Here's a blurb from Chapter One. Hope you enjoy it!..........
CHAPTER ONE
July
1848 somewhere on the
Plains
Lord
have mercy!
It had to be a hallucination brought on by
the incessant squeak of wagon
wheels, ungodly thirst for some cool water, the monotony of prairie grass,
nothing but tall sun parched prairie grass.
Or was
Enya's nightmare coming
true?
She strained hard at the horizon, squinting from the sun.
Suddenly
the ground shook and soon after, the thunder of horses' hooves stormed the
prairie. Just over the rolling
hill where the sun was bright, a visage of four, five, six
men on
horses came barreling towards their white topped
wagon. The glow of the sun
prevented details but all of a
sudden there were hoots and
hollers and it was obvious who
were on those charging stallions. "Injuns!"
exclaimed Buck who had already
pulled his team of mules to an abrupt stop and was standing up with his rifle
pointing.
A squeak of fear fell from Enya's parted lips. Her
nightmare of encountering Indians was coming true; it was no hallucination after all. And it
was dreadful. Lord in heaven why? Why hadn't her father changed his mind and
turned that mule wagon back home, back east? She had tried to warn him about the
perils of venturing west, not to go looking for gold because they were bound to
encounter Indians, but did he listen? No! He probably thought she was too young
to be listened to, but she was eighteen, a woman now! Even the bartender warned
him before they journeyed onward, but Buck wouldn't heed his advice either;
thought he was one who took rumor as God's good word. Guess it didn't matter who
tried to advise him. Bonnie always said her husband was as stubborn as an old
mule.
Now what was going to happen?
A panic of wonder rushed through Enya's body from head to
toe. What could her father
do against a stampede of
charging Indians, she
wondered. He was only one man.
Yes, Buck had the fighting
spirit, the will to survive,
that Hawkens rifle he bragged on, the body build to defend her and her
mother, but still he was only
one man. She prayed the rifle would be as precise as he claimed it was. Enya
peered out from the bonnet top
and watched her father take aim
and at first wondered if he
should wait to see if the Indians were
friendly, but an arrow came flying through the air and
that was proof enough that those Indians meant business. Buck fired that long range rifle and one Indian went down hard. Enya's pulse
raced. Bonnie ducked down in
the front seat at Buck's
insistence and prayed the Lord's Prayer. If they were going to die that day, she
wanted the good Lord to know they were coming.
Enya was in the back of the wagon watching with dreaded
fascination.
Buck fired another shot and another Indian went down. He
fell off the back of his white horse, dead instantly, but the others were still
coming. They were getting
closer, almost upon them. Arrows were flying like birds, but fell short. Enya hunkered down in the back behind
some old luggage and trunks,
but worried for her father who could be struck dead at any moment
by one of those blasted
arrows.
Buck shot again and missed. He
fired another shot as fast as the muzzleloader would allow,
and the third Indian went
down.
Now there were three.
The odds were getting better. Still the Indians were able to shoot those arrows faster
than Buck could load up, but a rifle was still a far superior weapon and Buck
was proving to be a formidable opponent.
Enya told herself there was hope.
Maybe her nightmare of being carried off by an Indian
wouldn't come true after all. She peeked above the luggage and had a small vista
of the prairie. She saw trails of dirt swirling in the air behind the charging
horses............FINISH READING THE SAMPLE CHAPTERS ON AMAZON
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