Petra

By Arch Gallen

Marshall Adam Pike knew outlaws, killers and families of men he imprisoned might come back for vengence. When Anton Petra did, the last notion Marshall Pike had would be worries that his daughter might be kidnapped.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arch Gallen
• Release date: Mar 17, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301027798

Arch Gallen

Gallen...son of a South Dakota farm boy and a Tennessee lady lives with his wife and two dogs on a 34 acre farm in Lapeer, Michigan. While feeding good people with corn, soybeans and wheat, he shares life with rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, chipmunk and deer, flocks of wild turkeys both feathered and not, hawks, doves, vultures, and odd varieties of fish (including pike) occupying a small 38 acre lake adjoining their land. Raised in rural Michigan on our traditional American principles of honesty, thrift, hard work and self-reliance, he brings these time honored values to life through the words and deeds of Adam Pike and the cast of Western Settler Saga.

Book preview

Petra

A Deadly Game of Hunt and Find

One Wanting Not to Kill and the Other Demanding No Less

Copyright 2013 Gallen

Smashwords Edition

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Cover Art by Conceptual Designs, LLC

eBook Formatting by Maureen Cutajar

Discover Other Titles by Gallen at Smashwords.com

www.WesternSettlerSaga.com

Email: [e-mail]

Sand Hills Sioux – Western Settler Saga I

(Available now at Smashwords.com)

Santa Fe Bandits – Western Settler Saga II

(Available soon at Smashwords.com)

Colorado Gold Heist – Western Settler Saga III

(Available May, 2013)

Arizona Payroll Bandits – Western Settler Saga IV

(Available, 2013)

Outlaw Wars – Western Settler Saga V

(Available, 2014)

Madman From Morale – Western Settler Saga VI

(Available, 2014)

Black Powder Justice – Western Settler Saga VII

(Available, 2014)

Free Titles in the Adam Pike, US Marshall Series by Gallen

Second Helping – A Widow, a Man Hunter and a Battle for Rangeland

(Available now from Smashwords.com)

Petra – Vengeance from the Past

(Available now from Smashwords.com)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilog

Acknowledgements

About Gallen. . .

Chapter 1

Morale, Colorado 1882

Adam growled at the columns of numbers on the ledger before him. He knew from adding sums in his head just about what they should total but this bunch was bolting the herd and not grazing where they should. Thumping his pencil on thick, lined pages, he looked up and saw other brother Step riding toward the house. Even at a distance, Pike could tell there was fretting going on.

Not that such was unusual. For all his care-free good humor, Step was one of the frettingest folks Adam had ever known. He worried over things that could never happen, tussled with problems that almost could never happen and wrestled to pin down difficulties only modestly likely to happen. As wasteful as such seemed to Adam at times, it also meant Step’s planning was meticulous and thorough prepared for outcomes none other might consider and, therefore, had results routinely remarkable.

Watching his brother ride up the thought returned to him, as it had often, how glad he was he’d convinced Stoney to frame in that big picture window when they’d built the house. While the small, two by three window used then was a needful concession to defense against attack by outlaws or Indians as a primary concern, Pike had foreseen a day when such would matter less and debated with the mason a week over framing the stone exterior to allow easy removal when the time was right so this larger pane could be set in. Thick two inch hinged shutters ready for easy swinging over glass reminded him still that however calm the world now seemed, defending one’s home was never to be forgotten.

He returned to studying the papers before him, frustrated with the exercise. Ordinarily good at toting up accounts and figuring expenses, today wasn’t the day for it. Winter was sneaking toward them early, meaning short days mostly overcast and air chilled which Adam disliked more each passing year. A feeble effort to persuade his family to pack up and let them all enjoy a part of these months with friends in Santa Fe went nowhere what with holidays coming up quick and fussing about them already started.

Step dismounted, tied his horse to the porch then held, uncertainty scrawled over him. Up close, Adam saw anxiousness more pronounced than first noticed. Focusing on his ledgers, he recalculated a set of totals and found no change in them, eliciting an exasperated sigh. As most his work these days was with the numbers, all their businesses being run well requiring nothing from the youngest Pike, he took pride in balancing spending and income precisely so best to plan for their collective future. ‘Not able to plan if not knowing what comes and goes each day’ Pa taught religiously.

Step opened the door and entered without a knock, a habit among the clan annoying to Adam despite occasionally adopting the practice himself. Ma taught knocking and waiting an invitation to enter was polite so the departure from doing never set well with Adam. Ignoring his brother, making busy with studying his work, he was determined to perform to best result despite gloomy skies causing him to want any other needful doing but that.

Closing the heavy plank door, Step slipped out of the close-fitting sheepskin jacket he preferred in cooler months, hung it on the carved wooden dowel behind the door and sidled to the kitchen where coffee waited. Returning with his cup steaming and the pot, he refilled Adam’s cup while scanning the columns of figures over his brother’s shoulder.

Numbers not working, Pike. Step said nonchalantly. Pointing a thick, calloused finger at a sum in the middle of the page, he went on. Can’t see that being right.

Adam stared where Step poked and felt a flush rising to his cheeks. A simple mistake, spotted in a casual glance by his brother was missed even when going over it several times. Taking an eraser, he wiped out the offending number and penciled in a correction. The rest of the columns after would need fixing now, he knew, and tossed the pencil down in disgust, eyeing it meanly for laying crooked on the page. Reaching over, he flicked with a fingertip, rolling the irksome tool to the center where it settled straight to his satisfaction.

