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BACKGROUND

In 1840, the few white men in the American West were mostly trappers. Indian tribes, such as the Sioux, Blackfeet, and Crow, had complete dominion over their territory.

By 1862, there were numerous white settlers and prospectors on the scene, and Army posts to defend them. The Indian tribes still controlled most of their territory, but the buffalo herds were severely diminished. This is the American West region of present-day Nebraska and Wyoming that Josh Whitney experiences in THE CROSSROADS TIME. The disaster about to befall the Indians becomes obvious to Josh and he decides that he wants no part in it.

By 1880, western Indians had lost control of their homelands and were herded onto reservations. Forty years or less is a very short span of time for such a huge change.

This clash between the white European culture and the American Indian culture fascinates me. Various individuals on the two sides have come to understand each other, but I don't think there has been a general meeting of the minds between the two sides yet. I can't speak for the Indians, but the impression I've gotten is that being an Indian is akin to a religious faith. One does not give up a faith for convenience or personal gain and, just so, the Indians will not surrender their beliefs, traditions, and ways of doing things.

Archeologists and anthropologists are still trying to sort out what happened between the time humans first arrived in the Americas and the time when Christopher Columbus arrived. It's certain that tribes expanded, migrated, clashed over territory, and drifted across various homelands. That's far more complex than I want to go into, so I've focused my interest on the northern half of the American West in the 19th century. That's territory enough for small tales.

I completed the manuscript of THE CROSSROADS TIME in 1988. Two of the 28 publishers who rejected it came very close to acceptance. In one case there was a management change and the new editor didn't agree with the previous editor. In the second case, a committee decision shot it down. Two agents represented it without result. The novel contains an episode in which Josh is forced into a decision between two evils and chooses not to save an unjustly accused mortal enemy from execution. Such an episode may not be acceptable to conventional publishers, but it strikes me as one of those facts of life (such as the conflict between the white man and the American Indian), which are there whether we like them or not. So, this novel at least, is a sort of logical candidate for self-publishing.

What follows is half of the first chapter of THE CROSSROADS TIME. Make a single copy of this excerpt for your own use if you like, but the book is copyrighted and multiple copies or distribution of any part without permission is expressly forbidden.

THE CROSSROADS TIME

CHAPTER 1 - West From Ohio

Josh Whitney knew that something big was happening. His parents were doing a lot more talking to each other than was usual, but would quiet down as soon as he or his brother Joe came near. He thought at first that maybe another brother or sister might be on the way. That was the sort of thing they wouldn't tell his brother Joe any sooner than they would tell him.

Joe was five years older than Josh and closer to their father's confidence. It was as if Joe was accepted as a man but Josh was still a boy. Their father, Jeb, was only nineteen years older than Joe, and the two of them seemed so close that Josh felt sort of squeezed out. But that was about to change.

The big announcement came after Sunday dinner on an unusually warm and sunny day in March of 1862. "Boys," Jeb said, pushing his chair back from the table, "your mother and I have reached a decision. We're goin' west!"

He said it in such a way that it was obviously a decision he was immensely proud of. Josh looked at his mother and was surprised to see a smile that conveyed enthusiastic acceptance. It was one of those, "Let's get going!" smiles.

Joe was the first to recover. "Paw," he said, "you know I'm fixin' to marry Ellie Ledbetter. I'm not atall sure that she'll be wantin' to go west. She's got a lot of kin hereabouts that she sets a lot of store by."

"We figured on that, Joe," Mr. Whitney said, nodding his head sympathetically. "That's all part of it. You and Ellie can stay right here and tend to this place. Your mother and Josh and I will go on out to the Nebraska Territory and look for a new place. Congress is about to pass a law giving every homesteader out there 160 acres just for laying a claim to it and working it. We'll do just fine out west. Then there'll be two farms. One for you, and one for Josh!"

