Hoisting the prize in the air, his bronzed arms lifted high, he tipped back his explosion of long, dirty, brown hair, shook the scalp and the knife at the blue sky that seethed with morbid pink-hued memory and screamed in triumph; his muscular torso etched against the morning gray, his silhouette framed to the south by Longs Peak and to the west by the Rawah Range. Around him, the unkempt members of his renegade band had gathered. They, too, raised their rifles and bows to the sky, joining his bloodcurdling howl.
He jumped from the wagon directly into the saddle on the stallion. “Men, strip everything of value. Don’t forget the food, and do not fight over the scalps. We won’t torch. Smoke would be dangerous.” The band scattered with whoops and shouts except for Pedro, his lieutenant, who rode up beside him, awaiting orders.
He turned in his saddle and spoke sharply to him in Spanish. “Pedro, after the men have stripped the wagons, get the girl and bring her to me. Bind her wrists. Wet the rawhide first. I want it tight but not so that it marks her. She is mine.”
Pedro puffed out his chest. “But we always share…”
Black Feather’s fist, clenched around the hilt of his knife, struck out, delivering a meaty backhanded blow to Pedro’s face. The paunchy man’s voice died in a gurgle as he fell from his horse. Black Feather glowered down from the stallion as the fat man rolled back and forth on the ground, clutching his bloody nose and whimpering in pain. Black Feather watched with impassive detachment.
“One more word Pedro, and your scalp will join those of the white eyes on my belt. If I tire of her, perhaps I will give you a taste or perhaps I will kill her.”
To be continued…
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Excerpt from Book Two, Maps of Fate
STRENGTH OF CONVICTION
Israel made a fist and slammed it on the table but with no real force, “And, that new law I told you ‘bout just now—it made Kansas a territory, and its free—no slavery—and it ain’t much more than two or three days’ walk.”
He rose from the table, bent down on one knee in front of her, reached out his calloused, once powerful hands and wrapped them around one of hers. “Look at me, Lucy. Have I ever told you wrong?” Lucy’s eyes held his. She shook her head slowly.
“That’s right. No, I ain’t. And I’m telling you, I don’t read so good but I’ve done read and overheard enough to know slavery ain’t gonna last forever. It might be over sooner than you think. The trick is, we might be too old, and if all the darkies get free all at the same time, it’s gonna be rough. Most folks like us don’t think like I am talking. The massuhs don’t want us to have these thoughts. That’s why they say we aren’t allowed to read.
I’m telling you woman, we need to get out ahead of what’s going to happen. We don’t want to be where there’s gonna be armies or worse yet, a bunch of godless bad men pretending to be armies like them Quantrill and Brown fellas you heard them talking about. They is in the paper, too.”
Lucy looked at him intently. She blinked rapidly and another tear trickled down the roundness of her opposite cheek. “Even if what you say is true, Israel, there’s nothing we can do. This is all much bigger than us. It will all just be like before. Everything we do, everything we are, everything we have, our lives, will always be decided by others.”
Israel reached up both hands, pressed them gently against either side of her face and held her head steady just inches from his own. “You’re wrong, Lucy. We got four things way bigger than the white man’s armies or the massuh’s rules. You got you; I got me. We got each other. And we got the Lord. Ain’t nothin’ bigger. No one can take our spirit from us.” He paused and looked earnestly into her eyes. “If we don’t do something with these gifts the Lord done give us, then we got no one to blame but us. Let me read you something.”
Israel stood carefully, pushing down both hands on his raised knee to lift his other leg off the floor. He went to the door, opened it a crack and looked out. He made his way to the window and carefully surveyed the flat, wavy, undulations of the countryside, and the main house several hundred yards distant. He moved over to the bed, which was little more than a raised wooden platform topped by a thin mattress with strands of straw poking out from a threadbare cotton cover, overlain by several tattered, dark wool blankets.
He reached under the mattress and drew out a folded piece of old, ragged, brownish-yellow newspaper. “You know what this is?” He shook the paper, which crinkled in the stillness of the shack. “This is a printing of the Declaration of Independence. You know, July 4, when they have their picnic and such. This here paper is what happened when some white men decided they wasn’t going to be slaves of other white folks in the seventeen hundreds. And this applies to all citizens of the United States of America and that’s what we are part of.”
Lucy shook her head again, “But that’s the point, Israel. We ain’t citizens.”
“By God, we are. This paper says so and there’s a bunch of folks that agree with it. I’ve been reading about—hold on a minute—let me find it.” Israel carefully unfolded the paper, its brittle, compressed pieces reluctant to separate. He fumbled his spectacles onto his nose with one hand and held them there, “All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…” he bent his head closer to the print “…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Israel slowly took off the spectacles, thoughtfully refolded the paper and slipped it carefully far back under the mattress. He turned to face his wife again. “Lucy, ‘all men’ means us! I think it’s high time that Lucy and Israel grabbed their share of that ‘equal’ and that ‘liberty’.”
