The Far Side of Lonesome Read Free Page A

so pleased to have a son. He
treated me…like a human being.” She said raising her chin in
defiance, “I’m not ashamed to say it. He was my
husband.”
    “Crowfoot, huh?” Jeb repeated the name.
“Well now, what do they call you, ma’am?” Jeb asked out of the
blue.
    “My white name was Sarah. My Indian
name was Moonwalker, as I walked at night many times around the
camps,” she announced. "In the Comanche camp I walked to get away,
in the Shawnee camp, I walked to observe, to learn, to be with
them."
    “Well, Sarah,” Jeb hollered loud enough
for Hoot to hear. “This here is Hoot, and I’m Jeb.”
    Sarah nodded to Hoot. Hoot twisted his
head around to look at her and smile and nod.
    “We’ll camp in a couple of hours and
then we gotta talk… some more.”
    She nodded.
    Jeb caught up to Hoot and told him what
the woman had told him.
    “You think that buck’s gonna come after
her?” Hoot asked after gathering all the information.
    “Maybe, maybe not. Shawnee ain’t a bad
lot, for Indians.” Jeb explained. Jeb cleared his throat and
glanced at Hoot, “Maybe we should give her back…”
    “Give her back? Are you serious? After
all this, you want to just hand her back to them Indians? She’s a
white woman, Jeb. She deserves the chance to make it in her world,”
Hoot said. "It ain't right, giving her back to the Indians. She's a
white woman…And yes…I ain't a bit sure they will want
her."
    Jeb smiled at his friend, “I just
needed to know how you felt about it, Hoot. Don’t get riled. We’ll
figure something out. But this shore ain't a easy problem to
settle.”
    “God knows that woman has faced more
than most men could. But…we ride into town with her and there will
be a ruckus, and you know it. We hand her back to the Indians, how
we gonna live with ourselves? We’re not that kind. We’re better
than that. We seen too much hate. Still, I don't have no answers.
Even I been searchin' for some, but they just don't
come.”
    Listening to the clop of the horses
against the dry canyon lands of north Texas, Jeb rubbed his chin.
“I got some ideas, but first we got to talk to her…”
    “You know there ain’t a decent town
gonna accept her with that kid along…” Hoot snorted. “Or even her
with us. That poor woman just traded one problem for another. And
so did we. We should have rode them old horses out of there and
this wouldn't be happenin'. We could have walked 'em.”
    “She didn’t have any choice…Hoot, but
be quiet. She came with us, to help them, to help bridge a peace
between the white and the Indian. They’d let her go with the
grandson of the chief, it’s unheard of. And I doubt the white will
even understand the nature of that gesture. They must have thought
a lot of her to let her take her child with her. You know they
didn't have to let her.” Jeb explained. “Don’t you see, she’s had
troubles for five long years, trying to figure out how to stay
alive? She don’t need to hear ours.”
    “I expect you're right about that,”
Hoot agreed and took a drink of water from his canteen. He glanced
at the woman who spent most of her time not looking at them but the
scenery about her.
    He stopped and offered the woman a
drink, and she took it without even wiping his spit away. Hoot
smiled at her, he'd be danged if he'd take her back to the Indians.
The little things about a person made Hoot size them up, and right
now, this little lady was shore different than any white woman he
ever met.
    Jeb couldn’t keep from smiling at her
actions too. “Easy…not too much at once…”
    She nodded and gave it back to him
after she whetted the baby’s lips with a ribbon she soaked in
water. The baby hadn't wailed or cried, but sat contentedly in his
cradle.
    Not much moved along the canyon except
the whiz of grasshoppers and an occasional jackrabbit or two. The
rattlesnakes were out and about too. Jeb kept his eyes peeled for
them. A few willows dotted the dry landscape as they