Daisy Train

Wade Shakespeare asks Scott Danner to go to San Francisco and bring a horse home to Wyoming.

Simple enough.

The horse is a dark bay with a name Scott can’t pronounce and strong opinions about strangers. He was raised on the Wind River Reservation, sold away from it, and Wade has spent a long time arranging to bring him home. Scott’s job is to get him there.

First, he has to convince the horse to trust him.

With the two of them finally aboard and two days of rail between California and Wyoming, Scott settles in expecting to watch the country go by and make sure his passenger arrives in one piece.

Then Tye Taylor knocks on his berth door.

Tye is twenty, works as a porter on the train, and seems to know the railroad down to the last schedule and coupling. He’s polished, capable, and very good at taking care of everyone around him. Scott starts finding reasons to spend more time with him than the trip really requires.

A train makes that surprisingly easy.

There are narrow corridors, meals shared with strangers, the Sierra Nevada outside the windows, and long stretches where the ground keeps moving whether Scott is ready for it or not. Somewhere between checking on the horse and watching unfamiliar country pass beneath the rails, the trip home begins to feel like more than an errand.

And somewhere along the way, simple quits being the word for it.

Daisy Train is the fifth of six prequel novellas leading to Rodeo Clown, following Scott Danner from eighteen to twenty-five through the ranches, roads, men, and choices that shape the person he will become.