Ralph Compton Prairie Fire, Kansas (The Sundown Riders Series) - Softcover

Shirley, John; Compton, Ralph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593102320 ISBN 13: 9780593102329

Verlag: Berkley, 2020

Inhaltsangabe

In this roller-coaster new installment in bestselling author Ralph Compton's Sundown Riders series, a young cowhand faces a trial by fire on his way to a new home and an old love.

Fresh from a successful trail drive, cattle hand Seth Coe is feeling flush, especially after a lucky streak at the poker table. But his good fortune earns him a dangerous enemy, notorious tinhorn gambler Hannibal Fisher, who is none too happy about being cleaned out.
 
The innocent Coe starts the long ride back to Texas with big plans to buy his own ranch. All he needs now, he figures, is a wife. To his amazement, in tiny Prairie Fire, Kansas he meets the perfect woman, his childhood love Josette Dubois. But she is under the thumb of her brutal father, who will stop at nothing to prevent her happiness, including killing Coe—that is, if Fisher doesn’t get there first. . .

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ralph Compton stood six foot eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was the USA Today bestselling author of the Trail of the Gunfighter series, the Border Empire series, the Sundown Riders series, and the Trail Drive series, among others.
John Shirley was born in Houston and now lives in Vancouver, Washington. He is the author of numerous novels and books of short stories, and won the Bram Stoker Award for his collection Black Butterflies. His novels include the Specialist books (under the name John Cutter), The Brigade, Bleak History, the A Song Called Youth trilogy, and a novel of Wyatt Earp as a young lawman, Wyatt in Wichita. He has also written television, movies, and songs.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE

 

Abilene, Kansas, 1871

 

It was a hot, dusty day, but Seth Coe was in a good mood. The long trail drive was over, and he had been paid. Seth, Franklin, and Jake were standing by the corral gate, at the big holding on the north side of Abilene, Kansas, in the bright summer sunshine.

 

"How's it come I got only a hundred dollars for all my work on this drive, Seth, and you got a hundred eighty?" Jake asked, counting his money.

 

"I'll tell you why," said Seth, smiling as he turned away from the cattle pen that sunny afternoon. "Besides being a drover, I was remuda wrangler, seeing as how Henry Graham died two weeks into the drive, and that means I got me an extra forty dollars-and I saved your bacon by pulling you out of that flash flood, so Cullin give me another forty as a bonus."

 

"A bonus for saving me?" Jake demanded, scowling. "Why, saving a man's life should be done out of pure decency."

 

Franklin snorted. "Jake, Seth almost died himself pulling your chestnuts from that gully washer!"

 

The cattle jostled and mooed and snorted on the other side of the raw-timber fence, stirring up a cloud of dust as the three cowboys walked away toward downtown, pleased to be leaving the beasts they'd driven north for more than two months.

 

Franklin Trotter, Seth's longtime pal, was a year older than Seth. He was six feet three and wide shouldered and heavy bellied. He had long brown hair, thick swooping mustaches, and a broad, affable face, his small blue eyes always glinting with mischief. Like the others he was still wearing his chaps, his red calico shirt, a bandanna tied around his neck, rough tan trousers, and a gun on his hip. "Here's what should concern you, Jake," said Franklin. "Seth was paid a forty-dollar bonus for risking his neck saving yours. That means Cullin figures your life's only worth forty dollars!"

 

"Also means my life, too, is only worth forty dollars," said Seth. "Jumping in that flood was a fool thing to do." He grinned. "I think I should've gotten eighty."

 

"Why, if you profited by me," said Jake, a middling man with a weak chin half hidden by a slapdash beard, "I should have half that money, shouldn't I?"

 

"You should thank your stars anyone bothered to go in after you, Jake Hersted," said Franklin. "Now, who's for going to the Prancing Lady with me for a drink?"

 

"Suits me," said Jake.

 

"I'll have a beer and something to eat if it's truly edible," said Seth. "Then I'm for a bath."

 

They picked up their pace as they headed toward the saloon, their boots clomping the wooden sidewalk, and fingering his money poke, Franklin said, "I think I'll play me some Spanish monte."

 

"Odds are bad with Spanish monte, my pa told me," said Seth. "A little better in draw poker if you're careful."

 

"Then why don't you play poker?" Franklin asked. "Been at the railhead with you three times. You never played a hand."

