"I do not understand what you are saying, Mister Becker."
"We all seem to live in one culture or another. And, there are smaller cultures within the more encompassing ones. For example, when you and your friends were with me on the Santa Fe Trail we belonged to the American culture, but we also lived and worked in the freighting culture. Every culture dictates behavior. Therefore, I am saying you cannot really be free unless you reject all culture and live solely alone without contact with others."
"That sounds to me like something impossible," Homer said.
"It does seem like that," Becker said. "It makes me wonder why we have a word called 'freedom' when freedom doesn't seem to exist."
"You make a good point, Mister Becker. When I get back to Rancho Romero, I will see what they have to say about it all. The Indians have culture even though we call them savages."
"The Indians live in tribes and each tribe has a different culture. Calling them savages is nothing more than trying to boost ourselves at the expense of others, an absurdity at best."
"I must say that I am surprised at all this that you are saying. You explain things so that I can understand them. Were you always a freighter?"
"I was a freighter for a long time, and I was happy being a freighter. I did not start out that way. My father and mother had two sons. I was the eldest. They, as most wealthy people, favored the oldest son, so they sent me to Harvard to become educated so that I could manage the family wealth and not squander it. I did as I was told and graduated. Then, my father introduced me to the family financial firm in Boston and told me that I had been voted into the firm as a partner. I supposed they assumed all along that I would fit in like a hand in a glove and would conform to their reality. But, their reality was not mine. They were even pairing me up with girls from equally wealthy families."
"That must have been difficult to live with," Homer said.
"It was too difficult and I could not help myself and rebelled. I had a long talk with my younger brother and told him that I was giving him my so-called birthright. I have never since walked through as much bull manure as that life is composed of. I said good-bye to my brother and left without any conversation with my father or mother. I went West free of that family and that culture. I started out knowing little about the West except what I had learned at Harvard and I found that to be quite inaccurate. I discovered that I enjoyed working with animals more than anything else so I started working in the freighting business from the bottom up. When I left Boston I had that wonderful feeling of freedom just as you three felt when you escaped from whatever it was that you wanted to leave. I have no regrets."
"Have you ever seen your family since you left?" Homer asked.
"No, I have never been back to Boston. There is nothing there for me and I do not hanker to listen to what they think about what I did or how I have chosen to live."
"I sometimes wonder how my parents are getting along, but, like you, I doubt that I will ever go back to the Catskills to see them. I am happy with the life I am living here in the West."
"You never know," Becker said. "When you sell enough buckboards you will have enough to buy a ticket on a train and not have to ride a horse all the way back there. You might have different ideas by then."
"The war separated a lot of people from their families," Homer said. "I don't think my father and mother would appreciate that I deserted from the army after Antietam."
"War seems to be a part of many cultures, not just ours. Wait and see. There will be another war so more men can make a lot of money. I have no idea of the where or when, but I cannot help knowing that war is inevitable."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gus and Tesuquilla were both happy living in the cave. Tess grew larger every day with her pregnancy and Gus went out into the forest hunting with his Apache friends. He made friends easily with the men in the band and learned to speak their language easily. It was not long before he spoke only Apache with Tess. She was proud of that accomplishment and happy that he was fluent in her own language in spite of her fluency in English. She had always found him difficult to understand speaking with his Louisiana dialect that she was not accustomed to hearing.
About two weeks before their baby was born, Gus brought home a yearling buck and they enjoyed the venison steaks that he cut from the carcass. Gus was an expert at butchering and told Tess about the times he had hunted alligators. She cringed at his description of those animals and how he had captured them. After their meal Tess told Gus that there was something bothering her.
"What is the bother?" he asked in Apache.
"I keep thinking about killing that awful Juan Elias, and I am bothered that I killed someone who did nothing to harm me."
"He shot Caratewa," Gus said.
"Yes, I know that, but I killed him out of revenge for what he did to my mother. I am finding that I must live with that feeling of revenge and the result of that revenge. I am having trouble with those feelings."
"Maybe you can do something in your mind to be able to put away those feelings. You have told me that you have those powers that came from your mother."
"You are right about the powers, but I have only been able to use those powers with someone else, not with me. Remember all those talks we had with the others about freedom; I find that I do not feel free as long as I have those feelings that I killed a man out of revenge. I have become like so many of my Apache brothers and also the White Eyes and I do not like that."
"Try to use your powers to forget," Gus said.
