Silver Creek (The Parker Family Saga) Read online

  Blond pigtails and eyes bluer than a Nebraska summer sky.

  The two of them walking next to the oxen. The thirteen-year-old boy trying to be strong and caring when an anger burned inside of him at his father’s death. The eight-year-old girl. Scared, hurt, and so alone. The long days on the Oregon Trail. The hot sun. The outlaws attacking their wagon. Threatening Hanna and young Becky.

  Sharp bile rose in his throat at the memory of helplessness he had felt and the gut-wrenching fear of what would happen to his sister and new friend. Only Zion arriving had saved them.

  That hateful sick feeling filled him as he remembered saying goodbye at Fort Bridger. Her uncle and aunt were carving off to California while he and his were to continue on to Oregon. That sense of loss still filled him. What had hurt the most was the fact that he wouldn’t be there to protect her. By that time, he had learned just how hard life could be. It had terrified him to think of her having to face it all alone.

  He forced himself to take a calming breath as he picked up the arrowhead between his thumb and forefinger. Twirling it slowly, he thought back to that day. They’d both spotted it at the same time down by some unnamed creek and reached for it together. She had insisted that he keep it. Saying it was more a boy thing.

  A shared moment on the trail. One of many. Three days later as their families separated down different trails, he had put it in her hand and told her that if she ever needed him to let him know and he would come. A silly child’s promise.

  Swallowing hard, he began to read.

  Dear Luke

  I pray this finds you doing well. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember a moment on the trail with you and your family. You saved me in so many ways. You and Hanna. But it was you who helped me see that life might be good someday. That I should be strong like you. For that, I will always thank you.

  It seems so long ago, but I have always wondered if you made it to Oregon. Imagine my surprise when I ran into Freddy Seaver You remember Freddy, he was Jacob’s friend. He was the one to tell me where to find you.

  We never made California. Aunt Abigail died of the fever just the other side of Humboldt Wells and Uncle Tom couldn’t go any further. He found a spot north of the Humboldt, not far from Silver Creek, and refused to go on. I often wondered what my life would have been like if we had gone to Oregon instead.

  You once told me, if I ever needed your assistance, I need merely ask. It seems so long ago. Do you even remember me? I know how ridiculous this sounds. But you are the only person I can turn to.

  My Uncle was murdered and our ranch stolen. Again, I feel ashamed for asking. But if you are ever in these parts. I could use your help in discovering the truth.

  Please, if you are unable to help. I understand perfectly. It was but a few months on the prairie and we were children. But I must tell you, you are my only hope.

  All my best

  Rebecca Johnson

  Luke’s eyebrows narrowed as he stared down at the arrowhead in his hand.

  He remembered that protective feeling he had felt towards her. Just like he felt to Hanna. She had been like his little sister. That day, after burying their parents he had known it was his job to look out for her. It had stopped him from sliding into despair. Knowing there was someone hurting even more.

  He read the letter again. She hadn’t mentioned a husband. That was hard to believe. She must be nineteen, well past marrying age. Knowing Becky, she’d grown up to be beautiful, smart, sweet, and strong. The perfect marrying kind. And those boys out in Eastern Nevada weren’t stupid.

  Thirty minutes later he was standing at attention, in front of Colonel Forrest. His arms locked at his side and his back as straight as a ramrod.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” the Colonel said as he leaned back in his chair. Obviously wondering why his day as a regimental commander was being interrupted by a junior lieutenant.

  “I need to resign my commission, Sir,” Luke said as he held his breath for the coming explosion.

  Instead, the Colonel interlocked his fingers and raised one eyebrow then nodded to the chair in front of his desk.

  Luke sat on the edge of the seat and kept his back straight as the Colonel continued to stare at him.

  “Do you know why you received that battlefield commission?”

  “I assumed I earned it, Sir,” Luke replied. He wasn’t going to be put off. The war was over and he had something that needed to be done.

