Ralph Compton Comanche Trail by Carlton Stowers Read Free Book Online Page A

a schoolhouse was opened, she would make it known she wanted to be the teacher.” At the mention of his mother, a look of despair filled the boy’s face. Despite the fact that the sun had dried his clothes, he again began to shiver, pulling Taylor’s shirt tight against his slight body.
    They had been on the trail almost half a day before he spoke again.
    â€œI was up before daylight, planning on doing some morefishing,” he began. “I had just made it to the first brake of trees when they came riding in, all painted up and screaming and firing their rifles into the air.
    â€œIt was when they set fire to the house that Ma and Pa came running out, not even fully dressed from their night’s sleep. One of the Indians shot my pa two or three times and a couple of others grabbed Ma and started dragging her away. She was screaming and begging them to let her go see to my pa, but they paid her no mind.
    â€œThey put her on one of the horses while some others began herding our milk cow and the pigs and Pa’s team of mules down toward the creek. . . .” He told the story in a halting manner, staring straight ahead as he spoke.
    â€œHow many of them?” Taylor asked.
    â€œI was so scared I don’t rightly know, but I figure there were six, maybe eight. Some had feathers on their heads and they were all riding bareback, even the woman who rode up with them.”
    â€œYou seen a woman among them?”
    Jakey nodded. “But I don’t think she was an Indian even though she had long black hair. She was right pretty and was dressed like white folks. All she did was sit on her horse, smiling and watching as the commotion was taking place.
    â€œI’m not sure what else might have happened. I just took off running fast as I could, looking for a place I could hide.”
    Taylor bit against his bottom lip as he listened. “I reckon I might know who the woman was,” he finally said, his thoughts flashing back to the foul taste of turnip soup, the long shiny black hair, and the peasant blouse worn by a woman who had claimed to be a spiritualist.
    â€œWho might that be?”
    â€œSomebody more evil than the Devil himself. Somebody who I suspect likely watched the killing of my father as well.”
    For the first time since they’d begun their ride, Jakey glanced back at the wooden coffin tied down behind them. “Don’t seem neither one of us is having much good luck these days,” he said.
    â€œThat, son, is about as right a statement as I’ve ever heard,” Taylor said. “And it’s my thinking that something sorely needs done to see that things change.”
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    Sister took the news of the doctor’s death far better than Thad had expected. She cried and excused herself to her room to spend some time alone, but soon reappeared to begin making a fuss over the youngster who had accompanied her brother home, seeing to it that he had a bath and a hot meal.
    Long after Jakey had fallen asleep in their father’s bed, Thad and Sister sat on the front porch, the full moon overhead causing playful shadows to dance in the yard. It was the first peace Taylor had experienced in days.
    â€œI’ve been preparing myself, you know,” she said. “I figured when neither you nor Daddy returned directly that my prayers wouldn’t be answered and something bad must have happened. I’m just glad you made it home safe.” Her disturbing dreams, she told him, had ceased.
    Thad spared her details of the discoveries at the Bender Farm, telling her only that their father had been robbed and killed by a family of murdering thieves. He was a bit more graphic in his description of the scene he’d ridden up on following the Indian attack but avoided the manner in which the raiders had desecrated the body of Jakey’s father. He was relieved when Sister did not press for more