The Revenger
Page 1
The Revenger: Omnibus
Peter Brandvold
The Revenger: Omnibus Edition
Kindle Edition
Copyright © 2019 (as revised) Peter Brandvold
Wolfpack Publishing
6032 Wheat Penny Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89122
wolfpackpublishing.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, other than brief quotes for reviews.
Kindle ISBN 978-1-64119-641-3
Contents
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A BULLET FOR SARTAIN
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
DEATH AND THE SALOON GIRL
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
THE BITTERSWEET WAR
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
GOLD DUST WOMAN
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
SAVAGE BARRANCA
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
SAN JUAN BUSHWHACKERS
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
SILVER CITY WOLF PACK
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
NO MERCY
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
WILD NIGHT AT THE SUNDANCE
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
FATAL WOMAN
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
A Look at Once a Marshal (A Sheriff Ben Stillman Western)
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About the Author
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The Revenger: Omnibus
A BULLET FOR SARTAIN
Chapter One
Buffalo McCluskey set his shot glass on the bar with a solid thump, ran a bear-sized paw across his beard, and turned angrily to the tall, dark man leaning against the bar beside him.
“I’m ready for another drink, Sartain!”
Mike Sartain, known from one end of the frontier to the other as “The Revenger” sipped his own whiskey and regarded the burly man humorously from beneath his sand-colored Stetson’s flat, salt-crusted brim. He hadn’t shaved since leaving the 55-Connected, where he and McCluskey had played at wrangling for the past seven months, as a change of pace from Sartain’s bloody vigilante ways. His cobalt-blue eyes were set off by the rich black beard shadow and the sun-seared skin drawn taut across his high, chiseled cheeks.
“Well, why don’t you buy yourself one, you old black-hearted malcontent? While you’re at it”—Sartain finished his own whiskey and skidded the glass down beside McCluskey’s with a glassy clink—“you can buy me one!”
McCluskey bunched his lips inside his curly, salt-and-pepper beard sprinkled with seeds and coated with trail dust and blood from the venison haunch he’d consumed half-raw around last night’s campfire. “Damn you, Mike—you know it’s your turn to buy.”
“Beg to differ with
ya, partner,” said Sartain in his slow, Cajun drawl, shaking his head slowly. “I done bought the last round. Seems to me I’m two rounds ahead, as a matter of incontestable fact.”
McCluskey squared his shoulders at Sartain and dropped his chin, fashioning a look that said he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “You owed me three shots, Mike. Don’t you remember how I staked you in that poker game at the 55-Connected? I staked you ’cause you told me you’d buy three rounds—three rounds—soon as we hit town!”
Sartain’s face colored as he turned to face the big man before him. Sartain was as tall as Buffalo, but Buffalo was as broad as a barn door, with a hard, rounded paunch. His voice grew in volume as the other voices around the saloon fell silent, the other customers and the whores turning to regard him and Buffalo warily.
“You got one hell of a selective memory on you, my addle-pated old pard. I told you I’d buy you three rounds if I couldn’t pay you back.”
Sartain pounded his right fist on the mahogany. “But, dammit, I filled an inside straight and done paid you back!” He gave a slow, menacing smile. “But I got a feelin’ your memory’s better’n you’re lettin’ on, old man.”
Buffalo bunched his lips. His voice rumbled up from deep in his chest, filling the entire saloon and even drowning out the thunder of an approaching rainstorm. “You’re the one with the selective memory, old friend! You said you’d buy me three shots of good whiskey even if you paid me back ‘as a token of your appreciation.’ ”
He spoke this last with mocking exaggeration, twisting his broad, warty face bizarrely.
Sartain slapped the bar. “Consarn you, Buffalo! I swear—!”
“Hold on there, fellers.” The small, bald bartender had moved down the counter to stand before them, holding both small, pink hands up, palms out. He was so short that the top of his head rose only a foot above the mahogany. “No need to bust up a good friendship over whiskey. Surely there’s a way to settle this without fisticuffs.”
“I’ll buy the boys a drink,” piped up a man sitting with two others near the piano. He and his friends were decked out in business suits and bowler hats, fat stogies in their mouths sending thick smoke ribbons up from ashtrays arranged beside their beer mugs. “Anything for a little peace and quiet.”
“Hell, I’ll chip in,” said the man across from him, scowling toward the bar and dipping two fingers in a vest pocket.
“That won’t cut it,” Buffalo objected sharply. “Me and my old buddy Mike here’s gonna have to settle this ourselves. He’s gonna buy me a drink, or I’m gonna pound his Cajun head down so flat, it’ll do me for a stool for mountin’ my hoss!”
