Dangerous Men (Flynn Family Saga Book 2)
Read Dangerous Men (Flynn Family Saga Book 2) Online
Authors: Erica Graham
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DANGEROUS MEN
by Erica T. Graham
Copyright 2012 Erica
T. Graham
Cover Art by Marta Ruliffson
_______________________
DANGEROUS MEN – Book 2 of the Flynn Family Saga
- The
old west was filled with dangerous men: outlaws and gamblers and Indians.
But for Maggie O'Brien Anders, the most dangerous man is Robert Sean Flynn, the
man who holds her heart—and her fate—in his hands.
_______________________
Look for books 1 and 3 of the
Flynn Family Saga
at
Amazon.com
SHATTERED LIVES – Book 1 of the Flynn Family Saga
-
The Civil War shattered the lives of thousands of Americans on both sides of
the conflict. Robert Sean Flynn fought in the war while Maggie O'Brien
waited for her father to come home. Both of them thought that life would
return to normal when the war ended.
Both of them were wrong.
COURAGE TO LOVE – Book 3 of the Flynn Family Saga
-
Maggie's first child, Sarah, is born dead. Flynn runs from his grief and
his past, abandoning Maggie when she needs him the most. Will they find
the strength to heal from the loss of their child and the courage to love
again?
_______________________
Coming Soon
BLESS THE CHILDREN – Book 4 of the Flynn Family Saga
-
Cade was trouble. From the day Maggie and Flynn adopted him, he was trouble:
stealing, fighting, running away. But when he joins a gang of bank robbers,
things go terribly wrong, for Cade and for the rest of the Flynn family.
_______________________
About the author:
Born and raised in a large, eastern city, Erica T. Graham
hitchhiked alone from Buffalo, New York to Portland, Oregon. Without
knowing it, she retraced the trail most wagon trains took on their way
west. She fell in love with the empty, silent places. She lives in
a cottage nestled in the woods on a mountain in Pennsylvania. Any typos
are the fault of her cat, Pixie, who likes to offer her editorial comments by
walking on the keys.
Connect with Erica T. Graham online at:
www.flynnfamilysaga.com
.
_______________________
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the writers who began to share their
experience with me way back when Prodigy was the primary social network.
They taught me everything I know.
I would like to thank Dr. Sam Castimore for his help with
understanding horses. And yes, giving horses sugar lumps is a bad thing,
but they didn't know that back in the 1800s.
I would like to thank Lawrence Obrist of the Lincoln, Nebraska
Historical Society for his help regarding the development of Nebraska and the
trails the wagon trains took and the Native Americans of the area.
I would like to thank Roxanne Scott of the Milford
Historical Society for her help with the clothing and furnishings of the
period.
The Lakota words used in this series come from the website:
http://members/chello.nl/~f.vandenburk.htm
And last, but not least, I would like to thank my friend
Barbara for proofreading the manuscripts, and her husband, Mike, for supplying
me with cups of tea.
The good information is theirs. The mistakes are mine.
Erica T. Graham
Snake River
Wyoming
Territory
July 28, 1870
CHAPTER ONE
Maggie dreamed of the night her
parents died.
She heard the sound of angry voices
in the wagon. Michael and Lucy were arguing. “Mama, no! Not when he’s drunk.”
Maggie scrambled into the wagon.
Lucy O’Brien stood holding a jug of
whiskey in her arms protectively. “I am not going to let you throw away our
last chance at a better life!”
Michael’s face twisted into an
unrecognizable mask of rage. “I need it, Lucy! You know that! I can’t sleep
without it!”
“I don’t care!” Lucy threw the jug
down, and it shattered. The moonshine ran across the floorboards.
“Mama, no,” Maggie whispered. She stepped
between her parents. Michael shoved her out of the way and turned on Lucy.
Maggie grabbed his arm, and he flung her off as if she weighed nothing. She
fell to the floor. Dizzy and sick, she managed to get to her feet, but she was
too late. Michael struck Lucy, hard. Lucy fell backward, hitting her head on
a crate with a thump, like the sound of pumpkin when it hits the ground.
