Long Ride Home - Softcover

Gear, W Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812583043 ISBN 13: 9780812583045

Publisher: Tor Books

Synopsis

This is an alternate cover edition of ISBN 0-812-51392-4.

Theo Belk is the quintessential gunfighter: rootless, ruthless, and deadly. In the fierce and lawless Western frontier of 1874 these traits were what was needed to stay alive. Haunted by the ghosts of the men he's killed, there is one man he has set out to destroy...Louis Gasceaux, the man who murdered his parents while a younger Theo watched. But the trail Theo's following is long and bloody...and Louis always seems to stay a few steps ahead.

This is how it was--from gritty buffalo and gold camps to brawling, building towns like Denver, Cheyenne, and Dodge City, populated with ambitious dreamers, deluded fools, and pragmatic women.

About this title

About the Author

W. Michael Gear, who holds a master's degree in archaeology, has worked as a professional archaeologist since 1978. He is currently principal investigator for Wind River Archaeological Consultants.

W. Michael Gear and his wife, Kathleen O'Neal Gear are co-authors of the First North American Series and Anasazi Mystery Series (USA Today bestsellers) and live in Thermopolis, Wyoming.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter
1
The gusting wind blowing out of the black night whipped the tail of the horsemen’s mount almost staggering the animal with each icy blast. Theodor Belk sat hunched on the horse, his body giving slightly to the wind as he stared longingly at the small town that lay below the rocky ridge. Yellow light from the windows reflected on the cold, white drifts of snow.
Another gust jerked impatiently at the man’s coat and fluttered the brim of his snow-encrusted ha. The horse fluttered the brim of his snow-encrusted hat. The horse blew softly and shifted his back to the wind and the stinging sleet.
"Ho, shuh. Easy boy," Theo coaxed to the frosty ear that swung his direction. The sorrel vented a sigh as if in reply and sniffed futilely for the warm stable he knew lay below.
Theo Belk was tired. He was well bundled in a worn army greatcoat. His soogan provided protection from the ever-curious wind and snow that worried the loose wraps of his clothing. Ice rimmed the bandana that pulled the brim of the battered felt hat down over his ears.
"There she is boy. Down there in that house with the pretty red shutters. She married a no-account storekeeper. That’s what they told us over to Radersburg." He emphasized the last with a stream of brown tobacco juice that stained the crusted snow.
"Said she wanted to marry a man that would stay at home. Said she couldn’t marry a man who had shot someone. Wanted a name in the community, and a family, and...Ah, hell!
"Let’s make tracks, horse." Theo flicked the reins and prodded the sorrel into the wind and blowing snow, away from the beckoning lights of the town below. His body felt empty, while his emotions churned. He felt the desire to go down there and shoot that damn storekeeper but he knew the townsfolk would hand him.
The thought of how warm and soft her body had been crept in around the edges of his consciousness. He remembered the feeling evoked by her delicate hands and the soft look of her eyes.
It had been the first time in his life that he had allowed himself to get close to another human being. Prior to Liz, Theo had never known there was a deep emptiness in the tough shell of his body. Now she was gone and Theo felt the void—deep, lonely, and bottomless. He had been vulnerable and it scared him.
Snorting at his thoughts he rationalized, "Yep, she done got herself a name now and a nice tame storekeeper to boot. Not half-bad for a like girl from Sylvia’s Place." A grim smile played crookedly about his lips and cracked the ice that rimmed his mustache and beard.
The sorrel picked its way carefully down the deeply drifted slope, feeling for purchase among the dark shapes of rock that thrust through the dimly lit snow. Finding better footing in the drainage, the sorrel stepped out, making better time and glad to be moving in the biting wind. The clouds were breaking to the west and soon a thousand stars watched them pass through the cold empty night. They entered the breaks of the river and ghosted between the shapes of cottonwoods that thrust black branches to the dark sky.
Theo pulled up and sniffed the wind, watching the sorrel’s reactions. The red horse had better senses than he and any warning would be relayed by the animal first. Seeing no sign of worry on the sorrel’s part, Theo nudged the mount into his camp.
