Cloud Woman's Spirit by Loretta C. Rogers

Author:Loretta C. Rogers [Rogers, Loretta C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Multicultural, Western, Paranormal
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Jim rode for three days, stopping long enough to rest his horse, to snatch a few hours of sleep, and to satisfy his hunger by eating a little sliced roast beef and biscuits he had bought at the cafe. He spent hours hunched in the saddle, a canvas poncho wrapped around his heavy coat to help ward off the biting cold.

He used the time to wonder about Bufford Dobbs and his brothers. Usually a family had one bad seed to cause them shame. He found it unusual that all four of the men he hunted were cut from the same cloth of meanness. He wondered about their parentage. Had these men brought their mother heart-rending grief? Had the man who sired them reveled in his sons’ insanity? And surely it was a form of madness that drove them to carry out such extreme acts of violence—especially against women.

The pre-dawn November morning boasted frigid temperatures, led by a howling wind that gripped the countryside. Jim rode along the snaking trail, allowing the gelding to pick its way. Faint light began to show along the horizon. It wouldn’t be long until daylight, he reasoned. He was gambling on Bufford Dobbs’ turn of mind, and felt certain he was right. It was cold. Damned cold. The men would find a place to hunker down. No sane human who cared two whits about his horse or his own neck would risk moving along on such dangerous footing in the dark of night, he reasoned, even if these weren’t sane men.

Around midmorning, with the sky clearing and no signs of renegades anywhere along his back trail, Jim spotted a hollow, well off the path, and drew to a halt. The bay was in need of a few minutes’ rest and a handful of grain, and Jim felt the need for something more substantial than the roast beef and biscuits he’d had earlier.

Walking across the crest of one of the hills that encircled the hollow, he made doubly certain he’d not overlooked any riders in the area and then returned to where the gelding waited, poured a small amount of sweet feed into the horse’s nosebag, and put it in place before seeing to his own needs.

In short order, he had gathered enough dry twigs to build a fire and in ample time had a pot of water heating, balanced on a flat rock, and ready for the ground coffee.

He ate quickly, consuming a can of heated beans, the last of his biscuits, a can of peaches, and two cups of coffee. The meal might have to last him until dark—or perhaps later, if he discovered the Dobbs gang anywhere in the vicinity.

When the meal was finished, he stored the utensils in one of the grub sacks, removed the nosebag from the gelding and returned it to his saddlebags, then once again climbed a hill to search for signs of campfire smoke or mounted riders.

There was still no sign, and that set up a faint worry within him.

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