by Cotton Smith
RETURN OF THE SPIRIT RIDER
COTTON SMITH
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2008 Cotton Smith
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by AmazonEncore
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477806807
ISBN-10: 1477806806
Dedication
For my newest little treasure, Jesse Margaret.
AT GUNPOINT
Lockhart was dozing on and off, but was aware the man next to him in the stage was not asleep, only faking. He heard Beezah tell the Swede that the fresh team was on the side of the building. At that moment came the sounds of harnessed horses, followed by a gruff “Settle down. We’re comin’.”
Hooves clattered on the hard ground. Leather creaked. Trace chains rattled. Horses snorted. From around the far corner came the harnessed team of horses.
“Ja. Ja. Hurry up. I am behind the schedule an’ du know vad the boss think of that,” Norborg said. He then laid the reins over the front edge of the driver’s box and prepared to get down.
The two men eased the horses toward the coach, their faces mostly covered by their hats and growing shadows.
“Vad is this? Who are du? Var are…”
“Shuddup and don’t move.” Both men had rifles aimed at Norborg and Beezah.
Inside the coach, Lockhart awoke, pushed aside the pulled-down leather curtain enough to see what was happening. His hand slid inside his coat to the shoulder holster….
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Excerpt
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Praise
This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files.
CHAPTER ONE
The well-dressed, Denver businessman slapped the folded newspaper in his fist against his thigh, unaware of dangerous shadows lurking in the alley ahead. As he stepped from his Black Horse Hotel into the sweet May evening, his mind was heavy with worry. Worry that wouldn’t leave in spite of the prosperity that he and his partner were enjoying in this rich and raw town.
His nightly stroll along the boardwalk, from his hotel to his fine saloon three blocks away, would help free him from concerns seeking control of his thoughts. Usually he liked this time alone, away from the constant whirl of activity. This time, though, his mind wouldn’t let go of the report that the U. S. Army had taken the field with a major force against the Sioux and Cheyenne. The tribes had not gone to their reservations in the Dakotas and Nebraska as ordered, after government negotiations to purchase the sacred Black Hills had failed last fall.
Why was he worrying? His old friends in Black Fire’s band of Oglala Sioux may not have even survived the harsh winter. If they did, would they join Crazy Horse, Gaul and Sitting Bull in the coming holy war? Why should he care? It had been eight years since he left them for good. Another lifetime ago. They had forced him to leave their ways, or so he told himself. His visit to his old friends’ village a year ago had felt good, but had also reinforced the rightness of his new life. Except for the lingering bittersweet memories of Morning Bird, the younger sister of his late wife.
None of that mattered. Not really. He was here and life was good. Very good.
Cool night air flirted with his dark hair covering his ears and tugged on his black swallowtail coat. A loose board squeaked under his polished boots. He tugged on the wide brim of his black, low-crowned hat and adjusted his silk cravat.
In the alley ahead, a shadow danced and disappeared.
“Alleys are a good place for trouble. Pay attention, Panther-Strikes,” Vin Lockhart muttered to himself, using his Oglala warrior name.
Dark eyes studied the now innocent-appearing opening between buildings. The needed attention shoved his worry into a crouching position inside his head. How many waited? Denver was bubbling with new people, and the bulging settlement built on gold and silver was doing its best to keep up. That many strangers meant some weren’t here to earn their wealth. Such activity wasn’t new to him. It wasn’t to be treated casually either. A cut throat could be the reward of anyone careless enough. Or unlucky enough.
He began to whistle as he walked toward the opening. Loudly. Custer’s “Garryowen.” He had heard it last fall from some passing soldiers. Whoever was waiting would be hiding now so their surprise would be complete.
As he eased next to the front wall of the general store, Lockhart drew the ivory-handled, short-barreled Smith & Wesson revolver from its shoulder holster under his tailored cutaway coat. Ten feet from the alley itself, he stopped walking, whistled a little longer and ended it abruptly. He waited. Not cocking the gun for fear its sound would alert his would-be attackers.
He waited, still holding the folded newspaper in his left hand. Ten seconds. Fifteen. Finally, curiosity led two shadows from the alley, wondering what had happened to their intended victim.
The first man was thick-bellied; a derby hat squatted on a head too large for it. Long, stringy hair sprung from its small brim in all directions. In his fist was a long-barreled Colt .45. His too-small coat was slick in places with mud and muck, and torn at both sleeves. Beside him came a thinner shadow, several inches shorter. In his hand glimmered a knife. Both looked down the street first, in the opposite direction of where Lockhart stood.
“Swate Jaysus, where’d hisself go, Big Mike?”
“Dunno, boy. Look smart now. Fat for the takin’ he be. Canna let hisself jus’ disappear like some wee ghost now, can we?”
“He’s right here, boys.” Lockhart cocked his revolver and stepped away from the wall. “Drop the weapons.”
