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  ANGELS OF NORTH COUNTY

  NORTH COUNTY TRILOGY, BOOK 1

  ANGELS OF NORTH COUNTY

  T. OWEN O’CONNOR

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by T. Owen O’Connor

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: O’Connor, T. Owen, author.

  Title: Angels of North County / T. Owen O’Connor.

  Description: First edition. | Waterville, Maine : Five Star Publishing, [2018] | Series: North County trilogy ; 1

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029714 (print) | LCCN 2017039052 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837570 (ebook) | ISBN 1432837575 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837532 (ebook) | ISBN 1432837532 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432837617 (hardcover) | ISBN 1432837613 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Veterans—Fiction. | Indians of North America—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / War & Military. | GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Western stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3615.C5965 (ebook) | LCC PS3615.C5965 A85 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029714

  First Edition. First Printing: January 2018

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  Visit our website–http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/

  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at [email protected]

  Printed in the United States of America

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  ANGELS OF NORTH COUNTY

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE:

  NORTH COUNTY

  * * *

  “You are becoming one hell of a lazy man, John Walker.”

  “I know, Mother Martin, I know.”

  Walker was lean, his strength not evident in the bulk of shoulders or back but in the sinewy muscles that snaked out from his midsection like cords of rope gradually growing in size, becoming most pronounced in his forearms, which ended in something more akin to talons than hands.

  He had ridden a horse before he could fully walk and had never stopped. It was only now that his legs sometimes failed him, particularly his right knee when he walked too much or stood too long, as he had this long, hot day setting fence posts. The thought of climbing a ladder was too much to consider.

  The new stable had been built, the roof was finished, but the lightning rod wasn’t in place yet. It lay propped up against the side of the long slats that ran vertically the length of the new sides. He knew it was a lazy fool thing to leave even for a single day. In this season, lightning came in heated blasts that fell from the dark heavens without warning. He knew it was risking all that work, but his legs were telling him it could wait ’til the morning. He was thinking only of supper.

  To take his mind off his concerns, Walker looked off in the distance and saw Toby using the fading light of the day to get in some riding. The day’s hard work did little to dampen the boy’s fire for it. With the sun’s dying light spreading out behind him, the long shadows shaped the boy’s stature in the saddle and he appeared larger than warranted. Placed in relief of setting sun, he looked like a full-grown man in the saddle.

  Toby had grown up on a horse. To those who saw him race in last year’s North County fair, Toby appeared to ride with a reckless abandon, but Walker knew he was safe on the back of a horse. Walker had seen him fall once, hard, breaking his arm, when he was five, but in the next ten years since, he had never been thrown. He remembered his wife yelling at the top of her lungs from fear when she looked out the window the day after his fall, riding the same horse that had thrown him, his broken arm fresh in a splint.

  Toby had the way with horses too. A horse ain’t like a dog. If you mistreat a dog early in its life, a new master, with patience and rewards, can bring that cur out of his shell, take away his hate and fear and bring him close to being a whole dog again. A horse is something different. A horse, if ever mistreated, never forgets and never forgives a man. It carries its fear and hate for life. Toby, though, he could heal a horse. Walker had attained a fortune off horses nobody had faith could be redeemed, but Toby had brought some back and forged them whole again, or as whole as anything broken can be mended.

  Walker fell back into the rocker alongside his mother-in-law. He could feel her sidelong glance as he stretched out his legs and fretted she was about to stab him again with another barb from her sharp tongue; she did it simply for the pleasure of it. She sat knitting something for one of his girls, something neither one of them was ever going to be pleased to wear. But his wife, Molly, would insist they wear it to some town event, saying how they’d disrespect Mother Martin if they didn’t wear it. Walker swore she knitted the girls horrid things to keep them self-conscious and thereby modest. She had no tolerance for whores and she was intent on using every ruse to keep his two daughters, Maggie and Peg, on the straight and narrow, in what she often referred to as this barbarous land west of nowhere.

  As he started to drift into a snooze, Walker heard Molly’s call for supper. He rose reluctantly, shaking the thin dust of sleep that had settled in his head, and descended the front porch steps slowly, his legs stiff from sitting. He grabbed his rifle leaning on a porch pillar, hesitating for a moment as he caught sight of Toby in the distance repeating over and over the cavalry drills his neighbor, Gabriel McCallum, had taught him and his best friend, Gabriel’s nephew, Seth McCallum.

  The two boys would drill for hours. Gabriel never tired of teaching; he schooled them over and over in the horse-killing techniques. Walker watched Toby wielding two pistols, the reins dangling loose on the horse’s shoulders, the boy able to master his horse with his knees. He could see Toby’s hands gripping the pistols, the glint crossing back and forth in fluid movements, the horse, boy, and pistols rhythmically swaying. The day’s dying light glinted and played off the shiny metal parts of his guns and saddle.

