The Warrior's Path

Chapter One


What I hoped for was a fat bear, and what I came up with was a skinny Indian.

It was lonely on the mountain, and I had been watching the sun crest the peaks with light. There was some mist lying in the valleys, and all around me the rhododendrons were in bloom, covering the flanks of the Blue Ridge and the mountains nearby. Seated among them, their petals falling across my shoulders and into my hair, I watched the path below.

It was an old, old path, old before the coming of the Cherokees, old before the Shawnees hunted these hills, as old as the first men on these mountains.

All through the afternoon there had been no sound but the twittering of birds, but I knew something was coming up the trail yonder, for I'd seen birds fly up from time to time, marking its progress along the path, which was visible only at intervals.

What I wanted was a fat bear, for we were needful of grease, and my ribs were showing. When a body lives off the country around, fat is the hardest thing to come by. Fresh meat was no problem, but it was lean, mighty lean.

An Indian was the last thing I was wishful of seeing. We had good frien ... read full excerpt from: The Warrior's Path ebook