The Black Horse Westerns Read online

  Black Horse Westerns

  Collection 1

  Table of Contents

  Land of the Lost

  Dean Edwards

  Rawhide Ransom

  Tyler Hatch

  McGuire, Manhunter

  Scott Connor

  Rio Bonito

  Abe Dancer

  Copyright

  Land of

  the Lost

  Dean Edwards

  Land of the Lost

  Young drifter Hal Harper rides into the remote town of Senora when he finds himself looking down the barrels of the law. What Harper does not realize is that the ruthless outlaw Tate Talbot and his gang have managed to get themselves elected as sheriff and deputies. Talbot has discovered that there is a wanted poster on his own head worth a small fortune so he has the ingenious idea of collecting his own bounty by killing the innocent Harper and claiming the drifter is the outlaw known as Diamond Bob Casey.

  Harper manages to escape to the remote uncharted desert south of Senora but can he survive in the Land of the Lost?

  By the Same Author

  The Valley of Death

  Skull Canyon

  The Manhunters

  Copyright

  © Dean Edwards 2009

  First published in Great Britain 2009

  This ebook edition 2011

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Dean Edwards to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Dedicated to the lovely Charlotte Stranks

  PROLOGUE

  There was little else but sand, sagebrush and cactus on the land just south of Fort Myers. It had been deemed suitable for an Indian reservation by faceless people more than 1,000 miles away. In truth, there were other reservations even worse. Had it been intended for the more peaceful tribes it would have worked. But someone had not known that Apaches were not to be regarded as peaceful Indians. They were a proud nation who had seen their once vast kingdom taken from them and were expected to accept the theft as progress. The older Apaches did just that. They had lost their stomach for fighting. They had lost too many of their young braves. Now they were reduced to little better than livestock, to be kept within the confines of the reservation in the same way as farmers herded their cattle on the range. The promise of regular supplies of food might have convinced even the younger Apaches but corruption was rife in the dealings between the distant Eastern government and those who were meant to ration out the provisions.

  Within a matter of only months the supplies started to arrive either late or not at all. The government had paid for the food and other basic provisions but the men in charge of distributing these to the Apaches could not resist the huge profits to be made by selling them on to settlers, or anyone else for that matter. It all boiled down to money and greed.

  Soon the younger Apache braves with hot blood still in their veins started to talk about escaping from their enforced confinement.

  So it was the night of 18 July.

  The sun had gone down at around eight and a large moon hung over the vast wasteland of sand. Twenty of the young warriors who had already proved their manhood before being brought like mustangs to this desolate land gathered in an arranged meeting. They had already worked out what they were going to do. Now they had to make their plans reality.

  Although not the oldest of the braves, one of them acted as though he had lived twice as long as he actually had. His was an old head on young shoulders. He had no equal with either a knife or a gun. Yet all their weapons had been taken from them when they had been herded into the barren land.

  Nazimo knew that it was pointless simply escaping. For it to work they required rifles and ammunition to survive and fight off those who would be sent to bring them back.

  Apaches were survivors.

  They could also fight.

  Since the first outsiders had encountered them they had become known as a nation which seemed to be able to fight better than almost all other North American tribes. Apaches had a ferocity like the land in which they lived. It was said that the Devil himself had created this place. For hundreds of miles in almost every direction it was as if the sun was as hot as Hell itself.

  Little wonder that Apaches knew how to fight. It was defiance which had allowed them to survive at all. Few other men who ventured into their land managed the feat.

  Nazimo led the nineteen braves away from the rest of the small settlement along the desert canyon. All they had was their courage to defend them. But they knew that the trading post and the fort beyond had plenty of rifles.

  Both were situated at the mouth of the canyon.

  The young men with paint on their faces and torsos led their ponies slowly towards the first of their objectives. Nazimo had been watching and listening to those who worked and traded in the trading-post building. He had sat motionless on the wooden boardwalk for over a week, absorbing every word, watching every transaction. None of those inside the long wooden building had any idea that this was one Apache who actually understood their language.

  The moonlight was against them but Nazimo refused to allow it to change his well-conceived plans. The braves moved across the sand until they reached the very mouth of the canyon. A barbed-wire fence had been erected across the fifty feet of expanse between two rockfaces. It was always locked at night and two cavalrymen were meant to guard it.

  Yet for months the confined Apaches had not even tried to escape. They had remained quietly in the place that had been designated to them. Nazimo had noticed that for the previous week the soldiers who were meant to be sentries had stayed inside the long wooden building instead. Through the open windows he had seen them and the men who worked at the trading post playing cards and drinking throughout the long cool nights.

  Nazimo reached the barbed-wire gates first. A hefty brass padlock hung on a sturdy chain between the two gates. Yet for all the lock-and-chain’s strength the fence itself was made of weathered lumber poles. The barbed wire was loosely tacked to the uprights.

