Brand of the Hunted by John Glasby

Author:John Glasby [Glasby, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Pioneering Press
Published: 2016-04-27T06:00:00+00:00

5. Twin Creeks

It was ten days later and nearly two hundred miles by the time the wagon train rolled into the township of Twin Creeks. In the hot dusty sunlight the town seemed asleep with the heat haze of high noon hanging over it. The wagons had stopped half a mile from the edge of the town and Neil and Jackson had ridden into the town to check on supplies. They reined their mounts at the end of the long street that stretched clear in front of them to where it moved all the way through the town and out the far side. The buildings had been erected on either side of that single street, stores and saloons, hotels and livery stables.

It was a town that was similar to hundreds of others in the west. A frontier town which pinpointed where the tide of civilisation, moving westward, had halted at some time in the recent past and men had set up a community here, to act as a bulwark against the Indians, who had ridden these plains long before the white man had come and wrested the land from them. Now, even though the white man had come, the place was still almost as wild as it had been in those early days when the frontier had stopped right there and there had been nothing beyond, to the west, but empty desert and unexplored mountains, herds of buffalo that roamed the plains in their millions.

The lie of the land on either side of Twin Creeks was of two different types. To the east stretched the rough country which merged gradually into the lush grasslands of the Sherman spread, with low rolling ridges that blended perfectly with the background. Westward lay the tall hills, a rugged country of rock and sharp-cut ravines, here pinnacles and boulders and buttes were all jumbled together, tumbling over each other as they lay spread out to join the tall mountains that spiked the horizon. The town lay in a wide hollow between these two strikingly opposite terrains, with the clear water of the two creeks that ran down from the hills to the west and gave the town its name, shining brilliantly in the hot sunlight.

Neil’s eyes searched along the apparently deserted street for any sign of life. There were some. Men who sat on the boardwalks, in the shade of the single-storey buildings, their legs up on the wooden staging on the edge of the street, their hats pulled well down over their eyes. A handful of horses stood lazily in front of one of the saloons, tethered to the hitching post, their heads dropping in the sullen, oppressive heat.

Slowly the two men rode along the main street, eyes alert. It was not so much the look as the actual feel of possible danger that sent little warning currents surging through Neil’s body. There was no doubt that they were exciting some curiosity from the people there. It was quite usual for folks to

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