Welcome back to Katie's journey in my forthcoming Amish novel, Old Amarillo, Amish Journeys #1, releasing September 3 from 5 Prince Publishing. We left Katie alone last week as the friendly howls of the coyotes that had joined her on the trail turned from musical to sinister.
In the distance, a flickering glow caught her attention. “A
campfire!” Plunging her hand into her bag, Katie produced the
venison steaks her twin sister Annie had packed for her as she’d broken the
news of her travels to their parents.
Heaving them
behind her and not bothering with the biscuits or pie, she ignored the snarling
and snapping that ensued almost immediately and took off at a dead run toward
the glow of salvation on the horizon.
“Welcome Miss,
won’t you come and join us?” The English woman’s smiling voice was almost as
warm as the fire when Katie burst into the camp unannounced. “Coyotes are awful
bad tonight. Heard tale myself that they’re being driven north from the
devastating drought down south . . . hungry things, they are.” The kindly English
woman held out a dented tin plate to Katie. “Have you eaten darlin’?”
Thank you for stopping by! Visit my other eight-sentence snippets by following the links below!
An Everlasting Heart, where you can fall in love with Charlotte and Sanderson from the very beginning of my debut Civil War era novel, A Heart on Hold, and find out just how long a heart might hold on . . . before it breaks.
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Yay for handy venison steaks! :-) I'll bet she was happy to hear a friendly voice, with food!
ReplyDeleteOur sweet Katie didn't know what she was in for in her quest for adventure, did she? :-)
DeleteLoved the venison steaks idea (although that could also be why the coyotes were following her so avidly in the first place). Interesting new group she's met!
ReplyDeleteExactly!!!! <3
DeleteHave to say, Sara, this one didn't do it for me. Unless this is a VERY small coyote pack, a few venison steaks (and I cannot imagine our Katie carrying THAT many with her), then there would be members of the pack who could not get to the quickly devoured steaks. And a human can NOT run at anything close to coyote speed (some specially trained runners have reached 40mph, but most people run at around 25-28mph; a coyote runs over 60mph)... so the pack would rapidly catch up with her.
ReplyDeleteAnd even if it didn't... they would be somewhat even more hungry now (just as appetizers get the digestive juices going in humans and trigger a desire to eat more, these venison steaks would likewise trigger hunger in the coyotes as well). They wouldn't just avoid the campfire at this point. Maybe they wouldn't come on mass, but the camp wouldn't be as peaceful as you're showing here at this point.
Sorry, but my suspension of disbelief just flew out the window on this snippet.
You'll see why they didn't make it to her in the coming snippets . . . she may have a little guardian angel or two out there in the brush. Unfortunately, all that didn't fit into 8 to 10 sentences :-)
DeleteThe vension steaks made me hungry. With those coyotes around, I'm not sure if the steaks are on the menu or them?
ReplyDeleteGood thinking Frank!
DeleteTexas hospitality? :-) Visual. I ran with her. :-) Good 8, Sara!
ReplyDelete