Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles Vol. II Read online

  ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES VOL. II

  Edward A. Grainger

  Foreword by

  Alec Cizak

  Original cover by

  John Hornor Jacobs

  adapted by dMix

  Copyright © 2009-2011 by Edward A. Grainger

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, except where permitted by law.

  The stories herein are works of fiction. All of the characters, places, and events portrayed in this collection are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil, first appeared in A Fistful of Legends (Express Westerns), 2009.

  Gun Justice, first appeared in The Tainted Archive, July 2011.

  Cash Laramie and the Painted Ladies, first appeared in Crime Factory, July 2011.

  Reflections in a Glass of Maryland Rye, first appeared in The Drowning Machine, September 2011.

  Image credits:

  Photos from iStock.com, Photoshop effects by dMix.

  PO Box 173

  Freeville, New York, 13068

  This book is dedicated to Clayton Oliver Cranmer who was the first to introduce me to Westerns through shows like Gunsmoke and the music of Johnny Cash. Thanks, Dad. I miss you every day.

  Amazon Top Rated Western author.

  Praise for Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles:

  With ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES, Edward A. Grainger has given fans of traditional Westerns something new and exciting to sink their choppers into. Not a fan of Westerns? Been a while since you've tucked into one? Prefer crime stories? No worries, these stories are as much crime, action, and adventure tale as they are Western. But all that genre affiliation aside, these are damn fine stories.

  -- Matthew P. Mayo

  *

  I confess, until I read Grainger's Cash and Miles stories, I always thought of Westerns as dusty, dated affairs. But Grainger proved me wrong. His blend of Westerns and crime fiction is pitch-perfect, bringing out the best in both genres.

  -- Chris F. Holm

  *

  The writing is spare and impactful, the stories are imaginative. Even if you don't think you're a fan of "Westerns", do yourself a favor and check out this collection --- it just might prove to be the best 99 cents you ever spent.

  -- Wayne D. Dundee

  *

  If you're a Western fan and haven't yet made the acquaintance of Cash and Gideon, you definitely should, and this volume is a perfect introduction.

  -- James Reasoner

  *

  Plain and simple, Edward A. Grainger's, ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES, proves that there's not only life in the Western genre, but it's kicking butt and taking names. This is one of the most entertaining Westerns of the year.

  -- Larry D. Sweazy

  *

  The Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles don't just provide good old fashioned Western adventure, but also give the Western genre a modern noir twist. A perfect example of pushing the boundaries of a genre while still providing solid entertainment. I'm there for the long ride.

  -- Paul Bishop

  *

  These aren't just great Westerns; they're great stories. Mr. Grainger has put together one heck of a collection, featuring characters so full they call out for their own novels. Great work. And I look forward to what these characters do next.

  -- Steve Weddle

  *

  There is humor and pathos and history and a reverence for the land and times. What a nice collection.

  -- Patricia Abbott

  *

  Get the first set of adventures on Kindle — Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Credits

  Foreword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ADVENTURES

  Origin of White Deer (with Chuck Tyrell)

  Maggie's Promise

  Miles in Between

  Cash Laramie and the Painted Ladies

  Gun Justice (with Chuck Tyrell)

  Cash Laramie and the Masked Devil

  Reflections in a Glass of Maryland Rye

  FOREWORD

  The Western is one of those things. Like rock and roll. Like theater. Jackasses in coffee houses everywhere are always pronouncing it dead. There's seductive evidence to suggest that diagnosis correct—Hollywood has a hard time prying its big fat wallet open to finance a Western (never mind that the God damn town was practically built on the genre). The only way television could get a Western going in this day and age was by shuffling it off to the "naughty" corner of cable and filling its character's mouths with nonstop profanity. Stroll into most book stores (the ones that still exist, speaking of a dying species) and you'll probably find one shelf of Westerns with the safe, traditional names on the spines. Here's the problem, though, here's why there's no authoritative signature on that particular death certificate: The Western is not dead. People read them, people watch them, and people like Edward A. Grainger, aka David Cranmer, are fueling the genre with fresh stories and characters that satisfy both old and new conventions.

  Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles has been out for a short time and garnered enough attention to demonstrate that there is not only sustained interest in the Western, but new blood ducking in to take a peek and, if we are to believe the avalanche of praise Grainger's first collection has received, liking what they see. And why not? Without the self-conscious posturing of postmodernism, Grainger has, in fact, crafted a postmodern west that takes into account the conspicuous absence of non-white, non-protestant members of the American family. Grainger is not one, I suspect, to bellow about "political correctness" and "inclusion" and "diversity" and all the other buzz words that college campuses and public service announcements like to drill into our heads in effort to keep the masses civilized. Like that old adage about faith, them that shout the loudest, we should assume, believe the least. No, Grainger very quietly sits wherever it is he writes and creates stories about the old west that fill in a lot of spaces left by previous generations of writers and filmmakers.

