THE WINTER ROAD

A CALEB MARLOWE SERIES NOVELLA

Special Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Rocky Mountains, Colorado

September 1877 

The ground rumbled beneath her. A cracking noise, sharp and loud and sudden, echoed off the high walls of the mountain pass. Nell Cody squeezed her eyes shut beneath the blanket.

Another nightmare. She’d had plenty of them since they left Boulder.

All day long, the clouds had hung over the wagon train, heavy with rain. It was as if the sky wanted to cry but couldn’t. It didn’t dare.

Just like her.

Nell was sick at heart for the life they’d left behind. Their house, their neighbors, her school, her friends. She yearned for them. Most important of all, she bled inside for the lost connection with her late mother. She’d never again experience the sensation she felt whenever she stepped up onto the front porch, saw her mother’s empty rocking chair, and felt her presence.

She was not just there. She was everywhere—in the walls, the furniture, even in the scented air of their house—enshrined by Nell’s cherished memories of her.

Her mother was dead three years now. Gone in the eyes of the world. But Nell knew her sweet soul had remained in that house to watch over her.

Nell was angry with her father for uprooting them the way he did. John Cody was a pastor. He had a respected church in Boulder. A growing flock of followers. But then, seemingly overnight, he’d become obsessed with moving to Youngblood Creek.

So here they were, traveling with four other families. Altogether, fourteen souls in wagons on their way to an outpost of a town in the mountains far to the west of Boulder.

What did she know of this frontier? Very little, other than stories she’d heard. The cruelty of an unforgiving Nature. The ever-present threats of violence from roving bands of Arapaho and Cheyenne who had not yet given up their fight, refusing to go north to the new reservations.

And what had she been told of the town they were moving to? Nothing. Only that they didn’t even have a church or a school. Her father and some others had to raise money to build them.

What had she done to deserve such a fate?

Nell was fifteen. She was well-read and well-taught. And she was already old enough to have plans of her own. She’d decided that she would teach after finishing school. In a few years, she’d marry and settle near her father. In Boulder. But now she was traveling through a wilderness to a place she knew nothing about. Nothing.

Frustrated and unable to sleep, she’d moved her bedding from the wagon in the middle of the night and spread it on the ground between the wheels. The stony hardness and the dampness beneath her only reinforced her mood. They never should have come on this trip. She should have fought harder.

Instead, she had to endure endless days of travel…and nights filled with foul dreams.

The crack and twang of more gunfire erupted somewhere nearby, and the acrid smell of gun smoke pinched her senses. Nell sat bolt upright. This was no nightmare.

“Nell?” Her father’s voice rang out from above. “Where are you?”

“Down here.”

A horse thundered past their wagon, and the rider didn’t slow down as he fired two shots through the canvas.

“Stay where you are.”

These attackers were not Arapaho or Cheyenne. In the dim light of the dying fire, four white men spurred their sweating mounts back and forth across the center of the camp, pouring bullets into the canopies.

Return fire flashed from one of the wagons, then another.

A wave as cold as ice washed down Nell’s back. Fear kept her frozen in place for a few seconds. But her mind ordered her to move. She had to help her people. She’d learned to shoot when she was still a girl, but she’d left her gun belt in the wagon.

Her father’s rifle barked above her. Shouts and screams, nearly drowned out by the crackle of gunfire, filled the smoky air.

Tonight, they’d stopped and set up camp a good hour before the sun set. It was earlier than usual. But Bart Kelly, their guide, said this was a fine place to stop, and they’d drawn the five wagons into a circle for safety. He knew these mountains. He’d led many parties of travelers west.

A cry rang out from the wagon next to theirs. Someone inside had been hit in the brewer’s wagon, and she saw him jump out, raising his shotgun toward the attackers. Before he could shoot, however, a rider wheeled and fired. The man sank to his knees.

“Papa, throw the gun belt down.”

The killer dug his spurs into his horse’s flanks and was gone.

“Papa!” she yelled louder. “My gun.”

In front of her, the belt with the Colt Peacemaker dropped into the dirt. Reaching out, she grabbed hold of it and dragged it back under the wagon, where she strapped it around her waist.

Just then, the brewer’s wife ran out to her fallen husband, screaming at the blackguards. The woman reached for the shotgun, but another outlaw shot first. The bullet knocked her back on her haunches.

Nell stared in horror for only a moment before scurrying out from beneath the wagon.

“Get back.” Her father’s voice boomed in the night.

The wounded woman slumped into her arms as Nell reached her. A shot thudded into the ground inches from her knee.

“Move. Fast. Get under the wagon.”

Her father continued to shoot, giving Nell the chance she needed. She dragged the older woman back and managed to pull her beneath the wagon. Her eyes were open, but only for a moment. The light in them faded and disappeared. She was gone.

Anger flooded through Nell, and she yanked the Colt from its holster.

