Tucket's Ride by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen [Paulsen, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-54842-9
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Francis had done some long riding in his time, hard riding and hard living, but he had never experienced anything like what these men did now. He didn't think men could stand it. Even more, he didn't think horses could take it.

They simply didn't stop.

As the day wore on Francis felt the pain diminishing to a steady throb that kept the side of his head burning. The dizziness left him, and he worked his wrists to loosen the tie there so that his blood would circulate better. In spite of her wounds, the mare kept up the pace easily—she was, like the others, a tamed wild horse and had enormous stamina. The mule kept up as well.

Billy stuck to the packsaddle like a burr but Lottie started to have trouble toward the end of the day. She weaved and Francis would see her catch herself to keep from falling asleep and falling off the mule.

In late afternoon, they stopped but not to rest. The men all dismounted and made Francis and the children do the same. Francis thought they would stop for the night but he was wrong. They loosened the cinches on the horses for no more than five minutes, retightened them and remounted.

They can't be serious, Francis thought. They're not going to keep riding. One of the men dug into his saddlebags and handed each of the children and Francis a piece of jerky.

“Eat.”

“But I'm thirsty,” Lottie said. “And Billy is too …

The man struck her once alongside the head. “Eat.”

She started to chew the jerky, and Billy did the same. Francis did likewise and within moments they were riding again.

At first Francis had the strength to think while they rode. The men were running—he was sure of it. Initially he thought they were Indians but some of them spoke Spanish and several spoke English fairly well, and they didn't seem to be of a tribe. Renegades, he thought.

Afternoon bled into evening and soon it grew dark and cold. The men didn't care. The leader kept the pace, riding somewhere ahead in the darkness. The rest followed with Francis and the children in the middle.

They came out of the mountains in the darkness and started riding across flat prairie. The stars were brilliant enough to give some light, and when a sliver of moon came up it seemed almost daylight.

All night they rode. Just before dawn, when it was coldest, the leader stopped and dismounted and the rest of them did the same. Francis thought surely they will stop now; surely they have run far enough to be safe.

But they did not. The men jumped around and slapped their arms against their sides to get warm. They let the children take care of their “personal business,” as Lottie called it, gave them another piece of jerky and a short swallow from a canteen, and retightened cinches before remounting and setting the same crippling pace.

The sun crawled up and by this time Francis was on the edge of hallucinating. He kept seeing shadows jumping out at the edge of his vision.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.