Throughout the course of Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman,
fans remarked on
several inconsistencies in the storyline. I have
viewed all the episodes
that mentioned Sully's past and tried to piece
together dates and events
that tie in with his original story. (from seasons
one and
two). For the purposes of this story, I have
calculated certain dates and
made the necessary changes.

Abigail's grave marker should read 1841 – 1866, in
order to coincide with
Sully's arrival in Colorado Springs and have Abigail
marry Sully at
eighteen years of age, as he stated in 'Rite of
Passage'. If Sully enlists
at the end of the civil war, as he stated in
'Washington
Affair', she had to die by 1865. In 'The Healing',
which takes place in
1868, Loren mentions that he's observing the second
anniversary of
Abigail's passing. If she died in 1865, it would be
the third anniversary
of her passing.

Sully left New York City and headed west at the age of
ten. This agrees
with the information Sully told Michaela at the
beginning of 'Where the
Heart Is'. He also said that he came out west alone.
With that in mind,
Sully's friendship with Daniel Simon doesn't develop
until they
begin to work in the mines. I have ignored the
statement, in 'Promises,
Promises', when Sully tells Michaela that he grew up
on the docks of New
York with Daniel. This is inconsistent with earlier
episodes.




C h a p t e r T w o

S u l l y 's S t o r y
by Sandi99


"They were just regular folk. My Pa died before I can
remember. Ma always
said the only thing he knew was farming. When he got
to New York, he had to
take odd jobs away from the land. His heart just gave
out. She always said
it was the city that done broke him."

Sully to Michaela
'Where The Heart Is - Part One'




Prelude


When Dorothy Jennings first approached me and asked if
she could write
about my life, I turned her down. She told me that,
ever since she wrote
her first book, folks had been sending her letters,
asking about me.

"They want to hear your story, Sully," she said.
"They see you as some
kind of romantic hero."

I didn't understand it. My life was never all that
interesting. I never
did anything important or held any kind of prominent
position that would
make anyone stand up and take notice. Besides, I
don't like anyone making
a fuss over me, for any reason.

Then things changed. I saw the Cheyenne persecuted
and destroyed. Dorothy
was forced to burn the book she wrote about Cloud
Dancing, in order to
protect him from the army. She wondered
if anyone would ever tell the Cheyenne story - a story
that desperately
needed to be told.
As the years passed, both Dorothy and I shared the
same discouragement.
Will the truth ever be revealed?

The other day, Dorothy spotted me as I was walking
along the street toward
the clinic. She flagged me down. I waited for her as
she drew up alongside
me.

"Sully," she said. "I've given this a lot of thought.
I asked you to tell
your story so I could write it down and you refused. I
understand your
reasons but ..." She shook her head and sighed. "I
just can't think of
anyone else who knows the Cheyenne the way you do.
folks would listen to
you, I know they would."

"Dorothy ..."

She reached out and touched my arm, silencing my
protest.

"You tell it to me," she bargained, "and I'll make
sure that everyone
understands what you're saying, After that, folks have
to make up their own
minds."

"And that's the only stuff I'd be talkin' about?" I
asked her. "The
Cheyenne?"

Her face reddened as she grew flustered. "Well ....
not exactly. I know
they were your family, Sully, but most folks want to
read about you, before
and after you came to Colorado Springs. They find you
fascinatin'. I'd want
to write down your personal story too."

I thought about her offer for a long moment, then
turned her down again.

"I'm sorry, Dorothy. I can't do it. I don't want my
life laid out in some
book so folks can gawk at it. As much as I'd like your
readers to
understand the Cheyenne, there's gotta be another way."

"But ....?"

I held up a hand to discourage any argument, then
smiled and moved away
from her. When I glanced back over my shoulder, she
was still standing in
the middle of the street, staring after me. I felt a
little guilty but
there was nothing I could do. I wouldn't put myself on
display that way.

