love.”
    It took a moment for what she said to register with him. He could have sworn she said she loved him. “I thought you were falling for that Prussian.”
    She smiled at him the way parents smile at foolish children. “No, it’s not Karl that I love.”
    â€œI’m glad to hear you say that.” His words sounded foolish and inadequate to his own ears.
    â€œAre you?”
    He was torn by the need for revenge seething inside him and the desire he felt for Red Wing. He tried to ignore that soft, sweet face lit up by the sunshine and seeming to stare into his very soul. That was the one and only thing about her that disturbed him. She never seemed to lose focus, and when she wanted something from him her attention could be quietly intense and a little discomforting. Odell knew his own mind never stayed on one thing too long. Most days, it flitted around like a grasshopper jumping from one blade of grass to another.
    â€œI need to borrow a horse,” he said.
    Over the course of the three years he’d lived close to her, he’d told her things he told no others. They were both orphans in a way, and bonded by those scars of loss they shared. They had walked the riverbank and made each other laugh long before she could even speak good English. She knew his stubborn nature, and that her words would hold no sway with him once he set his mind to something.
    â€œYou can take Crow, but you’d better bring him back.” She turned away from him, more hurt by the lack of effect her admission of love had on him than she was willing to let him see.
    Crow was her good black gelding, and she babied and petted the horse like a spoiled child. Colonel Moore had bought the Comanche buffalo runner from a Mexican trader days after the fight in which he captured her, and used it to carry her to the Wilsons. Odell knew that the horse was more to her than just a pet. It was a last link to her former self and the people that she no longer called her own.
    The two of them went to the corral gate and she whistled to Crow. The horse came to her in a trot, and put his head over the gate for her. She rubbed his face and played with his forelock. “Crow is the fastest, toughest pony in Texas, but Father won’t agree. He thinks nothing can match Karl’s Kentucky