Author's Note:
Howdy, pards!
I hope you're doing mighty fine.
As planned, I'm now adding the Table of Contents for the 10 short stories within this longer tale.
Each of the 10 short stories ("Parts") can be read and understood on its own.
But the first one does lay a foundation for Jess' "I'm fine" claim that resurfaces in the other Parts. So you might want to start with it. After that, you can skip around if you want to and just pick a story here and there, read as many or few as you like. When read all together from Part One through Part Ten, they form an evolving saga, an ongoing look at the growth of Jess Harper from child to teenager to man to gunfighter to Slim's pard.
The stories are all numbered in consecutive chapters, per FanFiction's uploading format; each Part does not restart the numbering.
So here's a synopsis of them all and in which FanFic chapter each begins.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
(Chapter shows where the Part begins.)
Part One (Chapter 1)
Summer 1853
Jess Harper's age: 7
Part Two (Chapter 3)
Mid Summer 1857
Jess Harper's age: 11
Part Three (Chapter 5)
Mid Summer 1862
Jess Harper's age: 16
Part Four (Chapter 10)
August 1865
Jess Harper's age: 19
Part Five (Chapter 13)
November 1865
Jess Harper's age: 19
Part Six (Chapter 17)
Spring 1866
Jess Harper's age: 20
Part Seven (Chapter 25)
Spring 1867
Jess Harper's age: 21
Part Eight: (Chapter 28)
Summer 1869
Jess Harper's age: 23
Part Nine (Chapter 33)
April 1870
Jess Harper's age: 24
Part Ten (Chapter 38)
Late August 1870
Jess Harper's age: 24
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All the parts together will show how experiences from Jess's youth formed the man and his stubborn claim, no matter what, of "I'm fine." I hope you'll enjoy the peeks into the Harper family's life as I imagine it. Watch for places where various references from episodes will pop up.
Thanks: I want to say thank you to all readers. I have really appreciated your reviews of my stories and the messages you've sent me. I take everything very much to heart, and your encouragement and feedback mean a lot to me. I wish I could reply to each review, but FanFiction limits authors doing that. But if you send me a message, I will respond. And know, dear readers, that I am very grateful for every one of you!
I gave serious consideration to 'retiring' from fanfiction writing. I thought long and hard about making "Both His Sons" my last story on this site. I appreciate the kind words from those of you who encouraged me to keep writing. Also, that "Laramie" muse just wouldn't let me be! So here's "Oath of I'm Fine." And it's different from other stories I've written. I'm on pins and needles about what readers will think of each part of it. I hope I'm giving you stories (and a full saga) you'll enjoy and that show why our heroic Jess Harper can handle anything.
Alright, already! Enough of my ramblin' note. On with the story! As always, I thank you for exploring this new trail with me, pards.
Blessings to you,
SycamoreSunrise
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Oath of I'm Fine
Part One
Chapter One
The year: summer 1853
Jess Harper's age: 7 years old
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Hearing the screams had made her heart leap into her throat.
Why had the day gone so wrong?
It had started out typically busy, but nothing unusual. Anna Harper had stood at the counter, preparing the vegetables from her garden to cook for noontime dinner and wishing she had some meat to go with them.
"We gotta be grateful for what we have," her husband had told her earlier in the day when she lamented the fact that the man he worked for had not provided their family with any beef for a month.
They lived in a small cabin on a section of Mr. Delaney's ranch, a cattle ranch, for goodness sake. A few cuts of beef upon occasion… was that too much to ask? It had been promised as part of Luke's wages for the backbreaking labor he did. Anna had three growing children to feed and another on the way. She resented how infrequently that edible bovine compensation was delivered to their doorstep. Especially with the way her man so conscientiously devoted himself to the job.
Luke Harper worked seven days a week, dawn to nightfall─and then some, many times─to keep up with both his home responsibilities and the long hours required for his job. Mr. Delaney had overheard Luke talking with a cowhand about some of the repairs he needed to make at home. With it being Saturday, the ranch owner had allowed Luke the entire morning off to spend on the upkeep of the Harpers' residence and the small barn there, before heading out in the afternoon to move part of the big herd to the western acres. Delaney didn't want any of the buildings getting rundown. After all, the cabin itself, the barn, the sheds, all the structures were actually his property. The Harpers were just allowed to live there as Luke did some small amount of sharecropping, while his main job was working the boss's large cattle operation.
The Harper family─currently of five and with the new one expected in about six months─lived a rough life. But it seemed to Anna that, no matter the clouds, Luke always managed to find a silver lining.
