The Kentucky Cannibal by Green Ryan

Author:Green, Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ryan Green Publishing
Published: 2020-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

Gun Smoke at Salt Lake and Antler Creek

For a time, Boone Helm vanished into the wilderness without a trace, living like a savage, feasting on the meat of man and beast with scarcely a care if it had been touched by fire or not. Once again, if the fates were kind, he would’ve met some gruesome end out there in the wilds and nobody would ever again have to hear his name, but despite all that he’d done, it seemed that luck still favoured Boone Helm.

Hunting was inexplicably good for him once the leg of his old companion had been devoured in the first weeks of travel, and the deprivation that had marked his first journey alone across country was lessened now that his skills as a survivalist had improved. Rather than withering further, his body seemed to take on an almost wooden composition. He was stiff and slow, but he showed no signs of breaking as he had during the California expedition. Even the growling of his stomach seemed to cease once he’d trained it to accept grazing through the day instead of meals. Now that the weather was beginning to loosen its lethal hold, he was able to make camp by night, setting snares and allowing his food to come to him. As winter deepened, all these advantages began to fade, but by then, help was close at hand.

His sense of direction was much improved, and he made good time towards Salt Lake City, coming upon an encampment of the Shoshone just as his strength began to falter and the cold set in.

The Shoshone were far from friendly to the Mormon settlers of Utah. Just a year before, the long and bloody Walker War between their allies the Ute and the white settlers had come to a brief conclusion, but all of the underlying tensions remained, and all that it would take to set things off once more was a spark. Trade between the Native Americans and settlers had resumed, but only in carefully organized formal meetings rather than the free and easy exchange that had characterised the earlier years of the western expansion.

The idea of a white man strolling uninvited into a Shoshone camp was unheard of, bordering on suicidal, yet that was exactly what Boone did, strolling up and parking himself by the fire with nary an introduction to the fighting men bristling all around him. After a time, it was assumed from his look and mannerisms that the man was some sort of madman, so the Shoshone did what they could to offer him kindness, feeding him and providing him with a blanket when the time came to sleep for the night.

He would linger at their encampment for several days, to growing irritation from the Shoshone, but violence against the man to drive him away was forbidden. It wouldn’t be long until a trader from Salt Lake City arrived and they could pass this problem along to the people who should be bearing the burden.

John W Powell was the very merchant that they meant to hand Boone along to.

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.