The year is 1864. Sister Thomas Josephine is on her way from St Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. During the course of her journey, however, she'll find that her faith requires her to take off her wimple and pick up a gun. Innocent Visitandine nun Sister Thomas Josephine wants nothing more than an adventure-free journey out west. But adventure is what she'll get - and heaps of it - when she's taken hostage by a desperate outlaw on the Laramie Plains of Wyoming. Before long she'll find herself torn between two men, the handsome Union Army Lieutentant Thomas F. Carthy and the mysterious drifter Abraham C. Muir. And soon, one of these men will be staring down the barrel of her gun. In this exclusive, free, all-new ebook, you?ll meet Sister Thomas Josephine, the innocent Visitandine nun, and travel along the overland trail with her as she meets varmints and scallywaygs galore. Free for a very limited time only, Nunslinger Book 1 is the first in an extraordinary new series that will publish serially throughout 2014. Don?t miss a single instalment ? preorder Sister Thomas Josephine?s adventures today!
Release date:
December 26, 2013
Publisher:
Hodder & Stoughton
Print pages:
80
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Moreover, my reins have corrected me even till night
Dusk found us camped by a small pond, which was just as well, for Muir’s canteens had been dry since noon and thirst claimed my throat. Although I had counseled myself to accept the feeling of dust within my lungs, of dehydration and dryness in every pore, I could not deny the relief I felt at the sight of water.
Muir stared at the pool for a while, then he took up his rifle and plunged the wooden butt in, swirling it like broth.
‘Nothing dead in there,’ he pronounced after a time. ‘Fine to drink, like as not.’
He freed Rattle of bridle and pack, and the horse headed straight for the water. Muir let him drink for a time before hauling him back.
‘There’s proof Sister, if you needed it. Best fetch the canteens.’
The water was full of silt, gritty on the tongue but clean enough. A haze had fallen on the evening, as if someone had swiped a wet cloth over the landscape’s colors, made them bleed and run. This suited us, Muir said, for it meant the smoke from our fire would not be so evident.
He refused still to answer my questions about when I should be reunited with the wagon train, or indeed, why they hunted him so, for we were clearly being followed. In the heat of the afternoon we had overtaken Carthy and his men, but from our high vantage, I had made out several flecks of blue and brown scouting the foot of the plateau for a path.
‘Nothing to see, Sister. Ain’t another way up nor down for miles.’
It was only the second time he had acknowledged the Bluecoats’ proximity. Press him as I might, he would say nothing further. Instead, he set about unpacking the evening meal. I watched carefully, and calculated. There were few provisions left.
‘Fine meal tonight,’ he called. ‘Beans and salt pork and all the dust you can eat.’
He upended a sack into his pot, shook out the crumbs. There was barely enough for a child.
‘Mr. Muir, we have bypassed Carthy and his men. How much longer do you propose to detain me as your ‘insurance’?’
As before, he made no answer, but continued to clatter about with his spoon. I set my feet more firmly.
‘Very well, a simpler question. How will half a heel of salt pork and a few canisters of silt last two persons any longer than a day before they starve in this wasteland? I am no fool, Mr. Muir. There is a trading post or a station that cannot be more than half a day’s ride from this place and you intend to call there.’
A muscle was twitching beneath the line of his jaw. My mind warned me to take care, yet I was flushed with anger and stubbornly continued.
‘Whatever this place is, post or stable or telegraph stop, there you shall leave me, sir, and be on your way. That way I shall cost you no more misery, and can re-join Lieutenant Carthy.’
‘Good God, woman!’
Muir was on his feet, eyes dark as mahogany just inches from my own. His face was pale with anger.
‘I had thought to escort you as far as the town of Medicine Bow, five days hence – five days out of my way I should add – so that you would be spared the risk of encountering that hard-case. Yet you’re yearnin’ for him like a cat in heat. Well, I shall leave you at the trade post as you desire, though I won’t prepare you for the sort of men you will encounter there. It seems you are set on engaging with the worst of them.’
Muir’s good humor thus evaporated, he strode off across the plateau, leaving me alone in the gathering gloom. I felt the kind of heat that precedes tears, and gulped them back. I confess I was shocked. It had been a long time since I had been spoken to thus. . . .
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