"Our kids ain't starvin'. We're luckier 'n a lot of folks." Luke had patted Anna's growing belly and kissed her cheek. "I'll take Jess and head to the crick tomorrow to git us some fish. Just don't have time today, darlin'. Neither does he, or I'd send him now. We both got plenty to git done around here b'fore sunset."
Anna tried to bring up positive feelings. Luke was good at that. He was a tough man, hardened by the life he led. But he still managed to keep up his spirits, as well as hers and the children's. He tried his best to be a good family man. A good man, period.
She smiled. She had been in love with Luke Harper since she was seventeen and had met the eighteen-year old Harper boy when she was traveling west from Nacogdoches with her father and stepmother. They were headed for a new life in California when they stopped in the Panhandle area of Texas to visit a friend for a few days. Luke and his brother had come to the same town to pick up supplies.
Anna stood at the kitchen counter, recalling it all. Just one look at the handsome young man and Anna was smitten. She had watched him there in the general store as he talked with the owner and several others who had stopped in to shop. She could tell he was kind and smart. Very strong, but with a confident gentleness about him too. When he had turned her way and first laid eyes on her, he simply stood and stared. Then that grin of his slowly developed, and he walked directly to her in that slow stride that still gave her goosebumps. He introduced himself, and that was that. They had been together ever since. For two weeks, they kept company, always chaperoned, and the couple found each other to be an ideal match. When her father and his wife went on westward, Anna stayed behind with their friend. Two months later, she married Luke on her eighteenth birthday and moved to his family's ranch, where he worked alongside his father and brother, and Anna enjoyed sharing the household responsibilities with Luke's mother and grandmother.
His parents and grandma had passed away from an illness sweeping through the area just a year later, and his brother had moved on, returning only for occasional visits. The only other Harpers left nearby now were distant cousins, "a passel of no-goods," as Luke called them, that he wanted nothing to do with. Luke had tried to keep his family's ranch going on his own, but he couldn't keep it producing enough to make payments on the loan. The bank ended up taking it, and the young couple moved with their little daughter, toddler son, and newborn baby boy a few miles away to the small cabin on the Delaneys' ranch. While they sharecropped some, Luke worked his fingers to the bone for his boss and for his growing family.
They had built a strong family, she and Luke had, and although life was hard, she wouldn't trade it for another. Her father still wrote her letters, but he had given up trying to convince her to come to California after Francie was born. He knew his daughter felt she had the man of her dreams. Anna smiled with contentment. She was as head over heels in love with Luke Harper now as she had been when they met nine and a half years earlier. And he felt the same toward her.
She reached a hand to her middle, as Luke had. Their fifth child. Each day she beseeched the Almighty that this one would survive past its first year, unlike their precious baby daughter they had lost to a fever two years earlier.
Anna took a minute away from the food preparation and looked into the bedroom to check on her napping five-year-old, Johnny. Poor kid was dealing with yet another chest cold. Just couldn't stay healthy for more than a couple of weeks. He was out like a light. A drum corps wouldn't wake him. Oh, that she could have just one night of sleeping that soundly, she mused.
She returned to the kitchen and glanced out the window, smiling at the giggling pair in the yard. Seven-year-old Jess and eight-year-old Francie were racing. After several times when Jess easily won, Francie suddenly pulled out in front of him. Anna watched Jess grin, running behind his slightly smaller though thirteen-months-older sister. He was obviously letting her win. But Francie didn't suspect it. Jess quickly wiped the smile from his face when she turned around. As Francie danced and gloated triumphantly, her brother pretended to be annoyed at the loss. When Jess turned his back to Francie though, Anna could see the crooked smile. He quickly hid it as he faced his sister again. Anna's eyes glistened with pride. Her sweet Jess had such a kind heart. Just like his father. She knew he would grow up to be a brave man like his father too. Already, his courage outshined that of other boys his age. Luke was his son's hero. Jess tried very hard to be like his pa.
The game continued out of her sight, around the corner of the house, as the children enjoyed the short break from their own chores, before beginning the others assigned to them. As she thought of the handwriting lesson she had planned for the evening, she hoped they wouldn't be too tired to listen and practice. She turned her attention back to the food preparation, still delighting in the laughter drifting in on a breeze.
It wasn't five minutes later when the playful squeals turned to blood-curdling screams.
