In the Shadow of the Hills by Madeline Baker

Author:Madeline Baker [Baker, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

In St. Louis, I sent my mother a wire, advising her to sell my house and everything in it, and do as she pleased with the money. I didn’t need it. I had better than five thousand dollars in my war bag; another thirty grand salted away in a New York bank.

For the first time, I was glad my mother had married Roger Wentworth. She had a husband to care for her now. Soon, she would have a child. A white child. One who would fulfill all the dreams and ambitions she once had for me.

With my affairs in the east settled, I turned to my own comfort. I bought myself a set of buckskins, a flat-brimmed Stetson, and a pair of hard-soled moccasins, determined never to wear shoes again. I purchased a new Henry rifle and several boxes of shells.

Later, I went looking for a horse. There were plenty of horse traders in town; some honest, some not. I steered clear of the animals the traders were over-eager to sell, ignored their double talk. I saw a lot of good horseflesh, but none that suited me until I spotted a rangy claybank mare bunched in a corral with a half-dozen mustangs.

Close up, the mare proved to be just what I was looking for, a tall horse with good conformation, sound legs, and clear honest eyes. I rode her out of town that same afternoon, and she proved to have sand and bottom, two requirements that often meant the difference between life and death on the plains.

I bought the mare that day. The next morning, I pulled her shoes, rasped her hooves, and left town, heading west, always west.

There was an anger deep within me that would not be stilled. Deep down, I had a strong desire to hurt as I had been hurt. It was not a good feeling, and so I trailed westward, hoping to spend some time alone in the mountains, hoping that the beauty and solitude of the high country would bring a measure of peace to my troubled spirit.

It was good to be riding across open country again, good to see miles and miles of virgin land; land that had never known the touch of a plow or felt the bite of a shove. Land that stretched away as far as the eye could see.

It was good to breathe air that did not smell of smoke or coal oil, or reek of cigars and perfume.

A great silence hung over the land - loud, somehow, after the constant clang and clatter of the city.

The day I saw the sacred hills rise up from the earth, I felt as if I had come home at last. I spent three months in the mountains and there, alone among the windswept pines, with none but the sun and the moon and the red-tailed hawk to know, I mourned the loss of my wife and daughter. Time lost all meaning. I hunted when the pangs of hunger drove me, slept when my body demanded rest, bathed when I could no longer abide my own stink.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.