Colorado Kid E-Book

Dale Mike Rogers

• Herausgeber: Robert Hale
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Ben Baker was the most powerful man in the remote Montana settlement of Silver Springs, but, even surrounded by a small army of hired guns, he was afraid. For Baker had many enemies and Brewster Doyle was one of the biggest. Learning that Doyle has sent the infamous gunfighter Frank McCready to kill him, Baker decides to have his men bushwhack the next rider into town. After all, he might not know what McCready looks like but he knows there is only one trail into Silver Springs. But the next rider to appear is the tall drifter known as the Colorado Kid. Fighting for his life in a battle not of his making, can he survive as Silver Springs is bathed in blood?

Leseprobe

The Colorado Kid

Ben Baker was the most powerful man in the remote Montana settlement of Silver springs, but, even surrounded by a small army of hired guns, he was afraid. For Baker had many enemies and Brewster Doyle was one of the biggest.

Learning that Doyle has sent the infamous gunfighter Frank McCready to kill him, Baker decides to have his men bushwhack the next rider into town. After all, he might not know what McCready looks like but he knows there is only one trail into Silver Springs.

But the next rider to appear is the tall drifter known as the Colorado Kid. Fighting for his life in a battle not of his making, can he survive as Silver Springs is bathed in blood?

Contents

Title PageDedicationONETWOTHREEFOURFIVESIXSEVENEIGHTNINETENELEVENTWELVETHIRTEENFOURTEENFIFTEENSIXTEENSEVENTEENEIGHTEENNINETEENTWENTYTWENTY-ONEFINALEBy the Same AuthorCopyright

Dedicated to two lovely ladies, Jackie Autry and Ruth Gordon

ONE

Lightning forked down from the heavens far off in the distance as thunder rumbled all around the handsome grey mount. There was a chill in the air but the six-feet-six-inch-tall horseman astride his mount did not appear to notice. For he was from a place where the extremes of climate had toughened his soul and spirit long before he had reached this place. The sun raced across the shallow stream as if vainly attempting to defy the gathering storm clouds.

The lone rider drew back on his reins and stopped the tall mare.

His keen blue eyes darted around from beneath the wide brim of his Stetson and studied the unfamiliar terrain. Keeping the long Winchester gripped firmly in his right hand, he slowly dismounted in one well-practised flowing movement. There was a nervousness about the tall rider which kept his wits honed like a straight razor. The dried bloodstain on his sleeve and the crude repair to the fringed buckskin shirt showed that he had a right to be wary of any new place that he ventured into. For the bullets of unseen enemies had sought and found him many times before.

He loosened his grip on the reins and allowed the mare to drop her head and start drinking.

Yet he himself did not drink.

He continued to stand guard over the handsome animal as he continued to survey the trees and bushes which ran along the horizon ahead of him. His every instinct told him that there was someone or something out there. For he had been raised by people who had once lived unchallenged all over this land. A people who now numbered fewer than the buffalo.

His blue eyes looked up at the troubled sky. He could see the black clouds were gathering together as if they required union before they could unleash their fury. There were no birds to be seen or heard anywhere near the fast-flowing stream.

That concerned the giant man and he cradled his rifle in the crook of his arm. There should be birds, he thought. A lot of them near this place, and yet there were none at all.

Something had frightened them away from the countless insects that danced over the top of the water in the last defiant rays of the sun.

He knew that it was not he who had done so. He could walk within feet of most birds without disturbing them. They did not fear him for they knew that he would not harm them.

Neither was it the approaching storm.

It had been something else which had caused them to flee this rich source of food.

The crystal-clear water stretched for more than twenty yards until it reached the six-foot-high swaying grass. An army could be concealed out there and no one would ever suspect, he thought.

No one but him.

He still had the instincts that he had learned in the high country from the Sioux; survival instincts which had been taught to him by the people who were now nearly extinct.

It was as if he could actually sense the danger he knew lay out there ahead of him.

He removed his water-bag from the saddle horn and removed its wooden stopper with his teeth. He held on to the rawhide strips which girdled the bag and lowered it into the stream. He remained upright and alert as the stream slowly filled the three-gallon capacity of the Indian water-container.

For more than ten years since he had emerged from the wilderness as a youth, the tall horseman had drifted hundreds of miles north of his birthplace. Yet he could still not understand how a people who had lived in the lush forests since time itself had begun, could simply vanish.

But he had left them before the gold had been discovered and the white men had tried to buy their land from them. Before the battles and the ultimate destruction of practically an entire race had occurred.

Never having read any of the newspaper reports about Custer’s last stand at the Little Bighorn or the vengeance of the cavalry, he had no way of knowing that the reason the forests had emptied was because most of the Sioux were dead.

He moved his moccasins and looked upstream and then down. It was as if he was searching for clues as to who it was whom he knew lay in wait across the stream.

There were no clues.

Few people who had encountered the quiet giant during the years that he had roamed the West ever forgot him. For he was unlike all other men. His sheer height and build made it impossible for anyone ever to allow his image to drift far from their thoughts. But it was also the fact that he was unique. Not quite a white man and yet not an Indian either. A man who saw both sides of the coin. Slow to temper and yet faster than most to react when attacked.