Anna immediately knew them as Francie's voice. The terrified mother ran to the door and flung it open to rush outside and see what was wrong. Instead, she immediately stepped aside as Luke came charging into the house, a limp Jess in his arms, blood saturating the front of the child's shirt.
Francie trailed behind, shrieking hysterically.
"What happened?!" Anna followed her husband as he crossed the house's main room, the only room other than the tiny kitchen and the bedroom. He strode directly to the worn settee, where he carefully laid his son down.
"It's my fault." Luke ripped the small blue shirt open, sending buttons flying.
Anna gasped at the sight. A large cut, three inches in length. Bleeding profusely.
"Gimme that towel." Luke jerked the dishtowel from her hand, where she didn't even realize she clutched one. He pressed it firmly to the wound, drawing a loud yelp from the boy, who had until that moment just whimpered quietly, nearly passed out as he was. The sudden increase in pain jolted the child to full awareness.
"I left the dadgum hatchet out there where I shouldn't 'a. He fell against it."
"Oh, my Lord, Luke!"
"Bring some blankets. We gotta make him warm, keep him from goin' into shock."
Between sobs, Francie screamed, "Pa, is Jess gonna die?"
"Course not!" her father barked at her. "Francie, stop that caterwaulin'."
The girl immediately worked at getting herself under control, pressing her hands to her lips to quiet her shuddered breaths as her mother moved her aside and proceeded to cover Jess as much as possible with two blankets. When Anna searched her husband's face, she saw more worry there than what came through in his response to their daughter. She knelt beside the settee and looked into her son's dark blue eyes, wide with fear.
"Ma!" A shaking little hand reached for her, and she took it in both hers, as she watched the tears stream down the boy's face. "It hurts, Ma."
"I know it does, hon. Pa will make it better."
Luke swallowed so hard, she heard it.
Jess began to cry harder and turn paler.
"Easy, son." Luke's voice was calm, but firm, as was the pressure he held on the injury.
"Don't, Pa!" The little guy squirmed, trying to pull away.
"I have to do this to make it better. And you gotta calm down, boy. It's important that you stay warm and calm. Your ma and me can provide the warm part. You gotta take care of the calm."
Tears and soft moans continued.
"Listen to me, Jess. Don't do nothin' but listen to me and look in my eyes. Right here, boy, look right here." Luke tapped his index finger on his cheek, just beneath his eye.
Amid his sobs, the little boy blinked repeatedly, struggling to focus on the dark blue eyes identical to his own.
"You're gonna be okay, Jess. You'll be just fine." Luke smoothed the dark curls from his son's forehead with one hand while the other maintained pressure on the large cut on the far right side of the child's chest, just below his shoulder.
"Take a breath now and say it with me. I'm fine. Come on, son."
The man repeated the two words, and now the child wheezed them along with him. They followed through again, together. And then the father changed the mode, keeping himself out of it.
"Say it again, Jess."
This time, as his father listened, the child whispered the words between sniffles. "I'm… fine."
Luke kept pressure on the wound, as the boy's quiet weeping gradually lessened to occasional gasped, weak breaths. He continued to stare into his father's eyes.
After a while, his Pa's voice came much softer. "How are ya, Jess?"
A deeper breath was followed by the words the boy knew his father, his hero, wanted to hear. No way would he let Pa down, though the voice quivered. "I'm fine."
Luke carefully lifted the towel and then eased it back onto the wound as Jess flinched. "The bleedin' is slowin' down real good. Anna, bring some water, a fresh towel, and what we need to clean this."
"No! That'll hurt more!" the child hollered.
"Right here, Jess." Luke gestured to his own eyes and smiled proudly when the boy locked his onto them again.
Anna disengaged her son's hand from hers, stood, and took Francie with her to the kitchen to gather what was needed to care for the wound. They returned to the room to find Luke still speaking softly to a much calmer child, one pair of dark blue eyes still locked on the other pair.
The father gently patted his son's left shoulder. "I'm fine, Jess. How are you?"
After a slight hesitation, still wincing in pain, the child sucked in some air and, without any further sobs, the small voice faintly answered, "I'm fine."
"That's right. You are. Take a deep breath, and say it strong now."
The child's tears subsided. His concentration intense despite the pain, he did as instructed, settling his breathing down to a normal slow and steady rhythm. "I'm fine," he said decisively.
Anna knelt at her husband's side, her eyes lovingly moving from his face to her son's. She wiped the wetness from Jess's cheeks and then her own, smiling her love and reassurance to him as she again took his hand in hers.
