The Devil's Wind

By John J. Law

Devil´s Pass was an old trading route that ran through the state. The two main connecting towns to his by way of Black Foot and Tender Foot. He had heard that bad things had happened at Black Foot.
The local Sheriff, called Bean, had been caught red-handed playing nursemaid to a group of Confederate soldiers still fighting a war that was over a few months ago. No sir, there was no way that Santi would be riding through Black Foot. Sheriff Bean hated Mexicans. His town, Pecan Township, was peaceful when he left seven years before. Now, he could only guess.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hulsey Books
• Release date: Dec 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223826101

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Santiago Herrera looked up from his cold beans and scratched his two-day old beard. He hated beans, but beans was all he had. He remembered an old rhyme...beans, beans, the musical friut, the more you eat the more you toot. He´d changed eating habits soon when his Mamita got hold of him and fattened him up. 

The young man was heading towards his home fifty miles past the town of Blackfoot. A town that still held some mystique to him, even though he’d been away from home for so long. The most important thing a man can never do is refuse to return home. Still, Santiago sat in the middle of his makeshift camp on Devil´s Pass and wondered if his town had changed. If anyone even remembered him. He didn´t even know if his Mama was still alive.

Devil´s Pass was an old trading route that ran through the state. The two main connecting towns to his by way of Black Foot and Tender Foot. He had heard that bad things had happened at Black Foot. 

The local sheriff, called Bean, had been caught red-handed playing nursemaid to a group of Confederate soldiers still fighting a war that was over a few months ago. No sir, there was no way that Santi would be riding through Black Foot. Sheriff Bean hated Mexicans. His town, Pecan Township, was peaceful when he left seven years before. Now, he could only guess.

As the dark night slowly enveloped him, Santi settled himself down. Tomorrow he would have to take a longer ride to avoid Black Foot and be home - in the cradle of his hometown, but he didn´t care about the longer route as long as he avoided trouble.

He rolled a Mary-Jane cigarette and took a deep draw. The moon gained in brilliance and his eyelids mercifully rolled shut. His last thoughts were of settling down.

But it was not to be. Dios apparently had other plans for Santiago Herrera.

A few hours later the young man, full of dreams and hope would be found dead by a passing wanderer, Lee Sims. Lee couldn´t wait to tell his Uncle Mack about the body. He knew his uncle would go, and after ransacking the man’s belongings, make the body disappear and take ownership of the abandoned horse, Lee had tied to a tree before he ran down Devil´s Pass to Black Foot.

* * *

Mack Miller found the body exactly where Lee said it would be. It was the body of a tall and lean, but very dead cowpoke. Because the body was starting to rot in the hot sun, the color of the guy’s skin was hard to determine. 

He checked around the dead man and found nothing of any value. He took the gun out of the dead man’s holster and tucked it in the large sack he carried everywhere with him. 

He was close to chucking his lunch as the nauseating whiff of death rose off the bloated corpse. He had second thoughts about ransacking the dead man´s pockets... Naw, he decided, he´d go through with it, smell or no smell.

Mighty nice of you to leave these things to me, he said to