CHAPTER 1

MY NAME IS Ronan Chantry, and I am alone upon this land. I have long since crossed the Mississippi. No other rides with me, and the plains lie vast about. My eyes are toward the horizon where the sun sets in gold and crimson, an enormous sun like none my eyes have seen in the thirty years that have been mine.

What I loved is gone. What I lived for, vanished. I ride westward into an unknown land, toward what destiny I know not. It has ever been our way, we Chantrys, to turn westward when faced with grief and desolation.

I ride to lose myself, but can a man ever lose that which is in him? That which is blood and bone to him? That which has been his life?

Men have told me that I am a fool, that I ride only to my death, but if it is to be, then let it be.

My wife, my dearly beloved, is dead. My son, who was to grow tall and sire yet another generation of our family, is also gone, done to death by the flames from which he tried to rescue his mother.

Within me is emptiness; the studies to which I had given my life, abandoned.

I have a good horse, a small pack, an excellent knife, and I have the Ferguson rifle. That rifle, my constant companion since childhood, is all that remains of my past, that and a few precious books to stimulate my thoughts until…?

The rifle was given to me when I was a small boy, presented by the man who simplified the loading mechanism and put into action the most efficient weapon of the century.

Major Patrick Ferguson demonstrated the weapon at Woolwich in June 1776. Four years later, he was killed at the Battle of King's Mountain, North Carolina.

The rifle was given me only a few weeks before his death, a truly marvelous weapon made and engraved by his own hand. It was one of the first to be loaded at the breech, and could be loaded and fired six times to the minute. In the almost twenty-five years since it came into my hands, I have seen no rifle to compare.

Ours was a poor cabin, and I stood by the gate holding the heavy musket with which I had barked a squirrel, watching a red-coated officer riding up the path from the road.

He looked at me sharply, then at my musket. "Lad, I am fair done in. Could I be having a drink from your well?"

He had a good face, a strong face. "Sir," I said, "you men of England have been my enemies, but I will refuse no man a drink. Will you come in, then?"

He glanced toward the house, wary of a trap. I had no idea of it then, but he was a much hated man, and a man known for his harsh opinions of the colonists.

"There's nought to fear," I said, and there was scorn in my tone. "My ma is ill within, and I must be about fixing her supper." I held up the squirrel, and not without pride.

He glanced at it, then at me. Riding through the open gate to the well, he dismounted to accept the water-filled gourd dipper from my hand. "Thanks, lad." He drank the cold water from the dipper, then refilled it to drink again. "There's no finer drink than this, lad. Hear it from a thirsty man."

He noticed the puzzled expression in my eyes as I looked at his horse. It was a fine animal, but it was his weapons that puzzled me. He wore a saber, and there were two horse pistols in scabbards, which was not unexpected, but he also carried two rifles, one of them carefully wrapped in an oiled cloth.

"What is it, lad?"

"Two rifles?" I said.

He chuckled, but his eyes were on my ancient musket. "If you can bark a squirrel with that," he said, "you must be an uncommonly good shot."

Copyright © 1973 by Louis & Katherine L'Amour Trust