Yet even thinking about it did something strange to
me. It threw me back
into the past again. I began to remember things that I
hadn't thought about
in a long time, things that stabbed through me.
Without knowing it, Dorothy
Jennings opened up a wound that day - and it would
take a long time before
I could work through the memories and let it heal up
again. Just like I'd
done for so many years, I dealt with the pain alone.
Some folks are meant
to be alone. Others are lucky enough to find that one
special person - the
one who helps to ease their pain. The one who helps
them find their dreams.

- Byron Sully




I was born on a ship somewhere between England and
America. I don't know
where. I don't even know the name of the ship.

The first thing I remember that's clear is a small
cabin a few miles
outside of New York City. I remember where I slept,
but I don't know how
old I was. I had a narrow cot under a window. My
older brother slept on a
cot beside mine but his was pushed up against one
wall. A
curtain was the only thing that separated my parent's
room from ours. I
can remember their voices seeping through the thin
division after they went
to bed at night. I don't recall what they said -
don't know if I ever
heard the words – but my Ma always sounded worried. I
used to pull
myself up on my knees and stare out through the
window. I'd look up at the
night sky and think about the hawks, how they were
free to leave the earth
and soar into the heavens. Even back then, I hated
being locked up inside.
If it had been up to me, I would have slept out under
the
stars but my Ma wouldn't hear of it.

"What a fool idea," she'd tell me. "Some wild animal
will make a meal
outta ya."

I guess she thought this would scare me into behaving
but I never believed
her. I just figured she was frettin' again. My Ma
worried over everything
back then. Mostly she worried about money. No one
ever told me. I just
knew. I used to watch as she turned an old
earthenware crock upside down
on the kitchen table. I'd listen to the coins fall
out and spin on the
tabletop, then follow the path of a dime or penny as
it rolled across the
table, teetered and lost its balance. My Ma would
count all the coins and
sigh. Then she'd drop them back into the crock, one
by one, and set it on
the shelf above the stove again.

I remember my Ma better than my Pa – partly because
she lived longer than
he did but mostly because I spent a lot of my time
with her. My brother,
James, helped my father on the farm. He was four
years older than me.

"You're too little," Ma would tell me, when I asked if
I could go with
them. "You can help me with my chores."

Her chores were mostly inside the cabin. I was
jealous of my brother. By
the time I was five years old, I would sneak out to
the barn every chance I
had. I can't remember if I got into trouble over it
but I'm sure I did.
My father was a stern man. He never hit us but I can
still
hear his voice rumbling across the yard. I thought he
sounded like God, in
that story that my Ma used to read from the Bible, the
one where God
shouted out the Ten Commandments from the mountaintop.
In my mind, his
voice rumbled just like my Pa's did. I was scared of
my father. I
can't remember his face anymore, just his voice.

"He loves you very much," my mother told me. "He's
only angry because he
has so many worries on his mind."

I guess he was stewing about money most of the time
but I didn't know it
then. I just tried to stay out of his way as much as
I could but I kept
getting into trouble. I didn't mean to do it. All I
wanted was to be
outside, exploring the woods or looking for frogs and
climbing trees. I'd
lose track of time and, before I realized it, my
father would send my
brother out to find me.

"Pa says he hasn't got time to be worryin' bout you,"
James would tell me.
"You'd better get home. He's awful mad."

My brother delivered the same message every time and
I'd get punished for
it … every time. I had to go to bed without supper or
sit in a corner all
the next day. My mother was gentle and softhearted.
She'd wait until my
father was asleep and snoring and then she'd bring me
a
chunk of bread, or she'd let me come out of the corner
as soon as my father
left for the barn in the morning.

I looked like my Pa. My brother resembled my mother.
She had soft brown
eyes and reddish brown hair. I thought she was
beautiful. My father was
from England but she was Irish. She spoke with a
thick accent and I loved
to listen to her reading from the Bible in the
evenings. That was the only
book I ever saw her read. She cried real easy but she
laughed real easy
too. My father told everyone that she had a hot,
Irish temper but I can't
recall a time when I saw my mother angry. She was
often sad though. I
knew things upset her.