"It sounds risky, Paw," Joe said. "There's all sorts of outlaws and savages out there and not much law. Everybody knows most of the Federal troops have been pulled east to fight the rebels. And there's lots of rebels in Missouri and Kansas."

"There's a sight more law out there now than there was right here in Ohio when my grandfather settled here," Jeb said. "As for the war, our boys will win it soon enough. The rebels had to win in the first year if they was gonna win, an' that first year's about done now. Most folks don't see that, but it's a fact; the North is better fixed for a long war than the South is.

"What do you say, Josh?" Jeb asked. "How'd you like to see some of this country and find yourself a piece to own?"

"I think I'd like that, Paw!" Josh answered. "Are we going part way by train or riverboat?"

"No, Sir!" Jeb answered. "The stuff we'll need is cheaper right here than it is out west. We'll go by wagon and save our cash to prove up the farm when we find it. Roads is middlin' good in the dry season. Like as not, we'll be settled somewheres in the Nebraska Territory before winter."

It all happened in a whirlwind. Jeb knew of a Conestoga wagon for sale and had but to close the deal. Then he did an awful lot of dickering to get a four-horse team of Percherons. The wedding between Joe and Ellie Ledbetter was set for late April when Josh and his mother and father moved into the Conestoga wagon. The idea was to spend some time living in the wagon before setting forth, so they could see how it was going to work out for cooking and eating and such.

For Josh, the biggest change was that he had stepped into his brother Joe's shoes. Now it was Josh that Jeb confided in and talked with. Joe had become his own man with his own farm, and Josh was his father's new right-hand man. It was enough to convince Josh that the move was a gift from God for something he had done right or would be expected to do right later on.

The Whitney family was a God-fearing family. They took the trouble to dress up as best they could and get to services on Sunday. They held Sunday as a day of rest as much as the demands of the farm would allow. And they saw God's Will in everything that happened. They believed that nothing succeeded or failed without some devine purpose. It was a philosophy that made them as patient in adversity as they were humble in prosperity.

In the final days before departure, it came down to a matter of waiting for the roads to dry. Josh still helped his brother Joe with the farm chores, and took it upon himself to improve the far pastures over toward the Sorensen farm. Brush needed cutting there, close by the Sorensen's spring house, which was sheltered in a small grove of trees. And it was a place where Josh and Amy Sorensen met more often than could be accounted for by simple chance. In other times, their talks had been sort of aimless and bantering, but the impending move had changed that. All of their talk now was of the move and how they'd keep in touch and whether the Sorensens might move too. But Amy soon knew that her father would have none of it. He was at ease where he was and saw Jeb Whitney's move as a terrible folly; the act of a man taken leave of his senses.

So Josh and Amy built a dream and sealed it with furtive kisses. Josh would go west and have all sorts of adventures and find a place ever so much better than Ohio, and Amy would join him there. Maybe they knew it was a bit too wishful to come true, but it made the parting easier and created a great deal to talk about.

There was a place near the Whitney farm where the road splashed through Grass Creek, then climbed out through deeply rutted clay banks. This was Jeb's gage of road conditions. When he saw the mud there firm up enough to hold a heavy wagon, he knew it was time to move. Parson Samuels and all the friends and neighbors were invited over for a final farewell.

Practically everybody that Josh knew was there. Coffee, milk, and pies were served in abundance. Everybody had advice and words of caution to give. Josh and Amy were walking aimlessly around the house when they caught an exchange between Josh's mother and Mrs. Sorensen.

"I want you to have this," Mrs. Sorensen said, handing Doris Whitney a derringer pistol. "It's loaded with ball and powder. Just put the percussion caps on when you have to."

"It can't be very accurate, can it?" Doris asked, eyeing the tiny pistol that scarcely covered the palm of her hand.

"It doesn't have to be," Mrs. Sorensen said, obviously ill at ease, "It's in case of Indians or outlaws --- so you don't get captured alive."

Josh drew Amy back and they retreated without being seen. They exchanged a worried glance, but didn't talk about it.

