Child of the River

by Wanda T. Snodgrass

  “Well?”

  “Got a hunch. Not going to argue with fate which treasure I find, gold or silver. One o’ these days, little unbeliever, I’ll be rich. Won’t depend on breaking and selling horses or pearls and nuggets I find in the shallows. I make a good living, considering the times. But I want more for you and the boys.”

  Dayme smoothed back an unruly wisp of hair. It embarrassed her to be included in his plans for the future. For his sake, she hoped Morgan would find the treasure but she didn’t plan on holding her breath until he did. She figured anybody could get a copy of the treasure map for a few dollars. The old geezer who sold him the map would probably end up the richer. Still, she was not about to douse his enthusiasm. You are the dearest friend I have in the village, she thought, in the world for that matter. The food I eat is from your table. No, dear heart, I won’t dampen your enthusiasm.

  Her heart was filled with love for Morgan, and this confused her. He worked long, hard hours digging in the rocky soil, fishing and pearling in the shallows. The rest of the time, he worked with the horses. Yet he always had time for children who came around to play with the puppies. Come Saturday night, he took Dayme to the livery stable dances. She fingered the pearl necklace around her neck that he fashioned for her last Christmas and decided not to tell Morgan about her decision to return to the ranch. Not tonight, she thought. It can wait until morning. No need to burst that air ball bubbling in his head that he seems so anxious to share with me.

  It seemed that no matter how melancholy Dayme felt all day, when Morgan came home the mood inevitably changed. His sunny presence always cheered her.

  “I’ve been looking in the wrong place, Dayme. It came to me this morning.”

  Dayme poured milk into glasses and set them on the table. Her face had a quizzical expression as Morgan unfolded the map near the kerosene lamp. “See the horseshoe rock marked there? May I borrow your mirror? I want to show you something.”

  A wet lock of Morgan’s hair had fallen across his forehead, making him look boyish as he held the mirror to the map. “The author of this map made a mirror drawing. I’m certain of it. That treasure is southwest, not northwest. See? Look for yourself. East and west remain the same, but north and south reverse.”

  Dayme nodded. It made sense. “You may be onto something. It would protect the mine against thieves who might steal the map.”

  It rained hard all night long, washing down gullies in the hillside and sogging the gray-black sticky soil. Morgan arose from his bed in the loft long before dawn and quietly prepared breakfast. Dayme stirred, and her eyelids fluttered as the smell of fresh coffee and frying venison wafted across the bed. She reached for a bathrobe. “You should’ve awakened me. What time is it?” She yawned and stretched. “It’s still pitch dark.”

  “About four.” He stirred two lumps of sugar into a cup of coffee and brought it to the bedside. “When daylight comes, there may be people stranded in the bottomland. The danger horn sounded about midnight. There’s always some idiot who stays. The people know to get out of the bottom before the Stock Pen crossing comes down. It cuts them off from town. The San Saba on the north, the four mile crossing on the west, the ditch on the south and the Stock Pen Crossing on the east. Nowhere to go but under.”

  “You spoil me, Morgan. Do far too much for me, for us. Don’t know what I’d do without you or without Ace Hopkins working what little is left at the ranch. Morgan, I can’t continue to live off your hospitality. When the weather dries, I’m taking the children back to the ranch. The Comanches took most of the stock, but I must start over and build my herd for the boys’ sake. They need roots.”

  Quietly Morgan laid the meat fork aside. He frowned. “It’s too dangerous for a woman and two babies.”

  “Not since the Indians signed the treaty.”

  He poured cream gravy into a bowl and placed it on the table. “Renegades are still out there. You heard about Grandma Pelson. You heard Kirby McIvers telling about going to fix the Pelson’s windmill and what he found. At first, he thought Granny had on a red scarf as she rocked on the porch.”

  The woman shuddered, thinking about it. “I have to,” she said quietly. “I’m not afraid. I must…until…until….”

