“All right, Lee!” he called. “You’ve got yourself a deal!”
And sucking down a deep breath he got to his feet and stepped into the mouth of the alley.
The second he showed himself Kedrick shot at him, just as he’d known he would. Kedrick would never risk a stand-up gunfight if there was an easier way to get what he wanted. But knowing that, Jay had allowed himself to be seen for just long enough, then he’d thrown himself forward and down on his belly.
Lee’s bullet missed entirely. But in the time it took him to fire it, he was exposed at the other end of the alley, a target Jay couldn’t miss even if he wanted to.
He didn’t want to.
He fired three shots, and each one smacked Kedrick in the check and sent him lurching back a pace. After the third one he knew there was no need for a fourth; Kedrick went over and hit the ground with his shoulder-blades. His legs squirmed for a moment, his heels gouging trails in the dirt … and then they were still.
Jay sagged, drew a breath, realized he was shaking. He waited another moment, for his pulses to slow, then called back, “You can come ahead now, Smith! It’s over!”
Chapter Eleven
Life in Abilene soon got back to normal. Only the fire-blackened remains of the red-light district served to remind everyone of the previous night’s drama. Charred rafters still glowed amber, popped every so often and sent wispy smoke trailing into the sky of the new day.
The RB outfit was complete again. In view of the service Jay, Billy and the others had performed for the town, Judge Kilgore and Marshal Smith had agreed to give the jailed cowboys a pardon, so they were able to leave jail a day earlier than expected. Now, as the run climbed toward its zenith, they were back at work, driving the cattle the short distance from the stockyards to the tracks of the Kansas Pacific railroad, then loading them aboard the waiting train for their new owner, Charlie Swenson.
Standing at the corral, Jay watched his cowboys at work. His saddlebags were thrown across one shoulder, each packed with the money he had received for the sale of the herd.
Jay watched Billy, as the youngster helped load the cattle. Something had happened to him last night, something that had changed him from a raw boy to a man full grown. Jay didn’t know whether to be happy or sad, for though Billy had gained something in experience, he had lost something, too, in innocence. But that was the way of the world, he guessed. A baby was born, it passed through adolescence and then became an adult. There was no stopping it … and he wasn’t even sure the world would be any better if there was.
By early afternoon, the cowboys had finished their job. They were covered with dust and sweat – but satisfied that the work had been done. They gathered around Jay down at the railroad depot, there to wait for the train that would carry them part of the way back to Texas.
Swenson came by for a last visit. He had spent several hours at the stockyards before drifting away to tend to his other business interests. Now, as he approached Jay and the others, he looked agitated.
“You all right, Mr. Swenson?” asked Billy.
Swenson shook his head. “I’m not sure, boys. Truth to tell, I’m a mite shaken.”
Jay was at once on his guard. “What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“It’s Smith,” said Swenson. “He’s driving the whores out of town!”
Rio Shayne looked aghast. “What? What? How come he’s doin’ such an unsociable thing?”
“Because all hell broke loose last night,” said Swenson. “And I don’t just mean the fire, and the bank robbery. Turns out they found another dead body down in the red-light district just before dawn. They say a feller man named Charles Fay was having his fun in one of the gaudy houses when he got into a quarrel with a man called Thomas Calloway. Seems there’d been bad blood between the two all the way up the trail from Kansas, and last night it all came to a head. A man by the name of Warren Howell tried to calm things down before it came to shooting – by firing a couple shots of his own.”
“What happened?”
“The dang fool hit Fay by accident. He died almost immediately.”
Jay released his breath. “Damn.”
“A bunch of cowboys jumped on Howell, and while they was pacifying him the other feller, this here Calloway, lit out, and no-one’s seen him since. Howell was thrown into jail and the mayor’s posted a reward of five hundred dollars for anyone who can track Calloway down and fetch him in, dead or alive.”
“So Smith’s decided enough’s enough?” asked Billy. “And he’s decided to close down the red-light district?”
“That’s about it,” said Swenson. “He’s posted all the whores out of town, and he’s put a lot of noses out of joint with it. There’s plenty in town that’re not happy about it, including the mayor and quite a few local businessmen. Anyway, he’s driving them out of town right this minute, and it’s quite a sight to see!”
Jay looked at him companions. Their eagerness was all too evident. “Okay, boys,” he sighed. “Let’s go take a look for ourselves … ”
A crowd had gathered along both sides of the street. From the southern end of town came a crowd of woman, perhaps fifty in all. They were all dressed in their best finery, and carrying the rest of their worldly possessions in tattered suitcases, and the occasional circular hatbox.
As they passed by, the men from Texas raised their Stetsons politely, then yelled and cheered their appreciation and support of these now-displaced ladies of the night.
“See that blonde girl yonder, Joe?” said one cowboy to his neighbor. “That’s Denver Annie – and I can tell you, she loves me deep from her heart. I’m the one and only...”
He stepped on the street, raised his arm and yelled like a rebel in General Lee’s army. The girl saw him and gave him a warm smile in return – a smile that would accompany him for weeks to come.
Jay grinned as he watched what was happening around him. Buckeye Street and Texas Street had changed into an arena, and Tom Smith’s preventive steps had brought about something close to a festival in celebration of the whores and their trade.
Smith, herding the working girls up toward the railroad depot with his Parker shotgun tucked into one armpit, scowled at the reaction. He had been hoping the townsfolk would be glad to see these doves go, and save their cheers and applause for him, but that clearly was not to be.
Rio Shayne also looked less than happy. “You know somethin’?” he said to Gus Gentry. “I get the feelin’ we’ve just seen the end of a certain way of life. A good one, too.”
Gus nodded morosely. “I know what you mean. Abilene last season … we had fun, didn’t we? Rode into town, each picked our favorite girl, married her for a week and spent every hour the Good Lord gave us knowin’ them girls as best we could. No one cared a damn what we got up to, just as long as we spent our money and toed the line. But this year … this year was different, wasn’t it? Weren’t no real fun a-tall.”
Jay, overhearing the exchange, clapped each man on the shoulder. “It’s called civilization, boys,” he said. “We don’t have to like it, just like there’s no way we can stop it.”
“If that’s civilization,” said Rio, “you jus’ get me back to Texas as soon as you can.”
“That I can do,” Jay smiled.
“One thing’s sure,” said Billy. “Smith won’t make any friends from what he’s done here today.”
All at once Jay had seen enough. Mention of Texas had filled him with anticipation. Texas, and Rancho Bravo, were all he and the others needed right now.
“Go grab your things, boys,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
HISTORICAL NOTE
Jay Durango and the Rancho Bravo cowboys are fictional characters. But Marshal Tom Smith and quite a few other citizens of Abilene, such as Judge Cyrus Kilgore and town mayor Theodore C. Henry are historical and really existed. Some of the cattle town’s historical buildings and streets also feature in this novel. Events like the fire in the red-light
district are also based on historical fact.
Marshal Tom Smith had a hard life as a law-keeper after he had driven the whores out of town. On November 2nd 1870 he was killed in a gunfight. He had not been murdered by a cowboy, but ironically by a settler instead. After the settler had committed murder, Smith tried to take him prisoner. The Abilene Chronicle describes this tragic event as follows:
...Marshal Smith and Assistant Marshal McDonald found McConnel’s and Mile’s tracks, which led to a dugout. Smith told McDonald that he had a warrant against him and that he should give up. McDonnel drew his gun and shot Smith. Seriously wounded in the chest, Marshal Smith fired a shot at the killer, while he fell, and his bullet hit the target. But then Miles attacked Smith from behind and killed him with an axe. Assistant Marshal McDonald had left the bloody scene to get help from the Abilene citizens...
The town’s citizens mourned Smith’s death. They praised him in newspaper articles, and many people attended his funeral. Only a couple of weeks after Smith’s funeral the whores returned from St. Joseph and Kansas City and once again took up residency in the former red-light district. Tom Smith’s fight for a better and quieter Abilene lasted only a short time.
More than six months passed until the town council found a replacement. On April 15th 1871 the successor was presented officially – it was James Butler Hickok, who had already made his name in a few other cattle towns in the West. But his fame was different to that of Tom Smith, for while Smith had been respected as a peacekeeper, Hickok soon came to be feared by most people.
When Hickok started his marshal job in Abilene, the tensions between townspeople and cowboys had been increasing steadily. Hickok dressed himself like a citizen and showed not much understanding for the Texas cowboys. He shot first and asked the questions later, and with this behavior he showed clearly that his doubtful fame as a dangerous gunman was true. He influenced most of the townspeople and all the newspapers by the force of his personality alone. When he killed a cowboy from Texas in cold blood, nobody prosecuted Hickok in this matter.
