Double-crossed at Cactus Flats: An Up2U Western Adventure
silver and gold With Archer’s help he’d found a rich vein Bull had two broken fingers and couldn’t dig very well So Archer had done a lot of the digging Two saddlebags filled with silver ore were hidden back at their claim Bull had a couple of samples with him He planned to show them to a mining company in Cactus Flats For a big reward he’d lead them to the silver vein I want to be out of here before sunrise Bull said I won’t feel safe until I’m in that mining office There are hundreds of outlaws in this county who would kill us to get that silver Archer thought about that He was pretty sure Bull was an outlaw too Does that make me an outlaw too Archer wondered He hadn’t broken any laws At least none that he knew about But he’d been riding with Bull for several weeks now Everything Bull did seemed slightly wrong to Archer He
wasn’t sure that Bull had a right to the silver claim But if it wasn’t for Bull where would Archer be The prospector had kept him safe In addition to all those outlaws the Arizona desert was home to unfriendly Apache warriors Bull knew how to watch for signs of trouble Archer didn’t Six months before Archer had been in school in Oklahoma But on his fourteenth birthday January 29 1882 his father had told him that they were going West They would join the gold rush and soon be rich Now Archer was an orphan His father had died after a long sickness on the trail He was buried back in Texas Archer had made it to Arizona on his own That’s where he met Bull Bull also had the idea of striking it rich And this week Bull and Archer had found success
A SHADOW Archer was hungry They’d been riding all morning without a bite of food Finally they’d reached the top of a hill They could see the mining town of Cactus Flats about a mile away He and Bull stopped their horses Archer patted Shadow’s muzzle Then he looked over his shoulder He was sure someone had been following them That was never a good thing in the desert You’re seeing ghosts boy Bull said with a laugh I’d know in a second if anyone was back there Archer took off his tan cowboy hat and ran a hand through his sweaty brown hair He guessed that the temperature was nearly 100 degrees
