Black Hills (9781101559116)

Table of Contents

 

 

 

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2011 by Rod Thompson.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley trade paperback edition / December 2011

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thompson, Rod, (date-)

The Black Hills / Rod Thompson.—Berkley trade paperback ed.

p. cm.

ISBN : 978-1-101-55911-6

1. Young men—West (U.S.)—Fiction. 2. Frontier and pioneer life—Fiction. 3. Outlaws—Fiction. 4. Violence—Fiction. 5. Retribution—Fiction. 6. Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3620.H6875B53 2011

813'.6—dc22

2011016474

 

 

 

 

 

 

As this story would have never seen the light of day without the efforts of an amazing agent, Peter Riva, and the most patient editor on the planet, Faith Black of Berkley Books, I give them my heartfelt thank-you.

T
he four riders coming over the hills escaped Cormac Lynch's normally acute awareness of his surroundings. His attention was on his burlap potato sack. He dragged it to the beginning of the next row, straddled it, and then hooked the top of the mouth on his belt. As he walked straddle-legged, the sack flowed between his legs while the mouth was held open by a piece of thin cord tying each side of the bag to his knees, allowing the body of the sack to drag behind him.

The briskness in the air was exhilarating and the morning sun warm as it accepted its task of chasing away the morning shadows and burning the dew from the potato plants and grasses. Bobolinks flying in and out of the lone tree standing near the field were singing and flirting with each other. It was a great day to be alive. There was a long day of work ahead, but that's what farmers did from first light till the sun went down; he was up to it.

After plowing up the potatoes and spreading them across the ground for easy pickin', his father had already ridden the mile to the cornfield on the other side of the farm buildings shortly after dawn to begin weeding. Cormac loved working beside his pa, but hated weeding and was glad his mother had wanted him to help finish picking the potatoes. Their main crops were corn, wheat, and flax, but his mother had decided to put in a small field of potatoes to sell in town for what she called pin money.

Cormac checked the progress of his mother and sister, who had started picking while he had removed the saddles and bridles and hobbled the saddle horses to allow them to graze without running off. Most farm horses were plow horses, strong, powerful, and suitable for the hard work that was expected of them: pulling heavy hay racks and wagons piled high, frequently to overflowing, with grain or corn; or pulling a plow to break up hardened soil; or pulling stone boats for relocating boulders and full water barrels for irrigation; or tearing stubborn tree stumps from the earth in which they had grown. Usually ridden bareback when used for transportation purposes while en route to the fields in full harness, but when Cormac's mother was along, his pa insisted saddles be used. Today was such a day, and the care of the horses fell to Cormac.

Four years older, his sister Becky was nigh on to eighteen and their mother only twice that. Like most western women of the time, she had married young, having Becky one year later. People frequently said they looked more like sisters than mother and daughter, which pleased them both no end. They fairly beamed every time they heard it. Becky loved being compared to her mother, whom she thought was surely the prettiest woman in the world, and her mother loved being told that she looked young enough to be Becky's sister.

Both experienced pickers, strong from many hours of hard work, they had a good head start on Cormac. He smiled as he noticed his mother glance over her shoulder to check on him and then murmur something to Becky. They had played this game before. His father was a kind but firm taskmaster; his mother, on the other hand, always found ways to turn work into fun. Now, knowing that he did not like being behind them and would want to catch up, she and Becky were going to try to prevent it.

“We'll see about that,” he said softly. “We'll just see about that.” He had been studying and preparing for just such an event with frequent, thoughtful practice on how to make his hands move faster and pick more potatoes in less time. He had experimented with various fingering grips on the potatoes, different strokes and alternate flips to get the potatoes into the bag. Each change produced tiny amounts of progress, and each bit of progress took him a little closer to his goal: to be the fastest potato picker in the territory.

While picking in the field, and often at night before falling asleep, he indulged himself in a fantasy. In it, he could see himself in the middle of a long line of boys lined up in contest at one end of a huge potato field, each with their own row. He watched as all bent over into tater-pickin' position and made ready, and then
bang!
A gunshot started the race to the other end of the field.

Although his competitors were always bigger, older, more experienced, and somehow always managing to get a head start and make him begin the race with the others well in front, they always proved to be no match for his intense concentration and the great swiftness with which the potatoes flew into his bag. Cormac was always the first to turn around, laughing, at the other end of the field.

Now the time was here. This was the great race of his life. This was the moment he had prepared for. His competitors had joined forces against him and were already well in the lead. “We'll see about that,” he said again. “We'll just see about that.” Then Cormac Lynch, the greatest potato picker of all time, bent and began to pick potatoes. He had his mother's light touch and agility with a natural quickness of movement enhanced by tater pickin' since the age of three. He hadn't accomplished much then, mostly got in the way, but his mother had assured him that his help was much appreciated and they would never have gotten done without it.

Choosing a potato with his right hand, he sent it flying between his legs and into the bag with a deft flick of his wrist while his left hand was making the next selection. Left, right, left, right, gaining speed, left-right-left-right-leftrightleftrightleftright, faster and faster, his hands found a rhythm and became but a blur. With a stream of potatoes flying into the bag, he had a strong ability to concentrate, which he now focused on the ground in front of him, blocking out all else. He did not notice his mother's and sister's frequent looks to check his progress. Nor did he see their looks of determination as they put on all the speed they possessed, or the smile of resignation they shared while shaking their heads at each other when he first caught up with, and then passed them.

With a smile and a finger on her lips to signal silence to Becky, Cormac's mother began picking in Becky's row, a few steps ahead of her. She picked half of the potatoes, leaving the other half for Becky coming up behind. With both women working the same row, Cormac was no longer pulling away from them. Catching up to him, though, was still out of the question.

Laughing, Cormac stood up and turned around when he reached the end of his row, and then threw the last potato into the bag. Only then did he see the four men riding across the potato patch toward them. Caught up in the thrill and excitement of competition, Becky and her mother remained equally unaware of the riders.

“Mother,” Cormac said, nodding his head toward the approaching riders.

The women's laughter stilled as their eyes followed his nod. The freshly plowed soil had muffled the horses' hoofs, and the riders were less than fifty feet away. Their lack of concern for the damage being done to the potatoes by their horses was a clear statement of their intent and approaching trouble.

The men were dirty and unshaven, their clothes worn and disheveled, and their bedrolls sloppily tied behind beat-up and uncared-for saddles. Badly in need of rest, their horses showed the results of overuse and neglect. All were scarred with sores kept open by the frequent misuse of spurs.

Mrs. Lynch paled as their situation became evident. Her husband was a mile away, and they were unprotected. Frequently, he had warned her to keep the rifle close to her at all times.

“Hopefully you'll never need to use it,” he had said. “There aren't a lot of people in these parts yet, and our farm is far off the beaten path. Even the Indians don't come around this neck of the woods since Red Cloud signed the Laramie Treaty for the Sioux and the Black Hills now belong to them. It's very peaceful out here, but the country is far from settled.