The Western Trail: The Trail Drive, Book 2 (Trail Drive Series) - Softcover

Compton, Ralph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312929013 ISBN 13: 9780312929015

Verlag: ST MARTINS PR, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

From bestselling author Ralph Compton-an extraordinary saga of the hard-driving Texans who locked horns with a ruthless railroad baron in a bloody battle for an untamed land.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad...

THE WESTERN TRAIL

Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives-to win the right to call the land their own.

"Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted."
-Tombstone Epitaph

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ralph Compton stood six-foot-eight without his boots. His first novel in the Trail Drive series, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was also the author of the Sundown Rider series and the Border Empire series. A native of St. Clair County, Alabama, Compton worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist before turning to writing westerns. He died in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1998.

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From bestselling author Ralph Compton—an extraordinary saga of the hard-driving Texans who locked horns with a ruthless railroad baron in a bloody battle for an untamed land.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, cash-starved Texans turned to the only resource they possessed in abundance: longhorn cows. Despite the hazards of trailing longhorns across some three hundred miles of Indian Territory, this was the only way to access the railroad…

THE WESTERN TRAIL

Benton McCaleb and his band of bold-spirited cowboys traveled long and hard to drive thousands of ornery cattle into Wyoming's Sweetwater Valley. They're in the midst of setting up a ranch just north of Cheyenne when a ruthless railroad baron and his hired killers try to force them off the land. Now, with the help of the Shoshoni Indian tribe and a man named Buffalo Bill Cody, McCaleb and his men must vow to stand and fight. Outgunned and outmanned, they will wage the most ferocious battle of their lives—to win the right to call the land their own.

"Very seldom in literature have the legends of the Old West been so vividly painted."—Tombstone Epitaph

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Western Trail

By Ralph Compton

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 1992 Ralph Compton
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-312-92901-5

CHAPTER 1

June 2, 1868. Wyoming Territory

The herd grazed peacefully along Lodge Pole Creek. They were still an hour away from sundown, but Salty went ahead with supper.

"I can't wait to see the shops and the town," said Rebecca Nance. "Just imagine how much better everything will be with the railroad here. Can't we stay here a few days?"

"I'd planned to," said McCaleb. "I'll need to visit the bank and the land office, and I expect the chuck wagon's mighty bare. Right, Salty?"

"Dang right," said the garrulous old cook. "After th' feed we just had, they ain't no bacon t' go with th' beans we ain't got, an' no coffee t' drink with th' dried apple pie, even if'n we had th' apples t' make 'em."

"In the morning, then," said McCaleb, "we'll see what Cheyenne has to offer."

They gathered around the chuck wagon, enjoying their coffee. They were a good outfit, McCaleb reflected. It was a time for remembering, and he let his thoughts touch on each of them and the trails they'd ridden together. First, there was Brazos Gifford and Will Elliot. They were closer to McCaleb than brothers. They would have given their lives for McCaleb, and he'd have done no less for them.

Brazos Gifford was a redheaded, quick-tempered, Spanish-speaking cowboy from south Texas. He wore a gray, flat-crowned hat, tilted low over his green eyes. The rest of his garb consisted of denim shirt, Levi's pants, and rough-out, high-heeled boots. Will Elliot had curly black hair, gray eyes, and a quick sense of humor. Will was educated. His father had been a lawyer before the war, and Will could hold his own in a frontier courtroom. Will was from Waco, and except for a wide-brim, pinch-crease black Stetson, he wore the same range clothes as Brazos. Each man carried a tied-down .44 Colt low on his right hip, and like Benton McCaleb, each carried a sixteen-shot Henry repeating rifle in his saddle boot. Brazos was twenty-nine, just a year younger than McCaleb, while Will was a year older.

If Benton McCaleb lived to be a hundred, he'd never forget the volatile situation he, Brazos, and Will had ridden into three years ago, when they'd gone to the Trinity River brakes to gather a herd of wild longhorns. While the Comanche Indians were the scourge of East Texas and would have been trouble enough, that hadn't been the worst of it. York Nance, a shameless old reprobate run out of Missouri for mule rustling, had a shack on the Trinity. He also had a son, a daughter, and a shaky alliance with the Comanches. Not only had he been selling them rotgut whiskey, he'd devised a nefarious scheme to supply them with new Spencer rifles! Worse, he had half promised his daughter to Blue Feather, a Comanche chief. McCaleb had an immediate falling out with York Nance, and the old man's dishonest ways had eventually driven Monte and Rebecca away.

