Top Soldier by Johnny D. Boggs

Author:Johnny D. Boggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2018-04-29T22:13:40+00:00

Chapter Eleven

We decided not to go looking for fossils or dinosaur bones, but we did not rush back to Jacksboro, either. Instead, Uncle Moses and I kept our horses at a walk, turning to look over our backs a lot. The Comanches and Kiowas did not return to take our scalps.

I tried to count my blessings. Had Papa been with me, instead of Uncle Moses, or had Mama decided to ride along with us, we could all be dead, our scalps hanging from one of those lances. I had lost Peter Parley’s, but I still had Dana’s Textbook of Geology in the back of the wagon in town. And I had a Comanche knife and fringed sheath. For our lives and a book … yes, I guess I had made a pretty good trade, after all.

“What did that boy want with a book?” I blurted out when we stopped to let our horses drink from a stream.

Uncle Moses said: “Reckon maybe he wants to learn about dinosaurs and fossils and such.”

“You mean he can read?”

Laughing, Uncle Moses shook his head, and said: “Top Soldier, I’m just funnin’ you.” He seemed to have fully recovered from our brush with death. He shook his head. “Most likely, that buck’ll just rip that book apart, stuff it in the next shield he makes. Won’t stop a bullet, but might deflect an arrow or some such.” He winked. “And those drawin’s of the dinosaurs and other critters, he probably figures that’ll give him big medicine.”

* * * * *

When school let out, Papa returned to Jacksboro again and escorted Mama and me home. That’s when school really began, for while Papa had accomplished much in the few number of weeks—digging a new well and filling in the old one; putting up a corral; making a lean-to; tearing down the ruins of our barn and home—much work remained. And we took to it.

Most of the chimney stood, but little else, and our first priority was our home. So Papa would hitch the two mules to the wagon, and we would leave Mama at home while we rode to the limestone quarry to get with stones for our new home. When we had enough stones to go with those Papa had salvaged from our first house, we went to work.

First, we repaired the chimney, and made a new hearth. That’s when I discovered my first fossil embedded in a nice flat limestone.

“Mama!” I said after understanding what I had found. “Come see!”

Sweating over a hot fire, she stood up, wiped her forehead, and asked: “What is it?”

“It’s a fossil!”

She sighed, started to go back to work, but must have decided to investigate, and she came over to the hearth, looking as though every bone in her body ached. Papa arrived with another stone a few minutes later to find Mama and me studying the brick.

“What’s so fascinating?” he asked.

Mama looked at him, and pointed to the rock. “It looks just like a palm tree.”

It did—I had

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