Copyright © 2012 Jeanie Freeman-Harper
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1477617817
ISBN-13: 978-1477617816
For Nichole and Blake
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to special friends, the Lufkin Lunch Bunch, and my many cousins.
A special thanks to cousin Ileene for encouragement, also son Todd for his expertise, and son Scott and daughter Monica for their support
Prologue
Katherine Kessler met Clinton McCann in 1867 when she was too young and starry-eyed to see past a handsome face and courtly manners. Clint's smile hinted of secrets as yet unshared and his eyes danced with devilment. Soon he became the sole topic of speculation in Mt. Mission, that isolated West Texas town where everyone born there, died there. This newcomer was a stranger, a son of the South who had arrived by stage coach from North Carolina with only the clothes he wore; that in itself should have been a forewarning that Clinton McCann was a man with a hidden past and an unsure future. Yet the lesser god transcended the scrutiny of mortal man.
As it is true that one person can change everything and everyone around him, the Kessler family was never again the same. Kate's pious and industrious parents were of sturdy German stock and leaders in the community. They had groomed their daughter to marry only within their religious faith; yet those hopes fell by the wayside the day McCann came to town. He found his way to the ranch to humbly request odd jobs in exchange for meals and a berth in the barn. Old Man Kessler, being a kind man, agreed, as he expected the arrangement to be temporary. But months dragged on, and the drifter stayed to himself and divulged little that could be taken as truth. Regardless of her parents' skepticism, Kate free fell heart first into a bottomless pit of deception. That one man ignited a fire in her soul as only true religion could; and Clint, being the only man he knew how to be, recognized a prize plum ripe for the picking.
When Clint asked for Kate's hand in marriage, her father came close to a stroke and threatened to run him off his land. But the daughter held the strings to the father's heart; and her tears, along with her mother's intervention, prevailed over the old man's sound Germanic judgment. So it came to be, against Kessler's most fervent wishes, that Kate married a perfect stranger right there in the Mt. Mission Missionary Church.
On the day of that unorthodox wedding, church members whispered amongst themselves that the union was doomed. No heathen had ever been joined in wedlock to a member of their righteous little flock. Stiff-necked or not, they were as right as a water diviner pointing toward a well already primed. In 1868, several months after Clint's departure to places unknown and after that prediction of a failed marriage came to pass, the saving grace of Kate's youthful obsession was born. She named him Jesse.
Table of Contents
I: The Journey Begins
II: A New and Different World
III: New Directions
IV: Lost and Found
V: Discovery
VI: Turmoil
VII: Secrets and Surprises
VIII: The Awakening
IX: The Unexpected
X: New Beginnings
XI: Unsettling Changes
XII: Trouble Times Two
XIII: A Significant Sunday
XIV: Danger and Devilment
XV: Aftermath
XVI: An Uneasy Peace
XVII: A Time to Remember
XVIII: A Last Will and Testament
XIX: Wedding Day
XX: Inconvenient Truths
XXI: A Journey Ends
I: The Journey Begins
The idea of the search began in 1877 when Jesse was a nine year old mama's boy. There was nothing much for a kid to do in Mt. Mission, Texas, outside of kicking cans down the quiet dusty streets and daydreaming. Jesse McCann did much of both. The dream of a quest began the day his mother Kate called him into the parlor to have the talk that would someday send him on the journey of his life, far from his home. It would be the day that defined his life, though he could not know it then.
He did know, somehow, it would be no ordinary chat. That parlor had always been off limits to him, as if it were some kind of sanctuary formalized by its antiquated horsehair settee, doilies and faded rugs. That day he was allowed to enter the parlor for the first time; and he would not enter it again until the day his mother died. The room would come to symbolize important crossroads in his life. The revelation therein inspired the journey that would begin eleven years after.
On that day in the parlor, Kate handed him a set of official looking papers and sat him down next to her. She began by weighing and testing her words for their meaning and mettle: “After missing for nine years, your papa's been declared legally dead in a court of law. He's gone, son...buried in some place you and I will never visit.”
The boy read haltingly, and his mother grew silent.
After a moment she continued, and her eyes searched for a sign of understanding in her son's face: “Mr. Baumgartner and I have made plans. After all, he has been patient all these years...until we could know for sure...about your father, I mean. As you can see, I need a man's hands around this place, and your uncle has a family of his own to do for. You can see by the paperwork, I've been declared a widow...legally. I'm free to remarry.” The mother leaned forward and clasped her boy's hands.“ Do you understand it's what I must do?”
Jesse fidgeted. He was unused to intensity from his mother. What the boy saw was a near defeated woman desperate for a weight to be lifted from her frail shoulders. What was missing was her genuine happiness at the prospect of marriage; and he knew there should be something more between a man and a woman. He was just too young to know what it should be.
“How can you really be sure Papa's dead, Mama?” he asked.
“Listen to me, Jesse. Several months ago, I hired a detective from San Antonio to find out what had happened to him. I suspected your father went to East Texas because he had logging experience, and there are saw mills there where they turn logs into lumber. Clint had often spoken of how places there reminded him of home in the South...especially the pines and hills around Morgan's Bluff. I sent the detective there, and he came back and reported that your father was killed beneath the wheels of a runaway wagon there in town. He said the mortician had the body shipped back to family in North Carolina.”