The following morning, all of the Whitneys were up before daybreak, fussing with chores and last-minute details. For Josh, one of those last-minute details was a trip down to the pond in the south pasture. There was a great green bull-frog named Bugeye down there that Josh wanted to say goodbye to. When he had first seen that frog two years earlier, he had intended to have frog's legs for dinner, but, when he had caught it and held its life in his hands, he had relented. He wasn't sure why. He had done his share of hunting and trapping and he had killed frogs before, but this frog was different. So he had let it go and the frog had stayed in the pond and Josh got in the habit of stopping by to talk to it, just as many people will talk to a dog.

Being late April, the frog had only come out of hibernation the week before, so Josh asked Bugeye if he had had any interesting dreams and whether he fancied any of the lady frogs in the pond this year. Then he told the frog about the move west and how he would miss Amy, but felt sure it was all for the best. The frog, as usual, was a good listener.

On the way back to the house, it occurred to Josh that he hadn't just said goodbye to one frog, he had said goodbye to all frogs. Frogs were for boys and he was a man now. Men didn't talk to frogs or have them for friends. And, anyway, he wouldn't need a frog to talk to now that he was his father's right-hand man.

Josh had never had cause to doubt his father's love, and he knew his father was proud of him. But it had been an almost neighborly love and pride. Jeb had been told many times by the school marm, Miss Purcell, that Josh was very good in all of his studies and he had heard the proof of it in the way Josh could read. It had put an idea in Jeb's head that Josh would be a lawyer or banker or some such thing, while Joe would be the one to carry on the farm. For Jeb, there was something strange and distant about lawyers and bankers, and that had set the pattern of his dealings with his sons.

When breakfast was done, Jeb and Doris mounted to the driver's seat of the wagon, the whip cracked once as Jeb called out, "Hi-yup, thar!" and the wagon rolled forward. Josh slapped Brindle, their cow, on the rump to get her moving before the tether to the wagon could yank at her, then mounted Kate, his riding horse, and fell in behind.

It was a slow pace, but, when Josh looked straight down at the road, all the little mud cracks and pebbles seemed to be rushing by. In less than a week they would be in Indiana and another two or three weeks would get them to Illinois. There was no limit to the distance that could be covered if one kept at it.

When they reached the bend of the road, Josh turned and waved one last wave to his brother Joe and his wife, who were still standing where the wagon had been.

Going was better than staying, Josh knew. Going was a busy thing, with new things to see and do. Staying was comfortable, but maybe too much of the same thing every day. The risk and excitement of the outside world would be better than the safety and certainty of staying put. Josh was sure of that.

The first two weeks went very pleasantly. The roads were dry except for occasional low spots, and the scent of spring was everywhere. Mornings were frosty, but they encouraged a quickness of mind and movement that made the chores easy. The mid-day stops were a picnic, allowing a little time to look for familiar and new things in the grasses and shrubs. And the evening stop was best of all.

Jeb and Doris would sit by the evening fire and talk of things that had been or would be. And Josh was a full party to the evening talk now. Not just a kid to be sent to bed.

One of the things Josh learned now was that his parents had a reason for going west that they hadn't spoken of before. By leaving Joe as the only man on the Ohio farm, they had guaranteed that he would not be serving as a soldier in the Union Army.

"Was Joe afraid to go in the army?" Josh asked, surprised that Joe might have ever been less than brave.

"Oh, he was willin' enough," Jeb answered. "Many's the time he said Mr. Lincoln needed him and he ought to go and do his duty. It was plain enough he'd feel obliged to join up one day unless we fixed it so's he couldn't."

"He wouldn't have been too proud of it if he knew that's what you had in mind," Josh said.

"No," Jeb agreed thoughtfully. "He wouldn't have been too proud of it. Maybe I done him wrong. But that's a terrible war, Josh. There ain't never been such a slaughter before, an' let's pray there won't never be another like it."

