Uncompahgre by Reid Lance Rosenthal

Author:Reid Lance Rosenthal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction, historical romance, american history, uncompahgre, reid lance rosenthal, threads west
Publisher: Reid Lance Rosenthal

CHAPTER 23

June 11, 1855

BREMERHAVEN

“What are you doing with that duffel in your room, Erik?”

Erik raised his eyes from the eggs and boiled potatoes. I wanted to have this discussion at supper. Isaac, almost three times his size, was glowering at him from across the breakfast table, but Erik was unflinching. “I’m packing for my trip to America.”

Isaac and Helmon exchanged startled glances in dumbfounded silence. Then Isaac slammed his meaty fist into the kitchen table, almost cracking the wood. “You will do no such thing. I am the eldest. I run the farm. With father and Reuben gone, we need you here.”

Erik dropped his gaze to his plate, scraping it with his fork and then lifted his eyes, staring back up into Helmon’s angry glare. “No, brother, you don’t need me. I’m just your frau. I save you the cooking and cleaning and the sewing,” Erik looked from one to the other, “and endure the incessant arguing. There’s no future for me here. I’m going to America to find Reuben and help him establish our family legacy over there.”

Helmon opened his mouth as if to speak, then snapped it shut. Veins bulged in Isaac’s neck. He looked apoplectic. “You think this is such a bad life we have here? Are you treated so poorly?” he shouted.

Erik pushed his plate away. “Poorly? It is your life that you have here, Isaac, not mine. And the fact that you do not realize how meanly you treat me, proves how little you care about my future.”

There was a long silence. The flush in Isaac’s face lost some of its intensity, and he looked deflated. “When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow, Isaac.”

Without a word, Isaac rose suddenly from the table, the force of his legs pushing over the chair behind him with a crash. He strode to the door, crunched his felt hat over his head and stormed out. Helmon still sat at the table without a word, looking bewildered.

Erik rose and began washing the dishes.

Except for the brief, stiff, unemotional goodbye tinged with bitter anger that evening after supper, neither of his brothers spoke a word to him until just before an early bedtime.

Erik had turned down the covers, checking his duffel one last time, especially the secret false end he had carefully sewn into the heavy, canvas bag to hide his money. Glancing at his pocket watch, he shook his head. Just three hours to sleep. The door creaked open. It was Helmon, furtively looking over each shoulder for Isaac. He nervously held up the dagger their father had given him on his sixteenth birthday, then slid its thin, six-inch blade with curved tip into a well stitched and oiled burgundy sheath. Carefully placing the weapon into Erik’s hands, he curled his younger brother’s fingers around the leather housing the blade. “Be safe little brother,” he whispered. “Godspeed. Father would be proud.”

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