  Walker raised the Winchester and fired into the spreading blood-red sunset, spending a half-cent to call his son to supper.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  THE BLACK

  * * *

  Gabriel McCallum took his nephews, Seth and Caleb, and his horse breaker, a mestizo, Joe, on a ride to the North County’s upper plateau. Rumors had spread of a wild herd led by a black stallion that was near ten hands high. The word of the black had spread through the county, sending men and boys into the highlands in search of the prize. The first day’s ride ended without a sighting, but they had found hoofprints and stools, and from the size of one pie, perhaps the tale was true.

  They camped at the edge of a cliff that jutted like a peninsula into the ocean of sky over the valley. The vantage point provided a view across the low country all the way to the wall of mountains to the south. It was all shrouded in a cascading curtain of reddening hues fi
red by the dying day. After a long day in the saddle, Gabriel could relax; a time of day they all enjoyed because Gabriel’s demeanor was at its most easygoing.

  Gabriel lay propped on the ground using his saddle as a back rest, his long frame stretched out, his boots appearing impossibly far from the hat that was pulled low over his brow. He was smoking his pipe and using the last of the light to read. The weathered old book by his side, he now gazed out into the vista, burning its image into his memory. Gabriel had chosen the cliff rock because of the sheer drops that guarded its three sides. No sighting of renegades this far north had been reported in three years, but Gabriel, despite some years of relative peace, never lost his wariness.

  The boys began telling stories, sharing gossip they’d heard in town, holding their tongues when Gabriel read a passage out loud. Idle chatter displeased Gabriel and his reading was a thinly veiled warning to damper fool’s talk. Caleb and Seth took notice and feigned an air of gravity, giving Gabriel time to lose interest in them. Joe was setting the fire as Seth and Caleb skinned the rabbits. Seth had taken both rabbits from the saddle with pistol shots. The heavy spring rains had given the rabbits their plump shapes: They had grown fat and slow indulging on the buds that smothered the plateau’s landscape.

  They broke camp early the next morning. After a quick parlay, Joe surmised the warm weather was driving the herd to higher elevation, so they wound up climbing switchbacks all day to the high open ridge. The high fields sat atop the high country like green encrusted crowns. As Gabriel crested the last rise, he spotted a wild herd of twenty horses grazing in the meadow. He felt a strong breeze against his face and knew the horses hadn’t caught his scent. One by one the four riders crested, all silently taking in the herd. Each fixated on the black stallion in its midst.

  The horse was not only tall, but thick, strapped with muscles that ran through his shanks and tapered perfectly. The morning dew glistened on his shoulders and his thick mane waved in the rising light. The other males kept a wary distance from him and the mares moved in his orbit, brushing him with their flanks as they grazed the high field. Caleb’s mind became obsessed with stud money, estimating that a horse like that might end up the highest paid stud in North County. Ranchers would pay more for him than Ulysses, and he was John Walker’s gold mine.

  As the sun burned away the last of the morning, the four exchanged looks, and the unspoken plan began. The plateau was surrounded by thick woods. The woods were choked with short thin trees of scrub oak, pine, and birch. At the base of the trees was wild and gnarled vegetation; it snaked and choked the trees, making it impenetrable terrain to skittish, wild horse running. The horses would avoid that clutter and try to head for open country, and this rise had only one true exit. The meadow ran down to the low country on the opposite end of where they stood. If they spooked the herd, they knew it’d head for the far pass and race down to the flats where they could run hard in any direction. They split into two groups: Gabriel and Joe riding downwind as long as they could without the herd picking up their scent to cut off the exit route to the pass. Caleb and Seth would come from behind and run the herd, single, off the black and rope it.

  Gabriel and Joe walked their horses east along the far edge of the meadow, sticking close to the woods to blend with the trees and not spook the herd.

  After a spell, Caleb and Seth dismounted and started walking their horses, the tall grasses shading their approach.

  As they neared the herd, Seth could see the tops of the horses’ heads start to jitter, the nervous energy percolating as the herd sensed an intruder. He could hear the dull thuds of stomping hooves and felt the ripple effect as warnings ran like brush fire through the herd.

  The horses got frustrated in their inability to smell what was approaching upwind. Was it a deer? Another stud male challenging? Were wolves moving on them? Their noses searched the morning air, their heads raised, their necks stretched.

  Seth and Caleb could sense it too, the rushing of the blood, the herd’s eternal instincts sensing predators on the move. The two mounted softly and put their horses into a slow walk, their horses’ chests parting the tall, sun-bleached brown and sea-green grass like slow-moving ships on calm, cold, thick waters. Within two hundred yards, they spurred the horses to a gallop. The wild herd shuddered as one, and like a swarm of bees bolted for the far pass.

