Emma's Rifles

By Reg Saretsky

The woman stands alone at the stern of the north bound Brock. She has released her long red golden hair to the wind beneath her day hat, and it cascades around her shoulders. The stirring winds of Lake Michigan play against her new-style pantaloons, curling them, outlining against the shape of her legs. She watches the south coast fade into the intermittent fog banks that frame the passing of that autumn of 1850. An avatar of a new age, born before her time, she has taken risks by the name of justice and won, finding wisdom, confidence, and her man.
Meet Emma Reynolds-Chase. Born into the caldron state of frontier Missouri in the eighteen thirties, a witness to a violent civil war at eight. Orphaned at twelve, she becomes a natural crusader for justice.
Emma’s quest sweeps her into the movement to abolish slavery. She witnesses its darker sides, as rough men of conviction square off into conflict that threatens to tear America apart. In a world of shifting alliances, with a team who has conflicting alliances, divided loyalties, she finds her path.
Emma enters into the birth of a new America, where vast new mineral wealth, and a burgeoning industrial empire squares off against King Cotton. The greed for iron and gold sways and corrupts. A shadowy plot, by European powers, threatens to splinter a vulnerable, resource-rich Young America into client states.
Emma reconnects with the first love of her life, in a thrilling chase across Mid-West America. Emma Chase rescues her new husband. Emma enters into the birth of a new America, where vast new mineral wealth, and a burgeoning industrial empire squares off against King Cotton. The greed for iron and gold sways and corrupts. A shadowy plot, by European powers, threatens to splinter a vulnerable, resource-rich Young America into client states. from his cycle of vengeance, starting a new life, on new frontiers, with the man she loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reg Saretsky
• Release date: Jan 25, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310880834

Book preview

OVERTURE: 1838 CALDWELL COUNTY: THE SHATTERING

Professor James Smith, University of Alberta, qualified his analysis of America’s year of turmoil; Eighteen hundred and fifty.

"Both British and French plans existed to incite the American Civil War in the eighteen fifties. An attempt to create the division of the North American continent into managed sections, proposed by the Imperial War Office. Fans of the ‘Nefarious British’ theories should keep in mind that our fears were well founded. Canada had a tenuous hold on the continent north of the fourty ninth parallel; the Rupertsland sovereignty grant had no military, and little political power. Rupertsland was strictly a commercial empire, a trade network. The vast gold reserves of the Northern Pacific coast were unknown, but believed extensive, based on the California gold rush."

Professor Smith paused. The British Empire was facing a resurgent Prussia, an expanding Russia; and an active, expanding French empire. Wise thought foresaw the establishment of separate dominions, or independent client republics, as justified Britain feared what America would become, America feared what Britain could do. Both nations, during the year of eighteen hundred and fifty saw each other, through the glass, darkly.

The Missouri Civil War: Eighteen Hundred and Thirty Seven

"Wake up, Emma, wake your sisters. There is trouble, and we must flee," Julie Reynolds gathered her young children in her arms. While Emma dressed her sisters, her mother packed, hurried and frantic. The Reynolds’ homestead farm along Crooked River held few possessions, and only one wagon. The cold October winds carried the muffled boom of light cannon, the sharp reports of muskets, the shouts of anger. Daniel Reynolds harnessed his draft horse team to the family wagon. Chest, bedding, and utensils are piled into the wagon bed. He placed their three young daughters on top of the possessions.

"Daniel, come with us, please. This isn’t your battle."

"Bill’s my brother, hot head and all. He’s calling out the county militia."

"Don’t ride to Hauns Mill. You can’t stop this war. Emma and I cannot run this farm if I am widowed; or if you are crippled."

"I’ll be careful. Someone has to talk sense in Missouri. He swung lightly into the saddle and rode northwest on the high trail to Far West Colony. Reynolds’s wife and daughters cautiously drove east to the hoped-for safety of Carrolton and Carroll County. Flames lit the Missouri night. Neighbour rose against Neighbour; a pointless war, driven by religion and by fear. Emma spotted the boy’s body by Shoal Creek. Momma, it’s a boy, and he is moving. He’s alive, Momma." The injured child was young and not conscious. His scalp, slashed by a sword cut, bled profusely. The woman and her girls bandaged his wound, stretching the young man out in their wagon bed.

