Blood and Shadow

By Margaret Nelson

Bonita Valdez Rand has escaped from her brothers custody in Mexico and now rides into New Mexico to kill Chad Donovan, the man responsible for her late husbands death and for ruining her life. On the stagecoach, she meets Andrew Hilgendorf, a man searching for his notorious older brother Nick Doran at Donovans Bar CD ranch, a gathering place for outlaws. There is a lot of tension leading to a major gunfight involving most of the characters in the book, including Bonitas brother, who has followed her from Mexico City. With the help of Nick and Andrew, Bonita kills her brother and Donovan and Donovans son Kerwin. The Bar CD outlaws are killed or captured by lawmen, including Nick, who is alive but seriously wounded and in the custody of Bob Fleming, a Texas Ranger friend of Andrews.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: May 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490735061

Book preview

BLOOD AND

SHADOW

MARGARET NELSON

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©

Copyright 2014 Margaret Nelson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3508-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3507-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3506-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907924

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CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

1.   Veiled Conversation

Bonita Rand, traveling in disguise as the veiled widow Linda Valdez, meets Andrew Hilgendorf on the stagecoach and talks somewhat candidly about her late husband’s nemesis, Chad Donovan, but makes only veiled references to her reasons for traveling alone.

2.   Unveiled

Bonita removes her veil and confronts Andrew angrily about her intent to kill Donovan. The stagecoach driver, Wild Bill, and Bonita both realize that Andrew is not the tenderfoot that his Eastern clothes and manner suggest.

3.   Desert Rendezvous

Wild Bill drops Bonita off at a deserted hut in the desert where she secretly meets Ramon Hernandez, the husband of Bonita’s old friend, Graciela. Ramon has brought a horse for Bonita, and they ride to Hacienda Hernandez, the hidden ranch Ramon owns.

4.   Donovan’s Brand

Ramon and Graciela argue over lending Bonita a horse to ride. They are interrupted by a wild equine scream and soon find that some of their hired hands have captured a runaway stallion with Donovan’s brand on it. The horse has been badly mistreated, and Ramon decides to keep it in his stable overnight and return it the next day. Later that afternoon, Bonita takes the stallion and leaves Hacienda Hernandez.

5.   Unhorsed

Andrew is riding alone on Donovan’s ranch, the Bar CD, when he hears shots and shouting in a nearby ravine. Checking it out, he finds Bonita holding a gun on an injured Rufe Barrows, a Bar CD braggart. Bonita claims the stallion (Shadow) belongs to her and was stolen by the Bar CD. Andrew backs her up, and Barrows leaves. Ramon shows up to escort Bonita back to his hacienda, revealing some of her character motivations to Andrew before riding off.

6.   Defiance

Andrew confronts Donovan, who hates Mexicans and condones Barrows’s behavior toward Bonita. Donovan is annoyed by Andrew’s attitude and orders him off the Bar CD, but Andrew insists on staying until the weekly stage arrives in the nearest town of Silver Junction. Donovan’s son, Kerwin, also argues with both his father and Andrew.

7.   Trapped

Graciela and Bonita go shopping in Silver Junction. When Bonita wanders off on her own, a stranger follows her into a dead-end alley, where Bonita is soon trapped between the stranger and a vengeful Barrows, who had been sleeping off a drinking binge in the alley.

8.   Buzzard Bait

Bonita kills Barrows and leaves him for the buzzards. She lets the stranger live when she learns he was a friend of her late husband, but she is so disturbed by similarities between the stranger and Andrew Hilgendorf that she treats him rudely.

9.   Invitation To Trouble

Donovan accuses the stranger, Nick Doran, of killing Barrows. Nick neither admits nor denies it, letting Donovan draw his own conclusions, and Donovan unexpectedly offers Nick a job at the Bar CD.

10.   Escape

At the Bar CD ranch, a jealous Kerwin Donovan plots to trap Andrew, who is wounded but escapes on the wild blood red stallion meant to kill him. Kerwin urges others from the Bar CD to shoot the horse in order to kill Andrew.

11.   Blood And Shadow

Andrew hides from Bar CD search parties in a canyon, which is searched by Nick and a Bar CD hand. Nick’s actions are inconsistent with his grim declaration to find Andrew since he seems to confuse the trail signs deliberately, but he leaves the canyon with the Bar CD man. Andrew is then confronted by Bonita, a gun in her hand, as the two stallions, named Sangre (Blood in Spanish) and Shadow, challenge each other to fight. Andrew faints from blood loss before anything else happens.

