Foundling

By Paul David Robinson

In September, 1879, five-year-old Jamie wakes up from her nap and sees her eleven-year-old friend Laura stripped naked and staked out on a hill. She sees her father tortured and gutted and her mother gang-raped. She jumps out of back of the covered wagon and hides in the roots of a huge cottonwood blown over by a storm. Jess finds one burned wagon and evidence that seven other wagons were stolen. There are thirteen bodies that were scalped and murdered by renegade whites hoping to blame the Indians. Jess finds Jamie and sits down nearby and sings nursery rhymes until Jamie comes out of her hiding place and curls up in his lap. Jamie says, "Daddy, I thought you were dead." This is the story of how Jess, Jamie, and Kristin become a family after enduring trials and tribulations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul David Robinson
• Release date: Apr 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301574506

Paul David Robinson

Dear Reader,I've been writing stories and poems for sixty years. I have a closet full of rejections and this year I decided to e-pub.The first novel I chose for this is dedicated to my wife, Carolyn. I wrote it in 1998. It is entitled: Summer. It is about pain and suffering, the difficult choices people face, and how love can overcome anything.As a pastor and theologian, I do not separate the sacred and the profane. The difference is in the human mind and not in life itself, just as evil is in the human mind and comes out of the choices people make and not from the devil who made me do it. The devil has nothing to do with it. We are the ones who choose to do evil or good. The whole world is in our hands. Enjoy the books.Paul David RobinsonReverend Paul David Robinson,BA, MDiv, Pastor, Retiredhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.comhttps://www.pauldavidrobinson.com/blog/

Book preview

Foundling

By

Paul David Robinson

(71,913 words)

Cover Design by Rebecca Swift

Copyright 1999, 2014 Paul David Robinson

Foundling

By

Paul David Robinson

Cover Design by Rebecca Swift

In September 1879, five-year-old Jamie wakes up from her nap and sees her girlfriend Laura stripped naked and staked out on a hill by renegade whites. She sees her father tortured and her mother gang-raped. She jumps out of the back of the covered wagon and hides in the roots of a huge cottonwood blown over by a storm. In the morning, Jess sees thirteen naked bodies and follows tiny footprints. Jess finds Jamie and sits down nearby and sings nursery rhymes until Jamie comes out of her hiding place and curls up in his lap. Jamie says, Daddy, I thought you were dead.

Kristin was Jess's one-true-love, but Kristin was sent east and married another man.  Her husband divorced her for failure to produce an heir. She knows Jess wants children so she marries another man rather than be a burden to Jess. But her second husband is worse than the first. So Kristin goes home to her parents and waits for Jess.  She will beg Jess to forgive her and take her as his mistress.

This is the story of how Jess, Jamie, and Kristin become a family after enduring trials and tribulations.

Paul David Robinson

July 28, 2014

Foundling

CHAPTER ONE

Jamie heard the rhythmic clop, clop of the horses and the covered wagon rocked from side to side and front to back. Sometimes a wheel bumped over a rock with a jerk and a jar, but she was used to that and slept through it.

Although it was a hot afternoon in the wagon, Jamie had her pink blankie up against her cheek and her thumb in her mouth. Jamie was five and a half years old and her mother had her down for her afternoon nap.

Suddenly Jamie heard loud noises and screams and the wagon stopped moving. Then there was another loud sound.

That was a gun.

At first, she thought it was a dream. But then, there were many more shots. This time she recognized the sound of rifles firing.

Jamie remembered the sound from watching the men shoot at targets. But that was days ago. They wouldn’t be shooting now unless Indians were attacking them.

Jamie wasn’t quite awake, but she shivered and began to breathe faster.

The wagon master, Terryl, told them horror stories about Indians almost every night. Jamie was afraid but she opened her eyes anyway.

It was still daylight. The shooting stopped and she heard loud angry voices.

She looked up toward the seat of the wagon.

Her parents weren’t sitting there anymore. She was about to call out to her mother when she heard more screams.

Jamie rolled over to the side of the wagon where all the screams were coming from and carefully lifted the canvas. She saw two white men ripping the clothes off of her friend Laura.

Laura was eleven years old. They had a birthday party for Laura on the train ten days ago. Jamie remembered Laura laughing with happiness then. And now Laura was screaming in high pitched, long screeches that sounded like an eagle.

In less than a minute, Laura was naked.

The two men dragged Laura by her hair, screaming and kicking, to a meadow not far from the trail. Another man was already there, waiting for them.

