Cora, please tell us about your life:
I live a few miles outside of Weatherford, TX on the edge of the Texas frontier. During the Civil War the line of settlement rolled back more than one hundred miles. The men were off at war, and the Comanches and Kiowa knew it. They raided relentlessly seeking to take back what had been taken from them. My family came to this area from Tennessee in the mid-1850’s after my father disgraced the family name by cheating at gambling. My mother loved him dearly, and she was willing to follow him into the wilderness and beyond.
Starting a ranch in Parker County was dangerous, but my family came to love the land. My father and uncle built a double-log cabin, two cabins joined together by a wide hallway, with heavy doors protecting either end. Our cabin, barns, and grounds were like a small fortress. We were ready for attack. And attacks came.
Wow! That sounds like a big undertaking! What other trials did you face?
It was my father’s drinking and the war that really ravaged our family.
By the time the Civil War ended, there was no one left but me and little half-brother Charlie. Charlie was my father’s secret son from a Comanche woman. Right about the time the war started, she brought the boy to my family for us to raise. My mother, saint that she was, took him in and loved him like her own son. My father was a different story, could hardly even look at the boy.
After my parents’ passed, some folks said I should go back to Tennessee where I had kin, forget the ranch. But these were the same folks who’d been wagging their tongues about Charlie for years, especially since my family moved to town during the war.
How sad, Cora. I’m sorry for your loss. What did you do next?
I wasn’t having anything of it. I packed Charlie up, and we left the rented room and returned to the weathered ranch. My family had sweated and bled for that land. It had become our home. Besides, I couldn’t give hope that Jeb, my older brother who’d left home after a falling out with our pa years before, would return. Jeb joined the Union forces during the war, fought as a Yankee, but that didn’t make no mind to me. He was my brother, the best friend I’d ever had.
That was brave of you and Charlie. What happened when you returned to the ranch?
After our return to the ranch, some land speculator showed up claiming Pa owed him a gambling debt and had signed over the ranch as a guarantee. The scoundrel aimed to steal our home, willing to go to court to do so. Well, I wasn’t having nothing of it. Days later, I headed into town and offered to sell him a third of the property as payment, but the greedy scum wanted all of it. Dear Lord in heaven, I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I couldn’t, wouldn’t give up.
Good for you for not giving up! What happened next?
Then, a stranger showed up. His fine-threaded sack coat and trousers covered with dust, as if he’d traveled a long way. The slightest trace of a limp in his left leg, he walked slowly across the furrowed rows of freshly turned dirt where I stood whacking away at clods. A lock or two of dark brown hair dipped onto his forehead beneath his slouch hat. He carried himself with the firmness of chin and posture that made me think he’d probably been an officer during the war, but there was a haggardness about his features that bespoke a man weary of battle.
As soon as he spoke, I knew he was a Yankee, not a trace of Southern in his speech. And his words about knocked me to my knees. My brother Jeb was dead, and had sent this man, his friend, in his stead to look after us…
As if I needed looking after. Of course, I greatly appreciated his coming and bringing word of Jeb, and I drank up every word he had to say about their friendship. However, the man, Ben McKenzie was his name, tried to spare us the gruesome details of what it was like for him and Jeb in Andersonville Prison Camp, but I could see the soul-deep shadows in his hazel eyes. A gaze that quickened my pulse and drew me in, when common sense said run.
Ben McKenzie needed to head right back to Pennsylvania where he’d come from, but he was a stubborn man, not prone to listening to reason.
I’d love to learn more about this Ben McKenzie, but we’ll have to save that for another time. Sounds like he showed up right when you could use the help.
About Sherry Shindelar: Originally from Tennessee, Sherry loves to take her readers into the past and share her faith. She is an avid student of the Civil War and the Old West. She’s always been a romantic at heart. When she is not busy writing, she is an English professor working to pass on her love of writing to her students. Sherry is an award-winning writer: 2023 Genesis finalist, Maggie finalist, and Crown finalist. She currently resides in Minnesota with her husband of thirty-eight years (Their romance started on a city bus on Valentine’s Day). She has three grown children and three grandchildren.
You can find Sherry and her book online at these links.
Instagram: sherryshindelarauthor
Sherry Shindelar Author Goodreads author page
Find Texas Reclaimed HERE.
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