To be continued…
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Excerpt from Book Two, Maps of Fate
SPIRIT WHISPERS
Turtle Shield and Pointed Lance had reached them now, each of them with a hand on either arm of Brave Pony, who sagged weakly over the neck of his horse. Eagle Talon walked to them. “Lower him down to me.”
He gathered up Brave Pony in his arms and carried him over to the taller grass at the base of the cottonwood, laying him down gently, then examining the wound closely. The injured brave’s eyes fluttered open. “Perhaps it is my time to meet Wakan Tanka.”
Eagle Talon was concerned. There was puss forming around the uneven edges of both the entry and exit of the bullet wound that had pierced his friend’s side. He was sure the shell had not touched anything vital but infection could kill just as easily.
He grabbed Brave Pony’s shoulder and squeezed it hard. His friend’s eyes opened again, “Are you trying to break my shoulder, too?”
Eagle Talon laughed with a humor he didn’t feel. “You see, you feel pain. This is not your day to die. You will have to wait to see Spirit. You’re stuck with the four of us for many winters.”
Turtle Shield and Pointed Lance came running up, their hands full of young plantain leaves. They looked with concern at Brave Pony, then at Eagle Talon, with the question in their eyes.
A minute later, they heard a low shout from Three Knives. “Water. Plenty of it!”
“He will live,” he answered their voiceless query. “Three Knives, get the water over here. I will prepare the poultice.” Using a rounded rock, he pounded and mashed the broadleaf plantain to shredded fibers. Three Knives joined them from the willows, carrying two small buffalo bladders. The tough membrane was damp but watertight. “Three Knives, give him some water.”
Eagle Talon stripped off his shirt and made a shallow leather bowl within a circle of rocks he assembled. He looked up at his friends, “Walks with Moon will have my hide for this. She made the shirt for me just this winter.”
The three warriors laughed, “I’m sure you will find a way to make her smile, Eagle Talon. It is well known in the village that if we can’t find you, you are under the robes with Walks with Moon.”
Eagle Talon chuckled and shook his head. “Winters are cold and long. One must stay warm somehow.” They a
ll laughed again, even Brave Pony, although his laughter was mixed with a hacking cough.
Eagle Talon carefully stirred the plantain, adding just a bit of water at a time. When it was a fine, mushy, fiber paste, he had Three Knives and Turtle Shield roll Brave Pony to his side.
“Three Knives, bring me some of the gunpowder for your musket.” Three Knives looked at him, initially not understanding. Then his eyes lit up. “A good idea, Eagle Talon.” He ran to his mustang and grabbed his powder horn.
“This will hurt my friend.” Brave Pony nodded his head, gritting his teeth. He sprinkled gunpowder into both bloody red holes, then worked the tip of a finger in from each side, Three Knives adding powder as Eagle Talon packed the wounds. Brave Pony groaned through clenched lips.
“Bring a flint.”
“Here.” Pointed Lance reached into a small, beaded leather pouch that hung from his neck and handed the flint to Eagle Talon. Holding the flint close to the wounds, Eagle Talon struck the flint once, then again. A spark caught and an explosion of fire seemed to leap from both bloody apertures, diminishing to gray smoke and the acrid smell of exploded gunpowder and burnt flesh. Brave Pony stiffened and bit into the meaty part below his thumb until it nearly bled.
“Now I will put the poultice on, and you’ll feel much better.” Eagle Talon applied the poultice lavishly, pushing into both sides of the wound. He sat back on his heels and sighed. Shaking his head, he cut a sleeve from the shoulder of his shirt, then cut it again, longitudinally. Turtle Shield and Three Knives held Brave Pony’s shoulder up so Eagle Talon could bind the two strips tightly around his friend’s midsection, over the poultice.
Brave Pony stifled a groan as they sat him down. “I thought you said I would feel better.” They all laughed, and Brave Pony smiled. “I do feel better. Spirit will have to wait.”
*****
Unable to make fast time, the sun was low in the sky when they topped a golden ridge. The rolling country undulated in waves of spring grass, as does a pond in the wind.
“There they are!” exclaimed Three Knives.
Eagle Talon nodded and took in the scene, searching for Walks with Moon’s graceful figure. Sixteen tatanka carcasses lay scattered across a wide valley, the nearest almost five or six arrow-flights from the furthest. Some were already just partial bones and remnants of flesh. Teams of women and older children worked on others, fleshing the great bloody hides, as others removed chunks and strips from the mountains of meat, cutting it carefully for storage, salting and smoking. Others sloshed around in great piles of entrails, removed from the carcasses soon after death so that the meat would not spoil. The saving of hide, fat and bone would come later. Camp dogs slunk around the edges, snatching whatever scraps they could.
Silhouetted on the higher hills all around the valley, braves stood guard over this ancient ritual—the difference between life and death for The People. Three Cougars pounded up the incline toward them, smiling. “We’ve done well. This was the second herd. We took fourteen in the first one and sixteen from this one. It was a great gathering of the brothers—probably thirty arrow-flights wide. He pointed out the mile-wide swath of trampled grass that receded up and down the hills, disappearing northwest into the twilight. His eyes fell to the scalps and his face grew somber. “That is the good news but there is other news.”
