Bowie's Mine: A Story of the Buckalew Family - Softcover

Kelton, Elmer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0765343037 ISBN 13: 9780765343031

Publisher: Forge Books, 2003

Synopsis

Daniel Provost is the son of a farmer. Living up to his father's high standards for the farm is very hard work, but his life is basically comfortable and a loving woman is waiting to become his wife.

When a well-traveled stranger, bearing a story of Jim Bowie's legendary silver mine, appears at the farm, Daniel might just throw away everything for the chance at adventure he thought had passed him by.

About this title

About the Author:

Elmer Kelton (1926-2009) was the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including The Time It Never Rained, Other Men's Horses, Texas Standoff and Hard Trail to Follow. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron, was published in 1956. Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His novel The Good Old Boys was made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones. In addition to his novels, Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist for 42 years, and served in the infantry in World War II. He died in 2009.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

  1 HIS NAME WAS DANIEL PROVOST, AND IT WAS THE time of the Texas Republic. Once, years ago, he had heard Sam Houston’s Twin Sister cannons at San Jacinto, and from sanctuary beyond the rain-flooded bayous he had watched smoke rise over the battlefield. He had been a boy then, too young to fight. Now the 1840’s were well along and he was a man, but no adventure was left. Modern times and civilization seemed to have stilled it forever. His world was restricted to the narrow confines of Hopeful Valley along the Colorado River in what was considered western Texas, and it was seen mostly over the narrow-pinched rump of a lazy brown mule. The man riding the bay horse and leading three packmules was the first stranger Daniel had seen in three months. Daniel leaned to pull against the leather reins looped around the back of his neck and let the heavy wooden plow ease over as he watched the horseman slowly work his way down the gentle hill toward the field. The man wore buckskin and an old Mexican sombrero that had seen too many rains, and too much sun. Daniel watched in silent curiosity as the man reined up at the end of the plowed rows and raised his hand in peace. The man’s longrifle lay across his lap, but Daniel saw no threat in it. The face looked friendly enough, what he could see of it through a considerable growth of brown whiskers. “Stand there, Hezekiah,” Daniel needlessly admonished the mule; any time Hez was given a chance to halt, he wouldn’t lift a foot until he had to. Daniel slipped out of the reins and trudged across the rows, studying the man. “How do. Anything I can do for you?” The man looked around, and Daniel sensed he was searching for sign of a rifle. Daniel had none. The man said, “I come in peace, brother, as any good and honorable man.” A benign smile shone through the whiskers, and Daniel could see this was a young man, thirty possibly, maybe even less. “Name’s Milo Seldom. Is that water you got in yonder jug, or somethin’ stronger?” “Water,” said Daniel, and fetched the canvas-wrapped jug from where it hung in the benevolent shade of a huge and ancient live oak. “Sure am obliged,” said Seldom, and tipped the jug off his shoulder in the style of a man drinking whisky. He took several long draws, then wiped his sleeve across his mouth and handed back the jug. “Mighty good water. Many a place I been, folks’ll offer you hard liquor first off; glad to see that you-all here have got a bent toward religion.” Daniel shrugged. “Ain’t religion, exactly. Whisky and hot sun and hard work don’t mix too good. My name’s Daniel Provost. You come a long ways?” “A long ways. Still got a fair piece to go.” He pointed his chin. “Seen a cabin as I topped the hill. You got a wife there, and family?” “Ain’t married. I live with my folks.” “Seen a deer back yonder a mile or so. If I was to go fetch it in, reckon the woman of the house might see fit to share vittles with a lonesome, hungry stranger?” “You don’t need to bring nothin’ to be welcome at the Provost house.” But Daniel reckoned it wouldn’t hurt any; the menfolks had been too busy with the planting to fetch fresh meat. “I always like to bring more than I take away,” the stranger said. “Leaves folks thinkin’ good of ol’ Milo Seldom. If you’d kindly see after my packmules a bit, I’d go see after that there deer.” Daniel took the lead rope and led the mules to the tree where he had kept the water jug. Knowing mules, he didn’t put the jug back where it had been. Hezekiah moved his head interestedly, looking at the packmules and watching Seldom ride away on his bay horse. But he showed no inclination to move his feet; he never did until he was forced to. Daniel studied the bulging packs and tried to make out the vague aroma that came from them. It was somehow familiar, but mixed with the strong mule-sweat it was too evasive to identify. Curiosity nagged at him, and when the stranger was out of sight, Daniel went so far as to put a hand on the rope that held one