Squire's Quest Read Free

lost when Emmet had chosen to
leave part of her cargo behind after her second wagon was wrecked.
    "I'll worry," she said, leaning her head against his chest. "Every single day, I'll
worry."
    "Every single day I worry about them all," he admitted. "Being a father's about the
scariest thing I can think of."
    "Being a mother, too."
    They stood together in their yard while an autumn breeze blew dry leaves around their
feet. Neither needed to speak of the void left behind when a child departed. This was the fourth,
and they should be used to it.
    As if I ever could be, Hattie thought, and clung a little tighter to Emmet.
    * * * *
    The first night he cried himself to sleep. Merlin would never admit it to another living
soul, he swore as he let the tears flow freely. This was the first time in his life he'd ever been
away from family, and he missed them more than he'd thought possible. When he woke the next
morning, the skin around his eyes was puffy and his nose runny. His body ached too, as if he'd
done something he wasn't accustomed to.
    The remnants of last night's fire were cold. Too much work to build a new one. He
decided to forego breakfast and he hadn't ever got the taste for coffee. Besides, there was no
water here, and he might not find any tonight. According to Pa, this stretch of the trail was dry
unless there had been recent rains.
    As he rode, he chewed on a strip of dried elk meat and enjoyed the scenery. Since he'd
chosen to ride off the well-used trail, he met no other travelers. By noon he had reached the
turnoff he wanted, one leading up toward the wide prairie where the Bannock still gathered
camas root. He didn't expect to encounter any Indians this late in the year, but if he did, he knew
they would welcome him, once he identified himself. Emmet Lachlan was known as a friend to
the tribe.
    For a week he traveled what had once been called Goodale's Cutoff, never meeting
another human being. Thrice he saw other riders at a distance, and once a moving dust cloud told
of something traveling fast. The sky remained cloudy, but no rain fell. It wasn't even very cold,
and Merlin counted his blessings. He'd slept in snow and could do it again, but it wasn't
something he wanted to do.
    Eventually he reached the vast beds of rough lava Pa had described. The description was
nowhere as stark and harsh as the reality. As far as the eye could see was nothing but black rock,
jagged, impassable. He followed the old road around the north edge, wondering why critters
would come into this unwelcoming place, yet game was abundant. He brought down a deer one
afternoon and ate well for nigh a week.
    Eagle Rock wasn't much of a town. Just a few buildings and several ramshackle houses.
He found space for his horse and mule at the livery stable and checked into the small hotel. The
food at the eating house was not up to Ma's standards, but after two weeks of his own cooking,
he was ready for a change.
    After supper he stood on the hotel porch and took stock. It was after sunset, but a couple
of torches flared at the corners of the hotel, casting flickering shadows across the street. Besides
the livery stable and the hotel, there was a bank--not much bigger than the chicken coop at home,
but better built--and a stage station with lighted windows. Some way outside of town he'd earlier
seen corrals where big freight wagons were parked. Pa had said this was the main route to the
gold towns up in Montana.
    He had a hankering to see a rip-roaring gold camp. The Boise Basin was about played
out. He'd been real disappointed when he and Micah had ridden over there last summer. The
towns were quiet. Folks went about their business in the daytime and went home at night.
Nothing at all like the stories he'd heard of how it'd been back in its heyday.
    The shriek made him jump. Before he could more than turn his head, a kid came tearing
out from between the hotel and the bank. Right behind him was a heavyset, coatless fellow in a
dress-up shirt and