So Far From Paradise

Contents

AUTHOR’S NOTE 9

Prologue 11

Chapter One 14

Chapter Two 34

Chapter Three 55

Chapter Four 73

Chapter Five 92

Chapter Six 110

Chapter Seven 130

Chapter Eight 148

Chapter Nine 167

Chapter Ten 186

Epilogue 205

Author’s Note

IN 1986 A SPECIAL BRAND of fervor swept Texas as the state prepared to celebrate its 150th anniversary. The governor appointed a Texas Sesquicentennial Commission, cities hired special coordinators to oversee events, and everyone practiced pronouncing sesquicentennial. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram commissioned me to write a novel of Texas history that would be serialized in the paper. Then-book editor Larry Swindell was liaison for the project, and I remember him emphatically declaring, We are not going to write a novel by committee. Larry was available and generous with his advice, but he never dictated. I was on my own, a greenhorn at fiction, but I produced 75,000 words which were published in twice-weekly installments under the title So Far from Paradise. The newspaper provided striking illustrations.

The year came and went, and Sesquicentennial faded as folks moved on to other things. I began writing historical fiction in earnest, put So Far from Paradise behind me, and sailed on to a career that involved historical fiction, cozy mysteries, cookbooks, a book column or two, essays, book reviews, even blogging.

Lately though, my research has turned back toward Texas and its rich history, and suddenly So Far from Paradise seemed relevant again. Thanks to Steve Coffman, editor, and McClatchy newspapers for giving me permission to give the novel new life as an eBook.

Back in 1986, I tried to discourage the inevitable attempts to match the characters in this book with actual historical ranching families. Those interested in such a hunt will find that while a character may remind of this person or that from the past, the pattern does not at all fit true. This is less a story of how it did happen than of how it might have happened. The people of So Far from Paradise are creatures of my imagination. Inevitably, they owe much to extensive reading on the history of ranching in North Texas.

Despite my warnings, people wrote and called with questions and comments about the book that befuddled me. I always remember the woman who called to tell me in a low, confidential tone of voice that her grandfather had ranched near the town of Paradise. Because I didn’t know what to say, I probably said something like, Really? How interesting. But she pressed on, Don’t you see? They must have known each other. A man wrote me that he was a TCU graduate and wanted to know if any of the Stewart descendants had gone to TCU. How to make these people believe that the Stewarts and Paradise, as it appears in the novel, are fictional? I was grateful they were so wrapped up in the fictional world I had created but uncertain how far to push reality for them.

Nor is the history in these pages exact, though an effort was been made to keep the background historically accurate. Still, the dates of some major events—i.e. the coming of a railroad, the year of a drought or blizzard—have been shifted a little to meet the needs of fiction.

Some of the spoken language in this novel is not politically correct today referring to Native Americans as Indians, or worse. But please remember it was authentic to the time and place. There is no intention to offend.

Read and enjoy, but please remember that this is fiction. The truth will follow.

Prologue

IT’S HARD TO CALL UP the past. Sitting here at my desk, a slight Texas breeze blowing in through the open window, the joys and trials of my younger years seem almost unreal. The breeze doesn’t smell like the prairie but of city smells, and my view is not of wide-open spaces but carefully manicured lawns, bushes and trees trimmed into shapes that God never intended, gracefully curved paths. How can I sit here and call back the vision of the prairie, where trees grew only sparsely and then in wild shapes and paths were worn over the years by buffalo and cattle? Dust, drouth, Indians and, yes, death, all seem part of another, earlier life.

Yet that past is a legacy to pass on, one that must not die with Colin and me or even with our children who have moved so far from those origins—in large part my fault, I suppose. Still I recognize what they cannot see, that our lives are part of the history of the land. We were one among many families who built and lived as we did, first on the prairie, then in the city. And in the building of our fortunes, we became a part of both. We built their history, just as the land and the city shaped our lives.

When David Stewart rode into North Texas in 1858, it was a land yet to be settled or, as some said, to be conquered. Old David rode through the Cross Timbers, that strip of oaks, both live and post, that separates East Texas from the West, running the length of North Texas from up near the Red River to down south of where Dallas sits today.

