Chapter 2 – Accidental Theft

After we got Beauregard back from what was left of the Kincaid gang, life was busy but nothing unusual. Pauly Wilcox, me and Bret were trying to get the ranch constructed and built at the same time that we were starting the cross-breeding business. Doralice continued working at the saloon, with plans to quit after number five was born. It was easy to forget there was another baby on the way; blue-eyes was so small that most people didn't know she was expecting.

At the far end of town, way out past the spot where the old Congregational Church used to stand, there was a Cherokee Village. It consisted of exactly three little houses and had been there since I was a boy. The families had a small plot of ground they farmed, and the young boys were mostly stable hands; the girls worked as cooks. There was a girl in my class named Woya, and another girl in Maudie's class by the name of Nan-Ye-Hi. Everyone used the last name of Henderson.

Maudie had gotten to be friends with Nan-Ye-Hi, and the girls had even done some sleep-overs. When they stayed at our house they slept in the bedroom; when they were at Nan's they slept on the ground. Nan-Ye-Hi was a sweet little thing, spoke perfect English and was about half the size of Maudie, who was tall and willowy, just like I was at the same age. I never heard them raise their voices to one another, maybe because they didn't get to spend much time together, and what they had was precious.

Anyway, both girls had been asking to spend the night at the Henderson house for some time and I had been making them wait. Finally, things slowed down somewhat, and I had no good reason to put them off any longer, so Maudie went home with Nan after school on Friday night. I agreed to pick her up on Saturday afternoon; Doralice had some shopping she wanted to do at the Emporium and I figured we'd drop by and retrieve our oldest daughter then. The idea of my wife staying home never crossed my mind or hers; the baby wasn't due for at least another four weeks and there'd been no sign that anything was happening before it was supposed to.

We took the wagon over to the Emporium and did Doralice's shopping, then headed out towards the Henderson camp. It was late in the afternoon when we got to the Village, and everything seemed awfully quiet. We were soon to find out why.

The only one home was Grandma, and she was, to say the least, distraught. Two Comanche Braves had raided the Village earlier in the day and stolen Nan-Ye-Hi and her younger sister Sallali to be their 'wives.' It didn't matter that the girls were six and seven; the Comanche's were willing to wait. What they didn't know was . . . they'd inadvertently taken our girl with them.

The three girls were playing some kind of game that involved hiding in the rugs Grandma wove, and Maudie was wrapped up in a rug just like Nan. When the Comanche's stole the Cherokee sisters, they got an unexpected gift. All of the Cherokee boys had left the Village in a frantic effort to recover their sisters and guest.

"How long ago?" I asked Grandma.

"Sun high up in sky," she answered.

I jumped in the wagon and told Doralice, "They've got about three hours on us. Hang on." And we set out at breakneck speed in a futile attempt to retrieve the missing twin.

I practically drove the horses into the ground. I couldn't think of anything but our seven-year-old-daughter held captive until she was old enough to be taken as a squaw by the Comanche's. Hell, for all I knew there was nothing stopping them from doing it now. The Comanche's were well known for turning captives into slaves, and I could just imagine what a prize that long, golden hair would be for a young brave.

Doralice had a death grip on my arm and wasn't about to let go. I assumed it was to keep from sliding all over the seat; it was only later that I found out there was another reason. There were two things in our favor . . . I knew exactly where the Comanche's were headed, and we had better horses.

It was almost dark by the time we got to the Comanche camp. There was no sign of the Cherokee braves, but I did manage to locate their ponies. Doralice started to whisper something, and I put my fingers to my lips to quiet her down. There was one tiny shack off to the side with a young brave sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of it; that was where they had the girls, I surmised. The lean-to wasn't built nearly as well as the other buildings in camp; it appeared it had been put together in a hurry. The shack was poorly constructed of small tree branches and held together by what looked like dried mud; there was already a piece of the wall missing where someone had been trying to push through the corner of it. I clapped my hand over Doralice's mouth to stop her from screaming and crept out of the wagon. Fortunately, it was just dark enough that with me in my favorite color clothes I couldn't be seen.

I'd pulled the wagon as far away as I could, found my knife in my boot, and snuck up on the backside of the shack. I was lucky that two of the Cherokee Braves appeared and started a commotion just as I got to the lean-to. I stuck the knife in the already crumbling corner and pulled a large chunk of the wall away. It was so loud out in front of the shack that no one heard the noise I made. There was no sign of Nan-Ye-Hi or Sallali; I stashed the knife in my belt, grabbed my oldest daughter and pulled her through the opening, then ran like hell for our wagon.

There was no time to be gentle or delicate; I flung Maudie into Doralice's lap, scrambled back into the wagon and laid the whip down on the horses. And we never stopped to look back.

When we got far enough away from the camp, I could hear Maudie crying softly. I wanted nothing more than to take her in my arms and comfort her, but our very lives depended on getting out of hostile territory as fast as possible. The horses ran as far as I would push them, and it was almost an hour later before I felt safe enough to find a momentary hiding spot deep in the forest. That's when I realized it was Doralice crying. "Maudie?" I whispered, and she looked up at me with immense relief in her eyes. "What happened to Nan and her sister?"

"I don't know, Daddy. When I looked for them, they were gone."

That's when I reached over to my wife's chin and lifted her head. There were tears in her eyes, as well as a kind of pain I'd never seen before. "What's wrong?"

"Baby . . . hasn't turned," she gasped out.

"You've got time, Doralice. She's not due for another four weeks."

She shook her head violently. "NO, baby's coming NOW."

"NOW, DADDY?" Maudie asked in a panic.

I thought back to the old days when the sight of blood was enough to knock me out cold. No such escape for me now; my child was about to be born. And she was facing the wrong way.

"You ready?" I asked Doralice, and she nodded. We got her into the correct position in the wagon and began manually attempting to force the baby to turn. We must have worked for almost an hour before we started to make progress. Doralice looked and acted downright uncomfortable, but when the first part of our newborn appeared it was full of golden hair. Once she was out, I cut the cord with my knife and wrapped her in the rug Maudie had made her escape in. She was a little bitty thing, hence the name Lily Beth. And I didn't like the way she looked, or the lack of response from either of them.

I took the baby from Doralice and handed her to Maudie, then made one more run for Little Bend and safety. Straight to Simon Petry's office, where there was gonna be a whole lotta prayin' goin' on.