Handpicked Family. Shannon Farrington

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       Chapter One

       Shenandoah Valley, Virginia July 1865

      Trudy Martin took one look at the ragtag collection of men blocking the road and pulled the wagon to an abrupt stop. She had not had much experience handling buckboards before. In fact, this was a first, and she had only learned to do so today out of necessity. Her friend Emily Mackay was teaching her because the teamster scheduled to drive had not showed. Neither had their armed Federal escorts, intended to protect this party from any thieves or malcontents they might meet along their journey.

      How I wish for their presence now, Trudy thought.

      Fear snaked up her spine, for even though the approaching crowd consisted mostly of gaunt-faced, frail-looking war veterans, some missing arms and hobbling on crutches, she saw the expression of determination on their faces.

      They are just hungry people, she tried to tell herself, but Trudy knew full well that desperation often bred trouble.

      Beside her Emily drew in a nervous breath. “They know we have food,” she whispered, “and I fear they intend to claim it.”

      Emily’s husband, Dr. Evan Mackay, pulled a matching buckboard alongside them and paused. His lanky, rib-boned mare gave a snort as if to say she, too, was wary of the approaching men. With good reason, Trudy couldn’t help but think. Meat is meat no matter how poor the quality.

      She scolded herself for the dark thought, but she knew from what the Mackays had told her, as well as from the articles she’d been proofreading for her employer’s newspaper, that here in western Virginia, food was scarce. The country had just endured four years of war and the Confederacy a humiliating surrender—but not before the land they had claimed as an independent nation had been ravaged by Federal forces. Families had been destroyed, and unemployment was СКАЧАТЬ