A Relentless Mission of Revenge (Preview)

Chapter One

July 10, 1881
Sunday

Flora Hadley, known to most as Flo, stood on a ridge overlooking the valley. It was late afternoon, and the clouds on the horizon were swelling to giant billows like pastry cream. The heat was peaking at last, and she would be glad when the sun slipped down behind her and gave them some relief.

She pulled up her bandana and mopped the sweat from her face, pushing her mop of flaming red hair back and tying a sweatband around it. Flo, her two brothers, Uncle John, and his son, Bradley, had been rounding up cattle and looking for strays since early morning, wanting to get them to the middle pastures before storm season began. It would still be a few days, maybe a week before the thunderstorms set in, but there had been a lot of dry lightning this year, and they had thought it best to get the stock down and settled ahead of time.

It wouldn’t have taken so long if there had been more of them, but it was Sunday, and they had let the hands go into town as was their usual custom.

She spied a couple of yearlings gallivanting away from the herd, looking like they were intent on heading down the wrong side of the ridge. She pulled Farley’s reins in the direction of the yearlings and spurred him. Something besides the spurring startled the horse, and he gave a bit of a leap, coming down on top of a slim branch, breaking it. The branch caught the horse’s left front shoe just right, pulling it away from the hoof and sticking in the opened crack between the clog and the shoe. The horse came down on the foot and shrilled in pain. Flo reined up and jumped down. In a second, she had calmed the horse, bringing its hoof up between her knees.

“Shit,” she swore out loud. She’d have to pull the shoe and get the horse back to the ranch, leaving the rest of the roundup to the men. Flo steadied the horse as she dropped the foot, soothing it by stroking its neck and whispering that it would be all right.

She shook her head looking at it again. The branch had managed to separate the shoe from the foot on one side but left two nails embedded. She went back to her saddlebag and pulled out a leather roll containing her tools.

Flo grabbed the pincer first, pulling the nails, then the clincher to raise up the rest of the shoe. She pulled the nails on the side that still held, and the shoe slipped off easily. She gave a low whistle when she looked at the foot now, some of the hoof had crumbled, too. This was going to mean slow-going back to the ranch; she wouldn’t be able to ride, and she’d have to watch to see whether Farley was in pain.

Flo was surprised at the crumbled hoof. She had put Jeff, the newest of the ranch hands in charge of the horse’s feet, and if he was doing his job, the crumbling shouldn’t have happened. But she knew she should have examined them before she rode, too, so it was as much her fault as his. Never rely on someone else to do your job. She should have learned that long before now, but with Uncle John and her brothers, she never had to worry. She was going to have to keep a more watchful eye on the new guys.

She tied Farley to a nearby tree and went in search of someone to let them know what she was doing. Bradley was the first one she spied. “Hey!” she said, “I gotta get Farley back to the ranch. He’s thrown a shoe. It’ll be too late to come back when I get down there, so you guys just finish up and c’mon back for dinner.” She would have to talk to Jeff about the hoof when he got back from town and would examine the other horses herself after dinner.

Bradley waved his acknowledgment, and she headed down the ridge.

Flo and Farley had made it down the ridge to the flat pasture below. She wasn’t sure how fast or slow to go, so she finally tucked Farley’s reins up and gave him a light smack on the butt, letting him go in front of her. She figured he’d go at the pace he could stand, and she’d just follow.

He stopped to graze, and she smacked him lightly again. “Go on,” she said, “go on home. You’ll have plenty of feed when you get there.”

The sun had finally gone down over the ridge by the time they got back to the barn, and the temperature dropped substantially, but it was still dusk. Just as she got Farley into a stall and brought him feed, she heard rifle shots.

“What th–?” She thought at first that one of the men was shooting at an animal or something, but the shot or two turned into a volley. What was happening?

She grabbed a young mare out of a stall, threw on a bridle, climbed onto her back, and tore out of the barn. She grabbed her Winchester from a hook as she rode out, slinging it over her shoulder, glad she was still wearing her Smith and Wesson’s.

Flo’s heart pounded. What could be happening? The only thing she could imagine was some kind of encroachment by outsiders, whether Indian or White.

The little mare was fast, and she was across the wide pasture and climbing up into the hills in no time. The wind had been in Flo’s ears as they galloped, and she hadn’t heard anything for a few minutes. But as soon as she slowed, she heard another shot, then two, then three, and she turned in the direction that they came from.