  I compared Volume I to John Ford's The Searchers and I stand by that comparison. Like The Searchers, Grainger's stories address America's racial and ethnic realities in a straightforward manner so refreshingly free of self-consciousness that one is able to read the stories purely for entertainment or as the subtle political statements that they are. Grainger has, in short, achieved that great balance between form and function. In my opinion, this should be the goal of any serious artist.

  On the surface, these are entertaining tales. Cash Laramie is part Dirty Harry, part Billy Jack. Of course, he walks the Earth a hundred years before those great vigilante characters of the 1970s. He benefits from a more relaxed attitude towards rogue justice. The result is a character who punishes bad guys the way all of us, deep down, would prefer. Thus, men who abuse children are dispatched without all the pesky paperwork and legal acrobats criminals benefit from today. Bigots who hang people simply because they don't like the color of their skin are brutally tortured and left for dead. In Volume II, Cash continues his brand of "outlaw" justice, repositioning that tricky line between "right" and "wrong." We are also treated to the story of Cash's origin. Gideon Miles does not play as significant a role as he did in the first collection of stories, but his appearance here reinforces my belief that Edward Grainger is telling tales of the west in a much more honest manner than any writer or filmmaker
has attempted before and he is doing so without begging for an "atta' boy!" from the coffee house crowd.

  There are some who would argue that Cash Laramie's "outlaw" justice is just that—beyond the borders of the law and therefore suspect. I think they are missing the point. American mythology is twisted in contradictions that brutal lawmen like Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles untangle with gut decisions we all wish we could execute every time we watch in horror as the justice system fails to discipline someone who is obviously guilty. These stories nurture a basic human desire to create a world that makes sense emotionally. In that way, they are a kind of medicine, don't you think?

  Alec Cizak

  August, 2011

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Very special thanks go to ace writers and editors Chuck Tyrell and Nik Morton. They were there at the beginning of this series and continue to support these characters far beyond my ability to repay them. Gracias, amigos.

  And many thanks to all the Cash and Miles fans on Twitter, Blogger, and Google+ who pushed Vol. I to the top of the charts and made it such a resounding success. Your support is deeply appreciated.

  To Ava and Denise, my Charmers. The real adventure is having both of you in my life and living every day to the fullest.

  ORIGIN OF WHITE DEER

  with Chuck Tyrell

  1

  He followed Crazy Ed Holland down the Outlaw Trail from Hole in the Wall in Wyoming through Unitah Flats and down the Colorado River to Moab and Mexican Hat. He caught the outlaw in the waterless waste called Painted Desert where they shot at each other from dunes and sandstone ledges.

  His bullet hit Crazy Ed just beneath his collarbone and tumbled through his left lung to exit under his scapula, leaving a hole big enough for three fingers. Pink foam frothed front and back, and the wounded man would soon drown in his own blood.

  The man gave Crazy Ed a drink from his two-quart canteen. His three-color paint stood patiently in the shade thrown by a tabletop knoll that started out red and went through pink and yellow and brown to sickly gray at its foot.

  Crazy Ed gulped for air but his punctured lungs couldn't hold it. He swallowed hard and reached for a handful of the man's shirt. "Goldam you Cash Laramie," he said, struggling with the words. "Goldam you." He swallowed twice. Foam bubbled from his wounds. "Just who the Hell are you, anyway?"

  Crazy Ed died before Cash Laramie could answer. Who the Hell am I, anyway?

  After the Sun Dance celebrating his coming of age, his Arapaho father, Lightning Cloud, gave the boy a new name. "You are twelve years old," he said. "You know the forest, the trees, the birds, the small animals, the elk and the cougar, the wolf and bighorn, the bear and the antelope. Once in a lifetime, the creator sends a white deer, which is sacred above all animals in the forest. I name you White Deer. So simple a name, yet one that carries honor and pride. One blessed of the Creator. Wear this name proudly, my son. Remember. You are chosen, White Deer, you are chosen."

  In the year following his coming of age ceremony, White Deer grew from a smooth-faced stripling into a tall youth who had to shave each day to keep his visage clean in the Arapaho manner.

  He hunted that day. He passed up two deer, a doe and a young two-point buck. He knew the village needed the meat, but a good rack of antlers would yield tools for flaking flint and handles for knives, and mature hooves made the best glue. Silent as a shadow, he now tracked a big six-pointer.

  White Deer watched the buck, which browsed near the edge of a small clearing. He selected an arrow from the quiver at his left hip, moving ever so slowly, as a quick movement would alert the buck instantly.

  The deer raised its head, still chewing the rich grass it had cropped from the meadow. Its ears flapped, seeking any sound of danger.

  White Deer nocked the arrow and slowly drew it back to his right ear. "Do not aim," he heard Lightning Cloud say. "Think. In your mind, see exactly how your arrow will fly. Both eyes open. See what the arrow will hit. Think what it will hit. Release the arrow, and let your heart guide it to the target."

