Bill Dugan_War Chiefs 04 by Quanah Parker

said.
    “I’ll just run down and drink me some of that river water, if I get thirsty,” Wilhelm said.
    “I been here eighteen months, Peter, and I ain’t seen you run for nothing yet, except maybe for dinner, that is,” Jason joked.
    “You may have seen me hungry, but you never seen me thirsty, David.”
    Ben Parker watched the men drift on out to the fields, until they were little more than blurs under the early morning glare. He liked gate duty, because it gave him a chance to be alone with his thoughts. He admired his father, but there was something a little too stiff and unyielding in the older man, especially when it came to matters of religion.
    Ben was a believer, Elder John had made sure of that, but it was not an unquestioning belief, nowhere near as certain as his father’s. He leaned against the wall, the musket near at hand, and tilted his hat forward to protect his eyes a little without interfering with his ability to scan the surrounding land for Indians.
    There hadn’t been any trouble in the eighteen months they’d been in the Navasota River valley, but Ben knew that vigilance was most necessary when it seemed least important. Bands of Kiowa and Comanche, usually small hunting parties, had visited the fort and Elder John had tried tomake them understand the purpose of the fort. In every case, though, the Indians moved on, and as far as anyone in the fort knew, none had ever come a second time.
    There hadn’t been any hostility, but the skepticism of the Indians had been apparent. And the Comanche, especially, had a fearsome reputation for bloodthirsty cruelty, although it was by reputation only that any of the Fort Parker inhabitants knew them at all.
    Two more of the men moved on out to the fields, waving to Benjamin as they left the safety of the palisade and trudging across the baked ground and through the tall, sun-brittled grass. Ben watched clouds of insects mushroom with every step, and for a while he could hear the whisper of the dry grass against the rough cloth of the men’s pants.
    Soon, they joined the others, and were reduced to shadows bent over hoes, scratching at the ground. Even at that distance, he thought he could hear the sound of the metal blades on the hard ground, but knew it was just his imagination. It was backbreaking work, he thought, but not as hard as trying to change a heathen’s mind about God. And Benjamin smiled ruefully at the thought, knowing that of the two dozen souls at Fort Parker, only his father had a faith unwavering enough to believe that they would triumph. It might take a while, Elder John argued, but the Indians would come around. It was, after all, the Lord’s will.
    Under the scalding sun, though, Benjamin was inclined to doubt it. He knew that agriculture was not in the least appealing to people who made their living off the land as they found it, instead of trying to transform it through sweat and determination. And he couldn’t blame the Indians, because there had been precious little reward for eighteen months of backbreaking labor.

Chapter 7
    B ENJAMIN LOOKED BACK through the gate and watched his niece playing in the shade of the front porch. He could just make out the bulky figure of Granny, an apron spread wide on her lap, her hands busy in the capacious hollow between her knees. And for a moment he envied the children. They didn’t miss Illinois so much because they had never had time to get attached to it. And it seemed to make little difference where you played with a doll or a toy soldier. Texas was the same as Illinois.
    But, soon enough, that would all change. When Cynthia Ann was old enough to work, her childhood would vanish in a twinkling, and the choices available to her here were few and unattractive. He thought about school and wondered how his brother Silas would ever be able to send John to college. He talked about it all the time, as if it were just as easy as snapping his fingers. As it was, what little schooling the