by J. R. WRIGHT
“I presume you’re a reporter?” Luke said.
“Yes, sir, The Missouri Republican,” Gottley said. “But I assure you my words go further than just St. Louis. My articles are often reprinted by newspapers all along the eastern seaboard. Even in places like Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, and Atlanta.”
“You spent all that time with Colonel Snively. He must have told you something of what happened?”
“He did. But it’s always best to get it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak,” Gottley said and laughed. “So, what do you say?”
“I say print what you got from the colonel, Gottley. It won’t change any hearing it from me.”
“Do I have your word what Colonel Snively told me is true? I mean, such merciless slaughter of innocent women and children by one of our own generals is a bit hard to believe.”
“Believe it!” Luke said angrily and started to walk away. “Henri Snively doesn’t lie.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Luke spent three days visiting with Chaska before he and Sarah left Fort Laramie with a wagonload of supplies to spend the winter at his cabin on the Little Blue River. Through all of this, Luke felt closer to Chaska now than ever before. Hours were spent answering his many questions about Breanne and the time her and Luke had spent together, questions of her being taken captive and his frantic search to get her back. Of course all this left Chaska wondering where she may have gone off to, and if he would ever have the opportunity to be reunited with her in this lifetime. Those questions, of course, Luke could not answer, but wished he could. He thought on it often, himself, and had concluded a long time ago, only time would tell. However, that conclusion in no way reduced the agony and pain he felt at times, even to this day, sixteen years later.
But he had Sarah now, thank goodness for that, to take his mind away from it all for long periods of time. She would be a great comfort to him over the long winters to come, that before had left him with way too much solitude for longing thoughts.
“What say we spend some time at Ash Hollow?” Luke said from the wagon seat next to Sarah. “It’s a beautiful place with a clear water stream and hundreds of trees.”
“If you want,” she laid her head on his shoulder, content to have him all to herself once again. “It sounds beautiful.”
But as it turned out, by the time they reached Ash Hollow, lazy flakes of snow began to fall. Sarah wanted to stay for a while anyway, but Luke knew too well how a day like this could turn ugly in few short hours, and the cabin was still days away.
But it didn’t turn ugly. It fact the sun came out later, and they had decent weather the remainder of the trip. Another disappointment, however, came when they arrived at the cabin to find a family of four that had dropped away from a late departing wagon train were residing there. Seeing this Luke became frustrated and then angry.
It wasn’t so much that others had taken over the cabin that made him this way. It was coming to the realization that this country he had grown to love so much for its wide open spaces was rapidly filling up with people. It seemed of late you couldn’t even enjoy taking a good piss without wondering who may be watching.
Luke spent only a few minutes with the squatters holed up in his cabin before rejoining Sarah on the wagon and reining the mules around. “They have two little ones, and the woman doesn’t seem to be all that healthy.” He snapped them to a fast walk.
“Oh,” Sarah said, knowing all the while Luke wouldn’t have the heart to toss those people out this time of year.
“Damn!” he said suddenly and halted the mules.
“What is it?” Sarah asked.
“I forgot my gold!” He hopped off the wagon, gathered a shovel from the back, and disappeared out of sight down by the river.
A few minutes later he returned with six fat leather pouches in his arms and put them among the things in the back.
“Where did you have those stashed?” Sarah asked when he returned to the seat.
“In the bank,” he said with a smile and whipped up the mules once again.
“Is that the gold you brought back from the North Country?
“It is. I’ve added some to it over the years, though. I guess I’m up to about twelve thousand dollars now.”
“My!” Sarah said. “Add that to what I have in the bank, and we’re off to a good start with our new ranch. Where can we get cattle?”
“Texas! I hear they run wild down there.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope. I sent a letter to a guy Bordeaux said can bring me thousands of head,” Luke said. “They’re called Longhorns.”
“Would you mind telling me where we’re going now that we won’t be staying at your cabin?”
“I think you already know. The Tea Cup. It’s just as well we’re going there now; Chaska is coming first thing in the spring. He’s bringing some friends to help round up the horses. I drew him a map of how to get there that will avoid the Cheyenne.”
“You’re going to name the ranch that?”
“If you like?” he said. “I believe it was your idea.”
“I like,” she said cheerfully. “Does that mean we’ll be living in the cave?”
“Only until we get a cabin built. I’m hoping we can work on it most of the winter.” He looked to her for approval. “I bought the extra tools we’ll need from Bordeaux. They’re in the back.”
“Good!” She smiled and slid a little closer to him, anxious to get started on it. She’d missed her bleeding time the previous month, something that hadn’t happened since the last of two early miscarriages while married to Frank. If she was to give birth this time, a decent place to raise the child would be desirable.
“I also bought a small, flat topped cooking stove from Bordeaux,” he said. “I thought we could get by with that for heat in the cave till the cabin is done.”
“And you have that in the back, as well,” she smiled at him again as they bounced over the ruts on the trail.
“Yep!”
“What else do you have back there I don’t know about?”
“Some oil lamps and a good supply of oil.”
“Good. It was dark in that cave, especially once you closed off the entrance and put in the door… Anything else?”