Before she could move forward, cattle were stampeding down the ridge toward her, and she had to move in the opposite direction to get out of their way. Are the guys stampeding the herd to get them down off the mountain in a hurry? Not a good idea, she thought.

She caught sight of men but not the men she expected. These men were on the run. She watched as one of them slipped down the ridge. She heard a shot ring out, and he fell from his horse and under stampeding hooves. Horrified, she scanned the ridge. She could see Uncle John pull his rifle up and shoot toward the departing riders.

Another man suddenly loomed in front of her with his six-shooter pointed at her. His longish hair fell over his ears and blended with his sideburns and beard, making his face look like a mask perched on top of the hair. But the “mask” had been slashed, and he had a scar from his eyebrow, down the right side of his face, disappearing into the beard. He edged his horse in closer. It was too late to draw her Colts on him, but she didn’t hesitate.  His mouth opened as if to say something, but, heart racing, she drew the Winchester and butted him hard in the face, knocking his pistol from his hand. He fell dizzily from the horse. She smacked his horse to shoo him, and proceeded up toward the ridge. The cattle flowed around her, still stampeding. They would make quick work of the downed man.

When she got up onto the ridge, she saw Uncle John and Bradley giving chase and shooting. Her brothers were nowhere to be seen. There must have been six or seven men in the departing party. They looked back as if to shoot again, but they just kept goading their horses to run faster as if the Devil himself were chasing them.

Flo and the mare came around a boulder, and she cried out. It was like a killing field, with all the wounded where they fell. She moved forward, looking at their faces. Three of them were unknown to her, but the next one she saw was very familiar.

“Flo,” her brother said, “Flo.” His voice was weak and husky. She jumped off the mare and ran to him. He had a bullet wound in his side and another in his arm.

“Frank!” she said. He turned his head slightly, and she followed his eyes. It was Freddie, her little brother. She ran to his side and dropped. She knew the second she looked at him that he was already dead, but she felt for his pulse, both at his wrist and in his neck. Nothing. “Freddie,” she agonized. Tears filled her eyes. “Hail Mary, full of grace … oh …” she said in frustration because she couldn’t remember all of it. “Be with Freddie now in this hour of his death.”

She had no idea where the rest of the men were, but she had to get Frank back to the ranch. She looked around, but there were no horses in sight. Dammit! When she looked at her horse, she realized she had no saddle, no saddlebag, nothing with which to tie up a wound. She grabbed both his shirt sleeves at the same time and ripped, ripping them away from the rest of the shirt. She pulled down his arms and off his wrists. He winced as she did so.

“I’ve got to get your side wound bound up somehow,” she said.

She tied the sleeves together, slipped them behind his back. When she brought them around to his side, she lifted his shirt. Blood was pouring, and she knew it wasn’t good.

“Hang on, Frank,” she said. “You and I are going to do this together.”

She situated the sleeves so the cuffs would cover his wound, then she pulled the ends above them together and tied them.

She stood up and looked around again for a horse—his horse, any horse, but she couldn’t see one anywhere.

Flo knew it was going to be a painful situation, but she didn’t know what else to do. Where are the rest of the men? She looked back at Freddie. She ran back, leaning over, and kissing his forehead. Flo knew the others would find him and bring him back to the house, and she hoped they would figure out that she must have Frank.

She brought the mare close. Flo was a strong woman, but even at that, it took a lot to pull Frank up from a completely prone position to a standing position with his injured arm. She wrapped his good arm around her shoulders, and supported him until he was standing beside her horse, draping his arm over the mare.

How the hell am I going to get him up on that horse? But before she could even voice it, young Bradley was there. She mounted up, and he helped her to get Frank situated in front of her, slumped over. She knew it couldn’t possibly be any relief to him, but at least they could ride that way.

She hitched her thumb behind her. “Freddie,” she said and then choked.

