The Edge of Misery: The Mitchel Brothers Series Book Two

1

Taylor's Crossing, Idaho Territory, July 28, 1866

Dirt. Declan Mitchell's lips curled in disgust at the four-letter word, then he muttered a stream of his favorite expletives while staring at the dried clumps of dark brown soil caking his battered tall boots and splattered all over his trousers.

Oh, how he despised it, in all its forms and smells, of which, over the past few months and almost two-thousand miles on their journey west, he now knew there were more varieties than would ever be deemed necessary.

It didn't matter if it was the ever loathsome wet and sticky mud—which clung to wagon wheels and clothing with fevered tenacity and made everything ten thousand pounds heavier and inevitably more challenging to maneuver when crossing rugged terrain—or if it was the dryer, choking clouds of powder-fine dust kicked up by the lead oxen and wagon teams that settled into every nook and cranny of his skin and filled his nose and lungs—despite his best attempts to prevent it.

As far as he was concerned, he thought with a grumble of mounting hostility directed at a large clump giving off the unmistakable foul odor of manure and refusing his attempts at dislodging it from the toe of his left boot—only muskrats and toads enjoyed dirt, which, to his knowledge, he was neither.

"Tolls are paid. We're up next," Emerson said, settling a gloved hand on Declan's dusty left shoulder to get his attention before jogging ahead to the family's primary conestoga. "GET READY TO MOVE."

"'Bout damn time," Declan muttered, removing his hat to wipe sweat from his brow before settling it back on his head and adjusting it against the glare of the morning sunshine.

A slight breeze caressed his skin, teasing him with the promise of relief from the morning heat but just like the days and weeks before, it proved no more capable of fulfilling it than Luella was of reciting Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address.

Ignoring the sweat rolling down the sides of his neck, soaking his shirt and under his arms, he gritted his teeth and climbed into their second wagon, favoring his achy right leg.

Luella, his ever-faithful six-year-old red bloodhound, poked her head through the split in the soiled canvas behind the bench, her droopy eyebrows twitching as she watched him in concern, and he couldn't help but smile and give her an affectionate scratch behind her ears before sitting to the right of his younger brother Wolstan.

"How's Mae?"

Wolstan cast a worried glance into the back of the wagon, "Sleeping now."

"She manage to eat anything yet?"

Wolstan shook his head, "Not much—a little water and a bite of a hotcake. Hopefully, she'll feel better when we've stopped moving longer than a few hours... seems to always make it worse."

Declan grunted, watching the last of the oncoming stream of wagons and horses depart the sturdy-looking bridge spanning the Snake River, allowing Uncle Emerson to maneuver his wagon into place. Then, nudging his brother in his right thigh, he murmured, "We're up."