A Shadow on the Plains

Thundering Hoofbeats

"Nobody knows his name... a silhouette on the hills and a shadow on the plains..."

~David Rhodes (adapted)

Eliana Carter threw back her head, taking a deep breath to fill her lungs with fresh air. Since sunrise that morning she had been indoors... getting the breakfast on for the menfolk, preparing the lunch for later on, scrubbing the kitchen floor... Ma was pretty bent on a floor clean enough to eat off of... and then finishing off the mending. Eliana hated the scrubbing but mending wasn't so bad. Only that Ma insisted on her sitting inside to do it. She would have preferred to sit on the porch... it was so much cooler out there, away from the heat of the kitchen fire... and so much more interesting.

The Carter family lived on the very edge of town. So much on the edge that, while on one side of their little house and shop was the long row of crude wooden buildings, on the other side was nothing but wide open prairie as far as the eye could see. In the far distance glimmered the narrow silver ribbon of the North Platte River and farther to the west lay the ragged outline of the Wyoming badlands. The empty prairie in between was dotted here and there with small ranches... nothing more than clusters of crude shacks and barns surrounded by acres of pastureland. Nothing much to look at. But Eliana thought it was beautiful. North Platte was the only home she had ever known. She had been born out here on the prairie... the youngest of a large family and the only one not born on the family's Pennsylvania homestead many hundreds of miles away. She was a part of that wild land... the windswept plains, the torrents of summer rains, the heavy blankets of winter snow.

But in spite of her love for the land, there were times... plenty of times... when Eliana found North Platte dull. There was the occasional blizzard, the occasional Indian scare, the occasional buffalo stampede, and the occasional wagon train. That was the only excitement the town really afforded and there wasn't much a girl of seventeen could do. It was a commonplace little sort of town. Four main rows of buildings and a few outliers. A general store, a barber shop, a dressmaker's, a couple of boarding houses, one small hotel, the little church, and any number of workshops. The carpenter, the cooper, the ropemaker... there were quite a few of them. And they did good business too. Eliana's father was the blacksmith. She was delighted with that fact. Blacksmithing, thank heaven, was the most exciting trade of all of them, save perhaps the hotel. Any traveler passing through North Platte usually had to make a stop there. In spite of being on the edge of town, it was practically the center of the community. As strangers and wayfarers from all parts of the country stopped to have their horse reshod or their wagon mended, a crowd would gather to hear the news. News was scarce in those days, indeed. It traveled slowly. It didn't matter if the news meant practically nothing, if it had nothing to do with anything, the people of North Platte devoured it greedily, as if half-starved.

But there was no crowd in the smithy that day and Eliana sighed as she leaned against the porch post. Perhaps Ma wouldn't mind if she went for a ride. The chores were completed, after all, and there was practically nothing else to do.

In the far distance, against the backdrop of the badlands, a dark shape appeared... little more than a speck. Eliana noticed it, there being not much else to notice. She was already perfectly acquainted with the sights and sounds of the town and they no longer drew her attention. She straightened up, reaching up to shade her eyes as she peered out across the plains at the distant object. At first she thought it must be an animal of sorts. But it was getting closer, and quickly too. More quickly than she thought it possible for anything to move. A moment later, although it looked little more than a shadow, she could make out the outline of a horse and rider. Galloping just as fast as the wind.

Her first thought was that of alarm. Perhaps it was one of the local ranchers... and the only reason anyone would ride that fast would be if there was an emergency. Her mind swirled with sudden imagined catastrophes... prairie fire... buffalo stampede... perhaps Comanches on the warpath!

The horse and rider were now almost at the edge of the town and she could see them clearly now. No, there was no cause for alarm. If there was, the rider would have been calling out to rouse the town. But he was silent. No sound but the thunder of those galloping hoofbeats.

She caught but a glimpse of the rider... a young man, hunched low over the neck of the mountain pony. A gleam of spurs, dusty boots, hat pulled low over his forehead. Full leather bags swung from the saddle horn.

She stepped to the front of the little porch just as he was passing by and leaned over the railing. Impulsively, she waved at the rider. He lifted his arm in greeting and yelled... it sounded more like an Indian war cry than anything else, but she couldn't be sure. For one brief moment, she caught sight of a friendly smile. But he was past already and nearly through the town. Windows were raised all over North Platte and heads thrust out of each, watching the rider in curious confusion. Everyone on the streets had drawn back to the sidelines. It was as if the entire town had frozen still while the rider passed through. In another moment he was gone and the dust settled slowly back to the ground.

The town was abuzz with voices now as everyone swarmed from the shops and houses, staring out at the distant prairie in the direction the rider had taken, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust. He was only a distant speck on the horizon once again.

"What was it... who was it?" Eliana called down to her older brother Jacob who had stepped from the smithy to cheer as the rider shot past.

"That was the Pony Express, Ellie!" he laughed, his eyes aglow with excitement. "What wouldn't I give to be one of them? Did y'see how fast he was a'goin now?"

"D'ya really think they can get th' mail to California in ten days, Jacob? I'da never thought it could be possible..."

"Sure, it's possible. And at that speed... wow!"

For the past months, the talk had been of nothing but that Pony Express. And Eliana had heard plenty of it... the lightning mail service from New England to California in just ten days. There were many scoffers. And even more disbelievers. It took months of grueling travel to get to California. No one... absolutely no one could make it in ten days... even with as many fresh riders and horses as the Pony Express boasted of. And now here was the very first trial of the express.

In spite of her initial disbelief in the future success of the crazy venture, with the appearance of that first rider, Eliana felt herself swept up into the adventure and the romance of it all. To think of those daring men defying death to cross the wilderness of the west... over mountain passes, across rivers, through the badlands themselves! This was excitement in the extreme... a hero had just passed through the sleepy little town of North Platte.

And Eliana noted the time and the day. 'Twas a Friday, at four o'clock. When would the rider pass through again? She found herself looking with eager excitement to that next appearance.