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Red Runs the Plains
© 2004 W.R. Benton, All Rights Reserved
This manuscript may not be reproduced in any form. All rights belong to the author and or the publisher. All characters are from the imaginations of the authors and do not represent any persons living or dead. Any similarities between real persons and the characters in this manuscript are a coincidence.
CHAPTER 1
This Excerpt may contain rough language, typical for the period.
The young boy was cold, so very cold. The wind, which had been strong earlier in the day, was now blowing much harder. He was not sure he could last much longer out in the wind and snow, but he had little choice. If he stopped, he died. As he stumbled along through the blowing snow, he remembered how his day had started just like all the others he had experienced in his thirteen years of life.
“Jarel Arley Wade, you up yet?” The boy heard his mother yell from down stairs.
“I’m up.”
He jumped out of bed, slipped on his bib overalls and boots and made his way slowly down the ladder from the loft he slept in. The house was essentially a rough looking cabin, made of logs, and had one large room on the ground floor, and upper half of the cabin was made into a sleeping area for three children. While not pretty, the structure kept the family warm during the cold winter months in Southwest Missouri.
“What’s fer breakfast, ma?” Jarel asked as he walked to the kitchen table his father had made with his own hands two years before the boy had been born.
His mother gave a loud laugh and handed him a wooden bowl filled with grits. She sat another bowl of grits on the table to Jarel’s left. On top of each bowl of grits was a big spoonful of fresh butter. “Samethang we had yes’derday an’ the day a’fore that ‘un.”
Jarel gave a big crooked smile and sat down at the table. He enjoyed grits and had them every morning, not that he had much choice. Times were rough on the old dirt farm and there never seemed to be enough food to go around. They always seemed to have plenty of beans, fried taters, and cornbread, but not much else.
“Where’s pa? Out in the field already?” Jarel asked between spoons of the hot grits.
“Son, yer daddy done be in the fields fer hours. He shore is a hard workin’ man, but I wish he’d take a break sometimes. He’s always so tired each night after a-workin’ with them crops all day. You should hep him mo’, ya know that Jarel Arley Wade?”
Jarel looked down at his breakfast to avoid eye contact with his momma. He knew when she used his complete formal name, he was in trouble or at least gonna get a good talkin’ to.
Overall, he knew he was a good boy, but he also knew he could do more to help his father around the farm. It was just that Jarel didn’t want to be a farmer when he grew up. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to be and knew that his choices were limited due to a poor education. Jarel had never been to a schoolhouse in his life and the only learnin’ he had, he got from his ma. He could struggle through most parts of the bible, ‘cept fer the big names, and he could cyper a bit.
At that point he heard his newborn sister crying to be fed. His mother walked over to the cradle and picked the baby up to fed her. The noise from the crying infant had awakened his younger brother William. William stretched and then got up off of the pallet he had slept on the night before. The young boy had been sick with a cold and his mother wanted him near her bed during the night. As he approached the table William gave a loud hacking cough that sounded more like a bark.
“You feelin’ stronger, son?” His momma asked as she opened the top of her dress so she could feel the baby.
She continued speaking, “And, you both say yer prayers a-fore you eat.”
‘ I feel a mite better ma.” William replied.
William, though only twelve, did his share of work on the farm and his ma said he had gotten sick from choppin’ wood for the fireplace during a big rain a few days back. Jeral watched the sick boy as he ate his breakfast and the sight made him ill. William’s nose was running and occasionally he would give out another barking cough, which sprayed grits in all directions. Or he would use the palm of his hand to wipe his nose and that just smeared the mess all over his face.
“Bill, do you have to do that! And, turn yer haid when ya cough!” Jarel spoke in anger as William sprayed grits on the tabletop.
Once his coughing fit was over, William looked at Jarel with hate in his eyes, “I’m sick Arley, you leave me ‘lone.”
Jarel hated to be called by his middle name, but the whole family did it most of the time. He knew now though, his brother was doing it just to get his goat. Jarel gave his brother a slap on the left side of his head and at the outburst from William his ma turned to see what was happening.
“Cain’t you two neveh sit beside each other and not fight? I got half a mind to take a hickory switch to both of yer behinds! Now, both of ya stop and eat yer grits. Then, go out in the field and hep yer daddy. You hear me Arley? You’re too big to be a hittin’ on yer younger brother.”
Jarel, feeling anger at this brother and frustration with his ma, merely nodded his head. He made up his mind to settle things with Bill later in the day, once the younger boy had forgotten about the attack at the breakfast table.
Breakfast was soon done and as the boys cleared the table and prepared to go help their pa, Jarel noticed his ma was cutting fatback to go in the big pot of beans slow cooking in the fireplace. He knew by the time the day was finished, they would all sit down to a typical dinner, except this time his pa had some venison to go with the meal. The day before his pa had shot a big buck near his corn field and it would be a welcome change from the their normal diet.
As the boys walked out of the cabin and across the barnyard, Jarel noticed the weather was much cooler than the day before. Dark gray clouds were moving in from the west and it looked like snow to the young boy. They found their father digging potatoes and placing them in tow sacks to store in the cellar.
“Hey boys, come to hep me dig up these heah taters! You’ll find some extree spades oveh there by the fence.” His father welcomed the boys in a cheery enough manner, but that was typical of him. Jarel noticed the man was sweating even in the cool fall air.
William and Jarel were soon busy digging potatoes from the dark black soil that his father loved so much. Jarel wondered how a man could love dirt like his pa did. He remembered how each spring his father would grow so excited with the sprouting of each new crop. How all of them, including his ma, would work from can see to cain’t see just to grow enough to survive the harsh Missouri winters. “No,” thought Jarel as he worked, “I don’t wanna spend the ress of my life diggin’ in the dirt on no rock filled farm! As soon as I can, I am leavin’. I think a-bein’ one of them mountain men with Astor would be a great life! Jess think, you could be free and not have to work hard neither.”
Abruptly his father stood up and scanned the hills surrounding the farm. “Son, take Bill and back to the house. Walk boys, do not run. I don’t want you lollygaggin’ neither. Jarel, I jess spotted Injuns.”
