SCENE TEN The Riordan/Randolph homestead, near Los Miraboles Canyon

Coop jumped to his feet, whirled halfway around and froze in place. Not three yards away framed by a half-gone doorway, stood a willowy figure, a woman with flowing hair the color of daylight and huge dark hazel eyes illuminating her thin oval face. Wrapped in a wool serape over a smoke-stained dress, she cradled an infant in her arms, and smiled at both newcomers to Los Miraboles.

"No one told Cooper that, Thea." Miriam answered her life long friend. "Like all the boys we've ever known from east Texas, he still gets all his exercise jumping to conclusions."

"Timmy?" Coop whispered, flinching when his voice came out sounding more like a fifteen year old's. "Timmy?"

"Cooper, I thought you agreed to call me Thea." the fair haired woman laughed, shaking her head. "And whatever's happened to your manners? Would you please stop gaping at me in that terribly awkward manner and introduce me properly to… that very tall young gentleman behind you?"

"I'm Duke Shannon, ma'am." the blond scout answered for his still gaping friend, grinning at the newcomer and then scooping off his hat and ducking his head politely.

"I'm delighted to know you, Mr. Shannon, despite present circumstances. I'm an old friend of Cooper's, although you might not realize that from the way he's behaving. I'm Mrs. Micheal Riordan."

"And I'm real glad to know you too, Mrs. Riordan." Duke nodded.

Miriam Randolph meanwhile reached to take the fussing infant from her friend's arms. "Thea, I think you've worked another wonder here, darling! The baby seems fine now. How's …"

" This little boy is going to be fine, mainly because he's an Etherton, a Reid and a Riordan before … all the rest. Also, his godmother, his momma and I, and I have to believe a lot more of our folks who are up in Glory now just wouldn't have it any other way, despite all the trouble. And …she finally managed to nod off for a little while, Miri. Toya's rocking her himself." Thea answered wearily.

"So we won't need Missus Beth's rocking chair just at the moment. But I'm glad to see it didn't go up in the fire. I'd so hate to lose that bit of home. There's so little left here… so little…" The fair haired woman said and began to lose her balance, until Coop caught her strongly in his arms.

"Timm… Thea, it's wonderful to see you!" Coop finally said when he caught his own breath."It's just … wonderful. When I saw all that smoke going up out of here, and remembered that this was the part of the country you and Mickey came out to… Well, I guess I … I did get kinda worried. But you look… grand, Thea, just grand."

"I look an absolute, absolute fright, Cooper!" Thea laughed, running one hand back over her hair. "But with plenty of good reasons, all of which will no doubt be explained to you at some point. I'm just a tad bit wearied out, at the moment. Miri, do we have any coffee left at all? I'd love some and I know Micky will want some too when she wakes up, with about a quarter cup of sugar!"

"Coffee, for Micky? Thea are you sure that will be good for the baby?" Miri asked, peering at the tiny one in her arms.

"It will be fine, if it's more milk and sugar than coffee." Thea answered. "Why don't we sit a spell, and you can tell us all the trouble you've gotten into lately, Cooper."

"Well, that might take a while, Thea." Coop shook his head, helping Thea to sit down before he did likewise beside her. "So maybe the telling should wait till we can get you safe away from here."

"Uh-oh!" Miriam Randolph exclaimed softly. "Now he's done it."

"Done what exactly?" Duke asked.

"He's kicked over the hornet's nest." Miriam replied, rolling her eyes towards Glory.

"Coop's always seemed to have a real knack for doing that, as long as I've known him." Duke chuckled. "So, are you saying, Miriam that he's always been … gifted in that way?"

"Always." Miriam nodded. "And if Thea weren't worn down almost to a nubbin herself right now, the hornets would already be swarming all over him!"

Duke turned to glance at his friend and Thea Riordan. The fair haired woman's dark, wide eyes were certainly not smiling at Coop. Instead she seemed to be stunned by what the black haired scout so matter of factly suggested.

