Seth Riley, Texian
Vengeance on the Hasanai Trace
by Gutherie Hodges

A Preview

My nose itched, but I was afraid to scratch it because they might see the movement. I stayed hunkered down between the persimmon bush and the blackjack tree and hoped that the Shawnee warriors walking by on the deer trail wouldn’t notice the smudge my moccasin had made at the edge of that anthill.
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"What has brought you’ns over this way?” Zeke asked.

“We’re going to kill the three men who murdered our parents,” I stated flatly.
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"I want to hear more about those giant-sized bones you said were in the creek bed by your salt mill. What in the world were they and how did they get there?”

“Well, ma’m, they say that before people began digging them up and hauling them off you could see the skulls of four great big animals sticking out of the ground, like elephants but much bigger. Their skulls were six feet across. The four were all pointed in like they had been in a circle looking at each other. And you could see their shoulder blades and their leg bones. ”
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The runoff of the heavy rain began to make the current in the river run faster. Apparently the downpour had covered a wide area that drained into the Big River. Ugly and ramshackle as our raft was it floated well enough. I had been lucky to find two straight heavy logs about the same length for the beams to tie the floor boards to. Those floor logs were assorted and crooked here and there, but the beams held true and our progress was encouraging.
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The moon sent a shaft of light through the clouds just then that let me see a wet, black head in the water. I lunged out of the shelter just as a man hoisted himself up to put a knee on the raft. I yelled out to Shanklin and grabbed the first thing that came to hand, the cooking rock.
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I left it up to Shanklin to carry on the conversation because I was a mite distracted by the blood running down into my boot.

The bald-headed clerk ran around the counter with a chair for me to sit on and began working on my leg. “I know how to do this. I worked with a doctor in the war,” he told me. He began to cut away the leg of my britches.

“Oh well!” I said with my teeth gritted against the pain. “It don’t really matter that you ruined my britches because they were plumb wore out anyhow. I was just fixin' to buy me some brand new ones.”
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He joined us with a cup of coffee. “Well, you know it’s a funny kind of thing. Not many folks live down this way, although a few settlers live back a ways in these Piney Woods near the Old Gulf Trace, but nobody picks out a homestead real close to the Big Thicket."

“Wonder why that would be?”

“Mainly on account of the wolves and bears and painters eat up all the livestock and chickens over here close by the Thicket unless you have as many dogs and people as we do here to run them off. Then again folks worry some about outlaws and such like traveling the road."
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Before I could walk toward the front of the building Shanklin called to me from the dark. I stepped back into the room. A slight built old Mexican man I had seen working in the field earlier stood there with a hooded candle.

“Quick! Quick!” he kept saying and motioned to us to move a chest that was in the corner of the room. We lifted it to the side and he dropped on his knees to reach under the rug and pull up a trapdoor.
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“Maybe we better take these two bunks here next to each other in case somebody tries to knife us while we’re sleeping,” Shanklin muttered. “May come in handy that they're closest to the back door.”

That didn’t sound like a bad idea because we knew we were in a dangerous situation, and we weren’t sure how to go about sorting it out.

We walked out to the long porch and sat down where we could see anyone who came up to the bunkhouse.
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I heard Shanklin behind me saying, “These two pistols here are just to make sure the rest of you gentlemen watch the fight from a distance.”

Then the outlaw came up from there like a red wasp attacking.
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The next thing I knew a light rain was making me wet and cold. I was lying with my face in the dirt, and my head hurt something fierce. I tried to turn over and spit the grit out of my mouth, but my left side wouldn’t move. Finally, I managed to get up on my right knee and caught hold of a bush with my right hand. My head was throbbing and my whole left side was on fire. I couldn’t stand up so I began to crawl with my one knee and pull with my one arm to reach the creek.
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“Listen to that man, all shot up and dragged down and still able to talk almost sassy!” she grinned. “Well, that got a lot more in it than milk, young man. There is egg and honey and cinnamon and,” she leaned over like she was telling me a secret. “And some of the cream we were saving for the Mr. Boss’ coffee and a pretty good dollop of the Mr. Boss’ special whiskey! But don’t you tell him!”
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“So where else could he go with cattle from here?” I asked.

“The only other possibility that I know of is to drive them to the coast and meet a cattle boat there. He could ship them to Mobile. But what about the brand? My Half Circle L is registered in San Antonio de Bexar.”

“He could change the brand because a half circle the way you write it could easily be made into a D by adding one straight line. The L could be turned into a box or an E or a U."
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That we were not very far from the stolen herd we were certain. For all of our joking we weren’t forgetting the danger ahead of us, so we rode quiet and slow as we came closer to the trail herd’s next bedground. That night we camped beside a little creek and built our fire down in the creek bed itself where the high banks would keep it from being seen.