Deadfall

Book 0: Charley Sunday's Texas Outfit

by Stephen Lodge

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

In the lawless frontier town of Brownsville, Texas, a boy and his parents ride a carriage down a crowded street—when a kill-crazy band of kidnappers strike suddenly. Now, to rescue his family, veteran rancher Charley Sunday cobbles together a ragtag posse that starts with an outlaw and an Indian—and picks up recruits, weapons, and a lot of trouble all the way down into Mexico. Because his grandson has escaped, Charley and his loyal band of misfits know who they are hunting for—but they don't know why the family was targeted or what living nightmare lies ahead: from Indian raiders to Mexican bandits and nature's own fury.

By the time Charley finds his family in the most brutally lawless part of Mexico, there will only be one way out: through a hail fire of bullets and a mad, galloping, bloody battle for survival.

Release date: April 28, 2015

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

1900

Eleven-year-old Henry Ellis Pritchard sat quietly between his parents in a hired, open-top carriage, as they traveled down Main Street in Brownsville, Texas.

He was dressed in his Sunday best—from his blue, four-in-hand tie, his suit coat and knickers, with their knee-high stockings, to his brand-new, lace-up, ankle-high shoes. His light brown hair, slicked backed when the journey began, was now blowing gently in the gulf breeze. His ever-present smile shone bright as always—just as his mother had taught him to do at all times.

Sitting across from the family was a well-dressed Mexican gentleman, a security officer employed by the man they were going to visit. The security officer’s name was Jose “Roca” Fuerte—and he would smile at Henry Ellis every so often.

Henry Ellis studied the man. In Austin, where he came from, one seldom saw a Mexican anymore. But here in Brownsville—directly across the river from Matamoros, a thriving Mexican city of its own—they were plentiful. He’d seen a few Mexicans during his visits to his grandfather’s the previous summer, when he stayed with him on his old ranch in Juanita, Texas. But Juanita was much closer to the international border than Austin.

Jose Roca Fuerte wore a large sombrero—not one of those with a very high crown, and extremely wide brim, that Henry Ellis had seen in one of his history books, but a much tamer version, made from beaver pelts, as most American-made hats were constructed. His once black, now going to white, mustache, had been trimmed neatly above his upper lip. And he wore his sideburns and hair—also white—quite long, to cover some smallpox scarring he had on his neck and both cheeks. Henry Ellis knew that was what it was because he’d seen the same scars on several of his classmates back in Austin.

Betty Jean, the boy’s mother, held a bouquet of long-stem roses in her lap.

“I am glad you are enjoying the flowers, Mrs. Pritchard,” said Fuerte. “They were gathered from the personal gardens of Don Roberto.”

Henry Ellis watched as Fuerte spoke, the man’s eyes shifting from one direction to another—always on the alert for trouble. At the same time the boy listened to the sounds of the border city—especially those made by the hooves of the two-horse matching team that pulled the carriage. The Mexican driver was taking them to the border bridge crossing at the far end of the well-traversed, cobblestone boulevard.

Other carriages, buggies, and freight wagons, plus men of all dress on horseback, packed the wide thoroughfare, moving in both directions, as the carriage made its way toward the gated, international boundary.

“Now, son,” said the boy’s father, Kent, “I know you’ve been to Mexico with me several times before . . . and I know you’ve always enjoyed those outings we’ve had together below the border. I just want to remind you again that this trip isn’t going to be just like it was on those other occasions. This visit is primarily for business reasons—though there will be a social side to it.

“As you already know,” he went on, “our family has been selected by my company to be the guests of Don Roberto Acosta y Castro . . . the owner of one of the major trading firms with which we do business. The Don is also a younger brother to the commanding general of the Mexican army. We will be staying at the Don’s hacienda, on his rancho on the other side of Matamoros, Brownsville’s sister city across the Rio Grande. Señor Fuerte has been assigned to accompany us for our protection. There are some people in Mexico, we’ve recently discovered, who would do us harm just because I work for a company that does business with Don Roberto.”

The boy looked again at the security man sitting across from him.

“Does the Don keep any horses on his rancho?” the boy asked.

