Angry Land E-Book

Samuel A Peeples

• Herausgeber: Robert Hale
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

He pays his debts with hot lead! This is the story of a kid who turns killer, a boy who grows to manhood long before his time. Seeing no justice in the land, he takes the law into his own lightning swift hands.The legend that grows around Billy Bascom is born the day they planted the cross that read: 'Here lie Ben Ober and Jim Boone; hanged for cattle rustling May 14, 1880.'There should have been a third name on that board: that of Billy Bascom. But the kid had been rescued from Jason Ryan's lynch party just in time. The thirst to avenge the death of his friends, and the murder of his saviour, has changed Billy into New Mexico's most ruthless gunslinger.And no man is going to be his undoing.

Leseprobe

The Angry Land

He pays his debts with hot lead!

This is the story of a kid who turns killer, a boy who grows to manhood long before his time. Seeing no justice in the land, he takes the law into his own lightning swift hands.

The legend that grows around Billy Bascom is born the day they planted the cross that read: ‘Here lie Ben Ober and Jim Boone; hanged for cattle rustling May 14, 1880.’

There should have been a third name on that board: that of Billy Bascom. But the kid had been rescued from Jason Ryan’s lynch party just in time. The thirst to avenge the death of his friends, and the murder of his saviour, has changed Billy into New Mexico’s most ruthless gunslinger.

And no man is going to be his undoing.

The Angry Land

Samuel A. Peeples

© The Estate of Samuel A. Peeples 2016

First published in Great Britain 2016

ISBN 978-0-7198-2124-0

The Crowood Press

The Stable Block

Crowood Lane

Ramsbury

Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2016

Robert Hale is an imprint of

The Crowood Press

The right of Samuel A. Peeples to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by his Estate in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

EDITOR’S NOTES

It’s no secret that I am a long time fan of Samuel A. Peeples, who I first ‘met’ as a very young girl in his persona as Brad Ward, an author for ACE westerns.

I wrote my one and only fan letter ever to ‘Mr Ward’ after reading one of his westerns I had inherited from my much older brother, Leonard, after he enlisted in the US Army. ‘Inherited’ probably is the wrong word: being a precocious reader, I actually pilfered his vast collection; and read every single book.

Sam brought the west alive. Unlike Clarence Mulford and Zane Grey, Sam’s writing was very contemporary. No exaggerated dialect or archaic slang; just beautiful prose describing not only the land, but vividly portraying even the most minor characters. And the dialogue: I don’t think anyone, even today, comes close to creating the kind of believable dialogue that flows from the mouths of the characters and makes them distinct and incredibly real.

I had long forgotten the fan letter once it was mailed, but – months later – I actually received a one-page reply written in much the same manner as the way he wrote his stories. Short, sweet and right to the point. The one thing he told me that has stayed with me forever is – after I had told him I was a girl and I wanted to write cowboy stories (yes, I was that young) – was that women could do anything a man could do, even write westerns; and sometimes even better.

That was enough to inspire me to write. And if you look closely at my writing, you will see a lot of Sam’s influence. It is my hope more people will now be able to enjoy Sam’s original works with a fresh set of eyes, and a new sense of appreciation.

Kit Prate

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The Angry Land is based upon the most famous of all southwestern legends. While the value of historical fact is known and respected by the author, there is very little about the brutal, tangled facts that has not been told and retold. The legend is another matter. It has persisted for a hundred years, often changed in detail but never in clarity of outline. Like most legends, it deals with good and evil, and the bad man who did some good, and contains a great deal of historical truth since it reflects the mood of a time and place long gone. It seemed worthwhile to this writer to subjugate the letter of fact to the spirit of legend in this novel, but it is only fair to point out the major liberties that were taken. Governor Winston Carlisle never existed, nor is his character that of any actual Territorial Governor; however, to demonstrate his activities are not beyond belief, one of his real-life counterparts once sold the irreplaceable archives of the palacio by the pound to local merchants to be used as wrapping paper. Conchita Noriega is entirely fictional, and had no real counterpart. The fiesta in Santa Fe is in September, not in midyear as implied in the story, nor was the wonderful old structure so burned. Liberties have been taken with dates, chronology and distances, and although certain historical characters can be easily identified despite their fictional names, characterizations at variance with historical fact are nonetheless true to the spirit of the legend in which white is always white and black is always black. In final apology, while this may not be the way it really happened, it is the way it will be remembered.

Dedicated to my wife, Erlene

PROLOGUE

New Mexico, 1880

The brassy sun stood an hour past the summit of the cloudless sky, and heat pressed mercilessly against the dry land. The rolling benchland below the sun-whitened hills was dotted with yucca white with powder-fine sand, their shadows dark puddles about their bases. A sullen, brooding place that fought against encroachment; the steel-clad conquerors from the South had felt the resentment of this land; the naked savages who had once dwelt here had respected its bitter strength; now it was the Americanos’ turn to feel its fury. The tall men who brought great herds of half-wild cattle, seeking to build here their private empires, were stronger than any who had come before them, but in their selfishness, under the brutal lash of heat and dryness and the hatred of the land itself, they quarrelled and fought. A dust whorl danced along the ground, coating the bleached clumps of soapweed and mesquite and creosote bush. A rattler, coiled in the shade of an outcropping of rock, buzzed its electric warning. An empty, aching loneliness lay across the silent hills. This was the angry land.

Below the shoulder of the hills began the flat valley, covered with grama, galeta and buffalo grass, which brought the cattle herds here. A dry creek bed ran southward and on the far side rose the green cloud of a Rio Grande cottonwood. It stood alone, unfaltering in its lonely vigil, a single green defiance of the harsh land. Beneath the tree, in the meagre shade, stood five men, and a sixth, no more than a boy, squatted on his haunches, his hands tied behind his back, his eyes lifted to a thick branch overhead. Two men were hung there, one dead and still, slowly pivoting at the end of the rope that encircled his neck, the other fighting death, his body arching, his legs kicking wildly in a final, grim dance. These were the violent men.

CHAPTER 1

Billy Bascom squinted against the glare of the sun and considered the jerking figure of Ben Ober thoughtfully. Ober was dying hard, and Ryan and his men were enjoying it. Billy’s full-lipped, mobile mouth curved down slightly at the corners. He had an itch under his arms, but, with his hands tied behind him with a rawhide thong, he could do nothing about it. Funny, he was going to be dancing like poor Ben in a minute, and the most important thing to him was an itch. Billy’s ever-present smile peeled away his lips from his prominent, white upper teeth, and he looked even younger than his nineteen years.

Bob Oringer loomed over him, and Billy shifted his gaze to the Triangle ramrod. Oringer was a big man, but not fat. Grim amusement crinkled the corners of his pale blue eyes; Oringer laughed hardest at the most unpleasant things.

‘Enjoyin’ the show, kid?’ Oringer asked. ‘That’s why I saved you until last. Figured you’d like to see your pards swing. They’ll be waiting in hell for you.’

‘Just like I’ll be waiting for you, Bob,’ Billy answered, still smiling.

For a moment their eyes held level, and then the bigger man swung the flat of his hand in a brutal blow that dumped the boy sideways to the sand. It coated his sweat-wet skin and itched unbearably, but Billy’s smile remained fixed to his lips.

‘Someday I’m going to blow you apart, Bob. I’m going to scatter the filth you’re made of.’

For an instant Oringer balanced there, then he laughed aloud. ‘Sure you are! Just like you’re getting’ away this time!’ He sobered, bent down. ‘You’ve got about five minutes to live, you stinkin’ little bastard!’