The Search for Soaring Hawk by Terry O'Reilly

Author:Terry O'Reilly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781602726109
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

INDEPENDENCE

Sam walked with Garrett down the busy street. They were on their way to see Cletus Weston, owner and organizer of the wagon train company. Garrett had sent Gus and Todd to locate their wagons and start procuring supplies for the journey. They had Wolf with them.

The men had arrived in Independence at dusk the day before and after bedding down the horses at the livery went straight to the hotel where they spent the night. Todd and Sam shared a room with Wolf; Garrett and Gus were in another.

Sam and Todd had made love. Sam was certain Garrett and Gus had done the same. Somewhere inside him, Sam wished Garrett had made other arrangements so they could have been together once more.

As they made their way through the crowds of people— shopping, haggling over the prices—Sam got his first look at the settlers they would be taking across country: men and women, children, and several dogs. There were young couples and older families. Some looked to be too old to be thinking of resettling, let alone traveling two thousand miles to do so.

As they rounded a corner, they had to step aside as a small herd of yoked oxen—led by the drovers—went by. It surprised Sam to see oxen being led by the rings in their noses, not like horses in harness.

“God, Cletus’s gonna use ox again this year,” Garrett said, watching the animals lumber by. “That’ll add two weeks to the trip at least. And you gotta teach folks how to work with them. They already know how to handle horses.”

“Are they taking them to the train now?” Sam asked “No, they’ll be delivered to the train later in the week. Be kept out of town for the time being.”

“If it takes longer, why would you use them?”

“Well, probably the main reason is so Cletus can make more money,” Garrett began as they let the beasts pass before the men continued on their way.

Sam waited for Garrett to go on.

“They’re a lot cheaper than horses or mules, but the old man charges the settlers horse prices cuz they don’t know no better.”

Sam’s sense of fair play was ruffled. He decided he wasn’t going to like this Cletus.

“But oxen got their good points, too. First off, they eat anything, not finicky like a horse. They’re stronger, can get through some tough spots better. And with these women wantin’ to take everything from home that ain’t nailed down, they pull bigger loads. They don’t stray off neither. Real good reason is that Indians ain’t as interested in stealin’ ’em, like they are horses.”

Sam took slight offense at this last remark, but said nothing.

“’Sides bein’ slower, a good argument against ox is that they get reckless when they’re hot and thirsty. Can cause stampedes in a rush to get to water. I remember a year or so back, we had a stampede during a dry spell. Took us a whole day to find ’em all and round ’em up.” Garrett shook his head at the memory.

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.