“The Don?” said Fuerte. “I am sure that he does. Sí.”

“Now don’t you let me catch you begging Don Roberto for a horseback ride, young man,” said his mother, Betty Jean, “or anything else. If you do, I’ll paddle your little butt so hard you won’t be able to sit down for all the time we’re in Mexico, plus what it takes for us to get back home to Austin.”

“Sorry, Mother,” said Henry Ellis, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. “I’ll try not to embarrass you if you try not to embarrass me. I’m almost twelve years old, Mother.”

“Don’t you crack wise with me, young man,” said Betty Jean.

“He wasn’t making a joke of it, darlin’,” said Kent. “Henry Ellis will fit in just fine during our stay with Don Roberto.”

“I am sure that he will,” said Fuerte.

The boy’s attention had been drawn to a small plaza up ahead where a freight wagon appeared to have broken down. Several men wearing colorful ponchos and large sombreros were attempting to remove a broken wheel, while the anxious mules balked at the imposition. Others had gathered around to observe.

The driver slowed the carriage as they prepared to pass the damaged wagon near the fountain in the center of the plaza.

“Señor Pritchard,” said Fuerte to Henry Ellis’s father, “this is not a place for an accident . . . This is a place for an . . . ambush.”

“I knew we should have gone another way,” said Betty Jean.

“There is no other way,” said Fuerte.

He reached inside his waistcoat and pulled a small . 32-caliber, four-barrel pepperbox pocket gun, handing it to Kent, who seemed reluctant to take it. Fuerte turned to Betty Jean and the boy.

“You two must get down . . . at once,” he said.

Fuerte helped Betty Jean and Henry Ellis kneel down onto the floorboards of the carriage.

By then the plaza had filled with more curious onlookers. In Spanish, Fuerte told the driver that he should back the team up and find another route.

Fuerte finally shoved the small gun into Kent’s hand and drew his own sidearm—a .44-caliber Smith & Wesson Russian model double-action revolver.

The two-horse team was urged to back up—pushing the rear end of the carriage into a two-wheel handcart that someone had purposely rolled into the vehicle’s path.

Suddenly a large Mexican man in the street stepped onto the running board of the coach and pulled Fuerte out of the carriage, sending them both sprawling onto the cobblestones.

In the meantime the carriage driver was able to find an opening in the crowd. He whipped at the horses, moving the coach farther on up the street.

Still on the ground, Fuerte swung at the man with whom he was fighting, using his pistol as a club. The attacker’s blood splattered onto several people nearby.

Fuerte turned to run after the carriage. Even so, the bloodied man reached out, grabbing for his boot.

Without hesitation, Fuerte whirled and fired his weapon point-blank at the man. The bullet found its target between the attacker’s eyes.

Fuerte stumbled on, continuing his pursuit of the coach.

Up ahead in the carriage, the boy watched his father fire the small pepperbox pocket gun Fuerte had given him, twice—with both slugs hitting their mark. One of the attackers took a bullet to the shoulder, with the second projectile clipping the other man’s earlobe. It was then the boy’s father realized he only had two cartridges left, and that he wasn’t going to do much damage with the small pistol he had against the number of men who were surrounding them. In moments, Henry Ellis’s father was completely overpowered, face-to-face with the large number of armed Mexicans who were now climbing onto the running boards on each side of the carriage. Henry Ellis continued to watch as their driver was attacked by two men from each side and his throat slit. The driver’s body was then dumped onto the cobblestones, where it fell like a rag doll. One of the ambushers took his place behind the reins.

Henry Ellis was watching all of this from the floorboards as his father continued to defend his mother and himself from the swarm of aggressors with his fists.

His father looked down and shouted to the boy:

“Forget about your mother and me for now, Henry Ellis. Just get out of here . . . at once . . . and please, my son . . . Trust no one!”

He reached over to the handle of the opposite door and opened it for the boy.

Henry Ellis jumped . . . right through the tangle of Mexican legs crowded together on the narrow running board.

The boy rolled several times on the cobblestones before he was able to sit up.

As the carriage carrying both his mother and father disappeared into the throngs of people, Henry Ellis could still see his father as he handed over the pepperbox pocket gun to one of the Mexican men who had been assaulting them.

