THE RAVEN’S HONOR
JOHNNY D. BOGGS
Copyright © 2017 by Johnny D. Boggs
E-book published in 2018 by Blackstone Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8908-0
Library e-book ISBN 978-1-5047-8907-3
Fiction/Westerns
CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Blackstone Publishing
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In memory of Darrell C. Boggs,
1927–2009,
the strongest man I’ve ever known;
and for Jack,
who knows the story of Sam Houston and the ring
Prologue
Virginian by birth, Tennessean by manhood, Texan for nigh thirty years. Sam Houston, the man who made Texas, had become legend long before the year of our Lord 1861.
This was the hero of the Battle of San Jacinto, where he had defeated Santa Anna’s Mexican army and avenged the Alamo back in 1836. This ancient leviathan had been a friend of David Crockett, and of Andrew Jackson. A friend of the Cherokees, with whom he had lived as a youngster and as a middle-aged recluse. A friend of the people. An enemy to many.
People loved him. Despised him. Respected him. More than a few feared him.
Runaway. Schoolteacher. Hero of the Creek War. Indian agent. Lawyer. Prosecutor. Congressman. Governor of two states. Senator. Twice president of the Republic of Texas. An Andrew Jackson Democrat, handpicked by Old Hickory himself as one to fill Jackson’s boots until the unthinkable had derailed Houston’s political career, but only briefly.
The Cherokees had named him the Raven. He had also been called Old Sam, General Sam, Sam Jacinto, and the Big Drunk.
Countless times, his iron will had bested his enemies. His wife, Margaret, however, had saved him from his worst enemy—himself.
Husband. Father. Christian. Slave owner.
Divorced. Drunkard. Hothead. Egomaniac.
Soldier.
Statesman.
Manipulator.
Blowhard.
Giant. Insignificant. Gutless. Valiant. Devoted. Disloyal. Honest. Liar.
He had been called every name in the book, often with good cause. He had lost battles, won wars, and bore painful reminders of both.
When well into his sixties, he recalled that he had tried—not always successfully—to live his life with his own brand of honor. He had endured. He had carved a reputation enemies kept trying—but always, eventually, failing—to smear. An old man, he had kept his self-respect. He still had his family. His legacy. His name.
Yet everything he had built, and all of his dreams, started crumbling, to test his honor, his endurance, and his faith.
Sam Houston brought Texas into the Union. Now, Sam Houston’s Texas was leaving these United States to join the Confederacy.
As a new nation dawned, Sam Houston realized that his honor would be tested again as he fought his final war … against enemies and friends. What he could not understand yet was that he would have to conquer his ghosts, his family, his own countrymen, his demons, and himself.
Chapter One
March 16, 1861
Inkslingers, pettifogging politicians, sky pilots, pathetic old biddies, and barbershop gossips would say that he had failed at all he had tried, seen everything come to ruin, and that what few victories he might have won came by luck and nothing else. Once the chair legs hit the floor, however, the big man knew they could never take this away from him. This would be his greatest victory.
Somehow, by himself, through sheer determination and not one iota of luck, he had gotten that damned chair from his office to the cavernous state capitol’s basement.
Struggling to catch his breath, the white-haired man leaned against the chair’s back. Deep in the building’s bowels, the air felt colder than he had expected, and above, through the thick ceiling, came muffled shouts, the stamping of boots on the floors of a hallowed hall. He had hoped to escape everything, but, alas, he had failed at that, too—and he lacked the strength to find another place to hide.
The old giant studied his chair.
Certainly a crate, box, or the cold floor itself might have been just as comfortable. Plain, four simply turned legs, one loose, another uneven, with an arched backrest supported by six rods, the seventh having been broken six years earlier and never replaced. The seat, made of tanned cowhide, bore signs of age and scars. But he had made this chair himself. Now he removed the wooden walking stick that he had carried in the chair, and rested the crooked hickory against the wall. Finally, with a weary sigh, he sank into the rickety chair.
His lips trembled, his heart ached, but he refused to break down.
For a moment he sat there, not listening to the crowd above him in the state’s Confederate congressional chambers or to the water dripping somewhere deeper in the basement.
He wore a coat that had been tailored for him twenty years earlier but could no longer be buttoned around his stomach. The cuffs of the fitted sleeves had started fraying long ago, and only a few massive buttons remained. Moths had eaten four small holes in the left side, and his wife always told him he should not be seen leaving his home in such a piece of garbage. He liked that coat, however, and always explained that such a coat befitted a man who worked and dealt with garbage. The vest? Well, even his wife never complained about it. Although he had not worn it in years, at least not in public, he had prayed that it might bring him luck. “Leopard skin,” he always called it, even if the skin came from a jaguar. “Leopards cannot change their spots,” he was fond of saying. “Nor can I.”
His shirt, like the vest, remained unbuttoned at the collar, for he hated anything tight against his throat. “Folks have wanted to put something around my neck for better than forty years, Margaret,” he told his wife whenever she begged him to wear an ascot or some type of tie. “Damned if I’ll do it myself.”
