The McCallum Boys E-Book

C J Sommers

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

Most folks either loved or hated the McCallum boys. Everyone feared them. Their crusty father had brought them up to Wyoming from Texas and died, leaving them only half-grown and rough-tempered. To their neighbours on the Porter ranch, Rose Ann Porter and her niece Becky, the McCallum boys were helpful, attentive and polite. All four of the boys were half in love with Becky, and the Duchess was to each of them the mother they had never had. The law had different ideas about the McCallums, whose wildness had progressed from recklessness to a community danger. Rose Ann Porter, unwilling to call on the boys again, had hired a man from Medicine Bow to drive her small horse herd to market. Unfortunately the man, Manassas Guileford, had more on his mind for the Duchess and Becky than a few chores. In the end Guileford would regret his plot. He had not yet met the McCallum boys.

Leseprobe

The McCallum Boys

Most folks either loved or hated the McCallum boys. Everyone feared them. Their crusty father had brought them up to Wyoming from Texas and died, leaving them only half-grown and rough-tempered. To their neighbours on the Porter ranch, Rose Ann Porter and her niece Becky, the McCallum boys were helpful, attentive and polite. All four of the boys were half in love with Becky, and the Duchess was to each of them the mother they had never had. The law had different ideas about the McCallums, whose wildness had progressed from recklessness to a community danger.

Rose Ann Porter, unwilling to call on the boys again, had hired a man from Medicine Bow to drive her small horse herd to market. Unfortunately the man, Manassas Guileford, had more on his mind for the Duchess and Becky than a few chores. In the end Guileford would regret his plot. He had not yet met the McCallum boys.

By the same author

Ghost Ranch

Comes a Horseman

The Outlaw’s Daughter

The Lonesome Death of Joe Savage

Climax

White Wind

Longshot

Pirates of the Desert

The McCallum Boys

C.J. Sommers

© C.J. Sommers 2016

First published in Great Britain 2016

ISBN 978-0-7198-2140-0

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 imprintof The Crowood Press

The right of C.J. Sommers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

ONE

It was a clear, bright, and cool morning in the Wyoming plains. The trees in the forested country stood in deep, proud ranks. Out on the open terrain the grass stood mostly long but yellowed to an autumn color. Mounds of gray boulders, assembled in a random arrangement by nature, dotted the land, rising to head height on a mounted man as the meadow proceeded west towards the far off Rocky Mountains, and the hummocks and rock stacks became more numerous.

Here and there were clusters of oak trees having a tough time of it this time of year. Farther on yet lay a deep-cut coulee where willow trees and an occasional cottonwood survived along its banks.

The coulee was a thirty-foot scar across the dry grassland. Sheer sides and sandy bottom, it had to be crossed to reach the stronghold stone house of the notorious McCallum boys.

The McCallum boys had their own special way in and back out of the coulee. The route could not be discerned easily. It had even once escaped detection by an army scout. The coulee was a natural fortification as daunting as any moat, and of course the house itself, built of gray Wyoming granite, was nearly impregnable. Of the four boys you could bet that at least one of them would be on guard. If they were out on one of their escapades, you would find one stationed with his rifle at the house’s narrow windows or behind the walls of the stone-walled corral.