I don't remember all that much now, just bits and
pieces. A lot of what
happened was told to me by my brother when I got a
little older. The rest
of it I read about in Ma's diary when she died. I'm
not sure how much of
this story comes from my own memory. I didn't get a
chance to
really know my father at all.

When we lost the farm and moved to the city, I finally
understood what my
mother was worrying about. All she told me was that
my father bought a bad
piece of land and he couldn't get much to grow on it.
The only thing my
father knew was farming. He found work on the docks,
unloading the cargo
from ships for a while. He hurt his back trying to
lift too much and ended
up sweeping a saloon every night and washing glasses.
He used to come home
real late. We lived in the top part of a house. It
had an outside
staircase the ran along a side wall. I'd wake up and
hear him trudging up
the steps, just before he stumbled through the door.
It seems strange that
I'd remember this when I don't remember more important
things about him –
the way he laughed or the weight of his hand as he
patted my shoulder.
Those memories are gone.

But the drinking – I remember that.

"Drinking won't help nothin'," my mother would tell
him. He'd mumble
something beneath his breath and I'd hear the bed
creak as he flopped down
onto it. A couple of minutes later, he'd be passed
out and snoring. This
happened almost every night while he worked in that
tavern. My mother said
that he'd given up, that was looking for a way to
forget. He called
himself a failure.

My father was a proud man. He believed that it was a
man's duty to support
his family and he wouldn't let my mother help him out.
She could have
taken in laundry or cleaned houses but my Pa wouldn't
hear of it. One
night, Pa didn't come home. I woke up real early in
the morning and heard
my mother crying. She said she was worried and we'd
better go out to look
for him. When we got to the tavern where Pa worked,
the man who owned it
had laid my father out on a bed in a back room. The
man said he was sorry,
said he didn't know where my father lived so he
couldn't find us to tell us
what happened. Pa was sweeping up, just like always,
when he clutched at
his chest. The bartender said Pa was probably dead

before he hit the
floor. His heart just gave out.

"It was the city that done broke him," my Ma told the
man. "All he ever
cared about was farming."

I stood there, trying not to look down at my father's
gray face. Instead, I
glanced around the room. There was a stained basin
and pitcher sitting on
a broken stand in one corner. The whole place smelled
of stale beer and
smoke. The more I stood there, breathing in that air
and listening to my
mother sobbing, the more the room closed in around me.
I had to clamp both
hands over my mouth as I ran outside. I hung off the
end of the porch and
threw up into the dirt. Ever since
that day, I've hated the inside of a saloon.

After we buried my father, James had to find work. He
was only eleven
years old but they hired him on at the docks,
unloading cargo just like my
father once did. I was only seven. No one wanted
someone my age. I went
to the docks with James each day and watched him
hauling the cargo out of
the bellies of the ships. A group of boys always
gathered at the docks
and, after a while, they started to push me around. I
tried to fight back
but they were a lot bigger than I was. When I came
home with a black eye
and a bruised up face one day, my mother got angry at
James for not taking
better care of me. After that, she wouldn't let me go
back there again..

My mother made certain that I leaned how to read and
write. When my father
was alive, she sat with me in the evenings, going over
the words in a thin
schoolbook someone loaned her or helping me add up
sums. After my father's
death, when she was forced to go to work, she always
left lessons for me to do while she was away. I'd
wake up each morning and
find them on top of the kitchen table. When she got
home at night, she'd
ask to see the papers as soon as she stepped through
the door. If I failed
to complete them, she'd fold her arms across her chest
and
stare me down.
"Ya gotta get some schoolin'," she'd insist. "Don't
end up like me."

Back then I hated the schoolwork. Today, I'm
grateful. I finally realize
how difficult it was for her. She was exhausted but
she took the time to
teach me something. It helped to improve my life.

