Ralph Compton The Kelly Trail (The Trail Drive Series) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ralph Compton stood six foot eight without his boots. He worked as a musician, a radio announcer, a songwriter, and a newspaper columnist. His first novel, The Goodnight Trail, was a finalist for the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer Award for best debut novel. He was the USA Today bestselling author of the Trail of the Gunfighter series, the Border Empire series, the Sundown Riders series, and the Trail Drive series, among others.

Terrence P. McCauley is an award-winning writer of westerns, crime fiction, and thrillers. His western Where the Bullets Fly won the True West Magazine Award for Best Mass-Market Novel for 2019. He is the author of the acclaimed University Series, which includes The Fairfax Incident. He has also written two award-winning novels set in 1930s New York City: Prohibition and Slow Burn.

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Chapter One

At that precise moment on that fine spring morning, William "Bull" Kelly figured he was probably the happiest man in Texas.

He had just made the last payment on the ranch that would forge his dynasty.

As of ten minutes earlier, the ranch he had spent years paying off was entirely and legally his. He had spent a fair portion of his life driving cattle to markets up north. Kansas. Nebraska. Even Montana on occasion. Cattle that had belonged to other men. Cattle that had made other men rich.

Kelly and his beloved Mary had been scrimping and saving every cent for decades to provide for their five sons and keep their own small ranch running. And now the day they had dreamed of together for so long had finally come. He only wished Mary had lived long enough to see it.

He looked up to toward the sky, where he expected his departed wife to be, and said, "We did it, girl. I only wish you were beside me to see it with your own eyes."

He blinked away a tear and dried his nose on his sleeve as the weight of it all finally hit him. Now the aging Irishman could finally make his lifelong dream a reality. He and his five sons could set about driving the three thousand herd of cattle he had amassed north to the market at Dodge City and sell it to the highest bidder. This early in the drive season-early April-and with cattle going for twenty-five dollars a head, he would make a tidy profit for his boys to start their new lives in the cattle business.

After all of those years of making other men rich, it was finally time to have something of his own. Free and clear of all debts.

With his beloved Mary now gone, his sons' future was all that mattered to him. He knew she would live as long as they did.

Jacob and James and Jeremiah and Joel and Joshua.

Their mother had named them all, as he had been on the trail when each boy came into the world. She had kept their names biblical, and in honor of her own father, John, back in the old country, had used the initial J for each boy. Kelly had known her father and did not think the old miser was worth the memory, but Mary did, and her happiness was all that had ever mattered to him.

He hoped she would be happy now.

He wiped another tear on his sleeve and tucked the deed to his ranch into his coat pocket. He knew a man of his age was a fool to be taking three thousand head of cattle north to market in Kansas, but William Kelly had never been accused of being a practical man. He had not acquired the name "Bull" for nothing.

He knew a man in his position should take the easy part of the trail for a change. Maybe riding in the chuck wagon with Concho, his friend and the outfit's cook. But age was only a number to William Kelly. He had seen many a gray-haired old man act like a child and many a boy be more of a man than expected.

His exact age was a mystery, even to himself, but he imagined he was somewhere in his middle fifties. He imagined it was all written down in the parish church back in Ballinamuck, but he had never been curious enough to find out when he had still lived there. And he had no intention of going back after all of these years. Besides, his mind had never been sharper than it was at that moment and he could not remember a time when he felt quite as strong as he did now, not even during all of those years earning saddle sores and sleeping outdoors at the whim of the elements.

Back then, he had been working for someone else. This time, he would be the head of his own outfit and his own herd with his own boys riding with him. He was working for himself and for their future. That was a feeling to savor at any age.

As he walked to his horse, he could feel summer was in the air, but so was the windy chill of a mild spring. The men who owned farms near his ranch fretted about the effect a cold spring might have on their crops. It was a fear he had grown up with. Kelly's father back in Ireland had been a farmer and all of his brothers were still farmers.

But a life tied to a plot of land owned by another had never held much appeal to William Kelly, which was why he had set out early in life to see the world with his own two eyes.

And he had seen enough to fill ten lifetimes. Perhaps too much.

No, he only cared about the grass along the trail being green and tall enough to keep his herd well fed on the way to Dodge City. Kelly knew one drive would not make a dynasty, but it was an important first step in making the Kelly name mean something in this new world called America.

Kelly ignored the ache in his bones as he walked toward the hitching rail, where his black Morgan mare stood waiting. He knew the townspeople were looking at him oddly as he set one foot in the stirrup and climbed atop the large animal.

Many men told him a man of his experience should know better than to take such a large beast on the trail. The Morgan was not as swift as some of the other breeds of horses he could have chosen for the drive. He knew that was true.

But Bull Kelly had never won anything based on being the fastest or the most practical. Everything he had earned in this world had been won through his own sweat and determination. His own instinct.

Determination had kept him alive on the prison ship to the hell that was Fremantle. Cunning had helped win his freedom and had steeled him and Concho during their long voyage to America. His instinct had kept him and the Spaniard alive on the streets of Boston and helped him send money back home to Mary in Texas while he worked the cow trails that snaked their way north from Texas.

Determination for a better future had made him endure all of the obstacles life had thrown down before him. And in his bones, Bull Kelly knew he was destined for greater glory in this life and the next.

The few chuckles of the townspeople died away as they watched Kelly mount the great black mare and bring her around with ease. They stopped laughing altogether when they saw the coiled bullwhip tied to his belt by a tong. Several beasts-and more than a few men-over the years had made the mistake of believing the bullwhip was just a gimmick, but soon learned the error of their belief when he cut loose with it.

Years of practice and bitter experience had made the whip an extension of Kelly's hand. Twelve feet of kangaroo hide with a metal popper on the end gave the weapon a sinister look. His skill in wielding it made it as deadly as any pistol; perhaps even deadlier. For fear or rushing a shot made it easy for a man to miss a shot in a gunfight. Bull Kelly's whip never missed.

The story behind the whip-and the circumstances under which he had obtained it-would have been hard for most men to believe had he ever chosen to tell it. But some things were best kept to oneself, especially the most horrible things.

Kelly rode the big Morgan he had named Morgan for the sake of simplicity down the street toward the general store, where his sons and Concho were gathering the final supplies for the trail ahead. He had hired ten hands to help with the drive. Combined with him, Jacob, James, Jeremiah, Joel, and Joshua, he thought that number would be sufficient. Concho's cooking would be a welcome way for the McCabe outfit to wake up in the morning and wind down at night after a long day in the saddle.

As he approached the general store, Kelly saw four of his boys helping Concho load sacks of supplies into the wagon. Jacob, James, Jeremiah, Joel, and Joshua could have been...