On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch by Shelter Somerset

Author:Shelter Somerset [Somerset, Shelter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press

Chapter 18

I HAVE to get Wicasha, Tory thought. He jumped onto Franklin’s wagon and drove Lulu as fast as he could down the trail to Moonlight Gulch. He hoped Wicasha would be there. He had no idea where on the other side of the hillocks the Lakota lived.

He set the wagon’s brake as the sun began to turn away from the homestead. He stabled Lulu in the barn and looked around for Wicasha. Down by the creek, out in the field, in the storage barn, he shouted for Wicasha using the full force of his voice. Wicasha was nowhere. Tory had no choice but to search for him at his campsite. Where else could he be? He knew of no other person who might help Franklin. It seemed the entire town was against him. Gold had turned them all into savages.

On the other side of the first hillock, he shouted for Wicasha. He heard no reply other than his own echo. Yelping osprey and screaming ravens mocked him. He figured there must be a trail from the many times Wicasha had traipsed back and forth between his camp and Franklin’s cabin. He followed what he thought was a narrow groove of earth covered in matted grass. Droppings along the trail indicated animals used this path. Certainly Wicasha would too.

Travel was cumbersome. He fell, tripped, scrambled on his hands and knees to hurry himself along. Sweat burned his eyes. He came to a strange series of granite rock spires and columns anchored by gnarly alders. He squeezed through the mazelike impasse and on the other side discovered a muddy meadow. The mudflat stretched to each side of the dense forest. The negligible trail faded completely. Footprints were scattered about the muddy bank, but he had no way of knowing which set to follow or who they belonged to.

He followed along the edge of the mudflat until he came to a large rock outcropping. He scaled to the top and, with his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, scanned the horizon. Down into the rift, he saw no sign of a camp. He wished he’d remembered to grab Franklin’s field glasses from the cabin before heading out.

“Wicasha!” Tory’s lonely cry repeated off the mountain peaks.

He tried to use common sense to judge which way he should go. The ravens’ screaming annoyed him. He was about to curse them in a birch tree when he remembered a war story Wicasha had told him while they had sat outside the cabin one night darning undergarments and whittling spoons from fallen branches. He had mentioned something about following ravens during his days scouting for the U.S. Army. The ravens, he had explained, always congregated wherever they found “action.” Indians and early pioneers, he had said, including Lewis and Clark, sometimes used them as guides.

Tory instantly looked to the rowdy ravens with a new sense of respect. He watched them flutter from branch to branch in the birches and aspens. He called to them, encouraging them to fly.

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