  The Colonel smiled just the slightest. “Yes, but we never talked about it. Neither of us is the type to reminisce about old times. I don’t know if you remember, on the trail between Fort Bridger out to Fort Dalles, I led the calvary troop guarding your wagon train.”

  “Yes Sir, I remember. I remember you liked my sister Hanna’s biscuits. But I will still be resigning my commission.”

  “I thought, when I needed a new Lieutenant,” the Colonel continued as if Luke hadn’t spoken, “that any boy taught by Zion Campbell wouldn’t be half an idiot.”

  “Sir …”

  The colonel held up his hand to stop him. “If you resigned your commission, you’ll have to finish your enlistment, so that isn’t going to get you home any earlier. Not unless you dessert, and we both know that you could never shame your family that way.”

  Luke’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He had feared this. But Becky needed his help and the war was over. They weren’t doing anything but filling out papers.

  Colonel Forrest sighed, “You didn’t hear this from me but we’ll be marching through Washington within the week. The big wigs want a parade. Then the regiment will be returned to Ohio, paid off, and disbanded there. Believe me, you will get back to Oregon faster that way. There won’t be a railroad seat or steamboat berth open for the next six months. A million men need to get home and the army is buying up every rear resting bench between here and the Great Lakes. Just be glad you aren’t a confederate. They’ll have to walk home. Besides, I need you to lead your company until then. Someone has to keep them in line.”

  Luke nodded slowly as a sick feeling filled him. He knew deep in his stomach that Becky needed his help and he had half a continent to cross to get to her.

  Chapter Three

  Rebecca Johnson wiped her hands on her apron then quickly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before taking the plates from the counter. Steaks, beans, and biscuits. All the Emporia served, that and Helen’s cobbler.

  “Knowing Frank Peterson,” she said to Helen as she balanced the plates, “he’s going to want seconds.”

  Helen laughed as she shook her head. “We’re busier than a beaver with a busted dam. And I know it ain’t my cobbler that are bringing them in. It’s amazing what a pretty woman serving them food will do for a man. They’re coming in all the way from Becket Wells and Sulphur Springs hoping you’ll smile at them.”

  Rebecca felt her cheeks blush. Helen was always doing that. Ever since taking her in six months earlier, she’d gone out of her way to tell Rebecca that she was an asset, not a hindrance. One of the many reasons she loved the woman.

  “Yes, well,” she stammered before turning for the dining room of Helen’s restaurant. “The stage will be in soon and Chester Polk is riding shotgun again.”

  Helen’s cheeks turned a faint pink as she quickly turned back to her stove.

  Rebecca smiled to herself as she backed through the batwing doors and into the dining room. Her life would be lost without Helen. At forty, a plain woman, larger than most with a touch of gray in her hair. Helen was tougher than boot leather. A woman had to be to hold her own in this town. But Rebecca knew that deep inside of Helen was a woman. A woman who liked the way Chester Polk looked at her.

  Weaving her way through the tables, Rebecca served up the food then topped off their coffee but her mind quickly wandered back to Helen Scarsdale. What would she have ever done without the woman?

  A quick shiver ran down her spine. First, she’d lost her uncle, then the ranch. A young woman alone in a rough town with n
o family, no money.

  She’d come to town on Homer, their last remaining mule, hoping to sell him for enough to get a ticket on the stage. Every possession in her carpetbag. As she left the livery station she’d passed through town, past the Red House Saloon, and shuddered when she saw the women in their shameful clothes. Was that to be her fate? she couldn’t stop from wondering.

  Walking quickly, she had hurried down the dusty street. It had been the smell of peach cobbler that made her stomach rumble and drew her into the restaurant. She’d sat at a table for hours nursing a cup of coffee with nowhere else to go as she fought to not cry. Her world was ruined. Everything she had ever loved gone. Once again.

  Nothing lasted, she had realized. Everything was always taken from her. It was just the way of the world. First the town she had grown up in and all her friends when her father had insisted they go to Oregon. Then both her parents to cholera only a month into the trek. Next, the Parker family. The people who saved her and brought her back to her uncle and aunt. Her family had turned off for California while the Parkers had gone on to Oregon.