The two men forced Laura down on her back and held her there. The third man tied her legs and arms wide apart to stakes he drove into the ground with a mallet.

Three other naked women were already staked out nearby. They were struggling to get an arm or a leg free.

Jamie’s mother wasn’t one of them, but Jamie was thoroughly frightened now. She wondered where her parents could be.

Jamie was in the first covered wagon. There were seven other covered wagons in this small wagon train.

Jamie crept toward the rear of her wagon. She crawled over her parent’s bed and between the high-backed dining room chairs lashed to one side and the dining room table without its legs on the other side. The furniture was padded to protect it from the jostling of the wagon.

Jamie looked over the tailgate toward the second wagon. She saw Laura’s father lying in the grass. There was blood all over his shirt and on the ground around him.

Further down the line of the covered wagons, there was another bloody man lying in the grass. That was as far as she could see.

Jamie wondered if there was a bloody man lying near each of the other six wagons. She hoped her father wasn’t lying bloody and still by the front of her own covered wagon.

She crept forward again and peered out from under the wagon seat.

Her father was alive but white men on each side of him were holding his arms tight. A big white man with a dirty red beard kicked her father between the legs and shouted at him.

Her father would say something and then the man would kick him between the legs again.

She saw the look of pain in her father’s eyes. She wanted to scream, but she remembered what happened to Laura who screamed and she remembered the two men lying still and bleeding into the grass, and her scream stayed locked in her throat.

The big man cut open her father’s shirt. He shouted at her father again. This time she understood the words.

Where is it? the man had shouted.

Her father didn’t answer.

The big man used the knife and laughed as he cut her father’s chest in a long stroke down his ribs. Her father cried out in pain and blood flowed from the deep scratch.

The big man shouted again, Where is it?

Her father yelled back, Go to hell.

The big man laughed and cut him in the other direction, making a big ‘x’ on his chest, and again he shouted the same question. Her father gave the same answer, even louder than before.

The big man turned his head and looked over his right shoulder and up the hill. Jamie saw his face. He was the wagon master, Mike Terryl.

Terryl ate with them once, but he didn’t pay any attention to Jamie. He was always looking at Jamie’s mother. And Jamie didn’t like the way Terryl looked at her mother. Jamie didn’t like Terryl, but he was her father’s friend so Jamie never said anything to her parents about the way she felt about Terryl.

Jamie looked up the hill where Terryl was looking.

There was Jamie’s mother.

Two men held her tightly by her arms. A third man was standing in front of her, looking over at the big man.

Her mother was calling out, Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him! over and over again.

Terryl shouted up the hill at her mother, Do you know where it is?

No! her mother answered.

Terryl turned back to her father and said, Is that true?

Yes. her father answered. I’m the only one who knows.

Terryl cut her father’s chest again. Tell me where it is! he shouted.

No! Never! her father shouted back.

Terryl looked over at the third man in front of Jamie’s mother again. Terryl nodded his head.

The third man reached out and ripped her mother’s clothes open. Then he used a knife and cut them off so they fell on the ground. Her mother was naked. Her mother struggled, but she was still held firmly by the two men.

Now, shall I cut off her teats? Shall I cut off her nose? Terryl shouted.

Her father’s face grew white and still. He stopped struggling with the two men holding his arms. In a steady clear voice, her father said, All right! All right! I’ll tell you. It’s in a false bottom in the fourth wagon.

Terryl called, See if it’s there.

The third man left her mother, moved down hill, and disappeared along the side of the wagon that Jamie was in. Jamie saw the outline of his shadow on the canvas. He bumped her wagon and it shook a little.

Jamie held her breath, thinking that he might lift the canvas and see her behind the wagon seat. But in a moment he moved on.

She followed his shadow as it moved toward the end of the wagon. When she saw the man walking away from her, he was carrying the ax that had been mounted to the outside of her wagon. He walked down the line of wagons and some other men followed him.

When they came to the fourth wagon, they tipped it over on its side. That third man chopped at the bottom of the wagon with the ax.

After a time, the third man shouted, It’s here.

Back in front of her wagon, Terryl laughed with glee.

Jamie peeked under the seat again.

Terryl had a big grin on his face. He turned to her father, laughed again, and stabbed his knife into her father’s stomach and ripped it open.

Jamie screamed at the same time as her mother screamed.

As blood poured out of the bigger wound in her father, the big man wiped the blade on her father’s shirt and put it back into the sheath on his belt. The two men kept holding onto her father’s arms.

