Two weeks later and him still not in the best of health—walking with a bad limp and too weak to stand straight—they rode out of town toward the Mississippi River Valley as Mr. and Mrs. Samuel T. Grant in a wagon from the livery that Stan had willed to Jessa. She turned around and sold everything but the wagon and a pair of good horses to Martha and Floyd. Flora was with them and had grown into the nagging mother-in-law overnight.
As they entered the Blacklog mountain range, sunlight glinted off what could only be a gun barrel in the rocks a hundred yards or so ahead. Sam, trying to get used to that name now, thought of Governor Aurand’s warning. If that was Curry—hard to tell because the sun was bright—then he was showing himself to be a patient man to have waited this long. Sam—it was still strange to think of himself by that name—had been in bed for nigh on three weeks. Maybe it was just a hunter.
A shot rang out across the valley. Dirt kicked up three feet from the wagon horses.
“Git down!” He shoved Jessa headlong toward the floor.
Flora was down inside the canvas bed. With one solid jerk that made all his worn-out muscles ache, he halted the team. Before he had his rifle aimed, a second shot boomed. That one echoed in the air from across the ridge, parallel to the first shot. Had to be a different rifleman. Gunfire volleyed between the two shooters for a few minutes. Then all of a sudden, the first shooter had stopped. Had he been killed? Or had he slipped away to try again down the road where he might not be crowded by the second gunman?
A rider appeared as a silhouette on the skyline. Who was that? Sam was looking directly toward the sun. If it was Curry, he’d have kept hammering his trigger until Sam, or rather Mississippi, was dead.
Sam kept his rifle on his lap as he slapped leather to the team. The horses pulled forward, and the wagon lurched. “Git in the back.”
Jessa quickly hopped over the seat and ducked inside the canvas with Flora. No doubt, she would have a bead on that rider while Sam drove the wagon. As he drew closer to the fella who was obviously waiting for them, he rapidly blinked a number of times to make sure he was seeing straight. Was that a ghost?
“My God. Ain’t you a helluva sight?” Sam reined in, leaned down from where he sat, and shook Porter’s hand. “Thought you was dead.”
“For a while, I believed that myself.” Porter looked thinner, not as strong as he once was. There was an agedness around his eyes.
Sam had stared at himself in a mirror before leaving the hotel. He, too, appeared older. They needed to be wiser not to ever slip into old ways, but he believed they both, honest to God, appreciated the simple fact that they were alive and breathing. As for himself, under no circumstances would he mess up this second chance, because he wouldn’t get a third. He had a wife, and soon, babies would come. A family was something special he’d never thought he’d have. There was no wealth great enough for him to risk losing that.
“Where were ya?” Sam was curious. Porter had disappeared, and then, as Mississippi, he’d seen the Indian kid wearing the hat Porter was wearing now.
“You won’t believe it.” He grinned. Their voices must have carried inside, and Jessa had recognized Porter’s.
She poked her head out from under the flap. “Port.” She beamed. “I thought the Apache got ya.”
“They got me, all right. Except instead of torturin’ me, some of their squaws done patched me up. Spent the last few weeks recoverin’ in one their tepees.”
“Ya don’t say.” Sam could hardly believe it, but Porter sat astride his horse smack dab in front of him, in the flesh.
“One of their braves saw me crawl up out of the ground. That pit they call the cauldron. He figured I’s some sort of god with mighty strength that I’d fought my way out of the devil’s mouth. Bad spirits would come if he didn’t help one so powerful, or some shit like that.” They chuckled. “I didn’t care what he believed as long as they were taking care of me and not cutting off my scalp. The stronger I got, the more them red bucks admired me. I’ve always been a fast healer. Good thing too.”
“Glad to see ya made it out of there with your hair.” Sam was happy for his friend. They hadn’t always seen eye to eye, especially when it came to Port’s little brother, but Sam never disliked him.
“Oh, you got it wrong. I didn’t escape.” A big, fat grin spread across his face. “Got me an Injun wife. I’m one of them now.” He chuckled.
How much life had changed since that day of the bank robbery.
