Bone River by Megan Chance

Author:Megan Chance [Chance, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9781612184845
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2012-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

That night I tossed and turned, and finally I gave up any expectation of sleep. I lit the lamp and felt myself to be a little child braving nightmares, and that little child craved the comfort and reassurance of her father’s words—the things that had always comforted me in the past. He was not here, but his journals were, waiting for me.

I got out of bed, pulling on my dressing gown, taking up the lamp. The night was dark as pitch, the sky so clouded there was no moon. I heard the soft patter of rain on the rooftop. The floor was cold on my bare feet as I padded from my bedroom and into the hallway. I glanced nervously at Daniel’s door—still closed, no light peeking from beneath it, and I hurried as quickly and silently as I could downstairs, clutched by an irrational fear that I would wake him, that he would come out to find me thus—something I most assuredly did not want.

The journals were on the table. I picked up one and raced back to my room, closing the door gently behind me, a bit too relieved that I managed it unscathed. Unscathed—what a strange word to use. To think him capable of scathing me—I laughed, and to my surprise it caught hard in my throat. I was a fool, and I knew it. Scientists did not let emotion rule their thinking. I was, after all, the most evolved kind of being—not a man, of course, but still, as Agassiz said, one of the highest and last series among living beings. I did not have to give in to primitive feelings. I was happy in my life. I was happy, and here was my father’s journal to reassure me of it, to tell me again who I was. Leonie Monroe Russell. My father’s daughter. Junius’s wife.

The thought restored me, and I went back to my bed and settled the lamp on the bedside table. Then I crawled between the blankets and opened the journal.

February 15, 1852: Argument today with Old Toke. I was looking for a wooden salmon hook, which he said his people did not use anymore, much preferring bought ones made of metal, and he offered one of those, which I refused. When I said my only interests were in those that were authentic and made the old way, he was very offended and said white men cared only for the past, and not for the truth, and I said only the past was the truth. His people will all be dead soon enough, and it is irrelevant and irresponsible to imply otherwise. There is no hope to offer to his people at all. I had hoped to be able to give some solace that environment could change their future, but the experiment has not solved this question for me.

The experiment again. I frowned and continued to read.

The Indians here are lazy—all tribes, even the northern ones. They respect pleasure above all else. But the northern tribes are raiders as well, almost single-minded in their pursuit of slaves.

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