Lying in concealment adjacent to the Indian’s camp young Luke Scarbrough thought about what the next few hours would bring, he began to tense up again. He needed to stay calm, but he couldn’t get his mind off of what was soon to happen. It was hard to comprehend all that had taken place in such a short time span of only a few days. The slaughter of his parents and the others when the Indians attacked the wagons. The abduction of his two sisters and the Anderson kids. The burden of responsibility with he being the only one left to go after them and he was only fifteen years old. The last several days of tracking the Indians with their captives. Killing the four warriors that had been sent back to kill him. And of course dealing with the two outlaws that had robbed him. All weighed heavy on his mind. How much more of this could he take? The recent past, present, and near future were all coming to an explosive head. Come daylight the battle would begin and end in a time span of one or two minutes. Was he now in the last hours of his life? Would he survive this coming fight? Three to one for sure and maybe more than that, how could he survive? He had to last long enough to get the captives freed. His sister Belle was a smart girl, if they were free of the Indians could she somehow make it back to the wagon trail . . . even if he himself were dead. Donald Wayne Manning Born on a farm in rural southeastern Oklahoma, a state that is still known as the Indian Nation, and growing through childhood at a time when electricity had not yet been extended to those rural areas. Mr. Manning remembers those times when life wasn't so easy. It was a time when a family grew its own food, drew its water from the well in a bucket, cooked on a wood burning cook stove, heated bath water over a fire and bathed in a wash tub. Farming was done with horses or mules and crops harvested by hand. Late fall was when the hogs were slaughtered and the meat that wasn't smoked was salted down in wooden barrels, with the fat rendered into lard and some made into lye soap. One of the highlights of his growing up was going to visit his grandparents' who lived even more primitive in the backcountry of Oklahoma's Kiamichi Mountains. The study of American History has been his lifelong passion and along with his real life experiences has given Mr. Manning special in-sight into how people lived during the western expansion and he incorporates it all into his Historical Fiction Novels of the old west. He writes about people, country, rivers, terrain, landmarks, real historical towns and ghost towns, all places he has actually been to and incorporates them and historical events into the lives of the characters in his novels. Having lived and traveled extensively throughout the American West Mr. Manning now resides in northern California. He says; "Good story telling is a gift, sharpened by life's experiences. It's not something wholly learned out of text books. I thank God that I have been blessed with that gift."