Sweet Saturday Samples - April 27, 2013

Welcome back to Sweet Saturday Samples.

This week, to celebrate the re-publication of the print version of The Man from Shenandoah under my own label, I'm posting a snippet from that book. Carl Owen has just returned from the Civil War. Here he comes across his younger brother, James, after not seeing him for a long spell:
~~

Carl took the horses to the pen and stripped off the saddles. Hearing a faint scraping sound behind him, he crouched in the brush. A short ways off he saw a young man seated on the bank of the creek, stropping a razor. At his side he had a basin of water and a pistol. After a while he laid the strop down and began to remove the curly black beard from his lanky face.

“James!” Carl called out. He rushed from the bushes and ran to the creek. The younger man threw down the razor and grabbed the pistol, then dropped it and gave a rebel yell.

Meeting on the bank like two young bulls, the brothers crashed together in a welter of arms and heads, wrestling each other to the ground.

Laughing, Carl declared, “You’re just the feller I want to see. And you got you a razor, besides.” He rubbed his red stubble while James punched him fondly in the side. “You be through shaving when I’m finished with the horses, you hear?”

“Carl, you coon-faced old lard bucket, we thought you got took prisoner or something. Pa was ready to go to Washington City to see what become of you.”

“You’re joshing me!”

“No sir, not me. He and Ma were sure worried some. I never seen them so worked up about a body. I reckon [event removed so as not to spoil a plot point in the current WIP] took some of the sand out of both of them.”

“You old liar, you. Pa never had more sand than now. He’s ripping us out of this valley, lock, stock, and barrel, and taking us to Colorado. Says we’re going to raise beef cattle for the miners.”

“He’s what?”
 ~~
 
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