"Who are you, lad?"

"Stuart- Stuart Chase. From, Hauns"…The child slipped out of consciousness.

"Hide him under the blanketing. Tell no one."

I was eight years old, Philippe. The last that I saw of him. He said his name was Stuart. Momma left him in good care until his people could claim him back. Then his people, they all left Missouri- Governor Boggs’s infamous death or eviction order. That was the last that I remember about my father, too. He stepped between the militia and the Hauns’ mill defenders, tried to reason out a truce. Father took a stray bullet. My uncle, Bill, he boiled into rage, massacred the mill people, the families. Momma sold Bill the land, but the joy went out of her life that fall, and when she took the cholera, she didn’t even try to fight it off."

Madness- the news reached Ste. Genevieve. We raised a relief fund; no one knew what to say or what to do. Mon Dieu. Our own state. You have a place here, now Emma. That was eleven years ago. You must try to forget.

I wake up at nights, yet. It’s better if I lodge away from the hotel; perhaps with a deaf landlady; until I can afford my own home.

She encountered her anti-slavery cell leader in the afternoon, screened by the flowering Kentucky trees, where the lush growth crowned the river levee. It’s set, Grant. I work until midnight, Monday through Saturday. He sleeps at the hotel every second week, on the veranda with the other young drinkers. Do you have his picture?

It’s a good lithograph. Don’t show it to anyone, Emma. Destroy it after the first night. You are sure that you want to go ahead? You can back out, now.

I’ll do anything for you, Grant. For both you and the cause. And I miss you, dearly. When do we move in together? Grant, I really want to marry you.

Emma, after the abduction, I may have to vanish for a time. You know that we are asking for the release of many of the abolitionist leaders, held on charges in the South. The plantation holders can put up big money, release innocent people for his safe return. Or, they may sweep this area of Missouri with a fine-tooth comb. I can’t risk your safety by staying around. Right now, I’m just a riverfront Mustee, a humble fisherman, taking advantage of the boom of 1849. The cover story, if I need one, is that I skipped to the Indian Territory along the Red River.

I know that, silly man. Right now, I’m just in love. Deeply in love. And it feels glorious.

BOOK ONE: THE SINEWS OF WAR.

CHAPTER ONE: FORT LARAMIE.

I’m not a geologist; I'm a soldier, explained Robert Johnston. However, I’ve seen similar quartz outcroppings, ore deposits in California, and by my word, they are extensive in those Sioux hills, Major. We sampled over a hundred miles of outcroppings.

Fremont’s dispatch patrol rode into Fort Laramie during March of 1849, penetrating the first spring storms that ended the long, cold Great Plains winter. Jack pine and white spruce, heating the big house in the newly rebuilt fort, crackled and roared in the fireplaces at either end of the factors' reception hall; warming the sandstone walls and the men who challenged the Sierra trails. Traversing the Donner Pass from Sacramento, the scout patrol brought four months of mail from California. Major William Scott commander of the Wyoming district, was pleased to see fresh faces -possibly recruits, and another army officer. Long, isolated winters among his slim company garrisoning the Upper Platte fort wore tempers thin. Scott dined this exotic new guest and his exploration party. Slender, ten pounds underweight, a man of sinew and energy; Johnston bought a welcome change to the tedium of an Oregon Trail midpoint fort and depot.

We were lucky; the Powder River country had Chinook winds clearing the snow. I wanted to detour, to blaze a trail while the Brule were still in winter encampments. They don’t gather until their horses strengthen with the spring grazing.

"I’m surprised you didn’t wait for spring at Colona, or Grass Camp. That winter trip through the high Sierras was risky, Captain. The mail, and the news you brought, are both welcome. This fort is caught in the winds of change. We are under orders to expand, to prepare for Fillmore’s Great Treaty commission when they meet the gathering of the Plains tribes next year. First bull train arrived this week from Independence, Missouri.

A bull train- in March?