“I know, I know!” A red-headed whore with a mole on her chin ran up beside Buffalo, the purple feathers in her hair dancing around the big man’s right ear. “Why don’t you arm-wrestle for it? Two such big, brawny men as yourselves can certainly arm-wrestle!”
Sartain and Buffalo studied each other in angry silence.
“That sounds like a good idea.” Chirped the little bartender. “A good, fair way to settle this matter”—he swallowed, taking in the impressive sizes of both men—“without bustin’ up my place.”
A man to Sartain’s right cleared his throat. “My money’s on the bearded hombre. I got five dollars says he can take the younger man any day of the week!”
Another voice rose from the other end of the smoky, shadow-swept room. “I got a three-ounce nugget that says Sartain can take the mossyhorn!”
Then the others jumped up, waving greenbacks or gold pokes or fistfuls of coins, and a few minutes later it was agreed that the redhead, Arliss Dupree, would hold the bets. As Arliss strode about the room, taking money and writing names on a notepad, Sartain and Buffalo stood at the bar, facing each other, glowering, upper lips curled.
When the pretty saloon girl had slapped the greenbacks on the bar top, announcing that all bets had been placed, the room grew silent once more.
Buffalo grinned at Sartain, who stood unmoving before him and began untying the whang strings holding the right sleeve of his smoke-stained buckskin tunic closed. “What’s the matter, Mike—yalla?”
Sartain raked his gaze from Buffalo to the saloon girl, who was staring up at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted. Her well-filled corset rose and fell heavily. Sartain said shrewdly, “Winner gets a quarter of the kitty and a bottle of Royal Oaks.”
The redhead glanced around the room. The other customers nodded, shrugged, or grumbled their agreement.
“What the hell, then?” Sartain snarled at his big friend.
He whipped off his pinto vest, slung it onto the bar, and rolled up his shirtsleeves. As he headed for a table, the men who’d been sitting there promptly gained their feet with drunken uncertainty and scrambled away with the same uncertainty, freeing their chairs.
“Ready to have your arm wrenched out of its socket, Buff?”
Buffalo doffed his ragged leather hat and plopped down in a chair across from Sartain. “Ready if you are, ya damn Loozyanna sharpie!”
The challengers got comfortable, squirming around in their chairs and rolling the kinks out of their necks and shoulders. The other customers left their own chairs to scramble around Sartain and Buffalo. Both men eyed each other with barely restrained fury.
Finally, when they’d planted their right elbows on the scarred tabletop, which Arliss had efficiently toweled dry, they each got a good grip on the other’s hand.
The room fell silent.
Distant thunder rumbled beyond the night-black windows. A lantern sputtered. Someone spat anxiously into one of the sandboxes haphazardly placed around the saloon. The redhead, obviously accustomed to such contests, appraised them both, making sure their free hands showed above the table, that neither concealed a pig-sticker or a derringer, then laid both her own hands over the fighters’ entangled fists.
“Good luck and giddyup, gents!”
Arliss lifted her hands away, and both fighters stiffened and locked eyes. One of the onlookers goosed the whore’s ass. She flicked an angry hand at him, whispering, “Quit!” As she backed away toward the bar.
Neither Sartain’s nor Buffalo’s hand moved for nearly five minutes. Then Sartain’s knuckles began sagging toward the table. When they’d gone halfway down, the Cajun bit his lower lip, the color rising in his sunburned cheeks, the old bayonet scar above his right eyebrow turning paper-white, and fought the hand back up. His right bicep bulged like a wheel hub through his shirtsleeve.
Swallowing, he bent Buffalo’s ham-like paw down toward the table.
A devilish light flashed in Sartain’s cobalt-blue eyes.
Buffalo’s rugged features turned crimson. He glared at the Cajun, squinting one eye and groaning softly, his chair squeaking beneath his two-hundred-plus pounds. He bit his cheek as he fought Sartain’s hand back up. They held there, deadlocked, glaring and sweating, for another ten minutes.
Outside, the storm rumbled louder. Somewhere in the town of Navajo Wells, a dog barked. Coyotes yipped in the hills.
The onlookers gaped at the fighters, taking occasional drags from stogies or cigarettes and intermittently sipping whiskey or beer. Otherwise, they were as still and quiet as pallbearers.
Back in the shadows, a whore whispered to no one in particular, “They’re going to grind each other’s knuckles to powder!”