1838

By Steve Stroble

1838 proves to be the turning point in Dan "Beaverman" McDaniel's life. At first, he thinks he is always a day late when he misses fighting in The Battle of the Alamo. But tragedy then makes him think life's burdens have been dumped on him at too early of an age to endure them.
He seeks comfort by retreating to the wilderness and life as a mountain man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Stroble
• Release date: Jun 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463981429

Steve Stroble

Steve Stroble grew up as a military brat, which took him from South Dakota to South Carolina to Germany to Ohio to Southern California to Alabama to the Philippines to Northern California. Drafted into the Army, he returned to Germany.His stories classified as historical fiction often weave historical events, people, and data into them.His science fiction stories try to present feasible even if not yet known technology.His dystopian and futuristic stories feature ordinary heroes and heroines placed into extraordinary situations and ordinary villains who drain the life out of others' souls (their minds, wills, and emotions) by any means available.

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1838

Steve Stroble

1838, copyright c 2018 Stroble Family Trust. All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. All people, places, events, and situations are the product of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance of them to actual persons, living or dead, places, events, and situations is purely coincidental.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain.

Lyrics to A Blessing on Brandy and Beer and Wayfaring Stranger, public domain.

To Stephen and Mike Lowery, who saved my bacon during high school many moons ago. They are Texians and brothers, part of the Lowery clan who settled East Texas during the 1800s.

Table of Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

1

Dakota Territory, December 1887

Dan Beaverman McDaniel quit striking his flint next to the small pile of frozen kindling. As he sat back against a tall cedar sheltering him somewhat from falling snow, he took inventory, a process that had kept him alive more than once when everything seemed to be going wrong.

I figure we must be five, maybe six miles from home, he thought. But it’s impossible to make it back there until after this snow lets up. He studied the snowflakes on his buckskin gloves and sighed when he saw they were bigger and landing at a faster rate than the last time he had checked. His appaloosa snorted to remind him she wanted to help.

Scenes of the last horse who had saved Dan’s life played out in his exhausted mind.

Drastic but simple: put a bullet into the animal’s head, slice open its underside and pull out enough hot steaming organs to make a warm cavity in which to crawl, then pull the offal close to build a makeshift barrier to keep from becoming another rigid object of the frozen terrain. Dan staggered to his feet and slid his Winchester 1873 rifle from the buffalo hide holster by his horse’s right flank. He cocked it and placed its barrel between the mare’s eyes.

But her sad expression kept his numb finger from squeezing the icy trigger.

Damn it all, it’s not your fault that we’re stuck out in this snowstorm. You’re only two years old and could live another twenty, maybe even thirty years if you get lucky and find yourself another owner who knows better than some old fool like me. Dan removed her small saddle and bridle. You have a pretty good chance of living if you don’t have to carry me and the saddle through this thick snow. Now you go and get yourself back home where you belong.

The horse hesitated, and then plodded away when Dan swatted his palm on her rump.

After curling into a tight fetal position and pulling the saddle and its blanket atop him, Dan wondered if the stories he had heard since childhood about freezing to death being no different than just going to sleep and never waking up were true or lies told as comfort for loved ones after finding such frozen stiff victims. His thoughts drifted back to 1838.

2

A chance meeting in the chilly western Tennessee woodlands during November, 1835, planted the seed in Dan McDaniel’s soul that would grow and bear bitter fruit three years later. Mature beyond his fifteen years, he already possessed a healthy wariness around strangers, especially after nightfall.

Hello the camp? Dan called out as he slowed the pace of his mule toward about a dozen men lying or seated around a campfire. Failing to shout out such a warning had cost others their lives because in the wilderness telling friend from foe became difficult. Who might all of you all be?

Just some Tennessee mountain boys, answered the only one willing to acknowledge the intruder. The clean-shaven man pointed at a simmering metal pot on a flat rock next to dying flames fed by glowing embers. You can have yourself a cup of coffee and lay out your bedroll here tonight so some bear don’t eat you while you lay dreaming.

Thank you, sir. I’d rather eat bear than be devoured by one or more of them.

He handed Dan an empty cup.

What’s your name, boy, and where are you headed?

