Termination Shock

“I don’t think anything has gone wrong in particular. It’s just that there are a lot of nervous people on the other end of the line. Trying to work through all the contingencies.”

“Those people didn’t like it that you went down the river like you did.”

“They didn’t like anything about this.”

Rufus nodded. “So your daughter thinks I look like her? That’s a fine compliment.”

Saskia smiled. “I’m glad you think so! I consider Amelia quite beautiful even though her looks are unusual by Dutch standards.”

Rufus shifted his gaze to Saskia. “Most Dutch look more like you.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s not a bad way to look either.”

Saskia swallowed.

“Takes all kinds,” Rufus added. “The reason I look the way I do is because of my great-great-granddad Hopewell, who was an African man. He was a slave owned by Chickasaw Indians.”

“Indians owned slaves?”

Rufus nodded. “Oh yes, ma’am. Lots of ’em. Chickasaws were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, down in the Southeast. They lived like white people. White people had slaves. So they had slaves too. Later the Five Tribes got pushed west across the Mississippi to Oklahoma, which was called Indian Territory in those days. Took their slaves with ’em. Hopewell, he was born into slavery around about 1860. When the Civil War started, a lot of the Five Civilized Tribes supported the Confederacy, because they wanted to keep things like they was. Now, when Juneteenth came—the day the slaves were emancipated—Hopewell’s family took the name Grant.”

“After the general?”

Rufus smiled and nodded.

“So that’s my last name. I’m Rufus Grant. Never properly introduced myself.”

“Got it. Nice to properly meet you.”

“Right back at you. Now, the family kept living where they were, among the Chickasaws. Which was not a good decision. Because, out of all the Five Civilized Tribes, the Chickasaws lived farthest west in what we now call Oklahoma. Which put them right up against the Comancheria. The lands of the Comanches. The most powerful and feared of all the tribes that ever was. And in those days they were still living as they always had. They would raid the farms and ranches of the white people and the Five Tribes. One day in 1868 they raided the Chickasaws, stole their horses, burned everything down. They had a policy, I guess you could say, about captives. Small children, who were more trouble than they were worth, they would just kill. Adults they would kill slowly. But kids in a certain range of ages, maybe seven to twelve, they would take with them and adopt them into the tribe.”

“And Hopewell Grant was eight years old.”

Rufus nodded. “He was eight years old and he was good with horses, which was a useful skill to the Comanches. So they took him off into captivity and later traded him to the Quahadi.”

“Quahadi?”

“A different Comanche band. The most wild, fierce, and free of all of ’em. The last to surrender. But surrender they did, eventually. So in 1875, ol’ Hopewell ended up at Fort Sill. Oklahoma. Not far from the Chickasaw country where he had been born. Of course his whole family had been killed off in that raid, and he had become a true Comanche by that point.”

“Except for . . . the fact that he was Black,” Saskia said.

Rufus shook his head. “Did not matter to the Comanches. Comanches were a movement, not a race. There were white Comanches, Mexican Comanches, Black ones, ones who used to be Caddo or Cheyenne or what have you.”

“When you say he ended up at Fort Sill . . .”

“They were kept sort of as prisoners for a while. The Period of Forced Captivity. But when things settled down the Comanches ended up controlling some land in those parts. Allotments of a hundred sixty acres were given out to them. Many of ’em leased their allotments out to white ranchers, raised cattle and such. Hopewell worked as a cowboy. Married a younger woman round about 1900—we think she was half Comanche and half white. Had a son. My great-grandfather. He grew up on the ranch and enlisted in the army in World War One. They needed men who could wrangle horses, so he did that. Came back, started a family with a woman who looked like him—we think she was Mexican, mostly—and so on and so forth. My grandpa served in World War Two. Came back in one piece, started a family around boomer times, had my dad. Anyway, you get the picture. Up until about World War II we were horse people, but when cavalry became armored cav, that changed. I was a mechanic. Fixed tanks and APCs and such.” He smiled. “It’s all about mobility, see.”

HOUSTON