A tear began to form in one of the boy’s eyes. He blinked several times to shake it free . . . and when he could see clearly again, Roca Fuerte was standing over him, the smoking Smith & Wesson still in his hand.

“Come with me at once, Henry Ellis,” he said. “We must leave the city immediately. It is of no use for us to follow them. Those men appear only to want your father for now, not us. It is better that we report what has happened to Don Roberto as soon as we can.”

“What about the police?” said Henry Ellis. “Shouldn’t we contact the police?”

“No policía,” replied Fuerte firmly. “We do not want the authorities involved. It is much better that we let Don Roberto handle this situation using his own militia.”

Henry Ellis jerked away from the security man. He turned immediately, then ran into the crowd, disappearing completely from Fuerte’s sight.

His father’s words, Trust no one, rang over and over in his ears.

Don Roberto Acosta y Castro was riding in from surveying another seventy-five thousand hectares of grazing land he had recently inherited from a deceased cousin. The newly acquired property was adjacent to his own estate, which was part of an old Spanish land grant shared by him and the rest of the Acosta family.

The Don galloped through the entrance gates leading to his hacienda. He was followed by his foreman and eight Acosta vaqueros.

As the assemblage reined up in front of the main house, Tomás, his number one houseman, came running down the steps holding a small envelope in his hand.

“Don Roberto,” he called out. “Something terrible has happened. A messenger was just here. He left this note for you. He said it was very important.”

When he reached Don Roberto, Tomás handed him the envelope. The Don took a few moments to open, then read the short message before turning to his foreman, Luis Hernandez.

“Luis,” he said, “this message is from Roca Fuerte. The Americans he was bringing to visit me have been abducted . . . and Roca thinks the Armendariz gang had something to do with it.”

“Sí, Don Roberto,” said Luis. “Shall I contact your brother in Veracruz?”

“No,” said Don Roberto. “Not yet. For now I would like to keep the army out of this. I think we should be able to handle it ourselves. I will send him a message when we know more about what is going on.”

“Si, mi jefe,” said the foreman.

“I want you to do whatever you can to find them, Luis. It is my responsibility to locate that American family and bring those who took part in their abduction to justice. Choose the best gunmen in my employ; they will know how to handle Armendariz and his people.”

“But where do we start looking, Don Roberto?” asked Hernandez. “This is a big country. Where do we start?”

“I will be with you, Luis, and I do not care where we start,” said Don Roberto. “And I also do not care about how many men we must kill to find them. Just as long as we find those Americans and bring them here to my hacienda.”

“I will gather up a few more men—”

“You will take the chosen members of my militia, plus all of my vaqueros, if need be,” said Don Roberto. “This is an embarrassment for me. And it will bring me a much larger humiliation if anything happens to that American family.”

Charley Sunday was smiling.

He stood reminiscing beside his favorite horse, Dice, the handsome paint with one blue eye he’d taken to Colorado and ridden during the Colorado-to-Texas longhorn cattle drive nearly a year earlier.

Charley’s brown, leathery hands stroked the horse’s neck. His just as tanned and deeply furrowed countenance wrinkled even more as he squinted in the afternoon sun’s fading rays. For a moment, he hitched his thumbs under his lime-green suspenders and gave his pants a tug, pulling them up half an inch or so to keep them in their proper position.

Man and horse were resting in the shade of an old pepper tree at the top of a low hillock overlooking Charley’s Juanita, Texas, ranch.

Charley had been casually watching a distant object nearly three-quarters of a mile away, something that had momentarily perked his interest.

A familiar old wagon was lurching down the recently graded farm-to-market road that passed the entrance to his ranch. The slow-moving vehicle was also weaving— zigzagging slowly—as if the driver might be having trouble with the steering mechanism, or with his team. Or possibly, God forbid, the driver had been drinking.

Charley continued to observe the wagon as it finally pulled over and came to a standstill at the side of the road. A single passenger was discharged before the old wagon pulled out onto the thoroughfare again. The driver put his horses into a wide U-turn, then headed off back in the direction from which he had come.

