Chapter 8
In the morning they all gathered for breakfast. Alex and Cooke
volunteered to do the cooking and the kitchen smelled wonderful!
Francine was showing Cordell her husband's family tree.
"It's pretty easy to trace," she explained. "We
have family Bibles going back to the 1700s, and documents before
that. William's great-great-grandfather was a marshall in the
1850s. He died when he was only 21, so fathered only two
children. His son, however, fathered five children, and his
second son Daniel, fathered three. His second son, William,
fathered four, and his first son, William, fathered three, the
first being my dear husband in 1954."
"Wonderful photographs!" Alex put in.
"Yes," Cordell agreed.
"But here's the real wild thing!" said Twenty Arrows.
"It seems that marshall got around! He had an Apache son who
was called Son Of Thunder. Here's his picture, here. He had three
sons, the youngest, Rolling Thunder, had five children, the first
one, Shadow Walker, had three. His first son, Dreaming Walker,
had two, and his son Burning Arrow, had two children, the
youngest of whom is yours truly! William and I are descended from
the same great-grandfather!"
"You're kidding!" Cooke put in as she put down a plate
of bacon.
"Nope!" Twenty Arrows answered, "all well
documented. My great-grandfather's birth certificate was
registered. It says clearly and distinctly Father- William James
Walker, Devlin, Texas."
"Well, I'll be!" Cooke giggled. "How did THAT
happen?"
"It's quite a story," Francine put in, "and one
his wife didn't care for. I read it in her diary." Cordell
was holding the book of pictures. "Who's this?" he
asked. "Oh!" Francine answered, "That's Fire
Walker, Rolling Thunder's second son. Kind of a sad story. He was
falsely accused of killing a white man in his teens, and fled. He
simply disappeared off the face of the Earth! No one knows what
happened to him for sure, except in 1936 his family received this
photo." She opened the book to the back that showed him with
a little boy. But it was obvious the picture was taken so no one
could tell where they were. It was marked from a town in Arizona.
Cordell stared at the picture, wide eyed, took out his wallet,
extracted a battered photograph from it, and placed it beside the
one in the book.
"My God!" Francine gasped. "Where did you get
THAT?" "
From my grandfather's belongings," he answered. "It's
the only picture I have of him with my father. He didn't like
cameras, avoided having his picture taken. But my grandfather was
Cherokee, not Apache?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," William put in,
"that an Indian on the run hid himself among people of
another tribe, taking their customs and dress."
Cooke came over and stared at the photographs then, Alex.
"Good God!" Alex stammered, "That means you're all
related!"
"I suppose some genetic test might confirm it," Cordell
put in. "But I'll have a talk with some of my Cherokee
relatives. If it's true, we've got to contact his Apache
relatives and let them know what a great man he became."
"It must be!" Twenty Arrows agreed.
William looked at his watch. "Where's Trivette?" he
remarked. "I want you two back in the field, checking out
some of those warehouses discreetly. Walker and I will make the
attempt at tagging Shakona. We should have plenty of time. He
usually doesn't get up before eleven."
Trivette came in the door panting. "Have you been listing to
the APBSs?" he asked. Everyone shook their heads. "A
U.S. Marshall was supposed to have a custody hearing 9:30 this
morning at the courthouse downtown. He had turned his wife in for
drug dealing, and she'd just finished a three and a half year
prison sentence and was filing for custody of her children on the
grounds that her husband's lifestyle endangered them. While they
were waiting in a waiting room preparing to go in two men
entered, overpowered the bailiffs, and the mother, who was
visiting the children, took the children and fled! Broad
daylight, from a secure court building! Could it have been The
O'Shaughanesseys?"
William looked totally perplexed. "It's not their M.O!"
he remarked. "They don't usually take their victims until
AFTER they've made the sale. But if this case has been
publicized, if they knew there were marshall's children at a
certain place in a certain time, the temptation to grab them may
have been overwhelming." He turned to his wife. "You
and Alex better get down to the courthouse, take the mug shots we
have and see if the bailiffs can identify The O'Shaughanesseys.
If they've taken the children they won't be holding them long.
That means the deal has to be soon!"
The phone rang and Alex picked it up. "What'?" she
muttered, "Yes! Thank you! Thank you very much!" She
hung up the phone. "The caretaker opening the ranger museum
this morning was overpowered by perhaps a dozen men. They quickly
entered the museum and stripped it of its most valuable
artifacts, and fled. The caretaker is injured, but he'll be all
right."
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