“Why did he leave us here Mama?
“Right after we married, I learned things that should have been told before the marriage. I found your father's divorce decree from a first wife back in North Carolina. I guess he knew there would be no wedding if he told me he was a divorced man. He knew how my church felt about that...how I felt. After I found out, I went to the elders who told me our marriage went against church doctrine. They said that I could not be married to a divorced man.” Kate paused and took a deep breath. “So I sent your father away. Several months later, I found out that you were on the way. He never knew...unless he had guessed as much early on. However you feel about the matter, I intend to marry Mr. Baumgartner. He's the Watkins man with the big wagon that smells of spices. Wouldn't you like to ride with him sometimes? Wouldn't that be nice?”
Kate patted Jesse's hand in the last gesture of affection he would ever remember. Although the boy said nothing, his mind raced with confusion and disappointment.
Everyone knew Kate was on the edge. The entire town of Mt. Mission nodded their heads in agreement: Kate had dried up and gone bitter during her years withou
t Clint. It was as if the glow from within had been snuffed out, never to be rekindled. She had forsaken her husband for the dictates of doctrine, when she could have forgiven the man's past and gone on. But who was to say a man so shiftless would have stood by her? She had pushed all thoughts of “what if” from her mind years ago, as she had her father's fierce pride; but it was a heavy price she paid.
As young as he was, Jesse sensed his Mother's unhappiness. He knew she needed to feel loved and protected by a man. Still, the thought of a man sleeping in his mother's bed made Jesse uneasy, though he could not say why. And what an odd fellow Mr. Baumgartner was with his slicked down hair, hawkish nose and black eyes that forever scanned the ground like some vulture looking for carrion. At least that was how Jesse the child saw the man. And God forbid the boy should wear his stepfather's name. Jesse determined then and there that he would always wear the great Irish name McCann, and that when he was older, he would find his way to East Texas and find the man whose name he wore. And he knew, somehow he knew, the man would be alive. In the meantime, he had to accept a stepfather to keep from breaking what was left of Kate's heart.
Soon after their talk, Kate bought Jesse brand new knickers and tie and took him to the church to witness her marriage to a man the boy could barely tolerate. Ah, but the ladies of the Mt. Mission Missionary Church sniffled happily and dabbed their delicate noses with lace hankies, satisfied that their dear Kate had herself a church approved groom and a Watkins man to boot. What a splendid catch.
Straight away, it became apparent to Jesse that his stepfather was a man of two faces. There was the man who fawned over his ready-made family before church members on Sunday; there was the man who patronized them at home, using a condescending tone, when and if, he spoke at all. Kate ignored this treatment, because there was money in the bank again and something more than potatoes and cabbage on the dinner table. Although a Watkins man seldom became rich, Mr. Baumgartner had inherited a tidy sum from family, and it was enough to keep up the household. He controlled the purse strings, and, at first, Kate manipulated him with the same advantage Eve had over Adam. As time passed, however, it became obvious that the union would produce no children, as if a lack of love prevented conception. His stepfather's resentment toward Jesse deepened to the point that he whipped the boy over nothing at all, taking him back behind the chicken coop lest Kate should intervene.
The tension increased to the brink of misery, so much so that whenever the boy heard the wheels of the Watkins delivery wagon in the evenings, he made a beeline to the back porch. There he could read and imagine himself in exotic and exciting places, anywhere other than Mt. Mission, Texas. Then there were the daydreams of finding his real father, who he just knew would welcome him with open arms and cluck his tongue over how his boy had been treated. Toward that idea of finding Clinton McCann alive, Jesse saved every penny he made from stocking shelves at Mt. Mission Dry Goods and Produce. He hid his earnings in a cigar box under his bed and counted the sum over and over. Someday, he would shake the dust of West Texas from his boots once and for all.
Finally, that day arrived. He had become a full grown man. When Jesse turned twenty in 1888, he packed his clothes, tucked away the cash, and went to his mother. He found her sitting on the porch mending a well worn dress. The morning sun slanted across her graying hair, turning it to silver, as she focused intently on her work. Jesse memorized the look of the strong hands that had tended him through whooping cough, and cuts and scrapes, hands that had paddled his bottom when he had flown from the hay loft and broken an arm, hands that cooked his food and made the shirt on his back . A flood gate of memories opened, and Jesse was silently drowning in a wave of them .When he finally found his tongue, the words came out practiced and abrupt.
“Mama, it's time for me to go see if my papa is dead or alive. I'd be obliged if you'd let me take one of the horses...whichever one you are willing to spare. I'm headed to East Texas.”
Kate set aside her needle and thread and looked at Jesse for a long moment and turned away. “I knew this day would come, though I prayed I would never hear these words. I suppose you can make do with Belle, my big mare...if you've a mind to go. I can't stop you. But know that if you go in search of your father, you go on a fool's mission. I 'll tell you one more time. Clinton McCann is dead and buried in North Carolina.”
“Wish me well, Mama. Tell me I go with your blessing!”
