Rachel 1860

By Julianna Rowe

Julianna is traveling west to visit her five children when she comes across Rachael, the sole survivor of a horrific and brutal Indian attack in which Rachael's husband has been killed and her two children, Andrea Rose, and Cayden, have been taken. Julianna takes Rachael under her wing, and together they travel to the nearest town. When they arrive, Julianna discovers the telegraph is out of order, so she writes her sons a letter telling them she is safe but does not tell them where she is.

Julianna's eldest son, Coyd, on receiving the letter from his mother, gathers his brothers and a collection of reprobates to go on the search for their wayward mother. Unfortunately for the brothers, their sister Abigail insists on tagging along.

So, we have two threads to follow—Julianna's adventures in the Wild West with Rachael, the brothers, their crew, and not forgetting Abigail. Will the two ends join together, or will they end up in one massive tangle?

Julianna is traveling west to visit her five children when she comes across Rachael, the sole survivor of a horrific and brutal Indian attack in which Rachael's husband has been killed and her two children, Andrea Rose, and Cayden, have been taken. Julianna takes Rachael under her wing, and together they travel to the nearest town. When they arrive, Julianna discovers the telegraph is out of order, so she writes her sons a letter telling them she is safe but does not tell them where she is.

Julianna's eldest son, Coyd, on receiving the letter from his mother, gathers his brothers and a collection of reprobates to go on the search for their wayward mother. Unfortunately for the brothers, their sister Abigail insists on tagging along.

So, we have two threads to follow—Julianna's adventures in the Wild West with Rachael, the brothers, their crew, and not forgetting Abigail. Will the two ends join together, or will they end up in one massive tangle?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julianna Rowe
• Release date: Feb 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224141968

Book preview

Rachael 1860

One Woman's Journey to Reunite Her Family

A novel by Julianna Rowe

Rachael 1860

By Julianna Rowe

Copyright 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. And yet much is based on true facts from the pages of my life.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

Cover Art by Twisted Wolf Graphix

Acknowledgement:

I would like to thank my Guides and Angels who come to me in the quiet times, in my dreams, or while I am driving in rush hour traffic. To those I say thank you for the words, the thoughts, and the ideas they whisper and, sometimes, shout to me. 

And to my mentor of forty-five years, Tommye Allen of Muskogee, Oklahoma who never once stopped telling me I could do and be whatever I wanted through Christ. That having dyslexia was not a problem, rather it was a blessing of my creativity. 

A special thank you to Savannah McCann, the most caring publishing manager, and the greatest cover designer. To Robin Alexander, the most patient editor I could ask for.

To Sandy Ruminski, medium and friend, for answering every question I ever asked without hesitation.

And to my five children who may never read this, but maybe, someday, know I did something more.

To my best friend of thirty years DeAnne Roeske for her constant support when times got tough. 

But especially to my dear deceased father, Joseph, who still speaks to me from the beyond.

And to myself for never giving up.

RACHEL 1860

Introduction

Chapter One:

The Tree of Death

Chapter Two:

New Friends

Chapter Three:

The Telegram

Chapter Four:

The Riders

Chapter Five:

The Gambling Man

Chapter Six:

Prairie Antics

Chapter Seven:

The Dream

Chapter Eight:

Abigail Becomes Ill

Chapter Nine:

The Breakdown

Chapter Ten:

A Coward Among Us

Chapter Eleven:

The Locket

Chapter Twelve:

Chapter Thirteen:

The Indian Wife...

Chapter Fourteen:

The Coach Stop Inn

Chapter Fifteen:

The Children

Chapter Sixteen:

The Robbery

Chapter Seventeen:

Life or Death

Chapter Eighteen:

The Snake from the Tall Grasses...

Chapter Nineteen:

The Homecoming

Chapter Twenty:

Back Home...

Rachael 1860

Introduction

COYD TRIED NOT TO fear his rampant thoughts of the lawless frontier and his beloved mother Julianna in the midst of not only the land, but also the horrific situation she seemed to have come upon and become a partaker of.

Julianna Rowe lost two of her children to one of her weaknesses called fear. She spent her life from that point forward dealing with this tragedy in all sorts of ways, most being unacceptable to even the rugged society of the nineteenth century. Yet her struggles and unconventional ways of handling her life losses began to pay off. Unknown to her rational mind it seemed the Universe was quietly backing up her intent to find her children and herself. She found them again, but not without their pain and hers colliding in a tough world where no one's emotions were healed no matter what century.

