“You were lucky,” Sierra said.
There was much more to his story but telling it would serve no purpose. “So, how did you end up in the North Concho Valley?”
“When Papa realized the land would be lost, he rented a few hundred acres from the old patron—my grandfather—that had an old log house and a rickety barn on it and moved the half dozen or so horses that remained on the plantation to that place. He also salvaged a buckboard, some tools, and a few mules. We took what furnishings we could use to the log house, and Grandma Emily settled in with Papa and me there. That is when Papa started his own horse herd, and he was happier than I had seen him since he came home from the war. But Grandma hated it. She cried almost every day. She just wasn’t cut out for that kind of life. I felt sorry for her.”
Jack thought, Yeah, it is tough without slaves and servants and all of life’s essentials. He would never voice those sarcastic words, though. “So now you are settled on Garcia’s rent ground. You are still near Austin. That’s a long way from here.”
“Grandma’s death made Papa restless. She just wasted away, lost her will to live, I think. Papa was ready for a new start but had to wait several years. He managed money well, and Sen᷉or Garcia owned a thousand acres about thirty miles east of Fort Concho and San Angelo. It had sat idle for years because of the Comanche threat, and it was not enough land for a big cow ranch, but plenty for fifty to sixty horses. Garcia sold him the land for eight dollars an acre and took a mortgage back. We still owe seven-thousand of that, and the San Angelo Bank holds a four-thousand-dollar lien on the horse herd.”
“Too much,” Jack said. “With other expenses, you could barely pay the interest.”
“Papa had twenty mares and two good stallions by this time. He headed out this way with two Mexican vaqueros, leaving me in Austin to finish schooling at the girls’ academy. I threw a fit, but he didn’t budge, insisted I would never regret an education.”
Jack was stunned. His son had been living within thirty-five to forty miles of the Lucky Five. “He didn’t know I lived nearby?”
Sierra sipped at the coffee that had little warmth remaining, giving him a dose of his own silence before she spoke. “He knew. I think that is why he grabbed the offer Garcia made. He said someday he was going to face you down, whatever that meant. But first he wanted to prove he could make a good life without you. All those years, he always knew where you were living when you were not out with your Texas Rangers on a mission. Grandma Emily kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings, showed him the story of you being one of the heroes of San Jacinto. You were famous, you know, as a Captain in the Texas Rangers, mostly as a Comanche fighter bringing back white captives. Some of the stories called you Comanche Jack. But you reported to Austin dozens of times at Ranger headquarters and never had time to visit your son.”
Jack ignored the barb. He could see how it would look to someone who had not been told the truth. “You said your father is dead. When? What happened?”
“One year ago, next month. June 8,1874 to be exact. I had been back a year when Comanches raided. Our little three-room house was a stone fortress. Barred windows, rifle ports. We always kept a three-day water supply inside in case of siege. But a war party caught Papa coming out of the stable. There were only a half dozen raiders, but they put two arrows in his back as he raced for the house. The vaqueros dragged him in, but there was nothing to be done. He was gone in an hour, along with his dreams.”
It was more than Jack could get a hold on. In less than an hour his son had been born and died. A person who had lived forty-four years not knowing he had a father who would have loved and cared for him and fought like hell to have been a part of his life. Emily had bested him, but it was their son who was the instrument of whatever game she had been playing. He was surprised that tears did not come, but how does a person grieve for the loss of someone you have never known? It was like reading a tragic story, leaving you sad but not inconsolable.
Chapter Seven
“I am sorry about the death of your father. I will likely have more to say, but I need to think about what you have told me,” Jack said.
“You don’t believe I am your granddaughter, do you?”
“I do believe you are my granddaughter, Sierra, and you are always welcome here. There is a home for you in this house if you choose.”
Sierra found herself surprised and unsettled by Jack’s words. Her visit to the Lucky Five had been her own roll of the dice, a gamble that she might solicit the help of this legendary man who had deserted his family. “Thank you,” she said.
Jack said, “But you did not come here just to prove you are my granddaughter, did you? That was the first step.”
It was time to lay her cards on the table. Not much got past this old man. “No, I came for more than a family reunion. I need help. After Papa died, I stayed on at our little horse ranch. We just finished the probate to get everything in my name. I had to let one of the vaqueros