“No,” he said uneasily. “Well, except for Tom Too’s rocking cradle. Bright Moon shoved it in there, before her and Chaska left out for the Black Hills.”
“Why did she do that?” Sarah said with a surprised look on her face. She had told no one of her expected condition.
“I guess she had no way to take it along. They left out on horseback.”
“But why did she put it in our wagon?”
“Indian women know these things,” he said casually. “Often even before the woman herself knows she’s pregnant.”
“So, you know?”
“Yep, I guess I do.”
“Well then, why didn’t you say something?”
“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.”
“And you’re okay with us having a baby?
“I’m happier than a bed bug in a tepee full of fat Indians,” he said and smiled warmly. “If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Tom Three,” he laughed.
“We’ll name him Luke, since no one else seems to be using it,” she said insistently. “But what if it’s a girl?” Sarah said as if it just dawned on her that it could be.
“My mother’s name was Abigail,” Luke said, remembering how beautiful she was.
“That’s a pretty name,” Sarah said, mulling over the possibilities. “Oh, Luke, it will be okay, won’t it?” she said after a sudden wave of uncertainty came over her. “Please tell me we’ll have this child. I do so desperately want it.”
“We’ll do just fine,” he said and pulled her in. “As long as we have each other, everything extra is a gift. My mother often said that, when I was young. It was a comfort to me, then.”
“Thank you, and her, for that,” Sarah said and laid her
head back on his shoulder. “Abigail it is then. She must have been a wonderful lady.”
“She did her best!”
BEFORE SUNDOWN
BEFORE SUNDOWN
A Novel By
J.R.WRIGHT
© J.R.Wright / DKW Books 2012
All Rights Reserved
Edited by Mia Manns
Cover Art Dianne K. Wright
Cover Design John R. Wright IV
Author’s Note:
This is the FINAL Book of the LEGEND of the DAWN Trilogy
Books are as Follows:
LEGEND of the DAWN – Book One
AFTER the DAWN – Book Two
BEFORE SUNDOWN – Book Three
[email protected]
CHAPTER ONE
Wyoming Territory, 1868
Wyoming became a territory, with Cheyenne named its capital, on July 25, 1868. Soon after this momentous event, word circulated that portions of the new territory would be opened for homesteading. Not that plenty of that hadn’t been going on illegally for years, in the form of squatters. No one knew better about that than Luke McKinney, who had been squatting in a big way for the better part of thirteen years. Now he worried the large tract of land he had claimed for his own would soon be hacked up into small pieces and parceled out to sod busters. Near every acre of what he had marked off over the years was utilized, if not for grazing, for the putting up of huge amounts of hay for his ever expanding ranching operation.
Luke had married Sarah Martin in the spring of 1856. She wanted it that way for obvious reasons, since she was heavy with his child at the time, and he willingly obliged. They were partners in the Tea Cup Ranch, and in every other way possible anyway, he reasoned, so why not make it official? After all, he did care deeply for her. Maybe not in the same way he did Breanne, but he cared nonetheless. And he was looking forward to being a father to the child she carried, being there as it grew up, teaching him or her things. He had missed out on that with Chaska and so sincerely regretted it.
The baby was born June the eighth 1856 in the cabin they had built together the winter before. Unfortunately, though, the baby girl, named Abigail after Luke’s mother, lived less than a week.
“Just an angel passing through,” Mary Tinkman said at the time.
Her and her husband Calvin had wandered in a month previous. They’d been out themselves looking for a piece of ground on which to squat when they came across this place, and had been here ever since. With a large herd of cattle on the way, and six hundred horses already here, Luke saw fit to hire them both. The operation he and Sarah were building together back then would soon be too much for the two of them to handle alone.
Unfortunately for Sarah, though, she was not given another chance at having a child over the coming years, and never got over the loss of Abigail. She talked of her often, right up until she, too, died, this past spring. A doctor was sent for at Cheyenne, but by the time he arrived, several days later, it was too late. Nothing could be done to reverse the pneumonia she suffered from, and she died only hours later.
Sarah had been a real asset. She’d worked by Luke’s side every step of the way, carving this niche from the wilderness. Doing her share to make it what it was today: a successful ranch employing seventeen hands that watched over fifteen thousand head of cattle and a breeding herd of nine hundred horses.
It was a drizzly, cold day when they put Sarah to rest next to Abigail, under a huge cottonwood tree near the house. Devastated over the loss, Luke had insisted on standing vigil over her grave, and did so for several hours. Calvin and Mary Tinkman, he a slender as a rope man, who now served as ranch foreman, and she, a plump short woman, who did the housekeeping and cooking, were concerned that Luke would come down with the dreaded disease himself if he stayed out too long, the weather becoming even more miserable as the day went on. They watched him through a kitchen window over the hours until it became dark. It was then that Mary insisted Tink go for him.
Afterward Luke stayed in bed for days before finally returning to some of his duties. During this time Mary took it upon herself to pack away or dispose of most of Sarah’s belongings, leaving little memory of her in the house. She felt it best, since he had taken her death so hard. But later when Luke had recovered somewhat, he demanded her things be returned, which Mary did, reluctantly.
