Excerpt from "Horizon Dawn" book

“Yeah?” Rob snarled. “I’ll give you a drink of water like you gave my friend, Jeb Frazier!”

Adrian recoiled at the challenge. “How in hell could he know that?” He wondered, silently.

“See that? Caleb? See that?” Rob yelled. “That look is a confession. He did it! He shot Jeb!”

“Give him a drink of water from the canteen,” Caleb commanded.

“What!?” Rob queried, unbelieving of his ears. “Why? Just shoot the dirty bastard.”

“Just give him the canteen,” Caleb repeated his intention. Grudgingly, Rob complied.

The cool water seemed to revive Adrian. “Thanks!” He said to Caleb who ignored his word.

“Ain’t no use shooting me---again.” He offered. “That buffalo gun done killed me. Dead!”

“You ain’t dead---yet! I just go your upper shoulder.” Caleb replied, ice in his voice. Pulling the “short” sword from its scabbard. “I got something special in mind, for you,” he continued with a mirthless smile which chilled the lawman to the bone.

This was a mean one! Adrian realized, sizing up his enemy. It became painfully obvious that he should have been more careful---much…more! Too late! Now!

In the fading after-light of dusk, an eerie pale glow hung over the gruesome scene.

“You ain’t planning on using that half-pint tooth pick on me?” Adrian pleaded, hopefully.

Caleb just smiled, twirling the weapon in his fingers. “Naw! I got a “big bang” just for you.

 “Gather some dry wood, Rob.” Caleb ordered Rob. “Build us a nice, but, very small fire.”

Caleb bound their captive’s feet together with a length of rope wrapped around his boots.

Adrian laughed. “You afraid I’ll ‘run’ off to the river and swim away to escape?”

Caleb didn’t reply; he removed Adrian’s bandana and folded it against his bleeding wound, not being mindful to be gentle in the process; though he could have been less attentive.

Then, he answered the sarcasm. “Naw! Just don’t want you bleeding to death. That’s all.”

He paused, smiling. Then, “I got something ‘real’ special in mind for you.” Adrian winced.

Once the flames were blazing enough to provide a modicum of warmth as the darkness brought with it a sudden chill on the damp night air, the “Texas-gang” gathered close to the comfort; Caleb fished two of his last six biscuits from his saddle bags, skewered them onto the blade and warmed them while Rob put water in the pot and set it into the fire to heat for coffee.

Adrian salivated at the sight of the food preparation activity and to the smell of warm biscuits.

Damn! He was going to miss supper in town, too, apparently. His shoulder hurt like the devil.

Lightning flashed in the western dark sky; more rain. Not at all unusual on the spring prairie.

“You just going to sit there and watch our ‘prisoner’ die?” Rob queried, around a biscuit.

Caleb gestured toward the western sky threatening a storm. “See that thunderstorm winding up yonder? It’ll be here in a little over an hour, I reckon.”

“Yeah. So?” Came his impatient brother’s confounded challenge. “You plan to drown him?”

Caleb took a sip of his coffee; then, he offered a malevolent smile which spread into a pleasurable grin as he reached for his saddlebags. Dragging them close-by, he searched inside.

Rob watched with a curious interest; Adrian knew he would not like Caleb’s find. He was right! His shoulder pained him so much that there was absolutely no chance to try anything.

Caleb sat his cup on a near-by dead log; he pulled out a folded piece of paper from deep inside his saddlebags and carefully unfolded the package and laid it on the ground revealing a black, greasy-looking substance. Rob stared in wonder; Adrian in nervous consternation.

Caleb let their curiosity build by very slowly removing his next object from the compartment.

A coiled, stiff string of some kind; the black circle was about six inches, in width. He smiled.

“That looks like dynamite fuse?” Bow-leg stated as a question begging for confirmation.

A curt nod gave the young man his desired agreement.

Caleb unrolled his bedroll, then folded it into a neat square about two feet per side.

Then he pulled his leather gloves from beneath his gun belt where always secured them when they were not on his hand. Putting them on, he pulled them tight, then uncoiled the little circle of braided string, reeling off a length about eighteen inches long. Giving a look to his ‘prisoner’ and then to kid brother Rob, he straightened the segment straight, inspected it for quality, then held one end between his right forefinger and thumb, an inch from its termination point, and, while pressing the remaining length into the black grease blob on the paper, dragged the entire length through the goo. This process, he repeated four more times. Finally, satisfied with the results of his handiwork, he laid the greased fuse on dry grass so air could circulate around it.

He carefully wiped his greasy gloves vigorously together to spread the grease over their surface so it could soak in, thus helping to soften and preserve the raw hide. Finally, he wiped them clean against another patch of dry grass. Satisfied, he removed both, laying them near-by.

