The Journey

Author’s Note: I wrote this to demonstrate my knowledge of properly citing information in a piece of writing. This is a creative writing piece, from the point of view of an orphan, with real facts about the Pony Express.

April 3, 1860 (Walske)

The day the pony express started, my first day. The pony express is a mail service that travels to Sacramento California (Godfrey). Which is way better than how the mail used to be delivered, by wagon trail and station coaches and even ships, but it took so long to get your mail. Especially compared to how it is now which is only about twelve days in the spring, summer and fall months (Godfrey). The only reason I was doing this was because they randomly chose orphans like me. Nobody would care if I never returned, nobody would ever come looking for me. On the bright side, I should get a good pay, the mail costs are quite high, ten dollars an ounce (Godfrey). The time of the year scared me a lot, soon it will get unbearably hot. The dangers of this job are something that makes me hesitant to start, because I’ll be traveling through some hostile Native American territory (Encyclopedia). Possibly even encountering a grizzly and getting killed, or worse injured and dying out here where nobody will ever find me (Encyclopedia).  

April 4, 1860

The time between stations where was a long time to be completely alone, soon I would transfer letters to another rider and they would takeover (Encyclopedia). The load of letters are really heavy, I feel them slowing me and my only companion, Scooter, the horse I am riding, down. Although they are written on tissue paper, they still are slowing us down (Godfrey). I am like a snail, slowly moving along, with no hope of getting where I’m going anytime soon. I look up at the sky and stare at the blueness of the sky against the pure white of the stringy cotton ball clouds.

April 10, 1860

 I felt myself dosing off while riding Scooter when all of a sudden I snap back, as alert as ever. I realize that it was the rustling in the bushes and trees that awoke me. I could feel my pulse quicken. Slowly I stopped me and Scooter and stopped dead in our tracks. I fear that something was going to burst from the woods and spook Scooter into throwing me from the saddle. Slowly I turned us around and hopped off of Scooter. As I looked into the woods I saw two eyes staring back at me. Immediately I froze. I could sense I was staring straight into the eyes of a massive grizzly bear. I could only breath slow shallow breathes, I knew I not to move, the second I’d move he would attack so I remained perfectly still.  As time went by I knew I was not going to get off easy, this grizzly was not planning on just walking away.

I took a deep breath and slowly shifted my weight to my left, where Scooter and the open trail waited for me. I had a bad feeling about this, and I knew that if this grizzly bear did attack me and injure me, nobody would ever find me and I’d just die out here. Quickly, the bear jumped at me and I knew it was over. I felt myself scream and attempt to run but I knew running would be useless. With a loud roar, I felt teeth plunge into my leg, tearing and ripping into my skin. Immediately, I felt the warmth of the blood rushing down my leg leaving me unable to move, while the bear stood on over me on his hind legs. My surroundings became fuzzy, but then I only saw black.

I remember nothing between that moment, and waking up in this tent laying on a bed. I’ve been told that a man on the trail found me and took me to this tent where a medic stitched my leg back together. If it were not for this man I would have probably died out there.

Works Cited

Encyclopedia, The Columbia Electronic. Fact Monster. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Godfrey, Anthony. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. 2011. Document. 28 February 2013.

Walske, Steven C. Pony Express Mail. 16 November 2007. Document. 28 February 2013.