  Without conscious thought, the fingers of his right hand flexed to send the arrow on its way, but at the instant of release, a twig cracked and the buck bounded. White Deer's arrow thunked into the bole of an old oak. A flash of anger seared his chest, but he maintained an outward calm. Two warriors walked toward him, taking no precautions about the sounds they made.

  White Deer's blue eyes were chips of ice. He stood spraddle-legged, an arrow nocked and held in place with the index finger of his left hand. The Dog Soldiers walked across the clearing as if they were strolling about Lightning Cloud's village.

  "I see you Broken Nose. I see you Redtail," White Deer said. He didn't release the hold on his arrow.

  Broken Nose spoke. "It was unfortunate that we warned the buck you hunted, but there is no time to butcher the kill. Lighting Cloud would talk with you in your mother's tipi. We bring his message."

  Lightning Cloud was not a king, or even a warlord. He presided over the council of elders and proclaimed the decisions that were made. But to young warriors like White Deer, his wish was law.

  "I hear you," White Deer said. He unstrung his bow and put it in a sheath to hang over his shoulder. Taking his small pack of provisions, he walked to the oak, pulled his arrow out, and placed it in the quiver at his side. He followed the Dog Soldiers along Fall Creek toward Lightning Cloud's small village.

  Fall Creek. Years ago, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho fought a company of cavalry at Fall Creek, and the fight inadvertently swirled around a small group of three wagons. White Deer's birth parents died in that fight, along with two other couples and three teenagers. White Deer was the only survivor from the wagons. He remembered little about his parents, nothing of his father, and only a memory of softness of his mother, and her terrible scream. But the scream may have been from his dreams.

  He was still upset when he reached the village. His jerk at the bearskin that covered the entrance to the tipi was too violent, and his stiff posture betrayed his anger. Still, he breathed deeply of the aroma of good tobacco and knew that his Arapaho father had important matters to discuss.

  Lightning Cloud spoke. "Sit," he said.

  White Deer took his time arranging himself cross-legged across from the chief. "I am here," he said.

  Lightning Cloud's deeply lined face looked like a piece of carved granite. A hint of green in his eyes betrayed a fur trapper in his lineage somewhere. An old man nearing his fiftieth year, his once-proud mane of long dark hair was now shot with strands of gray. A single eagle feather drooped from a braid at his temple. He puffed at a ceremonial pipe, blew the smoke upward toward the Great Spirit, Creator of all things, then held the pipe out to White Deer, bluestone bowl on his left and stem to his right.

  White Deer's eyes opened wide in surprise. Never had his Arapaho father offered the ceremonial pipe to him. He searched his father's face for a reason, but found none.

  Lightning Cloud gestured with the pipe again.

  Hesitant, White Deer reached for the sacred bluestone bowl. Holding it at arm's length and bringing the stem to his mouth, he drew in the acrid smoke, then blew it upward as Lightning Cloud had done.

  He handed the pipe back to the chief, who puffed on it twice and gave it to White Deer again.

  Another puff, and another. White Deer held the pipe for a long moment, then handed it back, his eyebrows raised in question.

  Lightning Cloud stared at the bluestone bowl. When he spoke, he used the white man's tongue. Only he and his wife, Elina—White Deer's Arapaho mother—and Twisted Root, the medicine man, understood and spoke the white man's language. They had made certain that White Deer did not forget it.

  "Your mother Elina lies sick," he said.

  White Deer started, then scrambled to his feet. "I must go to her," he exclaimed.

  "Sit!" It was a command.

  His back to the chief, White Deer's shoulders stiffened.

  Lightning Cloud's voice softened. "Please, my
son. Sit. She will be there for you when we are finished."

  Slowly, White Deer sat again.

  Lightning Cloud puffed once more at the medicine pipe, as if to gain courage to speak to his son. "It has been too many moons, my son. While it is important to learn to care for yourself, it is also important to allow those who love you to see your face. I could command you. I wanted to command you, because of the pain your absence caused your mother ... and your father."

  The chief raised his face to his son. Suddenly he seemed old and weary. The lines on his face deepened and the silver in his hair caught the firelight. "I was going to command you," he said again, "but your mother said no. She reminded me that you were more than a year past twelve. A man. Someone with the right to choose his paths for himself."

  He stretched out his left leg. An old wound pained him. Without looking at White Deer, he said, "The time has come for our ways to part. The white man is pushing, always pushing. And now the Indian Agent says the Arapaho must move further north. Our southern brothers have no more neneecee buffalo, and hunters with long guns now kill in our land, too. Our small village will go north into the land called Canada. Word says the red coats do not tell us how to live."

  "What of my mother?"

  Sadness filled the chief's eyes. "She is not strong enough to go."

  "Then take her to Fort Laramie. The bluecoats have doctors. Medicines."