Sonora Vultures: Western

By Neal Chadwick

Sonora Vultures

Western novel by Neal Chadwick

 

 

 

Saddleback Jeff Corley in the fight against vigilantes and bandits - Aboard the river steamer COLORADO QUEEN fulfills the destiny of a gunfighter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BEKKERpublishing
• Release date: Dec 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215540626

Book preview

Sonora Vultures

Western novel by Neal Chadwick

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Saddleback Jeff Corley in the fight against vigilantes and bandits - Aboard the river steamer COLORADO QUEEN fulfills the destiny of a gunfighter.

1

A sudden movement and a black shadow high up, by the rocky peaks....

An inhuman scream brought the lone rider out of the lethargy that came almost automatically when, like him, one had spent hours in the saddle with the air shimmering with heat.

Jeff Corley looked over at the craggy, jagged rocks jutting into the azure sky and pulled the brim of his hat down into his face.

Corley's eyes narrowed to slits as he squinted against the high sun.

It was an animal cry that Corley had heard. Above the rocks, the rider saw the dark, shadowy outline of a large bird circling.

A vulture!

The mighty beast croaked again, and in all experience it could not be too long before more scavengers were attracted. Corley made his bay stop and pondered for a moment. A circling vulture could mean anything. Perhaps a half-wild cow had perished somewhere due to the drought, or a cougar had snatched prey and now the scavengers didn't begrudge him his meal....

But it could just as well be that there was someone in a predicament and in urgent need of help. An injured person, perhaps, or one whose horse had died and run out of water....

The vultures were always the first to recognize when it would come to an end with a living being. They had an instinct for it, and they had patience. For hours they waited until their moment had come....

Corley knew it was his duty to check on things.

In the wilderness, everyone had to help everyone else, that was an unwritten law - even if not everyone adhered to it for a long time.

But for Jeff Corley, there was no question, and so he pushed the bay.

After a short time, he had circled the jagged rock massif. A little later, he saw what the vulture was after.

It was a picture of horror!

Corley saw a wagon whose rear axle was broken and which now stood at an angle in the hot sand.

It had been a four-in-hand carriage. The drawbar protruded upwards in pieces.

Corley saw no sign of the horses.

Scattered in the sand were the bodies of eight men, some of them strangely contorted. A quick glance was enough for Corley to know that a murderous battle must have raged here.

The men had all been shot. Some of them were lying on their stomachs with their backs red with blood. It looked as if they had been ambushed and shot from behind. Others seemed to have just had a chance to draw their irons.

But it hadn't done them much good.

Their eyes were mostly wide open with terror. They had barely been able to grasp the situation and were already dead, or so it seemed to Corley, who now dismounted from his horse.

Jeff Corley's hand instinctively went to the revolver handle sticking out of his deep-strapped holster at his hip. His gaze slid over his surroundings, knowing that the danger might not be over.

What had happened here could not have been too long ago, otherwise the vultures would have long since flocked to this prey.

The danger that had meant a cruel death for the eight shot men after a short, hopeless fight could still be present.

But Corley couldn't see anything anywhere.

Still - for good measure, Corley's hand remained at his side with the revolver grip.

Those responsible for this battlefield must have taken all the horses and it seemed that they also collected some of the weapons of their dead opponents.

But these beasts couldn't possibly have been after that alone. To cause such a bloodbath for a few weapons and horses was unusual, to say the least. And then, a moment later, Corley saw the real reason. On the other side of the wagon lay a broken steel box. It was empty, of course, but then a little further on in the sand Corley found a small paper tape that explained everything.

It was one of those paper tapes that banks usually used to bundle counted packs of bills.

Corley picked up the paper. It came from a bank in Dutton, Arizona.

A cash transport, then, Corley thought.

And eight armed men had not been enough to prevent a few unscrupulous bandits from hogging the dollars!

Corley shrugged his shoulders.

There was nothing more he could do for these men.

Nothing, except one thing.

He walked back to his bay and grabbed the folding spade he had on the back of his saddle. The dead were to find their final resting place and Corley wanted to make sure of that, even if it would be quite a slog in the merciless heat.

Let the vultures seek their meal elsewhere!

But Corley had not yet loosened the buckle that held the folding spade to the saddle when he heard a telltale sound somewhere in his back. Instinctively, it was clear to him from the first second that neither vultures nor coyotes were responsible for this sound - unless they were those that tended to walk on two legs. Something came to Corley's ears from several directions. With the corners of his eyes he perceived a fleeting movement between the rocks.

Corley's hand now went from the folding spade, almost imperceptibly, a little farther to the scubbard, from which protruded the butt of a Winchester rifle.

With a lightning-like, decisive movement, Jeff Corley had yanked out the gun and loaded it. Then, as he whirled around, he looked into faces marked by abysmal hatred and blank revolver muzzles.

2

What happened next happened incredibly fast, and Jeff Corley knew his life was hanging by a thread.

The crack of revolvers, the flash of muzzle flashes, all foreshadowed Corley by a fraction of a second, and he threw himself to the side as bullets struck to his right and left.

His horse lurched to the side, neighing, while Corley cracked the Winchester while still falling.

A dozen horsemen had come out from behind the rocks with their weapons drawn and had set their