Coming out of the Cross Timbers, a protected haven of sorts, he must have blinked at the openness of it all. To the west ahead of him lay open prairie, with grasses sometimes as tall as a man’s head and, if it was spring when he came, wildflowers that would challenge the palette of the best artist. Post oak and blackjack timber dotted the grand prairie, and an occasional creek cut through it, but the wide openness was what struck a man, especially a man like Old David who had empires and building on his mind.

For all known history, this had been Indian Territory, the home of the fleet and feared Comanche and the equally feared Kiowa, and before them the dreaded Apache. When white settlement first came to Texas, settlers stayed in the eastern part of the state where the trees provided a familiar and comforting landscape, or they went south to the areas of the empresarios’ colonies, to Austin and even San Antonio. Few thought of going to North Texas, and those that did often changed their minds when told of the Comanches. Settlement was so sparse in Wise County when Old David arrived there that the Comanches didn’t even bother raiding—there weren’t enough white families there to make raiding worthwhile, either in terms of vengeance or plunder.

By then, many of the most hostile Indians had been confined at a camp on the Brazos, and those few still at large had been chased to the Panhandle by the Texas Rangers. Wise County was peaceful, but it was a false peace.

In some ways, Old David arrived behind the frontier. The line of defense forts established to protect settlers from Indian attacks had already been moved west, and the buffalo was gone, driven west as civilization crowded him from the east. Fort Worth, to the south and east, was the nearest thing to a community, a remnant of the old army camp now struggling to be a town. Not far from there, the treaty of Bird’s Fort had been signed, bringing some measure of peace to North Texas as early as the early 1840s. No, Old David was not riding into virgin territory, nor was he an undaunted explorer or a conquering hero. But he was a man of vision, one not afraid to seize opportunity and face challenge. He saw the antelope on the prairie and the wild turkey and all the signs of plenty, and most of all, he saw all that space. He would stay.

David Stewart did not ride alone. Sitting easily on a smaller horse beside him was his ten-year-old son, Colin. The boy spoke little but was ever watchful of his father. When the older man’s eyes swept to the north, the boy, too, looked north. When the older man dismounted, the boy asked no questions but did the same. He was the son of Old David’s early, love-filled marriage to Sally Baker. But Sally lay in East Texas soil, next to Old David’s father and two of his sisters. The rest of the Stewart family still lived on the family place, the younger brothers feeding the family by farming.

Old David could not stay. It was confined and confining, and he rode out, taking with him the son he had raised but did not know well, and one family servant, a boy slave named Noah.

Land was cheap in Wise County—fifty cents to a dollar an acre if you traded, free if you homesteaded and could prove up the land within three years. Old David rode west, far beyond the Cross Timbers and even beyond the small cluster of shacks that would grow into the community of Paradise. At the edge of so-called safe territory, he chose his land. With the little remaining money from his inheritance—he had sold cattle, horses, sheep, and even wool—he bought cattle, two hundred head. And he settled down to be a cattleman, to raise his son as a cattleman.

That’s how it began, this legacy of the Stewart family. Now we are finally city dwellers, living as I always thought we should—but my dream has turned back to bite me. Here, in the city, I feel a strong sense of wanting to recapture that past, to savor and hold it, and most of all to share it with Colin’s children. That is why I tell this story.

Cassie Belden Stewart

Fort Worth, Texas

1920

Chapter One

SOME SAY THE COMANCHES started the War Between the States as a diversionary tactic. It certainly worked. In North Central Texas, we knew nothing of Fort Sumter and little more of the issues of slavery and emancipation. But the War of Northern Aggression hit us with a forceful vengeance when the Comanche raids began, Indian depredations we called them. For my family, it happened towards dusk on a balmy October day in 1863, the kind of day that made the poet write about October’s bright blue weather, when days are clear and warm, but evenings carry just a touch of winter to come. On that kind of an evening, Oscar and Davey nearly didn’t make it home.

David Stewart and his son, Colin, had come by to warn us that Indians were on the loose and raiding, not that we didn’t already know that. I remember thinking that a hero or a legend had ridden up to our house. I’d never seen David Stewart—or Colin—but like everybody else in Wise County, I’d heard a lot about them and thought I knew more than I did. At thirteen, it’s easy to know one trait in a person and think you know their whole character. I knew only the Indian fighter and thought that was the whole man.