But no one knew his real name.

It was said that he had no real name.

Or that he had forgotten what it was after being raised by the Sioux.

The only thing that those who had met him agreed upon was that he was known as the Colorado Kid.

A strange name which was neither accurate nor descriptive, for he had never been anywhere near the territory called Colorado, nor was he the sort of man who could be thought of as ever being young enough to be described as a kid.

He seemed to be carved from granite.

Every inch of his awesome stature demanded respect. For he looked as if he were capable of tearing trees out of the ground with his bare hands.

The Colorado Kid was the size of a grizzly bear and yet no sculptor could have created a more perfect physique. There was not an ounce of spare fat on his entire being. Shoulders that were solid muscle and a trim waist made it hard to imagine that this man had once lived with the far smaller Indians of the Great Basin. The only hint of his past was his straight black hair which was well-groomed, yet slightly longer than most white men wore it.

How he had come to be raised by the noble tribesmen of the vast forests, no one knew. Not even Colorado himself. Yet he was one of them.

A blood-brother to the people. That was what the many tribes of the Sioux nation called themselves. They were the people. Their father was the Great Spirit of the sky and their mother the earth itself.

Colorado accepted the nickname that the white men had given him for he knew that they would never be able to pronounce his Sioux name. If he had ever had a name before being adopted by the people who raised him as one of their own, he did not know it.

The six-feet-six-inch-tall horseman accepted that he would always be the Colorado Kid. Until, that was, he returned to the forests far to the north.

Until he found one of his people again.

He pulled the water-bag out of the cold water and returned the wooden stopper back to the neck of the leather container. He hung it on to the saddle horn and then stepped into the stream and narrowed his eyes.

There was definitely something a mile or so ahead.

He had caught subtle hints of its aroma on the morning air in his flared nostrils, but still could not tell what it was or see anything.

As the mare raised its head from the stream, Colorado stroked its neck, grabbed its flowing mane and then swiftly threw himself on to the saddle without using the stirrup. He gathered up the reins and urged the horse across the shallow water.

Lightning continued to trace across the blackening sky as the sun disappeared behind the storm clouds. A deafening explosion of sound erupted above the rider but neither the Kid or the horse flinched.

It took more than that to deter them.

The grey strode confidently through the stream as its master continued to study everything around him. The cool water lapped over the hoofs of the animal, washing away a score of miles of trail dust.

Whatever it was that had caused his senses to alert him to the possibility of danger, the Colorado Kid was determined to find it before it found him.

The mare started to gather pace as it raced through the stream and into the tall swaying grass on the riverbank.

TWO

For more than three miles Colorado had aimed his tall mount deeper and deeper into the uncharted land. The storm was growing more and more violent with every step that his obedient horse took through the softening ground. The vicious rain lashed down and cut into the rider and mare like the whips of a million unseen enemies.

Yet Colorado still saw nothing except the mocking rain as he steered his mount through the tall swaying grass. The expert horseman knew that the danger was still out there, waiting like a coiled rattler ready to strike. For a decade he had ridden into one bushwhacking after another as he roamed the West that the law had yet to discover.

For a while he had wondered why there were so many men who lived by killing and stealing. Then he had realized that these were not real men at all, but mere animals in human form. Scum who craved anything that others had. They would kill to steal the beef jerky in a stranger’s saddle-bags. The temptation of laying their hands on a horse and its tack was irresistible to their breed. Add the guns and ammunition to the pot and it was amazing that anyone ever managed to get from one remote town to another without being either wounded or killed.

Colorado had worked hard to obtain his meagre possessions and was not going to give them up without a fight. The scars on his body were proof of that.

Lightning lit up the heavens again.

The Kid teased the reins back in his large hands and then sat motionless astride the obedient mount. The deafening storm was now directly overhead and he could feel the driving rain on his chiselled features as it cut through the cold air.

It was hard for the horseman to believe that it was still only half-way through the morning. The rays of the sun had been completely blotted out. It had grown increasingly dark as the black thunderclouds swirled around in the heavens above him. The deadly forks of lightning grew more and more frequent as they cut down and struck at the ground all around him.

Yet neither Colorado or his bedraggled horse flinched.

Even as the storm reached its height, his well-trained grey mare remained perfectly still as its master stood, balanced in his stirrups and surveyed the surrounding land from his high vantage point.

Suddenly, his eyes focused on something metallic a quarter of a mile ahead of him as sheet lightning flashed and illuminated the sea of tall moving grass for a few seconds.

It was only a brief glimpse but enough to confirm Colorado’s suspicions.

Slowly he lowered himself on to his saddle and wrapped the reins around his left wrist. He knew that whoever it was out there, he had a Winchester.

The question was: was the rifleman waiting for him? Or was there other prey in this quagmire?

The Colorado Kid slapped the loose ends of his reins across the mare’s shoulders and urged it to continue walking. The horse responded immediately.

As the mare climbed higher ground he wondered how close the sniper was. Then, as another twisted fork of lethal lightning cut down from the brooding black clouds and hit the ground a mere hundred yards from his mount, Colorado heard something to his left.

It was an unmistakable sound that he recognized.