“Congratulations.” And Sam meant it. He supposed the Apache weren’t all that bad. They had let Porter live and accepted him into their tribe. He was a fierce warrior and was suited for that life. He would be just fine.
“How’d ya know we were leaving?” Sam wasn’t aware that Porter had known he was even alive, given that he’d thought Port was dead.
“Didn’t.” He nudged his head toward the rocks. In the excitement of seeing Porter come to life again before his very eyes, Sam had nearly forgotten about being shot at.
“I was hunting this area when I spotted Sheriff Curry hunkered down in them rocks, waiting for someone. That rifle of his propped in the ready position and how he was eagle-eying town gave it away. Figured he was set for you. I got wind of your pardon from a trapper. That sheriff had it out for all of us. Reckon you being set free stuck in his craw.”
Sam nodded. It was true, every word Port said.
“Your slate’s been cleaned. Won’t do for you to be doing any killing, so I did it for ya. I’ll take his body to Pike, tell him what happened.”
“What if Sheriff Pike tries to arrest ya?” Sam didn’t want his friend getting hanged on his account.
“I ain’t too worried. If he does lock me up, he’ll have the whole Apache nation knocking on his door.”
“Thanks, Port… I should tell ya… Your brother—”
Porter put up a stiff hand. “I know.” He turned his horse and began to trot off.
“Wait!” Sam called. He didn’t know what stirred up the memory. Maybe he just wanted something better to remember from that awful day than what happened to Jessa and their baby. “That day in the cauldron when your brother and Clint had Jessa and me pinned down. Was that you firing at them?” He hadn’t thought about it much but had never figured out who had helped them that day. It had been a saving grace just when they needed it.
Porter grinned as he tipped his hat. “Adiós, amigo.”
When he had disappeared into the forest, Sam leaned over and kissed Jessa. She had sat tight next to him again.
All those weeks ago, he had started out to become a rich man, and he was. If he were to gain wealth, then it would come by honest living. For now, he had very little. Mostly, they had each other, and that was truly enough. A good woman at his side and a few sound friends. What else could a man truly need?
He slapped reins to the team, and in the distance, the sun lit the horizon. With the breeze turning the leaves, the air touching his face, he could picture their home on the bank of the Mississippi.
EPILOGUE
It took months, and the travel was dry, wet, joyous, and miserable all balled up into one. When they finally crossed the Mississippi River, the sun was in the blue sky, which was dotted with fluffy white clouds, and a warm breeze flowed off the water.
They lived in the same house that Mississippi had grown up in. Their first-year crop of tobacco was a bumper one, giving them extra to hire some hands. Jessa delivered their first son, William Jacob, that year. Flora was overjoyed with that and had become the ever-doting granny.
The second and third year, their harvest was so bountiful they bought more acres and hired ten more men. He and Jessa also added to their family. Henry, their second son, had come at Christmastime, then their daughter, Ada, the following November. A year later came Samuel T. Grant the second, or Sammy as they called him. He was the spitting image of his father, inside and out.
Jessa’s father had come to visit them in the spring of the year that his namesake, Henry,
was born. Henry Pike had aged in the time since they’d left Piketown and said this would be his one trip east. A year later, they got news that he choked on a chicken bone and died. Jessa had been expecting at the time, so unfortunately, they were unable to make the trip into the Blacklog Mountains for his burial.
Theirs was a good life, and Sam Grant was an honest, happy man, not that he didn’t have some regrets. All men did. At the fireside each evening after supper, when the day was settling down and the shadows of night were gliding across the land, when the moon was rising in the twinkly sky and all felt joyously unreal to him, he would recall a different time and tell his children yarns about horse races and running through the land and about a great lawman—not criminal—named Mississippi Lightning, who had thwarted many crimes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J.B. Richard, author of the Western Promises series, resides in the Seven Mountain region of Central Pennsylvania, where her grandparents’ farm is nestled, cultivating inspiration through her wild days-gone-by adventures with her many cousins. She is an avid outdoorsman who enjoys hiking and exploring Civil War battlefields. A highlight of her life was riding horseback on the same road that General Robert E. Lee had ridden into Gettysburg.
Visit J.B. Richard at www.jbrichard.com or
on Facebook at J.B. Richard.
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