Sam couldn’t say anything. He was sick at heart. He just shook his head.
Liz told him, “Let’s get a good nights sleep, you’ll see things better in the morning.”
Next morning Sam sent for Joe, “We’ve got to move on. I’ve lost this place to the bank. You go hitch up the big wagon. We’ll take our stock and tools over on the east road and sell what we can.”
They sold all the things they took. People like bargains.
On the way home Sam told Joe to load his belongs in the spring wagon in the morning. “Come help us to load the big wagon, as soon as you’re done.”
At the farm each went to their own house. Sam was more sick at heart than ever to have lost his farm.
Next morning the wagons were loaded. With one cow in tow, a few chickens and some farm tools, the two families were on the road by noon, on their way north. The third day found them outside Ft. Smith, Arkansas. They camped for a few days. Sam went to town several times.
Early one morning Sam and Liz told Joe and Maude they’re free and handed them their papers of freedom. Joe and Maude both threw up their hands and cried. “We-z don’t know where to go, what to do, we want’s to go with you’s.”
Sam is stern. “We’re going into the nations, there’s still slavery there, you won’t be safe. Joe, you and Maude have earned your freedom, go north until you reach a free state. Joe, you’re the best hand I ever saw, you can do anything, shoe horses, farm as good as any man. The man who hires you will get a real helper. Take the spring wagon and the mules. You can have my shot gun, I have a few dollars for you. You can hunt and fish on the way, keep going north till you find a place you like.”
Joe and Maude could see his mind was made up. With misgivings they agreed, many tears were shed by both families.
The next morning, with heavy hearts, Joe and Maude hitched the mules to the spring wagon. With their two boys, they headed the little wagon on the road north. Sam and Liz watched until they were out of sight. With broken hearts they turned their wagon west and a new life.
Chapter 4
Death Comes Early
It took several days to reach the Choctaw Indian Agency. Jane and Walter welcomed them with open arms. Walter showed them a house they could have to live in, it was pretty run down. No one had lived in it for quite a few years. Liz told Sam they could have it in shape in no time. In the mean time Walter said they could bed down in a room in the house with them.
Sam and Liz had the house in good shape in a few days and moved in. The two boys soon had Indian children as play mates. Sam began his duties as a farm instructor to the Choctaws. The Indians were more than willing to learn the white mans ways.
Liz spent her time teaching the women cooking on a stove and sewing on a peddle machine. Most had never seen a stove, let alone cook on one and most of the women had never seen a sewing machine. Liz found the squaws ready and willing to learn, she also found they were smart and fun.
Sam’s help was teaching his charges ways of handling horses and mules and general farm duties. The farm work and harnessing of horses and mules was new to the Indians, farm work was not a natural thing for the men, most had always hunted, fished and play games with their horses, it took time. Most of the men finally took to farming, when the crops began to grow, the Indian farmers became proud of their labors.
The government gave each family livestock and farm equipment. Soon the white man started to trade the Indians out of this stock and equipment for just a few jugs of whiskey.
Walter and Sam had to devise a way to stop this practice. There was no law on the Choctaw at the time. Sam gave it all the attention he could. Liz told him she had the idea to brand, “I Don’t Trade” on the stock and all the wagons and farm equipment. If a white man had an IDT brand in his possession, it would have to be given back. This stopped the whites and their trading.
Whisky runners became a big problem. Sam and Walter punished the Indians who used the drink by keeping them locked up in the agency jail until they promised to quit.
As his two boys grew, Sam used them to help school the Indians in their way of working with horses, gentle and kind. Both Jack and young Sam became good hands with the horses and mules. Sam was proud of them both.
Young Sam made friends with many of the Indian children and became a fast friend of Charlie Bird. Charlie’s family lived near the agency. He had two brothers and two sisters. He was the youngest boy and wanted to live as the white men did. He was too young to know the old Choctaw’s ways. He taught young Sam his native tongue and Indian sign language. Sam would use this knowledge later many times in his future life.
Young Sam and Charlie helped Sam with the horses and mules. Both these boys became good hands for Sam. Jack preferred to work with Walter and the cattle. A mule had kicked him and he refused to work around them any longer.
Charlie Bird had two sisters. One was ten or so, the other older, maybe eighteen or nineteen, her name was Blue Bird a very handsome Indian Girl. She liked to come with Charlie to help with the horses. She was a good rider and took a liking too young Sam right away. Many times the three rode the wagon roads and trails of the Choctaw together.
One afternoon on the road above a creek the three stopped to watch a young Indian man and girl down in the bushes by the creek. Sam asked if they were fighting. Charlie and Blue both laughed and rode on.
Back at the corrals Sam asked again about the two they had seen by the creek. Blue told him they were making a papoose. “I’ll show you how it’s done if you want?” Sam didn’t know what to say. He let it pass. It was never mentioned again for a long time.
A fever came on the people of the Choctaw. Many people began to die of high temperatures. No doctor could break the fever or stop the dying. There seemed to be no cure.
Liz was the first to come down with it, then Sam. Both lay in an unconscious state for some time. Young Sam prayed to God to save his Ma and Pa. All to no avail, they both passed on the same night. Sam was heart broken. He loved them both so much. It was almost more than he could endure.
He cussed God for death of his folks. “I’ll never ask for any thing from God again,” he vowed. He came down with the fever a few days after his folks were buried. He lay unconscious for days, his body was burning with fever, he was expected to die at any time.
An old medicine man came to the agency. He said he was curing the people of the Choctaw, he could save this boy. Walter told him to try. The medicine man filled a horse trough with cold water and lifted Sam gently into the water, only his head remained above the surface. He then shook gourds and danced around the trough singing a chant. This went on for three days and three nights.
Sam slowly gained consciousness. Soon he picked himself out of the trough, the fever was broken. The medicine man said he had many people lay in the creeks in the cold water, he had saved them with his chants and dancing.
“The great sprit came and told me what I should do.” The old Indian believed he had cured the people.
The Choctaw returned to normal. The fever had lifted thru out the nation.
It took several weeks for Sam to regain his strength completely.
As the next years passed, Sam and Charlie trained many horses together. One afternoon Blue Bird came to the horse pens and asked to go with Sam for a ride along the creek trails. She asked Charlie not to go. “You stay at the pens,” she insisted.
Blue and Sam rode the trail by the creek. She asked if he was ready to see how to make a papoose? He laughed and told her he was ready for her to show him. She turned her horse into some willows along the creek bank, dismounted and