And then blood mingled with the
whiskey that flowed across the floor.
Michael’s face went white as the
rage drained out of him. His hands shook as he grabbed his shotgun. Maggie
reached for the gun, but she was too slow. Michael put the barrel of the gun
in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
“No!” Maggie woke with a start.
“It’s all right, Magpie. It was
just a dream.” Flynn knelt beside her bedroll. The light of a lantern
reflected from his dark brown eyes.
Slowly, Maggie remembered that she
was in Wyoming, that Sam Anders had hired her to help out in St. Joseph, Missouri,
and kept her on after her parents died.
And she remembered that she was in
love with Flynn. She looked away from him so he didn’t see how she felt.
Gently, he turned her to face him.
“You did everything you could to stop him.”
Maggie turned back to him. Her
hands curled into fists, and her short nails dug into her palms. “But it wasn’t
enough.”
Flynn met her gaze levelly. The
pain in his eyes matched hers, ache for ache. “I know. Sometimes, no matter
how hard we try, it just isn’t enough and the people we love die.”
“Like your father?”
He nodded.
Tears stung her eyes. “I’m sorry,
Flynn.”
Flynn looked away.
Maggie sighed. “I’m sorry I woke
you. I know you have to leave early tomorrow.”
Flynn turned back to her. “Actually,
it
is
tomorrow already. Want some coffee?”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Who made it? You or Frank?”
Flynn laughed. “I did.”
Maggie forced herself to grin. “All
right, thanks. I’ll have some.”
They walked side by side to Frank’s
cook fire. Frank grinned at Flynn and dished up a large plateful of bacon and
eggs. Maggie sat down next to him with her own plate piled as high as Flynn’s.
For once, she wasn’t hungry. She had a feeling of foreboding. She shivered
despite the hot Wyoming wind.
“What’s the matter? Are you
sickening with something?” Frank Lennox laid a hand on Maggie’s forehead, and
his dark eyes narrowed with worry. He shook his head. “No fever.”
Maggie looked away.
Frank sighed. “Eat up, Flynn.
That’s the last decent food you’ll get until you come back.”
“Decent? You call this decent?”
Flynn scowled at Frank in mock disbelief.
“Is Frank bragging about his lousy
cooking again?” Sam Anders emerged from his wagon, growling like a sleepy
bear.
“Keep it down. Some of us are
trying to sleep.” Ben Brewster entered the circle, rubbing sleep from his
eyes.
“Some of us have work to do today,”
Flynn said mildly.
“You call that work? Escorting a
beautiful widow to her brother’s farm?” Ben put his hands on his hips.
The familiar banter made Maggie
smile, and she relaxed a little.
After breakfast, Maggie and Flynn walked
to the picket line together. Maggie checked her team while Flynn tended to his
horse, a large chestnut stallion. Scout nuzzled Flynn’s chest. Flynn patted
his pocket. He took out a small notebook. He frowned and put it back.
Maggie opened her mouth and shut
it.
Flynn turned to her and raised one
eyebrow. “What?”
Maggie shook her head stubbornly. “It
would be prying.”
Flynn’s expression softened in a
way that made her ache to tell him how she felt. “It’s from Elmira. I had a
friend there, a man who wrote down the names of the dead. There were so many.
I lost track of how many died, even though I buried them all. I keep telling
myself that I will count them one day, but...”
“Two thousand nine hundred and
sixty-three.”
“What?” Flynn looked at her.
Maggie looked away. “That’s how
many men died in Elmira. At least, that’s what the newspaper said.”
Flynn turned away.
“That means that over seven
thousand men lived,” she said softly.
Flynn turned back to her and raised
one eyebrow questioningly.
“There were ten thousand men in
that camp.” She looked at him solemnly.
Slowly, Flynn shook his head. “Mary
Margaret O’Brien, where did you come from?”
She grinned at him. “Well, I was
born in Manhattan...”
Flynn pulled her hat brim down over
her eyes.
Laughing, Maggie tilted her hat
back.
Flynn smiled at her. “How do you
do that?”
“Do what?”