Everyone in the county knew who David Stewart was, how he had ridden into Wise County one day about six years earlier with one servant and his son, a boy named Colin, then ten years old. Old David, as I still call him in my mind, settled out in the western, empty part of Wise County and began to raise cattle amidst the post oak and blackjack timber. Stories flew about him—how he fought off Indians out there in the western reaches of nowhere, how he actually took an Indian squaw to live with him, how shameful it was that he had no woman out there teaching some form of gentleness to that wild boy. One story that made the rounds was that Old David and two other men were attacked by Indians, and he shot five of the redskins before turning to remove arrows from both his wounded companions and save their lives. Our heroes often loomed larger than life back then, too. Truth was, no one knew much about Old David except that he lived out there pretty much in seclusion and wasn’t seen in town too often. And when he did come in, he was distant. He wasn’t one of those men to come to church socials, such as they were, or to hang around the log courthouse and trade stories with the other men. Because folks didn’t know much about him, they made up stories.

Your father around, child? David Stewart asked from the height of his huge horse. He was a big man, suited to a big horse, and he had sandy hair, a thick head of it roughly cut, and a darker, longish beard. He looked like a man who lived out on the prairie, which he did, and, to me, he looked like a man who fought Indians.

He rode right into the little yard surrounding our cabin. Papa had fenced it off to keep animals out and children in, but it worked only partially. The wild hogs sometimes got into Mama’s few pitiful flowers, and Davey and Mary Sue got out any time they took a notion. The fence also defined a small corral where we kept two horses—Benjamin, Pete’s mustang, and an old nondescript mare called, inappropriately, Belle. The hog pen was on the other side of a small, barn-like building, and our few cattle and sheep roamed in one of two small pastures. Pa had had to pay someone else to fence. It wasn’t one of his abilities.

Mr. Stewart was staring at me, waiting for an answer. No, sir. He’s at the tavern. So’s Pete, my brother. Mama had drilled it into us to be polite, and I suppose I even curtsied a little, but my face probably burned scarlet—not because of Colin, though he would later make it flush many times, but because I was awestruck by Old David, tall and sitting so straight in the saddle. He had dark eyes that seemed to look right through me yet did so with a certain kindness. David Stewart commanded respect by his very presence, and I suspected even then that if you were opposed to him, he would also inspire fright. Maybe that was a little of what I felt then, but heaven knows he was gentle in his speech.

How about your mother? Tell her it’s David Stewart.

Yes sir. I know who you are. With that I fled inside to find Mama.

Mama, Mama, Mr. Stewart’s here . . . you know, the one that lives out past China Creek . . .. Breathless with excitement, I forgot all about being ladylike.

Yes, Cassie, I know who you mean. Calm down a minute while I wipe my hands and go to meet him. Mama never forgot for a minute that she was a lady, though she did take time to smile at me and shake her head in hopelessness over my behavior. Then she shook the cornmeal off her hands, dusted them hard against her apron, and went serenely out the door. I followed, probably with one finger in my mouth and the other hand nervously twisting a curl.

He had dismounted and stood perfectly still, watching her walk toward him. Only when she was close, did he touch his hat brim.

Mr. Stewart, Mama said, as though she were not one bit surprised by this visit, won’t you come in? I’d be pleased to offer you coffee, such as it is.

That’s mighty kind, Mrs. Belden, but I’d best be on my way. Could we talk a minute, away from the little ones? He motioned toward me, then inclined his head toward tiny Mary Sue who had poked her head of curls around the door of the cabin.

Of course, Mama said. It was nothing new for her to send us out of earshot when there was adult talk. Cassie, you take Mary Sue back in the house and start to sweeping out that loft. You girls have left it a mess.

Hiding my resentment, I headed back into the house, grabbing Mary Sue roughly as I went by. But I didn’t go to any sleeping loft, and I don’t suppose Mama expected me to. I went to the window—or what passed for a window, a square opening in the wall now covered with cheesecloth, its heavy wooden covering nailed up until winter. By standing back just a little, I could see them outside though the whole scene looked fuzzy.

