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    A Dark Dawn in Texas
    A Dark Dawn in Texas
    A Dark Dawn in Texas
    Ebook140 pages2 hours

    A Dark Dawn in Texas

    By Richard Smith

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    About this ebook

    On her deathbed, Laura Peters shocks her son by belatedly revealing that his uncle did not die alongside Paul's father in the bloody confrontation at Gettysburg in July 1863. She urges Paul to ride west in a quest to find this relative who holds a guilty secret from those dreadful Civil War days. With mixed emotions he takes up the challenge, eventually arriving in the Texas town of Ongar Ridge, only to find himself accused of murdering the man he had been seeking.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Hale Fiction
    Release dateSep 1, 2017
    ISBN9780719824746
    A Dark Dawn in Texas
    Author

    Richard Smith

    Richard Smith is an award-winning video writer, director, and producer, who stepped away from the camera to write his first novel, the acclaimed Homeward Bound, in 2021. He owns a jukebox and a record collection, some of which might be welcomed at Sotheby’s, most of which would be rejected by Oxfam. Richard resides in London.

    Read more from Richard Smith

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      Book preview

      A Dark Dawn in Texas - Richard Smith

      CHAPTER ONE

      In the spring of 1875 Laura Peters knew she was close to death. Her breathing was shallow and her body was racked with constant pain.

      Life had been hard for the widow who, with a little help from neighbours, had struggled to survive with her son Paul during the war and its aftermath following Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House. Their horses had been requisitioned during the war, but their property – unlike many others – had been left intact. From an early age Paul had worked at a physical level way beyond what could be reasonably expected for his years as he helped his exhausted mother survive by cultivating crops and looking after those few chickens and goats left to them by hungry soldiers.

      Despite their struggles Laura somehow managed to make time to educate her son. She herself came from educated parents, and she used her own literary and mathematical talents to ensure that Paul would be equipped for a life that could extend beyond simple farm work.

      Now she decided that it was time to make a request which, if he accepted, would take him far away from his homeland.

      ‘Paul, I’ve got something to ask you.’

      ‘Yes, Ma. I hate to see you so unwell. You know I’ll do anything to help. What is it?’

      ‘It’s nothing to do with my health, son. It’s a challenge you can accept or ignore. It’s your choice, but I realize that you may not wish to stay here after I’m gone and there’s something important you should know about your family.’

      Paul was intrigued but mystified. ‘My family? You’re my family. My only family. What do you mean?’

      ‘I mean that you needn’t be alone if you choose to go in search of your uncle.’

      ‘My uncle? You mean Uncle Jack?’

      Fearing that his mother’s ill health was impacting on her reasoning, Paul took her hand in his and gently pointed out that his uncle, along with his father, had died at Gettysburg.

      ‘No,’ whispered his mother. ‘I believe he is still alive, though living far away from us.’

      As she spoke, Laura pulled out a crumpled letter she had held under her pillow. ‘He wrote to me,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been reluctant – scared, I suppose – to show it to you before. Now I think it’s time.’

      Slowly, disbelievingly, Paul took the paper from his mother’s trembling hand. It was dated 3 July 1868.

      My dear Laura

      This is a most difficult letter to write, and I hope it does not shock you too much. I trust that you were told officially that my brother Bruce died at Gettysburg, and I guess that you were also told, or you at least assumed, that I was dead too – even if the official word might have been that I was listed as missing.

      In fact, I have to tell you that I am living under an assumed name on the other side of the Mississippi, many miles away from my beloved Virginia and from you and my nephew Paul. I think of you and pray for you every day. To my great shame, I could not return to you after the hostilities, and believe I cannot do so in safety even now. I cannot reveal too much detail without putting myself in danger because of an act which troubles my soul every single day and night.

      I pray that you are both well, though I know you must have suffered greatly during the terrible years since your husband and I rode away on what we thought was a just and noble mission. None of us could have imagined the horrors that were to follow and the thousands who were to suffer death, injury or deprivation. I am desperate to tell you that your husband fought bravely and honourably and was a credit to us. If it is any comfort to you after all this time, you should know that he died in my arms after being badly wounded in the heat of battle.

      Selfishly, I am wary of writing more, since this letter could fall into the wrong hands. I can only say that I am now striving to atone for my guilty past by using the rest of my life to good effect. I only wish that I could share it with you, since you should know that I dearly love you both.

      Please destroy this letter when you have read it, but know that you and Paul are always in my thoughts.