Dan McDaniel, and I am journeying on back home to just north of Athens. My pa says that there’s a place nearby our cabin where you can stand with one foot in Alabama and the other one in Tennessee.

Dan studied the others, most of them bearded and dirty, all of them worn-out looking, too exhausted to join in their conversation. What’s your name, stranger? he asked the friendliest of the bunch.

Davy Crockett.

Dan gagged on the unsweetened coffee he was swallowing and then spat it out with chunks of yellow phlegm. The Davy Crockett who was a congressman up there in Washington?

Yes, sir.

Well, what are you doing in these parts? I bet you all are out hunting deer or bear, huh?

No. We’re heading west to explore Texas, Crockett said. I started out from home with only three men. As you can see, some others have joined our expedition. He shrugged. And a few others already gave up and turned back for home. How about you? You want to come along with us, too?

Well sir, I don’t rightly know what to expect from a place like Texas except I hear tell it’s mostly just desert and home to some fearsome Indians who go by the name Comanche. Besides, I have to hurry on back home with the money I got from selling furs over there in Memphis. My ma likes to lay in all her baking and sewing supplies early before winter sets in every year.

Dan finished his coffee and reached for the pot now holding gritty dregs and little remaining hot water. Just what is there in Texas to make all of you all go riding your horses for hundreds of miles to a place you never been before?

Crockett laughed.

It’s more what’s not there son. More and more everyday it looks like Martin Van Buren will be elected as the next president. He’ll ruin our great nation for sure. I’m hoping that Texas forever remains free of those yahoos in Congress. Believe me, I saw it firsthand. Once the people there get some power, it goes straight to their heads and makes them want to run everybody else’s lives.

It’s really all that bad?

Being in Congress can make men into lifetime enemies. Even after Sam Houston was no longer in Congress, he and Congressman William Stanbery hated each other’s guts. They happened to meet each other out on the streets one night. Old Sam started beating the tar out of Stanbery with his cane. So William pulled out his pistol to shoot him. Lucky for Sam, it misfired. All hell broke out in Congress and they demanded that Sam be arrested and stand trial but he got off with just being reprimanded instead because he still knew the right people.

And I always thought city folks was supposed to be civilized. Leastways, more civilized than us country folks.

I’m praying that maybe we can make Texas into a republic. It has quite a history. First the Indian tribes ruled it. Then the French did, and after that, the Spanish, and now the Mexicans. The news from there is that some of the Mexicans and Americans who live in those parts are ready to revolt against Mexico.

Crockett threw a fat log onto the fire and stoked it. Sometimes I think I’d rather live among the Indians, at least the peace loving tribes.

Is that why you voted against that Indian Removal Act? More than a few folks around our parts were mighty aggrieved with you on account of the way you voted.

Crockett threw the last of his coffee into the fire. Who knows why a man does what he does? All I can say is that I tried my best to do the right thing while I was a congressman. The Senate voted 28 to 19 in favor of taking the Indians off their lands and sending them way out west. Over in the House, we voted 101 to 97 for that shameful legislation. Then that fool Andrew Jackson signed it into law. He claimed it was better for everyone involved.

All I know is what we seen happen on account of that law, Dan said. "Three years back, we watched the Creek passing through our region in north Alabama. They all looked to be sick and starving, especially their old and young folks. Now the newspapers are saying that the Cherokee are going to vote on a treaty that’s going to move them out west too. The Cherokee I talked to still call Andrew Jackson Sharp Knife because of what he done to them. They claim he stuck a knife into their backs."

Well, I’d bet my bottom dollar that they will never be able to move the Seminole out of Florida Territory. It’s one thing to do battle with Indians in the hills and mountains and woods but fighting in swamplands full of ‘gators and poisonous snakes? And they say the mosquitos down there in Florida Territory are so big and hungry that they eat men alive. The Spanish didn’t fare too well trying to battle the Seminole. Neither will we. Who can blame them for not wanting to die alongside the Trail of Tears like those other tribes already have had to?

Their conversation ended with the two watching the fire slowly burn to ashes. The next morning, Dan awoke before the rest of the camp. By the time he had packed and mounted his mule, a few men were stirring, trying to work the soreness and cold from stiff muscles and joints. One of them shuffled to Dan.

So, you decided not to follow us to Texas, boy? a