She cleaned houses for people in the richer part of
the city and left
before dawn each day. She'd drag herself home every
night and try to fix
some food for us. Most nights, she fell asleep before
she ate anything
herself. With my brother working at the docks and my
mother away cleaning
houses, I spent most of my time alone. I blamed the
bullies on the docks
but I was angry at myself for being too small to fight
back. I made a vow,
at seven years of age, that I'd learn how to fight
someday. No one, no
matter how much they outweighed me, would ever push me
around again.

Looking back on it, I think we lost my mother when my
father died. The
person who was left wasn't my mother anymore. She
still cared about my
brother and me and made sure we were looked after
proper and all, but she
wasn't the same. She no longer laughed but she didn't
cry either. She
walked around with an empty look in her eyes and she
didn't say much of
anything. Sunday would come and she didn't even open
her Bible.

"What has God done for me lately?" she said one day,
after I asked her to
read out loud to me. "I don't believe those words no
more."

I dunno. Maybe she would have been okay if my brother
had lived. It's
hard to say. He was thirteen when Clyde Turner
approached him. Clyde had
a farm five miles out of the city and he knew my
parents when they lived
out there. He found James on the docks, told him that
he was
getting too old to run the farm and he needed some
help. He offered James
more money than my brother was making unloading cargo.
The old man lived
all alone, ever since his wife passed on. He asked if
my mother would keep
house for him. For the first time in almost four
years, we moved back to
the land again.

My mother started to get better. She talked more and
started to take care
of herself again, pulling her hair back from her face
and pinning it up,
dressing up on Sundays and going to the church two
miles down the road.
One night after supper, I walked into her bedroom.
She was
sitting in a rocking chair, reading her Bible.

I started helping out around the farm and Clyde Turner
was surprised at how
much I could do.

"You're not afraid of work, son," he told me. "You're
gonna do okay."

One day, Clyde Turner came home with a new stallion.

"There ain't a horse around these parts that I can't
handle," he bragged.

He was wrong. Clyde couldn't break him. The horse
was wild, bucking off
Turner every time he climbed up on its back. After a
while, Clyde quit
trying. I guess my brother was showing off, trying to
prove something. He
got up early one morning and headed out to the corral.
I woke up and
followed him. When I arrived, he was already saddling
up the stallion.
The animal was snorting and pawing at the dirt, a
strange glint in its
eyes. I begged him to stay away from it. He didn't
listen. James grabbed
the horse by its halter and led it out of the corral.

As soon as he got up on the stallion's back, it
started to buck. My
brother wasn't much of a rider. He'd been in the city
for too many years
and he'd forgotten most of what he'd learned. He slid
off one side of the
horse but his foot caught in the stirrup. The
stallion bolted, dragging
him along the ground. I yelled, chasing after them,
but there was nothing
I could do. By the time the stirrup broke, my brother
was dead. I stood
looking down at him. He lay on his back in
the dirt. His head was at an odd angle and it looked
like his neck was
broken. I've never be able to forget that. I still
wake up with
nightmares, even after all these years.

My mother charged from the cabin toward us. She fell
on her knees beside
James and grabbed hold of his hand. She kept rubbing
his fingers, as if
she could rub some life back into him somehow. Clyde
Turner finally pulled
her away and took her inside. When he came back,
we found a shovel in the barn and buried James. I
tried to remember some
passage from my mother's Bible, to repeat over the
grave but all I could
think about was what my mother said earlier: 'I don't
believe those words
no more'.

After that, my Ma just ….stopped fighting. I had my
tenth birthday two
weeks after my brother died. It was November 27th,
1847. My mother put on
her best dress and made a cake. She sat me down at
the kitchen table at
dinnertime, cut a big slab out of the cake and set the
piece on a
plate in front of me. Then she kissed the top of my
head.

