Ridden by the Devil

By Laurie Kiel

"Gunfighters are ridden by the devil and his spurs are sharp." Dreaming of a life free from bloodshed, gunfighter Colt Blevins is blackmailed into masquerading as heir to a large fortune. While disguised, he falls in love with a beautiful blonde whose main goal in life is to see Colt hanged. With danger and deception at every turn, will he even live long enough to realize his dream?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laurie Kiel
• Release date: Feb 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301493586

Laurie Kiel

LAURIE KIEL is a writer and performer of original Biblical monologues which she has performed in churches, special events and small groups in the Midwest and Southwest. Born in Rapid City, SD to a Presbyterian minister and landscrape artist, she has a special love for the Black Hills of South Dakota and interest in its history; bringing about this series of westerns. For eight years, Laurie wrote a feature called "Biblical portraits" for a magazine produced by Casas church, a church of 10,000 members. She has a degree in Elementary Education and Masters in Adult Education. Besides this Western series, Laurie has written over 20 monologues.. and 35 Biblical portraits. In her spare time, Laurie likes to read, make handmade greeting cards and "pun"ish her friends and family with groaningly bad jokes. Laurie lives with her sister, Diane and two adorable shih tzus Smokey and Bandit in southern Arizona.

Book preview

Chapter 1

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June 9, 1875--the last thing Colt expected that night was to kill his best friend.

A heavy fog blotted out the moon and the stars, making travel slow. So it was near midnight when Colt rode into the small town of Stone Creek, Wyoming Territory.

He sniffed the cool night air hoping for the aroma of steak frying--or even beans. He especially craved whiskey to cut his fierce thirst. Nothing. All he could smell was the dust and his own sweat. A mirthless smile flickered across his lips. Stone Creek hadn't changed in the year he'd been gone. They still closed up the town at ten o'clock.

He had never expected to be back in Stone Creek again. After all, Billy's insulting remarks had driven Colt away in hot anger. Colt had gone to live with an Indian tribe for a year. Even there among Indian friends, once Colt had almost left when he had learned they were also old friends of Billy's.

The memory floated back into Colt's mind to a conversation he and Billy had had in their hotel room a year ago. What had turned out to be their last conversation....

You're a fool, Billy had said, bending down to flick a speck of dust from his already spotless black boots. You say, 'Don't shoot to kill if you don't have to. Only shoot in self-defense. Don't kill for money. No robbery.' What do you think we live on boy, --glory?

There's bounty to live on, Colt had said, his blue eyes intense with the effort of making Billy understand. You can bring them in alive. So you don't have to kill for money. Or there's a bodyguard job, or a stagecoach guard. With those you don't rob, and you don't shoot to kill if you don't have to, only in self-defense.

You're a fool, Billy had repeated, his voice laced with harshness, You believe there's actually honor and glory in being a gunfighter. And you don't want to tarnish that image. Well, it's an image of clay, and you can't tarnish clay, boy.

Are you telling me you think I shouldn't be a gunfighter, Billy? Colt had asked defensively. He wasn't sure of what hurt more, Billy throwing scalding water on his dream, or the fact that it was his idol belittling him.

Colt, I don't know, Billy had said, There's none faster than you on the draw, including me. But you're so blasted full of these foolish ideas. Not to mention a buffalo could walk quieter than you. And the way you're coughing your lungs out--you'll be dead of consumption before you're twenty-five, anyway.

Then stop wasting your time on a fool! Colt had said angrily and stomped out of the hotel room., coughing in his agitation...

The memory brought a mirthless smile to Colt's lips. It had taken a long time for his anger against Billy to cool. Yet now Colt's anger toward Billy was gone. So what was Colt doing back in Stone Creek?

Colt needed Billy's advice. He'd left the part of his life with the Indians behind. He felt ready now--but ready for what? He wanted to talk to Billy before he started too far along this gunfighter road. After all, the experienced gunfighter had taught Colt everything he knew about guns. Billy Blevins had been a father to him, better than Colt's real father. With a grimace Colt thought about his drunken father. He so despised his whiskey-stewed father that he had changed his own name from Michael Fletcher to Colt Blevins, taking his own middle name and Billy's last name. After all, he was better off with no ties to his real father, and Billy Blevins had been far more a father to him than that drunken sot, Zachary Fletcher.

Colt padded in silence along the deserted streets of Rock Springs, wishing Billy could seem him now. Colt had changed since he'd left Billy. He wasn't the heavy- footed, coughing nineteen year old Billy had once known. After spending a year with the Indians, Colt could walk through fallen leaves without a crackle. Thanks to his outdoor life with the Indians, his cough had almost disappeared.

