Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series)
Read Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series) Online
Authors: Edward A. Grainger
Tags: #General
CONTENTS
(with Sandra Seamans)
I have a confession to make: I've never been a fan of Westerns. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against them—it's just they never grabbed me in the way a good detective story grabs me. They always seemed to me as dusty as the desert towns in which they're set, more museum pieces than living, breathing stories. Relics of a bygone era.
My Papa would've shaken his head to hear me say that. He was a cop, and a consummate storyteller; it was from him I inherited my penchant for writing and reading crime fiction. But Papa didn't discriminate between a good cop story and a good Western. To him, it didn't matter if Eastwood was wearing a poncho and a wide-brimmed hat or a suit and a badge—there the clicker stopped either way. I always figured it was generational—for Papa, crime and Westerns were of a piece, but as a little kid whose feet couldn't reach the floor as I sat on the couch beside him, the Wild West seemed as far away as Roman times, and as textbook-dull as well.
So it was with trepidation I read the first Cash and Miles story David Cranmer sent my way. "Miles to Go," this was. It's not that I doubted David's talents as a writer—I simply felt that Westerns were (caps warranted) Not My Thing. I figured I'd give the story a skim, find a sentence or two I thought worth highlighting, and pass along a "Job well done."
Instead, I found myself riveted. Cash and Miles proved to be nuanced, interesting characters, men whose honor and decency divorced them from the petty prejudices of their time, but whose backgrounds placed them in the centers of said prejudices nonetheless. What's more, the deft hand with which David dealt with matters of class and race made the story...well, not
modern
, exactly, so much as timeless and universal, and certainly a far cry from the museum pieces of my youth. And to cap it all off, the story itself was breakneck: a thrilling manhunt, a tale of battle-hardened friendship, all draped effortlessly in Western trappings. For me, the story struck the perfect balance between crime and Western fiction, and in so doing, provided me an entry point to a vibrant genre that had heretofore proved inaccessible to me.
Since that day, I've eagerly consumed every scrap of Cash and Miles I could get my eyeballs on (occasionally, I confess, nudging David to write another when I'd exhausted the existing supply). And I've started delving into the Westerns of David's fellow fence-straddlers—guys like James Reasoner and Elmore Leonard, who, like my Papa, didn't see much of a division between cowboys and crime at all.
I don't mind telling you that, in this instance, being proved wrong doesn't suck a bit.
'Course, if my Papa were still around, he'd be sure to say I told you so.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very fortunate to have fellow writers and friends who look at my early scratches and offer helpful, straightforward advice. Chris F. Holm, Scott D. Parker, Sandra Seamans, Matthew P. Mayo, Chuck Tyrell, Nik Morton, Chris La Tray, Ron Scheer. I am grateful to all.
Special thanks to the gifted John Hornor Jacobs and his terrific original cover art for
Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles
e-book.
The west I write about is profoundly influenced by the operatic Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s and earlier films like William A. Wellman's
The Ox-Bow Incident
(1943) and Henry King's
The Gunfighter
(1950). To their greatness I continue to strive as a writer and I hope with these seven humble stories, on occasion, I've come close to hitting the standard they set.
Each blistered step unleashed a flash of razor pain that snaked up his spine and bit into his throbbing head. Staggering ahead, the trail twisted for miles. Any hope of crossing paths with a helping hand vanished with the arrival of the afternoon sun's fiery breath. Water, he needed water.
Straying from the security of the well-worn trail was surely a death sentence. There was no way of knowing how far he'd have to wander to find a stream, and in his weakened condition, without a gun, he was no match for the treacherous Wyoming terrain and wildlife. He knew he must stick to the road that eventually would lead to Vermillion, and hopefully, the men who left him to die.
He had been escorting a prisoner, Black Jack Larson, to Cheyenne to stand trial for the murder of a circuit judge when he was jumped and beaten by Larson's men. As he drifted in and out of consciousness they plotted over him.
"Shouldn't we kill him?" grumbled the man with a long scar entrenched down his face.
"Killing a lawman only brings more," Black Jack replied. "Don't matter no how, the marshal will be cold as a wagon tire soon enough. Hell, we'll even show a little mercy." Dropping an open canteen at the marshal's feet, the water gushed out onto the ground. The trio laughed as they saddled up and rode away.
When he'd come around, the morning sun was cresting over the mountains. His horse and provisions were gone save his bona fides and the near-empty canteen. He struggled to sit up, then stood on wobbly legs before falling down. Worming his way over, inch by inch, to a young ash tree, he pulled himself up, holding onto a low branch, allowing the blood to circulate and return some strength to his legs. He broke off a waist-high piece of the tree limb and used it as a crutch to hobble over to the canteen. Out of necessity, he swallowed the mouthful of water in the first hours.
His now-parched tongue rivaled the agony in his feet.
The reverberation of a distant gallop caught his ear. He looked up to see the distorted likeness of a mounted horse coming over the rise, riding the air of pulsating heat. He spun around, eyed the sky, and collapsed.
* * *
His eyes focused on the room. He was on a straw bed in a small cabin, a kitchen to his left, table and a couple of chairs straight ahead all clustered together. An unmade bedroll was near his up against the wall. Stinging enveloped his body, a pounding shook his legs. He sat up, pain knifing upward, searching for an escape route and finding it in his guttural scream. He stood anyway, cursing as his feet touched the floor, and limped to the other side of the room. It was then he realized he was naked.
Peering through the window over the washbasin, his eyes swept the scrub and rock-dotted land stretching out into the remoteness. In the yard, an Appaloosa tethered to a hitching post near a rickety barn contently chewed oats from a bucket.
"Oh, you shouldn't be up."
He jerked around to find a woman carrying a bucket of water through the open doorway. Her long dark hair danced on her shoulders and across her blushing cheeks. She placed the bucket on the table and smoothed the loose strands with wet fingers.
Turning her back to him, she closed the door.
"If the marshal would get into bed, I can tend to those blisters and make some food."
"Yes, ma'am. Pardon me," he rasped as he ambled to the bed covering himself with the thick wool blanket. "Where am I?"
She peeked from behind a hand covering her eyes and, seeing it was safe, turned to him. "About ten miles from Vermillion."
"If you would, Marshal Laramie, lie back and stretch your feet over the edge. I will see they get some proper treatment."
"You know my name."
"Your badge and credentials were with you when Doc Bojay came upon you on DeRuyter Road." She slid a small wooden footstool to the end of the bed, scooped a light-yellow cream from a jar, and spread it over her hands. "I must say, Cash Laramie is a remarkable name."
"I hear that quite a bit." His leg recoiled as she began rubbing the cool cream over one swollen foot. "What's that?"
"A salve Doc left when he dropped you here. He was on his way to deliver Mrs. Jensen's baby. He said he'll check on you—on his way back through." She dabbed a small amount on his other foot. He studied her closely, noting the kindness in her face gave her plain looks a quality that would grow on a man.
"And your name is?"
"Mary Katherine Alton."