B00A81XMGA EBOK by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

They did as Tom McCandish had suggested and continued on westward into the dying afternoon until, some ten miles later, they came to a wide area of grassy parkland that offered wood, graze and water, and there Sam called a halt and set about getting the emigrants settled in for the night.

Darkness fell softly, like purple powder drifting down from the heavens to steal the blue from the sky. The men Sam had sent out to cut up and fetch in the dead steer came in a short time later and soon the sweet smell of freshly-cooked meat began to spice up the cool evening air.

At last Sam felt some of the day’s tension leave him. The Cheyennes were behind them. The trouble with Tom McCandish had been averted. But there was still Reilly to consider, so Sam took a turn around the perimeter to check on the pickets before going off to break bread with Cyrus Kennedy, who had extended the invitation to him and Matt earlier that day.

He paused a while before heading for Kennedy’s wagon, enjoying the peace and tranquillity of dusk. Around them, the land was quiet, empty, immense. There was a time when men had called this ‘Unorganized Territory’, and not so very long ago, either. But there was precious little left of the untamed wilderness now, he thought. He remembered the country as it had been in his youth, raw and dangerous and exciting. It could still be all three, of course, but sometimes, surrounded by the trappings of civilization, a man tended to forget that and imagine himself as some kind of leftover from a past age, a dinosaur perhaps, with no place in the modern world.

Ah, but out here, here where there was hardly any such thing as civilization, just simple folk with honest aims, it was easier to recall the old days. And for the first time, as darkness thickened from the east and settled around him, Sam began to realize that perhaps that was why these people were risking everything to reach Spruce Valley; to get away from the rest of mankind, the ugly side of it, at any rate. If that was the case, then he concluded that maybe they weren’t so dumb after all.

By the time he reached Kennedy’s wagon, Matt was already there waiting for him. They dined on plain fare and spoke of the journey, the many Kennedy children, Galveston Jones, the other emigrants. It was peaceful and pleasant until sometime around eight o’clock, when one of the pickets came in from the south side of the camp and trotted over with an ancient but serviceable rifle held across his chest and a worried look on his square, ruddy face.

Sam and Matt had already seen him coming, of course, and by the time he reached them, they were on their feet, awaiting his arrival. “What’s the problem, Haas?” Sam asked when he was near enough.

The German hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “There iss a rider coming in, Mr.

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