The way west from St. Louis was arduous, the country vast and unforgiving, the weather violent and sudden. The greatest perils, though, were the other few, but determined—sometimes desperate—inhabitants of the great expanse of the lawless West. Sometimes a clash of culture, in some instances a grappling between good and evil, and in many cases a race of people simply tragically struggling to defend their lands and hunting territories. The only thing certain at the conclusion of these bloody struggles was that there was never a perfect outcome. Please enjoy this third excerpt from Book Two, of the six novel Threads West, An American Saga series, Maps of Fate, coming soon!
From a Chapter of Maps of Fate—Book Two of Threads West, An American Saga
From Chapter “Surprised”
Sarah stood stupefied. She felt the tremor in her knees and the sweat of fear and heat dribble down from her temples in grimy streaks on her face. Dust, smoke from burning canvas, and gray puffs of gunpowder residue rendered everything ghostlike and surreal and softened the apparitional shapes of bodies and wounded, who were strewn in haphazard positions. The guttural whoops of the attackers, screams of petrified and dying horses, shouts in English, moans of pain, and the sounds of gunshots echoed among the wagons.
Sarah held the Sharps in one hand, breech open, ready for loading, and stared in shocked disbelief. The scene was incomprehensible. Through the haze that enveloped the wagons, she saw the shadowy figures of Mac, Reuben and Johannes sprinting to the breach where the wagons of the train had not quite completed their defensive circle. In that gap, Zeb, a knife in each hand, and two other men from the train, struggled in mortal combat with an increasing number of lance- and tomahawk-wielding invaders. Reuben and Mac each carried two rifles. Johannes had his carbine in one grip and a pistol in the other. His saber scabbard slapped against his leg as he ran.
Sarah saw him look over his shoulder, and could barely make out his shout, “Behind us!”
Johannes wheeled ghostlike in the brownish-gray cloud that enveloped the conflict, took calm steady aim, and fired once from the Colt. The rider of the horse bearing down on the three jerked violently from the impact of the .44 caliber slug and somersaulted backward over the rear of his steed. He lay unmoving, barely discernible in the ground-swell of dust.
Sarah’s eyes quickly searched the nearby wagons. Jacob had disappeared. Her mouth fell open when five rigs away she saw Harris upright and wrestling with a much smaller Indian who was obviously after the heirloom American flag that hung ripped, tattered and limp in the semi-opaque heat on the family’s wagon. Below him, his wife Margaret expertly wielded her Enfield musket like a club, keeping yet another attacker at bay.
Two men from another wagon were running to assist them. Disbelief knifed through her numb detachment, “What type of people are these who risk their life for a piece of old cloth?”
“Sarah, load the damn rifle!” Rebecca’s frantic voice shouted above the din.
Jolted back to reality, Sarah, trying to control the trembling that had overtaken her body, jammed the cartridge into the Sharps with shaking fingers, then handed the long gun to Rebecca who, in turn, gave her the rifle she had just discharged. Rebecca turned, rested the receiver and forestock over the lip of the wagon front as a rest, and began to swing the bead of the muzzle of the re-armed weapon as she found a target.
Without looking back, Rebecca commanded in a loud voice, “Inga, reload! Be quick about it!”
Pressed against the side of the wagon box, Sarah fumbled in the saddlebag, draped over the wagon wheel, for the next round. She heard a whisper in the air, almost the sound a small bird makes on a calm, peaceful evening in the stillness just before dark, and then a sudden, hollow resounding thud. A woman’s voice screamed in pain and terror.