Bradley nodded and moved in the direction she pointed.

~~~

Her father came running out to the porch, then stood, supporting himself on the rail as Flo rode into the yard with Frank slumped over the horse’s neck. Their Scottish cook, Maggie came running to her side.

“Oh, no, dinna’ tell me it’s Frank!” she said.

Bradley was right behind her, and he helped Flo and Maggie get Frank into the house and into his bed.

As they laid him out, Flo gave Maggie the list of things she would need to remove the bullets. They heard an anguished cry go up from her father.

Bradley ran out, returning to the house supporting her father’s weakened frame, and sitting him gently in his chair in the great room.

Her father wailed loudly. “My son! My little Freddie.”

Maggie looked questioningly at Flo, and Flo looked down, shaking her head.

“Go ta ’im,” Maggie said. “I’ll make Frank as comfortable as I can and get the necessaries for the healin’.”

Flo went to her father’s side and quickly knelt at his knee. She looked up at his face. No words were spoken, but they gripped each other tight.

After a little while, she said to him, “Daddy, Frank’s hurt. I must go tend to him now and mend his wounds.

He clung to her hands for a few more seconds before letting her go. “Go on,” he said. “I’ll be all right. Your mother’s here with me.”

Flora stood stock still, staring at him for a second. Her mother had been dead nigh on to eighteen years now. Her father must be delusional in his grief.

Flo stepped back into Frank’s room. Maggie looked at her, her face pale and worried. Maggie pulled back the sheet, and Flo saw that Frank was bleeding out with little hope of staunching the blood.

“Well, we can’t operate, that’s for sure,” Flo said. “The bullet will have to wait until we can get the bleed under control.”  Flo created a large pad of gauze and slid it under the makeshift sleeve bandage. “Maggie,” she said, “I need you to apply pressure here. It’s going to hurt, but he’ll die if we don’t.”

Maggie stood up, her face going gray. Flo looked up at her, and Maggie nodded toward Frank. Flo looked at him. “Frank! You son-of-a-bitch. Don’t you dare! I’m not going to lose you, too, Frank.

“Frank!” she continued to holler. She felt for his pulse. It was weak. Too weak. “Frank, please,” she begged. “Who’s gonna ride with me? Who’s gonna help me run this ranch? Frank! Freddie’s gone. You know that. I can’t lose you, too.”

Finally, his eyes fluttered for a second. He opened his eyes and sought her face. “Flo?” he said. “Flo. Get … them … sons-a-bitches what killt us,” he said, then his head dropped onto his chest, and he was gone. Maggie crossed herself.

It was Flo’s turn to wail this time. She had loved Freddie to death, but Frank was her idol, the one who had taught her everything she knew and had always made her feel safe.

“No-o-o-o,” she said, in a low growl. This was something beyond grief. In her rage, she snatched up the stool beside the bed and hurled it at the far wall, shattering it. She walked over and looked at herself in the vanity mirror and then smashed her fist into it. She pulled back, cut and bleeding.

“Well!” she looked at Maggie. “You know what to do. Stop the clocks. Cover the mirrors. You needn’t bother with this mirror. We got two dead brothers, and a big wake to prepare for.”

Maggie took Flo’s hands in hers, and now they said a proper Hail Mary over Frank.

Maggie got her to stand still long enough for her to bandage her hands while she turned the air blue with curses and maledictions. Her rage knew no bounds for the better part of an hour. She went outside, taking it out on the chopping block with the axe, despite her cuts. Somebody was going to have to bring in more firewood because all they had now was splinters.

Then as suddenly as it rose, her rage was spent. She had screamed and cried till she had neither voice nor tears. She went back inside, shocked to find Frank’s bed cleaned up; Frank and Freddie laid out side by side on the bed, and Maggie putting dinner on the table.

Flo felt guilty for having poured out so much rage. She certainly wasn’t the only one hurting in this house.

Maggie had been in this family since before any of the siblings were born. She had come to work for her mother shortly after her mother and father were married and had never left them. Her friendship had eased her mother’s loneliness of being so often alone in a big ranch house, and her own, growing up in a house full of men.

“No more cryin’, Lass,” Maggie said, “or you’ll draw the spirits to carry your brothers’ souls away. There’ll be plenty o’ keenin’ when the wake begins.”

The one she called Uncle John was not really her uncle, but, like Maggie, he’d been with the family so long that it felt like he should be her mother’s brother. He was tall and Irish, like her. He sat in the great room by the fire, close to her father. She caught John’s eye and gestured for him to come outside with her. He nodded and stood, putting his hand on her father’s shoulder, and followed her out the door.

She whirled. “What the hell happened out there, John?”

He took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly, looking out over her shoulder, not ready to meet her eyes. Finally, he looked back at her.

“There must’ve been a dozen of ’em,” he said. “They had to be the most brazen sons-a-bitches whatever was to come at us in broad daylight, but our numbers were only half as many as their own.”

“What was their intent?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Rustlin’, I guess,” he said. “But I only know that because I recognized their leader from a Wanted poster in town—one ‘Silent Sid Duryea,’ known for cattle thievin’ and wanted for murder, too.

“The strange thing was that they didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised to see us, but I guess they wasn’t countin’ on us being as mean as we was. We got four of their men, and they left with nary a beeve.”

“Well, good. They didn’t steal any of our cattle—they just killed my two brothers,” she said with a sneer. “And five. I downed one of ’em myself.”

He looked at her, furrowing his brow. “We didn’t find no fifth feller. Where were you when you shot him?”

“Straight down from the ridge, under that big, spreading oak. I don’t know how he got so close to me; the stampeding cattle kept me from getting to you right away. But I didn’t shoot him, I just split his head and knocked him from his horse. I figured the stampede would take care of the rest.”

John shook his head. “Twarn’t nothin’ but the four.”

Flo tried to figure that one out, but it was too much for her brain at that moment.