“What you need is a new woman, not old memories, to keep you company,” Mary scolded at the time.
“I like those memories,” he returned. “There wouldn’t even be a Tea Cup if it weren’t for Sarah.”
“Now you listen to me, Luke McKinney!” Mary then replied. “I adored that woman, and I miss her sorely, but it’s you I’m concerned about now. Sarah’s dead, Luke. I think it’s time you moved on. I knew her well, and she wouldn’t want this, you moping around the house day in and day out.”
“I just need some time to adjust, Mary,” he’d said. And within the month, he was back to his duties, full speed ahead, as before. But that didn’t mean he had shoved Sarah out of his life. No way, Luke McKinney simply wasn’t made that way. Even now, she was by his side in every decision made where it concerned the management of the ranch, same as before. He had consulted her so much over the years that he already knew what her advice would be in almost every instance. And at times he even heard her voice inside his head, relaying it. It was a comfort to him to have her back. He knew deep inside his aching heart she may not stay long, but would embrace it for as long as she was.
Another thing missed after losing Sarah was hearing his name called on a regular basis. Sarah was the last person around who originally knew him by his real name: Luke McKinney. And she called him Luke frequently, when no one was within earshot. Even Calvin and Mary weren’t told of his real name, after all these years together. Those old murder charges in St. Louis, after nearly thirty years, may not be active, but he wasn’t taking any chances. Everybody knew him now as Tom Hill anyway, so he saw no need in confusing the issue at this late date.
When Luke came back from the North Country in 1839 and fled St. Louis after killing Captain of Police Jeb Dunlap and four of his deputies, he headed straight west. After a year of stumbling around in the mountains, lost and alone, living off the land, he returned. Or at least, intended to. That is, until he came across a small band of starving Indians and quite by accident led them to Fort Kearny. So impressed were they at the fort that he wasn’t harmed by these otherwise murderous savages, they immediately offered him a position as scout. It was a job he stayed with for fifteen years, until coming here to this valley over a dozen years ago.
The Tea Cup Ranch mainly profited from the sale of beef on the hoof to the Indian Bureau to satisfy annuity commitments specified in various government treaties with the plains Indians. Those contracts alone required the herds of two Texas trail drives of five thousand head each, in addition to several thousand grass fat steers supplied from offspring of the regular ranch breeding stock each year.
The Longhorns did well on the rich Wyoming valley grass and reached weights much greater than ever seen on their native Texas short grass. Even so, Luke knew the Missouri cattle he had seen and purchased for the Blue Bear Saloon as a young man were capable of becoming even larger and getting there much faster. Therefore, in the third year at the Tea Cup, he traveled to St. Joseph, where he purchased two hundred bulls of English and other European breeds. Many were white-faced Hereford, while others were of the Shorthorn and Aberdeen Angus breeds.
The result of this experiment was a heartier offspring. Now, after near a decade of following a strict rotation system, there wasn’t a single breed cow on the Tea Cup with over one eighth Longhorn blood, with most down to one sixteenth Longhorn each. Enough of that breed at that percentage, he hoped, to retain the natural disease resistance of the Longhorn, yet acquire the superior growth abilities of the European breeds.
The ranch itself had also seen considerable upgrading over the years. The original log cabin was now the chow house for the h
ired help. And to take its place, a large two story frame house was completed to Sarah’s design, just two years before her death. It consisted of six bedrooms, a large kitchen and dining room, a parlor for Luke, and an office for the two of them to keep accurate records of the workings of the ranch. Calvin and Mary Tinkman also resided there, as they had in the original log house, under cramped but harmonious conditions.
Also on the land were three log bunk houses, built at different times as more room was needed for additional employees. In addition to these buildings were two barns with lofts, surrounded by several corrals, used mainly for the stabling and breaking of the working ranch horses.
When Calvin and Mary came, to Sarah’s delight, they brought with them a crate of chickens. Subsequently, a chicken coop was built near the original log cabin to have the fresh eggs handy for twice daily gathering.
Also on the ranch were six line cabins, built over the years on the highlands above the canyon, for the cowhands to better tend the cattle at its far reaches during the summer months. These cabins also served as lookouts for the chasing away of wandering bands of Indians, who occasionally had a hankering for beefsteak. Upon orders from Luke, starving Indians were always to be allowed to take a cow for their immediate needs, as long as they moved on afterwards. It was when they lingered and took several that they were ultimately driven away and let know, in a not so kind way, not to return. This usually involved a lot of gunfire. However, none was to be directed at the Indians themselves, also Luke’s orders.
All in all, the ranch was an enormous operation to oversee. And now that he was left to do it alone, since Sarah’s passing, he found it even more of a chore. Of course he had Calvin Tinkman to help him, but Calvin’s duties in no way involved decision making. Even when asked, he had little of value to offer, since he was more geared to the physical end of things: the branding, the castrating, the haying, and such. Now that Wyoming was becoming a territory and homesteading was looming on the horizon, Luke needed a plan for survival. His enormous land holdings were in danger of being taken away. And without the entirety of it, the future of the Tea Cup as a successfully operating ranch was in jeopardy.
