Over the Wire

By Thea Hutcheson

Brice Sebastian, a half breed, runs wire for Western Union across the great plains, open to white settlement since the Indians are moving down the Trail of Tears in this alternate history 19th Century America. An odd interaction between the solder and a new spool of copper wire creates a door into a world of great creatures. He decides such a land has promise that can't be ignored.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lilac Moon Books
• Release date: May 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476377339

Thea Hutcheson

Thea Hutcheson lives and writes in a large house full of an understanding partner, four semi-feral cats, and about a thousand books in an economically depressed, unscenic, nearly historic small city in Colorado. When she's not working diligently as a planning commissioner to change that situation or writing, she's a factotum.

Book preview

Over the Wire

by

Thea Hutcheson

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Lilac Moon Books on Smashwords

Over the Wire

Copyright (c) 2011 Thea Hutcheson

Cover by Laura Givens

Copyright (c) 2012 Laura Givens

http://www.lauragivens-artist.com

Discover other titles by Thea Hutcheson at Smashwords.com

And at http://www.theahutcheson.com

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Table of Contents

Over the Wire

About the Author

The tall golden grass whispered as the late afternoon breeze blew east from the Rocky Mountains. Brice Sebastian looked up as the wind brought the smell of buffalo and their grunts to him as he bent over his portable workbench.

Damn Hickson, where was he now? The prairie lions had been trailing them for the last couple of days. The last thing he needed was for his partner to become dinner while he worked. No, that was the second to last thing he needed. The last thing he needed was for him to become dinner.

Brice sighed and bent back over his bench. The excitement of the West had worn thin and irritating, becoming a dirty, aching grind.

The canvas and wood turbines on the top of the prairie schooner turned lazily in the breeze that blew the afternoon storm clouds in from the west and took the acrid odor of hot steel with it. He pulled the soldering iron out of the forge.

The wooden handle was smooth and shiny from all the hands that had used it before his. He touched the hot iron tip to a block of tin and lead. A dull silver glob teared on the tip. An acrid puff of smoke rose up and he sneezed. Ready.

A crack of thunder startled him and he looked up at the sky. Heavy, black bottomed clouds roiled above him, but none had the peculiar green and purple color that signaled a cyclone in the making. More he worried about a fire. They had seen one two weeks ago, sweeping its way across the plains, a herd of buffalo stampeding ahead of it, lions, wolves and deer running for their lives with no thoughts of predator or prey crossing their minds.

He set the iron to the spliced copper and smiled as the capillary action sucked up the leaded tin, coating it completely with a silver film. Then he frowned. The soldered metal smelled odd and it felt different when he touched it after it cooled. The telegraph line wasn’t active yet, so he couldn’t be feeling the small current that would run through a working wire. He ran a finger across the thin gauge wire. It sang and he jerked his finger away from it.

Odd.

He could still smell the acrid solder and the hot copper smell, but he also caught a hint of something dull, heavy, but shimmery in