Kent
A.J. James
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 A.J. James
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Kent
Standing up in his stirrups Kent watched the wagon train slowly moving into the distance. He scanned the landscape, it wasn't much to look at really. Just a plain with a few scrub trees and rocky outcrops. He glanced over his shoulder, back towards the tree line that had signalled the end of the mountain road. The birch forest with its gleaming white trunks and soft green leaves looked idyllic compared to what lay in front of him. But the settlers in the wagon train had moaned and carried on all through the mountain pass, they had no idea of what the journey they set themselves entailed at all. Why do they come? He thought to himself, why do they pack their families and worldly goods into wagons and head hundreds of miles West? Maybe the call of free land was enough or the stories of untold riches to be made on the cattle trails. Of course the wild stories of the gold strikes and silver mines so rich that they make the dreams of Avarice look like a paupers idle musing added to the illusion of happiness unbounded for all who made the journey.
The tales of hardships and poverty, the disease and starvation never made it back East. The reality of hostile natives and the lack of food and water obviously didn't have the same appeal as a ranch with a thousand head of cattle and a gold mine in the back yard. Kent smiled and sat down in the saddle again. He had been one of these folks years before as a boy. His parents had loaded him on a wagon like a bundle of clothes and headed towards the frontier lands. They had died within a few years, struggling to make a sad patch of dirt pay enough to raise a family and build a dream. Kent had been raised by friends from the church they founded together. As a boy he had a dream to head towards tree filled Kentucky and live in the back woods and so the child Bobby, had seen his given name dropped and he was simply known as Kent.
He knew these trails well and made a good living as a guide for the new settlers. The childhood hopes of Kentucky and a home and family were long gone. Time was always against him, there was always one last wagon train of settlers that needed to be helped towards their future laden with hope and gold.
On this particular trek he was an out rider, one of eight men who rode a distance from the train in all directions looking out for trouble and hunting the meat for the settlers meals. A thin skirmish screen acting as a warning shield. It was lonely and dangerous work as he had no way of contacting the others, the noise of a gun shot was the only way to attract attention and summon help. Still the compensations were that he didn't have to endure the endless gripping of those he escorted. So far the journey had been easy and the hard part lay ahead, but to hear the waggoner’s you would think they had been to Hades and back.
Pulling on the reins and turned Bo, a chestnut gelding he had owned for five years, towards the dust cloud on the horizon he let the horse find his footing and head down towards the grassy plain. The blue sky and the open vista did indeed look like a paradise and seemed to call to something within those that saw it.
The wagon train was now out of sight and Kent would have move forward a little to keep it just on the edge of his vision. He checked carefully all the time in all directions for tell tale dust rising up from moving feet or horses, and just in front of Bo for gopher holes. A gopher hole would mean a broken leg and the end for Bo and all trail men knew of all the dangers they faced this was one of the worst. The loss of your horse meant walking, and walking meant you had to carry everything you needed or die. It was all instinctive to Kent and he made good time across the open plain until the train was in sight. The dust from it rising like a signal to all the bands of thieves and cut throats, Indians and renegades saying 'Here I am come and make yourselves rich' He sighed and settled Bo back to a slow walk. It would be like this for the next four days until they got to the river and Jason’s Store, where the amiable Jason Bartholomew would charge his extortionate prices with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders as the settlers topped up the provisions they needed. Four days of neck aching watching and listening for anything that was out of the ordinary. This section of the journey was known well for the Indian raiding parties that made a living of sorts from the travellers that passed by with ever more increasing regularity.