~~~

Flo had been too young when her mother died, but she had helped prepare the dead before when a couple of women in town lost their children to illness.

Far different, she realized, when it’s your own flesh and blood. By now she was numb, so she just followed Maggie’s gestures to complete the washing of the bodies. Several times she wanted to give forth tears, but she refrained, not that she bought into Maggie’s superstitions, but because being stoic helped her feel more in control.

Boards had been set up in the great room, across two sets of sawhorses. The men labored together to bring the bodies and lay them out after they had been washed and dressed.

Maggie covered each of them with a long, white damask tablecloth, but she had turned them into funeral garments by weaving black ribbons around the edges.

Bradley and Jeff returned from town with two matching oak coffins with “Hadley” carved into the sides. Flo turned her head away from them—she couldn’t look at them just yet.

“Hey,” Bradley said. “When we told folks in town what happened, they was all real sorry about your brothers. Several of ’em said they’d be at the wake.”

Flo just nodded. Maggie was already cooking for the wake, and Flo knew if she threw herself into the preparations, it would give her less time to think.

~~~

Monday

The first day, a few of the closest ranchers stopped by to pay their respects. She overheard a conversation between Uncle John and one of the ranchers. Apparently, the rustlers had hit a couple of the ranches at night just before they hit the Hadley ranch, but everyone was surprised to hear that the attempt on the Hadleys had been in daylight.

They must have known their luck was about to run out and decided to try to claim a few more beeves before they headed out. It still didn’t make sense to Flo, though. She inwardly shrugged. Maybe one or both of her brothers had caught them off guard. But that contradicted Uncle John’s observation that they didn’t seem surprised. She shook it off and tried to civilly converse with her neighbors.

In truth, she was restless. She knew that a three-day wake was required before burial. They did it out of deference to Uncle John and her mother. But it was stupid in this instance. The whole point of the three days was to be sure the dead weren’t going to resurrect from some unrecognized unconscious state, but she knew for sure these two weren’t coming back. She clenched her fists in anger until her short fingernails broke the skin of her palms.

Then she stormed to her room for a while just to get away from the noise and the people. She knew she had to graciously accept the condolences proffered by the visitors. It was just the way things were done. But every second, the goddamned killers were getting farther and farther away.

Unless they weren’t. There was always the possibility that they had a hideout somewhere nearby. It would have been nice to be able to call on a sheriff and a posse, but the newly formed Cochise County was huge, and there was only one sheriff, way over in Tombstone. Besides, from what she’d heard, you couldn’t always tell whose side Johnny Behan was on, the law’s or the criminal’s.

She sought out Bradley and asked his advice.

“I think we should leave Behan out of it, Flo. Besides, I hear he’s got his hands full with them cowboys over in Tombstone; he probably wouldn’t be terribly sympathetic to us. Nope. We gotta be our own posse.

That removed one stone from her heart, and gave her a little relief, knowing that Bradley agreed with her. But she wanted to be on their trail herself. Now.

Chapter Two

On Tuesday, Hank Archer rode into a little town. Lettering over the jail designated the place as East Turkey Creek. He didn’t know if it had ever been more than what was before him now, but all he saw was a single saloon, a livery stable, the jail, and a mission church. The mountains before him told him he had likely crossed into Arizona territory.

As a Texas Ranger, he had been in hot pursuit of Silent Sid Duryea, infamous cattle rustler turned murderer. They had rustled cattle all over Texas, driving them all to Fort Worth, and selling them for top dollar. Some people, not cattle ranchers obviously, had just grinned to hear that they managed to get away with every theft and profit from it besides. But those grins took a more sober turn when Sid and his bunch went off the deep end, shooting up a village outside El Paso, leaving sixteen dead, including women and children.

It had taken him more than a week to cross the southern route from El Paso, and he wasn’t quite sure why he kept pressing west. Hell, he wasn’t even sure they had come west at all. The smart thing for them would have been to go on into Mexico and just hide out, but he knew they wouldn’t easily be able to return, undetected, to Fort Worth. They would have to find new territory, and that was likely Arizona. Grasslands were abundant, and now, with the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, he had heard that Maley, Arizona was going to be the next big cattle market. Besides, when had Silent Sid ever been smart? Clever, yes, but not really smart.

