Now, Daddy was one with a facility. I especially remember his words, when we would sit side by side on the front porch as we watched thin, fluffed gray clouds stretched across the face of a full round moon--fat and orange, just risen over the horizon. 

With his poet's soft, dreamy voice, he would let his thoughts wash over me, his yearning evident. 

"I have scaled the heights of the Great Rift Valley, fed wild elephants from the palm of my hand. I have dined under a grape arbor beside the wandering Rhine, drifted down the Danube in smoky, lavender tinted mists, traversed Europe on the Orient Express, drunk my health at Evie's Bar on the corner of the Villa Parnese, yet I dream of a narrow valley ... cut by a thin, rushing, pure water stream, under waltzing willow trees ... that stood between low, grass covered buttes and the high red cliffs of the escarpment beyond. 

Juniper scented the air, so soft, it caressed my cheek more sweetly than any lover ever had.".

He spoke in the sing-song, poetic cadence, of someone who'd taught themselves to read, and transferred this music to their everyday, vocal words, used when telling a story. 

I don't remember Daddy reading much. If he did, it was long into the night whilst the house slept. Much of Daddy's knowledge came by word of mouth... it's easier to talk and labor (darn near impossible to read and labor) at the same time. 

It might surprise many people to learn that laborers have minds, and that they share any knowledge that comes their way. One of our hands who helped on the dairy, a man named Tiny (like most of that nickname, was anything but) had served in Europe during the last great war, and he thrilled us both, Daddy and me, with tales of that world. 

Tiny described his years spent in foxholes, wiping the blood of his companions from his eyes in order to fire at the enemy, as though he'd been on a leisurely 'world tour' for his personal edification and enjoyment. Then, too, he might have been protecting the innocent ears of the young girl who listened to his adventures with such rapt attention. 

And, so, it was with a somewhat jaundiced eye that I looked towards a future spent in the unexciting Texas countryside. Paris or bust became my motto, or at least California... or New York... points excitement. 

More than any other, it was Daddy's words, echoing through my childhood, pulling me towards dreams of my own. But, in his practical, country, common sense self, he also stressed, and I tried to temper my dreams by remembering, "Nothing worth keeping is ever given free, there's always a price to pay." 

My father's grandfather was born on the Chickasaw Nation reservation. Born just before the turn of the century, to parents who'd survived the 'Little Trail of Tears.'  They came from Tennessee and Georgia, where water flowed freely in rushing streams, beneath canopies of trees, where game was still plentiful and their people had the opportunity to become doctors and lawyers and live on their own plantations. 

A homeland with a history of living and working with their white brothers since before the Revolution, until a new wave of European immigrants decided to take the Chickasaw homeland for their own. One historian has written that these new immigrants were illiterate peasants, who came to America to become landowners, masters of their own futures, and were angry that common savages held rights they had never known. 

Daddy's Aunt Dovey(nee Harper) once said that their Chickasaw grandmother's native name was too difficult to pronounce, but, because one syllable sounded like Belle, that's what she was called. She didn't have much use for her half-white grandchildren and would pinch them till they had a bruise if they got too close to her. 

I don't know much about Mama's father, except that he made his living gambling in the oil field towns scattered over Texas and Oklahoma, and that he deserted my grandmother when Mama was too young to remember him. 

Her father figure was her stepfather. I remember one of his  stories of having watched a man shot to death. He and his father'd bought supplies from the small trading store situated near Spanish Station. (but across the river in the Territories from where I was born)

"Only nine, still in knickers, I was a sittin' on the seat of the wagon, impatient to leave. Daddy wouldn't stop talkin' to a stranger who'd just come out of the store. Kid's don't understand how grownups get hungry for the sound of adult voices, when they live out in the sticks with no other company but a skinny boy, hound dogs and mules for companionship.

I was more interested in the cowboy riding up in a cloud of yellow dust. He reined in, pulled out his gun and shot the stranger Daddy was talking to, point blank. Then, getting off his horse, he walked over and with the toe of his boot, rolled the shot man over onto his back. The man on the ground looked up, said, "You done killed me," and died. The gunman got back on his horse and rode off, never looked at either the man or the boy who'd witnessed murder. Why should he? Wasn't no law anywhere's about. For all we knew, it was an act of justice and who were we to interfere?"

I say half ashamed, because when you got right down to it,  I loved our dairy. The nearest neighbor's children lived a mile up the road from us. The youngest was the same age as my brother, Bob.  They were not always ameniable to having me in tow, leaving me a sometimes lonely kid whose only friends shared a dusty barnyard.

At the time, I didn't miss having playmates. I had daddy, after all, and my barnyard pals. Most farm girls work side by side with their mothers, but since I was a tomboy,  Daddy needed my help more with the outside chores. That was okay, because he and I played as we worked. Stories of the history of the land where we lived were the basis of that play, carried out with words and imaginations. 

And, living where we did, brought all the history to life for me. The area around Spanish Fort and Red River Station was perhaps one of the most significant historical spots in the history of Texas. For, it was there where cattle were forded across the treacherous Red River on their way to Kansas. It was the one place, where a bend in the river slowed the currents, and one of the few places not lined by inaccessible high banks, though even there, quicksand was a constant danger. 

I could stand beneath the towering tree, I cannot remember now if it was pecan, cottonwood or oak, all that I remember is how high the branches soared, but, I could stand there, beside that rutted, dusty yellow road, and hear the lowing of cattle in my heart's heart. Daddy said they would be packed so tightly together, the cowboys could walk across the river on their backs. Now, wouldn't that be a silly sight to see?

I know the folks who live in the two settlements would dislike my lumpimg them together, but in my memories they are so tightly woven I have difficulty separating them.   ....B.E.