“Laugh.” He sobered. “Whenever I
have nightmares, it takes me hours to shake them off.”
Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know. I
guess that’s how I dealt with my parents. I learned how to make a joke out
almost anything.”
“Except their deaths,” Flynn said
gently.
Maggie turned away and nodded.
Scout nudged him harder. Flynn
grinned sheepishly. “Sorry, big fella. I forgot your sugar lumps again.”
Without a word, Maggie handed him a
lump of sugar.
Flynn shook his head. “How much
sugar do I owe you?”
“At least a pound. But who’s
counting?” She drew her knife and lifted Sebastian’s left rear leg. The
gelding whickered softly. Maggie popped out the stone and rubbed Sebastian’s
leg. She hesitated. “Flynn?”
Flynn turned to Maggie.
She swallowed hard. “Be careful
out there.”
He shrugged. “I’m always careful.”
Maggie looked away. “I just had a
feeling, that’s all.”
Flynn turned to her. He opened his
mouth and shut it again without speaking. He reached into his saddlebag and
took out a yellowed map. He unrolled it on a flat rock. Maggie hunkered down
beside him. “Don’t worry, Maggie. I’ll be back in a few days. Jensen’s Wells
is only twenty-five miles away. See?”
Maggie nodded slowly. “This is one
of Alexander Ridgeton’s maps, isn’t it?”
Flynn nodded back. He rolled up
the fragile parchment carefully and put it back in his saddlebags. He swung up
onto Scout’s back and rode to the Lonnegan wagon.
* * *
Ellie Lonnegan, dressed in a prim
black dress, sat on the high seat of her wagon. Her son Tommy sat beside her.
She smiled when she saw Flynn. “Good morning, Mr. Flynn.”
Flynn touched the brim of his hat.
“Morning, Mrs. Lonnegan. Are you ready?”
She nodded.
Flynn nodded back. He tied Scout
to the back of the wagon and climbed into the seat. He slapped the reins on
the backs of Mrs. Lonnegan’s horses. The animals started forward. He turned
them north, toward Jensen’s Wells.
The day passed slowly, but without
incident. They only made ten miles that day, traveling across broken country
that could maim a horse or snap an axle. They passed two waterholes, both of
them dry. The carcass of a horse lay beside the third waterhole. Flynn’s mouth
thinned in anger.
“What is it, Mr. Flynn?” Mrs.
Lonnegan sounded frightened.
“Someone poisoned this waterhole.”
She shivered. “Who would do such a
thing?”
Flynn stood up on the wagon seat and
looked around, but he saw nothing except the buzzards they had disturbed as
they fed from the carcass of the horse. He sighed and slapped the reins against
the backs of her horses.
The wagon lurched forward.
That night, they camped on a low
hill. In the light of a lantern, Flynn unrolled one of Ridgeton’s maps. He
studied it for a long time. His gut tightened. There was only one route that
held the chance of safe water. He didn’t want to think about the possibility
of that waterhole being poisoned, too. With a sigh, he unrolled his blanket
and went to sleep.
In the morning, he turned west.
“Where are we going?” Mrs.
Lonnegan frowned slightly.
“There’s no water this way, ma’am.
So I’m headed toward the next water hole. It’ll cost us a few miles, but it
might save our lives, not mention the lives of your animals.”
But as he rode into the ravine, his
shoulder blades began to itch. Once, he stopped and climbed up onto the wagon
seat. He scanned the area surrounding the wagon, but there was no sign of
trouble. The landscape was empty. Not even a jack rabbit moved in the early
morning heat.
He jumped onto his stallion and
urged him into a walk. The wagon followed him, traveling deeper into the
ravine. The clop-clop of the horses’ hooves was the only sound, echoing eerily
from the walls of the ravine.
They kept the moving all day,
stopping only briefly for lunch and to rest the animals. The trail ran
straight as an arrow between two high cliffs. It was a perfect spot for an
ambush, and Flynn’s shoulder blades itched worse than ever. Finally, near
sunset, the wagon jolted and listed to one side, nearly spilling Flynn from the
seat. Swearing softly, Flynn inspected the wheel.