Terryl laughed again and said to her father, Watch!

Then Terryl unbuckled his gun belt and dropped it on the ground. He unbuckled his pants and pushed them down over his hips. His red beard quivered and the red stick between his legs bobbed up and down as the big man took the few steps up hill to her mother. Her mother struggled but the two men holding her did not let go.

Terryl reached down and grabbed her mother’s legs. He lifted them and pried them apart. Then he stepped forward and thrust the red stick between his legs and into her mother’s body. Her mother screamed and kicked, but the big man never lost his grip on her legs. Terryl kept pushing the stick into her again and again, harder and harder. And then he stopped, pulled away, and dropped her legs.

There wasn’t a stick between his legs anymore. It looked more like a rag doll with red hair and one leg hanging there.

Terryl stepped back, pulled up his pants, tucked the rag doll inside, and buckled his belt. The big man said, Who’s next?

The third man was back. He said, I am.

The third man dropped his pants, stepped over, lifted up her mother’s legs, and shoved his stick into her mother’s body. The two other men kept a tight hold on her mother’s arms.

There were four other men standing around watching. She thought she recognized them all. Even the men holding her father and mother were familiar.

Then she remembered.

They were the men who ate supper with the wagon train last night. They were heading to Santa Fe where the wagon train was going. They left the wagon train after breakfast this morning.

Terryl came back to her father. The two men still held her father’s arms but her father’s head was lying forward on his chest.

Terryl picked up his gun belt and buckled it on. Then he grabbed her father by the hair with his left hand and held up her father’s head.

Her father was still alive. His eyes were bright with pain and anger. Her father said, I hope those Indians you talked about get you, Terryl. I hope they cut you open and put rocks in your guts and let the ants eat you alive just the way you told us they would.

Terryl laughed and said to her father, Look over there. I just got finished with her. Now Carsdale is fucking her. Before we kill her, every one of my men will have her.

The third man was Carsdale. He was shoving his stick into her mother rapidly.

Terryl laughed, Look at him go. He was still holding her father’s head by the hair. Terryl yelled, Pull out of her a minute, Carsdale.

Carsdale pulled his stick out of her mother’s body. It was glistening in the sun.

Terryl yelled, Now shove it back into her hard.

Carsdale did. And her mother screamed.

Terryl laughed and said, That’s the last thing you will ever see. Then Terryl poked out her father’s eyes with the fingers of his right hand, and laughed as her father screamed in pain again.

Jamie wanted to scream again, but nothing came out of her throat. What she saw was so horrible that every muscle in her body froze. For a time she was unable to move or even breathe. And then she began to tremble and her breath came into her lungs in a ragged sigh.

It sounded so loud she was afraid that Terryl or one of those other terrible men might hear her. Tears ran down her cheeks. She didn’t want to leave her parents but she was terrified. She had to get away. She had to get out of the wagon and hide.

She crawled to the rear of the wagon. As she crawled over her bed, she grabbed her pink blankie and dragged it to the tailgate. She looked outside. There wasn’t anyone nearby.

She dropped her pink blankie on the ground and jumped after it. She got her pink blankie and ran barefoot across the trail and hid in the tall grass. She looked back once.

Her father was lying on the ground. He wasn’t moving at all.

Now it was Carsdale and Terryl holding her mother’s arms. Another man held her legs apart and stabbed her with his stick.

All the other men were standing around watching the man stabbing her mother. Some of them had their pants down. They were playing with the sticks between their legs, waiting their turn.

Jamie crawled into the brush away from the trail. She crawled until she couldn’t crawl anymore. She lay down and rested for a few minutes. Then she looked around for a hiding place.

She saw trees in the distance. She crawled toward them and came to a big tree that had fallen over on its side. She crawled around it, looking for a hiding place. There was a hollow among the big roots. Jamie crawled into it, pulled her pink blankie over her head, and cried herself to sleep.

It was the first week of September 1879. Jess Compton was headed back to Pueblo, Colorado by way of Texas, where he was born.

Somewhere north of the Canadian, Jess ran into some unhappy Indians. They took it out on him. When they were done, four of them were dead, but his packhorse was gone and he was riding for his life. It was a good thing he always kept emergency supplies in his saddlebags or he would have starved.

He lost the Indians north of the Cimarron, but he was still cautious. So Jess wasn’t following any trails and shied away from dust that might mean Indians on the move.

When Jess saw the smoke off to the northwest, he pulled his horse into a gully and looked around the horizon before studying the smoke very carefully.

