Dakota Skies by Paul Lederer

Author:Paul Lederer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480488472
Publisher: Open Road Media

SIX

I’ve been angrier, but I can’t remember when. The girl had climbed aboard Dodger and hied him out of the yard, leaving me afoot, hungry and tired. I did find my buffalo skin coat thrown into the mud and shouldered into it, unable to dredge up much gratitude for the small favor Regina might have thought she was doing me.

In the doorway of the soddy, Carlton watched me for a minute, then shaking his head as if saying, ‘What else can you expect from a woman?’ he went inside, closed the door and left me to my unhappy fate.

With the sun already tilting toward the eastern horizon it was easy enough to follow Dodger’s hoofprints, imprinted deep in the muck beneath the patchy snow. I trudged on, unsurprised when after a mile or so, my horse’s tracks merged with those of the southward-bound wagon. The wind had risen again, cold as ice on the back of my neck, and the inconstant clouds continued to gather, to break and shift across the fading colors of the sky.

The dusk was now darkening all around me into indistinct purples. I began to slow my march, following the tracks uncertainly. I had given up any idea of reaching safe haven on that night, resigning myself to a frigid night alone on the prairie when something caused my head to lift.

I smelled smoke.

The land was damp, the mud doughy and deep. It was dark enough that I had no shadow. I had lost the tracks of my horse and the wagon alike, but somewhere ahead of me – not far if my senses could be trusted – a fire offering warmth and companionship was burning. I knew it could be an enemy camp, of course, but the chill in my bones prodded me at least to survey the situation.

I don’t know if you could say it was better than I had hoped for, but certainly it was more expansive. For after another quarter of a mile I spotted the jumbled shantytown I took to be Waycross. Tiny shacks, a few tipis, two adobe brick buildings low, flat and unremarkable, and the glint of lanternlight. I didn’t care if it was an outlaw town or a collection of thieves, killers and thugs living alone on the prairie, far from any arm of the law. There would be food there – and warmth.

I trudged on with a new sense of purpose. The poorest sanctuary was preferable to the night I had envisioned on the open range. I was a man with a good rifle and two silver dollars. I was the wealthiest I had ever been in my life.

I walked the deep-rutted muddy streets of the dismal, scattered town, weary and chill. I knocked on the door of a tiny hut, seemingly built from the remnants of the abandoned wagons of overland pioneers, but no one would open the door to me.

Slogging on through the ankle-deep mud I heard the tinny jangle of a banjo and someone’s shout of joy.

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