It was cracked.
Tommy Lonnegan poked his head out
of the wagon. “What happened, Mr. Flynn?”
“We hit a pothole, Tommy. I’m
going to need your help replacing the wheel.”
Tommy’s face lit up. “Sure thing,
Mr. Flynn!” He leaped out of the wagon.
Grinning, Flynn climbed down more
carefully. He jammed a thick branch under the wagon and rolled a rock under
the branch. “Mrs. Lonnegan, I’m going to need your help, too. Put your hands
here and here.” He placed Ellie Lonnegan’s hands near the end of the branch.
He drew a deep breath and pushed with all his strength.
The wagon rose a few inches.
“Okay, Tommy. Push that crate
under the axle.”
Tommy nodded. He grunted as he
pushed the heavy crate. Flynn lowered the wagon onto the prop and began to
remove the broken wheel. He greased the hub liberally. Mrs. Lonnegan untied
the spare and handed it to him. Flynn slipped the wheel onto the hub. They
lowered the wagon, and the wheel held.
“We did it!” Tommy’s face glowed
with pride.
Flynn tousled Tommy’s hair. “We
sure did.”
Tommy started to cough.
Mrs. Lonnegan chewed her lip. “Can
we stop here?”
Flynn hesitated.
"Tommy hasn't really been strong
since he had the cholera back in the Nebraska Territory." Mrs. Lonnegan
wiped her neck with a lace handkerchief. “And it has been a very long day.”
Flynn looked around. His skin
crawled at the sight of the sheer cliffs rising on either side of the wagon,
but the light was almost gone, and there could be more potholes. He sighed. “All
right.”
He built a fire and made the coffee
while Mrs. Lonnegan made supper. Tommy helped Flynn with the team. Flynn
began to brush Scout. The chestnut stallion nudged his chest hopefully. Flynn
felt in his pocket and sighed. “Sorry, big fella. I forgot your sugar lumps
again.”
Scout looked at him and looked back
the way they had come.
Flynn laughed and patted Scout’s
flank. “I miss Maggie, too. But don’t you tell her I said so.”
Scout snorted in contempt.
After they ate, Flynn unrolled his
blanket, but he didn’t lie down right away. He walked back the way they had
come a few yards, and then he walked forward, but there was no sign of movement
against the sky on either side of the ravine.
Finally, he lay down and shut his
eyes.
The sound of a branch breaking woke
him instantly. He got to his feet and drew his pistol in one smooth motion.
But he was too late.
Eight men encircled the camp. All
of them held guns. None of them wore masks—which meant that they didn’t intend
to leave any survivors. Flynn’s finger tightened on the trigger, but before he
could fire, one of the outlaws grabbed Tommy. He held his gun to the Tommy’s
head. “Drop your gun or I’ll shoot the boy.”
Flynn fired without hesitation,
striking outlaw’s gun, which flew out of his hand. He yowled in pain. Tommy
ran. One of the other men fired and struck Flynn’s right hand. His pistol
fell onto the soft ground with a thud. Slowly, he raised his hands. He felt
his blood trickle down his throbbing wrist, but he kept his face
expressionless.
The man he had shot grinned slowly.
“Well if it isn’t Robert Sean Flynn. Long time no see. When was it?”
“1862. Fort Wagner.” Flynn spoke
in clipped tones, hoping that Nick Vaughn would put it down to anger.
Nick nodded. He turned to his
men. “All right, men. Help yourselves.”
The rest of the outlaws started to
ransack the wagon. They threw out what they did not want, including Mrs.
Lonnegan’s china, which shattered on the hard ground.
“No!” Mrs. Lonnegan ran forward.
Two of the men grabbed her. One
reached toward the bodice of her dress.
Flynn’s vision blurred. He saw a
woman with blond hair and blue eyes. “Jennie,” he said softly. He didn’t even
think. He simply moved. He laced his fingers together and struck the first
man at the base of his skull. Pain seared his wounded hand, but the outlaw
fell without making a sound. Then, Flynn punched the second man in the belly.
The air whooshed out of him.