The Blacksmith of Bright Star, Texas

In the spring of 1866, the small Texas town of Bright Star was poised to grow. The end of the Civil War had brought the men back and had started a massive expansion of settlements in the west. Railroads were being built and telegraph poles and their shining wires seemed to sprout like weeds in the landscape overnight. Bright Star was situated in an ideal spot to receive the benefits of this expansion.

At mid-morning on the fifteenth of June, the first stagecoach to ever run through Bright Star rolled into town with the tinkling of trace chains, the loud voice of the driver speaking to his team, and the screech of the left rear wheel that needed to be greased. The people in town gathered to watch in awe as the oddly shaped coach neared the empty blacksmith's shop.

The driver's command of "whoa", and the pull on the leather lines laced through the fingers of his gloved hands brought the six horses to a blowing and snorting stop from the easy trot that had carried the coach over the miles of open country dirt road. The driver pulled the hand brake back to the notch in the rail that locked the wheels and looped the reins over the brake lever as the conductor climbed down from his perch in the box of the coach. The driver followed him and stood beside the coach.

When the conductor opened the door, the passengers began to exit. They looked relived as they sat foot on the ground for the first time in over four hours. The stop before had been just a swing station where the horses were changed and the passengers had time to stretch a little and get a drink of water or the weak brew that passed for coffee.

The driver spoke to the passengers once they were grouped around the stagecoach.

"I need to grease that wheel so it'll be about half an hour before we leave again. You're welcome to walk around but I don't wait on nobody, so if you're not in the stage when it leaves, I'll throw out your bag and you'll be staying here until the next one comes along next week. If there's no room inside of that one, you'll be riding on top or you'll wait another week."

The wrangler for the Oldham and Murphy Stage Company unhooked the trace chains and rein snaps of each horse and led them to the corral behind the blacksmith's shop. There they'd get a drink after they cooled out, and later on, grain and hay. The replacement horses were already harnessed and ready.

The people of the town had gathered around the coach. Most had never seen such a vehicle in their lives. This is what modern transportation looked like, and they wanted to see it.

The driver untied the canvas cover from the rear boot and re-tied it at the top to hold it open. Inside, the townspeople saw the luggage of the travelers. The bags were small and piled on top of each other to make room for the main cargo of the stagecoach - packages of freight that occupied most of the space. The driver retrieved a wagon jack from the boot as well as a wheel wrench, and then cautioned the people to back away.

"I have to grease this wheel, and I don't want none of you people in my way or gettin' hurt. Now, git back a ways."

He motioned to the conductor.

"Davis, go let the brake go.

The driver positioned the wagon jack under the heavy oak axle of the rear wheel, and then pulled the long handle down until the wheel was off the ground and the jack handle rolled over center on its pivot pin. He used the wheel wrench to loosen the wheel nut, then turned if off the spindle. The heavy wheel was five feet in diameter, nearly as tall as the driver, but with a combination of turning and pulling by the driver and conductor, it slid off the spindle and thudded to the ground.

The driver rolled it forward to rest against the side of the stagecoach and went back to the rear boot. He returned to the rear axle with a pot of black grease that he smeared generously over the tapered spindle and on the inside of the wheel hub. When he was satisfied with the amount of grease, he and the conductor lifted the wheel back onto the axle. After the spindle nut was again tight, the driver let the stagecoach down off the wagon jack.

As the driver and conductor put the jack, wrench, and grease back in the rear boot, the wrangler brought the heavy wheel team to the wagon, led the off horse to step over the tongue, and then fastened the trace chains of both horses to the double trees at the rear of the tongue. After hooking the pole straps from the end of the tongue to the wheel team's collars, he left to bring the swing team.

The swing team was a little smaller than the wheel team, around twelve hundred pounds each to the fifteen hundred of the wheel team, or so the driver told one of the men watching. In a matter of minutes, the swing team had their trace chains hooked into the double trees at the front of the stagecoach tongue, and the floating tongue was hooked to their breast strap chains as well.