Then, like a magician pulling a rabbit from the hat, Caleb reached deep into his saddlebag and came out with a white bundle of cotton batting like a seamstress might employ as filling. Gently, he laid the package on the flattened bed roll, checking it with his hand in a fluffing motion to guarantee its softness. On this cushion, of sorts, he gently laid the cotton package with great care.

Very carefully, gentle as a mother’s kiss, he uncovered the parcel; inside laid two cylindrical cotton tubes, each about ten inches long. These, he separated very gently, careful to keep them on the cotton blanket. He wiped at his brow, now glistening with a sheen of sweat.

Sipping a mouthful of water and taking a deep breath to relax his breathing, he continued.

Taking each tube, in turn, he unrolled the contents, laying them carefully on the cotton padding, side by side, but separated from one another. Dynamite! Rob let out a low whistle.

Done with that danger, Caleb visibly relaxed. The explosive sticks were cool and dry.

Finally, glad to have completed the task, and, relieved, he allowed a slight smile.

Rob sat, wide-eyed; Adrian licked dry lips, wishing for a drink of water. This was insanity!

“You’re not going to use that stuff on me!?” He almost yelled in disbelief. Caleb nodded.

“You’re inhuman! Insane! Both of you!” Adrian shouted. “They’ll hang you bastards!”

“You’ll have more chance the ‘Jeb Frazier’ got,” Caleb retorted. “Back shot! Remember?”

Adrian’s eyes blinked, wildly. There it was: They did know about Frazier! This was Revenge!

Reading the lawman’s mind, affirming his guilt, Rob added, “Yeah, We know all about it.”

The storm had gathered in the west and was moving quickly toward their location; its breadth spread wide across the prairie promising to be violent and enveloping the town a mile away. A reasonable timetable said that the deluge should slam them in about a half an hour.

“We got just enough time to set theses blasting caps, get the fuses in, slap a bit more grease on the setting to keep any water out,” he allowed a glance at Adrian, “attach them to our ‘guest-of-honor’, drag our guest to the river---“ He paused. Then, “Light the fuse and…throw him in.”

Adrian shook his head and attempted to stand; to fight! Searing pain precluded any such exerted movement. Damn! The luck! He had to figure some way---out! But…What!?

“I’ll give you money!” He pleaded. “Five thousand? Ten! More! How much will it take?”

“Sorry, Sheriff! No deal!” Caleb stated, working with the caps and fuses, being very careful.

“It’s cold-blooded murder!” Adrian was in a panic; the storm was only twenty minutes away; they could feel the cool breeze which precedes such a weather event. The end was very near!

“I didn’t mean to shoot Frazier!” Adrian pleaded, in vain. “It---it…was an accident.” He lied.

Ignoring the reprobate’s vacant pleadings, Caleb said to Rob as the former finished his handiwork of setting the blasting caps, inserting the fuses and waterproofing the connections with grease, “Cut about eight feet of rope from the sheriff’s lariat and bring it over here. Also, untie his horse so he can run free; he’ll head back to the livery when he gets tired and hungry.”

He gave a wry smile. “Sheriff Adrian won’t be needing him---anymore…ever!” he added.

Caleb bound the law dog’s hands together behind his back; Adrian screamed at the pain.

The impending storm threatened, now, about ten minutes way; the town was already getting wet. That, Caleb knew, would force any stragglers off the street, inside, for shelter. Good!

Caleb hurriedly repacked his contents into the saddle bag and buckled the leather, tightly.

Lightning was now close enough that the flashes lighted the three men in yellow-white bursts.

Rob and Caleb grabbed their victim under the arms; Adrian screamed in pain; they ignored him. Within minutes, the Good Sheriff would be beyond physical hurt. “Evaporated” to the ages!

At the water’s edge, they sat him down. Cringing, he could smell the stench of a watery grave.

The first cold raindrops plopped on their hats; Adrian pleaded and begged; then, prayed; then, cried. A cold wind tore his words away from the group; lightning exploded; the rain increased.

Caleb stuck the dynamite sticks into Adrian’s waistband under his gun belt; he lit the fuses!

Getting him roughly, and, quickly, to unsteady feet, they gave him a huge push into the swift current of the river and turned to run for cover. Making barely twenty feet, a deafening explosion and violent concussion threw the pair, headfirst, into the prairie grass along the shoreline at the base of the willow trees bending severely in the wild wind of the torrential storm as lightning flashed with a vengeance and thunder clapped as it echo-roared across the dark prairie vacancy.

“Adios! Adrian!” Caleb said as the pair regained their feet. He allowed a smile toward Rob.

Bow-leg couldn’t manage a return agreement; “Revenge” turned out not to be so sweet.