"Cooper, what can you possibly be thinking?" Thea finally exclaimed. "Miri, did you not explain the present circumstances to this thick headed, over-eager, over-protective east Texan would-be hero of ours?"

"There hasn't been time for a lot of explanations, Thea." Miriam shook her head. "We had some …company drop by for a short while and it hasn't been even three quarters of an hour since they left… the company, that is. And I wasn't sure you'd want an explanation given … just now. And before you ask, I didn't see or hear either Mickey or Eli among those visitors, darling. So I have to believe they've parted company with those other… gentlemen."

"You're such a defiant, obdurate optimist Miriam Randolph. And I love you for it." Thea smiled. "Everyone does. But I suppose this explanation is mostly mine to give, supposing we have the rest of the evening to talk and catch up and so on and so forth. I'd love to have Missus Beth's rocker to sit in while I give it, and something … anything at all, even a bit of cornbread to munch on."

Coop stood up and offered a half smile. "I'll fetch you the rocker, Thea, and hunt you up anything you'd like for supper."

"There's no need for you to provide anything here, Smith." Joaquin Aguilar insisted, joining them, setting the old rocking chair between Coop and Thea. "We're a family here. We take care of one another. Mi prima, here's the chair, and some empanadas. Senores, you are welcome to eat with us, having helped to defend this family and what's left of this hacienda. We are not savages, as I hope you understand now, we acknowledge and thank those who help us … as you Yanquis say, live to fight another day."

"Bavi, primo, calme, por favor." Thea asked, sitting on the rocker as regally as any queen on her throne, Coop thought. "Please, calm down, brother. How was Cooper to know, much less understand our rather unique familia when he and his friend arrived here in the midst of all this turmoil? And you calm down too, Cooper, will you please? How was Bavi to understand, much less to know that you and I and Miriam, Eli and Micheal have been friends for just about …ever, when he just met you?"

Coop relaxed his stance and pushed the frown off his face with an unmistakable effort. "Reckon he couldn't know that, Thea." the scout nodded. "No offense meant, Aguilar."

"None taken." the Comanchero leader nodded and then turned to shake his head at Thea. " But now, mi estimada prima, will you eat and rest a while? I don't wish to see you make yourself ill from weariness and worry."

"I'm fine, mi estimado primo." Thea smiled and took some of the food offered. "Except for being very hungry. Well, whatever's the matter now, Cooper?"

"Just one more thing I don't understand, Thea." Coop shrugged, looking at his hands so as not to look at Thea for a moment. "Why do you call him primo? Why does he call you prima? Doesn't primo mean cousin?"

"It does. And we call each other cousins because Bavi's dear, dear uncle adopted me as his daughter when he was dying and named me Bright Eagle Woman." Thea laughed tiredly. "And that was only the beginning. Bavi's right, we're all one family here, now. We've helped each other survive all sorts of terrible times, as a family. We tried to make this place, this part of the country, this hacienda a home for all of us, and for anyone who … felt as we did, that they were … uprooted, homeless, and alone in the world. I know you understand that feeling, Cooper. You told me you felt just that way when you came home after the War ended, back to Nacogdoches."

"Yeah. I did. So did a lot of folks. But Thea, you can't stay here." Coop insisted. Even if those raiders weren't gonna come back again and again until they run you out or starve you out… There's the Army and …"

"There's the latest treaty, that says there are to be no white settlements in the Comancheria." Thea finished, giving Coop a stubborn smile he knew all too well. "But that doesn't apply to us, not any longer, Cooper. As Bavi said, as I just said, we're a family here. Somos una familia. And this is our home, esto es nuestra casa. So we're definitely staying. I won't move so much as one yard from the place I buried my son Asher Isaiah three years ago, the place my little grandson was just born this day. Nor will Miriam and I go anywhere at all without our husbands."

Coop knew he was staring at Thea again. He could feel his jaw dropping towards the crumbling adobe and half burned timbers around his feet. Thea was a good two years younger than than the scout.

