Searcher

F.M. Parker

Description

Escaping from a Comanche raid that killed their parents, sixteen year old Sam Tollin and his strikingly beautiful thirteen year old sister Sarah, race to Tucson seeking help. Young and inexperienced, they become easy prey of ruthless men. Before they can get to the law or the army, their money is stolen and they are kidnapped and hauled off on a Mexican wagon train to be sold as slaves in Mexico.However one of Sam's and Sarah's captors has made an enemy of Two Foxes, a Comanche warrior. Two Foxes stalks the wagon train seeking revenge on the Mexican. While killing his enemy, Two Foxes helps Sam to escape. Sam can not help Sarah escape and still escape himself. He vows to Sarah that he will return and rescue her. He leaves, filled with his need for vengeance against the Mexicans and to keep his vow to rescue his beloved sister. If he can survive long enough.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Western (genre)
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: Fearl M. Parker
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908400352
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE SEARCHER by F. M. Parker
Orphaned by a Comanche raid, sixteen-year-old Sam Tollin and his thirteen-year-old sister Sarah wander the dangerous Southwest seeking aid. Young and inexperienced, they become the easy prey of unsavory characters. Before they can get to the law or the army, their money is stolen and they are kidnapped and on their way to be sold as slaves in Mexico City.
However, one of their captors has made an enemy of a Kiowa named Two Foxes. When the Indian seeks his revenge, he enables Sam to escape. Now Sam must fulfill his own need for vengeance and rescue his beloved sister. If he can survive…
Following Two Foxes, Sam meets up with a ruthless band of outlaws on a trek across the desert to California. Realizing he will need money and weapons, Sam joins their company, and his perilous adventures provide a quick and harsh education as Sam matures from an innocent boy into a hard-bitten, steel-eyed young man. His conversion complete, Sam Tollin can begin his search for the sister he was forced to abandon.
About the Author

