It is 1867, and twenty-three-year-old Shade McDonald is ready for a change. After spending the last few years serving in the Civil War, Shade has his sights set on marrying a good woman, settling on the family farm in Kentucky, and raising a family. Un

BEYOND THE STORM

By RODNEY BARTLETT

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Rodney Bartlett
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4697-9496-9

Chapter One

There are times when a person has to depend not only on wisdom but on conscience as he sojourns through this earthly walk. What affects or forms that person's conscience makes all the difference. These thoughts were on Shade McDonald's mind as he tried to understand his present circumstances.

His long-range plans were to find and marry the right woman, settle down on the family farm in Kentucky, have three or four kids, raise some livestock, and grow corn and tobacco. So much for plans. Now here he was, twenty-three years old, and the only companions he had at the moment were a 51 Colt Navy revolver, a Spencer rifle, and a strawberry roan named Rex. They were all on a hot, dusty road in southeastern Texas. It was May 1867.

Bitterness was not part of Shade's makeup. This was not where he wanted to be, but this was where he needed to be. Raised by God-fearing parents, he was taught that things, both good and bad, happened for a reason, and many good and bad things had happened that had led him here.

This path to Texas had started in Kentucky in a three-room log cabin backed up to Panther Creek. Tom and Mary McDonald, Shade's parents, were good people. Both had come from Virginia with their families when they were young and settled in the same area of western Kentucky. Mary's mother had taught them both in a one-room schoolhouse until Tom turned thirteen, whereupon he'd quit to help his father on the farm. Five years later, Mary and he were husband and wife, moving into their diminutive creek-side cabin. Three years later came the first of two boys. That was Shade.

His dad named him Shade because he'd been born during a hot spell when there had been nothing to staunch the blistering July heat. As soon as Tom walked out of the cabin on the day of his son's birth, a cloud had covered the sun, bringing some relief. His dad always told him that that cloud cover was prophetic. "It will always be a relief to have you around," he would say.

Now Shade thought it would be nice to have some relief himself, as he pulled out his bandana and wiped the perspiration from his face and neck. A dry breeze had been blowing most of the day, but it wasn't cool or strong enough to offset the heat. Trying to gauge the time of day, Shade glanced up in the direction of the sun and noticed several buzzards circling over a stand of trees about a half mile away. The buzzards brought back memories that he would just as soon forget, but he knew that, as long as his mind kept a sane thought, the awful memories would be there. The sun was just past the center of the sky—close to 1:00 p.m. He should be in Pelham by 2:00. His dad and Rainn, his brother, lived five miles from there.

Shade was four years old when Rainn was born, and his father didn't have to venture outside in search of a name this time, for a driving rain pounded the roof of their little cabin that day. Shade always teased his younger brother that it was a good thing he wasn't born during a hailstorm.

Growing up, Shade wanted to be just like his dad. Tom McDonald was a good husband and father. Mary was the perfect partner for him and a great mother to her boys. In describing his parents, Shade would have to say that they always tried to treat everybody right, and that ethic affected his conscience and was the main reason he was on this southeastern Texas road today.

When he was twelve, Shade had accompanied his dad to Louisville to visit family. There he had witnessed something that would forever change his life—a slave sale. A black woman, about his mother's age, was separated from her daughter, about his age, and the injustice burned his young soul. When war broke out between the States, Shade felt he had to do his part to right this wrong of slavery. As soon as he became of age, in 1861, he was mustered in with the Third Kentucky Cavalry in Calhoun, Kentucky.

Another day had come in the spring of 1863 that would again impact his life—his beloved mother died. She contracted a fever in the winter of '62 from which she never recovered. Shade took leave to come home as his company was stationed in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, at the time. The funeral now seemed like ages ago, and he hadn't seen his father and brother since.

In the spring of 1864, Tom McDonald received a visit from his cousin, Frank Anderson, a Louisville lawyer, with news that Frank's father was near death. Jacob Anderson had moved to Texas in the early '50s and purchased some land to farm. He'd ended up raising and selling cattle, doing fairly well until his health and the war slowed him down. Frank Anderson knew about the loss that Tom had suffered, and needing someone to run the Texas farm, he'd thought of Tom and had made the offer.

Shade's father's decision to sell the Kentucky farm and move to Texas had been a hard one. In two agonizing letters to Shade, his dad had expressed his feelings about making such a move, about leaving all that had been dear to him behind. But the Kentucky cabin without Mary had become a lonely place, and after much deliberation, Tom had come to the conclusion that the change would do his youngest son and him some good.

It was a good deal. Tom McDonald, along with a fellow named Manny Venegas and his family, would oversee the 5,700-acre Texas farm with an option to buy half after ten years. Venegas and he would draw a set wage and then a bonus according to the year's profit. It was to be their operation. Pretty big responsibility to entrust to someone who'd never had more than twenty head of cattle, but Jacob and Frank Anderson knew Tom McDonald's character. Tom and Rainn moved from Kentucky in the fall of 1864.

