Vengeance is Mine

In a few minutes, he returned and said, "Young man, these hides are as good as I’ve seen this year. I am willing to pay you top dollar for them. I’ll pay you ninety cents for each coon hide, a dollar and two-bits for each possum hide, and two dollars and a half for each mink." Then he glanced down at the paper where he was figuring and said, "The total at these prices comes to twenty-eight dollars and seventy five cents. Will you accept this?"

I thought this was more than fair. I would have been happy with twenty dollars, but I didn’t want to seem too anxious-- so I was slow to accept.

Before I left town, I went by the justice of peace office to find out what he charged for marrying a couple. He told me the fee was two dollars. I thought that was affordable. Finally I went back down to the Farmer’s Market area where Shorty was kept. I paid the attendant six-bits for the oats he had fed Shorty, and then mounted and started for home.

In a few hours we were home. I rode Shorty straight to the barn and was planning to feed him again. As I led him to his stall, I heard something behind the barn on the backside of the stalls. I walked out and around the barn, and when I got to the back, I found Papa lying on the ground in a puddle of blood.

Quickly I rushed over to check on him as I cried out, "Papa, what happened?"

He couldn’t talk. All he could do was groan. I drug him out of the blood and tried to help him sit up. He crunched over with pain when he tried to sit. I had him to lay back down. His head was bleeding from a gash resulting from a blow to the back of the head. I took off my shirt and wiped away as much blood as I could, and then I wrapped it around his head in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Then I told him to stay still while I went to the house for help.

I ran as quickly as I could to the house and found Lewis. He rushed back down to the barn with me, and together we were able to help Papa to the house. Before we reached the house, Mama noticed us and came out to see what was wrong. Even though she was not at full strength herself, she could do many of the household duties. She went into the house ahead of us and started warming some water and went to the medicine chest and got some bandages. We got Papa into the kitchen where we eased him down into a chair. Mama dressed his head wound. We found out he also had a cut above his right eye and had three teeth loosened. He not only had head injuries, he seemed to have three or four broken ribs. His condition seemed serious, but not life threatening. The broken ribs were why he couldn’t talk. Matter of fact, it hurt him to even take a breath. This was going to lay Papa up for several days, if not weeks. After we got him into bed and his pain seemed to ease some, Mama and I discussed his situation and decided it was not necessary to call Doc Vickers.

Well, I had my suspicions. After Papa was easy, I went back out to the barn to look around. Nothing seemed to be missing, but I noticed on the east side of the smithy shop some horse tracks, and one set had the markings of a broken shoe. This was the same pattern that Charles Bradley’s horse left at the Brushy Creek crossing last October. That was all I needed. I was convinced Charles and Howard Bradley, in an attempt to get even with me for breaking Charles’ nose, did this to Papa. They had overstepped their boundary. I remembered the lesson Brother Cash preached about vengeance, but it seemed the Lord needed a little help this time!

It was almost dark by the time we tended to Papa’s wounds and checked things out. I knew I would have a difficult time sleeping, and so I decided I would ride back to town and talk with Sheriff Tillman. I knew he would not be in the sheriff’s office at night, particularly as late as it would be by the time I could get there, but I needed to do something. I was not going to sit by and let the Bradley boys rough up Papa and do nothing about it.