"But Joe's a fine shot and a clever hunter. Don't you figure he'd come through the war all right?" Josh asked.

"Them things don't guarantee nothin' for a front rank soldier," Jeb said. "The officers is the one's that's supposed to be clever. Sometimes they is and sometimes they ain't, but the soldier has to do what they say, no matter what. Mind what I'm tellin' you Josh, don't never join nobody's army without you're powerful sure it's necessary."

"I won't, Paw," Josh promised, then asked, "You joined the Ohio militia once, didn't you?"

"Sure did," Jeb answered, grinning. "Had two good reasons, too. One was the Indian trouble over in Illinois, and t'other was that the young ladies had a liking for the uniforms. Ain't that so, Doris?"

"Oh, they were a sight to see, all right!" Doris answered with a far-away look in her eyes. "If armies could just parade about in fancy uniforms without getting into wars, they'd be the grandest things! And your Paw, Josh, they made him a sergeant with a squad all his own. He drilled that squad to a fare-thee-well! There wasn't any maneuver they couldn't do better than any other squad. They'd do their drills out in the field across from Otis's General Store where I tended the counter. I used to watch them by the hour."

"Which is exactly why I drilled 'em by the hour," Jeb said.

Josh had never thought of his parents in that way; as young people doing foolish things. Yet, there it was, and knowing of it and sharing it brought him up another notch from being a kid.

As a practical matter, this was a very necessary change. They were more often into long stretches of lonely roads now, and Jeb took the trouble to have Josh and Doris do some target practice, 'just in case.' Jeb had gone to the expense of buying two lever-action Henry rifles, which held sixteen .44 caliber rim-fire cartridges and could fire 'ten shots in ten seconds' just as advertised, though Jeb had proven it to himself just once with five shots, allowing for the expense of the test. The Henrys hadn't been easy to find, and Jeb had traded an older rifle and more cash than he cared to tell for each of them. The way he explained it was, "These is tools. Out west, a man's a complete fool not to bring along the best tools there is."

Josh had done enough hunting to handle a rifle well, but it took some practice before he could put his pistol shots inside the circle his father would scratch on a convenient tree. The whole thing was new to Doris, but she got to where she could land three shots in five inside the circle. "You're doin' fine, Honey," Jeb would say. "Most of the varmints that need shootin' at is too cowardly to press their luck against anybody's gun, and we'll be showin' three guns when we have to."

Still, nearly everyone they met along the way was friendly and helpful. The strangers had usually described the difficult stream crossings ahead long before they reached them. Some streams were best crossed at a trot so as to have enough momentum to get up the bank on the other side. Other streams had to be crossed slowly because of treacherous footing for the horses. Always, Josh took the riding horse across the muddy streams first to prove out the bottom.

Their route had gone south to the north bank of the Ohio River, which they followed some 120 miles to Indiana, then more than 300 miles westerly across Indiana and Illinois to the Mississippi River. But they didn't reckon their route so much in miles as in days or weeks. They had the best maps that Jeb had been able to locate before starting, and Doris was keeping a journal of their progress, sure that it would be valuable for others 'back home' who would want to follow them next year or soon afterward.

Each night, they'd study their progress by the maps and reckon where they ought to be the next night, though the passing travelers gave more useful information on that point than the maps did. A swollen stream could block progress for days, while a dry, level road could move them thirty miles in one day.

It took five weeks to reach the bank of the Mississippi opposite St. Louis. Josh knew for sure that it was a respectable record by the way his father described their progress to others while they were awaiting their turn on the ferry for the river crossing. "Oh, we made fair to middlin' good time; five weeks to the day from the middle of ohio to this very spot!" leaving it up to his audience to protest that it was much better than a 'fair to middlin' record.

