In the Face of the Enemy

by Linda Cooper

Prologue - Thursday's Child

The year was 1846, and Martha Harper's first son was born on Thursday, April 23rd at around two hours before dawn, after a remarkably short labour. Martha thought he was the most beautiful baby she'd ever seen. He had a mop of soft, dark curly hair and his blue eyes were shaded by long, dark lashes. The baby stared up at his mother intently, a curious little quirk of his left eyebrow seeming to question his welcome in the world. Martha hugged her child to her heart as if to reassure him.

Her first-born, Francie, was dark-haired but her eyes although blue at birth had gradually changed to hazel, and then brown. Now, at two years of age, Francie's eyes were so dark as to be almost black. Martha made a wish that her son's eyes would remain that same intense shade of blue as he grew up. Gazing lovingly at her son, Martha recited in her mind the words from a rhyme she'd been using to teach Francie the days of the week:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has…

Martha felt a shiver of presentiment waft across her slender shoulders.

Thursday's child has far to go…

She prayed fervently to God that her baby's life wouldn't be an unduly hard one and then she dismissed her sudden unease as a new mother's imaginings. It was strange how pregnancy and birth could turn a woman's mind downside up. At least my boy had the sense not to be born on a Wednesday.

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In the South at that time, some 15 years before the outbreak of the civil war, sharecropping was uncommon. Most southern landowners of significant status used slaves to work their land as slave labour was easy to obtain. However, a few of the smaller landowners, particularly in this remote area of the Texas Panhandle some 75 miles from anything that could be regarded as a town, found that sharecropping was the easiest solution, if not as profitable.

Martha's husband James was a sharecropper. He was a man who believed in God and justice although he wasn't as religious as his beloved wife. James had extended the wooden shack supplied by the landowner to provide his wife with a plain but good-sized home, anticipating the large family that they both hoped for. He was a man who wasn't afraid of hard work and he more than satisfied the expectations of the landowner as well as providing sufficient food to feed his family and to allow for storage and preservation of the excess to help them through the winter months. He was proud of his first-born son and looked forward to the years ahead when the sturdy boy would be old enough to work alongside him.

The new baby seemed always to be hungry but although restless and constantly in motion, he was a happy and smiling child who cried only when he felt himself to be overly restricted, and then all hell let loose and he yelled and struggled until he had the freedom of movement he desired. The delighted parents christened their baby son Jesse after a favourite passage of Martha's in the bible which referred to the shepherd father of King David.

By the time Jesse was two years old, the innate stubbornness and quick temper attributed to his birth sign had become well established in his personality, along with a strong sense of fun. James and Martha also quickly discovered that this child who had been in such a hurry to be born in those chill hours before sunrise, and who seemed always to pulsate with such an intense and restless energy whether awake or asleep, found it very hard to get out of bed in the morning.

Martha was proud of her son, but when he expressed a strong dislike to the 'e' at the end of his name and asserted himself by refusing to answer to anything other than the name Jess, she was sadly disappointed. Not all of Martha's quoting of Isaiah 11:1-2The Righteous Reign of the Branch could change their son's mind. James was highly amused and secretly pleased at his son's show of independence and was happy to go along with the boy's wishes. Francie was happy enough to call her little brother by his preferred name, except when he'd played a prank on her and then he was always Jesse.

As the family grew, the protective side of Jess's nature developed. He often teased the younger children, but it was always done with a gentle humour and it was woe betide to anyone who teased them or treated them unkindly. To his frustration, his younger siblings found Jess's dislike of the name his mother had given him a useful way to pay him back for his good-natured teasing and followed him around chanting the hated verse from the Bible.

A few years after Jess's birth, the area of Texas in which they lived suffered two years of severe summer drought followed by unusually harsh winters. The land that James Harper sharecropped suffered as a result, but although the work was still there for him, the amount of land and the effort required to produce a crop of a similar size to that prior to the drought, more than doubled. Likewise, the meat that James's hunting brought to the table dwindled, the wildlife in that area having been almost decimated by the severity of the conditions. Times became very hard for James and Martha, and their growing family.