The lead team, lighter yet at about a thousand pounds each, were then led into place and their harness fastened to the double trees at the front of the floating tongue. As the wrangler snapped the line snaps into the rings of the reins of each team, the conductor counted the heads of the passengers and then turned to the driver.

"Amos, we're missing one, that young girl from Sedalia, Missouri."

He looked at the passenger list he carried.

"Ah...here it is...Miss Abigail O'Gracy."

"Well, we can't wait. That dry wheel cost us half an hour. You make note of that. The men in Little Rock should have greased all of 'em before we started. I'll have to push the hitch to make that up as it is. Pull her bag out of the boot, and load up the rest."

The driver climbed to his perch on the right side of the box as the passengers took their seats. After they did a little maneuvering to get all their knees and shoulders into a mostly socially acceptable, if not comfortable, arrangement, the conductor closed the door and climbed up beside the driver. With a whistle from the driver to the horses, the stagecoach clattered out of town with the same tinkle of trace chains and steady plop of trotting hooves, but now with four relatively quiet wheels.

The wrangler watched the stagecoach until it was out of sight, and then walked to the hotel. He had an hour to kill before the horses cooled out enough to be watered, and decided to treat himself to lunch.

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The stage service would make the trip from Little Rock to Dallas once a week. It would return then through the same towns and swing stations. The trip either way required almost a week even though the stagecoach drove night and day, rain or shine. After the Oldham and Murphy Company had established the stage line for carrying freight and a few passengers, it also had received a contract for delivery of mail to the towns along the route. Within a year, Oldham and Murphy hoped to make the stage run on a daily basis.

It looked as if that goal might be achieved in less than a year. The stagecoach was usually filled to capacity on the inside, and sometimes there were even "hangers on" as the men and sometimes even women who rode on top of the coach were known. The men and women who tried to maintain their dignity as they exited and entered the stagecoach had said they were fortunate to be able to purchase a fare because so many wished to travel on the stagecoach.

While the stage line was currently using the empty blacksmith's shop as one of the main stops along the road between Little Rock and Dallas, Oldham and Murphy would need more room once the stagecoach ran more often. More horses would be needed and more horses meant more wranglers, more feed and more hay. New buildings were going up next to the blacksmith's shop.

There would be a small station as well, with a man to collect the fees for freight and passengers. That money would go to the bank at the end of every day. The station agent and the wranglers would have to eat, and they would use their pay to purchase things from the general store and to take an occasional meal at the hotel. The stage line would provide a welcome increase in income to the merchants of the town.

The current wrangler, Silas Cooper, was around forty and a little bent over, but he knew horses and how to handle them. Silas seemed to be a quiet man, though there were rumors that he'd had some trouble with the law in El Paso and had come to East Texas to start over.

There was also talk of a telegraph office. It was well known that once a stage line or railroad was established, the telegraph quickly followed. Salesmen needed a way to quickly send orders to their companies, and the stage stations needed to report daily on the coming and going of the stage. A cowboy on his way back from Sedalia had stopped over for one night in Bright Star. He reported seeing men setting telegraph poles and stringing wire along the road from Red Butte to Bright Star.

}{

Katharine O'Devlin watched the stagecoach leave from where she stood between the general store and the Marshall's office. If her plan was successful, no one would ever find her again. The change of her name to Abigail O'Gracy when she purchased the stagecoach fare should have been enough to confuse anyone looking for her. Ending her journey before she reached Dallas, Texas, was only a safeguard should anyone correlate the date of Abigail's departure with the date of Katharine's disappearance and learn of her destination.

It was more than likely that Katharine would be thought to have just disappeared. Sedalia was a rough place, full of coarse railroad men and cowboys just paid for bringing the herds of cattle up from Texas to the railhead there. Those cowboys wanted the comforts of good food, whiskey, and warm, willing women, and they had the money to pay for them. The brothels that had serviced the Union Army during the Civil War became a favorite stopping place for the Texas cowboys before they rode back home to prepare for the next year's drive. They were also patronized by the railroad workers.