“Jaysus, Mary an’ Joseph, the bugger’s got hisself a piece.” The heavyset Irishman spun toward Lockhart’s declaration and froze with his gun aimed in the businessman’s direction.
From the deeper shadows came a third Irish voice, “Sure, an’ Dooblin’s a fine green this time o’ year. Be returnin’ the sentiment I am. Ye be droppin’ that fancy piece now. ’Tis your gold we be seekin’, not your lead, me lordship.”
A third bandit! Lockhart cursed himself for not being more careful.
The three hoodlums expected him to meekly comply; their surprise complete, although not what they had origina
lly planned. He counted on that satisfaction to make their initial responses slow. Slow enough.
“All right, don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.” Lockhart lowered the gun as if to drop it, then dove to the ground, throwing the newspaper toward the alley as he moved and fired into its blackness.
The unexpected move startled the hidden bandit and his first shot split the night air above the prone Lockhart, catching the bottom edge of a newspaper sheet. The other sheets cascaded in the air as if trying to escape, before fluttering to the ground again. Second and third shots from Lockhart’s revolver quickly went where orange flame in the blackness had been an instant before. An ugly thud followed. And a cry of pain.
Screaming an Irish curse, the heavyset Irishman fired at Lockhart, who had already rolled away toward the street.
The second bandit’s bullet snarled its own declaration past Lockhart’s ear.
His own pistol roared again into the night. Twice more.
Staggering backward, the gunman slammed into a water barrel shoved against the alley wall. His big gun wouldn’t stay upright in his hand and drove its second bullet into the dirt. The robber’s mouth sagged open and blood spread across yellowed teeth. He slumped to his knees and fell against the barrel. His eyes glazed and he was still.
Lean-faced with high cheekbones and a nose that hinted at being broken once, Lockhart stood slowly, swiping at his pants and coat to remove the just-acquired dirt.
“Drop the knife. Now,” he commanded. “You, in the alley, get out here. I’ve got one bullet left. One’ll take your head off.”
Squatting in the middle of the alley, the third bandit held his stomach. Blood covered both his hands. A long-barreled, open-top Merwin & Hulbert revolver lay on the ground in front of him.
“Jaysus, donna shoot. Please. I-I canna. Me stomach’s gone, it is. I canna walk. I canna…”
Stunned by the violence and its outcome, the shorter hoodlum hesitated, looked at his dead partner beside the barrel, then the third bandit, badly wounded, and let the knife slip from his hands. It clanked against the boardwalk, glistened briefly from a passing moonbeam, and was still.
“A-Ay, mister. Ye be takin’ us to wrong. B-Be lookin’ for a wee work ’tis all.”
“Not much work in an alley. Especially at night.” Lockhart walked over to the heavyset bandit and took the smoking pistol from his silent hand.
“S-Sure an’ be true it is…w-well,’ twere a start, ye see. On me mither’s grave, we dinna mean ye no harm,” the hoodlum said. “H-Hungry we…I-I be, ’tis all.”
From across the street, a yell split the night air. “Over here. The shots came from over here. By the Black Horse!”
Lockhart took a step closer and realized the remaining assailant was a boy of fourteen or so. An Irish lad, barely in his teens, with worn-out brogans and a coat that was more of a rag than a garment. The boy’s eyes were light blue with an army of freckles patrolling his cheeks and nose. His lip quivered and he studied the medium-sized man with the angular face of tanned stone, before him, unsure of what to expect.
His two older companions, battle savvy and worldly wise, were dead and dying. For the first time, the lad realized the businessman’s tailored coat and vest hid arms and shoulders heavy with muscle. This businessman was more street fighter than either of his older friends. That now was obvious.
“What were these two—to you? Is one your father?” Lockhart motioned first toward the dead man with his gun, then the squatting Irishman.
“No, sir. No pa have I. No ma neither. Dead they be. Sickness. Back in Ohio,” the boy said. “Big Mike, well, he just sorta took me along. Teachin’ me, he was.” He pointed at the dead man.
“Teaching you to steal.”
“Well, sure an’ it might look so. But hisself also be teachin’ me the ways o’ findin’ silver. We was…prospectors.” He motioned toward the dying third gunman. “That be Murphy. Lightnin’ Murphy, he be called. The why o’ it I not be knowin’. Lightnin’, that is. He be thinkin’ we woulda strike it rich out here. Ay, that he did.”
“You have a claim?”
“Well, not so ye would call it such…sir.”
Three men were running their way. In the front was a broad-shouldered man. A badge caught moonlight and signaled.
“Let me do the talking, son,” Lockhart said and waved at the advancing men. “Over here! It’s all over.”
He returned his revolver to his shoulder holster, deciding to reload it later. He held the bandit’s pistol at his side; a thin smoke trail ran up his sleeve from its nose. Walking over to the third Irishman, he took Murphy’s pistol in his left hand. A circle of crimson had taken over the thug’s midsection.
The Irishman’s eyes fluttered open. “Ay, kilt meself ye did, me lordship.”
