Ghost Riders

By Will Welton

Returning from a war that no one wanted, he tried to get back into the civilization of people. He became a U.S. Marshal protecting people in the witness protection area. Living in the wilderness of the four corners area of the United States, he found the treasure of the old outlaws of yester year. Gangsters came into his wilderness after him and several of the witness against them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Will Welton
• Release date: Sep 16, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458091840

Will Welton

I grew up during the 1940’s and 1950’s, in the Choctaw (McCurtain and Choctaw Counties) and Creek Indian (Okmulgee County) Nations of Oklahoma, with the spoken languages of Choctaw, Ojibwa, Spanish and English was an asset in my knowledge of story telling. Most of the time I lived on Jamaica Street in Idabel Oklahoma. My stepfather knew a lot of the old outlaws of the late 1800 and the early 1900. there were a lot of old men living on the street that my stepfather said were old outlaws and old lawmen from earlier times.When I entered school I had trouble with writing down the English language for the way we spoke where I lived was not what I was being told so my writing was atrocious. As I advance in the grades at school my writing was not getting better. I got a job working doing part time work at the State Theater when I was only ten years old. A reporter, that worked part time at the theater when the owner was out of town or needed to do other things, for the McCurtain County Gazette told me, “Write down the stories and the things you have done in life for some day they would be useful in keeping the tales of the old folks alive after we all are gone.” I took his advice and he helped me in my writing of what I heard in the neighbor hood and it helped me immensely in junior and senior high school at Idabel.I was working various jobs from the age of twelve doing things from cowboy, working with cattle, loading lumber or fence post on to trucks, building fences and farmer, hoeing cotton, picking cotton, stripping corn, and plowing. When got my driver licenses I started driving small trucks and hauling freight and hay. Form there I went to work for the Saint Louis San Francisco Railroad as a labor and later carpenter rebuilding wooden bridges to holding, the positions of Foreman of a bridge gang.I enlisted in the army as a buck private and worked my way up in rank to hold the position of Command Sergeant Major of a battalion in the Army. The experience gave me the opportunity to meet a wide variety of people. I was medically discharged from the military with an honorable discharge. After a few years and I got my health up and running, so to speak, I did construction work until finally being forced to retire completely because of my health.Moving near Russellville Alabama because my two sons came to this area to work and raise my grand-children. After over twenty years here on the mountain top my wife and I bought coming to this area we enjoy the people and the country side. Now I live and play near the Crooked Oak community near nine of my grand-children and my one great grand children.I have written short stories, young adult books, free lance magazine articles, articles for several news papers and write novels about the tales of the old folks when I was growing up. In addition, to the western novels, I have also written two mysteries of modern day times.

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GHOST RIDERS

AUTHOR

WILL WELTON

Smashwords Edition

Copyrights 2010

Copyrights on all Welton Novels wrote by

Will Welton are held by

Crystal Welton-Betts

Copyright at the Library of Congress

1993

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents either is products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental unless other wise noted.

INTRODUCTION

There are stories of the old outlaws that took refuge, in the San Juan Mountains, after there robberies. The mountains touch several states, Northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah, and northeastern Arizona. This area is known as the four corners area of the United States.

There has been tales of Ghost Riders, in that area, for over seventy years before I saw the area. Today things happened there in the area are over a hundred years ago. This novel was wrote about a time in the mid 1960’s before all the new inventions and transportation modes other then horse, mule, and on foot to reach these remote locations.

Some of the caves and overhangs or still being used by campers and backpackers of today’s time. Two of the cave entrances, were blown in with explosives and would take an engineer, with a small crew, to open them up again, if possible. Maybe some day it will be possible for me to go back and enjoy my last days, in the place that I once lived and loved.

In that part of the country, they treated people regardless of race or where you came from, just as they were and not how someone else want them to be. If the person were Indian, Spanish, Black, White or a mix of any race, they were treated equally. That is the reason that I visited the San Juan Mountains, before going home to southeastern Oklahoma.