He looked at the massive wall of mountains in front of him and didn’t know which way to head now. He knew his intuition wasn’t wrong, no matter how inconvenient.

He stopped at a saloon and threw his horse’s reins loosely around the hitching post.

He walked through the doors, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness inside, took off his hat, and walked up to the bar.

“Whiskey, Mister? Uh, er …” the barkeep said, nervously, spotting Hank’s badge.

“Ranger.”

The barkeep raised his eyebrows. “You a real Texas Ranger.”

Hank wished he hadn’t said it. He didn’t like revealing himself. He didn’t answer the question, so the barkeep changed the subject.

“You look parched. Where’d ya come from?”

“Been ridin’ across New Mexico territory.”

“New Mexico? Your throat must be as dry as dust.”

“It is,” Hank replied, “but I’ll just have a tall glass of beer.”

“Tall glass o’ beer comin’ right up,” the bartender said. “How far’d you come?”

“From El Paso.”

The man’s eyes opened wide. “El Paso?”

“Yeah. The weather was insufferable, but there was a few decent waterin’ holes along the way.”

“Well, that’s good,” the barkeeper said as he sat the beer down in front of Hank.

“How far is it to Maley?” Hank asked.

“Maley?” the bartender showed surprise again.

Hank nodded just before he began to quaff his beer.

“You’re talking another hundred miles or so from here. Ya gotta get around the Chiri-cawi Mountains here, and then through the Dos Cabezas farther north before ya get t’Maley.”

A hundred miles wasn’t what Hank wanted to hear, but he felt like he was getting closer.

“What you goin’ to Maley for?”

Hank mused over whether or not to reveal himself, but in the end, he decided this might be the place to get some information.

“I’m lookin’ for some rustlers. I figured the best place to catch ’em might be the cattle market up in Maley.”

“You might be right about that,” the bartender said. “Our ranchers have been havin’ a terrible time with ’em lately. Old man Hadley lost both his sons in a gunfight with ’em.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Just a couple’a days ago. They’re still holdin’ the wake. Everybody’s pretty sure it was Silent Sid.”

“What gives them cause to think that?”

“His ugly mug’s been on a poster on Main Street for a few weeks now. Everybody’s seen it. John, the old hired hand up at the Hadleys, was pretty sure it was Sid’s face he saw among their attackers.”

“Were the boys on night watch?” Hank wanted to know.

“No. Believe it or not, them sumbitches came at ’em just before sundown. The boys and some others had been up there doin’ a roundup when these lowlifes came at ’em.”

Hank didn’t say anything more. He just kept drinking his beer and thinking. That sure sounded like something that Sid Duryea would try. And just two days ago!

If they were driving cattle, there was no way they could have made it to Maley yet.

“How far are we from the border?” Hank wanted to know.

“Mmmm … I’d guess 60 miles to Naco.”

“No place closer?”

“I don’t know, Mister, uh, Sheriff. I don’t go down there, myself. And not bein’ a crook, I don’t know where a crook would cross the border, with or without a bunch o’ steers.”

“I see,” he said. “You cookin’ up anything back there?”

“We are,” the barkeep said. “We got a bunch o’ turkeys on a spit back there. My boss is cookin’em up for after the funeral.”

“Turkeys?”

“Yeah. Chiri-cawi means Turkey Mountains. Biggest, juiciest turkeys you ever saw. Pretty easy to track ’em. They leave deep tracks ’cause they’re so heavy. Must be five inches from one end to the other. We eat some good roast turkey around here.”

“Well, turkeys for the funeral dinner–that’s a mighty nice gesture, right there. You must be a friendly bunch hereabouts.”

The bartender just grinned. “I’m sure I can carve you off a piece, if you’d like, and I have some bread ‘n’ beans to go with it.”

“That sounds great,” Hank said.

Hank put his hat back on, and then tilted it back on his forehead, putting his feet up on a nearby stool. He sat thinking about Sid and about two dead sons lying in a ranch house somewhere out there. He couldn’t help wondering which end of that he’d been on, if there hadn’t been a positive influence come into his life at just the right time many years ago.

Hank had gone into a Catholic orphanage as a baby. He had no idea what had happened to his parents. By the time he was old enough to ask, there had been a fire where the records were kept at the Diocese, so that information was completely lost. At seven, he was adopted out to an Irish Catholic family. They put him through his first communion, and put him in Catechism classes. They also put him in Catholic school and saw to it that he had love and was always comfortable.