"A couple more minutes, sweetheart, and we'll get you cleaned up and bandaged good. All right?"
The boy turned doubtful eyes to her, his bottom lip trembling.
"You can handle it, son," Luke told him. "There's bound to be times in life when things ain't gonna be pleasant. Just keep tellin' yourself what we said."
Luke lifted the cloth and viewed the cut. "It's stopped bleedin.' Ain't too deep."
He looked to Anna, seeing her dread and reading her lips as she silently mouthed, "Stitches?"
"Probably won't need 'em," he replied aloud to his wife, knowing the children wouldn't understand the reference. "We'll watch a bit and see after it's cleaned."
To Jess he continued, "We'll bind it up good. And you'll need to stay quiet. No chores and no playin' for some days to come. Give it time to knit. You'll mend quick. You always been a fast healer."
Jess pressed his lips into a tight line as he drew further comfort from what his father said. Pa wouldn't lie to him.
The crisis now past, Luke sighed heavily, the remorse in his heart pouring out his lips. "I'm sorry, Jess. Mighty sorry. I shoulda been more careful 'bout that hatchet. I sure learned a lesson today." He studied his son's face. "I hope you did too."
"What lesson should he hafta learn, Pa?" Francie huffed feistily as she stepped forward in fierce defense of her younger brother. "We was just playin' our 'Chase Ya' game. Jess didn't do nothin' wrong!"
"No, he didn't," the father assured his daughter, with a gentle stroke of her cheek. "But today he learned he's mighty strong. He can git through tough times." He turned back to his son. "You can handle anything that comes your way. Anything. Right, boy?"
Jess thought about that for a moment. He swiped his hand across his eyes, jutted his chin forward, and nodded confidently.
"What ya gonna say, Jess?"
This time the words came louder and touched with a tone of bold stubbornness that the boy was known for, already at this young age. "I'm fine."
"That's right. A man can't let no weakness show. Or somebody might use it against him. Remember that, son. So no matter what the question is, no matter how you're feelin', you're always gonna say… I'm fine. 'Cause ya say that and folks'll believe… you're strong."
Luke turned his head away, breaking the honest eye-to-eye connection, so his son wouldn't see the melancholy he suddenly felt.
But Anna saw it. She blinked in surprise at the glimpse of a side of Luke Harper she had never been allowed to view. A side always kept hidden from her. From everyone. At that moment, he seemed about the same age as the boy he comforted.
One final tear formed in the young mother's eye when she realized the underlying meaning in Luke's next words. The vulnerability, the self-doubt, the guilt. Her invincible husband never intended that Jess─or anyone─should hear the inner thought that slipped out, murmured under his breath and without emotion.
"Say it enough… and you can make yourself believe it."
Her right hand still holding Jess's left, Anna reached her other to lay it gently on her husband's arm.
"Luke? Are you all right?"
The man's eyes turned to her, his eyebrows drawn up at the center of his forehead in the unusual angle that she loved, and which their oldest son had inherited. For a fraction of a second, she caught a rare moment when her husband's optimism failed him. But then the eyebrows relaxed and the right corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that faded as quickly as it had formed.
"Let's tend to the boy. And have Francie help. It'll be good experience, learnin' her to care for others."
"And I'll put some water to boil, so I can make some of that tea to help with the pain," Anna murmured. "The kind your ma made."
Jess handled the dreaded cleaning of the wound with tears and an occasional yelp, but more stoically than Anna would have thought possible for a child seven years old. Often, he locked his eyes again onto his father's and repeated the phrase his pa had insisted on. Finally, the bandaging was done, and the exhausted child's breathing calmed.
Still kneeling at his son's side, Luke looked to Anna. "The bay I was movin' from the barn bolted when all this happened, but I'm sure he wouldn't 'a gone far. I gotta go out and corral him now."
He stood up and headed for the door, pausing briefly to cast another look at his wife, his daughter, and then his brave little son.
The smile that had fleeted before the care of the wound returned and grew, traveling from Luke's lips to shine in his eyes.
"Son, when you grow up, you're gonna be a man to be reckoned with."
Despite the throbbing he still felt from the wound, seven-year-old Jess managed to return a hint of a smile. As always, he hung on every word he heard from his father. He watched every expression, every movement, vowing to himself to be just like his pa. He watched now, as Pa turned toward the door.
Before Luke had taken two steps, he aimed his gaze once more to his wife. He stood tall and straight, a serious and determined glint in his eye, his chin lifted, his voice strong and steady. "And, Anna… I'm fine."