Eventually, he reached inside his coat pocket, and withdrew the knife. As always, once he opened the blade, he lightly brushed his thumb across the edge. A keen edge was a dangerous weapon; a dull blade, even more so. Satisfied, he found a small piece of wood in another pocket. He pushed his chair back on two legs, brought the blade to the wood, and slowly shaved off a piece. He held the wood up to his eyes for closer inspection.
Pine, of course, had a softness to it, and he preferred harder woods when facing challenging problems. After wetting his lips, he started another pass of the blade, but stopped.
His head lifted toward the ceiling, and tears welled in his eyes. The leviathan summoned strength, shook his head, made himself block out the muted commotion above him. He made his next pass even lighter, watching the wood peel as the knife came toward him. Better. Take your time, make wood and edge last. He cut again.
“What you carvin’?”
He lifted his large head, cerulean eyes glaring at a young boy in the hallway who stood underneath a lighted candle on the wall. The last thing he needed was some kid pestering him. He opened his mouth to roar at the boy and frighten him into a full-fledged retreat. A memory stopped him.
* * * * *
He was slightly older than this tyke, in the Tennessee woods, and had just come across an Indian leaning against a tree, knife in right hand, cutting on a sapling. “What are you carving?” he asked, and the lean figure jerked up, moving the knife into a def
ensive position, rage filling those black eyes. Fearing he was about to be butchered by a red savage, he stumbled, and fell onto his buttocks, but the Indian immediately relaxed. The stately looking Cherokee, who would adopt him as a son, even smiled before speaking.
* * * * *
“Not carving,” the old-timer said in as soft a voice as he could manage in answering the boy. “I’m whittling.” It still sounded more like a bark. The behemoth settled back into his chair and slowly drew the knife toward him. Another shaving drifted silently to the floor.
“Ain’t it the same thing?” the youngster asked.
His head shook as he trimmed off another shaving, staring at the youngster. Eight, nine, no more than ten years old, with long trousers, shoes that must have pinched his toes, a jacket, vest, starched shirt with paper collar and a cravat. Dressed up in his Sunday best, though today was Saturday, the kid started tugging at the tight collar with a finger.
“Whittling,” the man explained, “is for thinking. Carving is for pleasure. And do not say ain’t.” He gave the kid his sternest look. “It ain’t becoming for a distinguished young man such as yourself.” He hoped the boy would go away. He knew better.
“I ain’t dis—um … I ain’t …”
“Distinguished,” the man said. “Means illustrious.”
The boy frowned.
“Notable. Famous. Eminent.” He nodded at the ceiling. “Like those folks upstairs. I figured, dressed as you are, that you were among our new Confederate congress.” The last words came out as a bitter oath. His heart broke again. Seeing the kid step closer, the giant drew a deep breath, bottling up the emotions that tore through him.
“Nah,” the boy said. “My ma made me come is all. Says this is the most important day in my life. I figured it might be fun, but it ain’t … isn’t … fun at all. All they do is shout and spit and stamp their feet. All that speechifyin’ is borin’. I could be rollin’ hoops with Bucky and David.”
“I wish I could roll hoops with you … Bucky and David, too.” The old man shaved more wood, and, without looking away from his task, he asked, “Your pa up there among our fine Congress, or is he just part of the watching horde?”
The boy stared, not understanding horde, perhaps not even congress. His eyes, a deep brown, looked at his tiny shoes, and he said in almost a whisper, “My pa’s dead.”
“I am sorry,” the man said. For a moment, the old-timer almost forgot what had brought him here, and all that the fools were destroying in the hallowed halls above.
The boy shrugged.
“I was just a few years older than you, I imagine, when my father was called to glory,” the old-timer said. “It is a hard thing. But your father will always be with you.” He started to tap his chest with the pine, but thought, Here you are, you old windbag, giving another damned speech.
At least the boy didn’t heckle him, or threaten to gun him down as a traitor to the Confederate States of America, to the state of Texas.
The boy swallowed. “My pa got killed … at the Alamo.”
Leaning back, the old man studied the youngster. The kid would have to be in his midtwenties to have a father who died with Crockett, Dickinson, Bonham, and all those others. Instead of rebuking the youngster, the leviathan offered the knife and wooden rectangle to the boy.
“Would you like to try?”
“Carve somethin’?”
“Not carve,” the old man said. “Whittle.”
“You don’t carve?”
The man shrugged. “When the mood strikes me. Crosses. My wife likes crosses, likes to see me carve those. Hearts. Margaret likes those, too. Watch fobs. Buttons. Even small tomahawks. But when I need to contemplate, to think, to decide on something immensely important, I just whittle.” He shook his hands, holding the knife and the piece of wood.
“How you do it?” the kid asked tentatively.
“Just … whittle,” the big man said. “Whittle … and think. But you have to sit down to do a proper job. One does not whittle whilst on his feet.”