Mistakes, especially little ones, never sat well among any of the Pikes, most particularly Adam. Living as he had since coming west, he knew well how little mistakes were ones likely to get a body killed or worse and he’d not survived and prospered by making many. Dispatched by their folks weeks after his fifteenth birthday* charged with scouting for land where the kin could settle after the War Between the States ended, he’d fought Indians, outlaws and the land itself to create the 5PL ranch they ran jointly so understood how critical right doing was.

*Sand Hills Sioux, Western Settler Saga I

He picked up the eraser and drummed it on the big oak table, a present along with matching chairs from sister Katherine and her carpenter husband Jeremy which he built from scratch for Adam’s wedding. Solid as all Jeremy’s furniture was, Sis added a special touch, working some months to burn small symbols meaningful to the couple around the edge. It was a prized possession and one, at the moment, taking a mite of punishment from Adam’s disgruntled attitude.

Tossing his hat on the table, Step sat in the chair opposite the fireplace, liking the heat it put out less than Adam, always pleased that his wife Kate and he were in agreement over keeping their house cool even in winter. Always feeling the warmth in Adam’s dining room stifling, Step still remarked often on how the big stone fireplaces Adam and Stoney had built in each of their homes kept cold away better than any he’d ever known. For his own taste, rooms with small iron fireboxes made atmospheres more pleasant for sitting and talking or reading.

The brothers sat, accustomed to saying more without spoken words than most folks could with a book full of them. Finally, Adam tossed the eraser aside and looked up, impatient for whatever was on

Step’s mind this day. It wasn’t like him to leave the Sheriff’s office unattended during duty hours and, moreover, Adam was mindful of getting ledgers in order before his children and wife arrived home for supper. Overseeing the many strange little ventures the kin had interest in took much from family life he little liked sacrificing.

Step shifted in his chair. Adam’s impatience grew as much from discomfort with the grey season and annoyance with his ledgers as with Step staying quiet. Only a furrowed brow on his brother’s face and that Step wouldn’t make eye contact kept him from speaking, both features most not like Step under ordinary circumstances. Often named as impatient by many, Adam was not until he became so and now decidedly was.

Lifting his cup, Step took a drink. Looking across the rim, he stared direct at his younger brother. Deciding finally what was needful saying wouldn’t be until said, he advised, Anton Petra is in town.

Adam’s eyes tightened. He’s asking for you. Step added.

Say why? Adam asked, cocking a brow as Step shook his head imperceptibly. Make a threat?

Nope. Just asking for you. Stopped in Mandano’s just before nooning, had some grub first then asked where you’d be found.

Adam shrugged his shoulders. Not hard to find if he was mindful.

That’s what was said, as I’m told. Seems Petra isn’t interested in coming out this way. Was told he’d wait ‘til you come to town then took up a room at the Hotel. Pausing, Step brushed the star on his vest absent-mindedly, adding then, Seemed to recall the name so took out journals the Marshal’s kept, read through notes left. He’s a man hunter known for killing from ambush.

Adam stared over Step’s shoulder into the living room. The furnishings were simple, Western style and mostly fashioned by Jeremy and purchased from him by their agreement. The rest, including their favorite roll-up desk, had been bought with cash and shipped up from Denver or Santa Fe. Owning the freighting wagons made it a sight less costly to buy in either city, a fact Kate and Sis were more inclined to use to their advantage than his own wife. An oil painting on the far wall caught his eye, her gift to him on their second wedding anniversary depicted a band of fur and tasseled woodsmen fighting Indians in forests back east as she’d learned their Pa had done in earlier days. As eldest brother Mitchell did in their time, Pa served the Army just as his Pa and grandpa had in theirs all toward creating the great nation they lived in.

Always wondered if he’d finally show up. Adam offered, betraying no emotion. Promised me someday he would.

Much of Adam doing well for himself sprouted from three years as a US Marshal*, connections that post allowed him to make and many benefits it offered a young man of enterprising nature. His kin had success, also, after arriving rooted in soil Adam had found and cultivated. Without hard work shared among them, few of their doings would have been possible but together they built Morale and much of northeastern Colorado into a commercial and business center unmatched outside Denver itself.

*Black Powder Justice, Western Settler Saga VII

Then there was the other side he knew better than any. He’d killed outlaws and troublemakers, a remarkable number for one his age, arrested even more and sent hundreds to prison where they could nurse grudges, build hatred and fantasize about revenge for years before being loosed back on society. The family knew the past might return but Pike understood for certain some hard cases would show up, gun in hand. Already, in fact, a few had but with little fanfare and less killing than some expected as Adam handled business when they did leaving the town and his kin bothered little by it.

Petra, on the other hand, was a different sort than the others. Pike would have some studying to do before facing this problem.

Any message you want sent back? Step asked quietly.

Adam looked his brother in the eye, revealing nothing of his thought causing Step to shudder within. What became of the youngest brother between his leaving Michigan and the kin arriving in Morale two years later was the stuff of stories he could most times scarcely believe. Outwardly, Adam looked much the same, more grown and filled out fitting one aging from boy to man but still the blocky rock of granite he already showed becoming as a youngster. His natural penchant for hard work built into uncommon physical strength matched or, maybe, even exceeded by a lightning quick mind.

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