  Then Aunt Abigail. And now her Uncle Tom. No, nothing was permanent, she realized. Nothing could be trusted to last.

  It had been Helen who saved her. She’d stepped out from the kitchen and taken one look at her and known immediately what had happened. She hadn’t asked. Instead, she’d pointed to two miners in the corner and said, “If you want a job, get them some coffee. I can’t be doing everything around here.”

  Thinking back, Rebecca couldn’t stop from smiling to herself. Helen was an angel. The mother she hadn’t had since forever. The woman had insisted that Rebecca live with her in a room in her small shack at the edge of town. But there was more. She had become a friend. A person to be trusted.

  Smiling to herself, Rebecca began to gather dirty plates from an empty table.

  “When we getting married?” Pap Wilkins asked with a laugh. “I’m thinking noon, Sunday.”

  Rebecca laughed. The man was over sixty and smaller than a prairie dog. He’d lost his teeth years earlier and most of his hair somewhere along the way.

  “I don’t know Pap,” Rebecca said as she topped off his coffee cup. “You might be too much man for me.”

  The room laughed. Rebecca felt a warmth fill her. Most of the people in town were so kind. She was about to suggest another piece of cobbler when the front door opened letting in a swirl of dust. She turned and felt her smile drop.

  Mark Felton and his friend Troy Cooper. The two most dangerous men in the county. Troy because of his reputation with a gun. Mark Felton because his brother was the richest rancher within a hundred miles. Two men who were used to getting their own way.

  Rebecca felt a hush settle over the room as the half dozen other men registered who had come in. This country grew hard men. Miners, Cowboys. Jack Strumph the hulking blacksmith, but even these men looked worried. She noticed that several hurriedly finished their meal before shooting her a quick smile as they dropped two bits on the table next to their plate, then got up and left.

  Mark Felton didn’t even notice as he slowly ran his eyes up and over her. “Rebecca,” he said with a lustful look in his eyes that made her blood run cold. She was woman enough to know what that look meant. And the fact that Mark Felton didn’t care if anyone saw spoke to his power.

  Swallowing hard, she scurried into the kitchen with an armful of dirty dishes.

  “Do you want me to take them?” Helen asked as she gave Rebecca a concerned look. It was more than the lustful stare. It was the fact that the man and his family now owned her uncle’s ranch. A hurt, sinking feeling filled her. No, she couldn’t go through life hiding, ashamed.

  She lifted her chin and shook her head as she placed the empty plates next to the wash bucket. Taking a deep breath, she ran her hands over her dress then stepped back into the dining room.

  “Coffee?” she asked as she lifted the pot from the warming brazier.

  Troy Cooper grunted as he pulled out a chair and sat down. Mark held the back of a chair and stared at her. Slowly a small smile spread across his face, obviously trying to be charming and failing miserably. As she poured the coffee, she studied the man from beneath her brow. Tall with a tanned face. Some women would think he was handsome. But there was something about his eyes that said otherwise. A piercing, cold look.

  Black hat with a silver hatband. Only a rich man - Or a man with a rich family - would wear that kind of thing. Gun at his hip. A black leather vest over a collarless cotton shirt. Dark wool pants and scuffed boots. He could have passed for any other cowboy in the region if it weren’t for the cold, lifeless stare. Surprising when you considered his older brother was always dressed so impeccably.

  He sat down, resting both arms on the table. “So?” he asked. “You look like you’ve landed on your feet.”

  Her blood ran cold. His brother had bought her uncle’s ranch from the man who stole it. She was working fourteen hours a day serving crude food to cruder men and he thought she was doing well. She’d lost everything. Her home. Her freedom. But to a man like him, it meant nothing.

  “Will you be wanting cobbler with your meal?” she asked.

  Troy Cooper shot his friend a taunting smile. Mark never noticed as he kept staring at her. Then, without warning his hand shot out to grab her wrist in an iron tight grip.