canvas bundle. But he changed his mind; a man didn’t poke where he had no business. He walked back to Hez and put him and the plow into service again, his mind on the stranger rather than on the job. He sensed that Seldom had come from far-off places, and maybe was headed for far-off places Daniel hadn’t even heard of, let alone seen. Daniel had no fear of work, and the plow-handle fit his hands, but he had often thought it would be good, just once before he settled finally into harness and took up wife and land of his own, to go out and see what lay beyond the hills that rimmed this valley; to see the lands from which the few travelers came; perhaps even to see the mysterious western country from which the Comanches used to materialize wraithlike to strike suddenly and kill and burn and fade away again. He sensed that Milo Seldom had been to these places—some of them, anyway—and that his hands were not made for the plow. Briefly he envied the man as he had envied a couple of men in Hopeful Valley who had been in the thick of the battle with Sam Houston. They never talked about it much; they talked much easier about crops and horses and cattle and the like. Maybe that was the way of it for most men—one big adventure and they were ready to settle down for a quiet, steady life of hard work. Trouble was, Daniel hadn’t had his adventure yet. He sensed that Milo Seldom was a man given entirely to the kind of experience Daniel hungered after. Before long he heard the crack of the long rifle. There was no second shot, which did not surprise Daniel; he suspected those keen gray eyes needed but one chance to look down the barrel and over the sights. By the time the stranger came back, the deer properly gutted and draped behind his saddle, Daniel had finished to the end of a row. The sun was still an hour high, but on such an occasion as having a stranger call, he doubted that anybody could fault him for calling it a day. He unhitched Hezekiah from the plow, climbed up onto his bare back and rode to the tree where the packmules were tied. The stranger sat idly pitching up a flattened chunk of lead and catching it in his hand. It was the ball which he had used to kill the deer. Lead was not to be wasted, and a hunter usually made every effort to retrieve it and melt it to be poured for another day, another deer. Daniel said, “You just shot once.” “Poverty makes a man a good shot. Takes coin for powder and lead, and precious little coin ever crosses my palm. But it’s a-fixin’ to, my friend.” “What do you mean?” Daniel knew it wasn’t any of his business, but the stranger had opened the subject. “Them packs there, they’re goin’ to open the door. I’m goin’ to find out if gettin’ rich spoils a man’s shootin’ eye.” “You need any help?” Daniel joked. The stranger took him seriously. “Matter of fact, I just might, was the right man to come along.” Daniel stopped smiling. “You didn’t say whichaway you was headed.” Seldom eyed him a moment in silence. “Was headed for your house to find out if your kind mother would like some fresh venison.” Daniel took that as a sign that the subject was closed, and he didn’t press it. But as he rode he glanced back at those big packs, jouncing along on the quick-footed Mexican mules. He noted the easy, almost slouchy way Seldom rode, as if he had been hatched in a horse barn. But if his riding was slouchy, his gray eyes were searching. “Ain’t nothin’ here you got to watch out for,” Daniel told him. “Last Indian trouble we had was several years ago. Just a little bunch huntin’ for horses, mostly.” “Them Indians ain’t dissolved off of the face of the earth, friend Provost. Just because there’s more settlement now than there used to be don’t mean they won’t show up again; more settlement means more horses. Indian, he always has a powerful want for more horses.” “I’ll bet you’ve fought Indians.” “Ain’t we all? Fought Mexicans, fought outlaws, fought bears and cougars. Fought sin, too. Life’s an eternal struggle for the right thinkin’ and the true believer.” “You sound like a preacher.” “I ain’t, but now and again when I find somebody in need of the Word, I carry it to them the way it’s been carried to me. Figure I owe it to folks to pass on the blessin’s I’ve received. You strike me as bein’ a good true Christian, Mister Provost.” “Name’s Daniel,” Daniel reminded him. “I’ve read the Book. Never done no hard studyin’ on it, though.” “Man don’t have to study it; it’s all around him—in the blue sky, in the green hills full of game, in the runnin’ streams and the rivers full of fish. The Lord’s work is all around us plainer than words in a book. Ain’t everybody can read a book, but anybody can see the Lord’s good work.” That led Daniel to wonder if Seldom could even read; lots of people couldn’t. There wasn’t a great call for reading in this country anyway; long as a man could do a few ciphers and plow a straight furrow and sight down a barrel, they would have to get up awful early to starve him to death. It was often said that Texas was overrun with lawyers an...

About this edition

• Publisher: Forge Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0765343037
• ISBN 13: 9780765343031
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192