She shifted around to lie on her side. "The baby is moving. I wonder if it is getting ready to come into the world."
Two weeks later, her baby boy was born just before early morning light arrived at the mouth of the cave. Doreentah's daughter was at Tess' side to help with the birthing.
A month went by and Tess told Gus that he should have more babies with other women so that his blood could spread among the Apache to renew their strength as a people. She explained all about what her mother had told her about Estevanico, and what Caratewa had said about Gus.
"I have heard lots of stories about this Estevanico that was quite a stallion among the Apache women. I have also heard that some of the Apache men were jealous of Estevanico's abilities with their women so they made sure he wouldn't steal any more of their wives. As that story goes, he bled to death. The man that told me that story once lived with the Mexicans and he said that the Mexicans say that the Spaniards never knew what happened to Estevanico. But, the Apache have sent the real story down for many generations. I think it is best to have babies with the woman I love and that is you, Tess."
"I was only saying what my mother told me, but I am glad; I am glad that you are mine alone because I love you, too."
Epilogue
Through the years there were changes, as there are always changes no matter where. Billy and María lived a happy and productive life at Rancho Romero. The mule business sustained them well and somewhere along the way Billy got interested in racehorses and began breeding Steeldust horses that could sprint a quarter mile faster than Thoroughbreds. But, his reputation as a mule breeder spread in various parts of the United States as well as throughout northern Mexico. They had four children – two boys and two girls. The children grew up on Rancho Romero and were fluent in both English and Spanish.
Gus and Tess had a large brood of six children – two boys and four girls. Gus went down from the mountain every spring to train the mules at Rancho Romero until the Mexican government set out to chase all Apache off the mountain. He and Tess took their brood to Rancho Romero and Gus built a house for his family in the foothills above the Altar River. He spent his time with the mules and taught all of his children about them.
Tess had put her mother's necklace into a deerskin pouch and kept it there except for dress-up occasions. She had spent some time alone in the cave after the first son came along and dealt with what had bothered her. As the children grew, Tess taught them about the
shortcomings and dangers of the attitude of revenge.
Homer gained a wide reputation for fine buckboards. When the railroad arrived he was able to buy oak lumber that he transported south. There was always a demand for "Crane Buckboards"." There were times when buyers for buckboards also went away with mule teams with which to pull them.
Virgil Becker had a lot of fun with his horse and mule trading business. He never made a lot of money and that never bothered him. He managed to travel south at least once a year to visit the good friends he had met in Independence at the start of his final trip on the Santa Fe Trail. A surprise visit from his brother caused him to ponder leaving Tucson for anywhere else as long as his brother didn't know where he was. His brother had come to Tucson to see about a land investment for the family firm and had seen the sign over the door to Virgil's office. After his brother left, Virgil removed the sign and never again put it back over the door. He told his friends at Rancho Romero about the encounter and they could not help laughing at Virgil's expense. He ended up laughing as well.
One conversation they had during one of Virgil's visits had to do with how they all seemed to have been destined to be where and with whom they were living life. It was Virgil who had been born in a big eastern city crowded with lots of people who explained their situation.
"Back in the East where I was born, there are a lot of people living in a lot of confined spaces. Out here in the West, the settlements are few and far between, and the people are not packed together like pickles in a jar. So with fewer people out here, the chances of becoming acquainted are greater than back in the East where one person seems more or less just one in a huge crowd."
From time to time, everyone got together when Virgil arrived for a visit so they could talk in the living room of the ranch house. The topic of freedom always came up, and they all finally concluded that freedom was something that only happened in one's mind, because there were always too many external influences to interrupt freedom elsewhere.
The End
About the Author:
John Duncklee is an award-winning author of twenty-four books. His published work covers fiction, non-fiction, satire, short stories and poetry.
Prior to his writing career, John was a university professor in both the United States and Mexico, a cattle rancher, Quarter Horse breeder, designer of mesquite wood furniture, and was a Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War.
He lives in New Mexico with his wife, Penny, an illustrator and artist.
To learn more about John, please visit him at:
http://www.johnduncklee.com/
If you enjoyed this book by John, please try these other works:
(These are also available individually as 99 cent ebooks)
Western Trail Blazer
http://westerntrailblazer.com/
and
Publishing by Rebecca J. Vickery
http://rebeccajvickery.com/
Along the Trail to Freedom Page 18