  The man’s forehead wrinkled as his hand stretched across the table to caress hers. His voice was low and gentle. “Hon, I don’t know who you’re waiting for, but he is not coming.” His velvet brown eyes searched hers as he continued. “For your sake, I wish he would. So you’d be happy. It’s been too long, kitten, far too long. The man is just not coming. You have to face that.” He cleared the huskiness from his throat, arose from the table and placed a kettle of water on the stove to heat.

  After a long sigh, he finally said, “I don’t have much to offer a woman. The Civil War wiped out my inheritance. All I have are two working hands, thirty-nine mares and a few colts in a ‘southern engineered’ makeshift corral in the public domain and a dream in my heart. We’re pals, Dayme. You might like being married to me.”

  “Mor-gan….”

  “I love you. I love these babies, too. Please let me give Daniel Lee my last name.”

  “People have accepted me here,” Dayme told him softly. “They treat me with respect. They don’t hold my single status against me.”

  Morgan nodded. “True, but children can be cruel. Think about five years from now. What will they be calling Daniel Lee? The brand will follow him all his life.”

  Dayme didn’t want to think about it. It was too painful. She couldn’t imagine in her wildest dreams what lay ahead, and she didn’t want to know. “We’re too close to marry, Morgan. Can’t we keep it like it is…without commitment, without strings?”

  Angry lightning flashed, and a sudden continuous roar of thunder sounded like the guns of Armageddon. Rain poured from the roof in torrents. Morgan felt like it must be raining all over the world. He opened the door, looking out at the drippy sky. Suddenly, he crashed his fist hard against the rough log doorframe. “What kind of man,” he cried angrily. “What kind of man would let you have his baby, and he didn’t even bother to write you a letter. Can’t you see? The son-of-a-bitch don’t care! He’s not worth your tears.”

  “Your hand,” Dayme murmured. “It’s bleeding.” She ripped a piece of soft white cloth and bound the wound, her sad green eyes looking up into his. “He didn’t desert me, Morgan. I left him. Honest, he begged me to stay in Vicksburg. He asked me to marry him. It’s not his fault. I never told him I was expecting. I threw it all away. I couldn’t conform to his standards. We just couldn’t agree on the rules or the reasons. He tried to make me over like his mother. I was too stubborn, too bent on asserting….” Her voice trailed to a whisper as she berated herself. “I’m just not good enough.”

  “Stop it! Stop tromping all over my favorite girl! You’re as fine a lady as any man could want.”

  Dayme sighed and continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “Too human, I guess. Always mouthing off about Women’s Suffrage. But how can I change, Morgan? I don’t really want to change.” Her lip trembled as her gaze met his. “He loved me a little, I think, until he found out how much I loved him. Do you think it’s wrong for women to have feelings?”

  Morgan grinned. “Heck no. Eve had a few feelings, or we wouldn’t be here. That’s one of your attractions, Dayme. You’re as open as that fireplace. Don’t ever change. Not one iota.” He gathered her in his arms and kissed her. “You’re honest and decent. You’re straightforward and good. Please marry me.”

  Something in that moment rugged at Dayme’s heartstrings. Is this love? Do I love Morgan, too? She was confused. “How can you love me, knowing…. Oh, Morgan, my heart is so tangled. I think I love you both.” Her mind flashed back to when she was eight years old in Mississippi and awakened to hear her parents arguing.

  She studied Morgan’s face, watching in silence while he took a Bull Durham tobacco sack from his breast pocket and filled a brown piece of paper. Would Morgan one day be jealou
s of Daniel Lee’s father like my father was of my older brother Arvel’s? Would he, too, take it out on me with jealousy and a whiskey bottle?

  Morgan’ proposal was tempting. True, they enjoyed each other’s company. She felt comfortable and safe when they were together. Marriage would conceal the stigma of illegitimacy and protect Daniel Lee when he got older, but what if…? She dismissed the troubled thoughts, not wanting to face issues now.

  “I want to go with you over the mountain to check on the flood damage in the bottomland. Erika Vaught will sit with the babies.”

  “You’ll get wet.”

  “So? I’ll wear a slicker.”

  Morgan cocked an eyebrow in her direction. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it right now. I need more time.”

