The Daughter by C.B. Cooper (robert munsch read aloud .TXT) 📕

numbers down, and if I could keep jumping in front of them, we could keep killing more and more, until there was none left.”
“So that’s what I did. I swung to the east and rode hard. I had went maybe five or six miles when I ran into my father, right there, in the middle of nowhere, we found each other. I didn’t even have to tell him the news, he knew it by the look on my face. He took it real hard. Then he told me that the negotiations had failed at the council. All hell had broke loose in the meeting, and twelve senior Comanche leaders were gunned down by the guards when they refused to be taken as prisoners until all the white hostages were released from all the Comanche tribes, which, in turn, started a riot. In all, there were thirty cheifs and warriors, three Indian women and two small Indian children that were killed during their so called ‘peace talks’.”
“Obviously, word had spread like wildfire through the Comanche Nation, resulting in them going on the war path.”
“Boy, I done heard about that. That there was a bad deal.”
“I know it was, Zeb. And if my family wouldn’t have been murdered, I would have been on the Comanches side for sure.”
Zeb waved his arm, “Go on with your story, Sam.”
“Well, I told my father of my plan to get around them and warn the people so they could stand against them, and fight. At first, he tried to get me to stop. He could see how tired I was, and that I had gone more than a little half crazy in the process. He said he was worried about me going off half cocked against so many Indians.”
“Up until that point, I had saved him from the gory details of my mother and little sister’s deaths, but I had to get him to see it my way, and that was the only way I knew how. Stir the fire, so to speak. Finally my father seen it my way, so we set off right away for Victoria. As planned, we got there before the Comanche and told everybody that hell was a coming, and they best get prepared. The doors to the suttler’s store were thrown open, and the citizens took what they needed to arm themselves.”
“By the time the Comanche showed up, there was men, armed to the teeth, in each window of every building, and more lined the rooftops, and they let go with everthing they had as the Indians swarmed the town. My father and I were stationed in the saloon, the glass of the front window was broke out so he could fire through it. My job was to quickly reload, and hand him the fresh rifles as he emptied the others.”
“But there were so many of them. They filled the streets, and no matter how many you killed, there was a hundred more to take their place.”
Staring into the flames of the fire, Sam spoke as if he was in a trance. “I remember it like it was yesterday. People screaming, both red and white alike, the roar of the guns were drowned out by the sounds of seven hundred angry warriors screaming their war cries. It had almost seemed like a bad dream, the kind where you keep falling and falling, and you just cant wake up, until you hit the ground, that is.”
“That moment came for me when my father turned from the window where he had just shot and had three arrows buried in him. One in the chest, two in the stomach.”
“The look in his eye shocked me wide awake, and reality crashed down on me like a thousand pound boulder, I was pinned under the weight of it. I couldnt move, I couldn’t breathe, all I could do was stare into my fathers eyes. Eyes that were filled with pain and regret. He knew he was dying and he was sorry that he was leaving me alone by myself. A thirteen year old boy with no family, no home to speak of, not a single soul left that cared about him. Yes sir, reality hit hard that day.”
Sam was silent for a long time before he started talking again. “My father snapped the arrows off at the skin and grabbed me up quick, shoving me towards the back door. Once we were outside, we ran for about thirty feet before he had to stop. He just couldn’t run anymore, even though I begged him not to quit. I remember him taking me by the shoulders, looking me straight in the eye, and saying ‘Promise me, son, that you’ll grow up to be a great man. Don’t you settle for being a good man, be a great man. I know you got it in you.’
“All I could do was cry. I just wanted him to keep running, I wanted to get him far away from there, and then he would be alright, he had to be alright. I was thirteen and I didn’t want my father to die. Not then, not ever. He was my whole world, and I knew I couldn’t face life without him beside me. I just couldn’t.”
“Promise me!” he had screamed, shaking my shoulders. I had thought about not answering. Maybe if I didn’t answer, didn’t promise, maybe he would find a way to live, to make sure I would grow up to be the great man that he wanted me to be. But looking into his anguished eyes, I just couldn’t do it.
“I promise!” I finally yelled back. Then he looked me dead in the eye and whispered, ‘I love you, Samuel, more than you’ll ever know’.