"You're a big boy now," she told me. "You can look
after yourself."

Her perfume smelled like fresh lilacs and she put her
arms around me,
hugging me for a long time. I could feel her body
trembling. "Don't
forget where I keep the money," she whispered.

I didn't understand why she'd say that – not until
they found her body in
the Hudson River the next morning. She'd left the
cabin after I went to
bed that night. No one knew whether my mother drowned
or whether the icy
cold water killed her before she had a chance to sink
beneath it. I would
never know how she found the courage to enter that
river but I understood
her reasons. I didn't blame her for it. I never
stopped loving her. But,
from that day to this, I've never celebrated my
birthday. Every year, when
November 27th arrives, I just pretend it doesn't
exist. It's easier that
way.




A few days later, I dumped the contents of the
earthenware crock out on the
table and counted the coins. I had a plan in mind.
There wasn't much
there but, if I was careful, it would be enough for a
stagecoach ticket and
a few square meals along the way. I pulled a notice
out of
my pocket and read it over again.

FREE LAND. YOURS FOR THE TAKING. It read. COME WEST
TO STAKE YOUR
CLAIM.

The creaking of a floorboard caught my attention and I
looked up. Clyde
Turner stood in the doorway, his short stocky body
blocking out the light
from outside. He glanced from the money to the poster
in my hand.

"What're ya plannin' to do, son?"

"Go west," I told him.

"All by yourself?"

I just shrugged and returned my attention to the coins
in front of me
again.

"Ya know," Clyde said slowly, "I still need lots of
help round here.. Be
glad ta keep you on."

It was decent of Clyde but I couldn't take him up on
it. Every time I
walked out into that yard, all I could see was James
being dragged across
the dirt. If I tried to look away toward the trees,
my eyes instantly came
to rest on my brother's grave at the top of the hill.
Now an identical
cross sat beside it but this one had my mother's name
carved into the rough
surface of the wood. How could I stay there?
Everything reminded me of
something and each memory gnawed away at me.

"Thanks," I murmured, looking up at him again. "But
I'm aimin' to go
west."

There was one other thing on that poster, small
writing at the bottom that
I had barely seen at first. It said: Land of
opportunity. Your chance to
start over again.

Going west, I figured, was kinda like following a
dream.




My money ran out the other side of Ohio. I didn't
know much about maps but
I knew I had a long way to go before I got anywhere
near the 'west'. The
stage coach driver let me off in a little town called
Columbus and I
started to look for work. The town didn't have much
to
offer but, when the blacksmith saw that I was willing
to do any kind of
work for very little pay, he hired me on. I spent the
next few weeks
standing over a fire, pounding on red-hot iron. It
was wintertime so I
welcomed the heat. The man let me sleep inside the
lean-to next to his
livery. It had no door and snow often blew inside
when the winds got high.
I stayed until I had enough money to buy another
ticket on the stage out
of town. This time I got as far as Iowa.

That's how I did it. I worked wherever I could,
whenever the money ran
out. Most of it was heavy work; chopping and
splitting trees for lumber,
hauling blocks of ice by sleigh and putting them into
cold storage,
unloading supplies for shopkeepers and lugging crates.
By the time I was
fourteen, I was fully grown with muscular arms and
legs. It got easier to
find work after that. Folks thought I was older than
my years. I didn't
tell them any different. There was only one job I
wouldn't take – working
in a saloon. I couldn't bring myself to look through
the swinging doors.

I was working on a farm in Nebraska when the farmer's
son, Ed, took me
aside.

"Look," he said. "If ya wanna make some real money,
you should go and work
in one of them mines. I heard that a man can get rich
real fast and they
don't care how old you are neither – all ya need is a
strong back and
they'll take ya on."

"That so?" I studied him. "Why don't you go, if the
money's so good?"

Ed's mouth twisted. "I would, cept my Pa won't allow
it. Says I gotta be
a farmer. Hell, there's better ways to make money.
Farmin' don't pay."