A fellow traveler dashed out from between two wagons and jumped at one of the riders, his hands clamping on to the man’s arm. The outlaw never hesitated, shooting him point-blank.

The rider raced across the opening, taking aim at another wagon. Nell fired at the killer, knocking his hat from his head as the bullet went high, and he veered off.

“They’ve got us. We have no chance.”

Her father’s despairing voice caused her anger to rise like bile into her throat. He’d done this. It was because of him that they were here.

“Nell, I need you to take my bag and run.”

The money, of course. Always the promise of a greener pasture. It was on John Cody’s advice that these families uprooted their lives. It was because of him that they were traveling to Youngblood Creek. Every one of these people was a parishioner from her father’s church.

“Do you hear me?”

She heard him, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the bloodbath before her. No one in their group was a match for what they were facing. One by one, she saw her fellow travelers fall. Already, the camp was littered with bodies.

“You have to go now. Get far enough from the wagons where they won’t find you. They can’t know how many we are. They won’t know you’re missing.”

Fourteen of them had left Boulder, including Mr. Kelly. Her gaze raked the open space, searching for their guide. Where was Kelly? He was a hunter. Their best shot. The one responsible for getting them through this wilderness.

“Folks are relying on us in Youngblood Creek. You’ve got to make it there.”

“They are relying on you. You!” she shouted back. “You want to fulfill your promise? Then you come with me.”

Nell was angry with her father, but she would not go without him.

Reality stared her in the face. He was all she had. The only parent she had left. And he was not the one who was taking innocent lives. Even though he’d made the wrongheaded decision to leave Boulder, it was not his fault that they’d come under attack. In his heart John Cody was a good man, an honest man. He cared for his flock. But the cost of his error was so high. Nell’s eyes blurred as they took in the bloody scene before her.

An old man sat upright against the water barrel she’d helped him fill at the creek before supper. His blank and lifeless eyes were fixed on the body of his fallen son. The printer and his wife—so proud of the press they had boxed up in their wagon—both lay dead. The husband and wife excited to start farming lay in a heap in the dirt.

But where was Kelly?

Suddenly, a hand grasped Nell’s arm. Before she could react, she was dragged out into the darkness behind the wagon. Her father. His rifle was smoking in one hand. His eyes bore into hers.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Your promise. Your mission. I heard. But you have to go with me.”

“They’ll see us escape. They’ll kill us both. I’ll distract them while you get away.” He snatched a leather bag the size of a brick from the front of the wagon and stuffed it into her hand. “Take this, Nell. Go into the trees. Hide.”

“I’m not going without you.”

“Youngblood Creek. Please, Nell. Promise me that you’ll get it to them. Lives depend on it.”

“Do you see all the dead around us? Was this worth it?”

“Don’t. We have no time for this now. But please promise me that you’ll get this money to the people in that town. They expect it. They’ve been waiting for it.”

Before she could reply, a shot rang out behind her, and her father’s eyes opened wide. His hand went to his heart, and she saw blood seeping through his fingers.

“NO!” she cried out.

As he collapsed at her feet, she turned. Not a dozen paces from them, the hatless blackguard was striding toward her. Before he could take three more steps, Nell raised her pistol and fired.

The man went down and lay still. Her breath caught in her chest. She’d killed a man. But she’d do it again if she had to.

“Papa, let’s go.” She sank to her knees. Her father’s eyes were open. She shook him. Touched his face. Tugged on his arm. “We can make it. You and me. We’ll go to Youngblood Creek. Please, get up.”

Tears rushed down her face. Sobs choked her. She knew her words were useless. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing.

He was all she had, and she’d been so angry with him. And now he lay dead.

“You can’t do this to me. You can’t leave me.”

Nell didn’t know how long she knelt beside his body, but suddenly she was aware that the guns had fallen silent. The echoes faded away, and an eerie quiet claimed the mountain pass.

Was she the last one left?

One of the bandits called out from the center of the encampment. She wiped the tears off her face and peered under the wagon at them. They were reloading their revolvers. Bodies of her fellow travelers lay strewn about the camp like discarded firewood. All dead.

The killers wore bandanas around their necks, but they hadn’t even tried to hide their faces. They’d meant to murder everyone all along.

She recognized a voice, and the last of her hope withered. Bart Kelly—the guide they’d trusted to take them safely to the mountain town of Youngblood Creek—strode to the center of the group, brandishing his rifle.

“Go find Cody.” He motioned toward their wagon.

Nell couldn’t move. A cold stillness, a feeling of numbness, seeped through her, but she knew she couldn’t give in to it.

Reaching down, she closed her father’s eyes. “I promise. I’ll get this to Youngblood Creek for you.”

Forcing herself to move, she slid the pistol into its holster, picked up the rifle, and disappeared into the darkness.

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