In April 1860, Jess's fourteenth birthday slipped quietly past. It had fallen on a Monday that year but the day made no difference to him one way or the other. In general, one day was very much like another in the Harper household and birthdays came and went, unremarked and uncelebrated. At the time of his fourteenth birthday, Jess was one of five Harper children. His sister Francie was the eldest at 16 and then there were the three little ones; Johnny was just seven years old, then came Beccy who was three, and the youngest, Tim, who was just a babe in arms.

There had been three other children born to James and Martha in the years between Jess's birth and that of Johnny, but life had not been kind to the couple in that time, and privation and sickness had stolen the three babies away from them. One baby, a boy, had been stillborn; the next, a tiny little girl, had been born prematurely and survived for only a few hours, fading away before her grieving parents' eyes. The third, another boy, had raised their hopes but had succumbed at the age of nine months to a fever which had swept through the little community in which they lived. Martha's distress had been hard for James to bear and he blamed himself for the poverty which afflicted his family and left them so vulnerable to the harshness of the life they led.

James had always been a scrupulously honest man and he and Martha brought their children up by a well-defined moral code. The hard years had not changed him in this respect but the guilt he felt over his inability to improve his family's circumstances weighed heavily on him and every once in a while, the man who would hitherto have enjoyed just the occasional glass of beer with his friends experienced a dark night of the soul and squandered what little money he'd earned in the local cantina, attempting unsuccessfully to block out the awareness of his troubles. James wasn't a happy drunk. Angry at himself for his weakness he generally returned home in a black mood and directed his anger toward his wife and children.

Jess loved his father despite his occasional lapses. He understood where his father's anger came from and knew he would be overcome with regret when his mood had passed. Fiercely protective of his family, Jess did the only thing he could think of to diffuse the situation and deflected James's attention away from his mother and siblings and onto himself. Martha's heart ached at the guilt she knew her husband carried on his shoulders. Like Jess, she forgave James his occasional lapses, but she couldn't forgive the bruises he inflicted on her beloved son. The black moods were short-lived however, for as soon as his anger had been released James suffered severe remorse over his actions and returned to being a loving husband and father, until his next lapse.

On the Sunday before Jess's birthday, James had been in one of his black moods. Late on Saturday evening after his meagre funds ran out, the barman and a couple of the regulars at the local cantina hefted James up onto his horse and sent it in the direction of home with a pat on the rump. The horse had grown used to this procedure and plodded along slowly but despite this, James slid from the saddle on the way and rolled into a ditch, lying there insensible until the early hours of the morning. The horse continued on to its stable and James arrived home on foot, empty of pocket, badly bruised, and with his already threadbare jacket torn. That Sunday, James found fault with everyone and everything, but for once he took out his anger on the woodpile. His children knuckled down to their chores, keeping out of their father's way as much as possible. Jess escaped a beating that day but he remained wary, as his father's mood hadn't been completely defused by his attack on the woodpile.

The next day, James was out tending to some business with the owner of the land he sharecropped. Jess had worked extra hard that morning so as to finish his chores early and slip away before his father returned. His last chore had been clearing out the stall in the small barn where his father's horse was stabled. While Jess worked in the empty stall, the chickens pecked around in the hayloft sending down intermittent showers of straw, the occasional fragment of dried chicken dropping, and a quantity of loose, downy feathers.

His chores completed, Jess escaped to his favourite spot by the stream which ran through the wood about a half-mile from their neat wooden cabin. Several species of tree and shrub grew in the surrounding area. There were juniper and cottonwood trees, hackberry, and scrub oak, and the banks of the stream were sparsely dotted with willow and mesquite. Jess loved the company of his noisy brothers and sisters, but he had a sensitive side to his nature that he rarely displayed to others and there were times when he needed to escape to his spot by the stream where he could explore his innermost thoughts and enjoy the peace of the natural world around him.