Katharine had no need or inclination to work in a brothel, though she would have been a prime catch for any brothel owner. Cowboys thought women with red hair were better in bed, and they were infatuated with large breasts. A pretty woman with copper-red hair and a well-endowed bosom, like Katharine, would have commanded a better price for her services than most of the other women of the evening.

She had utilized those traits to accomplish her goal, though, and it was that goal which forced her to flee first from New York City to Chicago, then from Chicago to Sedalia, and now to Texas. Katharine knew what she had done was right and justifiable, at least to her. She had wanted to take that course. Now, that course threatened to take her life unless she did something to change it. The tentacles of her enemy reached far in all directions.

Bright Star seemed to be a place with enough people she could blend in after a while, and there was only one man serving as the town marshal. She'd seen him sitting in a chair in front of the Marshal's office as the stagecoach went by and then again as he inspected the stagecoach. He was young and handsome, and his face seemed to be the face of a kind man. Katharine thought she could sway him to her side if that became necessary, though she hoped it would not. Katharine was ready to be just a woman, like the other women she saw on the street watching the stagecoach as it left the town.

When the crowd of people left to go about their daily business, and after the wrangler entered the hotel, Katharine walked to the bench in front of the blacksmith's shop and picked up her bag. In it was as much of what she owned as she could stuff inside - clothing, and extra pair of shoes, and deep under everything else, the box of the.41 short rimfire cartridges.

After checking to make sure everything was still in her bag, and then looking back at the town to make sure no one was watching her, Katharine stepped into the dark depths of the empty blacksmith's shop and lifted her long skirt. There, suspended on the slings that held up her stockings and strapped around her slender thighs just above those stockings were the two thin wallets that held her money and the holster holding the.41 rimfire Remington derringer. The five hundred dollars in double eagles, each in a little pocket sewn into the silk wallet were enough, she hoped, to let her establish a life in Bright Star. She carried the derringer in case she needed a weapon to defend herself.

After removing one of the gold coins, Katharine let her skirt fall back down. She smoothed it out, and then walked back outside and towards the hotel.

}{

Bird clucked to his horse to urge the mare into the slow current of the Red River. The river was higher than he would have liked, but he had no choice but to cross. Staying in Gritts or anywhere else in the Choctaw portion of Indian Territory, would have meant losing everything, including probably his life. Though he had the skills of a blacksmith, the town had cast him out because of what he thought to be a ridiculous tribal rule.

This rule forbid the marriage of any man to a woman of his mother's or father's clan, and Bird understood the reasons for this but not the application in his situation. Nanyehi was of his mother's clan, but his own mother was Cherokee, and had been taken in by the Choctaw clan after she was captured during a raid. His father was from another Choctaw clan fifty miles away from the village. Bird was not blood kin to any of Nanyehi's clan. Still, Nanyehi's mother was adamant. Her daughter would not marry Bird and she would see to it they did not see each other.

The threats did not seem real until he met Nanyehi one night behind the village meeting house. He had known it was not according to custom to court a girl outside of the approvals of the women of the clan, but Nanyehi had stolen his heart. It seemed to him unreasonable that the girl's mother should dictate a man appropriate to be her daughter's husband. Nanyehi was of the same opinion, for the tall, strong man of mixed Cherokee, Choctaw, and Scottish blood had swept all other men from her mind. She wanted only Bird to lie beside her at night and to give her children.

Their meeting that night had been short. Bird and Nanyehi had barely spoken when Nanyehi's two brothers descended on Bird with clubs. He was stunned by the first blow that missed his head and landed on his shoulder, but was able to recover fast enough to defend himself. When Nanyehi's brothers retreated, one brother had a bleeding nose and another was holding a severely bruised arm. Nanyehi had run away during the fight.

The next morning, Bird watched from his cabin as Nanyehi went to the fields with the other young girls. She seemed upset and walked slowly while looking at the ground instead of laughing and talking as did the other girls of the village. Though it pained Bird to see her in such a state, he knew he could do nothing during the day. As the light of the sun faded to the pale glow of the moon, he would meet her again. Even though their conversation the evening before had been cut short by her brothers, they had decided their path lay in leaving the village. It was the only way they could be together.