"Cooper Smith, if you're staring at me again because you think I'm not old enough to become a grandmother, then I'm flattered." Thea Riordan smiled, as always seeming to read her former beau's mind.

"And back in east Texas, I know a proper Southern lady wouldn't dream of discussing matters concerning childbirth with anyone but other married women. But out here, well, things are quite different in a great many ways. And most of those differences I don't simply accept, I don't just approve, I cherish. That being said, I know you're wanting to ask me at least a few score more questions, well, go ahead."

"Thea," Coop hesitated visibly, looking down and away for a moment. Then he trained his blue-sky eyes on the face of the woman who he loved years ago. "Thea, you've been married to Mickey Riordan for quite a while now. You've borne him three chlidren. And I'm … I'm awfully sad to hear you lost young Ash, truly. I'm sorry. But whatever goes on with your family is really none of my business, and I really do … I really know that. I … I only want you to be well, to…to be safe and to be happy. I …I always have."

"Now you sound like your dear Daddy, a true Texas gentleman, if ever there was one, even if he grew up mostly in Tennessee." Thea chuckled softly. "But we're friends, we're good friends. And we have been for so long, Cooper, I can't put you off with polite pretenses and nonsense like that. I know you're only here now because you thought Mickey and I might be in some sort of trouble, when you saw all the smoke from the fire. Well, we have been in trouble here, more times than I'd care to count.

And I'd have to guess that Miri's been telling you about the so-called Reverend Godsey, a man we took care of, befriended and believed, when he came out of the desert, barely alive, several years ago. And for doing so, we got back nothing but trouble, dissension, lies and …worse… And just when I thought surely he'd done his worst, with all the quarrels and the divisions the Reverend stirred up between Micheal and Bavi … between Eli and Micheal, this Godsey…started a whole new campaign!" Thea was the one who looked away now, turning her wide eyes on the baby in her arms, as if to remind herself of something, Coop thought.

"What did he do, Thea? Did this Godsey harm you or Miri?" Coop demanded to know.

Thea looked from Cooper to Miriam and back and shook her head. Her eyes shone with tears and her voice was shaking, but she went on. "I don't know if I can answer your question, Cooper. I don't know if I can even say the words! That man, that 'Reverend' seems to be the polar, exact opposite of what anyone would think a man of G-d would be! Instead of peace and good will and compassion, he preaches hatred, war and retribution. Instead of belief in a loving G-d, even though G-d's love is something we can't understand, the Reverend only wants to talk about fire and brimstone!" Thea shook her head and sighed and put one hand up to her head.

"We saved his life, Cooper. Or so we believed. Now I'm not sure he was in as desperate circumstances as he led us to think. And that's only partly because within a few months of his arrival, Reverend Godsey's troop began to make themselves known in this part of the country. Only at first we knew nothing of his connection to the those horrid raiders, those renegades. And then the lies began to come, thicker and faster and faster and more all the time. Those men were his congregation, his disciples, he said at one point. They were his students, or men he'd saved from one awful place or another on his way to Colorado territory, he said another time. And most recently, he told Micheal the men who came to his 'church' and his 'troop' were just like my husband, uprooted, disenfranchised and discontented after the War. "

" But beyond that, all the while he was staying among us, ranting on about one such notion or another, the Reverend Godsey was constantly, constantly attacking us from within! He scared all the children so badly they've had nightmares for months! He lied and blamed and spread distrust among all of us, but most of all to …to my own Micheal, who it seems was the most vulnerable of our whole family here to just that kind of poison-talk. He did all he could to ruin the family and the home we've built together, all of us here. He tried to convince my own Micaela Elizabeth, my own daughter that because our Ash wasn't baptized in Godsey's church, in

Godsey's way, her dearest brother was lost to us forever … doomed to Perdition at the age of ten! And when she wasn't entirely convinced, that terrible man, that so called Reverend…" Thea broke down in sobs now, unable to go on.