St. Louis was the largest city the Whitney's had ever seen. There was a feeling that they ought to see its sights, walk its streets, and visit some stores. But Jeb wanted to pass through Missouri and a corner of Kansas to the Nebraska Territory as fast as he could. Missouri and Kansas were under Union control, but it might not stay that way. Half of the people favored the South, and rebel bands could be anywhere.

The next major goal was Westport, a town that had been growing in size and fame as the eastern end of the Oregon Trail. Jeb spoke of Westport as the beginning of the real West. He claimed that the great steamboats plying the Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi rivers had brought all the trappings of civilization to every place within reach of a navigable river.

"Yes, Sir, Josh," Jeb said, "out beyond Westport, you're goin' to see real pioneer country. An' you won't be seein' it none too soon, neither. The railroads is soon goin' to link up clear across from ocean to ocean just like the telegraph has. When that gets done, the pioneer country will melt like snow in June. Things is happenin' so fast the next generation won't have the chance to see what you're goin' to see."

Thinking of it that way, Josh felt sorry for his brother Joe, stuck back there in Ohio where everything that was likely to happen had already happened. Mercifully, Joe would likely see abundant harvests, the arrival of children, and freak storms as major events and perhaps never dwell on what he had missed.

The trek across Missouri went so well that Jeb began to get superstitious about it.

"This here weather is just too blamed good," he said one night at supper. "We ain't seen a real storm since we left Ohio."

"Seems real fine to me, Jeb," Doris said. "I ain't askin' for anything better."

"That's just it," Jeb said. "There ain't gonna be nothin' better, an' the way weather is, when the change comes, we're gonna be in for all the storms it's been savin' up."

"Maybe not, Paw," Josh said. "Maybe the storms are landing where we've already been. Maybe if a man could pick and choose where he'd be each day, he could always choose a place with good weather and never see bad weather in his whole life."

Jeb laughed at that till tears streamed down his face, while Doris smiled an understanding smile. "Josh," Jeb said finally, "I reckon a young man is supposed to think that way, but, when you get to be my age, you'll more'n likely know why it struck me so funny; more's the pity."

The next morning, the feel of an impending storm was in the air, and houseflies flitted about the wagon, staying close to shelter the way they do when rain is coming. The Whitneys eyed the mass of clouds headed their way and debated whether to move on or wait out the coming storm.

"It's gonna be a real cloud bust when it hits," Jeb said.

"Reckon so," Doris agreed. "Let's hope it ain't too windy."

"It'll blow some, you can count on that," Jeb said.

"Do we stay put or move on?" Josh asked.

"We'll stay put for now," Jeb decided. "There's no chance of flooding here, plenty of grass, and just enough woods to break the wind. If we're quick about it, we can stretch a canvas roof and still do our cookin' outdoors, rain or shine."

Josh and his father cleared a space between four young trees and got their canvas roof in place as Doris scurried about, gathering dry firewood. Then the storm hit, with rumbling thunder and huge, spattering raindrops hitting everywhere at once.

It was fun that first day, ducking the rain, fooling with small chores, and whiling away the time over a checkerboard. But the rain settled down to a nearly constant drizzle and got to be a nuisance in the second day.

"Well, we made real good time up until now," Jeb said late in the afternoon, then corrected himself with, "Lord! I must've said that very same thing three or four times already today!"

"More like five or six," Doris said. Josh nodded agreement.

"Standin' idle ain't my favorite thing to do," Jeb said, "If the rain ain't no worse tomorrow, we ought to just move on."

"I think I'd just as soon do that," Doris agreed.

"Me too," Josh said. "The west ain't getting any closer while we sit here."

So they were moving again on the third day of the rain, with Kate tied to the back of the wagon beside the cow and Josh and Jeb taking turns at the reins. It was slow going, with the soft road making the big Percherons work harder for every mile they gained.

Josh sat on the front seat with rain drizzling from his hat and running off his poncho in all directions. He could see birds sitting motionless in the tree branches and figured he knew just how they felt. Only, he was better off, wasn't he? He was getting somewhere.

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