F. M. PARKER has worked as a sheepherder, lumberman, sailor, geologist, and as a manager of wild horses, buffalo, and livestock grazing. For several years he was the manager of five million acres of public domain land in eastern Oregon.
His highly acclaimed novels include Skinner, Coldiron, The Searcher, Shadow of the Wolf, The Shanghaiers, The Highbinders, The Far Battleground, The Shadow Man, and The Slavers.
SUPERBLY WRITTEN AND DETAILED PARKER BRINGS THE WEST TO LIFE. Publishers Weekly
ABSORBING SWIFTLY PACED, FILLED WITH ACTION! Library Journal
PARKER ALWAYS PRESENTS A LIVELY, CLOSELY PLOTTED STORY. Bookmarks
REFRESHING, COMBINES A GOOD STORY WITH FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE. University of Arizona Library
RICH, REWARDING DESERVES A WIDE GENERAL READERSHIP. Booklist
Also by F.M. Parker
Novels
The Highwayman Wife Stealer Winter Woman The Assassins Girl in Falling Snow The Predators The Far Battleground Coldiron - Judge and Executioner Coldiron - Shadow of the Wolf Coldiron - The Shanghaiers Coldiron - To Kill an Enemy The Searcher The Seeker The Highbinders The Shadow Man The Slavers Nighthawk Skinner Soldiers of Conquest
Screenplays
Women for Zion Firefly Catcher
The Making of the Desert-A Prologue
In the beginning there was no man. In the beginning there was no desert.
The great continent won the battle. It beat back the attack of the two salty oceans that tore at its flanks. After uncounted millions of years of warfare, the pounding waves and ripping currents had retreated a very long distance and the land surface exposed to the yellow sun was greater by threefold.
However, the seas had played a devilish trick upon the continent. The world had grown cold while the conflict raged, and as the level of the seas lowered and drew back from the shores, the waters that no longer filled the deep basins to overflowing were thrown down upon the plains and mountains of the continent. Most of the moisture fell as snow. Much did not melt during the short, chilly summers, and frigid glaciers were birthed.
For thousands of years the glaciers grew, merging together into one colossal ice sheet more than a mile thick. The white mantle of ice, its solid water crystals turned to plastic by its own immeasurable, crushing tons, flowed outward, slow and cold, to smother the land for more than a million square miles. It overrode the hills, filled the valleys, and depressed the rock crust of the earth into broad basins.
Forests grew on all the land not hidden by the ice. Into the far northern reaches of these woods appeared an alien, upright creature with a thin-haired pelt and a brown skin. Migrating at three to four miles a year, and with his female and sturdy offspring in tow, the man moved south along the western shore. He searched for a warm land, close to the sun.
One generation after another was born and died during the long trek. At last, the man reached the lowland on the southern portion of the continent. Yet here, too, cold rain and heavy snow fell in superabundance.
The snow never fully melted from one year to the next on the tall mountains of this new country. Small glaciers came to life in high valleys, to slip slowly, like ice tears, down the face of the mountains.
Then a change occurred; the earth began to be less cold. The continental glacier shrank, and as it melted a deluge of unimaginable quantity flooded across the land. Rivers became vast cataracts charging headlong for the seas.
At one latitude on the sphere of the earth the sun had burned directly down for billions of years. In this equatorial zone, the air became heated as in a furnace and surged heavenward in an unending tide. As the torrent rose and cooled, downpours cascaded out of the cloudy, tormented skies.
At tremendous heights, this stupendous updraft split, half dashing south and half north. The northern segment, rushing through the frigid atmosphere at speeds exceeding two hundred miles an hour, hurried toward the top of the world. However, it grew weary before it reached its goal and plunged down toward the earth and the great continent.
During the glacial epoch, these dry, descending south winds would have mixed with the damp, cool surface air blowing from the north. Now, however, the land was warm and the equatorial wind, growing hot and parched with a mighty thirst that could consume ten feet of water in a year, sucked up and stole away the mere five inches of moisture the land was given.
The glacier continued to wane. Finally, it shrank to nothing. The desiccating south wind grew stronger. The forest died except on the very highest peaks of the mountains. Countless species of animals died. All the lowland became barren. Sandstorms raged.
Rainstorms rarely fell. When they did pour down their floods, the land was scarred and cut, and the soil that had taken thousands of years to form was flushed down from the highlands to create broad floodplains along the rivers.
A few species of plant and animal life adapted to the harsh land of the desert mountains and valleys. The brown man adapted. He was as one with the desert for fifteen millennia.
A new clan of man came upon the desert. His skin was white and his numbers many. He and the brown man pursued each other across the land, and they fought savage battles. The victor slew the vanquished without mercy.
Beneath the burning sun, the desert lay mute and uncaring of the dead that rotted upon its breast.
Chapter One
The Indian war party, twenty Comanche and two Kiowa strong and mounted on fast mustangs, crossed the Gallinas River just south of Mesa Cuatas. The Comanche chief led, wading his long-legged pony through the belly-deep current of the ford. At the far shore, he halted and twisted in his blood-stained U.S. Army saddle to watch the progress of his fighters.
They were lean, sinewy warriors armed with Winchester and Henry rifles, nearly half of them repeating weapons. Most of the braves also carried their old familiar war bows tied behind their saddles. A few had long battle lances.
The chief s eyes paused on the two Kiowa. They had arrived in the Comanche camp in Palo Duro Canyon in the land of Texas at the time the band was preparing to leave to steal horses in the valley of the Rio Grande. The Kiowa had been returning from a sojourn in their village in the Oklahoma Territory, north of the Red River, and were heading for Santa Fe. With the same destination, the two groups made a pact to ride together and join forces to fight any battle they might fall into along the way.
The Comanche wore breechcloths, elk-hide moccasins, and leggings tied above their knees. Except for moccasins, the Kiowa were dressed like white men, in cotton pants and shirts, and had six-guns in holsters strapped around their waists. The chief believed the two men sometimes rode with renegade white men and had acquired that habit of wearing pistols from them.
The Kiowa s association with enemies of the Comanche made them suspect. Still, the chief had heard the two were brave warriors, and that was sufficient for now. If a battle started and they faltered, or gave any sign they did not want to kill white men, his braves would slay them.
The band had been riding for three days, pressing swiftly onward from morning s first graying of night until the next darkness overtook them from the east. They had crossed the grassy prairie of northwest Texas and driven deeply into the hilly desert of northern New Mexico. Twice they had spotted distant riders and circled widely around them. Until the Indians reached the valley of the Rio Grande, every contact with white men must be avoided. The chief s war cry as he hurled his warriors into the attack would be the first and only warning to their foes.
The Comanche were now entering the stunted pine on the rolling eastern foothills of the great mountains, the two-hundred-mile-long chain called Sangre de Cristo by the Mexicans. In one more day, they would be near Santa Fe and taking the excellent horses from the ranchos of the Mexicans and gringos . Any man that tried to stop them would be killed.
With good fortune, the Comanche would take hundreds of ponies with them when they returned to the Wintering Place, Palo Duro Canyon. The chief was anxious to go back to that beautiful place, invisible from the flat horizon, a curving chasm slashed into the plains, an oasis of sweet springs, streams and waterfalls, willows, and buffalo grass tall and nutritious. It was all sunken below the flat prairie and hidden from the frigid winter wind that would soon blow down from the north. It was entered only by a few trails beaten out by buffalo herds. Best of all, his people would be safe there, for few white men knew of the existence of the deep river canyon.
It was late in the Yellow Leaves Moon, October, and yet the sun had unnaturally retained much of its fire. Several of the swarthy riders bent down from the backs of their