Three Knives cast a nervous glance at Eagle Talon. “What?”
“I was instructed to tell you that the council wants to meet with you as soon as you arrive. You’re not to go to your lodges first.” He looked down at the ground, hesitating, and then up at them again. He leaned forward and in a voice barely more than a whisper, “It was Flying Arrow himself who gave the instruction.”
The five braves looked at one another. Eagle Talon swallowed. We shall get Brave Pony to his lodge. He is too weak to attend the council meeting. Tell Flying Arrow we will be there immediately after.”
Three Cougars nodded, wheeled his horse, and with a shout, headed down the ridgelines toward—Eagle Talon supposed—where they had set up camp for the night, away from the valley of their dead brothers and the predators that would surely visit in the dark.
To be continued…
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Reid is fourth generation land and cattle. He is a rancher, a multiple #1 bestselling author, and the Threads West series has been honored with fifteen national literary awards including, Best Western, Best Romance, and Best Historical Fiction. His cowboy heart and poet’s pen captures the spirit of the western landscape and its influence on generations of its settlers. His long-standing devotion to wild and remote places and to the people—both past and present—who leave their legend and footprint upon America and the American West is the inspiration and descriptive underpinning of all of his writing.
“If your mind and spirit are seduced by images of windswept ridge tops, fluttering of aspen leaves caressed by a canyon breezes and the crimson tendrils of a dying sun…if your fingers feel the silken pulse of a lover and your lips taste the deep kisses of building passion…if nostrils flare with the conjured scents of gunpowder and perfume, sagebrush and pine, and your ears delight in the murmur of river current…if your heart pounds at the clash of good and evil, and with each twist and turn of inter-laced lives, you feel a primal throb, then I have accomplished my mission.”
Passion fuels each thrilling, action and romance-packed novel in this widely acclaimed series and epic of the historical west. This is the third book of this saga and Maps of Fate era novels (1854–1875). Reid’s works have been compared to Lonesome Dove, Louis L’Amour (with steam) and Centennial, by reviewers and readers alike. Some have called the series, “the Gone with the Wind of the West.” Others have acclaimed the tale as “more authentic than Dances with Wolves.” Each ensuing book unfolds the riveting, sensual, adventure-filled tale of a country on the cusp of greatness, the cloth of a nation woven from personalities of uncommon origins, and lives weaved into generational tapestries of lust, duplicity, enmity, love and triumph.
www.ReidLanceRosenthal.com
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*****
One saga, five generations of unforgettable
characters and—through their eyes—
one hundred seventy years of America brimful
of history, adventure, sensuality and intrigue.
You will recognize the characters
who live in these pages.
They are you. They are us.
This is not only their story. It is our story.
It is Threads West, An American Saga.
*****
What the readers are saying…
The praise from authors and reviewers is thrilling but this book is written for you, the reader. Here is what just a few of your fellow readers of the Threads West series are saying!
“Better than Louis L’Amour. And I love Louis L’Amour.”
— Rhett R., Montana
“I finished the book last night. It was amazing. If this does not get made into a movie or mini-series for TV, it will be a crime. It is so wonderful. I loved every minute of it and can’t wait to read the next one. Yo, dude, you have got the romance thing down. You had my blood pumpin’ and even boiling. It is captivating on so many levels and it just kept getting better and better!”
—Ann J., California
“Your style of writing captures a reader’s attention and won’t let go! It stimulates the senses so we can feel, taste, smell, hear and see vivid pictures of the characters and setting, which you so meticulously describe…characters, interesting and diverse with complex lives, become artfully merged with one another to create this really remarkable, unforgettable story.… I’m looking forward to the continuation of the Threads West journey!”
—Nancy K., Colorado
“My girlfriend bought your Threads West book. Then she insisted that I read it. A Western romance? I groaned and thought I would pretend to keep her happy. I di
d not stop until I read the whole thing. For once, real characters in real situations, with real reactions. A great story, too. I am buying book two, and she will have to get it from me.”
—Tom G., Florida
“I downloaded Threads West and was quickly captivated. Easy to appreciate how some readers have read it front to back at one sitting! It is obviously nurtured in the heart, driven by a love of land and country, and the results are destined to bring great pleasure to many readers. I know this tale will ignite many readers with a forgotten love and appreciation for the heritage of this great country and a clearer commitment to overcome the challenges that lie ahead. There may well have been a reason that Threads West should appear at this time!”
—Ronald L., Colorado
“I have been completely captivated by your mastery of the art of storytelling. Your wondrous world of Threads West is a new adventure in which I want to continue further, learn more about the loves and lives of the characters who are becoming friend and foe and part of my own. This is your passion, painting a visual that is a must-read, and leaving the reader longing for more and the next.”
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