The Good the Bad and the Pretty Part 1

By Stephen Shypitka

Meet the ecstasy of gold.
Greed and superstition claim the descendants of The Lost Dutchman Mine in modern day Phoenix in this retelling of an urban legend.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Shypitka
• Release date: Apr 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005466084

Stephen Shypitka

Stephen's eBooks have sold across 4 continents in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Jamaica, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Switzerland the UK and the US. His online success has allowed his work to be noticed, read and savoured with his fiction for our times that turns heads, crosses genres and connects us all. Stephen was born in British Columbia, Canada an alumnus of USC film school in Los Angeles, he has taught the craft and loves to travel.

Book preview

The Good, the Bad and the Pretty

By Stephen Shypitka

Smashwords Second Edition

© 2021 Stephen Shypitka

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For Oscar,

They thought to break you

but your legacy lives on. Brilliant!

CONTENTS PART I

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Discover other Titles

Free Tasty Bits

The Good, the Bad and the Pretty

Part I

Epilogue

Out of blackness, the first thing to be seen was the setting sun. Low. It hung there an orange orb setting aglow the southwestern sky, making it appear as if the clouds themselves were on fire. They weren't, but the men approaching on horseback were, mixing hoof tracks in with sage and saguaro, disturbing the desert dust, stirring in their hearts, the ecstasy. Their shadows dark against the backdrop of the haloed sun and diminishing daylight drew close, revealing the riders. These characters on horseback and for all, we knew they could be the horsemen of the Apocalypse.

There was Shane. Steel-blue eyes squinting from the sun and desert heat now looking lost in some spaghetti western rather than a recent collegiate.

There were Miles on a mustang. Nothing mild or mannered about this psychiatrist and keeper of secrets, now, turned fortune hunter.

Jonas, ever wily and the ever-resilient Dutchman still possessing a thick accent, but not his treasure.

Robby greedy for gold, greedy for Shane not wanting to share either with anyone.

And Jimmy on a painted pony white. Shane's baby brother, ten years of age, virtuous, but uncertain like his dyed blond hair.

All were riding toward the Superstition Mountains that loomed high above the Arizona desert, God-like, beckoning them all forward.

***

The climb treacherous. A winding mountain path made more precarious by their attempts to each lead a stubborn burro with empty leather sacks up the ridge.

Robby gazed down nervously at the valley below passing under his feet looking as if it had been painted there. Locked in his stirrups. Rocks loosened by his horse fell over the ledge. Careening downward, giving themselves over