Home | Contest | Write A Book | Write Ebooks For Cash | Be A Travel Writer | Write Children's Books Write For Newspapers | Write An Ezine | Write A Blog | Writing Skills & Tips | Novel Writing Software Please take a moment to bookmark this site and join our free hot tips list. Read & Rate Our Writing Contest Entries! See what other people have written, and rate them on a scale of 1 to 5. This is an opportunity to view a wide variety of short stories and see what kind of original material is being submitted to us on a daily basis. After you rate an entry, you will be randomly redirected to another entry to rate. You may read and rate as many entries as you wish! The user-rating system is simply a fun way for writers to receive a public opinion of their work, and does not affect the judging for the cash prizes. If you wish to enter the contest, you may enter for free here. Rate This Contest Entry: Contest: June 30th, 2005 Author: Lesa E. Cameron She screamed, “No! Did you hear me? I said no!” She tried to reach him, but he had already catapulted out of reality into a world only he could see. Tears poured down her face as helplessly she watched her husband stride towards the raging waters, forcing the reluctant team of oxen to move closer. “We will not wait another day! We have traveled for two months,” her husband shrieked above the pounding of the water. “We are only 20 miles from our land. Do you hear me? Only 20 miles! We will be there tomorrow if I have to carry everything, including the oxen on my back. No river is going to stop me.” He shook a raised fist at the river and began to drive the oxen into the swirling waters. Helplessly, Amelia stood on the upper bank, cradling her three-month old son as she watched the rising water trying to rip her husband from her. The oxen wisely balked, refusing to step further into the rabidly foaming waters. Her husband slumped with discouragement and her heart began to beat once more. The oxen would save them. Her husband could not force two full-grown oxen to go forward if they did not want to. She opened her mouth to call him to come back and say she’d make camp, when it happened. Sweeping around the curve of the river, a wall of churning, frenzied brown water bore down on the wagon. Amelia screamed to her husband, begging him to come out of the water, but her words came too late. In horror, she watched as the six foot high, debris-filled torrent, hit the wagon. Briefly it paused, then slowly the wagon toppled over, and was swept away, dragging the screaming oxen with it. Of her husband, she heard and saw nothing. In a matter of moments, it was over. Amelia stood in silence, unable to take it in. In the blink of an eye she had been left alone on the prairie of Nebraska without husband, without food, shelter, or any way to secure them, and no idea of where to turn for help. Sinking to her knees, she rocked her baby and cried. Finally, in exhausted shock she lay down, cradling her baby, and slept. It was the feeling of being watched that roused her. Amelia opened her eyes—praying that it had all been a bad dream—that she would awaken to find her husband’s kind eyes fixed upon her, looking the way he had before the madness of the journey had broken him. Instead, a tall proud man, dressed in a loincloth, a bear claw necklace round his neck, and his dark hair braided with feathers, looked down at her. Fear gripped Amelia’s stomach. Tightly she hugged her son, raising her eyes to meet the warrior’s with a look he had seen many times before in the eyes of mothers of every species who felt their young threatened. He gestured for Amelia to get up, then silently, turned, striding back over the lip of the small valley. Confused, Amelia did not know what to do. The warrior had not seemed threatening, but could she trust him? If she did stay by herself, she and her son would surely perish. Finally, as the warrior kept walking without turning back, she decided to trust him. Rising, she followed his footprints, clutching her still-sleeping babe. After a fifteen-minute walk along the top of the valley, that followed the winding river’s path, they came to the rest of the band. The women were pulling things from the river, washing them as best they could, then stacking them on top of the riverbank. Suddenly, Amelia realized they were recovering as much as possible from her broken wagon. With a cry, she dropped to her knees beside the small pile that once had been her life. A few pieces of crockery had miraculously survived unbroken. The trunk, which held her wedding dress and blankets, had been found and opened to the air. Amelia rose when she saw four warriors approaching—carrying the broken figure of her husband. All movement ceased as he was gently laid on the ground before Amelia. She dropped to her knees and wept; her tears accompanied by the keening of the Indian women who mourned with this unknown woman, for they understood the sorrow of loss. By the last light of day, the Indians buried the man in a grave along the river, following not their own customs, but those of the white man, to honor him before his woman. With gentleness, which belied all the stories told of their bestiality toward the white man—they fed the young widow and child, then made beds for them on the open prairie. Early the next morning, through the use of sign language and what English they knew, they explained they would take Amelia and her child to a white man’s settlement. Carefully everything that had been salvaged was loaded on a travois, and the band walked away from the river—away from her life. It was a two-day walk to Fort Kearney, and during that time, Amelia gained a deep respect for her traveling companions. She felt no fear—only the assurance that they shared her deep feeling of loss. Nearing sunset the second day, when the fort could be seen on the horizon, the band stopped. Carefully they explained they would go no further towards the fort. She must go on alone. They put a rope in her hands which was looped around the pony’s neck that pulled her travois. When she started to protest, their leader stepped forward and said, with quiet authority, “boy,” and nodded his head towards her infant. Then, turning, the band walked out of her life. With tears of thankfulness, she tugged on the rope and began the journey bravely, forward into her new life. people have rated it so far. is the current average. |
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