Left For Dead: A Western Adventure by Stuart G. Yates

Author:Stuart G. Yates [Yates, Stuart G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DS Productions
Published: 2022-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

“We don’t often get strangers passing by,” said the woman. She used a ladle to serve them helpings of a thin gruel from a large casserole pot placed in the middle of the table. From this close, Hahmood could study these curious people. It was as Taylor had said – they were virtual skeletons. Their arms were stick thin, faces sallow and sunken. The boy, who could not have been more than eight or nine, was the most horrible of them all. His skin was parchment-thin, face like a skull, wispy black hair falling across a sweating brow. His clothes hung around him, ill-fitting and filthy. These people were indeed starving. “Where you headin’?”

She sat down and sipped at her soup.

Hahmood took a mouthful and had to force himself not to spit it out. Essentially, it was warm water with a few shreds of green leaves floating across the top. No salt, no seasoning of any kind. It might quench your thirst but it would not do much else. “Down to the Oklahoma Territories.”

“Oh,” said the man, drinking down his soup ravenously. “That can be a wild place, even nowadays. Injuns and the like.”

“Really?” Taylor made a big show of licking his lips and, the meal completed, he sat back, placed his hands across his stomach and grinned. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The woman gazed at him from under her brows. Searching his face for any signs of sarcasm. At least, that was how Hahmood saw it. He leaned across the table to where Taylor sat opposite and put his hand across his arm. “It must be hard out here. I see your vegetables are struggling.”

“Water is the problem,” said the man, pushing his empty bowl away. “We once had plenty to go round. Greens, potatoes, and we had two cows. They got sick. Died. We couldn’t eat their meat because of what they had.”

“I saw their bones,” said Taylor.

An ominous, charged silence fell over everyone. The boy, so tiny behind the table edge, looked from one adult to the next. “I’ll go outside,” he said. Meal finished, he stood and left, closing the cabin door quietly behind him.

It was a dark, dank place, hardly any furniture worth speaking of and nothing in the way of ornaments. Rough-hewn timber walls dripped with damp and the smell hit the back of Hahmood’s throat almost as soon as he had stepped inside. Unwashed, fetid, the earthy smell reminded him of gold mines he had prospected in the Rockies when he was a young man.

A few scraps of wood popped and sizzled in the grate. The nights were cold as the year moved inexorably on. It was one of these unexpected explosions that broke the silence, causing Taylor to jump. He laughed in embarrassment.

“They make for good compost,” said the man, arms folded, studying the others carefully. “We grind ‘em down and work them into the soil. Something in ‘em. Not sure what.”

“Calcium,” said Hahmood. He held the man’s stare. “And phosphorous. Both good for root development.

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.