Sam shook his head sadly, “I didn’t even see it coming. I was about to tell him that I loved him too, that he was my whole world and that I would surely die without him, but before I could, he sucker punched me. Knocked me out cold.”
“I woke up some time later. My face and chest and body, was covered in blood. My fathers blood. And he lay across me, dead.”
“It took me a while to figure out what happened. He had knocked me unconscious, covered me in his blood, then layed on top of me, hoping the Indians would think I was dead. His plan worked. I was told by some of the men that were stationed on the roof, that a group of Indians had rode by us, not giving either of us a second glance.”
“It was then, that any saneness I might have had left in me, just up and left. The towns people tried to collect my father to bury him along with the other eleven men that were killed that day. I wouldn’t let them. I just couldn’t let go. I laid beside my father for three days, drifting in and out of consciousness.”
“There was a lady from town, Kate was her name, that kept checking on me. She would sit by us, waving part of a corset to keep the flies off of us during the day, and in the evening, she would cover us both with a blanket and she would read passages from the bible out loud. I remember thinking that she had the voice of an angel.”
“It was on the third day that I had a dream. I dreamt that my father and my mother and my little sister all came to see me. They were sitting by a creek, and they all looked so happy and healthy, there wasn’t a mark on them. My father told me that it was time to let him go. I begged them to take me with them, I didn’t want to be alone, but they said I had to stay. That I still had many things to do in my life before I could come with them… and then they vanished, and I was left cold and all alone, shivering in the dark.”
It had took me a minute to realize at the time, that I had woke up. It was night time and all the lights were off in the town. But, I did like my father had said, and I got up. Got up, found my horse and was on my way. I did regret leaving Kate without saying goodbye, or thanking her for all she had done for me, she was an angel of a women. I still think that now, looking back I guess that she was an angel, my angel.”
Sam looked across the fire at Zeb, and seen the old man quickly wiping his eyes.
Laughing self-consciously he said, “Jesus Christ, you tell quite the story, don’cha ya?”
“Sorry, Zeb. I didn’t know it would have that effect on people.”
“Shut up, and finish the damn story. What happened after you left Victoria?”
“I followed their tracks clear on down to Linnville, or what was left of it by the time I arrived. The Comanche did a bang up job there. The people in town had took to the water to escape the red devils, and watched from the boats as their town was tore apart.”
“I heard stories of Indians running around wearing fancy hats and clothing that they had stolen from one of the warehouses. Some were even carrying parasols. They had stood on the banks of the water and mocked the people watching them from the boats. I heard of one man who’d had enough, and actually swam to shore and was gonna fight off a thousand pissed off and drunk Indians, with an unloaded gun. They said it was all so ridiculous, that the Indians just laughed at him, and left him alone.”
“They stayed in town for two days, loading up all the available mules and horses with all the stuff they had stolen, which also included a hefty sum of silver bullion, before they burned most of the town and left.”
“That worked out good for me. They were loaded down so much that they moved a might slower than before. I caught up to them the next day. They had stopped and set up camp for a huge celebration. And a lot of them were still wearing all them funny hats and clothes, and they were drinking from barrels that I could only guess held some kind of liquor, cause it wasn’t long before they were stumbing around and falling over, laughing themselves silly.”
“I waited until all was dark and quiet, then I snuck in and went to work with just my knife. I circled the whole camp, silently taking lives as I went. Most of what I did is all but a blur now, like it was then. Something came over me when I was in that camp, all could think about was my family. What they looked like when they passed, what those people had done to them, and what they had stolen from me.”
“By the time I left, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many dead they would find in the morning. I didn’t keep track, I just kept moving from body to body, until it just felt right to leave. I had did what I had came there to do, and I was done. There wasn’t no magical number, I just worked until it felt like my job was done.” he shrugged.
“Boy, I heard it was close to a hundred.”
“I learned the exact number later on, when Buffalo Hump found me.”
“You went a round with Ol’ Buffalo Hump and lived to tell about it! Boy, you got a bigger set than I already thought ya had! He’s the fiercest fighter the Comanche’s got!”
Sam chuckled, “Hold on there, Zeb. I havent got to that part yet.