The man stood to offer his chair to the boy, but the kid stepped back, his mouth hanging open.
“Are you … are you a … giant?”
For the first time in days, probably months, the ancient warrior smiled. “There are those who will say I have done big things, great things.” Even now, as age and old wounds tried to shrink his powerful frame, he could make himself seem larger, more intimidating. A cheer above him ended the mood. So did other bottled-up memories. “Mayhap I have,” he whispered. “But at times, I have been a very, very small man and done shamefully small things. Here.” He thrust the tools at the boy.
“Careful,” he said, after helping the youngster into the chair. “Do not cut yourself. The blade is sharp as a barber’s razor.” His massive finger pointed at the pine. “You see that. The grain. That’s what you look for. Cut with the grain. If you carve against the grain, it’ll go harder, and you’re likely to split your wood. Put your thumb lower. Your ma would not care much for me if you returned to the chamber with a bloody thumb. There. That’s good. Slowly. There. Pretty easy, isn’t it? Now, did you do any good thinking?”
The kid looked up, glanced at the knife, the wood, and quickly thrust both back to the big man. “Here.”
Frowning, saddened again, the giant took his tool and the wood, expecting the boy to leap down to the floor and skedaddle back to his mother—which is what the old man had wished for minutes ago. Instead, the boy stared at his hands and, after a long while, looked up. Tears brimmed in those brown eyes.
“My pa … he wasn’t killed at … the Alamo.” He did not look up at the big man when he said in a rushed whisper, “He ain’t even dead.”
Above them, the clamor reached a zenith, causing the candle to flicker, and almost burn out. The big man looked at the ceiling and finally brought out a watch from the pocket of his waistcoat. “ ’Tis almost noon,” he said absently.
“I’m hungry.” The kid sniffled. “Ain’t you?”
“I have no appetite this day.”
The boy swallowed. “I … I reckon I … I fibbed about my pa bein’ dead and all.”
“I have told some whoppers myself,” the leviathan said. “But …” he tried to sound stern, “do not make a habit of lying, young man. Lies hurt. If you want to be a success in this world … be honest, respect those older than you, and do not lie. You won’t always succeed in doing those three things, but try your hardest to make those three rules your creed.”
“You won’t tell my ma, will you?”
He shook his head.
“But you ain’t got no food?”
In the chamber above them, a clock began to chime, and, after the twelfth stroke, he heard them call out the name, followed by applause. The room above suddenly fell silent.
The boy leaped down off the seat, and said, “You want to whittle? You look like you need to so some thinkin’.”
With a nod, the old giant sank again into the chair, kicking back, finding the grain, feeling the knife, liking the way the wood shaved.
“Basswood.” He spoke just to fill the space, to forget. “That’s what most prefer. But any wood’ll do.”
“You work here?” the boy asked.
Sighing, the giant did not answer. After another shaving fell, he again offered the knife and pine to the boy. “Here.”
Above them, the name was called, and again the crowd roared.
When silence resumed, the boy said, “I reckon he don’t hear ’em.” The kid, having taken the knife and wood, sat on the hard floor, knees pulled up, head lowered, concentrating on his task.
The giant bit his lip, inhaled deeply, slowly exhaled.
The boy grinned at his accomplishment. He placed the wood on the floor and picked up his shaving. “Can I keep it?”
Blinking, the old man looked confused. “
The shaving? Of course. What did you think? What problem did you solve?”
“I just thought it’s good and long and funny-looking. The shaving.”
“I have never seen any its equal,” the man said, “and I have whittled a long, long time.”
The boy frowned and looked up. This time, a tear trickled down his cheek. “My pa … he … um … well, my ma … they … divorced?” The last word came out as a question. “But, Ma, she don’t want nobody to know.”
His immense head bobbed, and he rested his big hand on the young boy’s shoulder. “I have experienced that pain as well, but not from your viewpoint, I must concede. Stand with your mother, lad. Yet do not loathe your father. Fathers, like all men, do foolish things. Try not to, when you are older.”
“Should …?” The boy squinted as if in deep concentration. “Should I add that to my … um … cree—”
“Creed,” the man said, emphasizing the d. “Means a statement of your principles, your personal rules, your beliefs.”
“You must be a schoolmaster.” Again, the lad turned to the pine.
“I cannot say I had much of an education, but I have taught school.”
The boy examined his handiwork. “Wish we had you instead of mean ol’ Miss Langston.”
“Well …” He wanted to chuckle, but could barely smile. “Soon I shall be available for new employment.”
The kid looked up, and his eyes saddened again. “My pa … he drinks.”
“Yes.” The old man’s response came out like a sob.
“You’re married,” the boy said brightly, trying to change the subject, the mood. “I can tell.”
The big man’s blue eyes revitalized. “And how did you divine such knowledge?”
Pointing at the man’s big hand, the youngster said, “That ring there … on your finger.”
Sadly, he looked at the small gold band on his pinkie, his own eyes misting once more. “Yes,” he said, “listen to your mother, son. And always remember her.”
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