“They could be related.”
“Maybe. Still, what chance is it that this Taylor is connected to Kinsella? The newspaper article was written over ten years ago.”
His counting the years as if he were still in the past made her smile. “There might be a connection. Keep looking.”
He didn’t continue reading right away. As they neared the city limits of Waco, he stared hard at the surrounding countryside. “Just think, this was where I would’ve caught the stagecoach to go help Cole.”
She held her hand out to him and he took it. “You’ll catch that stagecoach soon enough.”
Continuing north, they made good time until they reached the outskirts of Dallas and the traffic slowed them down. Reno took the opportunity to read her another segment he’d found in the book. “It says here that Taylor is an Indian fighter, a former Confederate officer, and a rancher.” When he turned one more page, he swore, “Hell’s bells. I know this man.”
“What?” This shocked Journey so much that she veered out of her lane and onto the rough right-of-way.
“Here’s a picture of him in his uniform.” He held it up for her to see. “John R. Taylor. Oh, yea, I remember this snake. Our paths crossed a couple of times. He evicted Jericho and me from the mess tent. Said we had no business eating with decent folk.”
“What a jerk.”
“It says here that in 1841, he was charged as an accomplice in the murder of an Indian trader. He escaped justice by fleeing across the Red River into Texas.” He read a bit, then laughed. “Oh, hell. In 1850 he was elected to the Texas state legislature and two years after that he was admitted to the bar.”
“I guess it’s safe to say their standards weren’t very high.”
Reno turned another page or two. “And in 1856, he was appointed as an Indian agent.”
“What was the job of an Indian agent?”
“Basically, an ambassador between the tribes and the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
Journey was so into what Reno was saying that she missed her turn-off. “Crap. Oh, well, I’ll just take the next exit.”
“Okay. Okay. Get this. Taylor’s direct supervisor, a man named Neigh, fired him in 1858 after Taylor accused the reservation Comanches of aiding rogue warriors in their attacks on settlers. In the years following, he traveled around pushing hatred of the Indians and campaigning to get his ex-boss, Neigh, replaced. Taylor even organized his own vigilante army of over a thousand men called the Jacksonville Rangers.”
“Well, there you go.”
“It says Taylor and his men would ride onto the reserves and kill any Indian accused of a crime against a white man, imagined or not. So, Neigh made a rare decision and moved the Indians from Texas to Oklahoma for their own protection.”
“All of this happened before the war?”
“Yea, this is all news to me. I was still in Tennessee when this happened.” He turned a couple of pages. “I wonder if he could still be in the area. Surely King or one of the others would’ve mentioned him if they knew he was around.” Frustrated, he rubbed his face. “I’m probably barking up the wrong tree.”
“Rest your eyes for a few miles, you don’t want to get a headache.”
He followed her advice, relaxing and enjoying the view. After turning onto the east-west interstate, Journey pointed out a vast amusement park. “That colorful area is Six Flags Over Texas. My parents took me there a few times when I was younger. The tall, winding track you can see is a rollercoaster. I loved to ride it with my dad. I’d hold my arms in the air and scream as the cars would careen down the steep grade of the track.”
“I’d love to ride one someday,” he mused, pondering the future.
“Look over there at that huge structure. That’s the AT&T Stadium where the Dallas Cowboys play.” Journey told him all she could about professional football, but that wasn’t saying much.
“I watched a clip on the news about salary negotiations. In some ways the game is like rugby. I couldn’t believe how much those athletes are paid. I didn’t know there was that much money in the world.”
“Some people believe they’re paid too much, especially compared to what a schoolteacher earns and they’re responsible for molding the youth of tomorrow.”
Once they were out of the sprawling urban area, Reno read until they neared the Texas-Arkansas line. “I remember when I came to Texas for the first time. We crossed over from Louisiana, a little farther south. I almost lost my leg to an alligator when I was trying to fill up my canteen from the bank of the Sabine River. Now, that was an experience.”
“I bet it was. Parts of East Texas are still wilderness.”
“I remember this one soldier brought his wife along, poor woman.” He chuckled at the memory. “Better I should say, poor man. They had come across from Monroe in the north part of Louisiana and she hated East Texas at first sight. She declared the place to be headquarters for ticks, redbugs, fleas by the millions, and snakes gliding through the grass by the hundreds. Her unlucky husband could not do enough for her. She refused to sleep next to him on his army blanket and demanded he build her a little treehouse every time they camped for the night. One evening after she’d been particularly shrewish, the wife crawled up onto this little ledge he’d built for her in a big oak, all padded with piles of soft pine straw. The rest of us were on the ground, of course. We had just about drifted off to sleep when she started hollering and squawking and flailing around. Her husband was trying to get to her when she just fell right out of the tree on top of him. When he finally