This was the time when someone from the Armed Services, coming from the war in Vet Nam, was treated as if they were the worst criminals around. They might have not been that well treated even in there own hometowns. The soldiers could not get a good job. They were shunned, at times, by friends fro the past or by their own kinfolks at times.

This novel in no way reflects on the living or dead when using names.

CHAPTER I

It was one of those times, Taw had nothing to do, except set and think. Sometimes it was a bad thing for him to be doing. The setting and doing nothing didn’t bother Taw because he had done that a lot in this job, which he was doing in the Army. The thinking part was hard on him at times. They were waiting for what appeared to be enemy movement coming down the valley. The Kit Carson Scout, called Charlie, was out about 600 meters from their location. Charlie came easing up the trail, all five feet of him and he might weigh in at a hundred twenty pounds, if his web gear had the basic load of ammunition.

The officer, a new Lieutenant strait from West Point and been in country less than thirty days, was with them and he was watching through his binoculars. He was Taws’ spotter this time out and he was supposed to be the map recon officer, but Charlie and Taw had to show him how to read a map here in the jungle. Taw preferred the Captains coming out for they knew by now that a Kit Carson Scout and usually the sniper knew the area better than just from looking at maps.

Taw remembered the settee him and the Lieutenant had when he first arrived. The Lieutenant decided Taw was the one to carry the radio. On recon, there had never been a radio to Taws knowledge. The Lieutenant gave Taw a direct order to carry the radio and Taw had refused. He tried to get the Fire Base Commander to give Taw a Court Marshal for refusing to obey and order. The Fire Base Commander had said, Lieutenant if you have to have a radio, carry your own radio, that isn’t the sergeants job. A radio isn’t called for in the patrol or recon you’re doing.

The lieutenant’s parting shot at Taw when leaving tops bunker was he called Taw, a dumb Okie.

Taw was an Okie and might not be very smart but he wasn’t stupid enough to carry an extra thirty pounds of weight on patrol. It took the new lieutenant almost a week to get over that decision. While still at the firebase, Taw told him, In the field if Charlie and I call you Sir or lieutenant and you answered, it’ll get you killed. You need a nickname so Charlie and I’ll call you hosesubunda. Before we left the firebase, several of his colleagues were calling him that name. Charlie had just grinned for he knew the name meant horses’ ass. Taw would like to have been a fly on the wall when the lieutenant finally found out about the meaning of the words.

Knowing this might be his last time out on patrol, for his enlistment was up soon. Taw was thinking about how he got to this hellhole and what he might do when he left here. Taw could remember very well how he became a soldier in the Army. The judge gave him a choice two years in the state penitentiary or he voluntarily be drafted into the Army. The old woman, who ran the draft board, was at the trial and being Joe’s mother might have had something to do with her being there. Taw figured she had something to do with the judge’s decision. For Taw, being almost sixteen years old and six feet tall weighing in at 180 pounds, the judge figured Taw was old enough or big enough to go to war. The Judge never thought to ask his age.

Taw guess the Judge was a little peeved, because Joe and Taw threw two of his deputies, out the front windows, of the bar they tore apart. On the other hand, maybe the Judge still remembered Taw’s two-step sisters had been the ones who shot the sheriff’s office all to hell and the three deputies were pined down on the floor. They had started shooting out the windows of the judge’s office, when the Sheriff came and got papa to go get the girls before they killed someone. Shucks them girls could shoot the whiskers off the mule papa had and not even draw blood. They were hitting what they were aiming at, even if they were half drunk. One of the deputies shouldn’t have taken the eight jars of moonshine whiskey from the girls they were delivering to Palls place on skid row.

Taw found out several years later, Joe got a suspended sentence. Taw guessed because Joe was from the right side of the tracks. Taw was raised over in the area they called Little Italy. Still haven’t figured the reason they called his section of town Little Italy. He didn’t even think there were any Italians living there. It was mostly Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, half-breeds, whites married to Indians, and a few Mexicans. Taw could speak better Choctaw, Chickasaw, Ojibwa, and some Mexican better then English or what we called white talk. He had a lot of trouble in school because of not knowing the English language very well.

The lieutenant motioned Taw over and about that time, Charlie came easing through the brush. It was time to quit thinking and to get down to business. Taw got off five rounds before they lit a shuck and headed back towards the firebase. The Lieutenant said, You had five hits but I couldn’t confirm they were kills. This late in the game it really didn’t matter to me, for after a hundred kills the Army doctors had said, You had to be crazy to kill people without being mad at them.

Taw wondered what the doctors would tell him the next time he talked to them, for now was somewhere around 176 kills that were confirmed, and no telling how may he shot that died later. The base was only about a click and a half with good open trails, but they still had to be careful of any booby traps set by the Vet Cong, since they came through here the last time.

Charlie was always on point, for he could read the area better then anyone Taw had ever known. Charlie kept them from walking into booby traps a lot of times, Taw didn’t see. Charlie would even change the markings, which the VC used to indicate the traps. Charlie moves the markings to where they would trip the booby traps before they thought it was time to look for them. They made it to camp, without anything happening, turned the maps in and were debriefed by the first shirt. Hitting the shower and getting into clean fatigues, they had drawn at the supply bunker. Taw was beginning to feel about halfway alive again.

While Charlie and Taw were cleaning their weapons, Taw was talking in English and Vietnamese and Charlie was replying in Choctaw or Ojibwa. The two of them talking like that would drive the officers batty because they couldn't figure out what they said. Charlie had been a Language Professor at the University of Hanoi, before the war started. He was helping Taw with his English in speaking and writing. Taw had been writing down the stories the old folks back home had told him as he was growing up. Charlie would grade the papers as any teacher would and show him how to change some of the words around. A lot of the times, Taw would write from right to left like the old folks and not from left to right as the English he need to learn. Taw was teaching Charlie some of his native language.

They had been together since the first run of recon patrol two years ago. Usually for one reason or the other, the Kit Carson Scouts moved around a lot. Taw just figured the sniper or the scout couldn’t get along with each other. He knew that several times, they tried to put Charlie with someone else and he finally told them either he went with Taw or he would leave with no one. Charlie had saved Taws’ bacon several times and Taw trusted Charlie completely.

Charlie moved through the jungle like a ghost. He left no tracks and made no noise as if he was just a ghost. Charlie had taught Taw how to move that way. There had been a captain, back a while ago, which had scared the shit out of Taw. The captain could move around in the jungle as good as Charlie could and had eased up on Taw. The captain almost got a knife in the gut for Taw hadn’t even known the captain was there until the captain said, BOO. That captain had been raised in the Navaho reservation on New Mexico and his people had taught him well at how to ghost through the woods.

Charlie decided to go get something to eat and Taw was going to lie down and maybe take a nap. When Taw had been back in the states the last time, Charlie educating him had paid off. Taw happened to run into the principle of the high school. He let Taw take five tests and he got to graduate with his class. The principle at school had been the only one in town, except the owner of the picture show and a man who worked for the McCurtain Gazette newspaper that had treated Taw decently.

The kids, Taws’ age, and the people in town treated him as if he had a bad case of plague. Taw found out that Joe was doing time in the penitentiary for twelve to fifteen years. Figure his mother, the draft board lady, still figures Taw was the bad influence on him. Her sending him to the Army hadn’t helped her case any of keeping Joe out of trouble.

There he went to thinking again and he need to stop doing the thinking until he get out of this hell. Most folks think hell is hot. Others told Taw it's cold. Still others contended its things on the outside, circumstances, sort of, make hell for a man.

A preacher told him, years ago, the worst kind of hell is inside a man. Twisting his thoughts against him, so bad he doesn't want to wake up in the morning, to face what could have been or should have been, but never was. Taw come to learn that preacher had been right, loneliness is what hell really is, the heart tearing realization by a man, there's nobody who gives a damn about him and he'll never find anybody who will. If hell was any or all of those, Taw figured he had been through it. Matter of fact, he figured he was still in hell by being where he is right now.

Then Taw heard the dreaded word, IN COMING yelled outside of his bunker and then the loud explosions and the ground shaking so hard it could knock you off your feet. He grabbed the web gear putting it on and slinging the M16 across his back, picked up the 700 rifle, which he carried on patrol. Walking over to the sand bags in front of the bunker propped up to start looking for targets. From this location, he could see the jungle at the edge of the perimeter and a little farther.

Charlie was above him, behind some sand bags, and told Taw 600 meters dead on in a tree. Taw chambered a round and sighted in on a man in the tree. Busting a cap on him and watched the man fall from the tree. There were a lot of weapons firing down into the tree line. He was out there for over an hour it seemed and shot up twenty shells one at a time. Taw could see other men shooting a full clip in just a few seconds. Finally, someone up at the command center started yelling, All CLEAR. Going back into the bunker and taking the 700 apart for cleaning, Taw started thinking again.

He would start remembering some of the faces, of the people that he had seen in his scope, just before pulling the cross hairs onto their chest and pulling the trigger. He tried not to remember any of the faces, but that was a hard for him to do. At six feet four inches weighing in at 200 pounds, Taw was good and ugly looking enough to stop a bullet. He knew because he had already stopped two of them. Knowing it would take him a while to get use to what they called civilization. Taw couldn’t get over the last time he had been back in the world and home.

Taw already had his field Alice pack loaded and web gear ready to go back to a combat patrol status. He even picked up the ammunition lot and sighted in his rifle with the new lot of ammunition. Because every lot of ammunition had a little different setting, of powder or lead, you had to allow for it on the lift or drop of the bullet. His weapons were clean, but for nothing else to do here on the firebase, he was cleaning the weapons again.

He started trying to think about what he might like to do, when his draft status enlistment was up instead of re-uping back, to this type of hellhole. However, his qualifications were limited to hunting, fishing, hauling hay, peeling post and pole, chopping corn or cotton and pulling bowels from the cotton in the fall. He also knew how to make good moonshine whiskey like papa did. Taw didn’t know if he could go back to that or try something different.

The first shirt told him it might be hard for the enlistment papers to go through. Since he had three tours in country some of the upper ranks wanted fresh troops more that someone that had been here so long. Taw had been held over his draft required because of being in a war zone. He might try it again back in the states since this was his third tour here in Vet Nam. It was getting to him.

Therefore, Taw started thinking of what he wanted to do back in the states. First, he wanted to get a good job but knew that was about impossible because, when he was there on leave the people treated him as if he had the plague. The folks back home wouldn’t have anything to do with him, since he had been fighting in Vet Nam. In bigger towns, they were people demonstrating against the war.

Taw decided to go where nobody will probably be at, or at least not very many people, for a while. Even in the big sky country of Montana or northern New Mexico. He heard some of the men talk around the firebase, that both places had lots of areas where no one was around for miles in any direction. Taw found some maps and several of the men had given maps of the four corners area of the USA. He had just about worn the maps out looking at them.

Trying to narrow it down as to where he wanted to start looking around the country. Just about deciding he would start looking at the four corners area first. That was the area where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meet. Then if he didn’t like the area or the people, he would migrate northward and might go as far north as Lower Canada.

There was thirty-five days to think it over and he figured at least one more trip on map recon, with some new officer, that was probably just out of college or West Point. If Taw had thirty days or less, he wouldn’t be going out again. If the officer doesn’t show up in five days, Taw will be going back to the rear area. Turning in his gear but he will get to keep the weapons. It was a new policy where if you bought your weapons, you could keep them after you shipped out to home. You didn’t get to keep any ammunition, but at least you had something for being over here.

One of the runners for the commander came in and told me the first shirt wanted to see me. Taw put the weapon back together and shoved a full clip into the M16, pulled on a shirt and headed for tops bunker. Taw