When the war came to an end, Shade was in North Carolina with Sherman's army. In July 1865 he was mustered out of the service, at which point he left for the old homestead in Kentucky to pay his last respects to his mother and to help tie up some loose ends from the sale of the family farm. He also had another reason to be there—Janie Alexander. The two had become sweethearts before he'd joined up and Shade had thought it was forever; Janie, apparently, thought otherwise. Everything had seemed fine when he was home for his mother's funeral, and they had kept the relationship up with pen and paper. Writing wasn't one of Shade's favorite things to do, but he wrote her letters when he could. Putting his feelings on paper was a hard thing for him, and it put sweat beads on his forehead when he did, but he wrote. Letters from Janie, however, stopped arriving the following summer. Shade thought maybe their letters weren't getting through, but he continued to write, not finding out the reason why her pen didn't work until he got back to Kentucky. To his dismay, some young man from back east had come in and stolen her heart. Well, stolen was probably not the right word, since Janie had given it away.

When he saw her, she cried, showed him the opened letters that he had written, and said she didn't know what to do. Shade just told her that he did, and turned and walked away. It hurt, sure, but if she hadn't thought enough of him to wait, she wasn't worth marrying anyhow. And, he had reasoned, it was just as well, for he wasn't the same person who'd gone off to war. A gangly kid when he joined, Shade now stood over six feet and was thirty pounds heavier. His face, soft as a summer peach at the time, had been hardened by living outdoors and contoured by the stress of war. The thick, dark stubble on his face made him look older than his years. Shade's mental outlook had changed too, for he'd seen and done some things that a backwoods boy from western Kentucky could never have imagined seeing or doing.

Shade was fixing to leave for Texas when Joseph McDonald, Tom's older brother, asked him to stay with his family and help with the coming harvest. Shade had ended up staying long enough to help with two harvests. He'd waited out the winter and early spring weather of 1867 before starting his last journey.

So it was that Shade McDonald was in Texas. He didn't know how long he would be with his dad, but Shade planned on staying as long as he was needed. If that meant until he was an old man, so be it. One thing Shade did know; for a young man of twenty-three, he had a lot he wanted to forget.

* * *

Afternoon sun warmed the back of Tom McDonald's neck as he hoed out the farm's meticulously kept garden. It was another hot day on the Anderson Ranch. Back home in Kentucky this time of year, you never knew what the weather was going to be, but here it had been consistent—warm and breezy. Not another soul was stirring outside as Tom stood and stretched and watched the ever-present breeze stir the oaks that surrounded the homestead.

This last two years had been a learning experience. Thankfully, the Venegas family had wanted to stay on after Jacob Anderson left. Mr. Anderson had hired Manny Venegas when he'd bought the ground, and Manny pretty much taught Tom's uncle everything about raising cattle in return. It was a perfect combination of money and knowledge. When poor health forced Mr. Anderson to head back north, Manny Venegas guided the farm through a declining cattle market. With the war's end in sight, however, there was talk of taking the cattle north to a growing market, and the Andersons had wanted someone reliable to work with Venegas to see what could be done. Tom had been thankful when Frank had come to him with the offer, although he hadn't been sure he wanted to do it at the time. Now, he was glad to be here.

The Venegas family was a true blessing. Manny's father had owned cattle in south Texas before the war with Mexico. After the war, his father had moved back to Mexico while Manny stayed and worked on a local ranch. When he'd gone to work for the Andersons, Manny had moved his family, a wife and two boys, to the house next to Mr. Anderson's. Jacob Anderson treated Manny like a son and when Jacob went north, it made sense to leave the ranch in Manny's competent hands.

Now there were three Venegas boys, and they were wonderful ranch hands. Juan, Miguel, and Luis taught Rainn the details of cattle work, and he seemed to thrive on it. It was good to see the boy enjoying life again after the loss of his mother. That loss was something Tom struggled with every day, but the change helped somewhat.

Marisa was Manny's wife. She was a short, round, little lady with an eternal smile on her face who took up the task of cooking and cleaning for both families. Rainn thought she was the best cook in the world, but the boy had eaten Tom's cooking so long that anything that wasn't breathing or burned would have tasted good. Tom, for the most part, agreed with his son. Her food was spicier than what he was used to, but it was good and was mainly responsible for the extra baggage around his midsection, which made pulling grass from around the young corn a bigger chore than it should have been.

