Kid Cougar

[unknown]

Hi everybody, I am dedicating this story, which I anticipate being novella length, to a man that gave me many hours of enjoyment as a kid, the prolific and largely unappreciated genius, Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is chapter 1, and please let me know if you enjoy it and want to read more as nothing inspires me more than knowing someone is out there reading my work.

Thanks

Kid Cougar

Under a Bushel

Captain Jericho Hardin of Northern Virginia rode through a deep ravine somewhere in the sun-baked foothills of the Colorado Mountains. The war and its aftermath had left him disillusioned and uncharacteristically bitter. Disgusted with the official and, not so official policies of the Reconstruction he’d resigned his commission and headed west. A dozen paces behind him rolled a dust covered wagon carrying all that was still dear to him in this world, his young wife Rachel and their three-year-old boy, Daniel.

“Comanche, ” Jericho growled, shifting in the saddle. He’d first spotted them three days ago slinking along behind them like a pack of starving coyote. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them, but he knew damn well they were out there, somewhere, waiting…

The quiet of the morning was shattered by the shrieks and howls of savage war cries. Arrows fell like pelting sleet, slicing through the canvas and plunking into the covered wagon. The arrows quivered in the wood like the tails of angry rattlers.

Jericho always fought silently, but his Winchester spoke for him with a cool deadly eloquence. He dropped the nearest of the Comanche with a clean headshot. He fired again and another Comanche grabbed his chest with a startled yelp, and fell headlong into the dry ravine thirty feet below.  

As the Comanche took cover behind the rocks, Jericho realized he’d been hit. An arrow had pierced his thigh, pinning his leg to the saddle. He could feel the blood flowing now, soaking through the pant leg beneath his leather chaps and slowly filling his boot.

He knew the Comanche were only waiting for the rest of the war party to come up and close the trap. Then it would be a massacre. There was only one hope, one slim chance, if he could delay them here… Rachel and Daniel just might escape.

Jericho rode back to the wagon and looked into Rachel’s eyes for what he was almost certain would be the last time. He’d adored those eyes from the first moment he saw her.

Jericho suddenly keeled over in the saddle, an arrow protruding from his back. His eyesight blurred and he fought hard to remain conscious. “Run for it!” He said, gritting his teeth.

“Not without you!” Rachel cried defiantly.

“Don’t argue Woman! Save the boy.”

“He yah -- yah.” Rachel yelled, snapping the reins, and sending the wagon lurching along the trail.

Jericho’s left arm hung limp at his side. He cradled the Winchester against his chest, cocking and firing it one-handed at the Comanche hiding in the rocks, trying to keep them pinned down on the ridge as the covered wagon rolled past.

A faint rumble in the earth warned him and he wheeled his horse just in time to see the rest of the Comanche barreling down on him. Their sun-bronzed skin was streaked with war paint. Their eyes were alight with the fire of battle. They howled with exultation, shooting their bows at a full gallop, with a precision that would have shamed the more civilized cavalries of the world.

“He – yah,” Jericho yelled, spurring his horse onward. He would meet the Comanche’s charge head on. As the arrows showered around him, he fired, and a Comanche toppled from his horse rolling over and over, kicking up dust in the trail.

An arrow struck Jericho in the chest, another in the throat, and he fell backwards out of the saddle. His big, brown mare slowed to a cantor then turned and trotted back to where he lay, it stood over his body and began to gently nuzzle his shoulder, waiting for him to get up, but Jericho Hardin would never rise again.

Rachel drove the horses on at a relentless pace. The wagon rattled and shook, bouncing over rocks in the pass. As the wagon sped deeper into the mountains the scenery began to change and they neared a lofty ridge overlooking a deep green valley.

Rachel could hear the war cries of the Comanche behind her, growing louder, and remembering the look in Jericho’s eyes, she said a silent prayer for the man she loved.

Little Daniel tried to climb up into the seat of the wagon as it hopped up and down. “I’ll protect you mommy.” Daniel called out.

“No! Daniel.” Rachel yelled, holding the child back with one arm. “Stay there!”

Rachel looked back and she saw a boulder in the trail, but there was precious little time to react. The wagon struck it with a jarring impact, shattering the wheel. The wagon careened off, and nearly flipped over.  But it rolled on, balanced on two wheels. It hung on the ledge for just a moment, and then toppled over, dragging the horses after it.

As the wagon went over the ledge, the world did somersaults before Rachel’s eyes, but somehow she managed to grab a hold of Daniel and hang on. Sheltering the child with her own body.

***

At the bottom of the canyon, in a little marshy valley lay the shattered remnants of the Hardin’s dreams. Here in the mud lay the dresser that Jericho built for Rachel with his own hands and the hope chest her father had given her. All their clothes, their tools, and other sundry items were tossed about as if caught in a wild tornado. But at that moment, none of it mattered to Rachel; her only thought was for her baby boy.

Rachel tried to stand but the excruciating pain, told her, in no uncertain terms, that her legs were broken. Warm blood ran from her scalp and she raised her hand to her aching head and felt the clumps of blood clotted there.

She just had to find Daniel before the Comanche came. She could imagine them bursting through the woods at any moment, howling like coyote. Struggling desperately to crawl from the wreckage she called out to him in a weak and faltering voice.

Then she saw something in the tall reeds that gave her a relief bordering on hysteria. The movement of tiny bare feet sticking out from under a bushel basket and she gave thanks to the merciful heavens that had spared her boy.  

The gentle babble of a nearby stream came to her ears and with that nurturing sound an idea was born. She forced herself onward despite the blinding pain in her limbs, crawling slowly threw the muddy ankle-deep water and tall grass of the marsh until she found what she was looking for, a metal washtub. Carefully she packed Daniel into the tub with a thick, red quilt that she dearly loved.