      The letter was unsigned, though it was obvious who had sent it. And of course, it had not been destroyed. It had lain hidden among Laura’s possessions until she handed it to Paul, nearly seven years after it had been written.

      Now he hugged his mother, with mixed feelings of joy and anger. For all these long years he had been told that the two brothers had died in battle. Now he knew that to be a monstrous lie, and that one of them, his uncle, had survived.

      ‘Mother, why didn’t you tell me earlier?’

      ‘Because, my son, I was a coward. I was in shock for days. Then I was scared how you would react if I showed you the letter. You were too young to take any action. Now I want you to decide whether you want to ignore it, or perhaps even see if you can find the man who meant so much to your father and to me. Maybe you can help him come to terms with whatever is this guilt which he doesn’t explain.’

      Laura paused, breathless, allowing Paul to ask what she would want him to say to his uncle if he were ever to see him.

      ‘Tell him I despise him for not coming back to us when we were in so much need. Whatever his crime was, he should have faced up to it and sought forgiveness here rather than many miles away. More than that, though, you should tell him that I never stopped loving him. I loved them both – your father and your uncle. It gave me great happiness to learn from this letter that one of them still lived, when for years I had grieved for two goodly men who had meant so much to me. Whatever his sin, I found consolation knowing that your Uncle Jack was with your father when he met his Maker. I’d like him to know that.’

      Touched by his mother’s devotion to both men, Paul Peters made the momentous decision that he would indeed seek to find her missing brother-in-law. Whatever the mysterious truth that was half revealed in the letter, he desperately wanted to meet his only surviving relative.

      After Laura’s funeral, he handed over their land and possessions to the care of a neighbour and set off on a quest that was to last nearly three years as he rode further west trying to find any trace of Jack Peters. When he rode into the Texas town of Ongar Ridge late at night in July 1878, he was confident that he had at last located the man he had sought for so long.

      Utterly exhausted, it was the greatest of cruel ironies that he made the decision to check straight into one of the town’s hotels and leave meeting his uncle until the following morning. It was a decision he was to regret deeply, as it had many repercussions.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Mike Rowland was just starting his usual morning round of Ongar Ridge’s main street when young Jake Thornton came running up behind him.

      ‘Marshal, turn round and come with me. Quick. Come to Mr Jackson’s print shop.’

      The boy was considerably agitated, so the town marshal took his request seriously and turned back towards the converted barn that was used for the production of the weekly Ongar Tribune. With Jake pressing him to hurry, he did indeed quicken his normally measured pace when he saw that a poster-sized sheet had been pinned over the notice board fixed outside the ramshackle building. It usually displayed the week’s main news item. The replacement notice, however, now carried the single word JUSTICE in large print.

      The door to the barn was gaping open and the marshal followed the boy’s excited admonitions to go inside. Immediately the marshal realized that he was treading on a mess of metal type which had been tipped haphazardly over the floor. He stepped further into the building and saw more devastation. Racks of newsprint and other materials had been upturned, and back copies of the newspaper had been pulled from the wooden racks on which they had been carefully stored.

      Worst of all, though, was the sight of Peter Jackson, the editor of the Tribune. His dead body was slumped in a corner and it was clear, even in the gloom, that he carried a vicious stab wound in his stomach. Sticking out from the bloody mess was a huge Bowie knife which was stabbed through another printed notice, again carrying the single word JUSTICE.

      The picture before the marshal was made even more horrific by the fact that printers’ ink had been tipped over Jackson’s body to run down and mingle with his congealing blood. The ink’s half-empty container remained by his side.

      Marshal Rowland did not need to be a master detective to come quickly to a number of conclusions. First, it was obvious that someone had known of Jackson’s routine. Every Friday night he finished the task of getting his week’s news content into type and prepared for printing early on Saturday morning so that it was ready for distribution by young Jake Thornton and two of his friends. It was a timetable designed to ensure that, before the first Sunday church service, everyone would know the news and would have a ready store of information and gossip to enliven their discourse.

      The other obvious fact was that Jackson’s killer had been familiar enough with the type setting and printing process to know how to select and order the metal so that it would print properly. This narrowed the list of possible suspects to some degree but Mike Rowland remembered how Jackson had always been more than happy to show visitors, of whatever age, how the reverse type was used to give a correct image when printed. During the years Jackson had run his print shop, many customers had watched as he prepared notices and other literature for them. Furthermore, the marshal recognized that, despite the variable levels of

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