In 1889, Colin Hall decided to work his way from Scotland to America and take his brother up on his offer of work and a home in Texas. No one knew the events that would be set in motion by accepting that offer.
1889 Choctaw Strip, Oklahoma, Boomer-Sooner Land Rush –
Issoba Ohoyo, a Choctaw woman who went by the name Sally and Everett Hardin, her cowboy husband from Texas, were waiting with their toddler at the starting line. It was nearing noon on this bright Oklahoma day. Thousands had gathered in wagons and on horseback to race for 'free land' that the U.S. government had taken from the native Five Tribes. The free land was offered in 160-acre parcels on a first-come basis and that made today both exciting and dangerous.
Everett sat astride his sooty buckskin horse that was anxious to run. Sally held the reins of the wagon’s team while their two-year-old Suzannah sat in the back with their cur dog. Sally’s Appaloosa, Red was tied to the back of the wagon. Everett had his stakes and paperwork ready in his saddlebag. As he looked over at his wife and she smiled at him, the starting cannon fired at exactly noon. Everett's horse Buck leaped up off his front feet, pawing the air and launched into a gallop.
The race began with the thunder of a thousand hooves all around as horses and wagons took off in the race, creating a wall of dust in the Oklahoma daylight. Sally watched her husband disappear into the dust and she prayed that he would get the spot that they had mapped out. She slapped the long reins on the backs of the harnessed pair of horses and they were off. Suddenly a wagon appeared from a cloud of dust in front of them and she had to pull the horses up short. It was becoming dangerous in this cloud of racing people and horses; she was having a hard time seeing through the dust.
“Mama, Mama!” she heard her little girl call her and she turned momentarily to look behind her. Her child was crawling toward the back of the wagon.
“No, Little Bird, stay here! Binili!” she yelled in Choctaw, telling her two-year-old to sit as the dog barked. She then looked up through the back of the wagon. There was a man riding alongside her Appaloosa, grabbing at his lead rope. He was trying to steal her horse! She pulled the wagon to a stop, put on the brake and jumped out into the cloud of dust all around her. She stepped down and clung close to the wagon as she worked her way to the back. By the time she reached the back of the rig, Colin Hall had the lead rope untied and in his hand. She grabbed her horse’s halter and then attempted to pull the lead rope away from him. The thief jerked it hard away from her, her horse reared up and she fell backward away from them both. At that moment, a wagon came barreling out of the white cloud of dust as Sally fell backward into its path.
Colin reached for her but it was too late; the woman fell in front of the oncoming hooves and wheels. The team of four horses and the schooner wagon never slowed as she screamed and then fell silent. Her baby wailed from the back of the wagon, peering out and watching it all. Colin let go of her horse and dismounted his own, then ran to the crumpled heap in the dirt. He picked her up and pulled her up close to her wagon. Her neck was clearly broken and bones protruded out of her sleeves.
Oh, God forgive me, what have I done, his mind screamed. He looked down at her face; she was beautiful and brown, her long black hair having come loose and tossed around her striking face that was smeared in dust. Clearly, she was a native woman in a white woman’s clothes. Her child screamed and cried, begging for her mama. He opened the back of the wagon, then picked her up and laid her in it as the baby fell on her mother, crying. He tied the dead woman's horse to the wagon, then mounted up on his own horse and left in the chaos of it all, disappearing into the dust.
His heart was searing hot inside him as he rode away. He had only wanted to steal a horse to sell for $20 to get him to Dallas. Instead, he had caused the death of a mother and probably a wife. He wiped the tears away in the crook of his arm. How could he live with himself?
He rode hard and fast, rode until he found his friend who was sitting by his staked out land, smoking his pipe. He told no one his story but he fell to his knees on the ground and cried. Colin searched his thoughts, wondering how he had come so far from his dear mother’s arms in Edinburgh to this moment of death. Jesus, be merciful to me a sinner, he breathed and then cried with his face in the Oklahoma dust.
Land Rush, 1889, Oklahoma Historical Society
Copyright Mare Loch 2023 Little Bird © All rights reserved. Read for free on Kindle Unlimited or buy on Amazon.
The characters and events portrayed on this website and all subsequent publications are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this website may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Bình luận