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    Bad Blood in Kansas
    Bad Blood in Kansas
    Bad Blood in Kansas
    Ebook139 pages2 hours

    Bad Blood in Kansas

    By Tom R Wade

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    About this ebook

    John Carshalton, late of the British army, returns to the town of Arabella in Kansas to take up a new job as town sheriff. He quickly earns the respect of the townspeople and enjoys a peaceful life until he gets word of outlaw gangs terrorizing towns along the Kansas-Missouri border. US army intelligence suggests that these are no ordinary gangs, but part of a larger more sinister force, and when John is asked by an army officer to pose as a deserter from the British Army in Canada and try to infiltrate whatever kind of force is being raised he agrees, believing this to be a simple fact-finding mission. However, John soon finds him caught up in a web of violence and intrigue that threatens to destroy him and all he holds dear.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Hale Fiction
    Release dateOct 1, 2017
    ISBN9780719824906
    Bad Blood in Kansas

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      Book preview

      Bad Blood in Kansas - Tom R Wade

      CHAPTER ONE

      Isaac Townsend would never be sure how long the lone rider had sat at the top of the hill watching him plough.

      It was mid-afternoon and he was ploughing the last piece of land he owned that was not already being used for crops. He needed every piece of arable that he could find, but this ground was stubborn and unyielding and the muscles of his back strained as he fought to help the big horses drag the plough through the hard ground. His head was down, eyes staring at the dust as he drove forward.

      Something made him look up and there the man sat watching him with amusement. Isaac took in at once the dull grey of the man’s uniform, the red sash around the waist, the battered kepi pushed back on his head. The man raised the cap in mock salute and then threw back his head and let out an animal-like shriek. This was answered at once by dozens more voices. The man galloped forward, past Isaac and down towards the bottom of the field.

      Immediately he saw the other riders flitting through the trees at the bottom of the field he knew that there was danger. He struggled out of the leather straps that fixed him to the horse and plough and began to run down the field towards his small farmhouse. He stumbled and fell at one point and a sharp stone tore through the leg of his breeches and gashed his knee. He vaguely thought, ‘Annie will give me hell for that.’

      He ran through the trees at the bottom of the field and then he could see his cabin and barn at the top of the rise. He could see wisps of smoke from the back of the house and the barn was ablaze.

      ‘Annie!’ he shouted as he rushed up the hill towards the cabin.

      She appeared from the back of the cabin, her blonde hair darkened by smoke and her face smeared with soot and grime. She was coughing heavily. He ran to her and pulled her up in his arms.

      ‘I saved the house, Isaac,’ she croaked. ‘I saved the house. We lost the barn. I got the cow out but we lost the barn.’

      Tears were streaking through the soot now. He held her to him, soothing and gentle as she sobbed against him. He fought his own tears as he watched the big barn he had been so proud of burn. He remembered the warm spring day the neighbours had come to help him build it. Trestle tables laid out with food and beer. Old Perry Connor sawing away on his fiddle. He remembered thinking he had probably never been so happy in all his life.

      She pulled back slightly and looked up at him. ‘They were Rebs, Isaac. They were Johnny Rebs. That don’t make no sense.’

      He looked past her over to the distant shape of the town. He could already see smoke and flames rising. He even fancied he heard gunshots and screams.

      He looked down at her. ‘No, Annie, it don’t.’

      No sense whatsoever, he thought. He had believed he had done enough; fought hard enough for the Union cause, and helped to defeat the enemy in a war that had finished six years before.

      He stood helplessly, feeling lost.

      ‘No, Annie, it don’t make no sense whatever.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      Josh Ramsey sat and watched the cloud of dust from the buckboard getting closer. He felt relaxed and at peace. The heat of the day was beginning to fade and he was enjoying the slight cool that was creeping into the air.

      Around him the small Kansas town of Arabella bustled.

      A year ago, bustle was not a word you would have applied to Arabella, but that was before the shoot-out.

      The town had been forgotten and passed by in the rush west, but everything changed when a young English army captain misguidedly went absent without leave from his regiment in Canada having killed a man in a duel. That Englishman, heading west through Kansas, stepped in to save an old lawman who was in a fix, and in doing so made a friend who stood with him when the dead man’s brother, a hired assassin and a group of outlaws combined to put the town in danger.

      What happened was a shoot-out, the result of which being that suddenly everybody knew where Arabella was and quite a few wanted to go there. Arabella had notoriety.

      Now the cause of it all, John Carshalton, was coming home.

      After the gunfight John had decided to go back to Canada and face the music. He took with him Connie Brady, a saloon girl who had fallen madly in love with him, and it had taken near death to make John realize that he felt just the same about her. He had taken her back to be married, although what his wealthy English parents and the British Army had made of Connie, Josh could only imagine.