It had been a while since Charley and his brave little band of dedicated cowhands had driven the herd of Texas longhorns down from Colorado. The three hundred head of longhorn cattle had belonged to an old transplanted Texan who, years earlier, had sixty-four longhorns delivered to his new homestead—a large ranch near Denver, Colorado.

When the old man died a year ago, his family put the entire herd—which had grown to three hundred—on the auction block. By doing this—bidding on the entire herd, then driving them back home to Texas—Charley Sunday had earned for himself, to keep as his own, ten percent of the entire herd.

Flora Mae Huckabee—the local hotel, bar, and poolroom owner—had been Charley’s special lady-friend on and off since their childhood years, and was also the financial backer of the Colorado to Texas cattle venture. She had allowed Charley three whole days by himself to pick and choose his way through the longhorns. Charley had spent many an hour separating out from the others the stock he wished to keep for his own. That comprised a fair amount of breeding-age heifers. It also included the only bull in the bunch—a smaller than normal-size male he called Blue Bell. Charley’s friend Feather Martin had given the bull that name early on because of the animal’s sweet and peaceful disposition.

Charley chewed on his pipe stem. He sucked every now and then on the stale tobacco taste that lingered in the old hand-carved bowl. He was thinking about the cattle he now owned, and how his small herd of thirty had grown by nine or so calves since he and his outfit had arrived back in Juanita ten months earlier—thanks to Blue Bell, of course, and to his personal intuition, which allowed him to look a heifer in the eye and tell if she was with calf or not.

Those same eyes were now following the narrow dirt wagon path that wound its way up from the main entrance, past the holding pens, and to the ranch house itself. The figure of the person who had been discharged from the wagon was now making his way on foot, up the path toward the corrals.

He’s too slight to be a full-grown man, Charley was thinking to himself. He appears to be either a woman wearing men’s trousers . . . or a half-grown boy.

After another good look down the path, Charley shook his head—then he looked once again.

By golly, he thought, that sure looks an awful lot like my grandson, Henry Ellis.

He squinted, then he spoke out loud:

“It is Henry Ellis,” and again to himself, I wonder what he’s doing way down here all by himself?

Charley stepped into the stirrup of Dice’s saddle, swung his other leg over, then spurred out down the hill toward the approaching boy.

About then, Charley’s lifelong friend and partner, Roscoe Baskin, who was just a little bit overweight and near Charley’s age, happened to look out the kitchen window. He saw his partner dismount, then sweep the boy up into his arms where the two remained hugging until the horse nudged Charley from behind.

Charley lifted his grandson up and into the saddle. With reins in hand, he began leading both horse and boy up the remainder of the path toward the ranch house.

“My mother and father have been abducted, Grampa,” said Henry Ellis.

Charley stopped in his tracks. He turned and looked up at his grandson.

“Abducted?” said Charley. “My daughter? My Betty Jean? . . . and Kent? Where? . . . and by who?”

“Brownsville,” answered Henry Ellis. “I think they were bandits.”

“What in tarnation were the three of you doing in Brownsville?” asked Charley.

“My father was going to Mexico on business . . . he was taking Mother and me along because the invitation had said for him to bring us with him.”

Roscoe had been in the process of cooking a chicken dish for that evening’s supper. He just happened to look out the window again as he set a freshly baked pie on the sill to cool. He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses so he could see better.

Charley was now leading Dice, with the boy in the saddle, and the two were talking. Roscoe knew the new arrival was Henry Ellis right off, by the way Charley helped the boy dismount in front of the house. Then Charley took him into his arms, swinging the just under five-foot-three boy around at least three times, before letting him go so he could stand back to get a better look at his only grandson.

The next hug contained a few kisses—several on the boy’s forehead administered by Charley, and more than the usual amount planted on Charley’s cheeks from the overly animated Henry Ellis.

“It’s a long story, Grampa,” said the boy, as the two of them entered the ranch house through the rear screen door.

“As soon as Roscoe gets some nourishment down you, I want to hear the rest of the story,” said Charley.

“Well, look who’s showed up out a’ the blue,” said Roscoe as he met the two of them at the kitchen door.