  Rebecca gasped as she tried to pull away but he held her in place, refusing to let her go. For a brief second, she worried about being pulled onto his lap. From the corner, she heard a chair scrape across the floor as Jack Strumph pushed back from his table. A new fear filled her. If someone challenged these men they would die. She could see it in their eyes. The thought of losing someone else because of her sent a heartbreaking ache through her.

  A shock of fear filled her until she remembered the coffee pot in her hand. Gritting her teeth, she raised the pot just the slightest, letting him know she’d use it if necessary.

  His eyes narrowed as he stopped pulling at her but instead tightened his hold. “You know Rebecca,. A pretty woman like you. There are easier ways to make money.”

  “Here, that looks heavy,” Troy Cooper said as he stood and pulled the coffee pot from her hand before she could think to stop him.

  Rebecca felt her world grow cold as her only weapon was lost to her.

  Her insides shook with shock. She pulled at Felton’s grip, desperate to get away when the front door opened again.

  She turned to see a soldier step in. She turned back, still trying to pull her arm free. Felton smiled up at her, obviously enjoying the distress he was causing.

  Desperate to find some kind of weapon. She grabbed the china sugar bowl off the table. The bowl was barely off the table when a new feeling of shock filled her.

  The soldier, no, it couldn’t be. Turning back, she stared, unable to believe her eyes.

  The man stood there, a cavalryman’s deep blue hat with gold braid. A double-breasted blue army shirt without insignia tight across a broad chest and wide shoulders. Denim pants and polished boots with a sheen of dust.

  No, it couldn’t be she thought as she slowly looked into his eyes.

  “Hello Becky,” he said with a tip of his hat.

  The sugar bowl dropped from her hand to crash into a thousand pieces.

  “Luke?” she whispered as her world slammed to a halt.

  Chapter Four

  Luke Parker’s gut tightened as he looked down at the hand gripping Becky’s wrist. A cold feeling of hate-filled him as he stepped forward.

  “The lady ain’t enjoying your attention,” he said to the cowboy.

  The man frowned then laughed. “You don’t know where you're messing about, soldier boy.”

  Luke ground his teeth as he stepped towards the man. Something finally registered in the cowboy’s eyes as he let Becky’s hand go and pushed back his chair. Both he and his friend stood to confront their new threat.

  A coldness settled over the room as men behind the
pair backed away, unwilling to be caught in a crossfire. As it always did just before battle, Luke’s awareness sharpened. Narrowed down to only that which was important. The second cowboy was the true threat he realized. This idiot in front of him was a puffed-up braggart without the sense God gave a goat.

  From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Becky. Her mouth, open in shock, staring at him as if she’d found a ghost.

  The thought that these men had been bothering her, sent a coldness through his body. The girl was too special. She deserved to be treated like a lady, not some common harlot. And the fact that these men couldn’t see that was something that couldn’t be allowed to continue.

  Luke focused on the man in front of him. “Are all you cowboys dumb? Or, are you a special case? A lady like Miss Rebecca Johnson isn’t for the likes of you.”

  The color drained from the man’s face as he kicked back at his chair and reached for his gun. But his friend behind him was even faster, his gun clearing leather only to find Luke standing before them with his .44 Army colt drawn and cocked.”

  Both cowboys froze as a slow awareness settled over them when they realized that he had every right to shoot them where they stood. Their eyes grew big as they stared down at the revolver in his hand. He could see it on their faces. No man was that fast. But then they hadn’t been taught by Zion Campbell.

  “Now then,” Luke said with a dry tone that couldn’t be ignored. “Why don’t we leave those guns where they belong. You say your apologies to the lady and then be on your way.”

  Both men remained rock still, afraid to move less he take it as the wrong move and fire.

  Luke nodded at their guns, encouraging them to do what he had said. Finally, after a long awkward moment, both men allowed their guns to fall back into their holsters.

  “Now the apology,” he said as he stared into the eyes of the first cowboy.

  The man stared back with a burning hate. Luke could see it was obvious the man despised the idea of saying he was wrong. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d never done it before.