Strength Under Fire – Excerpt 1
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April 15
“This is my new home. A new chapter in my life,” Dana
Scott whispered to herself, sounding unsure about her
decision. She had just bought a broken-down old log
cabin and a hundred acres with the only money she had
left in the world. This was her dream home.
She stood there in the cool morning at ten a.m., a range
of Wyoming mountains behind and east of the cabin,
rising out of the Silver Creek Valley. Fifty acres of land
was composed of timber on the slopes covered with
conifers. The rest of the land was on the flat Wyoming
valley that was an agricultural paradise.
A slight breeze ruffled her loose red hair that lay
against her shoulder blades. Pulling her denim jacket a
little tighter around her, she felt panic rising and wrestled
it down, as she always did. No stranger to fear, it had been
a frequent friend the last few years of her life.
Drawing in a shaky breath, Dana had spent most of
what her parents had left her, and the last of the money
was in a bank in Silver Creek. She had no job—yet. She
was farm raised, but there wasn’t much of a call for a
woman who had farming skills nowadays.
Looking up at the sky, it was a pale blue, the morning
air clean. The cheerful call of birds getting ready to nest
was music that lifted her battered spirit.
Had she done the right thing? Spending money that
could never be replaced, on this land and the broken
cabin? Like the coward she was, she had run away from
her traumatic past. Looking to make a break and start
over, she’d left the Willamette Valley, a rich winery and
agricultural country in Oregon, and headed to Wyoming.
Having taken a master gardener course earlier in her life,
she’d used her educational knowledge and checked out
the pH of the soil here in this valley and it was perfect to
grow many types of crops. Of all the places she’d had the
potential to choose in four different states, this valley had
the richest soil with the right mix of pH, consisting of alluvial
silt from old rivers now disappeared, and loamy
clay.
The Silver Creek Valley had just the right formula for
a fruit tree orchard, too. Her mother, Cathy, had a green
thumb that she’d passed on to Dana. She had plans for a
huge garden just like the one she’d once had at their farm.
Once more, Dana reminded herself that this was her
dream home, no matter how dilapidated-looking the cabin
was and how barren the Wyoming land seemed. It was
just starting to come alive mid-April.
A new start. A new life.