When the girls returned from the fields for their noon meal, Nanyehi was not among the chattering throng, and she did not return to the village that night. It was the next morning that men from the village found Nanyehi hanging by a rope from a tree near the fields. There were no signs of a struggle, only the prints of the girl's bare feet as she walked up to the tree. It was obvious what she had done, and not a new thing for the tribe. Nanyeti had climbed to a low branch, tied the rope around her slender neck and then jumped. It had happened before, several years ago and for the same reason. The girl could not bear living without the man she truly loved.

Nanyehi's mother had wailed and sobbed at the revelation that her daughter had hanged herself, but her cries were more cries of rage than sorrow, for she knew the reason. Nanyehi had stood proudly in front of her mother after the fight and said if her mother would not approve of her marriage to Bird, they would leave the village. Nanyehi's mother had calmly told her if they left together, her brothers would find them, kill Bird, and bring her back. Nanyehi had then cried and said if she could not marry Bird, she could no longer live. Her mother thought this just the immature ramblings of a young girl. When Nanyehi had proven her wrong, the woman was beside herself with hatred for Bird as well as with sorrow for the loss of her only daughter.

Nanyehi's brothers were also enraged, though they did not attempt to attack Bird again. Instead, they calmly informed him that he must leave the village before the sun set or they would gather enough other men to kill him and leave his body for the coyotes and buzzards. After they left to console their mother and to attend to Nanyehi's burial, Bird sat in his cabin. Tears filled his eyes, tears of sorrow for his Nanyehi and tears of anger that the old ways had caused her to take her own life. It should not be this way, he thought. No person should have the power to separate two people who wanted to be together.

That afternoon, Bird packed all his belongings into the wagon he had built with his own hands, hitched his horse, and climbed into the seat. He had nothing left in Gritts now. His mother had been lost on the trip from Tennessee to Indian Territory. His father, Small Deer, had carried him the remainder of the distance and passed on to him the skills of the blacksmith. Small Deer had gone to his ancestors three winters before, and Small Deer's mother, the only grandmother Bird could remember well, two winters before that. Only Nanyehi had tied him to the clan, and now she was gone as well. With a last look at the town where he grew from a boy to a man, Bird slapped the rains on the mare's rump and the wagon rumbled over the dirt road out of town.

While Bird was anxious to leave his past behind, he was in no hurry to get where he was going. He was in no hurry because he had no idea of where he would stop except that it would be outside Choctaw country. North would have meant he would be in Cherokee country, and there was nothing for him there. The Cherokee exchanged information with the Choctaw when hunters met or through traders. Word would have spread of the reason for his exile and because the Cherokee held the same belief about marriage, he would have been ostracized there as well.

To the south lay Texas, a land of cattle and farms, and he'd heard of people who cared little about a person's past as long as that person didn't cause trouble. Bird chose Texas as a general direction somewhat for this reason but mostly because the only wagon track south led there.

He let the mare set her own pace, and she seemed to be comfortable with a walk. Bird didn't mind that speed. It saved the mare's strength and gave him time to think.

That Nanyehi's mother was serious in her threat was proven by the occasional glimpse of a single man or pair of men on horseback he saw in the distance to his side. He often recognized the paint horse of one of Nanyehi's brothers. The men were there to make certain he left the area, and once he was sufficiently far away, they would report to Nanyehi's mother.

Bird smiled at the thought that Nanyehi's mother believed he might return. Yes, he would have liked to visit Nanyehi's grave and tell her spirit of his sorrow, but Bird thought she probably already knew. The old ones told of spirits sometimes visiting loved ones before going to what they called "The Happy Land".

The night before Nanyehi's body was discovered, he'd had a dream. Like most of his dreams, Bird could remember only the fleeting, almost vapor-like images of it, not any details, but when he woke it seemed as if someone had been there beside his bed. Words were said that he couldn't remember, but he did remember feeling somehow reassured. When he heard of her death, he was certain Nanyehi had been that dream, and that she had encouraged him to go on.