your father. I’m sorry I lied to you about this. I just though it would be best. You know that us slaves were not allowed to get married.”
“I never thought I would be 46-years-old when I found out who my real father was,” Bass continued, “but it does make a lot of sense to me now that I know. I have been thinking about this ever since the colonel and I got into a fight at that card game. I wanted to ask you that question all of these years and I just couldn’t let you die with me not knowing the truth. I don’t plan to try to contact him. I have my own family to think of now. I don’t plan to tell anyone else about this.”
“That’s probably for the best,” Pearlalee responded, “There’s no reason to upset the rest of the family.”
“Jennie has white blood, Indian blood and negro blood in her, so I’m sure she would understand me being mixed,” Bass continued, “but I don’t plan to bring this up unless she does.”
“I won’t either,” Pearlalee said, “and I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner.”
“That’s not a problem mama,” Bass allowed, “I suspected it for a long time.”
The walk back to the main house seemed further to Bass as he pondered the conversation he had just had with his mother. He was way past worrying about what his heritage was. He now had to worry about the legacy he would leave. He just had to know the truth…..now he did. That was the end of it as far as he was concerned.
When he got back to the main house, Jennie had finished cleaning up and had just taken a bath. She was sitting in a rocker on the porch in a bathrobe. Her fresh scrubbed skin was glowing in the sunset. Her hair was straight, like the Indian in her, and her eyes were a beautiful shade of hazel. He’d thought about what beautiful eyes she had from the moment he met her in Indian territory. She’d always loved his brown eyes that had a touch of green in them. But what she really loved about him was the proud way he carried himself, like a great stallion. There was no uncertainty about him. He had confidence in himself. Even at 46, after chasing outlaws on horses for years, he still stood erect and proud. The kids were in bed and this was their special time together. There were some clouds in the sky and the sun was painting them in beautiful shades of red and gold. He looked at her and felt really lucky to be home with her again.
Jennie had been educated in the mission schools in Indian Territory, while living in the Creek Nation and later working with Chief Opothle Yahola, chief of the Upper Creeks. She was gradually teaching Bass to read and write. He could already do numbers in his head. The ranch financials and their savings were all kept in his head.
The next morning Bass was greeted with biscuits and gravy along with fresh eggs and ham. Everything that they needed was produced on the ranch. In addition to the horses, they had chickens, turkeys, geese, goats, pigs and one mule. They used the mule to plow the garden. They owned pastureland in the valley below that produced good grazing and an ample supply of hay for the winter. They managed to raise enough corn to feed the children and all of the other livestock. The horses that Bass rode got corn and oats when they had them. The only thing missing was a dog. Bass missed Bandit and vowed to find another dog soon. Bandit would always wake him up if anything was wrong.
After breakfast, Bass made his tour of the farm on Rusty, riding alongside Green on another sorrel. He inspected the barns and stalls like a general barking out instructions about what could be done better to Green, who passed those instructions down to the kids. They were always happy to see him come home, but were somewhat relieved when he left. He kept them all running when he was there and expected perfection.
As they passed Green’s house, Bass’s sister Jane came out to greet him and let him know that she had a brand new suit of clothes for him to wear on his next trip. Some would say that it was silly for a lawman to wear a suit while in pursuit. Many times, he would have to cross waterways and sometimes crawl on his hands and knees to capture criminals, but he would not budge on the clothing. It made him feel special when he put on a suit that he knew took Jane weeks to finish. It made Jane feel special to have a brother that took pride in wearing what she made. It also made her proud that Bass trusted her husband with his prized livestock and with running his business and picking out the animals. Bass was gone for weeks at a time chasing bad guys, so he was happy to have someone like Green to take care of everything when he was gone.
After his tour, he sat down with Green to discuss the business. “It seems to me that we’re going to have to add to the stables,” Bass said matter-of-factly, “when we add those 10 horses to the herd. And we may have to move more horses down the hill to our other pastures. I’ve saved enough money to buy some more land if it comes down to that, but I think we’ll be O.K. for the time being.”
“I think we need to start checking around to see if we can buy some more land,” Green said, “we may not be able to find land for sale when we need it. We should probably add more land than we need when we have a chance. I heard about another 100 acres of pasture that might be for sale in a month or two that touches our property in the valley. The man who owned it died and his children are going to auction it off. They don’t live here any more and don’t care anything about the land or the house. We could either tear the house down, or use it to store hay. The metal roof looks like it is in good shape. We might have to tear a few walls down to make more room, but I don’t think they are load bearing. If they are, we can put up some poles for support.”
“All right,” Bass answered, “why don’t you keep an eye on that and go ahead and bid on it when the time comes. We can probably buy it for $5 an acre, but I’d go as high as $10 per acre, since it has a house on it. I plan on continuing to buy horses when I can and sell as few as I need to, as long as we make a good profit on them.”
“Speaking of that,” Green said, “the army wanted to buy 10 horses from us, for their officers to ride, but they only wanted to pay about $50 per horse for them. I didn’t think that’d be enough and told them so.”
“We don’t have any horses I’d sell for that,” Bass allowed, “they’ll either have to come up in price or look for horses somewhere else.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Green replied. “They’re still thinking about it. One of the officers really wanted Silver, but I told him Silver was not for sale for any price. He was willing to pay $50 more out of his pocket to buy that horse.”
“You were right,” Bass said, “he didn’t have enough money to buy Silver. He’s mine to ride and he’ll produce some really fine colts that we can get good money for. That makes him worth a lot of money to me.”
Bass really enjoyed being home for about a week. Then, something inside him that he could not explain, began to make him restless. He guessed he had become addicted to the excitement of being on the hunt. He enjoyed hunting outlaws as much as some men liked hunting rabbits.
After being home for about a week, he decided it was time to ride back to Fort Smith and see what Judge Parker had for him to do. Jennie always hated to see him pack up and leave, but she knew that was the way he was when they married, and knew that’s how he made a living. Jennie worried that he’d be hurt or killed. He worried about that a little himself. He couldn’t imagine making a living any other way and he never thought much about retiring, even though he knew that he probably had enough money saved and enough income from selling horses to support a good retirement.
There were tearful goodbyes as he left the ranch and headed to the courthouse in Fort Smith. He’d decided to give Rusty some time off and had Green saddle another one of his sorrels that he called “Midnight.” Midnight was such a dark brown that he was almost black. He had a white patch on his forehead that was shaped like a diamond. Midnight was not as fast as Silver but was