Adolescence had kicked in with a vengeance over the last year and Jess was finding it hard to come to terms with the more inconvenient changes in both his body and his emotions. He was a modest boy, and embarrassed by the outward signs of his increasing masculinity. As he sat brooding on his favourite rock beside the stream, Jess ran a hand through his tumble of dark curls, pulling out the bits of straw and other barn debris and tossing them into the stream to be carried away by the current. He was in an unusually introspective frame of mind, staring moodily at the rippling surface of the stream. His deep blue eyes gazed unfocussed at the water as small twigs, dried leaves, and the occasional struggling insect floated downstream to join the bits of straw and feathers in the pool formed by the stream as it flowed into a wide, deep hollow in the ground. The stream widened at the other side of the hollow, taking the overspill away downhill to skirt the edge of the little community.

Deep in thought, Jess watched the stream flow over and around the various obstructions in its path; a build-up of mud, a group of small rocks, a partly-submerged piece of rotting wood, or a tangle of waterweeds and debris at the edge of the bank. The stream was ever-changing in the items it carried along with it, and in the way its rippling surface reflected the colour of the sky and the pattern of the clouds overhead. Yet, the stream itself was unchanging, the flow remaining ever the same, and the pattern of the water as it chuckled and eddied around the various obstacles constantly repeating itself. It was much the same as the flow of life, Jess mused. The community of which his family was a part was too small to be called a settlement but over the years there were always comings and goings, births and deaths, and endemic sickness that affected every family in the community. However, momentous as some of these events were to the individuals concerned, the general pattern of life never changed, going on much the same as before, and for most of the inhabitants it was unvarying in its harshness.

Pulling his mind away from contemplation of the stream, Jess brought his mind to the present and tugged off the secondhand boots he'd recently acquired in payment for some work he'd done for Mr Manning, the owner of the general store. They were only very slightly too large for him and a pair of thick socks had pretty much solved the problem except that they kept slipping down inside the boots. Aw heck thought Jess irritably I can't keep pullin' 'em off to fix these darn socks… I wonder if Ma's got any better ideas. After pulling the thick socks back up over his heels and tugging the boots on Jess stood up and stretched.After considering his options for a few minutes, he decided tostroll down past the schoolhouse to the general store and see if Mr Manning had any odd jobs he could do.

Circumnavigating the pool, he followed the bank of the stream down the hill through the gradually diminishing trees and turned onto the track which led to the general store by way of the schoolhouse. The small cabin that served as the schoolhouse had been built roughly a quarter of a mile away from the huddle of crudely built shacks, the small general store that doubled as the cantina, and the few scattered houses set apart from the rest that belonged to the comparatively well-off families.

The day was unusually hot and airless for the time of year. Jess paused in the shade of a spreading tree, leaning against the wide trunk, his hands tucked into the pockets of his denims as he listened to the droning of the insects. The schoolhouse was three hundred yards or so further down the track. Kids oughta be comin' out soon. Jess wondered what it would be like to go to school. None of the Harper brood attended the lessons but Martha had made sure all her children could read and write, except for the babe in arms of course. Jess had an agile and retentive mind. He'd never been as good as Francie at spelling but his writing was decipherable, he knew his times tables and had no problems with addition or subtraction. He wasn't too bad at multiplication and division either. Jess could never understand why the other children in the community had any need to go to school. Don't their Ma's teach 'em like our Ma taught us? What all else is there to learn? Wouldn't do for me… starin' at a blackboard for more'n half a darn day. I gotta be out in the open, even if it is only doin' chores. Jess wondered who did the children's chores while they sat in the classroom.