  Nazimo tossed his rope rein to one of his followers and then placed a hand on both sides of the lock and chain. As quietly as he could the Apache warrior pushed and pulled the tall fence gates. His strong hands gripped the poles as he moved further forward and then backward. He knew that the fence posts would eventually give.

  He was right.

  On the third push the gatepost in his left hand snapped like kindling. The heavy chain fell. Nazimo opened the gates, then signalled his followers.

  They moved as all Apaches moved: silently and fast. Even the unshod ponies knew how to be as quiet as their masters. Nazimo waved half his braves to one side of the trading post. They held on to the reins of all the ponies as Nazimo himself led the others to the open window.

  Cigar smoke drifted out into the evening air.

  Nazimo knew that none of his braves was armed. They would have to enter swiftly through the window one after another and somehow manage to overcome the men inside. They would have to kill or be killed. Then, if they achieved their mission without any of the men or soldiers firing a weapon at them, they would have to steal as many rifles, guns and ammunition as they could. Nazimo knew that it was vital that no shots were fired if the fort was not to be alerted.

  Faster than the blink of an eye Nazimo leapt through the window. His braves followed in quick succession. There were six men inside the large room: two soldiers and four trading-post employees. Each of them had a gun on his hip.

  Nazimo and his braves attacked.

  The so
ldiers were slower than the other four men. Maybe it was because their guns were in buttoned-down holsters. They both grabbed their rifles as the Indians leapt on them. Both men managed to squeeze their triggers before they were killed. The trading-post men were no gunfighters but they had guns. Two of them managed to draw and fire their guns before Nazimo and his braves overcame them.

  The sound of necks being snapped echoed off the log walls.

  The other pair attempted to flee into the night. They opened the door and ran out into the arms of the rest of Nazimo’s men.

  There was no mercy.

  Just the sounds of death.

  Nazimo knew that the men inside Fort Myers would have heard the shots and known what was happening. Like a seasoned military general he made his braves collect a rifle and gun each and as many boxes of ammunition as they could manage.

  Within a mere five minutes the small band of young Apaches was thundering away from the place where they had been imprisoned.

  They were five miles away by the time they heard a bugle sounding from the fortress.

  They they rode on.

  ONE

  A merciless sun refused to stop burning everything below its vicious fury. Even the air was boiling as its vapour swirled around above the seemingly endless ocean of sand. Few men had ever ridden into a land like this willingly. The bleached bones of creatures that had made that fatal mistake were scattered in the white sand as far as the eye could see. Wherever the rider was, it had to be as close to Satan’s lair as it was possible to get without actually being dead.

  Even seeing was becoming harder and harder for the lone rider who eased back on his reins and brought the exhausted horse beneath him to a gentle halt. Encrusted salt from the perpetual sweat had almost glued his eyes shut. He lifted his hat and ran fingers through his wet hair before using it as a shield against the blistering rays of the sun. If there was a way out of this unholy place, he couldn’t see it.

  The horseman dropped from his saddle and stood beside his faithful mount. Every sinew in his young body hurt as though a wagon had ploughed over him. He panted like a hound dog and desperately attempted to find breathable air as his burning lungs inflated his aching chest.

  Was there a way out of this place?

  The question haunted him.

  He clung to the long reins with gloved hands, as though afraid of losing his only chance of escaping this place. Yet if his eyes had not been caked with dried salt and sand he would have seen that his mount was even less capable of fleeing than he was himself.

  Lathered sweat covered the exhausted animal. It looked as though it had reached the end of its own long ride. Its head hung as its blood boiled inside the once proud body. It snorted at the hot ground even more loudly than its master’s own pitiful panting.

  For what seemed like an eternity the man just knelt and watched his own sweat rain down from his head. Even doing this simple thing was not without pain. Within minutes he could feel the heat of the white-hot sand as it burned through the knees of his pants’ legs.

  A myriad thoughts washed through the mind of the horseman as he tried to fight off the inevitable death he knew awaited him if he were to close his eyes. He was tired but refused to succumb to the sleep he knew he would never awaken from.

  The heat from the sand eventually managed to penetrate his clouded thoughts and bring him back to where he knelt.

  Using all his remaining energy, Hal Harper gripped his stirrup and pulled himself back up to his feet. He leaned unsteadily against his saddle. He kept one hand holding the reins and the other gripping the latigo. Harper wanted to fall down and sleep the sleep of the dead, but he knew that as long as he kept gripping the saddle he could resist that desire.

  His eyes tried vainly to make out the scenery but they felt as though branding-irons had been plunged into their sockets. He raised his arm and wiped his face in an atempt to dry the constant sweat that flowed like a waterfall from the hatband over his burned features. Yet his sleeve was like the rest of his bleached trail gear. It was soaked with sweat.