“I do wish you well, but you go without my blessing. You must know I'd hoped you would stay and marry a nice girl from church and have a family and become my comfort in my old age.”
Kate rose stiffly, deliberately, as if every muscle were failing her. She went into the house and returned with a sepia colored tintype that she thrust into Jesse's hand. “I want you to take this...the only image of your father I have...except for one I keep in my locket. I wouldn't imagine he'd look this way now...just the same... .”
Jesse studied the photograph of a man who was responsible, albeit unknowingly, for his very existence. Clinton McCann had dark, closely clipped hair, pale eyes and well defined and symmetrical features. He was almost too handsome to be a real. Jesse, on the other hand, had inherited the fair hair and skin of his mother's German family, a fact which Grand-mama Kessler had once pointed out with obvious pride and a dab of amusement. But it was said Jesse had inherited his father's pale, ice blue eyes...eyes that anyone would know anywhere.
Tucking the photograph into his vest pocket, Jesse clung to his mother as the chill of a cold wind swept through him, wiping away the comfort of home. It felt like a forever goodbye, like the last time he would see his mama's face. He might never come this way again, for Texas was a mighty big state. Yet he promised to write and then turned from her so as not to see her tears.
He had nothing to worry about. Kate stood with tense mouth and dry, dull eyes and watched her only son leave her. She waited until she could see nothing more than the cloud of dust he left behind. And then she went back to her mending, as if it were just another ordinary day.
II: A New and Different World
After countless miles and many nights sleeping on the hard ground, Jesse's journey to the Texas Woodlands ended, and his search for his father began. He had come to the crest of a hill from which he viewed a bustling saw mill village below. Towering above him were the long leaf and loblolly pines, through which the wind moaned like lost spirits. The deep woodlands were a natural cathedral infused with the incense of honeysuckle and jasmine. Below him, in that vast wilderness valley, flowed a slow and winding river upon which floated hundreds of logs meandering toward a mill. At the edge of the mill squatted the dingy tents of the transient loggers, and in rows behind them stood the frame houses of the mill workers. Above the sound of the wind was the high pitched zinging of a giant circular saw as it sliced logs into lumber and spit them out at the other end. Life there seemed productive and peaceful.
Suddenly, an earsplitting crack shattered the air, as lightning spider-webbed across a darkening sky. Jesse's horse reared back on hind legs and bolted from under a tree just as a massive limb crashed behind them.
“Easy, Belle!,” Jesse shouted against a sudden straight wind and torrential down pour. “Let's get down from this hill and find shelter, old girl.”
Belle seemed to understand before the command was given and began to wind her way down the path and into the town below, where Jesse guided her to a stable to shelter her. After carefully counting out his dwindling supply of coins for the stable boy, he dashed through blinding rain toward the nearest establishment along a muddy boardwalk. There at the doorway he buckled from a sudden impact that knocked the air from his lungs and his feet out from under him. Two lumberjacks had tumbled their way into him, fists flying. Jesse McCann, the new greenhorn in town, had run headlong into a knock-down-drag-out fight and was now on his back in the mud. One man grappled the other to the ground and both let loose with a stream of obscenities such as Jesse never heard uttered in his mama's house.
Suddenly the crack of a fired pistol brought the feud to an abrupt end, as a small thin man with a handlebar mustache came outside. One of the ruffian's suspenders had come undone during the fracas so that his pants hung half-mast beneath mud caked long -johns. Oblivious to his condition, the man staggered to his feet and tottered off in the rain. His equally inebriated opponent attempted to leap on his horse and toppled head first over the other side to land face down in the mud. Having recovered, Jesse jumped to his feet and dragged the man onto the boardwalk and out of the downpour.
“Shouldn't we do something?” Jesse called out to the man with the handle bar mustache.
“I'd say you’ve done a sight more than the ol' boy deserves.
He'll come to in a bit and be danged sorry...as always.”
Jesse looked up and read the sign above the doorway where the man stood: “Percy's Tavern” was painted in gilded letters that had been faded by time and weather. As in need of a dry shelter as he was at the moment, he was hesitant to enter. Kate had raised him to believe that drinking led to ruination; and after the melee he had just witnessed, he decided it could be hazardous to life and limb as well. The man extended his hand. “Come in and dry off. Name's Percy, and I own this place...well, me and Morgan Mills, anyhow.”
“Jesse McCann's the name. Where am I ?”
“Why didn’t you know when you came to the saw mill? You're in Morgans Bluff, boy.”
Percy's Tavern was a big disappointment. Mr. Baumgartner had told him of the gilded and plush saloons he had visited while on his travels, complete with painted women, roller pianos and dancing.
The inside of an East Texas saw mill saloon, on the other hand, was spartan and primitive in comparison. Kerosene lanterns hung from the vaulted raw beams, and pane free openings served as crude windows. Dominating the room was a rough planked bar, behind which were bottles of whiskey and an amber liquid labeled Muscadine Wine. Jesse knew he had no business in a drinking and gambling establishment, but he was at least out of the storm with nowhere else to be.
Jesse McCann: The Journey (The McCann Family Saga Book 1) Page 1