He couldn’t forget the day, though, when one of the nuns came to his school classroom when he was ten, to tell him that his adopted parents had both been killed in a carriage accident. Later, he found out that the carriage driver had taken them across an old, wooden bridge in driving rain, and that the bridge disintegrated beneath them, casting the carriage and its driver and passengers into the swollen creek below it.

So, Hank had been orphaned twice before he was eleven. The Catholic School put him out because there was no one to pay his tuition, and they said he was too old for the orphanage. He closed his eyes, knowing just how easy it would have been to turn to a life of crime, and how tempting. He was sleeping at night in shelters for the indigent, and eating a single meal a day of bread and broth in a nearby feeding station for the poor.

He had been eying the older boys who he knew were managing to keep themselves in somewhat better circumstances by thieving, and he was trying to screw up the courage to present himself to them. He had heard that their initiation of sorts was pretty scary, and he wondered if he had what it took to get through it in order to at least elevate himself to a few comforts.

He had tossed and turned all night. When he woke and found lice in his hair, his blankets, and in the straw he slept on, he decided he had to go through with it. He had never been subjected to such degradations before.

He would seek out Tom, the eldest and most knowledgeable of the gang. He got up that morning, determined to burn his bedding, and to have either the money for, or the courage to thieve better blankets by nightfall.

He spied the boys at the train station. They knew the scheduled arrivals of the trains and used that opportunity to pick the pockets of the passengers as they debarked. He had watched them do it before; they would spread out and were in and out of the area before anyone even realized something was happening. Then they would assemble in a nearby alley to assess the takings.

Just as young Hank stepped up onto the boardwalk, a well-dressed man stopped in front of him. As Hank prepared to attempt his first pocket picking, the man turned around and caught him.

“Oh, hello,” the man said. “Very good. I was just looking for a courier, and here you are. Could you be so kind as to post this letter for me?”

Before Hank could open his mouth to say anything, the man handed him a letter, and a dollar coin. Hank’s eyes flew wide.

“I’m afraid that’s all I have on me at the moment, but be a good boy, and make haste with the posting, then bring the change back here to me. Can you read and count change?”

“Of course,” Hank said, slightly irritated.

Hank didn’t know what to do. A dollar coin! He wasn’t sure he’d even seen one before. He headed over to the post at a run, then slowed. He looked back but saw that he was no longer in the man’s sight.

What should he do? He needed that coin. He looked at the envelope. It was very official-looking. Should he just toss the envelope and run with the coin? Should he post the letter, then run with the change?

He looked at the letter again, and saw that the return address was from one John Davidson, Esquire and addressed to the Pinkerton Agency in Chicago. Hank nearly dropped the letter. He decided, and quickly, that his best course of action was to do exactly what the man requested of him, posthaste. Otherwise, he just might find the Pinkertons coming after him! He could dream about that dollar coin later.

So, he posted the letter and returned to the train station. He returned the change to Mr. Davidson who was patiently awaiting his return. Mr. Davidson’s eyebrows went up, and he nodded and smiled at Hank.

“Why don’t we go across the street and have some breakfast?” he asked as casually as if he were asking an old friend.

Hank looked to one side and behind Mr. Davidson to see the boys gathered there, waiting to see what would happen.

“That would be very kind of you, Sir,” Hank said.

“Good, then,” Davidson said. “Come along.”

Hank saw the boys’ eyes follow him across the street, and the leader’s jaw dropped when he saw Mr. Davidson hold the door for him and gesture for Hank to enter the café.

And that was how Hank Archer, the twice-orphaned boy, ready to turn to a life of petty crime, was rescued. It turned out that Mr. Davidson had, of late, been a Pinkerton himself, but he was preparing to leave for Texas to join the Texas Rangers. The letter Hank had posted was Mr. Davidson’s letter of resignation.

Davidson postponed his trip for a day in order to get rid of all of Hank’s belongings, and his head buzzed to rid him of his lice. Hank had the first bath he’d had in months, since long before he’d left the boys’ school.

The next day, with cowboy boots and a straw hat, he got on the train with Mr. Davidson and departed to a whole new chapter in his life, one that had lasted to this very day.