  “How much time do you need?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Morgan.”

  Morgan’s voice was strained, and his manly countenance showed pride. “Nothing would have to change. We can keep it like it is. Come to my bed when the feeling is mutual. I’ll always be in the mood, but I’ll never try to force my attentions. I respect myself too much for that. There’s just one thing I ask. Don’t get moody too many days in a row. I’m a red-blooded, healthy, viral, loving man. Getting a gal to sleep with has never been a problem. But, you’re the only woman I ever loved. I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember.”

  “It’s chilly in here.”

  Morgan threw more wood on the fire and stoked the coals, staring at the sparks and waiting for her answer.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “Papa loved Mama much like you love me. He gave Arvel a name, but they were never happy. I’m afraid you might hate me someday, and I could never bear that.”

  “Honey, there ain’t no way.”

  “But what if?” Dayme blurted. “What if….” She didn’t even realize she uttered the words aloud.

  Morgan studied her lovely stricken face that he held between his hands. “If that happens, my love,” he said quietly, “and you want him, I’ll give you a quiet divorce. There’s no way you can lose in this bargain. We can be married in Mason as soon as the weather clears.”

  “What’s in it for you, for heaven’s sake?”

  A smile crept across Morgan’s handsome face, revealing deep dimples. He felt light-hearted, almost giddy. He gathered her up and swung her around in his arms. “Oh, I don’t know, kitten. You’re a damn good dance partner. You make good custard pie, even if your gravy is lumpy. You’re someone to laugh with, sing songs with…make love to. You’re the prettiest gal to ever come to the frontier. You’ve got two of the cutest kids in the county. I’d have a family, someone to want to come home to.”

  Morgan’s mood changed abruptly, and the smile melted into solemnity. “I know full well I could never be happy married to anyone else. Dung Face may not want you, baby, but I do. With all my heart I want you more than anything this side of heaven. So why not marry me? We can keep each other company in our misery. We owe our son that much…a name.”

  A catch caught in Dayme’s voice. She was touched by the way Morgan said our son. She rested her head on his broad shoulder. “Even under the conditions?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I tell you that your Mother despises me? Mrs. Edwards stopped speaking to me long ago. She thinks I’m bad.”

  “You won’t be marrying Mother. You’ll be marrying me.”

  “Will you accept half the ranch to raise your horses? I’ll deed it to you.”

  Morgan winced. His ears turned red as a flush crept over his face. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I only want to be near you and the babies.” Morgan stumbled in the sentence because he almost said “take care of you”. It would be the wrong thing to say to this headstrong, determined, independent woman. “I’m not a gigolo. I don’t take from women. Get this straight right now. I buy the groceries. I pay all household expenses, including Erika’s salary. I’ll even run the operation if you want.”

  The woman smiled and put her hands up playfully in mock defense. “That’s a fulltime job. I’ll not saddle you with that responsibility. Should you ramrod, there’d be no time for…. Dear heart, you could no more give up searching for that proverbial mine than you could….”

  Morgan laughed. “A heap quicker than I could give you up.”

  “At least, promise you’ll move your horses to the ranch and use my pasture land.”

  He nodded in agreement and grinned. “Don’t want my wild horses to stand in the way of romance.”

  She studied Morgan’s bronzed, beaming face and her heart fluttered. Could this strange feeling she had for Morgan be true love? “Are you sure?” she finally whispered.

  “Hell yes, I’m sure. One day you may wonder what you saw in old “dung face’.”

  “That may never happen,” Dayme told him bluntly. “Don’t count on it, dear heart. I can’t turn it off like the pump on a cistern.”

  “I’m a gambling man, else I wouldn’t be prospecting. You’ll find me irresistible in no time.”

  Dayme laughed. The memories of Benjamin faded into the background of her mind. “Who knows? You may be right.”

  The saucy old San Saba flooded as expected. Raging water reached almost to the hill north of the river and to the graveyard fence on the south. Erika Vaught came sloshing through the rain and mud to care for the little ones. “Mercy me,” the Alsatian woman exclaimed in her Alsatian brogue while shaking a raincoat and scraping her shoes on the step. “We’ll shust turn to tadpoles if it don’t stop raining. I vonder about the poor Leverage family.”

