Wilderness Double Edition 21 by David Robbins

Author:David Robbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: american frontier, mountain men, western ebook, the rockies, david thompson, piccadilly publishing, best western novel, historical adventures, wilderness ebooks
Publisher: Piccadilly

Afterword

Seven weeks later, Pickforth’s bedraggled platoon arrived at Fort Leavenworth. As for the trial and its aftermath, that is the subject of our next tale.

WILDERNESS 42

FLAMES OF JUSTICE

One

They came out of the west, riding hard—three men, two women and a girl, caked with the dust of many miles.

Martha Barker happened to be outside fetching wood for the cook stove and heard them come up the trail that wound along the Platte River. At the sight of them she tensed. One of the men and both of the women were Indians, and ever since the Sioux counted coup on her brother, Martha had little love for their kind. Quickly, she hurried inside to tell her husband.

The riders saw the log building, and slowed. The two white men glanced at each other. Grinning, the older of the pair quoted from the works of a playwright he admired, “ ‘What is this castle called that stands hard by?’ ”

“You can read,” the younger man said with a curt nod at a crudely painted sign over the front door: BARKER’STRADING POST. In smaller print underneath was the claim, IF YOU NEED IT, WE GOT IT.

“I’ll talk to you when you are better tempered to attend,” the white-haired man answered, indulging in another quote.

The younger of the two women brought her mare up next to the younger man’s bay and said in flawless English, “We should stop, husband. We need to rest.” Raven hair hung past her shoulders, framing a face many would call lovely. She wore a beaded buckskin dress and moccasins and had a wide leather belt around her waist. Wedged under it were a pair of flintlocks.

“Every minute costs us, Winona,” Nate King said, and gazed longingly to the east. They were pushing as hard as they could but it was nowhere near fast enough to suit him. Like his Shoshone wife, he wore buckskins. He was also armed with a brace of pistols, as well as a Bowie knife, a tomahawk, and a Hawken rifle. Slanted across his broad chest were a possibles bag and an ammo pouch.

“I know. But we should stop just the same.” Winona King looked at the older man for support. “Don’t you agree?”

Shakespeare McNair pushed his beaver hat back on his head. “It won’t do us any good to ride our horses into the ground, that’s for sure.”

“Or ourselves,” said the second woman. She was McNair’s wife, Blue Water Woman.

“Please, Pa,” threw in the girl. Of them all, Evelyn King showed the most fatigue from weeks spent in the saddle.

That left the last member of their party, a giant Shoshone warrior. He showed his sentiments by sliding off his paint and leading it to a hitch rail where three other horses were already tied.

“See?” Shakespeare said. “Touch The Clouds agrees.”

“It’s not his son,” Nate said.

“ ‘Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts,’ ” Shakespeare again quoted. “You’re being unfair, Horatio. We all care for your boy as if he were our own.”

“It’s just that—” Nate began, and fell silent.

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