Retribution

By Ron Lewis

Serenity Lancaster arrives in Carterville, Colorado Territory, in 1868, searching for a new life. In no time at all, Serenity purchases a hotel, meets a man, who might just be ‘the man,’ and witnesses a terrifying gunfight.
John Hatton falls hard for Serenity, yet he has a responsibility to his town. Hatton needs to deal with the Town Marshal, Dan Barton, before settling into a new life. After all, he and the rest of the city council hired the scoundrel.
Dan Barton is quick-tempered, fast on the draw, and someone not to be taken lightly. He’s also a murdering thief. Ruling over Carterville with fear and intimidation, he kills indiscriminately, goading fights with slow thinking, slow-acting cowhands, murdering them with impunity.
Something must be done to rid the town of Barton, and someone must confront the callous lawman. Knowing he’s the only one, Hatton steps up to the task. There must be a reckoning. Some retribution is required.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Lewis
• Release date: Jan 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215867747

Ron Lewis

Ron Lewis has had a life long interest and love of both history and westerns. Blending fact and fiction together, mixing real characters and those created from whole cloth, his stories are his views of the old west of the 19th century.Mr. Lewis’s roots in Oklahoma reach back to the 19th century when is his great-grandfather John moved though the Indian territories, and eventually Oklahoma territory yearly. He operated a traveling musical group who sold a panacea concoction most often called “Snake Oil.”Eventually his grandfather, John Henry, settled in the Winding Stair Mountains of eastern Oklahoma, very near to Robbers Cave. John Henry worked for a mining company as an elevator operator. His grandfather was well known and all who knew him knew his credo in life. “I don’t want to be higher than picking corn or lower than digging potatoes.”Hearing stories from his father, uncles and grandfather about life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries kindled a love for those bygone days. Many of these stories are the basis for his writing.

Book preview

Retribution

Something justly deserved

Ron Lewis

License Notes

This eBook license is for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

© Copyright 2019/2021 by Ron Lewis

This is a work of fiction and not intended to be historically accurate, but merely a representation of the times. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to any person, living or dead, is merely coincidental and unintentional. Historical characters used are strictly for dramatic purposes. This story contains some violence.

Retribution

ret·ri·bu·tion (rtr-byshn) n. Something justly deserved; recompense.

From the diary of Serenity Lancaster

Friday, May 1st, 1868

I start this new journal with the fervent hope that someday, my offspring, should I have any, may read my words and glean a better understanding of me. Should I have children in the future, I’d like them to understand their mother in a more profound way than one often appreciates another person. My mother named me Serenity, wishing only happiness in life for me. She raised me with love and affection in a comfortable home, a mansion, if truth be told, in Saint Louis. And, for the most part, I was a merry girl.

My father, Alfred Lancaster, was a mean, abusive drunkard. His only saving grace was the vast sums of money he built in a life filled with hard business decisions. He was a shrewd, hard-nosed businessman, who took immense pleasure from thrashing my mother, his wife. Her name was Winnifred. His inclination, after beating her, involved having his way with her, while snockered to the gills on brandy.

The war, the not-so-Civil War between the States, has been over for several years, and I have left Missouri, with all its terrible memories, behind as I sojourn west.

When I first boarded the train, in the dead of night, catching sight of my reflection in the window as we pulled out of the station, I spied father’s eyes, blinking, confused as he tried to understand what happened to him. The memory was disturbing. I shook the vision from my mind.

I found the Kansas Pacific Railroad ride exhilarating; we rambled down the tracks at a dizzying twenty-five