Buck reached inside the Studebaker to retrieve a leather folder that he handed to the ramrod. “There’s a key inside that opens the office. That’s that box inside the mess wagon where we keep records and the journal.…”
“I know what an office is.”
“Yeah, I reckon you do. I’m making you wagon boss, Milo, if you want the job.”
“What are you going to do?”
Buck shrugged and looked away. “I’m not going back to Corinne, at least not for a while. A long time ago, I had family in Oregon, my mother’s sister. Finding her will be a long shot,
but I think I’ll try.”
Milo didn’t question Buck’s reasoning. An orphan himself, he understood the importance of family, the sense of identity that came with that kind of connection. Buck had lost that feeling of kinship with Mase; it only made sense that he’d want to reestablish it elsewhere. “I wish you luck,” Milo said with genuine friendship. “Does anyone else know?”
“Not yet. Tell ’em for me, will you?”
“Dulce, too?”
Buck pulled his reins loose from the mess wagon’s rear wheel and climbed into the saddle. “I reckon Dulce and I have said everything we need to say. Tell the boys I’ll be back someday.”
“They’ll want to know when.”
“I wouldn’t know what to tell them,” he said, evening his reins along Zeke’s neck. “Jock can take payment for this mule out of whatever wages I have coming,” he added. “I’ll let him know where he can forward what’s left by mail. There’s a letter of recommendation in that folder for Jock, too. I’m suggesting he keep you on full time as captain. I also asked him to help Arlen Fleck as much as he can.” He smiled fleetingly, picturing the look on Jock’s face when he read that. “I reckon you can figure out the rest by yourself.”
Milo stepped forward and they shook hands. “Watch yourself, boss … Buck, and thanks for taking a chance on a Kansas boy.”
“You keep those long hitches rolling,” Buck replied, smiling as he tapped Zeke’s ribs with his heels.
The sun was just coming up as Buck rode out of Virginia City. He was heading west toward Twin Bridges, where he intended to pick up the Deer Lodge Road that would eventually take him to Oregon.
As the warming rays of the sun touched his shoulders, he lifted the mule to an easy lope. It felt good to be on his own again, free of the town and the Box K. Free, too, of a past he no longer felt a part of. The future lay wide open before him. He was eager to see what it held.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Zimmer grew up on a small Colorado horse ranch, and began to break and train horses for spending money while still in high school. An American history enthusiast from a very early age, he has done extensive research on the Old West. His personal library contains over 2,000 volumes covering that area west of the Mississippi from the late 1700s to the early decades of the 20th Century. In addition to perusing first-hand accounts from the period, Zimmer is also a firm believer in field interpretation. He’s made it a point to master many of the skills used by our forefathers, and can start a campfire with flint and steel, gather, prepare, and survive on natural foods found in the wilderness, and has built and slept in shelters as diverse as bark lodges and snow caves. He owns and shoots a number of Old West firearms, and has done horseback treks using 19th Century tack, gear, and guidelines. Zimmer’s Western novels have been praised by Library Journal and Booklist, as well as other Western writers. Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom, writes: “He [Zimmer] takes you back in time to an exciting era in U.S. history so vividly that the reader will feel as if he has been over the old trails, trapped the shining streams, and gazed in wonder at the awesome grandeur of the Rocky Mountains. Here is a writer to welcome into the ranks of the very best novelists of today or anytime in the history of literature.” And Richard Wheeler, author of Goldfield, has said of Zimmer’s fourth novel, Fandango (1996): “One of the best mountain man novels ever written.” Zimmer lives in Utah with his wife., Vanessa, and two dogs. His website is www.michael-zimmer.com. His next Five Star Western will be City of Rocks.
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