The Cherokee Trail A Novel [Paperback]

A woman ahead of her time, Mary Breydon knew how to get things done. Raised on a Virginia plantation, she learned how to care for livestock, respect her workers, and keep good books. But after her husband is killed, Mary must provide for her young daughter by running a stage coach station on the Cherokee Trail. With the help of an Irish maid and a mysterious stranger, Mary faces challenges that even the men eagerly anticipating her failure would have a difficult time overcoming. After firing the previous station manager with the aid of a bullwhip, she must track down stolen horses, care for a wayward boy, and defend against Indians. If that wasn’t enough, she also has to protect herself from the man who murdered her husband—and is coming for Mary next.Our foremost storyteller of the American West,Louis L’Amourhas thrilled a nation by chronicling the adventures of the brave men and woman who settled the frontier. There are more than three hundred million copies of his books in print around the world.Chapter One


WHEN THE STAGE slowed to allow the horses to walk up the long grade, Mary Breydon was the only passenger awake. Or so she believed. There was no telling about the man with the hat over his face. Several times during the night, she had seen him move, and his movements did not seem to be those of a sleeping man.

Feeble yellow-gray light was filtering through the fly-specked, dust-filmed windows. She peered out.

The rolling brown hills were beginning to take shape from the darkness. It seemed a harsh and barren land, this new home of hers, its monotony broken only by occasional outcroppings of craggy sandstone. Somewhere farther west lay the front range of the Rockies, of which she caught an occasional glimpse beyond the low hills.

Aside from Mary and her daughter, Peg, there were four passengers caught in the awkward, uncomfortable positions of people trying to sleep on selC#