  “Probably stranded again.” Morgan shook his head in disgust. “That old hardhead. Thinks it shows bravery to put his family in jeopardy while other men take theirs to safety. They had to crawl up on the roof the last time.”

  “Don’t you vorry about these babies. We’ll be shust fine.” Erika smiled and gathered Alexander in her arms. “Von’t ve, young man?”

  “There’s milk in the cooler when you need it,” Dayme called as she followed Morgan out the door.

  The Leverage family was cut off from land in all directions---the old Franciscan ditch on the south, Los Moras Creek on the west, the Stock Pen Crossing on the east and the San Saba River that swirled around them.

  Most of the able-bodied townsmen and a few young women walked over the mountain at first light to view the scene in the bottomland. Two men carried a rowboat. The people watched helplessly while the roaring water washed away houses, barns, chicken coops and drowning farm animals. One milk cow mooed as she passed, standing on a pile of debris. Leverage, his wife and their seven children crouched on the rooftop.

  People screamed in horror and wept when the cabin crumpled and logs washed downstream. The family was swept away by the currant. There was nothing anybody could do. The water was too swift, the waves too high. Churning, muddy water inundated the family and carried them downstream.

  Scanning the area with the army field glass, Morgan pointed to ten-year old Ivan Leverage who was clinging to the limb of a pecan tree. “That boy!” he shouted, dropping the field glass to the ground. He started scrambling down the rocks to the water below.

  “Too far, Morgan,” a townsman yelled. “Sheer suicide to try. Forget it. That child is lost. It’s impossible.”

  Big burly David Purcell was right behind Morgan. “I’ll help you, Cap’n.” When they reached the water’s edge, Purcell slapped a wide hand on Morgan’s shoulder. The trapper climbed into the rowboat with him. “The both of us can do it,” he said.

  Morgan called over the roar of the water. “That lad can’t hang there forever.”

  “Keep the rope comin’,” Purcell yelled to the men on the shore.

  “Mor-gan!” Dayme screamed to the top of her lungs. Her heart pounded as she watched the tiny craft bouncing in the floodwater.
“Mor-gan! Come back! Please come back!” Her cries were lost in the river’s roar.

  The two men kept shifting their weight in the light rowboat and their knuckles whitened on the oars as wave after wave whipped over the boat, almost capsizing them. David’s strong voice boomed over the roar as he called out to the youngster. “Hang on, son! Hang on! We’re comin’ to get you.”

  The churning water made Dayme dizzy, but when Morgan plunged into the cold, swollen river, her knees almost buckled. Somehow, she felt she had to get to him.

  “Don’t!”" Someone shouted. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I must,” Dayme said, sobbing. She struggled down the rain slick rocks of the hillside, sliding some of the way. Muddy and soaking wet, she cried hysterically and prayed beside the men who fed the rope to the rescuers.

  Morgan circled the pecan tree, securing the rope. “I’ve got it!” He called to Purcell. He looped his belt around the heavy rope and extended the end of it upward. “Grab the belt, Ivan. Grab the belt and come on down,” he coaxed. “I won’t let you drown.”

  “I…I’m afraid,” Ivan whimpered.

  “Don’t be afraid, boy. I’ll hold you. I won’t let you go. Please, son, grab hold of the belt.” Morgan pleaded with the youngster to no avail. The boy clung to the tree, frozen in a death grip.

  “Look out!” David shouted. “Yonder comes a barn!”

  Morgan braced against the tree. By some miracle, the current took the barn to the other side missing their rope and the tree by only a few feet. Purcell lost his balance in the wake of the barn and tumbled into the water, losing the rowboat. He grabbed the rescue rope and pulled himself to the tree where Morgan still pleaded with the child.

  “Go up an get him, Cap’n,” the big fur trapper said, panting and blowing muddy water. “That boy’s not comin’ down. You’ll have to pry him loose and drop him down to me.”