Ghost Valley by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction, General, Westerns
ISBN: 9780786013241
Publisher: e-reads.com
Published: 2001-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ghost Valley

Sixteen

Frank heard a distant rifle shot, figuring Buck had found another target. Then suddenly something struck his left shoulder and he went down, stunned, tumbling through the snow, his mind reeling.

He tried to scramble back to his feet. He heard Dog give a soft whimper, and then everything went black around him. He knew he was falling and couldn't help himself.

* * * *

He awakened to the smell of wood smoke. He saw the dim outline of a cabin roof above his head. Very slowly, waves of pain shot through his left side, down his arm, and across his ribs.

He heard himself groan.

“You okay, Morgan?” a faintly familiar voice asked from the mist around him.

“Where am I?”

“My place.”

“Where the hell is your place? What happened to me down in that valley?” Slowly, events returned to him as he regained consciousness.

He saw a man with a tangled red beard leaning over him, and he tried to remember who the stranger was.

“You took a chunk of lead, Morgan. It ain't too bad nor too deep. I dug it out with my knife. I'm sure as hell glad you was asleep when I done it. You hollered like a stuck pig after I got it out.”

“I suppose I'm lucky to be alive,” he said, unable to recall how anyone could have gotten behind him to catch him with his guard down.

“That's fair to say.”

“Your name is Buck ... Buck Waite. Things are coming back to me now.”

“This here's my daughter, Karen. She fixed you some soup made outta dried wild onions an' elk meat. When you feel up to it, she'll give you some.”

Frank's eyes wandered across the small log cabin, until they came to rest on a pretty young woman dressed in deerskin pants and a fringed top, with her dark red hair tied in a ponytail.

“Pleased to meet you, Karen,” he mumbled. “Sorry it has to be under these bad circumstances. I feel like a damn fool right now.”

She came over to him. He guessed her age at thirty or less, and as he first surmised, she was pretty. “You lost a lot of blood,” she said. “Let me know when you want some soup.”

“Something smells mighty good,” Frank managed, “but I sure do wish I had a spot of whiskey to help with this pain in my shoulder.”

“We've got some corn squeeze. Daddy makes it himself out of Indian corn in the summer.”

“I could use some,” Frank croaked, trying to sit up on a crude cot made of rawhide strips and pine limbs.

“Lie back down,” Karen told him. “I'll fetch you some of the whiskey.”

“Where's Ned Pine and the others?” he asked.

“Back down in Ghost Valley,” said Buck. “I seen 'em find that patch of blood you left in the snow, so I figure they's sure they got you.”

“They're wrong,” Frank said. “I'm not dead yet ... unless this is all a dream.”

“You ain't dreamin', Morgan,” Buck said. “But it'll be a spell before you can move around.”

“Where's Dog? And my horse?”

“The bay is out yonder in the corral.

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