Lucy Baxter lives peacefully in Kansas with her aunt, Caroline Wilcox, her deceased mother’s sister until, by 1863, the War Between the States made life for two lone women insufferable—and dangerous. Her dream of teaching school is shattered. With her fiance, her Uncle Wilcox, and two Wilcox cousins assumed among the missing or dead, Aunt Caroline has decided the best option for getting both her and Lucy to safety is to travel to California and join Lucy’s father. Only, Lucy—never fond of her stepmother—stayed behind when her father left years early. That stepmother died on the trail, but now her father has married again. Will he and his new wife welcome her? Will the two half-brothers who were so young when they left even remember her? Even if she and Aunt Caroline survive the journey to California, what kind of future can she expect?
Malachi Foster’s dreams of striking it rich in the gold and silver fields in the West left him disillusioned. Tired of living like a rodent in a burrow, he accepts a job with Will Clayton tending pack mules hauling goods between Nevada and California. When not doing that, we works with Will as a teamster driving oxen-pulled wagons loaded with supplies for the mining towns he walked away from. When Will asks him to help drive a small freight train to the Missouri River to bring back goods found only in the East, Malachi hesitates. He left home to escape the Copperhead sympathies of his Northern family. If he travels closer to the fighting, there might be those who question why he is not enlisted in one army or the other. In the end, a gut feeling—or maybe something whispering to his spirit—helps him decide. Perhaps he must help protect his friend. Perhaps there is another reason. Either way, he will go.
Genre: Inspirational
Malachi Foster’s dreams of striking it rich in the gold and silver fields in the West left him disillusioned. Tired of living like a rodent in a burrow, he accepts a job with Will Clayton tending pack mules hauling goods between Nevada and California. When not doing that, we works with Will as a teamster driving oxen-pulled wagons loaded with supplies for the mining towns he walked away from. When Will asks him to help drive a small freight train to the Missouri River to bring back goods found only in the East, Malachi hesitates. He left home to escape the Copperhead sympathies of his Northern family. If he travels closer to the fighting, there might be those who question why he is not enlisted in one army or the other. In the end, a gut feeling—or maybe something whispering to his spirit—helps him decide. Perhaps he must help protect his friend. Perhaps there is another reason. Either way, he will go.
Genre: Inspirational
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