Outside of the Venegas family and Rainn, Tom had two other ranch hands. Both were close to forty and both were good. Quentin Dalhart was the better of the two. A wiry Texan and veteran of the war, he'd fought for a Confederate outfit until he'd been shot in the left arm. The wound, supposedly mortal, got him discharged, but his grit, according to Manny Venegas, got him well. Dalhart had worked with Manny at the Anderson Ranch before the war, and once he recovered enough to get around, he looked Manny back up. Manny had hired him just after Tom had arrived. A little edgy and sometimes in the bottle, Dalhart was "as good a hand with one arm as most are with two" according to Manny. He had now recovered the full use of his injured arm and had, thus far, been invaluable. The other hand, Bo Skeens, wasn't quite the horseman that Dalhart was or as experienced, but he made up for it with hard work. Skeens's name was actually Tom, but two Toms on the ranch made it confusing, so Dalhart had started calling him Bo because of his slightly bowed legs. Skeens didn't seem to mind and the name had stuck. Tom and Manny relied heavily on Bo and Dalhart.

Tom had bent to pull another weed when he noticed movement on the trail that led to his house. He stood up fully and pulled the brim of his hat down to block the sun's glare, staring toward the mesquite-lined lane. A lone rider on a horse was approaching at a slow trot. Tom walked out of the garden and leaned his hoe against the side of the barn.

The rider was getting closer, and Tom could make out some details. The horse was a light color, roan maybe, and the rider, a good-sized man, held the reins in a casual way, as only someone experienced would. The man appeared clean-cut, with sleeves rolled up, his face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat. Tom could see that he carried a sidearm with a rifle scabbard strapped to the saddle. A large bedroll was behind the man. He had either been on the road a while or was planning to be. The man turned toward Tom, his movements familiar.

"Shade!"

All caution gone, Tom ran toward the rider as fast as a forty-four-year-old man could run. The man deftly jumped off his mount and turned, grinning, with open arms. Shade was home.

Marisa stuck her head out of the door, smiling, as the two men hugged.

* * *

Marisa prepared a nice meal of ham and beans with cornbread, and it was good. Shade complimented her at least three times, and each time she would just nod her head and grin. Food hadn't tasted as good since he left home in '61. The rest of the men present apparently appreciated it too, as only an occasional comment was made after the food was blessed. Shade found it hard to believe that it had been four years since he had shared a meal with his dad and brother. He couldn't help but smile at the memory of his first sight of Rainn after his arrival. One of the Venegas boys had ridden out to where the cattle were grazing to get Rainn, and in a few minutes, Shade had heard a familiar sound, like thunder, in the distance. Then there was Rainn trailing dust, right hand holding his hat in the air, leaned over his charging mustang giving what Shade would consider a fairly accurate imitation of the rebel yell. There were tears, too, as he jumped off his horse and the brothers embraced. The last four years had to have been harder on his younger brother than they were on him, and they had been plenty hard.

Shade finished his meal and thanked Marisa as she took his plate. This time she smiled and said, "Gracias." The others at the table—his dad, brother, Manny, and little Luis—complimented her too. She collected the rest of the empty plates and supper dishes and proceeded to wash them as the men remained around the table. Shade quietly surveyed his surroundings. The interior of the house where his dad and brother resided had rough-cut plank floors and walls with two windows on either side of the only door. It was clean and neat while sparsely furnished. Outside of the table and chairs, there was an old rocker that sat by the home's stone fireplace and a stand with a washbasin where Marisa now worked on the dishes. To her left was the cookstove. On the opposite end of the room from where they now sat were two open entrances, each leading to a bedroom. The house had a homey feel. The familiar wood-smoke smell was comforting.

"Your father and brother joined right in as soon as they got here." Manny was a small man, but his features and bearing suggested one whose importance wasn't hindered by lack of stature. He spoke good English, as did his young son. Marisa wasn't as accomplished.

"You and your boys have been good teachers, Manny." Shade knew from letters how highly his dad esteemed his partners, and he trusted his father's judgment.

"Now Shade won't be as easy to teach, Manny," said Rainn. "When he left for the war, we had to tell him which direction to face when he got on the horse. Finally got him to understand that the ears go in front." Rainn had always been a joker as a kid, and Shade was relieved the last few years hadn't changed that part of him.

"You did a good job teaching me, Rainn. Now I can recognize a horse's rear end when I see one." Shade pointed at Rainn as he spoke, causing Manny and his son to laugh.

"All right, you two. I see y'all started right where you left off."

"So, Pop, what do you think about working cattle? Is it what you thought it'd be?"

"When I got here, I didn't know what to expect," Tom said. "Frank told me he thought it would be a good time to get into it and that things should open back up after the war. According to Manny, several just quit the cattle business when there was no market, and when I got here, unclaimed cattle were everywhere. Got plenty of branding and roping practice with all of 'em running loose." Shade noticed the others around the table grinned and bobbed their heads in agreement. His dad continued. "We'd work all the daylight hours. I'd get off the horse, clean up, eat, and hobble off to bed. Sore as I've been in my life."

"Better than raising tobacco, though," Rainn added.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from BEYOND THE STORMby RODNEY BARTLETT Copyright © 2011 by Rodney Bartlett. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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