  He lifted the canteen and shook it.

  There was no reply.

  It, like his throat, was bone-dry.

  He then recalled having given the last of his precious water to the horse before sunup. It had been a futile gesture that he now regretted.

  Was this where it would end? Out here in a land he neither recognized nor understood? Was thirst going to finish him off after he had managed to avoid the bullets which had tried to kill him?

  The man reached beneath the belly of the horse. There was no way the animal could take him any further. He loosened the cinch strap, dragged his saddlebags from behind the cantle and dropped them on to the sand. They, like the canteen, were now empty. He patted the horse’s neck and started walking with the animal in tow.

  His high-heeled boots were not designed for walking. They were meant to fit into stirrups and hold a rider firm. Yet he was walking through the soft sand.

  He exhaled and saw the shadows flash across the white ground before him. Startled, Harper’s hand went for the holstered gun on his right hip. Then he realized what had spooked him. Four black wide-winged vultures circled above him.

  They knew how close their next meal was.

  Instinct had alerted them to the fact that there were two big meals getting closer and closer to their demise. They only had to wait as the hot thermals kept them floating above the horse and its owner. They had time to wait. Plenty of time to wait for such substantial meals.

  Harper sighed heavily.

  His thoughts returned to how he had found himself in this perilous place. He realized that if he had not run away from the guns which had tried to end his existence, he would not be in this unknown land. He would already be dead. Dead from lead poisoning.

  Yet would that be any worse than this?

  He was angry. If he had just taken the time to ensure his canteen was filled he might not be walking alongside a dying horse. But there had not been any time to do anything except flee the guns.

  Harper staggered and heard the horse behind him do the same. Neither found the soft sand to their liking.

  Harper could use his gun as well as if not better than most along the unmarked border, but he had never chosen to fight if there were an alternative. Now he doubted whether that had been wise. He should have killed all those who had tried to kill him.

  But that had never been his way.

  He tried to swallow but their was no spittle left to wet his throat. The dunes of sand rose in all directions like mysterious yellow mountains: mountains that seemed to move as if they actually were alive.

  All the man could do was walk beneath them in the hope that their shadows would ease his and his horse’s pain.

  For nearly two days he had ridden.

  For nearly two days they had chased him.

  With every stride Harper asked himself the same question. Why had those men back in Senora opened up on him? He had barely been in the town thirty minutes when they had sought him out in the small cantina.

  Somehow he had managed to escape their bullets. He had managed to leap through a window, find his horse, and then he had spurred.

  But they had chased him.

  Like hounds on the scent of a racoon they just refused to quit.

  They chased him further and further south until the grass had ended and even the sagebrush no longer grew. Chased him into the endless dunes of sand and kept on coming.

  Harper gave a sigh and led the slow horse up the side of a dune in an attempt to find a vantage point from where he might have a clue as to which direcion to take.

  But tired legs, both human and animal, were not designed to walk up hills of dry sand that gave way with every step. Somehow he managed to reach the top of the dune. He carefully patted his mount on the neck and screwed up his burning eyes once more.

  It was hard to see anything through the thick haze of burning air. The dunes rolled on for miles but there did seem t
o be something just before the horizon. The shimmering heat played tricks with Harper as he clung to his reins. It looked as though there was water out there!

  Blue, inviting water.

  Could there be a lake at the end of this torture? Again he tried to swallow.

  Again he failed.

  Could there really be water out there?

  The question tormented Harper as he surveyed the rest of the land that encompassed him and his horse. Then as his unsteady legs turned him to look back over the sand he had already travelled across he felt his heart quicken.

  Even the hot air could not conceal them from his burning eyes.

  Five figures appeared, almost black against the arid landscape they were riding in. Harper rubbed his eyes again and focused for all he was worth at the riders, who seemed to vanish with every other beat of his pounding heart. The treacherous heat haze mocked him.

  They were still chasing after him!

  Or were they?

  He gasped, steadied himself against the exhausted horse and gritted his teeth. It seemed impossible that anyone should keep hunting another soul through a land like this.

  Were they insane? No sane man would ride into a land like this, he told himself.

  Again he rubbed his eyes. Was it real or just another of the mirages that had tantalized him for the previous two days in this strange country?

  Then Harper felt the heat of something pass within inches of him. The horse shied and instantly he knew what it had been. The sound of the gunfire echoed around him.

  It was real.

  They were still hunting him.

  TWO

  It had all begun two days earlier and forty miles north in a border town called Senora. Senora was by its very nature a dangerous place. So far away from the rest of civilized Texas, which was trying to rebuild itself after the war, Senora had become just another of those places where the law barely hung on to its tin stars long enough to find out the name of the men wearing them. The reality was that it was a town where outlaws and bandits found safe refuge knowing that the local sheriff would not do anything except keep his head down.