Listening for the bell signalling the end of the school day, and the babel of happy voices which always followed it Jess pushed away from the trunk of the tree and was about to walk on to the general store when he noticed the three boys several yards away from where he stood. They lounged by the side of the track, their heads together as they shared some private joke. Jess felt the small hairs on the back of his neck rise. He knew the older boys only too well. Zeke Patterson and the two Yates brothers. Troublemakers if ever I've known any. Jess leaned back against the trunk of the tree seemingly relaxed as he chewed on a blade of grass, but he kept his eyes fixed on the three boys.

After several more minutes the clang of the school bell sounded and the door of the schoolhouse slammed open as a small crowd of laughing children emerged. Most of them headed away from Jess toward the general store and the cluster of houses, but two of the children broke away from the rest and walked slowly in his direction. The three boys sniggered over their shared joke and watched the two children draw closer.

Frank held his kid sister's hand protectively as she walked beside him clutching the rag doll her mother had given her just that week. Nine-year old Evie always reminded Jess of the china doll his mother had kept from her childhood and which was now the prized possession of his little sister Beccy. Evie was small for her age with corn-gold curls framing her pretty face and tumbling over her shoulders. Jess thought she was about the prettiest little thing he'd ever seen. Ain't she just like Beccy's little china doll…? Jess switched his attention back to the three boys. I'll be darned if I'll let those three mess around with her…

Jess liked Frank and Evie Emerson and their older brother Ben, but much as they would have liked to befriend Jess, the three Emerson children had been adjured by their parents to stay well away from the likes of Jess Harper. William Emerson and his wife Alice considered themselves morally and socially superior to the majority of the inhabitants. Their thriving homestead was a half-mile out from the schoolhouse in the opposite direction to the main part of the community. They kept hogs, chickens, a few goats, and a couple of milk cows and sold their excess eggs, milk, cheese and butter through the general store, as well as some of the ham and bacon from their hogs. They also had a large truck patch that kept their own family well supplied with vegetables, leaving plenty over to sell along with their other produce.

William and Alice Emerson had little to do with any of the community except for the few comparatively well-off families close by. The children of these families, for the most part, weren't allowed to mix with the poorer children of the community who like Jess, didn't attend school. Jack Patterson was one of William Emersons' friends. His son Zeke, unbeknownst to his doting parents, had acquired a penchant for the rough company of Billy and Pete Yates. Jess had a particular dislike of all three boys but especially of Zeke. He didn't trust him anywhere near his sisters and he was determined not to let him get too close to Evie.

Frank Emerson was a year younger than Jess but Evie was five years his junior. Jess had got to know them two years previously when Evie was being unkindly teased by a group of older children. Jess had felt sorry for the golden-haired little girl and had waded in to help Frank fight off her tormentors. Evie's older brother Ben had searched Jess out the next day, thanking him for helping out his kid sister. The two boys had liked each other on sight but William and Alice Emerson, although grateful for their children's rescue forbade them to associate with any of the Harper progeny.

Ben and Frank found it hard to understand their parents' attitude toward Jess. The Harpers were undoubtedly poor and the father occasionally drank too much but they were an honest, hardworking couple, and threadbare as their children's clothes were, they were always clean and carefully mended. In defiance of their parents' strictures, the brothers always stopped to talk with Jess when they met, and if Evie was with them, she would stare up at him with her sweet, shy smile. She adored the lively, dark-haired older boy with the laughing blue eyes who'd come to her aid.

Jess could see Ben now, coming up the track from the general store toward the school and he wondered why the two children hadn't waited for their older brother. Ben was two years older than Jess but the difference in their years had been no bar to their friendship as Jess's hard upbringing and strong protective instinct had matured him beyond his years. Ben shared the same ebullient spirit, sense of fun, and lust for life as the younger boy. He didn't feel he was cut out to be a farmer but he was reluctant to disappoint his loving father, and his mother was adept at using the powerful weapon of emotional blackmail to keep her eldest son close to her side.

The three boys who were the subject of Jess's observation had also seen Ben's approach and it was obvious to Jess that the presence of Frank and Evie's older brother wasn't about to deter the three trouble makers from whatever mischief they had in mind. He pushed himself away from the tree and started walking toward the group of boys.