12.   Powwow

Ramon has a serious talk at Hacienda Hernandez with a recovering Andrew about his past, especially his childhood capture by Indians and his motives for having been at the Bar CD. Bonita is defensive about why she did not shoot Andrew or leave him for dead instead of bringing him to the hacienda, and she is unusually gentle and protective of him, something hard to reconcile with her usual woman-on-the-warpath side.

13.   Secret Visit

While Nick is pacing the Bar CD bunkhouse wondering about Andrew, he receives a surprise visit from a fully recovered Andrew, who doesn’t explain his reasons for coming. As Andrew sizes Nick up to see if he can trust him (having heard Nick grimly vowing in the canyon to find him), Nick senses a strange, unexplainable tension in Andrew’s scrutiny. Nick reveals to Andrew that he was a friend of Bonita’s late husband, and hints about the secrets of Andrew’s past are given.

14.   Ambushed

Ramon is ambushed by Bar CD hands who wound him and his horse, but he is rescued by Nick Doran. Hearing Sangre, Andrew’s stallion, in the near distance, he wonders what secret connection Andrew has to Nick.

15.   Blood Price

Nick confides to Ramon, who is bedridden at his hacienda, that Andrew is his long-lost younger brother, who was supposedly killed in the Indian ambush that destroyed his home and family while Nick was fighting in the Civil War. The recently reunited brothers quarrel at Ramon’s bedside over Andrew’s friendship with a Texas Ranger, Bob Fleming. Nick is angry over the outstanding warrants in Texas that have unjustly outlawed him, as the Texas Rangers should be aware. Andrew broods over the bloody price Ramon is paying for Bonita’s vengeance and the price he himself is now paying in alienation from his only living flesh and blood.

16.   A Spy

Bonita’s older brother, Don Vicente Valdez y Moreno Olivares, arrives in Silver Junction with bodyguards and a carriage to take Bonita back to Old Mexico because she is disgracing the family name by her actions. He also wants to quietly check on the land grant to the canyon Bonita and her late husband were driven out of by Donovan. Shifty, one of Kerwin’s accomplices in the earlier attempted murder of Andrew, is spying on Don Vicente and overhears the Don being told news of Bonita’s whereabouts. Shifty hurries to tell Kerwin, who is playing cards with a stranger. Kerwin dismisses him so that he and Shifty can plan an ambush. The man watches Kerwin from the bar. Could he be perhaps a spy?

17.   Bandidos

Once again, Ramon and Graciela are arguing about Bonita, but they are interrupted this time by gunfire as the hacienda is attacked by bandidos, whom Ramon identifies as Bar CD outlaws.

18.   Impassioned Plea

Bonita pleads with Nick to help Andrew and his Texas Ranger friend, Bob Fleming (and possibly reinforcements), to free her brother Don Vicente, and Nick demands that Bonita leave him alone. Finally, Nick gives in to Bonita’s passionate plea.

19.   Dangerous Encounter

Andrew is guiding a posse led by his friend Bob Fleming on a shortcut to Hacienda Hernandez when they are confronted by Nick, who assumes Andrew has brought the posse to arrest him and take him back to Texas for trial on the false murder charges. Andrew persuades Nick to surrender to Fleming, who is then confronted by Bonita.

20.   Coraje

Graciela defends the hacienda with valiant courage (coraje in Spanish). Shadow’s screams alert her that Bonita has returned to the hacienda, but she does not know if Bonita has brought back help or is herself in trouble. She can’t hear Ramon’s pistol anymore, so she goes to investigate, armed with more shells.

21.   Silenced

Don Vicente tries to advise Chad Donovan how to conduct the raid on Hacienda Hernandez, but Chad has him bound and gagged. Bonita and Chad attempt to kill each other. Don Vicente gets loose and tries to kill Bonita also. Bonita kills Donovan and Don Vicente, but her stallion Shadow is wounded. Kerwin Donovan charges Bonita, but is intercepted by Andrew, who kills him. Blacky Jackson wounds Andrew with his rifle before Bonita and Andrew can jump a ravine to escape the wrath of the remaining Bar CD outlaws.

22.   Last Chance

Bonita and Andrew join Nick and Ranger Fleming in an orchard fighting stray Bar CD outlaws. A vaquero tends to the injured Shadow while Bonita rides with Andrew on Sangre to save Ramon and Graciela in the ranch house from the last attempt of the Bar CD to hurt Bonita’s allies. The foursome manages to kill their personal enemies from the Bar CD, the last of whom severely injures Nick’s shooting arm. The rest of the outlaws are killed