“You didn’t give me any choice.”
“Ay, our thinkin’ it be. Swate Jaysus.”
The Irishman’s eyes closed as the waves of agonizing pain charged his torn insides again and he started an Irish curse, but his waning strength wouldn’t let him finish.
“It’s Lockhart!” one of the townsmen declared. “Looks like somebody picked on the wrong fella to rob.”
“If it’s Lockhart, I’d say so. Almost feel sorry for any bastards who’d be that stupid.” The comment came from the taller man in a dark double-breasted coat. In his hand was a short-barreled revolver.
City Marshal Joe Benson slowed his hurrying and came to a stop a few feet from the alley. His experienced gaze took in the situation immediately. Returning his gun to its holster at his hip and covering it with his coat, he asked what had happened.
Lockhart explained the dead man and the wounded one had tried to ambush him with the intent of killing and robbing him. He handed both of the would-be bandits’ guns to the marshal as he described the encounter.
“What about this fella?” Marshal Benson asked, shoving one gun in his right-hand pocket and the other, into his waistband.
The other two men joined the lawman and silently assessed the situation. The taller man whispered a comment to the other.
“Oh, him. He’s one of my new employees. At the Silver Queen. Dishwasher. Going to be a good one,” Lockhart said and put his hand on the boy’s thin shoulder. “He and I were headed there, when these fellows jumped us.”
The lad stared at him, but said nothing, noticing for the first time that the surprising businessman had blue eyes like he did. Only Lockhart’s were narrowed and intense.
Benson turned to the other two men. “Anybody know either of them?”
“Naw. Just more Irish riffraff.”
“Good riddance, I’d say.”
Lockhart felt the boy tense under his hand; his eyes warned him not to respond, then removed his grip. “Evening, Mr. Galloway. Mr. Hairston. Appreciate your promptness to…my situation.”
The two businessmen returned the greeting.
Alvin Galloway, the taller man with long, thick sideburns, returned his pistol to his pocket and said, “Glad to oblige, Mr. Lockhart. Our city needs to get rid of this kind of scum.”
“I didn’t have a choice. They shot at me.”
“Damn fools,” Galloway said.
Trying to quell a shiver, Benjamin Hairston mumbled, “That could’ve been any one of us.” He looked around to see if the others agreed.
Ignoring the remark, Lockhart cocked his head toward the alley. “The one back there needs a doctor. Gut shot, but he might make it.”
“Why bother?” Galloway asked. “Just more trouble. And cost. Hanging’s are expensive, you know.”
“He needs a doctor, Marshal,” Lockhart said. “Do you want me to get Doc Wright?”
“No need for that, Vin. I’ll take care of it.” Marshal Benson folded his arms. “I’ll get Hawkens to send over a couple of Orientals to handle the body.”
Lockhart nodded approval of the lawman’s decision to contact the city undertaker and declared, “Marshal…gentlemen…you are welcome to join us at the Queen, for a dri
nk. On me. Along with my thanks.”
Smiling, Benson responded that he would need to take care of the wounded man first, and the body; then he would enjoy a nightcap. The two businessmen readily agreed. They walked away, chatting to themselves about the fight. To the question of payment, Benson said the city would be paying for both expenses. In a whisper, Galloway asked why Lockhart shouldn’t have to pay. The marshal’s response was a snort.
Stepping away, the boy studied Lockhart and frowned. “What did you mean…your employee? I ain’t your employee. I ain’t nobody’s.”
“Said you were hungry. Awhile ago. Figured you’d be interested in working to pay for a meal,” Lockhart said, redrawing his gun and adding fresh cartridges. “I’m headed to the Silver Queen Saloon. My partner and I own it—and the Black Horse Hotel. You can go with me—if you want. You don’t have to.” He reholstered the weapon and resumed his walk. “Either way, consider it a second chance.”
“Swate Jaysus! That be it? Ye ain’t gonna have meself arrested? Or shot? Or hanged?” the boy exclaimed, waving his arms in support of his surprise.
Lockhart turned back. “What’s your name, son?”
Inhaling proudly, the boy proclaimed, “Sure an’ Sean Augustus Kavanagh I be. Of the Ohio Kavanaghs.” He studied the well-dressed businessman. Never had he met anyone like this. Vin Lockhart reminded him of an Indian warrior. Even in his fancy clothes and his blue eyes.
“Good to meet you, Sean,” Lockhart said. “I’m Vin Lockhart. Of Denver City.” He continued to use the original name of the town, even after it had formally been changed to just “Denver,” when the city fathers sought to make it the territorial capital.
Looking down at the planked sidewalk, Sean Kavanagh said softly, “Better it is that I stay with Lightnin’ ’til he settles hisself.” He bit his lower lip. “Ay, I shouldna leave Big Mike ’til they come. They, ah, they be…me friends.” He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them quickly. “What will they be doin’…with the body?”