Johannes rode up to him, smoothly slipping his Sharps .52 Caliber Carbine into a cradled position in one arm.
“Are you coming in tonight?”
“No, Reuben. As Zeb would say, this suits me just fine.”
Bente and Lahn were standing side-by-side, their noses pointed at the Rockies, a looming, forbidding mass of jagged dark silhouettes rising without texture in the night, blotting out a third of the western sky.
Johannes turned his head in the darkness, looking at the mountains. “It is an enormous, dangerous, wild, exciting, spectacular country, Reuben. Coming all this way we had the support and company of other wagons, more than a hundred brave, strong men and women. From here on, it’s just us. I have a feeling this next leg over that country up there is going to make what we’ve done thus far feel like a close column drill on a parade ground.”
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