Ezra’s killing had bothered the young man, but, he had not been directly in it, not even a witness. Adrian was another story. He could still smell the fearful man’s sweat, now mixed with an acrid odor of gun powder-like dynamite among sulfur from lightning-action and fresh rain.

Suddenly, he felt sick to his stomach; he threw up. In the storm, brother Caleb did not notice.

At the horses, the pair quickly donned rain slickers, then, saddled up, exchanged halters and lead ropes for bridles, and mounted.

Reining the steeds southward, along the tree line beside the flooding river, with rain slickers shining a wet reflection of the intense lightning, the “Texas-gang” made tracks for Waco!

About a mile down-trail from their impromptu camp where Sheriff Adrian had met his deserved demise and with the intensity of the onslaught diminishing, somewhat, though the torrent had been to their backs, thankfully, one of the trusty equines trampled on a “hat”, of sorts; unseen, in the darkness, the rider’s steed stepped on the resembled crown of a hat, much worse for wear, as it showed scorch-marks around the edge where a one-time brim had been blown away! The wild-wind must have carried the ruined accoutrement down-range. C’est la vie!  

Sheriff Adrian’s mount showed up at the livery the very next afternoon; Horsehide found the nag inside the stable, standing at his stall door, waiting for food. The hostler had not seen the sheriff return; it seemed strange that Adrian had simply abandoned the horse without removing the saddle, bridle and currying the animal before returning it to the stall. He undertook the tasks.

Around dusk of the same day, Deputy Jasper showed up, inquiring of old Horsehide as to whether or not he had seen the sheriff; the wrangler told him the story of the “magical” horse.

When the good sheriff had not appeared by the next morning, Jasper rode out to the Van Gangen ranch only to learn that the lawman had, indeed, been there, but, had ridden out to return to town, late that same day. On his return trip to town, Jasper searched for any sign, but, the storm had removed all traces. They organized a search to look for Sheriff Adrian. Nothing!

Someone among the elite citizens fathomed a theory, after much consultation salted with plenty of cold beer and warm whiskey down to the Albino Prairie Dog Saloon one afternoon, that the good sheriff must have got swallowed up in the quicksand at the south crossing.

Immediate consensus among his “genius” cohorts on hand acceded to the “errant” conclusion.

So, it became a subtle “secret” among the shakers and doers of the budding little metropolis that the flooded river had gotten the lawman; “blown” away in the horrendous storm, that night!                                  

Within a half year of time passing after the cold-blooded murder of Ezra van Gangen, which to date remained unsolved, thereby leaving a murderer running free, due to the most unusual disappearance of his step-son, Sheriff Adrian, whose presumed dead body had never turned up, Hyatt, as sole, and, now, uncontested heir to the vast fortune and estate, had let control of the expansive empire go to his head. Byrne heard rumor that within several generations following the demise of the “genius” shakers and movers of greatness who succeeded in amassing vast fortunes over decades of hard work, luck, ambition, thievery and skullduggery, very often lost the entire legacy, ending in total ruin, if they, somehow, managed to survive, at all. Hmm!

She had dismissed such gossip as wishful thinking on the part of her envious “lady”-friends of the smallish town concluding that the jealous old crows only wanted her fortune to be destroyed since they could find no means to garner it for themselves. Little by little, Byrne’s intelligence and her husband, Hyatt’s, obvious inability to run such a huge conglomeration as the enormous ranch, the town bearing the name of his birthright which included all the going business concerns and vast riches comprised of land, money, silver, gold, artwork, properties and homes began to become painfully aware to the heiress-by-circumstance of fortuitous marriage. Clearly, as the days slowly passed, she began to develop a picture of where the inherited wealth was taking them and Byrne did not intend to be discarded on the desolate vastness of the grass prairie as a pile of bleached bones which the local rodent-varmints would chew on for needed calcium in their diets. The problem: How to come out on top, once more, this time around---without Hyatt.

The pompous heir, the very day after his father’s funeral, had left for St. Louis on yet another of his infamous, well-established “business” trips; six weeks later he had dutifully returned with a dozen brand new suits of the latest cut and, also, in tow, the tailor from the prestigious city whom Hyatt set up in the General Store with a wagon load of fine fabric choices. Nobody in the burg could afford such opulence, save the banker, Hyatt, himself. Still, he managed to keep the clothier fully occupied designing, cutting and sewing one outfit after another; each new dawn saw the “Joke” of the community sporting a new masquerade as the treatments became more and more ridiculous and grotesque as the tailor’s creative limitations had been approached, and, surpassed. Hyatt refused to accept the man’s excuses, demanding ever more “exquisite” attire.

Such behavior caused myriad arguments between Hyatt and Byrne as she caught the brunt of his faux extravagances from the busy-body witches of the town who desperately envied her honored position of status and wealth. Finally, as the tailor’s creative designs began to obviously repeat themselves in appearance, Hyatt unceremoniously threw the concierge, of a sort, onto the weekly afternoon eastbound stage for St. Louis; Byrne feared that he might just do the same to her, one day, when she no longer suited his needs. The next day, Hyatt left for New Orleans.

Byrne both desired and demanded constant attention; since her brother-in-law, Sheriff Adrian Van Gangen, had mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth and with her husband, Hyatt’s, numerous vacancies, not to mention his philandering’s at the Albino Prairie Dog Saloon where he practiced his reputation with the bar girls on a regular basis in the opulent upstairs private room he maintained for his personal entertainment with frequent dalliances, she searched high and low for a replacement for the errant law man. All, to no avail.

Any potential conquest she might even grudgingly consider was already married, not that such would have impeded Miss Byrne Van Gangen’s successful attempt, her looks and charm easily triumphed over the simple competition, but, these country boys were henpecked as any barnyard rooster by the old crows whom they had married, some by trickery, others by fear of losing the opportunity to ever garner a wife in such a god-forsaken atmosphere as this depressing prairieland. Besides that, each owed his financial happenstance, poor as that may, in reality, prove to be, to their benefactor, her husband, and the possible field feared his wrath. At that conclusion, Byrne laughed, thinking that Hyatt wouldn’t care what she did, or with whom.

There were a fair number of rugged, good looking cowhands who frequented the Albino Prairie Dog once a month on payday where they quickly spent their coins on cheap whiskey and cheaper saloon-girl company for a quick roll. Then, back to the range for another thirty days sunrise-to-sunset toil in the desperate hope of surviving so as to enjoy the sorry monotony once more at the end of the month. She had already been to, and through, the bottom of the heap in her life in New York with the dock workers and laborers of the city scum; the local cowboys seemed a bit cleaner and, perhaps, a little more gentlemanly, at least they took a bath once a week, Saturday, before coming to town. Yet, all men managed to smell and act the same, like wild dogs pawing greasy hands and grimy fingers at a girl. She had, at last, done a lot better for herself.

All her prospects were pretty bleak; any plan Byrne attempted to concoct seemed destined to failure. Still, while she craved the attentions of a real man, her plight gave her status and money. Not bad for a working girl from the wrong side of the proverbial tracks. Thank you! Very much!

Two months after Hyatt’s “necessary” business trip to New Orleans, Byrne’s husband returned home, again with a “guest” in tow. Byrne scowled and her dark complexion clouded with angry emotion tinged with acute jealousy; she did not even attempt to disguise her disgust.

Hyatt’s proclivity for debauchery and the embarrassment Byrne suffered because of it made the woman nauseous, but, prior to this display, he had kept his perversions mostly private although the entire town knew of his numerous “associations” with younger women; now, he showed total disrespect for Byrne by bringing the tramp into his wife’s very home, to live.

Jasmine stood barely five feet tall, but, nobody seeing the Creole beauty would mind, nor barely notice her diminutive stature. Large, dark brown eyes seemed to shadow an olive shading adding charm and beauty to an oblong face replete with full red lips, generous, yet not overly ostentatious, more attractive in a manner begging to be crushed emotionally with passionate kisses. Thick, dark, raven-black hair adorned her head as an achieving crown of a queen contestant in a beauty pageant. A French-English accent turned heads bringing adoring attention to the girl. The Creole beauty might have been sixteen or seventeen, but the allure deepened with that innocent childlike appearance of a twelve year old just at the very blush of womanhood.

Byrne wanted to cut the girl’s throat, right there on the spot, but, Hyatt read the signs and kept his “guest” away from the Femme fatale as best he could. The Creole child spent nights in Hyatt’s room, under his guard. This blatant affront to Byrne’s position as mistress of the newly acquired empire set her emotions on raw edge prompting her vivid imagination to run wild. She immediately began to behave as a demented woman-possessed. Danger lurked as she flirted with depression through raging anger, demeaning disgust and vile jealousy, becoming despondent.

One bright spot developed almost immediately, quickly negated by the reason, itself. In the month since husband-Hyatt had sprung his surprise on Byrne and upon the population of the town of his namesake, he had discontinued his nightly forays to the Albino Prairie Dog Saloon and his thinly veiled rendezvous with the cheap saloon girls there, preferring to retire early each evening, as soon as dining had been completed and spending the time in his room entertaining Jasmine in the finer private delicacies of behavior as the beautiful “Princess of the Prairie!”

That was the exact term Hyatt used when Byrne had confronted her husband with objections.