The Daughter, C.B. Cooper [great reads .TXT] 📗

his finger on. There was something about the way she was looking at him that made him feel anxious and uneasy. Frankly, she was giving him the creeps.
A shiver ran down Sharps spine as the sheriffs words floated back to him, “Reverend, talking to her, it was like looking into the face of the devil himself. Nothing but pure evil.”
He took another drink of coffee while he mulled over the situation in his head, and finally figured out why he felt so nervous. He felt like an animal trapped in a corner, watching a predator circle, and knowing that death was coming at any moment. Not a good feeling- impending death.
He scoffed inwardly at himself. What did he have to fear from the girl he thought of as his own daughter. His sweet, gentle Gracie. Gracie’s not here anymore, it had said.
It? Why would he think of her as an, it? And why was his head suddenly feeling so funny?
Sharp tried to focus on the face across the fire. It was blurry, but he thought he could make out a smile stretched across it’s face. Not an innocent smile, but an evil one, leering at him with sharp teeth, and eyes that glowed a reddish-orange.
Shaking his head to clear the image from his mind, he looked again.
“Who are you?” he asked, his voice echoing in his own ears, as his vision turned black and he tumbled through the darkness.


Sharp awoke the next day, his head resting on his saddle and his body wrapped in his blanket. The chill of the previous night had been replaced with the blistering heat of the midday sun. Swinging his arm, he threw off the cover and sat up. Looking around the camp he spotted his horse on the other side of the clearing.
Someone, probably Gracie, had found where he had stashed the gelding the previous night and brought him here, picketing him to a small sapling.
Sharp stood slowly, and gingerly picked his way over to him. His legs felt like they had hundred pound weights strapped to them, and his head didn’t feel any better. He grabbed the canteen off his saddle horn and uncorked the top. He was in mid-swig when he remembered what had happened the night before. The coffee!
Choking, he sprayed water into his horse’s face.
Caught in the throes of a coughing fit, he watched helplessly, as his horse shied, breaking it’s reigns and bolted through the trees to the South.
Once the coughing and choking were under control, he unceremoniously dumped the entire contents of the canteen out onto the ground.
“Son of a bitch!”
Not only had he been duped by Gracie, or Angel as she was calling herself these days, but his damn horse had took off and left him. “Son of a bitch!” he growled. Knowing that thick headed bastard, he’d run clean to Mexico just to spite him.
“Well, ol’ son, you got yourself into a pickle this time.” he berated himself.
As he imagined his retreating horse getting farther and farther away, he thought quickly. He couldn’t just leave his saddle behind, depending on how far he had to walk to catch up to the blasted animal, it might take that much longer just to get back, and put him that much father behind Gracie.
Because he wasn’t going to let her get away that easy. He didn’t care how crazy she was, he planned on catching up to her, and giving her a big, loud, ungentlemanly piece of his mind. Besides, in the light of day, he wasn’t scared of her. But slipping some kind of sleeping pill into his coffee, what was she thinking? He supposed it was better than arsenic, but at the moment, the thought didn’t calm him down any. And now, he had to chase that damn horse down. “Son of a bitch!” he cursed again.
First thing first though. He needed to find some water. It felt like someone had wrapped his tongue in cotton batting. He would get started on his journey right after he quenched his thirst.

