Leslie - Dead Mans Trail

MORE PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF FRANK LESLIE

Leslies writing is fast-paced yet so richly detailed that you can smell the gun smoke and taste the dust. Not to be missed!

Wayne D. Dundee, author of Hard Trail to Socorro and Reckoning at Rainrock

Frank Leslie writes with leathery prose honed sharper than a buffalo skinners knife, with characters as explosive as forty-rod whiskey, and a plot that slams the reader with the impact of a Winchester slug.

Johnny D. Boggs, Spur AwardWinning author of Killstraight

Snug down your hat and hang on. Frank Leslie kicks his story into a gallop right out of the gate... raw and gritty as the West itself.

Mark Henry, author of The Hell Riders

An enormously entertaining burst of stay-up-late, read-into-the-night, fast-moving flurry of page-turning action. Leslie spins a yarn that rivals the very best on Western shelves today. Moving at breakneck speed, this novel is filled with crackling good stuff. I couldnt put it down!

J. Lee Butts, author of And Kill Them All

Hooks you instantly with sympathetic characters and sin-soaked villains. Yakima has a heart of gold and an Arkansas toothpick.

Mike Baron, creator of Nexus and the Badger comic book series

Big, burly, brawling, and action-packed.... A testosterone-laced winner from the word go, and Frank Leslie is an author to watch!

E. K. Recknor, author of The Legendary Kid Donovan

Also Available by Frank Leslie

The Bells of El Diablo

The Last Ride of Jed Strange

Dead River Killer

Revenge at Hatchet Creek

Bullet for a Half-Breed

The Killers of Cimarron

The Dangerous Dawn

The Guns of Sapinero

The Savage Breed

The Wild Breed

DEAD MANS TRAIL

Frank Leslie

A SIGNET BOOK

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Printing, November 2012

Copyright Peter Brandvold, 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA

PUBLISHERS NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

To Rich and Sally Morehead

with thanks for the forty-rod and everything else!

Contents

Chapter 1

Yakima, were gonna get shot so full of lead, well rattle when we walk!

Tell me somethin I dont already know, Lewis.

A bullet plowed up dirt a foot to the left of Yakima Henrys broad, dark face. Squinting his jade green eyes against the dust, he quickly plucked shells from his cartridge belt and punched them through the loading gate of his octagonal-barreled 1866 Winchester Yellowboy repeater.

I believe them dog-eaters got us surrounded!

Uh-huh.

Lewis Shackleford glanced at Yakima, powder smoke wafting about his head and ratty canvas hat. Uh... I meant no offense with that dog-eater comment....

No dogs around to be offended, Lewis, Yakima said as he punched another round through the Yellowboys loading gate in the right side of the brass, or yellow, receiver that had given the Winchester its nickname.

I got nothin against redskins, or even half-breeds for that matter, as long as they aint tryin to take my topknot or eat out my liver!

A dozen or so empty shell casings littered the bottom of the dry wash around Yakimas moccasins and his friend Lewis Shacklefords mule-eared lace-up boots. Another one clinked onto the collection as Yakima triggered the Yellowboy once more, punching a .44-caliber chunk of hot lead through the right, ochre-painted cheekbone of a Ute brave clad in wolf fur and buckskins and blowing the whooping, howling redskin off his charging paint pony.

Yakima cursed under his breath as he worked the rifles cocking lever, seating another shell in the Winchesters breech.

Shooting Indians of any tribe didnt sit right with the half-breed. After all, they were his people. But then, they werent any more his people than the whites were, as his being a half-breed meant he had one foot in each of the main two frontier blood pools, so to speak.

Both sides regarded him with equal suspicion, so really about the only folks he could call his own were his now-dead Cheyenne mother and his just-as-dead German gold-prospector father. His loyal horse, Wolf, he considered his people at times when he had no one else, though at the moment hed thrown in with Lewis Shackleford, a white man. Yakima took his friends where he found them, and for as long as they lasted. That was usually never very long.

At the moment, and for the past four months, that friend was Lewis. And while Lewis was a half-mad Irish poet who also prospected for gold, and as raggedy-heeled, smelly, and poison-mean when drunk as your average cavalry sergeant, he did have a solid cabin and a nice-looking daughter, Trudy, who wore her blouses tight enough to make her look even better....

Whump!

An arrow punched into the creek bank over which Yakima was triggering the Yellowboy through a clump of rabbitbrush. The missile fletched with hawk feathers stood at a slant only six inches from his right elbow, quivering. Wrapping a big brown hand around it, ripping it out of the ground, and tossing it away, Yakima said, Goddamn it, Lewis, cant you shoot any straighter? I dont think youve knocked even one of these damn hellbenders off a horse yet!

Youre mighty shouting right I aint! Lewis bellowed from ten feet down the bank from Yakima. You know I cant hit the broad side of a barn, which means youre gonna have to