Yep. Tough mule skinner named Bill Bull’ Hayward. Uses mules, and carries the feed for the early run. A legend along the Upper Missouri, not for the best of reasons. He has his niece with him. A striking woman, this Emma Hayward, Nineteen years old; widowed, lost her child in pregnancy. As you can imagine, she is attracting a lot of attention. We have seen surprisingly little from the natives in the last year. They have been trading with the Metis out of Saint Paul and the British area, Fort Garry; north of Paha Sapa; the Black Hills. The Crow scouts carry strange rumors. There is a folk tale circulating of Missouri men who entered the Black Hills, twenty years ago, and vanished; now placer gold shows up in British Canada, traded. The Metis are roaming traders and buffalo hunters. They have a wandering preacher, a priest? Pierre De Smet, I believe. The Crow claim that the Sioux have gold, and they trade it through the Metis. De Smet told them to hide the source, the gold filters through the British at Fort Garry. I suspect that the Hayward clan’s freight trips are as much scouting the mining as supplying the fort, but any trail boss who gets freight through in March, to Fort Laramie is welcome."

Captain Scott walked to his windows, and checked the weather. Let’s go for a ride, Robert. A canter on a real horse will do you well, after those broad backed American Jack cross mules you rode out from Carson City.

Horses would be bleaching on the trail right now, along with my bones, laughed Johnston.

Cautious men, they checked the saddle girths and hooves at the Laramie stables, then cantered out together into the cool spring breeze. West of the barracks, the teamster camp jacked their wagons, checking hubs and axles, tightening rims, before the rough return crossing to Missouri. Mules cropped greedily at the emerging green growth; while a tall girl cantered west, alone, on her saddle mule.

She’s been asking questions about the trails to California whenever she's around the troopers.

Good Lord, does she really intend to ride to California- alone?

I don’t know. Louise, my wife, persuaded her to take tea this afternoon. You should meet her then, Robert, and ask her.

She rides well, major. Should we ride up, have a chat with her first?

We’ll keep an eye on her from a distance. The woman seems skittish, reticent. Afternoon is soon enough. Smart planning, though, to get a good knowledge of trail lore by working the bull trains to Fort Laramie, if she intends to risk the passage to California.

I heard about the battle that the Metis waged on the Grande Coteau, in July.

Tough people; the Crow reports claim that seventy off them held off two thousand Yanktoni for over two days. Dug into the hillside, carts on the outside, pits and trenches. If the Sioux are the finest light cavalry on the plains, these French fellows must be the west's premier light mounted riflemen. Maybe I’m too hard on their religion; apparently, a Father Lafleche, commanded their defense. Women loading rifles, men sharp shooting. If there is ever a fight on the trails, I want them as allies. I’m worried, Captain, about the flood of emigrants taking the Platte river trail to California, this year. I’ve persuaded the Arapahoe to hunt south for the summer. If the traders are keeping the Cheyenne and Sioux north of the Black Hills, during this summer’s emigration, I’ll count that a blessing, even if a Catholic delivers it. Formality melted, and both men broke into laughter. If you get bored with Washington. Robert, I need every man I can get for the next few years. I have a posting for you here at your convenience. It’s cold during the winter, odious in the heat and horsefly seasons, but there are times when it is at its’ best. In those seasons, Captain, this Wyoming is one of the wonderful places on earth, a man's paradise. The interior North West, beyond the Powder River, is tomorrow’s country. Be sure to find your way back here.

I’ve noticed that you set many of your own rules, make your decisions locally.

Aye, I can’t do much about the obsolete arms, until the old Hall rifle stocks from are drawn down. I spend a lot of time with the hot-blooded new lieutenants mustered to me from West Point. Point out that the buffalo tribes have obtained rifles, often newer models than ours.

How do you manage to stay so cheerful?

"You take Fort Laramie a day at a time. Two years ago, we were stationed in Minnesota territory. My dragoons escorted the BIA commissioners: they presided over the grand peace conference of the Yankton Sioux and the Metis hunt captains. Presents were liberally passed out. Peace pipes were smoked. We hunted buffalo over the great Pembina