Through a maze of harrowing and sometimes unbelievable events, along with time itself, she moved from a wounded, wandering and lost existence to finding much about herself. Her journey brought her to a fullness of who she really was and how to accept true and real love so she could begin again. And to teach forgiveness to those in her life as well as learning to forgive herself and leave it all behind.

Chapter One:

The Tree of Death

Iwas a writer and I found myself venturing cross country in an elegantly carved stagecoach, pulled by six sweating, strained horses, as I was breathing dust and being lifted from my leather seat by every sway and bump on the trail. Yet this was the only means of transportation across the plains at that time. The year was 1862. The travel plan I was on was taking me to California where my sons ran a famous traveling entertainment show.

Those sorts of entertainers brought laughter to the multitudes during our country’s difficult times. I was traveling with an envoy of three different sorts of men where the heat was next to unbearable along with the dust and the stench of body odor from all who boarded the coach during the journey. One in particular was an overweight banker on his way to commence the opening of a new banking facility in Santa Fe. If the dust was not bad enough, the screech of an overweight banker's voice practicing his speech repeatedly was certainly the height of annoyance. Why, I wanted to cease Mr. Madison Schmid’s reverberating sounds with my eloquent umbrella many times over. For weeks, I could repeat the speech he practiced continually across the many miles of Western Plains. His words emanated from my mind during the night and day like a bad song replaying itself.

"Allow me to seize the opportunity to express myself to the Chartered Institute of the Territories of Bankers. The opening of this new facility will present itself with professionalism and ethics. I appreciate the doggedness of my constituents and their perseverance and vision to make this dream come true for the residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico. With these ingredients, we shall shape the perception of the public of which we shall not lose our appeal but shall gain"

...etc. and so on for hours.

The second man of the trio was an accountant, Herschel Kline who traveled alongside Mr. Banker man Madison Schmid. Herschel was a very quiet, yet strange man. One could tell he thought things he should not but revealed nothing. Yet, I saw a wanting in his eyes that should have put him behind bars, a place he belonged. I felt he wanted me no less. He was much more frightening than Mr. Madison Schmid, the banker who merely caused an unraveling of the nerves.

The third traveler, a retired trapper, or so he said, and the last, but foremost of my interest. Most trappers were usually in the employ of large corporations, many of which were home based in Europe. I had read about trappers back home and how they used nature to make a living while leaving the land intact. Trappers depended on their courage to stay alive, not to mention their stamina, which usually included living in the wild for nearly a year at a time before bringing their furs to area trading posts. If they were lucky, their annual take was around four hundred dollars, which had to be enough to live on until the following year. I certainly wondered about Mr.

Rex Sullivan’s finances, realizing the Beaver trade was almost non-existent during the past several years. So what kept Mr. Rex Sullivan in the clothes of the class he had donned? As I sat in my coach seat breathing the dust of the prairies and swaying back and forth over the rugged terrain, I wondered if he had more than one Indian wife. The trappers kept such wives to maintain a healthy relationship with the Indians should any trouble arise, which would indeed keep them safe. During the trip, I attempted to enter the mind of Mr. Sullivan more than once, only to be observed in return in a like manner.

Discovery came at a coach stop in El Paso when Madison Schmid told me that he oversaw Mr. Sullivan professionally gambling at a well-known saloon during one of the previous banking conventions he had attended. Now I understood why I was drawn to such a man. Sometimes a woman liked a little wild in a man. And he carried that wild card well.

One of the scheduled stops on my trip west was at a way station near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Well, if that was what you would call it. Personally, I called it a remade Spanish hut, which offered water, whiskey, dried beef, a dusty bench, and, of course, an outhouse for relief. Alongside the hut was a horse barn that housed four steeds at all times, considering there was a change of coach horses every few days. Several mesquite trees and cottonwoods dotted the landscape and in between was a sea of crackling in the wind sagebrush. The fresh prairie winds tumbled the round withered dried brush across the land like the death men feared in these parts every day. The only visible colors surrounding us were brown and gray with the exception of the red velvet curtains and the gold embellishments inside the coach.