I thought about his words and, as soon as I got my
next pay, I struck out
for the Rocky Mountains.

"There's silver and gold mines all over them hills,"
folks told me. "All ya
gotta do is follow everybody else. That's where
everyone's headin' these
days."

I didn't know who 'everybody else' was but I figured
I'd find out soon
enough. I wound up in New Mexico, in a mining camp at
the base of the
Rockies, near the Rio Grande. I was fifteen years
old. Ed had been right
about one thing. Nobody cared about my age. They
handed me a
pick ax and told me to get to work.

But he was wrong about the rest of it. No one got
rich from working in a
mine. The owner paid us enough to keep us there but
not a penny more.
Still, I had no place else to go so I stayed on.

I spent the next few years staring at the inside of a
mine shaft, filling
my lungs with dust. Some nights, when I closed my
eyes and tried to fall
asleep, I couldn't stand the darkness no more. Some
nights I didn't sleep
at all.

I did a lot of thinking during that time. My dreams
of the west ended in a
damp, rat infested tunnel – or so it seemed. I
thought about my father and
I finally understood. Being away from the land, from
his dream, broke his
spirit. I could feel my hope draining away too. I
didn't see how I could change anything. I needed
money. At first I
figured that I would save up enough money to buy some
land and start my own
farm but things changed. It seemed like the more
money I made, the more I
needed. It felt like I'd never have enough.

Some of the men in the camps gambled and I was tempted
to try my luck a
couple of times. It looked like an easy way to double
my pay but, when I
saw the fights it caused, I wanted no part of it. One
night, after they'd
been drinking, a friend of mine accused another miner
of cheating. Before
anyone knew what was happening, he'd drawn a knife and
stabbed my friend.
I stood among the crowd gathering around Will's body,
staring at the knife
handle. The blade was buried in Will's chest. Just
that day, as we worked
the same shift together, Will had given me a drink out
of his canteen when
my own ran dry. Now he lay on the floor of a tent,
his eyes glazed over
from greed.

I was almost twenty years old when Daniel Simon swaggered into camp
like he owned it. Right
off, I didn't like him. He didn't much care for me
either.

I remembered a boy named Daniel from the docks in New
York City. He roamed
the streets and fell in with the gang of boys who
liked to bully me.
Daniel was one of the few who just stood back and
watched but I heard them
call him by name often enough. It was a strange
coincidence
that we'd both end up in New Mexico at the same mining
camp. Over the
years, I've learned to accept things like that as
being part of a plan.
Back then I didn't believe in the Spirits. I don't
even know if I believed
in God. Whenever I thought about Him, I heard my
mother's words: "What
has He done for me lately?"

At first, I was unaware that Daniel was the same lanky
kid from my past.
But, when he heard my name, he knew me right away.
After all, that name
had been the cause of most of my fights.

"Byron? What kind of sissy name is that?" One of the
boys would push at
my shoulder with the heel of his hand. "What about
it, Byron? You a
sissy?"

They wanted to see some fear but I wouldn't give them
the satisfaction. I
looked each one of them straight in the eyes and held
my ground.

"Looks like we need to teach you some manners …
Byron," they'd say or
"Let's see if Byron here cries like a girl." I'd try
to duck but a lot of
the punches connected. A fist would be driven into my
stomach or knuckles
would bruise my jaw. As I said, Daniel usually stood
back, keeping his
distance from the others. But he never once offered
to help me.

So, by the time I figured out Daniel's identity, I
already had a score to
settle. On top of that, he was a newcomer with a
pushy, arrogant manner.
One afternoon, he lit into an immigrant working in the
wrong part of the
tunnel.

"You know nothin' about mining," Daniel yelled.
"You're puttin' everyone's
lives in danger by diggin' in an unstable part of the
mine. What's wrong
with you?"