The smoke was too black and too thick to be a campfire. And it was too steady to be a signal fire.

He didn’t want to go, but his conscience told him to investigate. There could be someone in trouble over there.

Jess didn’t ride his horse directly toward the fire. He kept below the skyline and followed some ridges and gullies in that general direction.

It was getting dark by the time he was within a quarter of a mile of the smoke. He unsaddled and picketed his horse in a hollow. Then he swapped his boots for his moccasins.

He took his rifle and went forward on foot, keeping himself low to the ground. Eventually he was crawling from shrub to shrub. Finally, he saw the scene.

A wagon was tipped over on its side and on fire. The form of a body lay nearby. And then at intervals ahead and behind the burning wagon there seemed to be other bodies.

He kept watch until the wagon burned to the ground. It was pitch-dark by then. He stayed hidden and catnapped throughout the night.

Running into this burning wagon with bodies nearby brought back some unpleasant memories.

Twenty years ago, Jess Compton came this way with his father when they left Texas for the Colorado gold fields. Jess was retracing their journey as well as he could. But everything looked a lot different from the way he remembered it as a nine-year-old boy.

His father was from Ohio and opposed slavery and supported the union. When neighbors burned them out, the fire killed his mother and three sisters. His two older brothers were working with the cattle nearby and were shot to death when they tried to save their mother and sisters.

Jess and his father were working with cattle in the foothills. They saw the smoke from the burning buildings and went right home. By the time they got there, it was all over.

Jess wanted to go after the murderers and kill them.

His father asked, Who would we go after?

Jess spat out, The neighbors!

His father asked, Why do you think it was our neighbors?

Jess answered, Any other time when there was a fire, we all helped each other. Not one neighbor came this time. They did it.

His father was silent for a time, looking at the horizon.

He’d been a schoolteacher in Ohio, but came to Texas for adventure. In Austin, he met and married a young woman who was orphaned by the Texas war of independence.

When they had enough money to start their ranch, they moved northwest of Fort Worth and settled here.

They loved this valley.

His father said, still looking at the horizon, Yes, you’re right. That’s who did it. Your mother would be proud of you son. You thought that out very well. I’m going to spend more time with you on your studies in the evening. Then he looked down at Jess and added, Killing other people won’t bring back the ones we love. But suppose we did go after them, which ones would we kill: Men, women, and children? If we did that, we’d be as bad as they are. It wasn’t all the neighbors who did this. And if we tried to find and kill only the guilty ones, we’d run into a problem. The neighbors won’t hand them over to us. They will stick together. They may not even acknowledge that anything happened here. And if they do, they will blame it on the Indians.

His father found the metal heads of two spades in the ashes of the barn. He carved handles for them. Jess and his father dug graves and buried their dead on a hill overlooking the valley.

Then his father went into the ashes of the house and dug up their savings.

As they stood together by the graves one last time, his father said, One day, when we’ve got the money together. We’ll come back and put up some monuments.

His father continued, Remember that as we face the sunrise, your mother, Josephine, is on the left. And then there’s Joseph, Joshua, Judith, Jennifer, and Jolene.

His brothers and sisters lay in their birth order, oldest first. If Jess were dead, he would lie between Judith and Jennifer.

Then his father knelt by his mother’s grave and cried for the first time Jess had ever seen him. Jess didn’t cry, but he went up and put his arm across his father’s shoulders. He heard his father whispering, My darling, Josie, we can’t stay. The only way to keep Jess alive is to leave. Forgive me, Josie.

They left for Colorado right after that.

In Denver, his father bought books for Jess to study. Then they went on to Central City where he worked at one of the mines during the day so he could teach Jess in the evening. Jess helped out at a livery stable. They saved all the money they could.

When Jess was fourteen, his father was killed in a mining accident. After the funeral, Jess used the money they had saved to buy a real marble headstone for his father.

Almost everyone buried in that graveyard had wooden crosses or headboards. They wouldn’t last very long. Jess wanted something that would last. He wanted to be able to find his father’s grave again. One of these days he vowed to bury his father beside his mother on that hill far away in Texas.

Jess sold everything he couldn’t carry in his saddlebags and went to work on a nearby ranch as a handyman. He moved around some as he became more experienced. Later he hired on at the Kauffman Circle K near Pueblo and worked his way up to foreman before he quit four years ago.

A year ago, Jess was the big winner at the annual game in Pueblo. To give himself a change of scenery, he sold his horse and put himself