After a brief time, I found myself moving away from the meaningless chatter of the people surrounding me at that particular way station in the middle of nowhere. I literally wandered off, pen and paper in hand, through the brush and sage on a dirt road of my own making. Losing track of time seemed to be something that needed attention in my life because there I was again forgetting to look at my watch piece for the stagecoach departure time. Or whatever time it was. Why, I had no business out in that brush anyway!

Snakes, much less Indians or even a drunken passerby could have called me to my demise. The possibility of Herschel Kline behind me had entered my mind and was an atrocity as well as quite frightening as I recalled. Nonetheless, my mind was not in those areas of reality. In fact, reality was nowhere in this woman's mind. Only the red sunset reflecting the majestic colors of the red and purple plateaus off in the distance took my mind and cushioned it within its bed of gentle color. The grey surroundings of the hut and barn had disappeared. I was on some sort of mission, which seemed out of my control.

I started coming to my senses when I noticed a grouping of trees quite out of place in this desert atmosphere of my imagination, yet there amongst them in the distance was something quite odd seemingly calling me or prodding me like a magnet towards it. The closer I got, the more apprehensive I had become. My mind was suddenly coming back to its place on solid ground. No longer lost in the beauty or majesty of the moment, quite the opposite, in fact, it was about to drown me in its sorrow and shock for a long time to come.

Suddenly, from an unimaginable nowhere, a figure resembling a woman fell from the fragile branches of the tree before me. Along with her fell a waterfall of rags and small memorabilia. A velvet jewel bag, a flour sack, a satin tieback from a curtain and, most of all, fear. The woman began making nonsensical noises while wandering about, chewing her fingers and all parts of her hands. She was obviously in shock, and fear had overcome her being. I walked farther trying to gather my rational thinking realizing I could not console her at this time, and then, I found more. The bodies of, I assumed, the men in her life, lying motionless with the same majestic sunset of red all about their own bodies. Only the red was their lifeblood. The same sun that gave life was lighting my way to see the pure reflection of its dead.

Like the North Star that led the wise people to their Savior, that same light had led me to this gruesome scene that needed attention. I was the only one near, or was I led to save this poor lost woman? As I was thinking and attempting to take all of it in, I saw a doll afore me on the ground, and a pair of boy's shoes strewn about. My mind was now frantic as to where those children could be, while all the time knowing full well my own answers and the answer to this woman's state of being. Bending and reaching for the doll was like an exercise in slow motion such as falling from a cliff while asleep. You made no reaction, but you were inwardly startled to the place of leaping as you awoke. I was leaping out of my skin at that point, beginning to lose control of my wits. I had to remain calm, therefore I turned away from this battlefield from hell to find the woman whose life was mercilessly drained from her while she watched helplessly. I took her in my arms and held her tightly, for she had to sense some sort of safety for her to come back to reality. From what I saw, my senses told me she did not intend to come back to this world and its horrifying reality. Where were her children? The Indians had left their mark on her husband and what appeared to be her father. Moreover, from the tales told back East those children were in a hidden Indian camp far away without their mother, and very frightened. I wondered about their ages, how many, and if this story would ever end without more pain than I had already seen under and around this small oasis of trees.

I prayed, Oh God, give me the strength to bear this, and help this mother. And where are the children? Oh God, let the children be safe. As I held her tightly, we walked back toward the coach stop where a whole new world would begin. Her life through her determination and tenacity to find what was stolen from her by an enemy. Her children, and mine through the telling of her story, which I wondered, was it mine?

The way station was dirty and dusty with always a shot of some sort of homemade whiskey on hand. Of course, not my style in those days, yet given the woman's state, the stationmaster and I gently forced her to drink a couple of shots of strong whiskey. I presumed she had not slept in days, nor had she taken care of herself in any fashion. Being the only woman present and considering the coach had left me behind while I was following the call of some unknown force to find this massacre in the desert, it appeared it was up to me to take care of her. To believe what I had seen that day was too difficult for me at the time, so I cleansed my mind as I cleansed and refreshed the woman using my extra clothing and toiletries. Then I laid her to sleep on the hard bench at the small muddy way station, with my bag as her pillow. She hardly moved until the next coach arrived.

I considered going back to the wagon to see if there were any belongings left for her but changed my mind. The danger was swift, and my wits were back about me, not to mention there was no pull by any majestic sun calling my name to go any further.

I had gathered several items from the grounds while under that forbidden tree of death in the desert that day. There seemed to be time to go through my bag