And it was then I first really noticed Colin. He stood straight and silent, a slight distance away from Mama and Mr. Stewart. His hair was lighter, and being only about sixteen, I guess, he was much slighter, but other than that he looked like a copy of his parent. Only his eyes were different—they were blue, not dark, but every bit as intense as Old David’s. It was as though he tried hard, through the way he rode his horse, even the way he cocked his head to listen to Mama, to be just like that father of his. I was so fascinated watching them that I forgot for a moment to wonder what they were talking about. But I did notice that Mama threw her hands up in the air, like she was surprised or scared or something, and then turned kind of nervously to look back at the house once or twice. All that gesturing and glancing was out of character for her—she thought stillness of body was a virtue—and I wondered what could be so serious to make Mama lose her poise. Mr. Stewart waved his arm in a big gesture that seemed to take in the whole prairie to the west of us, and, by golly, Colin waved his arm almost the same way. If I hadn’t been so mad at being cut out of the conversation, I would have laughed at that.

Finally, Mr. Stewart touched his hat and started to mount his horse, but Mama, once again calm, stopped him by reaching out to take his hand and say something most sincere to him. Colin leaned forward a little, as though he wanted to be part of whatever was going on. Well, darn, I wanted to be part of it too!

That was when Oscar burst out of the woods across from the house, dragging little Davey by the hand and yelling as loud as he could, Indians, Indians!

Now I no more took that seriously than I did the time Oscar tried to get me to sip some of Papa’s whiskey on the side, told me it would make my freckles go away. Twelve-year-old Oscar was the family mischief maker, as loveable and sweet a boy as there ever was but a trial to Mama and a real thorn in my side.

But David Stewart took it serious. Before I could even think, he was in the saddle, whirling that horse around and drawing that long-barreled rifle all in one gesture. Colin mounted too, maybe not as quickly, but he was fast. Both of them, rifles raised and ready, sat facing the woods, and Stewart said loud enough for me to hear, Get those children inside, NOW, ma’am.

Mama did as he said, and she and Oscar and Davey burst into the house like one huge ball of people. Mary Sue began to howl in fright, and I began to scream, What happened? Tell me what happened! Little Davey, only five years old, was clinging to Mama’s skirts, demanding to be picked up, and Oscar just stood there looking white. Mama managed to calm each of us all at the same time, maybe by just being there.

Close the door, Oscar, Mama commanded when we had sorted ourselves out.

No, ma’am, we can’t leave the Stewarts out there. Get Papa’s rifle.

You can’t shoot a rifle! She looked a little panicky then herself, and I knew that if she gave in to fright, we would all be lost, David Stewart or no.

Mama, Oscar’s voice was strained with fright and impatience, Papa taught me to shoot it two years ago. Give it to me.

Mama eyed him for a moment, and in that moment, she seemed to put her fear down. Taking the rifle from its hooks over the fireplace, she handed it to him, saying only, Stay inside.

I will. Oscar took the rifle to that cloth-covered window and poked an end through the cloth. There he stood silently for so long that I wanted to scream or laugh or yell just to break the tension. But Mama and I and the little ones remained huddled together against the fireplace opposite the door, clutching each other and afraid to move.

After half a lifetime, I heard Oscar say, ever so quietly, Mr. Stewart’s getting down off his horse. They’re coming in.

And in they came, Stewart saying with great calm to his son, You keep watch, son, but I don’t believe those infidels are going to come out of the woods now. You, young man, he turned to Oscar with this, can you tell us what happened? Then he seemed to recollect his manners and held his hand out, saying I’m David Stewart, and this is my son Colin. I know you’re a Belden, but I don’t know which one.

Oscar seemed to lose more composure over this formal greeting than he had over the Indians. He brushed back the lock of sandy hair that always fell into his eyes and wiped his hands nervously on his pants, but then he managed to take the hand offered him and reply, I’m Oscar, sir. And thanks, well, just thanks. There wasn’t a hint of mischief about that boy then. During all this Colin never said a word but now, as though copying his father, he reached to shake Oscar’s hand—I thought it looked dumb for two boys their ages to be shaking as though they thought they were grown men. But Colin took it serious, saying, Sure glad we happened along right then.

Yeah, Oscar mumbled, still looking uncomfortable and fiddling with the button on his shirt. They chased us from down by the creek.

Tell me about it slowly, son, Old David said, adding, Colin, you keep watch out that window.

Colin turned back to the window, and Oscar sank onto