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Clare's Trail

Clare's Trail
by Buck Longstreet


Quinn Cassidy came to America with his family to brew the famous, Donovan’s Irish Cream Stout for the Irish masses in the New World. Quinn expects to pick the gold up off of the streets of New York and join the legions of millionaires that seem to populate his new home like so many bees to honey. Young Cassidy’s dreams of riches are not to be, however as obstacles from river pirates to Indians to gamblers thwart his new goal – to rescue his young sister Clare.

From New York City to the opens plains of the new west, Clare’sTrail takes you on a wild chase, with scoundrels and thieves at every turn.


No Oak, Nebraska didn’t just suffer from a lack of old growth forest, it suffered from a lack of everything except cheating gamblers, filthy gunfighters and two women of questionable reputation. It was a town with no law. Literally. The sheriff hung from a tree just outside of the town as a testament to the civilized nature of the local population. The town was also without a doctor, lawyer or even barber but did boast three saloons and an eight- hole outhouse. And it was here in No Oak, that Quinn Cassidy found himself. The young Irishman was squinting through the haze of the midday sun and dust at a figure standing just thirty feet away. Quinn could just make out his face under the man’s broad, black hat. It was the face of a much older man, and it looked to be the face of a much meaner man. His thick black beard was flecked with spittle and dirt giving it the appearance of having a brown mossy growth. The man’s eyes were narrowed into two tight, wrinkled slits sitting just below giant black eyebrows the size of a woman’s index finger. His hands were at his side, held just outside his hips and did not move. At all. In contrast Quinn was shaking so much that blisters were wearing on his feet inside his boots. Quinn concentrated on his opposite number’s hands. He thought about drawing his pistol first, but his sense of honor was too great. No, wait, that wasn’t true. He was actually too scared to draw first. If he missed, the great man before him might not stop at just shooting Quinn.

Quinn’s hands twitched and the Black-Hatted Man went for his pistol. The Irish teen’s mind went blank, then scrolled backward in an instant. Cassidy saw his sister and the Indian brave Bear Foot. He saw Toothless Pete and Doc O’Leary. Quinn Cassidy saw the blood on his hand that had earned him the nickname Red Hand. He saw his rage at the attackers of his parents and now he saw that rage turn toward the man standing in front of him on a horse dung covered, skinny street in the middle of the Nebraska plains.


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