      He could see the two of them, still blurred by the slight heat haze and the small cloud of dust being raised by the wheels of the buggy.

      All Josh did know was that the court martial that John had attended had ended better that anybody would have thought and he was given an honourable discharge from the army; indeed he could have retained his commission. Also the marriage had gone ahead, and those two facts were all Josh needed to know at this stage.

      He lost sight of the buggy for a moment as it disappeared behind the buildings at the edge of town and then moments later reappeared trotting down Main Street towards the sheriff’s office and jailhouse. Josh rose to his feet and stepped to the edge of the sidewalk.

      John pulled the horses to a stop and grinned up at Josh. The familiar boyish good looks were still there, marred only by a small scar on his face from over-exuberant use of a sabre in training and a missing ear lobe taken away by a shot from a duelling pistol on this very street.

      ‘About time,’ was Josh’s gruff greeting to John.

      John beamed back. ‘And a very good day to you, Deputy Sheriff Ramsey. I trust we find you in good health, old chap.’

      Josh’s eyes fell on Connie, who smiled warmly back at him. She was just the same, soft and pretty with long black hair and dark eyes. Josh had always had a soft spot for Connie and she forced the first smile from him.

      ‘Well, Mrs. Carshalton, I do declare that marriage agrees with you. Damn it if you are not prettier than ever . . .’

      Connie blushed and Josh wondered how long it had been since he had been able to make a saloon girl blush, then figured that he had probably never been able to do it. In any case this girl was no longer a saloon girl.

      John was gazing around him in amazement. From where he sat he could see what were clearly a hotel, a bank, a schoolhouse and the beginnings of a church.

      ‘Josh, what has happened to Arabella?’

      ‘Well, to start with, you happened to it, a gunfight happened to it and then Mr Declan Finn happened to it.’

      ‘Declan Finn?’

      ‘Mr Finn is what is known these days as a businessman. Back in my day we might have called him something else.’

      ‘You sound as though you don’t approve of Mr Finn?’

      ‘Ain’t for me to approve or disapprove. He don’t break any laws and the town is benefitting from what he is doing. We now have a bank, a hotel, and the church and schoolhouse are near done. Don’t you worry none, John, you’ll meet Finn soon enough.’

      ‘I was surprised enough when you said we had a hotel. Did you book us into it?’

      ‘Nope.’

      ‘Why, pray?’

      ‘Mr Finn would not accept your booking. The reason Mr Finn would not accept your booking is that Mr Finn has built you a house.’

      ‘He has what?’

      ‘Mr Finn did not think that the man who is becoming our town sheriff should live in the hotel. So then, he had a house built.’

      Connie’s face had lit up at the mention of a house, but now she was expressionless, watching John carefully to see what his reaction would be.

      ‘We will book into the hotel and then I will speak with Mr Finn.’

      John was aware that Connie’s face had fallen slightly but when he looked over at her she just smiled encouragingly. He turned back to Josh.

      ‘Do you think you can arrange a meeting?’

      ‘I sure can. Declan Finn is like a prairie dog on heat to meet you.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Declan Finn is a careful man. He wants to do business in this town and he wants anybody he thinks is important on his side. Hell, he’s even buying me drinks and I’m retiring.’ He looked anxiously at John. ‘I am retiring, right?’

      John looked surprised. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

      Josh looked set to explode. ‘Damn you, John. It was all agreed. You are taking over as sheriff. I’m stepping down.’

      John smiled serenely. ‘And so it is, my quick-tempered friend. I just wanted to test that you are as gullible as always.’

      Josh snarled, ‘One of these days,’ and then broke into a broad grin. ‘Damn I’ve missed you, you arrogant English . . .’ He suddenly became aware of Connie. ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

      Connie broke into giggles. ‘Josh, did you just ma’am me? Nobody worried about cussing in front of me when I worked at the Drovers’ Rest.’

      ‘Yeah, well you don’t work at the Drovers any more. You are a respectable married woman and you are either ma’am or Mrs. Carshalton, and if any of those bar flies get confused over that let me know and I’ll straighten them out.’

      Connie jumped down from the buggy, rushed to Josh and threw her arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Oh Josh, it is so good to be back.’

      Josh hugged her back, awkwardly at first and then tightly. ‘And it’s good to have you back, both of you. Now go and get checked in to Arabella’s classy new hotel and I will let Finn know you’re here.’

      Alexander Julius Hannibal Fairweather III enjoyed a good flogging. That is to say that he enjoyed seeing them administered to others. He had no desire to feel the bite of the lash on his own skin.

      However, sitting in his favourite chair in

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