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This page last updated on Thursday, July 19, 2007
Judy and Ronald Culp
Davis Mountains
State Park, Texas
Fort Davis, TX
The post hospital.
The Search For
Freedom
Chapter Three

The coach bumped and lurched from side to side, jolted by each rock in the road as it rolled down the poorly kept
stage road in far West Texas.  Used by a few ranchers, soldiers and supply wagons, the road was more a suggestion
than a real thing.  With the railroad expected to pass through the country in the coming year, the favored road from
the county seat went south and west towards the water wells at the base of the Chinati Mountains where a town was to
be built.  One day the road would link Fort Davis and West Texas to civilization.  Maddie looked out the coach
window just as a wind gust raised a puff of dust as the coach wheeled across a dry stretch of road.
"Ugh. This is not civilized!"  Maddie muttered to herself as she coughed and pulled an already gritty handkerchief
from her purse.  Maddie removed her hat and shook the dust from it.   She attempted to wipe her face but only ended
up smearing the brown grit.  The desert dust had nearly ruined the silk flowers so that the hat no longer resembled the
once-lovely present that Samuel had so lovingly given her so many months ago.  No.  It was a little over two years
ago.  When there was a Samuel, she whispered to herself.
"What did you say, Miss Maddie?"  A small hand patted her on the wrist and Maddie turned in the coach seat to face
Lomida.  She was Maddie's ticket out of Fort Davis for the school holiday.  Playing chaperone for Lomida had been a
gift in disguise for Maddie.  Thanksgiving by herself at the post with all the older ladies looking down their noses at
the "single" schoolteacher was not a very pleasant proposition.  No, this had come at the perfect time.  A couple of
days in El Paso, an opportunity to look for a new position in a real town, discreetly of course, were just what she
needed.  
“Are you comfortable, Lomida?” Maddie asked as the stage jolted once more.
“I think I’d like to rest.  My leg does hurt just a little.”
Maddie forgot her own problems as she helped the small girl lie down on the seat.

The horses were tiring as the stage reached the edge of a low mesa where the road followed a downhill grade to the
station at El Muerto less than a quarter of a mile distant.  Maddie caught part of a murmured question from one of the
soldiers on top of the coach, something like, “…you see the corporal?”
“Heads up, boys,” the driver said.  “Something ain’t right.”
Maddie put her arm protectively around Lomida, while looking out across the deserted plain as the coach slowed at
the station yard.  A sudden sound of a gunshot and a horse screamed while the coach slewed sideways to a
shuddering halt.  At the same time a spatter of shots rang out, one of the guards fell off the coach, struck the left rear
wheel and collapsed in a heap in the road.  The driver grunted, and a man cried, “No, please!” in a terrified voice,
followed by the sharp crack of two more shots fired close by the coach.  From her window Maddie saw that the right
lead horse was down, probably dead, and the other horses of the team were shying away from the smell of blood.  
The opposite door of the stagecoach jerked open to reveal a fierce Apache warrior.  The Indian, a Winchester rifle
held loosely in his hands, wore Mexican peasant clothing with a black vest, his long hair held under a brightly
colored headband, two belts of cartridges in cloth loops crossed his chest.  The man scowled at a frightened Lomida.
“Get away from that door!” shouted Maddie.
“I want my poppa,” wailed Lomida burying her face in Maddie’s shoulder.
More shots rang out behind the coach followed by jubilant shouts and whoops.  The Indian looked in the direction of
the shouts and called out in a language neither Maddie nor Lomida could understand.  One dark face, then two
more, peered in at Maddie.  From the opposite side of the coach three more Indians came into view, grim and fierce
men, whose agitated, hard eyes glittered with the excited light of battle. One of the men, dressed in a breech-clout
over white trousers, a short blue army jacket over a bare chest, his long dark hair hanging loosely under a white straw
hat, reached in to push back her bonnet and touch Maddie’s silver-blonde hair.  The frightened young woman drew
back from the Indian’s touch.  Her fear quickened when she recognized the Indian as someone she had seen at the
fort.  Half Man, yes, that was it.  She remembered with a shudder the way his eyes followed her at the post.  Joseph
Half Man he was called.  He came to the post to see his sister, the one they called Indian Annie, who was Captain
Law’s cook and housekeeper!

Copyright  © 2007 by Ronald and Judy Culp