Pony Express by Harriet Cade

Author:Harriet Cade
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780719821196
Publisher: Robert Hale

CHAPTER 7

After what I had been through in the last few hours it was hardly surprising that almost as soon as I lay down on that bed I promptly fell asleep. When I awoke it was to find the room in darkness. I had earlier noticed a lamp standing on a little table, but I had not the wherewithal to light it. In the moonlight streaming through the window, I saw that somebody had left me a tray of food and a jug of water. It was half a chicken, along with a hunk of bread. I fell to and devoured it ravenously.

I had no idea what time it might be, but I could hear a lot of noise from people talking and laughing, so I figured that it couldn’t be that late: not the middle of the night or anything. Nobody had said that I had to stay in my room and since I had never before been on an army base and perhaps would not get another opportunity to do so, I decided to go and explore a little.

One of the first things I noticed when I left the building in which I was staying and went into the main square of the fort, was that the mighty gates were still standing wide open. A single soldier was standing around at the gates, chatting to a couple of women, but other than that, anybody could come in and out. Young and inexperienced as I was, I felt instinctively that this was not a good way to carry on when there was a danger of attack.

As I wandered aimlessly across the square I was hailed by name, which greatly surprised me. Somebody called, ‘Hey, Miss Taylor!’

I turned and saw the man called Rawlings, the soldier I had first met when I arrived at Fort Richmond. When he came nigh to me, he said, ‘You’re the theme of general conversation, you know. Never knew one girl to stir up so many people.’

‘I don’t rightly understand you,’ I replied. ‘Who’ve I stirred up?’

‘Why, only the whole fort. Everybody’s left, you know.’

I was still feeling a little muzzy and sleep-befuddled. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been sleeping. Who has left?’

‘Why,’ said Rawlings, ‘All those men as were encamped outside here and ’most every person from this fort. There’s hardly but twenty of us been left behind. Everyone else has gone off to hunt for the Comanches you told ’em of. Say, tell me the truth, Miss Taylor. Did you send ’em off on a snipe hunt for the hell of it?’

So merry and free with his speech was the man that I looked a little harder at him. It was not my eyes, though, that provided confirmation of what I had suddenly suspected: it was my nose. As Rawlings swayed nearer to me I caught the unmistakable odour of whiskey on his breath. The man was inebriated!

‘I don’t know anything about all this,’ I told him a little coldly. ‘I just explained what I knew to your colonel.

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.