Wind River Incident

Db Jackson

Description

Franklin T. Stilwell, 15, and Brady McCall, 10, are thrown together in St. Joseph, Missouri where their families will join an ill-fated wagontrain heading west in the spring. They quickly become inseparable friends, finagle paying jobs for the winter, and trade their pay for two Indian ponies that will change the course of their lives.

Halfway across the unsettled frontier, they are the only survivors of a brutal massacre. Their struggle to survive challenges them on every level and brings and end to a childhood that barely got started.

The lives they lead are as epic as the West itself.

Sujets

• Literary fiction
• Coming of age
• Dráma
• Adventure
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: DBJ Literary
• Date de parution: 01 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780578485829
• Langue: English

Extrait

Irongate Books
PO Box 1860
Oakdale, California 95361
[e-mail]
Wind River Incident
Copyright © 2019 DB Jackson
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by DB Jackson
Cover photo Copyright © Kimerlee Curyl
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, except historical figures used fictitiously.
ISBN: 978-0-578-48562-1 ISBN: 978-0-578-48582-9 (e-book)
Printed in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With special thanks to the love of my life, my wife and best friend, Mary, without whose support and tireless help Brady and Franklin would never have embarked on this epic journey.
And to those whose love inspires me: Josh, Amy, Mateo, and Lucas.

These two, as they were grown to young manhood followed along with the Argives in their black ships to Ilion, land of good horses. . .
—Homer, The Iliad
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
ONE
Madison River, Montana — 1891
Brady McCall grew up believing cowboys were the chosen ones—the privileged few—consecrated by an ancient calling over which they had no control and, if they had, they would have chosen it anyway. McCall cowboys because that’s all he ever wanted to do. By nature he is a horseman. Afoot he appears somehow incomplete. And in his presence the horse appears incomplete without him—as though the hand that created him created the horse with him in mind.
Age beset McCall before he knew he was old. First a few grey hairs. Then a few more, and a few more until that’s all there were. The creases at the corners of his eyes set in gradually and soon enough he grew accustomed to seeing them there. Now his muscles ache and he no longer remembers when they didn’t. He does not accept old age and he allows himself no concessions because of it. Each morning he rises and his fingers fumble, stiff and gnarled, with shirt buttons that seem to grow more difficult each year.
On cold mornings he is drawn to the heat of the stove. He washes up in a porcelain basin above which hangs a looking glass. An old man stares back at him. He is drawn to the irony that his image in the looking glass is older than the image of his father in the tintype that sits on the bureau top. It often occurs to him he never saw his father get old.
But the old man who is Brady McCall walks erect. His back is strong and straight. In his eyes resides a trace of the recklessness of his youth.
Spring approaches and he grows restless. The days are short and night comes early. The night air has yet to lose its chill, but winter was loosening its grip. The old man’s thoughts turn to spring, and to cows and long days in the saddle. Each year it’s the same and each spring the restlessness within him returns. This year it is no different.
At night, he sits alone and works by the light of a kerosene lamp, oiling his saddle and repairing bridles and bits and broken spurs. Every scuff on the stirrup leathers and every scar on the saddle skirts hold a memory. He smiles at some and shudders at others. Memories are now his life and he regards them all with respect.
A cowdog lies at his feet as he does each evening, a ritual they both take for granted. The smell of leather and mink oil and horse stir within the man an impatient spirit and the dog senses it. McCall puts up the saddle, hangs the bridle on a wall peg by the door. He leans over the table and blows out the lamp.
Neither he nor the dog sleep much that night.
Before dawn the old cowboy had set off alone on horseback. By the time the sun came up, he had his branding fire built. Midday, the shadow of McCall and that of his horse crept over the rocks where once a creek ran.
At a bend in the creek the horse turned and its shadow turned to catch up. A set of wary eyes watched the man and the horse from the concealment of the brush as McCall stopped to study the tracks. The horse, its ears erect and its head held high, alerted on the brush and the eyes of the young bull that looked out at them.
McCall leaned forward in the saddle, his eyes following the hoof prints leading out of the rocks and up onto the dirt bank. The tracks appeared to have been made fresh. He glanced back across the dry wash where his camp lie a distance above a bluff in the clearing. He kept his bearings by the smoke that spiraled skyward from the branding fire he built earlier.
Above the camp circled a pair of Redtail hawks looking down with no interest in the man as they rode the thermals higher and higher into the clouds.
Ahead in a willow break, the young bullock stared out at the horse and rider and remained dead-still until McCall began to closed in it, then it bolted. McCall nudged the horse into a trot and followed the yearling up a shallow bank, and then over the crest of a hill and down through the buckbrush where it circled back onto the creekbed.
The bull trotted ahead. The horse followed without being asked to do so. McCall tied his catchrope on hard and fast and shook out a loop. He carried the extra coils and the bridle reins between the fingers of his left hand. In his right, the loop hung at the ready. He knew would only get one shot. It had to be a good one. There would be no second chance.
A flurry of upland game birds exploded up from the brush in front of the bull. The bull stopped. McCall let loose a quick loop that sand as it sizzled through the air. The bull turned its head. The loop settled over it and closed down around the thick neck. When he felt the rope tighten, the bull spun away tossing its head, lunging forward in a desperate attempt to shake off the loop.
McCall jerked the reins and sat deep in the saddle. The gelding set back on its haunches to brace for the coming jolt. Sweat ran down McCall’s face and he tensed as the slack tightened and the rope stretched. He stood his weight in the left stirrup and turned the horse to face the bull. When he did, the bull swung around and faced off with the horse. It hesitated. Then it charged.
The bull crossed the horse’s path at a full run, passed him on the offside, circled behind and, as it did so, the rope caught and jerked the horse’s legs out from under it and laid it to the ground.
When the horse went down, McCall was thrown violently from the saddle to the rocks. He took the full weight of the impact on his brittle ribcage and lay splayed out in a pitiful heap, his body bent grotesquely over the boulder upon which he came to rest. His arm shook involuntarily. He gasped for air. He fought to clear his head and he fought to breathe.
McCall held onto to the rope stretched from the saddlehorn to the bull. The horse trembled, lying helplessly on its side. The downed bull struggled to its feet. It pulled back on the rope. Choking itself down further. Its eyes bulged. Its tongue lolled. It began to totter. The bull took a step forward. The rope went slack, and it could breathe again. It took another step forward, and then stopped to take in the fresh flow of air. The bull recovered quickly, pawed the ground, and sent rocks and dirt flying up behind him.
McCall lifted himself up onto one elbow. The bull watched him get to his knees, holding the loose rope like a lifeline. He eased himself up next to the horse and clucked it to its feet. The horse stood, its nostrils flared and its eyes on the bull.
There they stood, the horse watching the bull, the bull watching the old cowboy, and McCall holding onto the loosely coiled rope, hoping for a chance to get back into the saddle. It was that moment of indecision where the man, the horse, and the bull all waited for the other to determine what happened next. The bull reacted first—it turned one way, the horse bolted the other. McCall just hung onto the rope, hoping for the best as he waited for the scene that played out like a slow-motion nightmare in which all he could do was watch it unfold.
The horse and the bull, as though summoned by a higher force, panicked and took off in opposite directions. McCall could see what was coming next and he tried to drop the rope, but he was too late. The rope stretched tight and the loose coil wrapped itself around his thumb.
He watched the coil tighten and the thumb swell. He felt a quick bur