The sun was going down on the horizon when he came to the end of the tracks. Letting his saddle slide down his back it landed with a dull thud on the prairie floor.
He cursed for the hundredth time that day. “God damn it!” then he waited for that familiar feeling of shame at taking the Lord’s name in vane. He waited, but it didn’t come.
Nope, it didn’t, but the Indians sure as hell had. Came right up to his horse earlier, and stole it for their own.
He stared in disbelief at the tracks that didn’t lie.
“Son’s a bitches!” he screamed into the darkening silence. “Why don’t you just come on back and put an arrow in my heart, finish me off fast! Bunch of god damned thieves! Shit fire!”
Sharp screamed, cussed and kicked at the dirt for a full five minutes.
After he finished throwing his temper tantrum, he sunk to the ground, sitting on his butt. It had been building up all day, just waiting to burst forth, and now that it had, he felt just plain silly. “When did you turn into a foolish, young school girl, Sharp?” he grumbled, berating himself. “Grown man acting like a spoiled brat, that’s just right damned ridiculous.”
He couldn’t really fault the Indians, they’d come upon a fine looking horse all alone on the prairie, they’d of been crazy not to take it. No, the only person he could be mad at, was himself.
At the moment, he wasn’t one tenth of the man he used to be. All the years spent drinking, coupled with the even longer stretch of being a Reverend, had made him soft.
And not just in the head, but his body too. Right now he was feeling his years, and every muscle in his body was burning with fire from spending half a day on the trail, carrying a saddle for a horse that no longer existed. Near as he could tell, he was a good seventy miles from the nearest town, in the opposite direction of Gracie’s trail.
Once she had left the camp, she had doubled back on their trail. He’d spent a few hours thinking about that as he had walked today. At first he figured maybe she was lost and had just headed in the wrong direction, but then he had started wondering, if she had purposely gone that way, what would have been her reason? He knew she wasn’t giving up and heading back home, but if she stayed on the trail, it would lead her straight back to Arkansas. Maybe to pick up the trail where the group of men had split up along the creek? But, she wouldn’t need to do that if she really knew where they were heading.
No, the only thing he could think of, was that she was going back up to catch the Oregon trail. If that was the case, it was a smart move on her part. The Oregon trail started in Missouri, and cut through Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota territories, over the easiest of the Rocky Mountain passes, South pass, and right through the bottom of the newly formed Idaho Territory. And that’s where she was headed- Idaho.
He didn’t expect her to join the masses of people heading out with the promise of free land fueling them on. She’d stay on the outskirts, a lone woman on a mission. And what a mission it was.
Sam collected the dry wood needed to build a small fire, and set about heating some vittles. It was while he was digging in his packs that he found the letter. It simply said: Who am I? Rev. 6:7-8.
His heart sped and his hands shook as he dug around for his bible. He already knew the jest of that particular passage, but needed to read it straight from the Good book himself.
Unlike some of the others in his past profession, he had always steered clear of Revelations in his sermons. He’d seen, and heard, others, teaching and preaching the fire and brimstone, painting an angry, wrathful, vengeful God, hell bent on punishing the unrepentant. But Sam had never felt comfortable with that approach. His God was none of those things.
Finding the book, his trembling fingers quickly found the passage he was looking for:

“I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.”


The next morning Sam set off carrying his saddle bags, the heavy saddle was left lying in the dirt. He headed North, away from the Brazos, and settled into a pace that he would be able to keep for most of the day.
As he made camp that night, he figured he’d walked a good twenty five miles, and surprisingly, he didn’t feel too bad. Of course, come the morning it might be a different story, but for now, he felt much better than he had the previous night when he had made camp next to the tracks of the small Indian party that had took his horse.
His rations were getting scarce, so supper would consist of dried beans boiled next the fire. He’d seen a nice buck that morning, but with no way to haul the carcass, or anything extra for that matter, he’d simply watched it spring away, listening to the rumble in his belly.
Sam was stirring his beans, when he heard horses approaching, followed a few seconds later by a “Hallow the camp!”
He watched as an old man, riding quite possibly the ugliest horse he’d ever seen, followed by a much nicer looking mule loaded down with gear, enter the camp.
The trio looked pretty harmless, but Sam still held his rifle firmly across his knees.
“I was hoping I’d run into ya.” the old man was saying, as he swung down from the saddle. “I cut yer trail awhile back, and I was curious to see who was roaming around here on foot.” He tethered his horse to a tree and began walking towards the fire. “Don’t see many people a walkin’ ‘round here. Knew you wasn’t an injun though, on account’a yer wearin’ boots.”
He reached the fire, where Sam now stood, and held out his hand, “Names Zeb. Zeb Tucker. Mountain man extraordinaire.” he laughed from under the brim of his floppy prospectors hat. “Got called that at Rendezvous, back in ‘39, by some news-man outa one of them god-damn eastern states, but what do they know, right? Now, who might you be young feller?”
Sam smiled down at little burly mountain man, “Sam. Sam Sharp.”
“Sam Sharp, huh? You would’nt be the Sam Sharp would ya, outa Texas?”
“Yep, that be me.”
Zeb Tucker laughed heartily, “Well, hell son! I done heard you’s dead!”
Sam laughed back, “Nope, still alive and kickin’.”
“I see that. Where the hell ya been? Kinda dropped off the face of the earth didn’t ya?”
“That I did.” he smiled.
When Sam didn’t offer any excuse, Zeb waved it away, “That’s alright, son. Every body’s intitled to their reasons.” Looking down at the pot simmering by the fire, he asked, “What’s fer supper, Sam Sharp?”
“Beans.”
The old man rubbed his grey whiskers thoughtfully, “Wall now, that sounds mighty tasty, mind if’n I join ya?”
Sam eyed the pitiful pot dubiously, he’d only had a handful of beans to throw in there. “Uh, sure you can. I’d enjoy the company.” Zeb wouldn’t be getting full from this meal, he thought. There was hardly enough to fill the belly of a tit mouse.
Squatting