Monte, the old man's twenty-one-year-old son, was a swaggering, hot-tempered kid who fancied himself a fast gun. He challenged McCaleb, went for his gun, and was wounded. Rebecca, Nance's twenty-eight-year-old daughter, had been a mother to Monte since his birth, and went after McCaleb. Thus their first meeting resulted in a kicking, scratching, clawing fight that ended with McCaleb dunking the furious Rebecca in the river. Despite instant hostility between the temperamental girl and McCaleb, a relationship developed. Rebecca Nance had green eyes, dark hair, callused hands, and not the foggiest notion of how to be a lady. Motherless since she was five, she could ride, rope, and shoot like a cowboy. And she swore like a bull whacker. But she was as charming as she was beautiful. McCaleb's outfit yielded to her plea; she and Monte had added their small herd to McCaleb's gather. From Texas to Colorado, McCaleb had endured Rebecca's stormy moods and the outfit's bullyragging, only to have the girl become infatuated with an unscrupulous Colorado cattleman, Jonathan Wickliffe. McCaleb had found himself facing hired guns on a Denver street, had been wounded, and had ended up in jail. Only when Rebecca had discovered Wickliffe's plan to kill McCaleb had he managed to reclaim her.

While young Monte Nance became faster and more deadly with a Colt, he was also improving his skills at the poker table. It was a volatile mix, which drew McCaleb's outfit into an alliance with gunfighter Clay Allison and led to a shootout with crooked gamblers in Santa Fe. There, they met the stove-up old cook, Salty Reynolds. Salty was trapped behind a lunch counter, longing to return to the range, but unable to ride. McCaleb, tired of pack mules, had bought a chuck wagon and had hired the crippled old rider. Salty had graying hair, watery blue eyes, and a sharp tongue that hid a soft heart.

The most enigmatic of McCaleb's outfit was a Comanche-hating Lipan Apache they knew only as Ganos. "Goose," half-starved and near death, was about to be burned at the stake by Comanches. Scouting the Trinity River brakes, McCaleb, Brazos, and Will had gunned down his captors, freeing the Indian. Goose had remained, riding, roping, and scouting. Goose adapted, becoming deadly quick with a Colt and a consummate gambler, but always an Indian. His constant companion was a foot-long bowie knife, razor-keen, for the scalping of his enemies.

Following the gunfight in Denver, McCaleb had spent the night in jail, pending a hearing. While there, he'd lent a sympathetic ear to three young Texas cowboys in an adjoining cell. The oldest was Pendleton Rhodes. Pen was a studious, quick-witted half-breed from Waco. He had jet-black hair, dark eyes, and a sense of humor. His companions were blue-eyed, tow-headed brothers from San Antonio, Jed and Stoney Vandiver. Stoney was youngest, just twenty-two. Jed was twenty-four, a year younger than Pen Rhodes. The trio had come up the trail from Texas, had sold their horses in Ellsworth, and had ridden the train to Denver. They had gone to a whorehouse, had been given doctored drinks, and robbed. They retaliated by wrecking the place. Benton McCaleb had been impressed with them and had paid for their release. In the summer of 1868, when McCaleb rode out of Denver, Jed, Stoney, and Pen rode with him.

Although Cheyenne was only a year old, it had an air of permanence that most railroad towns lacked. Chief engineer Grenville Dodge had chosen it as a division point for the Union Pacific, and already there was a bank, a land office, and a weekly newspaper. There were six saloons, a barbershop and bathhouse, a billiard parlor, several rooming houses, a whorehouse, a combined livery and wagon yard, and a variety of shops and stores.

"I have business at the bank and the land office," said McCaleb. "Near as we are to town, four of you can ride along. When we get back, the rest of you can go. Pen, Jed, Stoney, and Salty, I can advance you some money to buy whatever you need. You won't get a better chance than this."

"I'm about half scairt to go to town," said Stoney, "after what we got into back in Denver."

"Stay out of the whorehouses," said McCaleb. "You're likely to come out of there with more than an aching head and empty pockets."

"We're new to the outfit," said Pen. "We'll stay with the herd, and take our turn when the rest of you get back."

"I just need a couple o' plugs fer chewin'," said Salty, "an' I'll git that when I go t' stock up th' chuck wagon."

"Ciudad?" inquired McCaleb, turning to Goose.

Goose shook his head, shuffling an imaginary deck of cards.

"Don't let us have any money until...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ST MARTINS PR
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312929013
• ISBN 13: 9780312929015
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 384
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar