Desert Sun, Red Blood

By E. W. Farnsworth

Ben Dauber had much to learn about being in the newspaper business. And about being a man.

He found himself in a place and time some would call Heaven—others Hell—to learn both.

Desert Sun, Red Blood by E. W. Farnsworth is a collection of tales during the time of the Indian wars in the lawless Arizona Territory. Ben Dauber found himself among a rough-and-tumble group of renegade Apaches, range settlers, saloon girls, professional gamblers, seedy lawmen, a hanging judge, gunslingers, desperate thieves and murders, con men, land-grabbing ranchers, ruthless claim jumpers, steely-eyed railroad operatives, dashing cavalry officers and spirited frontier women who knew how to ride, track, and use weapons as well as men. While Dauber gradually traces the secret activities of moneyed railroad interests in the Territory, he learns what it takes to live—and die—like a man from all around him, including his mentor Judge Richard Hastings, the renegade Apache Durang, and a young frontier girl in buckskin and lace known as Nance, the Bottle Blonde of Albuquerque, the only love of Kit Carson, a dandy and gambler.

Desert Sun, Red Blood by E. W. Farnsworth. From Pro Se Productions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pro Se Press
• Release date: Oct 16, 2015

E. W. Farnsworth

E. W. Farnsworth lives and writes in Arizona. Over two hundred fifty of his short stories were published at a variety of venues from London to Hong Kong in the period 2014 through 2018. Published in 2015 were his collected Arizona westerns Desert Sun, Red Blood, his thriller about cryptocurrency crimes Bitcoin Fandango, his John Fulghum Mysteries, Volume I, and Engaging Rachel, an Anderson romance/thriller, the latter two by Zimbell House Publishing. Published by Zimbell House in 2016 and 2017 were Farnsworth’s Pirate Tales, John Fulghum Mysteries, Volumes II, III, IV and V, Baro Xaimos: A Novel of the Gypsy Holocaust, The Black Marble Griffon and Other Disturbing Tales, Among Waterfowl and Other Entertainments and Fantasy, Myth and Fairy Tales. Published by Audio Arcadia in 2016 were DarkFire at the Edge of Time, Farnsworth’s collection of visionary science fiction stories, Nightworld, A Novel of Virtual Reality, and two collections of stories, The Black Arts and Black Secrets. Also published by Audio Arcadia in 2017 were Odd Angles on the 1950s, The Otio in Negotio: The Comical Accidence of Business and DarkFire Continuum: Science Fiction Stories of the Apocalypse. In 2018 Audio Arcadia released A Selection of Stories by E. W. Farnsworth. Farnsworth’s Dead Cat Bounce, an Inspector Allhoff novel, appeared in 2016 from Pro Se Productions, which will also publish his Desert Sun, Red Blood, Volume II, The Secret Adventures of Agents Salamander and Crow and a series of three Al Katana superhero novels in 2017 and 2018. E. W. Farnsworth is now working on an epic poem, The Voyage of the Spaceship Arcturus, about the future of humankind when humans, avatars and artificial intelligence must work together to instantiate a second Eden after the Chaos Wars bring an end to life on Earth. For updates, please see www.ewfarnsworth.com.

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DESERT SUN, RED BLOOD

by E.W. Farnsworth

Published by Pro Se Press

This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

Copyright © 2015 E.W. Farnsworth

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

—

This work is dedicated to Shirley Blondie Grissom.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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The author’s heartfelt thanks go to Lucy Walton-Lange, owner and editor of Female First (www.femalefirst.co.uk), the online magazine based in England that first published the lead story, Nance the Bottle Blonde from Albuquerque.

CONTENTS

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Nance the Bottle Blonde from Albuquerque

Kit the Gambler of the High Regions

Dahteste the Apache Scout and Warrior

Billie the Lawman

Maud Dauber, Wealthy Western Financier

Apache Uprising

Ben Dauber, Newspaper Reporter

The Tramp Master

Judge Hastings of the Territory

Hawkins and McGhee of the Railroad Combine

The Power of Oro

Blue Coats and Ragged Hides

Rustlers’ Paradise

Durang’s Reward

The Harrowing

Kayak the Roan Stallion

About the Author

Nance the Bottle Blonde from Albuquerque

—

A down mattress and clean sheets in a four-poster bed beat a horse blanket and saddle pillow on the hard ground any day, but civilization often means the law and sometimes trouble. Of course, trouble can track you down in the wilderness, but the desert rules are different from town rules, and you feel so free! Here under the desert sky you can see for miles and, almost all the time, not a single human being seen in any direction. There’s no trouble you cannot handle all by yourself—well, yourself and a rifle, a couple of hand guns, a honed Bowie knife, and your native wit. Still, once in a great while, you take the risk and seek the comforts of a town, and one town particularly, worth all the rest put together—I mean Albuquerque, where I was born and where I had agreed to meet Kit, again.

Even if you have to leave in a hurry, shinnying down the bed sheets through an upstairs window and running all the way to the stable and your horse, judging that the law had not figured on your making a break for it before daylight. And was he worth it? Is anyone really worth the powder, the humiliation, the time? Say for yourself and do what you want to do. As for me, I do what I please, when I please, as I like it. And I do like Kit most of the time when he is sober. Yes, I admit, this time Kit was worth it, every bit. He was so kind and gentle. But the odds did not favor my sticking around Albuquerque just then, even in my favorite city with my favorite loving man. So in my buckskin britches and soft deerskin boots with spurs on, before the crack of dawn, Nance the Bottle Blonde—that, my friends, is Kit’s nickname for me—snuck out and rode on!

I reckon that Kit can take care of himself, and besides, I always know how to find him, or let him find me, again. I see no percentage in our hitting the trail together. We are entirely different in nearly every way except for our restlessness, our love of fun, and our sometimes affection for each other.

Two days’ ride and high on a mesa, looking backwards over the pink and brown desert across the mesa’s grand shadow in the early light, I see no sign of pursuit to disturb my morning routine. But sometimes looks do deceive, particularly when you are on the run and looking only where you just came from but not behind you.

I tended my pinyon pine fire over which I boiled my morning coffee and roasted my breakfast: dried beef on a stick with desert sage and rosemary seasoning. The furs and hides I had fixed for barter were laid out in the morning sunshine—beautiful—portending good trading ahead at the Navajo settlement.

Animals are always better than humans about knowing the score, and I have learned to trust their instincts and study their habits. Animals can save your life. That morning, for sure, my animal saved mine. My horse snuffled and danced, signifying company coming nearby. So much for thinking I was safe from harm. In quick motions, I put another couple of sticks on the fire, picked up one of my revolvers and dived for my hidey-hole just as two huge mountain men appeared on the mesa from the sunrise side, making a straight line path to my camp. It was a close thing, and I was almost breathless, my heart pounding, but I did not think I had been seen.

I kept low, waiting. I checked my ammunition, just in case. It was good that I did so. I have seen some mean hombres, but these two men were huge predators, both over six feet tall. I knew of them. They were thieves, murderers, and rapists: in short, evil personified, not sane, and predictable only in their inhuman ways. Big Ned Rockfall seemed as fat as his horse was tall, and he sweated fat in all weather. His sidekick Red Pete Drury was tall too, and he was as scrawny as Big Ned was fat, wiry and nervous, with his eyes always moving around in circles. They made a misshapen pair, and their horses were misshapen too, believe me. Ugly in every way, both inside and outside. Kit told me he would shoot either of them on sight simply as a precaution, but Kit was many miles behind me now, and I was alone with these uncouth men on the mesa.

The two outlaws were a sight in the early breaking dawn. Big Ned and Red Pete were filthy from riding, unshaven for at least three days, their faces covered with carbuncles and scars, and their horses were burdened down. I surmised that the two were, as usual for them, scavenging the high country for anything they could steal. As Kit told me, a fair price was on their heads, dead or alive, so they would be desperate in any encounter. By any guess, they intended nothing but harm to me. Robbery was the least I could expect. Killing meant nothing to these men, and they intended much worse than mere killing to such as me, but it would end in death all the same. Rape was their only gift to their opposite sex, and that was just the beginning of their abuse of women. They were known for their ingenuity in the art of torture—slow skinning was a specialty they delighted in. So far, none of their rape victims, white or Indian, had survived.

You doubt me about their intentions? Well, they sneaked up on my camp warily, though mounted, with their weapons drawn. I will never know whether they were stalking me personally this morning, and it hardly matters anyway. Whoever they found in the camp would have been robbed and killed.

Red Pete dismounted to inspect my horse blanket and saddle while his companion, Big Ned, circled alongside my horse and took her reins. This annoyed my horse, who reared and kicked and pulled away, but she did not run. With his revolver in one hand, Big Ned on horseback drew his rifle and flip-cocked it with his other hand. He knew a lone camper was close by somewhere in hiding. He raised his head as a gesture to his sidekick to get on with the search and plunder.

Red Pete lifted my furs and hides to inspect them, and pointed his gun in all directions while he turned nervously, as if looking for me. From his expression I knew what he was thinking—that the game was afoot. He did not see me in my hole. Not seeing me in my hole, he could not believe his luck. He laughed out loud and said something to his partner about their just taking the horse, furs, hides, and riding on. Who cared if their owner was too scared to come out of hiding? He must have felt really proud. Of course, he was protected by his partner’s covering rifle. Red Pete holstered his gun and picked up all my furs and, last, my buckskin britches, which he raised to his gnarled nose. Taking a long whiff, he dropped everything but my britches. Red Pete was caught somewhere between greed and lust, and the two men exchanged glances that indicated everything that they saw in the possibility of finding the woman to whom the britches belonged, and doing whatever they wanted with her, to their hearts’ delight.

Red Pete grinned as he held my britches up for his partner to see and to understand that, for him at least, the game was afoot. He uttered a few obscenities about there being more than hides to take possession of hereabouts. Then he got a puzzled, squinting look as he scanned all around again for the britches’ owner. Lust clearly had won over greed. Dead or alive, I did not stand a chance as long as either of those two men remained alive. The game belonged now to the victor—either them or me, survivor taking all. So I shrugged, gritted my teeth, and took careful aim.

My first shot from hiding hit the rider in the forehead and startled all three horses. Big Ned slipped off his horse in a heap, never to rise again. As he dismounted, Red Pete turned frantically towards the sound of the shot that killed his partner. He dropped my britches and drew his gun again. That was when I stood up and stepped forward.

He was totally astonished and undone by seeing me standing there unclothed, with my hair hanging down the front of me and my smoking gun now leveled at his chest. I do hate dressing for breakfast. I also hate gawkers who won’t respect my right to privacy, and more, who won’t respect a woman’s right to protect herself. His gun continued to rise, so my second shot hit him square under the left eye and sprayed the contents of his tiny brain all over what lay behind him. That was the end of both of their thieving, murdering, marauding, raping, torturing, good-for-nothing ways for all time. Justice may have been served on some level. I only felt relief.

It took me almost half an hour to clean up afterwards. I do hate the twitching that bodies do as death sets in. It sets me shuddering for a spell when I see it happen. Even so, I searched the bodies, then caught and calmed their horses and searched their saddlebags. Between them, Big Ned and Red Pete had been carrying gold and silver money from both sides of the border, some Indian things, and enough ammunition to keep me well supplied. All these I kept. Their clothes, horses, canteens, and arms might be good for trading, but carrying them would involve unnecessary risks and questions, so I decided to leave them behind.

Fortunately, the murdering thieves had not harmed my merchandise or my clothes. So I stripped their horses and set them free, and I left the two bodies where they lay on either side of the fire pit. They looked in death almost as if they had killed each other in a fight. Burial is a rite for the civilized. The corpses of those two savages would be good eating for the coyotes, wolves, vultures, and foxes. I reckoned the bodies would not last three days before they were picked clean to the bone. Let someone else collect the reward on those two men as best they could. For me, the reward for their deaths was simply my own life and safety.

Once everything else was arranged for my departure, I took care to clean my firearm thoroughly and to reload. As my daddy always said, you never know when you will need a gun in prime working condition, so clean it well and keep it ready for action. This morning he would have been proud of me, I think—not that I care, really. What has to be, has to be. I am my father’s child in that sentiment also.

Finally, I ate the last of my roasted, spiced beef, drank the rest of my coffee, then kicked the hearth with sand and, feeling exhilarated by the morning’s unexpected exercise and target practice, dressed. Blue sky stretched for hundreds of miles all over the desert, and the sun looked like a gold coin twenty degrees in elevation above the horizon. All in all, it was going to be a wonderful day for trading with the Navajo.

Kit the Gambler of the High Regions

—

Of all the typical marks of the professional gambler, nothing surpasses clean and nimble hands to identify the species. Only the professional gunfighter takes greater pride than the gambler in protecting his hands, and the gambler must present a credible threat as a gunfighter occasionally—both as a necessary adjunct to his persona and, occasionally, as a life-saving precaution. Given a choice between a shave and trimmed fingernails, the gambler will opt for trimming his nails every time. This is not to say that he sets forth unkempt or unshaven, but he has priorities. In fact, the gambler’s particularities all stem from this almost unnatural concern for protecting the tools of his trade and for appearances generally.

You will recognize the professional first by his costume and bearing. The gambler is the aristocrat and dandy of every saloon that he makes his temporary home. Observe the way the gambler owns the space around him, careful to sit where he can shield his back from prying eyes and guard the entryways directly or through saloon mirrors. He assures beforehand that he has a straight line to an exit for a quick and unobstructed, but measured, withdrawal if need be. And his horse, well curried and fed and watered in advance, is always tied for quick release just outside the door on the last day he will play in any town. His bills will have been settled too, both at the hotel and the stable. He will leave no obligations unpaid wherever he goes.

You will also notice, on close examination, the subtle tension at a table where the professional plays. It is a battleground of wit and cunning, and no one is just playing for the fun of it. Any man’s loss is someone else’s gain. A winning gambler is no hero to those he has bested—or busted—at a game of poker. The professional’s intelligence, finesse, and native luck, even his handsome features and debonair attitude, are viewed as unfair advantages by other players. Resentment, coupled with heavy losses and heavy drinking, can make for tense moments at the night’s end or any time earlier that the gambler chooses to deal himself out, taking with him what, days and hours ago, was other people’s money.

That night Kit sat well back in his chair, with his back to the wall and his eyes, as always, aware of everything and everyone around him. His curls were visible below his hat, and his bone-white shirt had a ruffle above his vest with its watch fob and chain. His mustache was immaculate, and his hands would have made a top-drawer New York jewelry model envious. He seemed genial but not too cordial, intense but seemingly introverted, and his luck had held all the prior week and this evening—so far—as he played the final hand of the night.

Poker was the game. This was the fifth straight day of play, and the chaff had been separated from the wheat until only players whose stakes were large remained. One by one, the lesser players had been separated from their money, which now lay on the table either in front of players or in the pot. Specifically, five other players remained with Kit at the gaming table. By their looks, you could call them Anger, Greed, Fear, and the Idity brothers—you know, Timidity and Stupidity, or so Kit thought as he raised another two hundred dollars with his pair of sevens showing and an unseen third seven in the hole. If the town had orchestrated a beard-and-mustache-growing contest, no greater assortment of wisps, curls, and lank, luxuriant facial hairs could have been assembled. Anger had a pair of mutton chops and a mustache, which grew down over his lip so that he could chew it in annoyance. Greed had a fine line mustache and a full growth beard under his chin that spread out over his neck from ear to ear, so that he could stroke it and appear wise. Fear sported a splotchy beard that tried ineffectually to cover his face and looked as if he had hacked it with scissors earlier in the day. The Idities grew identical goatees, with handlebar mustaches. You might not be able to tell the two apart, except that one had gray, hooded eyes, while the other had ice-blue eyes that bugged at you like a lap dog’s.

Odds were good that all the others would stay in the game for at least one of the last two cards, since everyone was showing at least one face card, and one gentleman—the one with the mutton chops—owned an ace up. The man with the ace had raised by one hundred dollars, but that did not mean he had another ace below. The game was only halfway done, and only time would tell.

The play had mellowed somewhat throughout the afternoon and evening. Drinks had just been ordered all around by Anger, an obvious ploy. But if you had watched closely, you would know that Kit had nursed his one prior drink all evening long, while the others had drunk two, three, even four in the same interval. All the players seemed to be able to hold their liquor, and they all smoked pipes or cigars, as was the fashion. The effects of drinking were not openly evident. No one slurred his speech or acted in an unmannerly way. Kit instinctively studied minute changes in their pauses and the way they consulted their down cards. He observed the patterns of their varying