Lone Star Ranger #3 by James J. Griffin

Author:James J. Griffin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, classic, series, western, ya, american history, western adventure, texas rangers, western series, painted pony books
Publisher: Prairie Rose Publications

4

The next morning, despite his injury, Nate was back in the saddle again. He was offered the chance to ride in the back of the chuck wagon by Captain Quincy, but declined. If he was going to make it as a Ranger, he’d have to tough out even worse wounds than the knife cut along his side.

Once he settled on Big Red’s back, the pulling and soreness of the wound didn’t bother him all that badly. Percy’s willow shoot and bark poultice had clearly done its work well. By the time the Rangers had ridden an hour, Nate’s pain had subsided to a dull ache, not much worse than a bad sprain or bruise.

As Captain Quincy and his men worked their way westward over the next three days, the terrain steadily got more rugged. The level plain gradually became more rolling, broken more often by canyons, arroyos, and draws.

Flat-topped mesas and low hills also became more frequent. The vegetation became more sparse, even the few trees which had previously dotted the land virtually disappearing, to be replaced by tough grasses, mesquite, thick, thorny brush, oily creosote bushes, and all sorts of cacti.

The elevation steadily increased, too, so that no matter how blistering hot the temperature became during the day, it often plunged forty degrees or more at night.

After having roasted under the desert sun all day long, the men had to slide under their blankets at night to keep warm.

What was hardest on the men, horses, and mules, however, wasn’t the blazing hot sun, the harsh chill at night, the lack of shade, or the shortage of water. It was the omnipresent dust.

The soil became sandier the further west they rode. It was dry as powder, so the horses’ and mules’ hooves and chuck wagon’s wheels kicked up clouds of thick, blinding, choking dust; dust that found its way into every opening in a man’s clothing, alkali dust that burned a man’s eyes, that clogged his nose and ears, that filled his mouth like cotton.

Dust, that seemed to seep deep into every pore. Dust that coated the horses and mules, so that even the darkest bay or black soon resembled a light brown pony.

And even the slightest breeze, which ordinarily would have provided welcome relief from the heat, instead added to the Rangers’ misery, as it stirred up even more dust, stinging every bit of exposed flesh, making it even more difficult to breathe. The men had lifted their bandannas to cover their mouths and noses, so that they looked more like a band of outlaws than a company of Texas Rangers.

They had taken spare bandannas and tied them around their horses’ and mules’ muzzles, in a futile attempt to provide them some relief from the constant dust. However, those bandannas helped men and mounts but little. The fine dust managed to filter its way through even the most thickly doubled fabric, to settle deep in throats and lungs.

They slapped dust from their clothes, beat their hats against their legs

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