Davidson had taken him under his wing, and into his home in Austin, where Davidson served in Ranger Company A, ensuring that the boy was educated and well cared for.

When Hank was seventeen and just beginning his formal training with the Rangers, a woman, Miss Hattie Fredricks, had come into John Davidson’s life. Miss Fredricks was beautiful, and Hank was kind of in love with her himself. She seemed to really dote on him, often kissing him on the forehead or cheek and stroking his hair. She and John had married quickly, and, of course, she came to live with them in John’s house.

It was a peaceable household until the first time after their marriage that Company A was out on a mission. Hank was getting dressed for school and heard Hattie coming up the stairs. She knocked on Hank’s door, opening it without waiting to be invited.

He had been in a half-dressed state, and so was she. Her corset was undone, and her breasts revealed in all their glory. He grabbed his pants, but all he could do was stand there, completely mortified. She walked up to him and kissed him hard on the mouth. She placed his hand on her breast, reached between his legs, and stroked him. Of course, he instantly became hard. She sat down on his bed, pulling him with her, and began to raise her skirts, struggling to place his hand beneath them.

Although he felt as though he were in a stupor, he forcibly jerked his hand away and pushed himself up off of her roughly. He grabbed his shirt and boots and ran out of the room, leaving her calling after him. He went straight out the door and rode out to request a bed in the Young Ranger barracks.

He was furious. She was probably pretty sure that Hank would say nothing to John, so she apparently thought she could do as she liked. And she must have been sure that Hank would succumb to her charms.

Not knowing what she would tell John, he worried for several days that John would go to the Commander and prevent him from becoming a ranger. But a couple of days after John returned from his mission, Hank’s trunk arrived at the barracks with all his things in it. He had no idea what Hattie Davidson had told him, but John became completely cold toward him.

There it was. More abandonment, and this time, betrayal. Another woman forcing him out.

He had known the day would come and soon because of his age when he would make the decision to leave, but he hadn’t expected it to be foisted on him by somebody else.

It was just as well, of course, he thought. He benefited much from being with his cohorts, but it still stuck in his craw that it was her doing, and not his own decision, and that his seven-year relationship with John Davidson had come so abruptly to an end, burned, it seemed, to ashes by hell fires of a woman scorned.

Hank came out of his reverie, sopped up the rest of his beans with the bread the barkeep had served him, and drained the last of his beer.

“I suppose I could ask most any of the ranchers around here,” Hank said, “but I feel I should pay my respects to Mr.—”

“Hadley. Bill Hadley and his daughter, Flo. She’s the only one left now.”

“Mr. Hadley.”

Hank couldn’t help feeling it was partly his fault those boys were dead, but he’d come across from El Paso as fast as he possibly could.

---

“A Relentless Mission of Revenge” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

When Flo Hadley’s brothers are gunned down, she takes on a mission of vengeance. The culprit is a wanted thief and murderer who attempted to raid their cattle, and the feisty Flo will not rest until she catches him. In spite of everyone’s discouragement, she will join a search party looking for Silent Sid and his men, and she will partner up with a Ranger who has his own secret motives for joining the mission. Will her wit help her get revenge for her brothers’ demise, or will her stubbornness be her own doom?

Hank Archer has made it his life’s goal to catch an evil cattle rustler-turned murderer. As a Texas Ranger, he has crossed deserts to trail him but without luck. When clues lead him to an angry woman with a personal vendetta, he will join her mission to finally bring the vicious criminal to justice. The woman has spunk, and they keep sparring and resenting each other’s presence. Will they learn to work together to accomplish the demanding task?

A pulse-pounding tale of revenge missions and taking down evil forces, where nothing is what it seems. How is it possible that the criminal is always a step ahead of the avengers? What choice will Flo make when a second mysterious man joins the equation?

An action-packed story, featuring complex and fascinating characters and twists that will leave the reader breathless. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance.

“A Relentless Mission of Revenge” is a historical adventure novel of approximately 80,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.

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