The Founding Father

“What?” Isaac asked.

“Nothing,” John said, clapping him on the shoulder affectionately. “Just thinking to myself. Let’s get back to work.”

* * *

THE NEXT DAY, he put on his good suit and went back to the Springs to check on Ellen Colby. He expected to find her reclining in her suite, or playing with her father’s dog. What he did find was vaguely shocking.

Far from being in her room, Ellen was on the sidewalk with one arm around a frightened young black boy who’d apparently been knocked down by an angry man.

“…he got in my way. He’s got no business walking on the sidewalk anyway. He should be in the street. He should be dead. They should all be dead! We lost everything because of them, and then they got protected by the very army that burned down our homes! You get away from him, lady, he’s not going anywhere until I teach him a lesson!”

She stuck out her chin. “I have no intention of moving, sir. If you strike him, you must strike me, also!”

John moved up onto the sidewalk. He didn’t look at Ellen. His eyes were on the angry man, and they didn’t waver. He didn’t say a word. He simply flipped back the lapel of his jacket to disclose the holstered pistol he was carrying.

“Another one!” the angry man railed. “You damned Yankees should get the hell out of Texas and go back up north where you belong!”

“I’m from Georgia,” John drawled. “But this is where I belong now.”

The man was taken aback. He straightened and glared at John, his fists clenched. “You’d draw on a fellow Southerner?” he exclaimed.

“I’m partial to brown skin,” John told him with a honeyed drawl. His tall, lithe figure bent just enough to make an older man nearby catch his breath. “But you do what you think you have to,” he added deliberately.

“There,” Ellen Colby said haughtily, helping the young man to his feet. “See what you get when you act out of ignoble motives?” she lashed at the threatening man. “A child is a child, regardless of his heritage, sir!”

“That is no child,” the man said. “It is an abomination….”

“I beg to disagree.” The voice came from a newcomer, wearing a star on his shirt, just making his way through the small crowd. It was Deputy Marshal James Graham, well known locally because he was impartially fair. “Is there a problem, madam?” he asked Ellen, tipping his hat to her.

“That man kicked this young man off the sidewalk and attacked him,” Ellen said, glaring daggers at the antagonist. “I interfered and Mr. Jacobs came along in time to prevent any further violence.”

“Are you all right, son?” the marshal asked the young boy, who was openmouthed at his unexpected defense.

“Uh, yes, sir. I ain’t hurt,” he stammered.

Ellen Colby took a coin from her purse and placed it in the young man’s hand. “You go get yourself a stick of peppermint,” she told him.

He looked at the coin and grinned. “Thank you kindly, miss, but I’ll buy my mama a sack of flour instead. Thank you, too,” he told the marshal and John Jacobs, before he cut his losses and rushed down the sidewalk.

Graham turned to the man who’d started the trouble. “I don’t like troublemakers,” he said in a voice curt with command. “If I see you again, in a similar situation, I’ll lock you up. That’s a promise.”

The man spat onto the ground and gave all three of the boy’s defenders a cold glare before he turned and stomped off in the opposite direction.

“I’m obliged to both of you,” Ellen Colby told them.

John shrugged. “It was no bother.”

The deputy marshal chuckled. “A Georgian defending a black boy.” He shook his head. “I am astonished.”

John laughed. “I have a former slave family working with me,” he explained. His face tautened. “If you could see the scars they carry, even the children, you might understand my position even better.”

The deputy nodded. “I do understand. If you have any further trouble,” he told Ellen, “I am at your service.” He tipped his hat and went back to his horse.