The small fire he had left hours ago was down to a deep bed of coals that shimmered in red waves with the shifting wind. Two packhorses whinnied their greetings as the man swung coldly from the saddle and cared for his horse with stiff fingers. Theo blanketed the animal and made sure of the picket pin before throwing a few more branches onto the dying fire.
"I guess I’m a fool for going up there," he muttered. "You’d think even a damned idiot would learn after a while."
Theo batted show from his hat and coat before stooping to brush it from his bedroll. He placed the bedroll feet first toward the fire and, pulling off his icy soogan, crawled between the blankets.
"Reckon there’s times a warm house and a lard eatin’ job wouldn’t be half-bad," he growled. "Women! Hell’s full of women!" His eyes grew heavy as his body warmed in the blankets.
The next morning he started south. By afternoon he’d picked up the rutted trace of the Bozeman Trail. Leaving the Yellowstone, it skirted the defiant slopes of the Pryor Mountains and the Big Horns. The days were cold, stark, and clear marred only by the incessant wind. Then the sky clouded and the snow fell in fine flakes while the wind rushed wraiths of snow across the frozen drifts. Four days after his departure from the Yellowstone, the sun came out and the wind ceased. That night, cloud cover gone, the temperature dropped.
The only excitement on the long trip came in the form of a sleeping Sioux village nestled in the breaks of the Tongue River. The man slowly wended his way through the foothills, giving the conical lodges a wide berth. The red brethren were still angry about the white man’s roads and forts
Working his way south, Theo stopped at Piney Creek and stared thoughtfully at the few charred timbers that protruded like blackened limbs above the crusted snow. Here lay the gutted remains of Fort Phil Kearny. The Sioux, after driving the hated white army from their lands, had set fire to the structure. The Bloody Bozeman had been closed at an awful expense of red and white lives.
"Carrington was a fool," he mused aloud. "Damn stupid to put a fort here in the first place and damn stupid to break the treaty in the second."
The sorrel swiveled an ear to listen. Theo spoke periodically to the horse. They had traveled together for years, covering the empty, windswept steppes of what would become Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado—sole companions in the quiet land.
"The army taught them how to march in straight lines," Theo continued. "Taught them how to fill out forms, build buildings, dig ditches. Taught them how to fight, too. Taught them how to fight armies of their own people. But they never taught them damn martinets how to live with the wind, the snow, the rain, and the heat. They sure never taught them how to fight the Sioux. Book soldiers!"
Working his jaws under his frozen beard, he squinted, looking around at the high, rolling grass-and sage-covered ridges blanketed in the white mantle of winter. The Big Horns rose to the west, stolid, silent guardians of the lonely graves of fallen soldiers.
From the time John Jacobs and John Bozeman first staked the trail in 1863 until Red Cloud drove the army away in 1868, war had been the constant companion of the Bozeman traveler. The land had been granted to the Sioux in the Treaty of 1851. Until gold was found in Montana, no one had a need to cross these last barren hunting grounds.
The wind picked up as Theo headed the sorrel and his pack animals south down the drifted trail. The sorrel took the lead, the packhorses following, the first led by a strap, the next tail hitched.
The second day after leaving Phil Kearny, the slopes of the Pumpkin Buttes rose in the east above the gently rolling grasslands. Theo scowled at the sandstone-capped prominences, aware that Sioux scouts haunted the excellent points of vantage.
Crossing ice-choked Crazy Woman Creek, Theo made camp in the breaks. The low sagebrush fire provided little comfort for the weary man. While the wind whimpered, the horses pawed the crushed snow in search of last year’s grasses.
Morning brought low clouds and wisps of snow. Theo growled as he threw the frost-encrusted saddle onto the sorrel. He fumbled with the cinch with frozen fingers. The air wa

Edition details

• Publisher: Tor Books
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812583043
• ISBN 13: 9780812583045
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 404