A Need for Violence by Dusty Richards

Author:Dusty Richards [Richards, Dusty]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2023-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Homecomings are often sweet, but the return of the Shoshone and Harrigan children to the Shoshone’s wintering grounds caused widespread elation. Though Mack and the others had only been gone from the camp for a day, it felt to him as if he had been wandering distant lands, fighting wild beasts, and never certain if he was going to survive from one moment to the next.

He knew it was the result of fatigue and pain from his various wounds, slashes and gashes. They would heal, unless some sort of sleeping sickness crept into them. Time would tell. But even if he were the sort to give voice to complaint, he did not consider doing so. For the camp was filled with people—good people, his friends—who were mired deep in mourning.

When he’d left the day before, he had seen a number of dead Shoshone, some with their scalps hacked away. The sight was a vision he would carry with him for the rest of his life. It would serve as a harsh but necessary reminder to always be on guard. Life in the West was not much like life had been back in their quiet little mill town of Harrigan Falls, Ohio.

Despite the brutality of the previous day, if given the opportunity to reconsider the trip west and all it had brought his family—good, bad, and otherwise—he didn’t think he would change his mind. They’d had difficulties, to be sure, but, he reasoned, if a man didn’t take a chance in life, he would have to live with the worst of all niggling feelings worming away in his mind his whole life long. The notion that he might have done something more, something different, something better with his life—would be unbearable.

As Mack Harrigan hugged his family close to him late that afternoon upon their arrival, they were whole and alive and together, and that was all that mattered.

“And . . . Chief Stalks-the-Night?” said Red Dove in a low, quiet voice.

Mack knew what she was thinking, that the chief had been killed on the rescue mission. “He is alive, Red Dove.” He saw the relief on her face.

Though she was very good at maintaining her stony mask, her eyes told him she wanted, needed to hear more.

“He and Turtle Eye were fine when we parted from them. They chose to continue on, to avenge the Shoshone deaths.” Mack did not mention that he had tried to go along as well.

“And Bright Owl,” said Ell. “What of the boy?”

“He made the choice to stay with his father.”

A sob, quickly stifled, escaped from Meghan’s bruised mouth. She looked away from them and no one said anything for a moment.

“I don’t know when they will return, but, they will return. Of that I am certain. I have a feeling a strong feeling about this. And you know my feelings, right Ell?” Mack eyed his wife with a hard stare. “They’re rarely wrong.”

“Oh, oh that’s right,” she said, nodding.

Red Dove looked at Mack, then Ell.

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