Kiowa Vengeance (15 page)

TROY D. SMITH

I am from the Upper Cumberland region of
Tennessee. My work has appeared in many anthologies, and in
journals such as
Louis L'Amour Western Magazine, Civil War
Times,
and
Wild West.
In addition, I’ve written novels
in several genres—from mysteries like
Cross Road Blues
to
the Civil War epic
Good Rebel Soil
. My other Civil War epic,
Bound for the Promise-Land,
won a Spur Award in 2001 and I
was a finalist on two other occasions. Two of my short stories are
finalists for this year's Peacemaker Award for western fiction. In
a massive lapse of collective judgment, the membership of Western
Fictioneers elected me president for 2012. I received my Ph.D. from
the University of Illinois, and teach American Indian history at
Tennessee Tech. My motto is: “I don’t write about things that
happen to people, I write about people that things happen to.” My
website is
www.troyduanesmith.com
, and my blog is
http://tnwordsmith.blogspot.com

Sample

PROLOGUE

Laird Jenkins had been in so many saloons,
gambling dens, and houses of ill repute across the West that he
couldn't even begin to remember all of them. Sometimes it seemed to
him that he had spent his entire life breathing in the distinctive
yet dubious perfume blended from tobacco smoke, stale beer,
whiskey, piss, unwashed human flesh, bay rum, and cheap lilac
water.

One thing he knew: the dens of iniquity here
in Dogleg City, the less savory area of the settlement known as
Wolf Creek, weren't any different from the ones he had visited
elsewhere, with one or two exceptions.

The place he was in at the moment, Asa's
Saloon, was one of those exceptions. It was owned by a black man,
something you didn't see every day. Many of the clientele were
black as well, but not all—there were a handful of Mexicans and a
few white men who looked down on their luck. Not the sort of place
Laird would normally choose to drink in, but he wasn’t really there
to drink. He was there to do a little business with Asa Pepper.
That business wasn't concluded yet, but Laird thought he had made a
good start on it.

Without saying good night to anyone – there
wasn't anyone in here that he would want to strike up a social
conversation with, as Asa’s customers tended to be the dregs of the
town – Laird left the saloon. He paused on the boardwalk just
outside to take a deep breath of the night air and clear some of
the saloon fumes from his lungs. He was about to head toward the
Imperial Hotel, ready to turn in for the night, when an
overpowering urge struck him. He turned the other way, toward the
nearby alley, and started fumbling with the buttons of his fly.

Damn, he told himself, he wasn't old enough
to be plagued like this. He ought to have a few years left, at
least, before he started having to hurry these things or else he'd
piss his britches.

The darkness of the alley folded around him.
He got himself set, ready to relieve his bladder. And then,
wouldn't you know it, the blasted thing went balky on him and
refused to do anything.

With that to worry him, he almost didn't
hear the faint noise of someone moving behind him. Laird didn't
particularly like the idea of being disturbed at his personal
business like this, and he knew as well that robbers often lurked
in alleys near saloons, lying in wait for unwary drunks. His hand
moved slightly toward the butt of the Colt on his hip.

But maybe it was nothing. A cat or a rat. Or
maybe Asa Pepper had followed him from the saloon, deciding that he
wanted to hear more of what Laird had to say about how they could
both make some money.

“Mister Pepper?” Laird said without looking
behind him. “Is that—”

The muzzle flash split the darkness. A blink
of orange flame, there and then gone, and as it lit up the alley
something smashed into Laird's back, a hammer-blow almost perfectly
centered between his shoulder blades. It drove him forward off his
feet. His face smashed into the hard-packed dirt of the alley
floor. A fierce pain expanded through him, followed by an even more
terrifying numbness. In that brief moment while Laird's muscles
still worked, he managed to roll onto his back. Dying in an alley
behind a saloon was bad enough. Dying with his face in the dirt and
shit and trash of that alley was worse.

Laird tried and failed to draw air into his
lungs. Everything was slipping away from him, and he wished he
could breathe in that heady saloon fragrance once again, just one
more time, just . . .

Ebook
Wolf Creek:
Book 3: Murder
in Dogleg City
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Available or coming soon from Western
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Wolf Creek:

Here you will find many of your favorite
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textured series of Old West adventures like no one has ever
seen.

Book 1: Bloody Trail

Book 2: Kiowa Vengeance

Book 3: Murder in Dogleg City

Book 4: The Taylor County War

Book 5: Showdown at Demon's Drop

Book 6: Hell on the Prairie

Coming: Book 7: The Quick and the Dying

Book 8: Night of the Assassins

Book 9: A Wolf Creek Christmas

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The Western Fictioneers
Library

RAW DEAL AT PASCO SPRINGS by Clay
More

LEAVING KANSAS by Frank
Roderus

JUDGE ON THE RUN by Clay
More

RANGER'S REVENGE by James J.
Griffin

REACHING COLORADO by Frank
Roderus

DEATH STALKS THE RANGERS by James
J. Griffin

A ROPE FOR SCUDDER by Clay
More

DEAD MAN'S GUN AND OTHER STORIES
by Ed Gorman

GUN FOR HIRE by Jory
Sherman

FINDING NEVADA by Frank
Roderus

THE TRAIL BROTHERS by Troy D.
Smith

THE CAST-IRON STAR AND OTHER
WESTERN STORIES by Robert J. Randisi

STAMPEDE AT RATTLESNAKE PASS by
Clay More

A DISGRACE TO THE BADGE AND OTHER
WESTERN STORIES by Ed Gorman

BUZZARD BAIT by Jory
Sherman

RED TOMAHAWK by Jory
Sherman

Coming in The Western Fictioneers
Library

HOME TO TEXAS by Frank
Roderus

CHARLIE AND THE SIR by Frank
Roderus

DOUBLE-DEALING AT DIRTVILLE by
Clay More

IRON HEART by Jory
Sherman

JASON EVERS: HIS OWN STORY by
Frank Roderus

POTTER'S FIELDS by Frank
Roderus

HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS, J. AUBREY
WHITFORD by Frank Roderus

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