The quilt had been a final parting gift from her mother. It seemed a lifetime ago now… that clear spring day, when she’d lovingly placed it in her hope chest along with all her other treasures, and the little family headed west. A day when all their dreams were still out there… still waiting just beyond the next bend.

Rachel placed a farewell kiss on Daniel’s little forehead and sent her only son drifting along on the swift flowing current. The pain in her limbs was as nothing compared to the pain in her heart, it was almost more than she could bear. A lonely teardrop graced her pale-white cheek as she watched the stream carry him farther and farther away, to what fate she didn't know, but at the very least, she’d given him a few more hours of precious life.

[Brandon]

Good story. So far it reads like Baby Moses in the old west but I can see where you are going with it.

Did Edgar Rice Burroughs write about the Old West?  I thought he mostly did adventure stories.

[Foffe]

I liked it!  Is it going to have ghosts in it like your other stories?

[Bethany Beightol]

I liked it, too.  Will it turn into a supernatural story or will it stay an adventure?

Didn't Edgar Rice Burroughs do Tarzan, or am I thinking of someone else?

[unknown]

Hi Brandon

Thanks, I am glad you caught the moses referance, which is also an Osiris referance...

I think the closest Burroughs got to a western was, The Mucker Returns which was the sequel to The Mucker. It is about a 1920's Chicago thug whose life is changed when he meets, and of course rescues, a beautiful upper class woman. In the sequel we find the Mucker running from the law after trying to go 'straight' he winds up in old mexico and battling Mexican bandits who profess to be trying to liberate, "Poor bleeding Mexico."

As a side note, Burroughs himself thought, The Mucker would be his most popular story, but he only wrote two Novels in the series. Burroughs fantasy stories are often filled with social commentary hidden in the form of a heroic fantasy romp.

Now that I think of it, the beginning of, A Princess of Mars was a western. This was Burrough's first published novel and introduces, John Carter, the Warlord of Mars.

[unknown]

Hi Foffe

Welcome to the forum!

It is more of an action story, although I do plan to have elements of the supernatural and other genres. In keeping with the tradition of Burroughs it will be over the top fantasy, hopefully grounded enough in reality to make the reader suspend their disbelief or at least entertaining enough for them not to care.

[unknown]

Hi Bethany

 Burroughs is most famous for Tarzan and John Carter of Mars, if I am not mistaken there are twenty-nine books in the Tarzan series. He wrote over a hundred books and some short stories. Oh, I forgot David Innes of Pellucidar that might be familiar to some people, as they have made some Pellucidar movies. Most notiably the B-movies with Patrick Wayne and Peter Cushing.

[Netherworld]

Nice story.

Where's Chapter Two?

[unknown]

Hi Netherworld

I haven't written it yet... But I will try and post chapters on a regular basis.

[Aphrodite]

Nice work.  Perhaps he should get retrieved by and Indian tribe and turned into one of their own.

A very good movie is called, "Pathfinder," about a Viking baby who is left behind by his people in one of their sojourns into America and just that thing happens to him. I highly recommend it.

Karen

[unknown]

Hi Aphrodite

I saw that movie too. I don't want to give away the plot too soon. The next chapter is pivotal...

[unknown]

Kid Cougar

Among the Rushes


Honey Dipper loved honey. She was often caught with her muzzle buried deep in a hive, with the bees swarming angrily around her. And that’s how she got her name, well that, and the fact that she was so very sweet. 

Of course, the other bears didn’t say her name in quite the way I've written it here. The language of the bear isn’t a language, as you and I know it… a highly complex string of sounds composed into a symphony of meaning. Their language was one of basic tones, and the subtle clues of scent, posture, and facial expression. But still, their language was sufficient to say what truly needed to be said. After all, who could mistake the meaning behind a growl or a yelp.

The children of nature are blessed with a kind of inner knowing. An all-embracing sort of awareness that is instinctual, and geared toward the moment and the necessities of survival. This greatly reduces the need for long-winded speeches, planning commissions and quarterly reports. If men knew it, their incessant babbling was annoying to wild things and it had driven off more animals then anything, well, except for fire.

Honey was young. Her ebony black hair shimmered in the sunlight and her nose was always cold and wet, but Honey’s heart was broken.

She’d lost her first cub in the swirling chaos of the river that poured down out of the mountains near her cave. She’d growled at her cub for going too near the banks, but despite all her dire warnings he’d fallen from a tree into icy waters and was lost to her forever.

Now as she neared the river her heart sank under the weight of her memories. The sound of splashing brought her ears to attention. Was another cub drowning in that same awful current?

Honey barreled toward the river. The scent of a man came to her sensitive nostrils, but that didn’t slow her pace, even though she would usually shied away from man. As she raced on she saw little Daniel struggling in the dark frothing waters. He was clutching a limb that bent like a horseshoe under his grasp. Without a second thought Honey plunged into the river and dragged him up onto the bank.

As she emerged from the water Honey dropped Daniel in the rushes and then shook herself vigorously sending the water flying from her thick fur. Little Daniel laughed at these antics and Honey’s heart melted at the joyful sound. With the fearless curiosity of a child, Daniel petted the head of great beast and an unspoken bond was forged between them.

[Dana Wolff]

Raised by a bear, what a novel idea!  You don't see that too often if ever.

[unknown]

Thanks Dana

Welcome to the forum!

I've had the idea since I was a kid. I have various rough scenarios for his childhood experinces and the adventures he will have later in life... I hope can finish it.

[Mia Knight]

Did anyone ever see that movie, "Grizzly Rage?"  It is all about a bunch of teens who accidentally run over a bear cub, then get stalked by it's mom the rest of the film.  Gentle they are not! I hope you have some anger from the bear in your story there, Unknown!  It would seem fitting.