 

"Because I don't see why I should risk my money, whatever the odds," replied Seth. He was at least a head shorter than his friend Franklin and stocky; he had scrappily cut black hair-he cut it himself to save money-and big brown eyes he'd inherited from his half-Mexican mother; his stub nose he'd gotten from his Irish father. There was said to be some Lipan Apache in there, too. "I've gone to a power of trouble to save up money. Now this is my fifth trail drive, and on my oath, my last! I've saved three hundred and forty dollars on the last four drives, and I aim to save a hundred and sixty from this one. That's five hundred dollars!"

 

"You are the savingest cowpoke I ever met," said Jake. "Never buying new clothes, always patching up the old ones."

 

"That's why they call him Patches," said Franklin.

 

Seth frowned at that. He despised the nickname. "They're going to call you Busted Nose if you don't quit saying that, Franklin."

 

Franklin grinned. "Why, you're so short, you couldn't reach my nose!"

 

Jake laughed at that. They came to the Prancing Lady and paused at the door, seeing Marshal Hickok, resplendent in a cream-colored suit, French cuffs, and a broad-brimmed yellow hat, standing on the wooden sidewalk across the dusty street, glaring at them. He had shoulder-length honey blond hair and drooping blond mustaches. Hickok glared at everyone he didn't know. It was a clear enough message. Whatever it is you're a-thinkin' on pullin' in my town, don't.

 

"I don't care for the idea of staying in this dust bowl of a town long, Franklin," murmured Seth. "I saw Hickok there shoot a man in Hays City for getting on his nerves-seems like he'll shoot you if you look at him cross-eyed."

 

"He had a good reason for that gunning in Hays," said Franklin. "Why, he never shot a man who didn't need shooting."

 

"Still and all-he makes me nervous, and I've done nothing wrong. Well, come on, I'll have a glass of beer with you fellas and watch you lose your money. Then I'm for a bath at the Drover's Inn, might even spring for a haircut."

 

The trio of cowboys went into the Prancing Lady Saloon-which was already half full, though it was not yet three in the afternoon-and made straight for the bar. Seth ordered a beer, and the other two ordered whiskey. A gangly saloon girl, who looked more like a saloon matron to Seth's eye, leaned back against the bar, eyeing the three cowboys. She had a horsey face much coated with white makeup and daubed with rouge, and sausage-curled peroxide-bleached hair. Her smile seemed genuine, though, if a little sad. "What can we get for you gents today?" she asked.

 

"What's your name, miss?" Seth asked.

 

"Caroline."

 

"Caroline, my name's Seth. Say, does this saloon have luncheon?"

 

"You could call it that, Seth," she said.

 

"Between you, me, and the gatepost-is it worth eating?"

 

"Well-anyhow, it won't kill you."

 

"That's good enough for me. Do you suppose I could hope for a sandwich with any meat but beef and some cheese?"

 

"I'll see to it, Seth. How about you boys?"

 

"I'll have two such sandwiches," declared Franklin, whose appetite was legendary, "and another whiskey."

 

"Another whiskey for me, too," said Jake, eyeing the faro table.

 

Seth and Franklin ate passable sandwiches, and Seth turned to contemplate the saloon. There were five tables, four of them ringed by cowboys Seth knew well, including Rudy Rodriguez, Gus Rossner, and 'Baccy Smith from the Cullin Ranch drive, who were playing poker with a tall, gaunt man in a lavender-colored bowler hat. A potbellied stove stood in a back corner, unused now, and in the other was a Mulatto dealer presiding over a semicircular green felt table, chattering at the three drovers who stood gaping at the cards. In between, against a wall, was a tobacco-stained upright piano, highly unlikely to be in tune.

 

Franklin nudged Seth with his elbow and whispered, "Tell you what, Seth-there's two seats at that poker table yonder. I'll wager tomorrow's breakfast, all you can eat, that the card wisdom your pa taught you won't be worth a hill of beans at that table, and you'll fold your tent before I do."

 

"You'll wager what?"

 

"Whichever one of us quits first buys breakfast tomorrow."

 

Seth frowned. He didn't like to risk his money; he was saving in the cause of a long-term plan, which was something else his pa had taught him. But he didn't like to spurn...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2020
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593102320
• ISBN 13: 9780593102329
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland