by James, Ranay
Table of Contents
Copyright, Disclaimer, and E-mail
Contact The Author
Acknowledgements
The Book Shelf
Prelude
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Epilogue
Preview - Armed and Dangerous - Book 2 - The McKinnon Legends The American Men
Feedback and Thank You
Copyright and Disclaimer
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contact The Author
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Acknowledgements
I would be remiss in failing to mention those in my life who had faith in my dream.
Anne, Donna, and Tom - Thank you for your suggestions and feedback
To my Husband - Thank you for supporting my vision and being my partner through life.
The Book Shelf
Titles By Ranay James
The McKinnon Legends
Book One – The McKinnon, The Beginning – Nic
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009Q78PQO
Book Two – Unfinished Business – Connor
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AKXO2B0
Book Three – Shades of Grace – Cullen
http://http:/www.amazon.com/dp/B00B1YQNFK
Book Four – Of Purest Blood – Gage
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CHQI58O
Book Five – The Missing One – Decklyn
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EADBPNO
The McKinnon American Men
Book One – Whisper In The Dark – Robert
Book Two – Armed and Dangerous – Mason
Book Three – Bones of Contention – Josh
Vampires of Nirvana
Part One : The Descendents of Cain
Book One – Apartment 42 – Slade
Book Two – The Queen’s Heart – Chase
Book Three – A Garden form Eden – Micah
Book Four – Second Son of Cain – Asher
Part Two : The Queen’s Enforcers
Book Five – Guarding Anna’ – Cade
Book Six – Jade’s Paradox – Alexander
Part Three : The Queen's Avengers
Book Seven – The Reluctant Queen – Garrick
Book Eight – Blood So Sweet – Garrick
Book Nine – The Beast Within – Maddox
Whisper In The Dark
The McKinnon American Men
Book One
By
Ranay James
Prelude
Golden Circle Ranch
Outside Ft. Worth, Texas
April 2006
“Screw you! Katherine doesn’t know a damn thing, you overgrown sack of shit!” Kyle spit blood right into his attacker’s face, earning him another blow to his head. This one was powerful enough to send him to the gravel of the dried creek bed.
Kyle Brandenburg was royally screwed and knew it, yet all he could think of was protecting his sister. If they knew she was a vital link in this hunt she would not be safe as long as she drew breath.
The hired thug with tattooed arms like tree trunks pulled him up by his blue jean jacket and tossed him back against the grill of his pickup truck. He felt a rib snap and then another as the meaty fist slammed into his solar plexus.
“You will tell me what I want to know, or I will find that baby sister of yours and cut her up right in front of you. Understand me, Brandenburg?”
Tattoo Man was right in Kyle’s face, and he could smell his rancid breath: a savory combination of cigarette and stale rot-gut liquor.
Kyle head-butted his skinhead captor.
“Damn you, you son-of-a-bitch! You’re dead. Dead!” the man screamed.
Kyle found himself on his knees and heard rather than saw the hammer go back on the gun, which materialized undoubtedly from under the black leather jacket covered with Hell’s Angels patches.
Nothing like subtlety, Kyle thought.
“Put the gun down, Razor. I need him alive for the moment.”
Kyle heard the calm command of the man he now understood to be the real threat to Katherine and him. This walking-live-oak in the process of kicking his ass was only the hired muscle. That was not hard to believe. If he had had a single moment between blows he would have managed that brilliant deduction long before the double-crossing bastard came into his line of vision.
“You stinking bastard! I trusted you! I can't believe that I trusted you!” Kyle tried to force his way out of the grip cutting off the circulation to his arms. He wanted to kill him. “You are my friend, Tony, and now what are you going to do? Kill me for a treasure which doesn’t even exist?”
“The fact you have now seen my face does place me in a bit of a quandary, now doesn’t it? In his enthusiasm, Razor has gotten overzealous and that is entirely my fault. I miscalculated his ability to follow instructions. More meat than brains, I’m afraid.” Tony Booth sighed heavily and not just a little dramatically. “You were not to be touched.” Those were his orders.
“God help me if I hadn’t been off limits.” Kyle coughed more from the chest cold he was nursin
g than the lack of air from the beating. He spit the remaining blood from his lips.
“You and I are friends, Kyle, and whether or not you choose to believe me, that friendship does mean something. Razor will be dealt with on my terms, rest assured. This is just an unfortunate turn of events. Sheriff Maxwell would never let this slide and well he shouldn’t. It just would never do to have the lawless running around Johnson County. However, I think knowing your weakness for Katie might be incentive enough to let you live.”
“Don’t you dare go near her!” Kyle fought against the restraints to no avail.
“Kyle, you are in no position to make demands, my friend. So understand me. If you ever breathe a single word of what we are doing here today, I will let Razor follow through with his threat to rape your baby sister. I'll make you watch. And that, I can assure you, would not be a pretty sight, Kyle. I’m sure Katie is a beautiful girl if she looks anything like her mother. I would hate to see that beauty so marred.” He paused to let that little bit of information sink into Kyle’s brain. “Now, shall we begin again?” Kyle felt Tony's cold fingers grab him firmly under his jaw and squeeze. “Where is it?”
Kyle began to laugh. It was a laugh of irony and utter futility.
“Don’t you think if I knew where the money was, I would be sitting on some tropical beach somewhere and not busting my hump on this dried up piece of dirt? I’m broke, Tony. You know it as well as anyone. The same goes for Kate. She works as a waitress, for God’s sake. She has no idea so leave her alone!”
“You are lying, Kyle. In all the years we have been friends, you never have mastered the art of being a good poker player, too honest of a face. So maybe you are not lying about Katherine, but you know something and you will give me what I want. Now, tell me where it is!” Tony was running out of patience and time in equal measure.
“For the last time, I don’t know.” Kyle was telling the truth. He did not know where the stash of money and gold was located that these men were looking for and were willing to kill him to possess.
No one did. Not for certain. There was theory and speculation, legend and myth. For over a century and some change, there had never been hard proof. But that had to eventually change. No secret can stay buried forever.
He was getting close, but a lot of fortune hunters over the last one hundred and forty years had been close. None of them had anything more to show for the hard labor and hours of searching than he did. However, he had a trump card and could not wait to use it.
Kyle’s assailant snapped his fingers. Pointing at the brown leather case resting innocently on the hood of his truck, Tony gave his order to the thin, gaunt man he called The Doctor. The elderly doctor opened the case while the other two men forced Kyle face down in the gravel.
Thoughts of Katherine raced through his mind as he felt the needle go in, and the warmth engulf him. Images became fuzzy as the drugs coursed through his veins.
“You bastard,” Kyle managed a slur.
“Now,” Tony breathed into Kyle’s ear, “where can we find the Rebel’s Gold?”
Chapter 1
“Shit, shit, double shit,” Kate cursed as she tried unsuccessfully to shake off the pain in her ankle after taking a nasty tumble from her horse.
“Watch your mouth, Katie. You are a girl and not one of dad’s hired hands.” Twenty-four-year-old Kyle admonished his younger sibling.
“My name is Katherine. Katie is a baby’s name,” thirteen-year-old Katherine informed him in no uncertain terms as she stuck her tongue out, stooping to pick up her hat. Slapping it against her slender leg was as much for effect as for dusting off the soft dirt of the corral.
“And as to being one of dad’s hired hands, well, he needs to put me on his payroll. I pull my fair share around here. Especially since mom decided she needed to move to New York City. Who the hell voluntarily moves to a place like that anyway?”
“Your mother, that’s who,” Kyle replied moving away from the uncomfortable subject of the abandonment of Katherine’s mother nine years earlier.
“Now, come on in the house and let Old George take a look at that ankle.” Kyle held the corral gate open as she hobbled through.
Katherine sighed as she thought back on that day fifteen years earlier. It seemed like a different lifetime. In a way it was. She had lived in a very different world for a very long time now. That same world her mother had chosen, New York City.
That memory of Kyle was one of a thousand of her younger days here on the ranch assailing her since she received the call that turned her world upside down. Not that her world was all that level, so a nudge would have accomplished it. The call she received from Robert McKinnon, Kyle’s longtime friend, had been way more than a nudge.
It was still hard to believe Kyle was dead, murdered for ten dollars and a cheap watch. Robbery seemed to be the only logical motive. The Johnson County Sheriff could not find anything else to attribute it to. Since everyone loved Kyle, it was unlikely the motive was revenge. Nor was his death the result of a stray bullet from a hunting rifle. He had been beaten to death, a very up close and very personal assault.
She gripped the steering wheel with sweaty palms, twisting the leather cover with a near death-grip as she maneuvered the rental car off the highway and onto the gravel and dirt driveway leading to the old mansion. She found herself blinking back the tears coming from a well she thought was long dry by this time.
Distracting herself she counted the trees standing sentry, lining each side of the drive just as they had for a hundred years. To her eyes they seemed smaller now than the day she had left here fifteen years ago.
Her perspective was just different, she supposed, knowing growing up has a way of doing that to a person.
“I guess it is all relative,” she said as she parked the car in the front of the old mansion, which until the day before yesterday had never seen a day without a Brandenburg living in it. Again, she could not believe her beloved Kyle was gone forever.
Their communication had not stopped in spite of the fact they had not seen each other for several years. She loved Kyle deeply and she loved this ranch. The Golden Circle was rich in history, and as a child, she loved to hear the stories from her great aunt, who was the granddaughter of Nathaniel Brandenburg, the ranch founder.
The original house was built in 1868 by Nathaniel after coming west from Missouri seeking riches legitimately, unlike the James and Younger gang he had almost joined. Granted pardon from being part of the Confederate Army during the Civil War, he wisely decided to let the war end by moving west. The Long Riders of the James Gang would go down in legend. However, Nathaniel Brandenburg would not be a part of that history since he always considered Frank and Jesse James and the Younger boys two-bit thugs who only used the war to fuel their lust for blood and violence.
According to her Great-Aunt Louise, lore had it Jesse and his gang came to visit her grandfather in the spring of 1872 laden with four saddlebags full of loot from several successful robberies.
They had left empty-handed.
Thus the legend of the treasure was born.
Sad, Katherine thought, as she considered all the wasted life and all the bloodshed. It was for nothing. Considering all the gold and currency both Frank and Jesse made off with over the sixteen years they were on their rampage, they both died poor. Jesse’s widow had to sell her furniture just to put him in the ground.
However, their names did go down in history as the most notorious gang of the Wild West. Again, Katherine had to wonder at the mentality of those who overvalued the likes of Jesse and Frank James, glorifying them as heros.
Nathaniel, on the other hand, much older and wiser, completely washed his hands of the James Brothers following the fall of the South. He found his riches in the form of longhorn cattle, became a powerful cattle baron, and worked hard until the day he died. The fruits of his labor were still around, she thought. The house and the land were evidence. She was evidence.
He fully unde
rstood that the South would rise again, given time. The American spirit was too strong to be harnessed or kept down for long, but Dixieland would never be the same no matter how much the diehards fought for the good old days.
Times were different after General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederacy at Appomattox in April of 1865. Things changed with the stroke of a pen, never to be reversed. Nathaniel understood and accepted this. Laying down his gun and taking up his plow, he became a rancher.
Robbing and pillaging was not for him even if it was done, condoned, and even encouraged on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. He had seen enough bloodshed in the years he had carried a gun defending a dying way of life, a way of life he never fully embraced. He never owned slaves. It was a stance that had never brought him much popularity. So, for him, the move west had seemed a natural thing to do.
Nathaniel’s only child, Thaddeus, built the “Big House” in 1898. It was a sprawling mansion with dozens of rooms and at the time boasted indoor plumbing and a running hot shower.
Spoiled and self-serving, Thaddeus refused to continue in his father’s footsteps as a rancher after Nathaniel passed away. Feeling working with his hands was beneath him, Thaddeus mortgaged the Brandenburg lands to invest in several suspect and dubious ventures. The true nature of those investments was still, to this day, blanketed in a shroud of mystery. There had been no paper trail, only rumor and innuendo. Truthfully, given the personal nature of Thaddeus Brandenburg, there was just not much telling what he had ventured into. He had been ruthless, ever seeking to increase his powerbase through wealth and intimidation.
He indeed became what Katherine considered to be filthy rich, even by nineteenth and early twentieth century standards. Exceeding his father’s wealth by millions of dollars, Thaddeus became a powerful icon with which to be reckoned. Along the way, not only did he increase the Brandenburg fortune, he made powerful political and financial enemies. J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller just to name a short list.