Read Online The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) by Nancy Radke - Free Book Online

“It was your planning that saved us, Gage.
They didn’t expect me to have a gun in my pocket. But we expected one of them,
not two, to be involved.”
    “We’ve lost time, dealing with these scum. I guess the mail might
not make it on time, this trip. Are you all right? I doubt you’ve had to shoot
anyone before.”
    “Just a little shaky. Men who try to kill other men usually die
violently. I can’t help that they chose that life.”
    We rode along, stirrup to stirrup, talking.
    “We make a good team,” Gage said. “We need to work together more
often.”
    “Killing outlaws, we do. I don’t know about other things.” 
    “We’ll have to see. What kind of job are you going to do in San
Francisco?”
    “Mr. Debras hired me to make up his freight bills. He was losing
money because his men weren’t being accurate. Especially on the California
end.”
    “How long did you hire on for?”
    “We never agreed on that.”
    “You’d have to at least work off the cost of your trip before
you could go on to other things.”
    “I saved him that before coming out.”
    “So you aren’t really obliged to work?”
    “I made an agreement. So I’m obliged. At least for a spell. He
knows I want to see some of California. I thought I’d go see your folks, see
those trees your pa was talking about.”
    “Pa tends to stretch his stories some.”
    “Those trees had to be mighty big for him to stretch them that
far.”
    “Just don’t be disappointed.”
    “I won’t. What do you plan to do?”
    “Look around. See if Pa’s place is special. I sure like the
Walla Walla country where Mally and Trey settled. Made me think I should cut me
out a place before all the good spots are taken.”
    “Do they cost a lot?”
    “Trey’s cost almost four dollars an acre.”
    “Where did Trey get that kind of money?”
    “He took a herd north and sold it.”
    “I remember.”
    “And Mally had some she inherited from her uncle. They had
enough left to pay me, and buy supplies. Would you like to go see their place?”
    “I suppose so. I got to see California first.”
    Night fell and we dropped down into some forested area. In them
trees, it was darker than the inside of a wolf’s mouth at midnight. The men
took the lanterns off the stage, then took turns walking ahead of the mules to
light the way. The road was narrow in places, with a sheer drop off on one side
and a high bank on the other. We all walked through those places, as we all
knew how a skittish horse had no sense when it came to keeping all four feet on
the ground.
    Travers took off barking after something, and we could hear a
growl of protest, then a loud crash followed by a series of crashes as whatever
it was went over the side and dropped down to the canyon below.
    “That was a black bear,” one of the men carrying the lanterns
called out. “Our animals would have gone crazy, meeting it.”
    As it was, they snorted and trembled and had to be led past the
spot, for they could smell bear, and they didn’t like it.
    Gage and I dismounted and helped lead the pack animals through
the area.
    Just past that, we ran into a place where they’d had a landslide
after the last coach had passed. The men took shovels and threw off some of the
dirt, then pushed the bigger rocks over the cliff. Several big boulders
couldn’t be pushed. The men took the long poles off, that the coach had tied to
it for such a purpose, and used them as pry bars to move the boulders off the
road.
    I think the passengers should have been paid for the trip, not
the other way around. We had pushed that stage up the mountains, now we had to
hold onto it with ropes, going down places where the brakes couldn’t keep it
from running over the mules.
    We got to the next station at midnight, coming up on it
suddenly, so no one had a chance to blow the horn and alert them we were
coming.
    But they had the mules ready to change and did so swiftly. They
had no way to care for the wounded men, so asked