As Frank and Evie came alongside the trio of boys, Jess saw red-haired Zeke say something to Billy Yates and nudge him forward. Billy was the taller of the three boys and thickset like his father. He was blue-eyed and brown-haired like his younger brother Pete. At Zeke's instigation, Billy stepped out to stand in front of the children, blocking their way. Frank tried to guide Evie around him but the older boy sidestepped to block the way again. Ben saw what was happening and quickened his pace but he was still two hundred yards down the track.

Evie shrank against her brother's side as Zeke stared at her. Zeke kept his deep-set brown eyes glued to the little girl and leaned a little closer to Billy Yates. "Go on Billy… What ya waitin' for." Billy smirked and took a step closer leaning down to look at the doll that Evie was clutching.

"That's a real nice dolly you got there, Evie. I bet you got loads o' dolls. My kid sister now, she ain't got but one scruffy old doll and I'm bettin' she'd be real glad to have one like that. You wouldn't miss just one of 'em, Evie… now would ya?"

Evie clutched both her doll and Frank's hand a little tighter and stared up wide-eyed at the boys. She'd always been a little nervous of Billy Yates and his younger brother Pete but there was something about the way Zeke Patterson's eyes lingered on her that made her feel more than a little frightened and she tucked herself in close beside her brother. Frank stood a little straighter and eyed the taller boys who blocked their way.

"Just you leave Evie alone Billy. I'm real sorry your sister's only got one doll but our mother made that doll for Evie as a birthday present and I'm not about to let you take it from her."

Billy's grin widened as he looked over at the other two boys. "He's a tough one ain't he Zeke? He plumb scares me to pieces." He saw Ben come up and stand behind his brother and sister. "I could maybe do with a little help here, fellas."

Jess neared the group just as Ben reached them. Frank stepped aside, drawing Evie with him. Ben fixed Billy and the two other boys with a hard stare but they returned it belligerently and stood their ground.

"Well, now…" Zeke said from behind Billy "here's big brother. Come to rescue yer kin, Ben? Why don't you show him why that ain't such a good idea Billy?" Billy Yates reached out as if to shove Ben out of the way but Ben brushed his arm aside.

"I'd appreciate it Billy, if you and your friends would step aside and let Frank and Evie on their way."

Billy sniggered. "He's tough like his little brother, but he's real polite ain't he?" He looked briefly over his shoulder at the other two boys as if to make sure they were still there and then stepped a little closer to Ben. "Or maybe he's just yeller as mustard and ain't got the bite."

Out of the periphery of his vision, Ben caught sight of Jess walking purposefully in their direction and knew he had an ally. As he mentally readied himself for a fight he tried once more to reason with Billy, giving Jess time to reach them.

"Look Billy, my Pa's gonna be real angry at you for tryin' to take Evie's doll and as for you Zeke, I don't doubt he'll be lettin' your Pa know just what you get up to when you're out playin' with your little friends. So why don't you just back off and go play with your friends somewheres else. They're a little more your size than Frank and Evie, don't ya think?"

Billy smirked. "You're pretty sure of yourself for someone who's outnumbered. Now you see here, Ben. My Pa don't take too kindly to someone like you givin' me a ruckin'. He can be about as mean as a mama wasp, but I don't mind tellin' ya his sting's more'n twice as bad."

Ben Emerson stood his ground, calmly returning Billy's truculent glare. "Do you honestly think I'm gonna let you get clean away with takin' my little sister's new doll?"

Billy shuffled his feet nervously. There was something about Ben's quiet words that unnerved him but his natural response to this inner uncertainty was to increase his level of truculence.