But Hickok did not realize that he had just started the end of a great era. All the other Texas cowboys and ranchers took the matter seriously. The cattle baron, Abel Head “Shanghai” Pierce, decided to avoid Abilene and instead drove his herds to nearby Ellsworth. Most of the Texas ranchers followed this example and left the trail. Even those who were already negotiating with cattle buyers at the Drover’s Cottage Hotel, stopped their business, left town and continued their bargaining with other cattle buyers in Ellsworth. When the last two sold cattle herds had been shipped out, the corrals remained empty, and the few remaining cowboys also left town without spending further money in the saloons or the red-light district. The town mayor fired Hickok, but this decision came too late, because Abilene’s fame as a cattle town had already faded.
Joseph McCoy, the founder of Abilene, had once been a wealthy man. But when the cattle boom reached its end, he owned just a few cents and the clothes he wore. Later McCoy went to Kansas City, where he died 1915.
Theodore C. Henry, the town mayor, had another great idea, which he realized very quickly. He learned from some newspaper articles about a new sort of wheat, which had been very successful in Minnesota. Without hesitating he ordered a few sacks of seed and watched it grow prodigiously over the next few months. By July 1871 it was clear that he had made one of the great advancements in the American farming economy. Henry bought more sacks and land to grow the new wheat … and in the process made a fortune.
When the cattle business was nearly finished, and the depression began to spread around Kansas, more and more people began to realize what Henry was doing. They praised his success and tried to follow his example. Within four years Henry had become the Kansas wheat king, securing not only his own future but also the future of those people who had believed in Henry’s ideas and plans.
Author’s Afterword
Welcome to the world of RIO CONCHO.
The series dates back to 1981, when the first novel was published in my native Germany. Of course I didn’t know at the time that many years later it would become one of the best-loved western series in the German market. But when I started my first steps as a western writer I didn’t know anything about the market, about publishers or the unwritten laws which a writer should follow to improve his chances of getting published. At the time, all I really wanted to do was create a western series similar to The High Chaparral, which had been broadcast in Germany throughout the 1970s and fascinated me very much.
Initially I wrote only to please myself, with no thought of publication. I just wrote what I thought would be right: a ranch series located in west Texas, with a detailed historical background, Texas Rangers, Comanche warriors and anything else I considered that a good, solid western should contain.
Then, in 1980, I decided the time was right to approach a publisher, and bring these stories to a wider audience. It took nearly one entire year until a publisher finally offered me a contract for my very first novel, Shootout in Abilene. In the following eighteen months three more novels with the same characters followed.
After that there was quite a long break until 1991. Then I decided to try it again—this time as a self-publisher. I wrote 28 novels in the RIO CONCHO series until I was forced by various reasons to finish it. It was only a small collector’s edition and the demand for historical westerns at that time was poor.
But the fans always asked for more novels, and hoped that I would be able to continue the series one day.
This happened in 2008 when publisher Heinz Mohlberg from Cologne, Germany, rang me up and asked me if I was interested in a re-issue of the RIO CONCHO series, this time in paperback. He also offered me to write a second series called THE CIVILWAR CHRONICLES, and I took this chance.
Now, with the gift of hindsight, I can say that it was the right decision. Nine RIO CONCHO novels had been published so far, and each paperback contains two of the original short novels. Seven CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES have been published too, and meanwhile the booksellers and online bookstores have realized that there still is a market for good, solid historical westerns, even in Germany.
2008 was also the year that David Whitehead (a.k.a. Ben Bridges) and I wrote and published our first novel together, All Guns Blazing, published in the Black Horse Western series by Hale Books in London, under the pseudonym ‘Doug Thorne’. This was the first time that western writers from Germany and Britain had collaborated on such a project. Another novel, Cannon for Hire, followed in 2010.
David and I are corresponding regularly, and he knew all about my RIO CONCHO series. When he and Mike Stotter founded Piccadilly Publishing, I saw very clearly what these two guys wanted to build up. A re-issue of older, classic westerns in e-book, with fantastic covers and an attractive price. And they were lucky. Piccadilly Publishing is growing fast, and the demand for these western novels is also growing steadily.
I was very proud when David Whitehead asked me if there was any chance that he and Mike could publish English-language versions of the RIO CONCHO series. I thought about this suggestion and came to the conclusion that I should make this a reality.
What you have just read is the first novel in what I hope will be a long and popular series of English-language translations of a series that has already proved its worth in Germany. It is a pleasure for me to have become a member of the Piccadilly Publishing ‘family’ – and besides – the only German western writer so far.
If you like this story, I can promise you that there are many more still to come. In the meantime, keep the campfires burning! The western genre is still alive!
Alfred Wallon
Ebsdorfergrund,
Germany, 2013
Piccadilly Publishing
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