"Thea…Miri, what…" Coop said and helplessly turned to Miriam Randolph, and was shocked again by the bitter rage in his friend's big hazel eyes.

"Godsey … What you have to understand about the Reverend Godsey, Cooper is that he's a complete, utter coward, and a fraud! He's no Man of G-d! We found out he never has been! He's no more a Christian minister than I am the Man in the Moon!" Miri answered, pulling Thea and the newborn baby boy into her arms.

"He's never had a church or a posting to any church but the one he invented himself. He's never been ordained a minister by anyone, anywhere at all. And in fact, we finally learned recently that he's been thrown out of scores and dozens, maybe hundreds of towns further east for defrauding and stealing from people there. Calling himself a minister, a man of the cloth is all part of a land-grabbing scheme! Claiming he's come west to 'cleanse the wilderness' as a mission from G-d is just the starting point for all the terrible things he does and all the lies and hatred he spreads. And demanding he's here to save our children, our 'dear, white chldren' from the savages who should be swept from these lands, that's the worst lie of all, as we've learned to our horror and grief!" Miriam took a deep breath, pressed her lips together and then went on, looking as if, Coop thought, she had to get this out now or she never would.

"Godsey is a man who lies when the truth would sound better, old friend. He's someone who would rather sow dissension than sow grain for bread to feed the hungry and the poor. And he's a weakling, Cooper. He's so afraid of so many things and so many people that he only seeks out those who are weaker and more vulnerable than he is himself to do his worst damage to. You asked if Godsey harmed Thea or me… Well, the answer is no, not directly. We're too strong for his tricks and too smart for his traps. And coming out here, living as we have, as we do has only made us each stronger that way. But I expect you could guess that."

"Women from Nacogdoches are the wisest, the sweetest, the kindest and the strongest, not to mention the handsomest I've ever known." Coop agreed, with half a crooked grin stretching across his face.

"Well of course that's the simple truth of the matter." Miriam laughed. "And of course we're the ones who taught you to understand that from the time you could toddle about. So, finding Thea and me too much to deal with, the Reverend Mr. Godsey set his sights elsewhere. He targeted my Nell, and Thea's Micky, our eldest girls! He flattered and cajoled them and puffed them up like a couple of kites on a windy day! He scared them and shook them up and confused them both so badly our two daughters, our two precious girls hardly knew which way to turn! But Godsey knew precisely, precisely ..where he wanted them to turn. And he got them to keep it all secret for most of the last year. He wanted those two girls to turn away from us… away from their family and … and turn to him."

Coop groaned, feeling sick as he realized what these two young mothers were struggling to say, without saying the exact words. Then he glanced at Micky again. If things had gone differently, years ago, she could have been his daughter.

"And Micheal… He's still riding with this… Godsey right now?" the black haired scout finally managed to ask.

"Micheal doesn't yet know the whole truth of the matter, Cooper. My poor little Micky only told me a short while ago." Thea whispered, looking up from where she'd laid her head against her best friend's shoulder to weep. "Godsey told yet another lie, a big one, but a lie small enough for Micheal to decide he could believe it. And of course he'd rather believe his newest role model, his current mentor, his latest commanding officer than believe in our family, here. So Micheal chose to believe Godsey's latest lie; that Bavi's son, Toya harmed our daughter, when nothing could be further from the truth!"

"And that's what the attacks Godsey's raiders are making on this place are all about?" Duke asked, feeling as revolted as his Coop looked about now.

"Yes. Godsey couldn't find any other way to turn our family inside out, to turn us against one another." Miriam Randolph agreed. "Nothing else worked. Nothing else he said or did even came close."

"If I truly believed some young buck … harmed my daughter, if I ever have one, I guess I'd … No, I know I'd do the same." Duke nodded. Then the tall blond scout looked back over the wall just behind him and shouted. "Everybody, get down! Coop, Aguilar, get these women to cover! I think some of those raiders are headed back this way. And they're not doing a very good job of soft-footing it, or they're arguing with each other, or maybe they want us to know they're coming."