Nor Things to Come: A Trilogy of the American West—The first sentence of the Prologue and first seven chapters of Book One: The Perilous Journey Begins

Prologue
San Luis Obispo, California
July 20, 1907

Azure eyes searching the distant sun-dappled hills above the polished rim of a porcelain cup, Muireall Anne Ravenscroft sipped green tea.

Chapter One

Dunnet Head Lighthouse, the Highlands of Scotland
April 1860

Gordania Sinclair twisted vigorously against the cool ground near a patch of heather until fresh grass slithered between her toes, bathing her feet in clean dew sparkled by the slanting light of a fresh morning.

Chapter Two

Shiloh, Tennessee
April 6, 1862

Manfred Herrmann slouched against the crinkled bark of an ancient hickory tree at the verge of a dense grove not far from the western shore of the Tennessee River and nudged the luminous petals of a fire pink with a black-powder-smudged finger.

Chapter Three

Nanjing, China
July 1864

Tseng Longwei—born of peasant farmers in 1819 in the mountainous region of Guangxi in southern China; educated in math, science, English, and the ways of Jesus by Baptist missionaries as a youth; hardened in the coal mines of Guangxi as a young man; swept away by the peasant revolt of Hong Xiuquan against the corrupt Manchu Dynasty in 1850; wounded by sword and arrow during the victorious advance of the Taiping Heavenly Army into the Yangtze Valley through the years 1851 to 1853; elevated to the rank of colonel and granted command of a full regiment during the disastrous and bloody Taiping march on Shanghai in 1861—walked.

Chapter Four

Fort Sedgwick, Colorado Territory
June 1867

Joshua Hotah patted the neck of his faithful appaloosa, then scratched the strong-willed animal along the base of her coarse mane.

Chapter Five

Sitka, Alaska
October 18, 1867

Roshan Kuznetsov, stinking of skinned sea otter and three months of unwashed tromping through the rainforests and waterways of Baranov Island, loitered unreasonably close to the polished double-B-flat tuba.

Chapter Six

Budapest, Hungary
May 1869

Csongor Toth delighted in the serenity of a spring afternoon as he strolled contentedly along the Széchenyi lánchíd above the sun-sparkled Danube River on his way to the Royal Hungarian University School of Law.

Chapter Seven

Salt Lake City, Utah Territory
May 1871

Priscilla Kimball—brown pigtails bouncing in the Saturday morning sun, white cotton dress swirling wrinkled across graceful legs, slender arms swinging in exuberant tempo—skipped urgently along the dusty edge of East Temple Street.