For a brief moment young Luke Scarbrough was at a loss as to where he was. Darkness surrounded him and then he recognized the sound of an ember popping and it all came back to him. He . . . they, were back at the wagons, the site where the massacre had occurred more than two weeks ago. They had gotten back here during the night, he and the four he had taken back from the Indians; his older sister Belle, little sister Sally, and the two Anderson kids, Clara and Johnny. It now must be in the wee hours of the morning because when they got here they had celebrated their return for over an hour before finally going to bed. No one was stirring and the fire had burned out except when the breeze briefly brought an ember back to life causing it to momentarily flare brightly and then go dim. It was cold, he pulled the wool blanket tighter around his shoulders and neck. He would keep the nightmare at bay by staying awake a few minutes, maybe then it would not return. Come daylight they must load up and continue on to Oregon, on To Journey's End. But can they now make it before the mountain passes are blocked by heavy snow? NOTE: "To Journey's End" is the exhilarating sequel to "Taken; Ordeal on the Oregon Trail".
About the Author: Donald Wayne Manning: Was 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 in-corporates 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."