Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 by Quanah Parker Read Free Book Online Page A

ground.
    Already, the sun was heating things up, its silent hammer blows flattening everything in sight, like a berserk blacksmith venting his rage on whatever came to hand. Once on the ground, he turned to make sure Granny was following him, and let go of the apron.
    She had a stiff back when she wanted to, and John Parker knew better than to take her compliance for granted. It was a hard life he had chosen, not just for the two of them, but for a couple of dozen others, including his sons, Benjamin, Isaac, and Silas, and daughters-in-law and their children. And if he could be said to have learned one thing in the last eighteen months, it was that Texas was nothing like Illinois, and Kiowa or Comanche nothing like Papists or Presbyterians. But he wouldn’t give up because giving up was no more a part of him than a third eye or a pointed tail.
    Moving toward the tall gate mounted dead center in the wooden palisade surrounding theirsettlement, which, by default had come to be known as Fort Parker, he quickened his pace, glancing once or twice over his shoulder to make sure her resolve hadn’t kicked in.
    When he reached the tall gate, he slid the heavy log that served for a bolt aside, and backed away, grunting, as he tugged the gate open. The sun came pouring in through the widening gap and when the gate was all the way open, it rode almost dead center, as if the gate had been positioned like some primitive temple entrance to greet its rising.
    “John, what in tarnation are you doing?” Granny shook her head watching the stubborn old man she’d married so long ago as he strode confidently out through the open gate and spread his arms wide.
    “Come on out here, Granny,” he said, turning smartly on his heels and waving impatiently. “Come on, now, come on out here and have a look.”
    Reluctantly, she wrapped her hands in the apron once more, even though they were already dry, then, when she could delay no longer, she stepped through the gate.
    He walked back to meet her, dropped one thick arm heavily over her broad shoulders and swept the other in a wide arc, like a salesman with a fish on the line. “Just look at that,” he said. “Look at all of it, not just the fields, but the wildness, the trees and the river, the flowers across the valley. The lilies of the field. And ifyou listen, you can hear the birds singing, Granny.”
    As if to give her the opportunity to verify his claims, he lapsed into sudden silence. “All I hear is bugs,” she said. “Flies and beetles wondering when we’re gonna leave them be and let them eat everything we planted.”
    Parker laughed. “It’s not that bad, Granny. We got a good-sized crop of corn in, and beans and peas and potatoes. We got some livestock, not much right now, I’ll grant you, but it’ll increase, just like the good book says.”
    “And you think we’ll be here to see that, do you, John Parker?”
    “I don’t just think it, Granny, I know it. I have faith in the Lord, and He won’t let us fail.”
    Before Granny could answer, she heard footsteps on the hard ground behind her, and turned to see Michael Frost and Hiram Hardee shuffling toward the gate.
    She nodded to Frost, and he returned the acknowledgment with a nod of his own. When the two men were close enough, Hardee said, “You folks are up mighty early this morning. Anything the matter?”
    Parker shook his head. “Just trying to get Granny out of her funk, is all. She woke up with gloom in her eye this morning, and I was just trying to show her the bright side of things, cheer her up a little, that’s all.”
    “Well, Mrs. Parker, I’ll allow that I sometimes get a little testy my own self. Especially out therebent over a hoe when that sun starts to feel like a great big hot rock sittin’ on my shoulders. But all I do is take a look around and see how far we come in so short a time, and I get to feelin’ better pretty quick. “
    “And what about your Sarah, Hiram? She feel better then,