Nunslinger 9

by Stark Holborn

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

Fetched up in the dangerous frontier town of Little Rock, Sister Thomas Josephine - the fabled 'Six-Gun Sister' - finally finds herself on the edge of Indian Territory. But she knows she can't brave her next adventure alone. Allying herself with a drunken bounty hunter and an eagle-eyed tracker, she sets off into the wilderness, drawing ever closer to Abe Muir. And the more she hears about the gang he's joined, the more certain she becomes that he needs her help. For Abe has fallen in with a terrible man, a man who's committed unspeakable crimes... and word is, he's done it all with Abe by his side. But as Sister Thomas Josephine will learn, the west is an uncivilized land, and not everything is as it seems. NUNSLINGER is the nearly-true tale of Sister Thomas Josephine, the innocent Visitantine nun on her way from St Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California in 1864. 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...

Release date: June 5, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 80

Sample

CHAPTER EIGHT

Times are not hid from the Almighty

 

We set out that night, after Little Rock’s backstreets had quieted down. Bird rode in front alongside me, and Macclehorse and Levi brought up the rear. They shared a cantankerous old carthorse. It was so large and thick that looked as though it had been hewn out of a lump of granite.

 I kept my Union hat pulled low and nodded to the sleepy sentry at the gate, who did not bother to raise a second eyelid. Just as soon as we were clear, we rode. We rode like the devil himself was upon our heels, kicking up the loose mud of the roads and making for the forest.

West, Reasoner had said. The direction of the setting sun, where the world threw itself in a savage rush towards its ending. I asked Bird if he knew the Sans Bois mountains. He said he did, and reasoned that we should head northwest. I left it in his hands.

We covered a great deal of distance that day. By noon Macclehorse complained that he was played out and that we needed to rest and eat. We halted in a stand of slim-trunked pines that carpeted the dappled ground with brown needles.

Mr. Bird rooted through his pack, produced a pan and a pot, and soon the scent of bacon and coffee filled the clearing. I began to whisper grace to myself, but Mr. Macclehorse interrupted to ask that I pray aloud, saying that they should all abide by God’s wishes.

I did so, and the act of seeing those hardened men, hands clasped tightly before their chests, filled me with hope, even if their eyes did stray to the sizzling meat now and again.

We rested after we ate. I shifted, uncomfortable still in the rough uniform. I ached to shed the jacket and trousers, to return to my habit and the security of my veil, but we had decided that it would be unwise. Bird pointed out wryly that while Union boys were ten a penny, he had rarely come across a fugitive nun in Indian lands.

After that he read his newspapers as he was wont to do, licking his finger to turn the pages.

‘What you want with all them newsheets anyhow?’ snorted Macclehorse from beneath his hat. ‘Cain’t be nothin’ you ain’t heard before in there, Mister Cat shot Mister Dog at sucha place; South losin’ the war, etcetera.’

‘No harm in keeping an eye on proceedings,’ Bird said rather sanctimoniously, before his hand hovered to a stop above a page. After a moment, a chuckle broke from him.

‘Bless my eyes,’ he grinned. ‘Why I think you should see this, ma’am.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

And the rage thereof drinketh up my spirit

 

The next day dawned sulky, with a heaviness that clapped itself around my skull. The atmosphere crackled. Dove snapped and rumbled at nothing, and even Levi’s small hand could not calm him. Macclehorse was gum-eyed and sour from the night’s drink, and Bird was oddly still, his eyes fixed ahead.

 He peered through the trees, swaying his finger like a compass needle until it picked out a ridge, rising unevenly above us like a set of worn teeth.

 ‘That’s the border,’ he told me. ‘If we cross there we’ll be in Injun lands. The Sans Bois start just beyond. If Reasoner’s following, then like as not he’ll take the easier pass, up north a ways.’ He squinted over his shoulder and cursed. ‘Looks like we have to move fast. That there’s a storm on our tail.’

 The hairs upon the back of my neck rose as we rode up out of the trees. They dropped away into a rocky plateau before sprouting once more into a second ridge: the one that marked the border. The thinning air here throbbed like a pent-up scream. Darker and darker grew the day. As I sta. . .