The Uvalde Raider by Ben English (great books for teens TXT) 📕

As Micah’s eyes followed their progress, he was distracted by a haunting pair from his faraway past looking back. They belonged to the former LTJG Thomas A. Eggers, standing inconspicuously at the rear of the crowd. Eggers raised a hand and lowered his head slightly in acknowledgement. Micah stared back for a moment, then nodded in response.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Some hours later found Micah alone on a bit of high ground to the east side of the Nueces, behind the family place that Blackstone Templar had pioneered nigh a century and a half ago. Amid so many who wanted to speak with him after the funeral he had been unable to locate Eggers again. The man vanished from the cemetery site like an imagined apparition who had never really been there to begin with.

Micah sat quietly on a large rock, deep in thought while surrounded by ghosts of other times or places. He gazed up and down the river, both directions away and as far as he could see. It was at the low point of the year but soon the spring rains would come, turning what presently looked like no more than a stream into a raging, churning monster.

Today the hoped-for rain had recast itself into little more than a sparse drizzle, but as in all things important the hope never goes away. Hope and faith, patience and prayer. Most every man who has ever accomplished anything worthwhile understood the paramount importance of those words.

Seeing Eggers again had carried his mind back to the Da Krong. From where he sat, the nature of the terrain and the positioning of the Nueces itself assisted in his personal journey into the past. Just below his rock outcropping, the river made a sharp jag to the east before it continued on south. The ground ahead sloped down to the river bank, making for similarities to where his platoon had been situated all those years ago.

Micah studied the gravelly, rock-strewn river bed as he pursued the erstwhile wanderings of his mind. It was about two hundred yards across, very close to the distance Eggers had to negotiate and the water was about waist deep. If you could cover his side of the river with jungle, and the other side with clumps of trees and overgrowth separated by stands of elephant grass, it could be the Da Krong during the dry season.

But this was Texas, not Vietnam. There was no jungle and no LTJG Eggers trying to get across. Nor was there an Amos A. Johnson or a Chapo Gonzales ready to risk their lives to cover him. No sound of rifles or machine guns, no mortar fire and no NVA sweeping down from the other side. There was nothing but the peaceful quiet of a southwest Texas winter evening. He wondered if it was this quiet along the Da Krong now.

The sound of footsteps coming from behind brought Micah back to the here and present, and he turned to see Abby walking silently down the dirt path to him. In one hand was some sort of small package, and she smiled tenderly at her husband as their eyes met.

“Evening, Hon” he said. Micah reached up and took her free hand, and she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

“Not interrupting anything am I?” she asked.

“Not anything that hasn’t been thought through before,” he replied. Micah moved over a bit to let her sit down beside him.

“In fact, I’m glad you walked down,” he continued. “The seating ain’t much but the view sure is nice.”

For a while they sat in silence, just soaking up the comfort of each other’s company.

“Solomon and Kate are headed on to San Antonio, they need to get Jamie on a flight back to Annapolis” she commented.

Micah nodded in acknowledgment before adding a reply. “That young man is going places, Solomon and Kate have done well by him.”

“Solomon said that after things settle down some more, the two of you need to get lost in the Sierra Quemada for about a week,” added Abby.

Micah allowed a flicker of a smile along one corner of his mouth and nodded again.

“That would be good,” he replied thoughtfully. “Really good.”

“He’s a good man” Abby confirmed, “and I think the world of Kate. Living closer to them is something I’m looking forward to.”

“Still ready to head for the sticks with a retired speed cop and bona fide crazy man?” Now he was smiling.

“I’d go most anyplace with you, crazy man” Abby murmured as she moved closer to him. “And to that little place along Alamito Creek most of all.”

Once more the quietness enshrouded them as they stared off across the river. The cloud layering was still there but the sun was peeking underneath as it set in the southwest. The ensuing effect was one of those magical golden hours, the time of the evening when the land takes on that certain tint that only accentuates its natural contours and colors. Even the clouds themselves were lit up as the refracted light took their normal shades of gray into hues of yellow, red, pink, purple and that ever-present sheen of gold.

“That is…beautiful,” Abby breathed.

“That it is,” agreed Micah.

Not another word was shared as they watched the brilliant orange orb slip below the horizon, taking the golden tint and the rainbow of other colors with it. Abby let out a sigh as it all disappeared before them and the chill of dusk began to set in.

Glancing down at the small package Abby had set at her feet, Micah asked her about it.

“Well, I meant to give it to you before you left the house,” Abby admitted. “A very nice man approached me after the funeral and asked me to give it to you.  He