"I reckon that's about the size of it, Emerson. See, my baby sister, she ain't got but one doll and Evie…"

"Quit your whinin' Billy. What your baby sister has or hasn't got is nothin' to do with my baby sister. It ain't Evie's fault so quit tryin' to bully her. Maybe your mother should try makin' her one or maybe, just maybe… you could try doin' a little work for Mr Manning once in a while so you could earn enough to buy your sister a doll…" Ben stepped a little closer as he spoke and Billy edged back toward his friends. "How would you feel Billy, if someone just upped and took something your little sister treasured?"

Jess had come up behind the three boys unnoticed by them and he stood a few feet away. "You want some help Ben?" he asked in a distinctive, husky voice that broke slightly on the last word. Jess's voice had broken before he was thirteen but it still let him down occasionally.

Zeke Patterson and Billy's younger brother whirled around. "Where'd you spring from Harper?" Zeke asked. "This ain't none of your business, so why don't you just butt out."

"I'm makin' it my business. You got any objection to that Ben?"

Ben gave him a wide grin. "I got no objection Jesse. You're more than welcome to join in if you've a mind."

Jess felt his mood lift and he returned Ben's grin. "I reckon I do. But it's Jess not Jesse. My folks named me Jesse but I never took to it."

Billy turned his belligerent glare on Jess. "You'll stay outta this Jesse Harper, if you know what's good for ya." Jess said nothing but his expression took on the stubborn look that his siblings knew only too well.

Frank attempted to lead Evie away from the boys but Pete and Zeke stepped out intending to obstruct the two younger children. Jess strode quickly in front of them and put his arm out to stop them. "Don't even think about it…"

Ben glanced toward his younger brother. "Take Evie home, Frank. I'll be along in just a few minutes."

"Don't be so sure of that…" Billy threw a wild punch at Ben, which was easily parried and swiftly returned.

Ben watched in satisfaction as Billy staggered back. "You're just like your Pa, Billy. Too fat and too slow."

Red-faced, Billy charged purposefully back toward Ben and as the other two boys turned on Jess, Frank tightened his grip on Evie's hand and pulled her hurriedly up the track away from what promised to be a rough fight. He looked back briefly and saw Ben giving as good as he got from Billy, while Jess, a veritable whirlwind, changed the shape of Zeke's snub nose for ever with a neat facer. Both Zeke and Pete were taller than Jess and more heavily built, but what Jess lacked in size he more than made up for with an enthusiasm and ferocity they couldn't equal.

Frank hesitated and considered sending Evie on and wading in to help Jess but Ben had told him to take Evie home. He wouldn't appreciate being disobeyed and if the fight went badly, Evie would be in even more trouble. He urged her quickly homeward. As Frank and Evie disappeared out of sight, Ben felled Billy with a heavy blow to the solar plexus leaving him on his knees gasping for breath. He turned quickly away to help Jess, whose arms were gripped behind his back by Zeke, the taller of his two opponents, while Pete used him as a punch bag. Ben grabbed Pete's arm as he was about to throw another punch at Jess and swinging him round, he landed a fist full in his face sending the younger boy sprawling into the long grass beside the track.

Jess took the opportunity to bring his bootheel into contact with Zeke's shin and broke free as the older boy's grip on him momentarily loosened. He whirled around and drove his left fist into Zeke's diaphragm sending him to his knees on the dusty track. Zeke doubled over, to all intents and purposes temporarily disabled. Jess shoved a foot against his shoulder intending to push the boy over but was stunned to find himself landing heavily on the hard ground as his foot was grabbed and wrenched over, sending him off balance. Ben grabbed Zeke by the collar and hauled him upright, preventing him from doing any further damage to Jess. Billy stumbled over to the long grass at the side of the track, having recovered his breath, and grabbing hold of his younger brother he pulled him to his feet.

With a rough shove, Ben sent Zeke staggering toward the two brothers. "OK Billy, Pete… take your friend and hightail it outta here. And in future, all of you… and particularly you Zeke Patterson… stay the hell away from Evie."