“Give Henry Ellis some room,” said Charley, leading the new arrival over to the kitchen table, where he let him sit. “He’s been on the road for a while without anything to eat. Can’t you see he’s starved, Roscoe?”

Roscoe, who had been preparing supper for Charley and himself anyway, grabbed a plate and dished up some of his chicken casserole. He used a fork to put a sweet potato onto the platter along with it. After adding some biscuits and gravy, he set the plate down in front of the boy.

Roscoe moved to the icebox, where he found a pitcher of buttermilk. Taking a clean glass from the cupboard, he filled the container to the brim before setting the chunky liquid down on the table beside Henry Ellis’s plate.

“Dig in, sonny boy,” said Roscoe. “There’s always more where that came from.”

A short time later, right after Henry Ellis had sopped up what remained on his plate with one of Roscoe’s special-made sourdough biscuits, Charley urged him once again to continue his story.

“So, you were in Brownsville, with your parents, on your way to visit someone in Mexico, when you were attacked by a gang of Mexican thugs on the street? Is that right?”

“At first none of us knew what was happening,” said the boy. “Then Señor Fuerte said something about an ambush.”

“Fuerte?” said Charley. “Who is Señor Fuerte?”

“He’s an undercover security man who works for the gentleman we were going to visit in Mexico. He was supposed to be a bodyguard for us. He met the three of us at the train depot with a rented carriage and said he was not to let us out of his sight during our entire stay with Don Roberto,” said the boy. “When it was all over I almost went with him, then I remembered my father’s last words to me.

“And what were those words, son?”

“My father said, ‘Trust no one.’ And he meant it, Grampa. I know he did.”

“So instead of going off with this . . . bodyguard, you—”

“I saw that there were still a lot of people standing around, so I just ran, hoping the crowd would help block his view of me, while I made my way back across town to the train station.”

“So, you got back on the train and then came here?” said Roscoe.

“I wasn’t going to go all the way back to Austin,” said Henry Ellis. “There’s no one there I can depend on. Plus, Grampa Charley’s the only person I thought of when I knew I had to find someone I trusted.”

He leaned in closer to Roscoe. “You too, Uncle Roscoe . . . I trust you almost as much as I trust Grampa.”

“Let’s get back to your story, Henry Ellis,” said Charley. “How did you ever manage to buy a seat on the train with no money?”

“That was as easy as pie,” said the boy. “When we travel, my father always pins a brand-new one-hundred-dollar bill inside my coat sleeve . . . just for emergencies. Well, I figured that the abduction of my parents was an emergency, so I bought a ticket and got here to Juanita as quick as the train could get me here. It was getting from the depot to your ranch that had me stumped, Grampa. The folks that run the passenger wagon at the depot only go as far as Juanita’s Main Street. I thought finding someone who would take me on to your ranch might be a problem until an old man offered his services. That’s how I got here.”

“So, Feather Martin brung ya, did he?” said Roscoe.

“I thought that man looked an awful lot like Feather,” said Henry Ellis, “but he was really dirty . . . and smelly . . . and he never said he was Feather . . . plus he had a full beard that covered most of his face. I think he had fleas, too, the way he was always scratching himself. I’m sure I would have recognized Feather if that was him . . . don’t you think?” he added.

“I’d say that under the circumstances it was up to Feather to recognize you, son,” said Charley . . . “Unless he’s gone and lost his memory, too, this time.”

“It wasn’t Feather,” said the boy. “Why I’d know Feather anywhere.”

Charley shook his head. “Not anymore you wouldn’t, I’m afraid,” he said. “I don’t think Feather Martin has drawn a sober breath . . . or taken a bath . . . since summer, when we got the longhorn herd back here to Juanita.”

“He’s become a barrel-boarder, Henry Ellis. A bum. A drunken sot. Plus the fame kinda went to his head, you might say,” added Roscoe.

“It was the lack of fame for Feather if you ask me,” said Charley. “Now let’s get back to your problem, Henry Ellis . . . enough about Feather Martin.”

Charley stood and walked over to the kitchen sink, where he turned on the faucet and filled a glass with some water for himself.

“What do you think, son?” he asked the b. . .