Hot and Stormy in Little Egypt

 

"Mom and Dad told me again how good it was to have me home; then we headed for our newly fan-equipped bedrooms and some much-needed shut-eye. Which didn’t last too long in my case— for about midnight I woke up with the curtains blowing in and a rumble of thunder not too far off. I lowered the window half-way, turned off the fan, then lay there knowing what was coming, and concentrating on ignoring it, glad that at least I wasn’t on the wet rolling deck of a ship in a Pacific storm.

I fell asleep again, thinking about Pearl-- with rain drumming against the side of the house, thunder-claps shaking the old place to its foundations and lightning flashes turning the room electric white."

                                       (https://www.amazon.com/Egypt-Burning-Will-Murray-ebook/dp/B00MAMN3AA)

Outlaw Confessions in Old California

 

Sanchez laughed. “Well, lucky for him it wasn’t the Army. But they suffered plenty from the jeers and sneers of the rest of the posse. For a proud, tough bunch of boys like them, it hurt plenty. So, anyway, parties were sent to watch San Gorgonio Pass, and another went to San Diego. And the rest galloped far and wide searching for Flores and Daniels.”

He smiled, a wicked glint in his eyes. “Meanwhile, somebody had noticed that General Pico’s prisoners were also missing. When asked about it, Andres just said he had “confessed” them and sent them on their way. One old American frontiersman was curious about these “confessions,” and took a ride up the canyon for a look around. After a while he came riding back with a big grin on his face and a necklace of ears around his throat.”

Clyde sat up straight. “Well, bueno,” he laughed. “They say confession is good for the soul.”

Sanchez and Cal looked at him with approval, and Sanchez said, “Believe me, these cutthroat cabrons had plenty to confess.”

"He pictured how she had looked this morning, slipping out of her nightgown, naked and pale as a Greek Aphrodite or a Roman Venus, with teasing blue eyes and a tempting smile. A pretty German Lorelei, who claimed she loved him, the first time she was ever in his arms.

Wishing he could forget everything else and take that trail again, right then, he knew of course it was a forlorn fantasy. He had no idea when they could meet again, and he needed to keep his mind focused on the job at hand."

(from AMARGOSA AMBUSH, a Cal MacLamond Western, available on Kindle)

    The two deputies left the dead gunman in the doorway of the line-shack, and the bound one cursing in the other room. Then they cooked up a breakfast of ham and eggs and sourdough bread, with a big pot of coffee.

    The third member of Leonis’ trio of roughnecks was still sitting in the dog pen beside the back steps, hands tied behind him.

    It was mid-morning now, and flies were beginning to gather on the bloody shirt of the corpse at the front door; but that didn’t bother Deputy Cal MacLamond or his partner, Deputy Clyde Grierson. In the late war, both of them had often eaten their rations in the company of dead men.

(from AMARGOSA AMBUSH, available on Kindle.)

In old California, Deputy Cal MacLamond and his partner have earned the hatred of Leonis, The Big Basque, by killing one of his gunmen and arresting the other. On the bright side, Cal has met a pretty young lady from Chicago who doesn't seem to mind his romantic attention . Two different kinds of danger: one bad, one enjoyable.

The Sheriff tries to keep his two deputies out of harm's way for a while by sending them on other deputies' patrol areas. The Verdugo Ranch trail allows Cal to introduce his partner to Tomas Sanchez, who gives him some background on the really bad old vigilante days in Los Angeles when he was Sheriff. Things like the so-called Flores Rebellion.

On the next patrol, taking the old trail to Caheunga Pass, Cal tells him the true story of the famous bandit Vasquez, and takes him to where Tiburcio was finally captured, a victim of his overly amorous nature.

But the easy times come to an end when Leonis tries to lure them into a deadly ambush.

(BAD MEN AND ANGELS, Kindle edition)

"Well, we certainly had our share of country hicks and poor ignorant coal-miners, but they weren’t any more bloodthirsty than their fellow Americans in Chicago and New York— and they sure as hell weren’t Reds. In fact, most of them were a damned sight nicer people than a lot of folks I had met out in places like Long Beach and San Diego. Not to mention the San Pedro waterfront."

(BAD MEN AND ANGELS, available on Kindle)