Zeke swiped his shirt sleeve across his bleeding nose and glared back at Ben. "We're goin' but I ain't likely to forget about this. You and Harper'd better watch your backs." As the three boys stumbled off down the track Ben helped Jess to his feet.

"I'll bet you won't do that again in a hurry. You OK?" Ben dusted Jess off with his hat as he spoke.

Jess gave a rueful grin and rubbed the hip he'd landed on. "Yeah… you could be right, but I'm fine. I guess I learnt another lesson today… I'll remember that little trick of Zeke's the next time I end up in a fight. I reckon my pride's about as bruised as the rest of me, is all. Thanks for gettin' 'em offa me."

Ben chuckled. "Oh, you were doin' just fine by yourself Jess. You'd a seen 'em off if I hadn't stepped in."

Jess looked ruefully down at his now-scuffed boots. "Maybe… maybe not…" Looking up again, he caught sight of a tear in his shirt sleeve. He'd acquired the shirt from Mr Manning, along with the boots. "Aw, heck! I ain't had this more'n a few days. I'll have to get Ma to stitch it for me."

"I'm real sorry Jess." Ben examined the tear. "It was my fault for gettin' you into this."

Jess winced as he wiped the blood from a split lip with his shirt sleeve, inflicting further damage to the torn garment. "As I recollect, I invited myself." He gingerly felt the bruises on his face. "Does it show much?"

Ben took a closer look at Jess's face and grimaced in sympathy. "Well, you're gonna have a real colourful eye, not to mention the bruise on your jaw, and your lower lip is about twice its normal size. Are you gonna get in trouble with your Pa over this?" Ben knew Jess's father didn't approve of his fighting.

Jess shrugged with a resigned air. "Ain't no help to it. He'll get a mite riled up when he catches sight of me but I reckon he'll cool down some when I tell him what Zeke and Billy was fixin' to do. He don't approve none of Billy and Pete Yates and you don't wanna know what he thinks of Zeke."

Ben clapped a hand on Jess's shoulder. "You want me to come back with you and fill him in on what started it Jess?" Jess shook his head. "Why don't you come home with me then and get cleaned up first? Pa'll be real grateful to you for what you done and Ma can sew up that tear for you."

Jess knew only too well what Ben's parents thought of him and his family and he didn't think there'd be much gratitude floating around if he turned up at their homestead with Ben.

"Thanks for the offer Ben but I'll be OK. I'd better get goin'. Maybe I can sneak back and clean up some before Pa gets home." Jess turned away and somewhat stiffly he started back up the hill toward home.

Ben watched him go. He'd always felt a strong affinity for Jess and no matter what his Pa said, Jess was a good kid and he'd make a fine man if James Harper didn't kill him before he turned sixteen.

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After the incident with Zeke and the two Yates brothers, the friendship between Ben and Jess continued to grow despite the disapproval of Ben's parents. Ben's open refusal to drop his association with Jess became a bone of contention between father and son and William Emerson's disapproval of the younger boy turned to outright animosity. There was little sympathy for Jess from that quarter when a year later, just after his fifteenth birthday, the landowner his father worked for fell foul of the Bannister brothers and by way of a threat the gang attacked the Harper's modest home, burning it to the ground. Martha Harper and the three youngest children were trapped inside the house by the gang's wild gunfire and burned to death. James was shot dead in front of his two older children as he attempted to stop the vicious attack, and Francie and Jess who'd been outside the cabin with their father were the only survivors.

After shooting James, the gang rode off. Jess tried desperately to rescue his mother and the younger children, but the fire had taken too great a hold and he was forced back by the heat of the roaring flames, his hands burned and blistered in the attempt. The orphans watched grief-stricken, as the flames devoured their home and the bodies of their kin. It was some time before anyone from the community arrived to investigate the fire and found the brother and sister huddled together in silent shock by their father's body. After the burial, Francie and Jess were taken in by a maternal uncle living at Fort Worth, and Ben and Jess lost touch with each other.