The man barely spoke a word of English. No one had
bothered to take the
time and explain where to dig. They'd handed him a
shovel and left him on
his own. I could tell that he was afraid of Daniel.
He hung his head as
Daniel shouted at him, then slunk away. When our
shift ended and we came
up from the tunnels, I waited for Daniel to emerge.
Then I stood in front
of him, blocking his path.

"Who do ya think you are?" I challenged. "You ain't
got the right to order
nobody around."

"I got every right," Daniel snapped, "if he's
interferrin' with my job."
He studied me, his eyes narrowed into slits. "Tell ya
what – if you're so
fired up, why don't you try to stop me? Go ahead.
Try."

I learned a lot about fighting over the years. One of
the smallest men in
the camp could take down an opponent twice his size.
He gave me some tips.

"Size don't matter," he told me. "You gotta learn how
to handle yourself –
use their size against 'em."

I'd made a promise to myself long ago, back when
Daniel's gang pushed me
around on the docks, that no one would ever do that to
me again. That day,
as Daniel reached out and pushed against my shoulder
with the heel of his
hand, I was ready for him. It only took a minute to
throw him. The next
thing he knew, he was sitting in the dirt, staring up
at me. I clenched my
hands into fists and planted my feet, anticipating his
next move. To my
surprise, he smiled slowly.

"See ya finally figured out how to stick up for
yourself," he said.
"Wondered how long it would take."

After that things changed between Daniel and me. He
began to treat me with
respect and he'd stand beside me if anyone gave me a
problem. Before long,
we became a team. When we were together, no one in
the camp would cross
us. Mining camps can be rough and the men can be
cruel but they teach you
a lot about life too. I'm not sorry for the time I
spent there.

Even though we were friends now, Daniel loved to
compete with me. He'd bet
me that he could outwork me, or outrun me, or he'd
challenge me to a
sparring match. Sometimes he won. Most times, he
didn't. He never quit
trying to get the upper hand. After a while, it
became a joke
between us.

By the spring of 1858, the silver vein in New Mexico
had dried up. When
Daniel heard the news, he came up with a plan.

"What would you say if we went into business for
ourselves? You know,
start up our own mine. Be partners. Heard there's a
lot of new strikes
north of here – in the Black Hills. Not just silver
either. It's gold,
Sully. Gold."

We packed up what few possessions we owned and moved
north. Over the next
year, we tried to stake claims and pan for gold in the
streams. We kept
moving, traveling through the Black Hills in the
Montana territory. We
never found much of anything. I had the same feeling
that I'd had a few
years ago, after I'd followed my dream and came out
west. Once more I was
coming up empty-handed. Another dream was dying.

We finally ran out of money. A couple of men were
passing through the
area, moving south to the Colorado territory. They
stopped at our camp and
we offered them a cup of coffee and a piece of beef
jerky. As a way of
showing their thanks, they told us where they were
headed and why.

"They struck gold at Pike's Peak. Mining company set
up down there. Said
they're lookin' for miners. You can come along with
us, if ya want."

Daniel and I agreed, any hope of staking a claim and
opening up our own
operation crushed. A year had passed between the time
we left New Mexico
and the time we arrived in Colorado. It was now April
of 1859. I was
twenty-one years old but I'd already seen more of life
than I'd
ever bargained for.

The mine owner was happy to hire on workers with
experience so we had no
trouble settling in. The closest town was Colorado
Springs. When I first
laid eyes on it, it sure didn't look like much. Mud
streets, buildings
just thrown together, everything in need of a coat of
paint. Daniel sent me
into town for supplies. We'd just been paid and he
was playing in a high
stakes poker game. He wasn't about to leave his place
at the table. I
didn't care. I liked being alone. Sometimes, when
all the noise and chaos
of the camp got to be too much for me, I'd go off
into the woods by myself.

As soon as I hit town, I headed straight for the
general store – Bray's
Mercantile. As I stepped inside, I had no way of
knowing that another
stage of my life was about to begin.


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