  The herd gained speed and wended its way over the contours of the earth like an elastic band stretching and fattening as the ground dictated, never breaking into lesser groups, always moving as one. Seth was high in the saddle riding atop his horse’s shoulders. He came up on the herd and was immediately deafened by the thunder of the hooves. The hooves crushed and turned the earth, the rushing of blood filled his ears. He melted into the rhythm of the wild animals, allowing his horse to instinctively find its place in the herd. He scanned the backs, seeking the black amidst the chaos. He teased his stirrup, goading his horse to seep deeper into the herd’s midst.

  The wild horses glared at him out of the corner of their eyes, curious at the strange, humpbacked horse staring back at them. Seth searched for the black at the front of the rushing mass. To his surprise it was in the midst of the pack. The black’s gait was awkward and the sight confused Seth’s instincts, causing him to think. The nervous self-conscious energy confused him, unnerving him. In the midst of the run, fear gripped him: had he done something wrong? Then he sighted Caleb on the opposite side of the black and realized he wasn’t doing anything wrong, the black was slow. He pressed into the herd. Like talons of a cloven hoof they squeezed toward the black, the rushing herd’s midsection thinning like an hour glass as they pinched its middle, moving to the black. The renewed purpose settled Seth’s nerves.

  As the two pinched in, they heard the bursts of rifle fire from Gabriel and Joe, who had circled around and were now riding headlong into the path of the charging herd, forcing it to turn. Seth could hear the distinct blast of Gabriel’s buffalo rifle even in the din of the run, its distinctive crack bouncing about the ridgeline above. This was the critical moment: If the herd turned left, Seth would do the roping; if to the right, Caleb would have to score the black.

  The herd broke left and Seth tugged slightly on his mount’s reins, cutting an angle to the black as the stallion rounded. He was next to it now and had to slow his mount slightly to come abreast of it. As he careened toward it, the deepness, the thickness of its back and haunches, mesmerized him. He had the fleeting notion he could walk across its back. He tossed the lasso high; it billowed out in a near perfect circle appearing to freeze in a halo above the horse’s bent ears before it dropped like a stone onto its massive neck. He gathered the rope and quickly cinched the tail end around the pommel of his saddle, immediately feeling the black’s power as it tugged and towed the horse underneath him with tremendous force. It had a bull’s power.

  The rope’s drag slowed the black, allowing Caleb to catch the pursuit from the far side. Caleb missed with his first toss, but retrieved his rope and tossed a second that landed around the stallion’s neck. The drag of the two ropes slowly drained the black’s stamina and it bucked and turned trying to bite the ropes, snatching at the chase mounts. To fend off its defensive stance, Caleb and Seth spread out, pulling in opposite directions, the ropes taut, stretched tight from neck to pommel. The black flailed out with its front hoofs, straining to kick its pursuers; snorting and thrashing, its black eyes wild with rage. Seth’s mount thrust its weight deep into its haunches, straining against the strength of the animal. Gabriel and Joe rode up.

  The stallion reared back, looking upon the pursuers with a wild defiance, thrashing until it was exhausted and finally conceded to the pull of the two ropes wrenching its neck. It stood there in a menacing stance, leering at Seth, its body spent but its eyes still wild.

  Joe said, “Look at its front hoof, cracked bad . . . a good two, maybe three inches up to the flesh . . . don’t know how it could run crippled like that.”

  As i
f he were guilty of something, Caleb bellowed, “We did it right, ain’t our fault it cracked, must’ve hit a rock or turned it.”

  Gabriel said, “No, that’s not what Joe’s saying. The hoof’s been cracked three, four weeks. What do you think, Joe?”

  “Yeah, yeah, maybe three. I don’t see how he run, never seen a horse run with a crack like that. He should be lame; wolves or a big cat should’ve gotten him. It’s cracked more than it looks, it’s filled with hard clay, got caught up in there, maybe only thing holding the hoof together is clay, it were gonna be a day or two anyhow.”

  Seth’s face was filled with dirty sweat, he was still breathing hard, and not wanting to believe the horse was lame. “Is there nothing that could be done?”

  “Ain’t nothing to do but shoot him. You can’t try and break him with that hoof. Shoe’n him ain’t gonna help. It’s cracked to the flesh; no remedy gonna hold that split. Once it’s cracked like that it’s as good as done,” Joe said.

  Caleb dismounted, sliding down and drawing his rifle from the saddle holster, drawling “I’ll put him down.”

  “He ain’t yours,” Gabriel said, “Seth roped him.”

  Caleb went to speak, but caught himself. Joe could debate with Gabriel, but Caleb’d earn a backhand for his efforts. Seth looked at the black; it was glistening with sweat and its muscles were pumped, the veins spreading out thick and cordlike. It was no longer flailing and kicking but Seth could still feel the steady strain of the rope and hear the hemp cords wrenching tighter around the pommel of his saddle. He studied the flesh of his own mount, which tingled and shimmied, the fear of the black manifesting itself in his horse’s hide. He tried to speak but couldn’t because he’d lost his spit. Seth sucked on his teeth and squeezed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, freeing it from the dryness, and said, “It ain’t for us to put him down, I’m gonna cut him loose.”