The town was swathed in fog. The fog weighed upon Colt's spirits and made him jumpy and nervous. So when he heard heavy footsteps, he whirled around, hand on his gun.

Came to warn you, a big, hulking man grunted, Out there, somebody's looking to kill you.

Who-- Colt started to ask, but the man was already walking away, disappearing into the thick fog. Colt walked toward the hotel, licking his lips. Why would anybody want to kill him? His nerves were stretched taut with tension. Every muscle was poised for action.

Out of the corner of his eye, Colt saw a flash of movement. He whirled around, his gun in his hand. Then he gave a grim smile. It was only an alley cat.

Colt strained his ears, listening for any sound. The alley was as silent as a cemetery. Colt grimaced at the thought of a cemetery. The fog thinned as an evening breeze blew through town. A figure stepped from behind a building. A shaft of moonlight glinted on metal. Too fast for conscious thought, Colt pulled his gun and fired. The figure fell.

Colt ran over to the man. Now he'd find out who his would-be killer was. His own voice echoed in his head, 'Don't shoot to kill if you don't have to--only in self-defense.' But this was self- defense, Colt reasoned. He hadn't shot for money, or robbery. But the man was dead just the same. He reached the body and froze.

There in the dust lay the only white man Colt ever claimed as friend--the man who had taken an angry, embittered kid, and turned him into an accomplished marksman.

He had killed Billy Bloody Blevins!

Chapter 2

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Colt knelt in the blood spattered dirt beside the body of Billy Blevins. Then he saw the metal object that had glinted in the moonlight earlier. It was a pocket watch, not the gun that he had assumed.

Say something, Billy, Colt begged, as he knelt beside Blevins. He pulled at the bloody shirt front, ignoring the blood staining his hands.

Colt looked up as he heard the murmur of voices. He could smell the oily burning stench of torches. A crowd was walking over from the hotel. How did they find out so quickly? Colt wondered. That brief thought was shoved out of mind by his more pressing grief.

He should have thought it out, it might have saved trouble.

The crowd pushed Colt away before he could take Billy's pulse to make sure he was dead. Colt stood there; unaware of the smell of the kerosene-soaked rags burning in the torches. At the moment he didn't notice the stench of the crowd pressing upon him--a stench caused by too much whiskey and too few baths. His body was as immobile as a statue, but his mind whirled with wild hope.

Maybe he hadn't killed Blevins; maybe he was just wounded, maybe...

But all doubt was erased when a small, monkey faced man carrying a doctor's bag pushed his way through the crowd.

He knelt beside Blevins.

He's dead, he announced to the crowd in a strong Irish accent and melted away.

Bloody Blevins is dead! exclaimed a member of the crowd, waving his torch in his excitement.

Who killed him?

This kid right here.

He outdrew Bloody Blevins? someone said, I don't believe it. I bet he ambushed him.

Colt wondered if the guilt shone on his face.

No, look right over there. Colt looked, too. There, shining in the torchlight was the proof of the shootout. A gun lay only inches from Blevins' out flung hand.

That gun wasn't there before, Colt was sure of it. Or was it? Was Colt a murderer, or a madman?...

And so, his life as the Kid began, right then and there. At first, the crowd referred to Colt as the kid who shot Blevins. When Colt refused to give his name, it was shortened to the Kid. The irony was: killing Blevins gave Colt an instant reputation.

Later that night in his dingy hotel room, Colt stood in front of the lopsided washstand and plunged his hands time and again into the bowl of water, washing his hands until they burned from the rough lye soap. Still the taint remained....

While the lye burned his hands, a question kept burning in his brain--where did that gun come from? Had his shock at seeing Billy blinded him to the gun? Or had someone in the crowd thrown down the gun? But why?

Colt dried his hands on the flour sack towel and remembered Billy telling him not to waste his time on questions that had no answers. A gunfighter needed all his attention focused on the present, for that's what could kill him. Colt would have to live with perhaps never knowing the explanation for the gun.

But he was wrong. Eventually he would know where the gun came from--even if he wouldn't like the answer.

The morning after the shooting, Colt lay in bed, not even wanting to open his eyes. For once he opened his eyes; he was bound to see the satchel of money that he had placed on the floor the night before. Blood money. Ten thousand dollars--more money than Colt had ever seen--more money that Colt probably would ever see again in his entire life. The sheriff had pushed it into Colt's hands the night before.

The bounty on Blevins' head. You earned it, you gotta take it. he had insisted. Colt had shoved it under the bed, not wanting to deal with it. What good was money that dripped with his friend's blood?

With a sigh of resolution, Colt opened his eyes and jumped out of bed. He looked under the bed and gave a sigh of relief. The money was gone! Colt had just become the world's most grateful