The Pueblo Pendant

Krista Davis Lake, Mick Davis

Description

While golfing in the Conrad Hilton Open in Socorro, New Mexico, former Miss New Mexico, now detective, Miitrai (pronounced MIITRA) Riley is 'blasted' into a case of attempted murder of young space scientist Will Craven. Earlier, violence erupted on a dark Sunday night in the small 'rustic', town of Frisco Flats, where Craven and his priest were discussing 'morality questions' of his research of the scientist's 'secret' space discovery. The Vatican was contacted, the answer was 'stop'; a scientist-partner 'mentioned' it to his fiancé at a mega-church; it was a secret no longer. After leaving the rectory, a bizarre 'bola' assault was made against Cravenby a motor-cycle rider a warning was given to him and the Priest. Later the bike-rider 'dumps' near a bridge in town. His back-pack with a 'pendant' inside is pitched into the water where later a corgi dog finds it. The pack is taken to the local Sheriff, Frank Baca. Two weeks later, a 'fisherman' arrives in town seeking the pendant, ' I lost while fishing'. Sheriff Baca is suspicious. Lead flies and the fisherman dies. Others arrive seeking the 'pendant'. Native American Detective, Miitrai Riley realizes the pendant is similar to one her old grand mama on theAcoma Pueblo has kept for years. - 'strange'. Mysteries abound as violence escalates; a kidnapping in front of the cathedral in Santa Fe, a gun fight in Frisco Flats and a violent crash of a multi-million corporate jet at an Alabama airport keep the action level high. The young woman detective uncovers a crime infested foreign corporation, a huge religious money laundering scam, both seeking to recover the pendant and stopping Craven's research. County, State, Indian Reservation and FBI agencies interact in the final events. The case comes to an explosive end in a mysterious building near the 'atomic city' of Los Alamos. Or did it?

Sujets

• Adventure
• Fiction
• Action

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977225818
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Pueblo Pendant All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2020 Mick Davis and Krista Lynn Davis v5.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-2581-8
Cover Illustration © 2020 Victor Guiza.. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Time is the fire in which we burn.
DELMORE SWARTZ
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of our daughter Krista Lynn Davis Lake. Krista lived her life thinking first of others; she lived a life of love for husband, family, friends, and her animals. It is also dedicated to her loving husband Jeff Lake, who stood with her and her parents through the darkest hours that life can provide. He is standing by and loving their corgis, Tessa and Jackson.
But for Krista’s assistance in providing ideas, writing, editing, plus continued encouragement and support for this effort, this project would not have been undertaken certainly not completed. It has been completed in her honor.
Any proceeds received from its publication will be donated to the foundation created to help people become more aware of the need for protection, detection, and action to prevent the deadly consequences of skin cancers.
Those who support the foundation Melanoma Kills, Inc. ( MELANOMAKILLS.ORG ) do so in the same spirit Krista practiced throughout her forty-five years of life.
In The Spirit of Krista.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
NOTE TO READERS
OVERTURE
DON JUAN DE ONATE
PROLOGUE
1: CATS AND SOPAIPILLA
2: SCORPIONS, GOLF, AND DYNAMITE
3: STAY AWAY
4: LULU
5: AM I DREAMING?
6: BIG BIKE
7: WHY, WHO ?
8: TELL ME
9: AND IN SIX DAYS …
10: CHALLENGE
11: A PRIEST
12: ONATE CLUB
13: THE REST OF …
14: GUS GONE
15: LAKE GENEVA
16: HIGHWAY 60
17: MAID ON THE MOUNTAIN
18: HOME
19: THE ROCK
20: DUA’AU
21: SHOTGUN SHELLS
22: LONGNECK BUD
23: DAWSON
24: FISHING
25: COMBAT
26: TWELVE GAUGE
27: FOR REAL
28: THE LADY
29: COWBOY
30: THE FOUR POSTER
31: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
32: SCRAMBLER
33: ALONE
34: THE WHITE ROSE
35: HOTEL SANTA FE
36: SAINT FRANCIS
37: LOS ALAMOS
38: ATOMIC CITY
39: END RUN
40: JUST DESSERTS
41: THE RUN
42: WHITE ROCK PASS
43: KNOTTED CORD RUN
44: THE HUNT
45: RESCUE
46: RICHIE
47: WELCOME
48: BAD LIAR
49: SOFT SPOT
50: CUFF HIM
51: THE TENT
52: SCAM
53: THE FLIGHT
54: HUNTSVILLE
55: BURNING TENT
56: WHAT NOW?
57: PHONE TRAIL
58: FBI TRY AGAIN
59: THE LETTER
60: RIVER ROAD
61: PROMOTED
62: RODEO DRIVE
63: TUNA SANDWICH
64: RIVER ROCK
65: THE IDIOT
66: BOLA FOUND
67: FRED AND ERNIE
68: MONEY FROM HEAVEN
69: MR. GREED
THE CODA
BIO
NOTE TO READERS
The story in this book is pure fiction but in it we have referred to actual historical events and real locations and individuals, some identified under the heading "Historica."
All town and locations mentioned, with the exception of Frisco Flats, do exist.
We will leave it to the reader to look at the map of New Mexico to find the real name of our little village where the fun started and some of the good parts ended.
Enjoy the trip,
Mick Davis and Krista Davis Lake
OVERTURE
They are no strangers to violence; those old and isolated settlements that nestle on the banks of the San Francisco River in western New Mexico have experienced it for centuries.
Even before European explorers arrived, differing factions of native peoples battled over the hunting and gathering rights to the hills, valleys, and meadows of the San Francisco and Gila River basins. Later, Apache bands displaced from the great planes fought over wintering rights of hot springs that dot the headwaters of the Gila.
In the mid-1500s, the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and his band of treasure seekers tramped through the region, making war and showing extreme indifference to the people who lived near the river, high deserts, and mountains. The Spanish, always seeking free food and fortified by their superior weapons, would help themselves to everything the locals possessed that the explorers wanted, including corn, turkeys, melons, salt, and beans sometimes, women.
In 1598, the last Spanish Conquistador Don Juan de Onate brought with him warriors, friars, priests, seekers of riches, and disease. Deadly violence ensued against the region’s Puebloans as the invaders attempted to subjugate and convert. Within months after arriving, de Onate’s soldiers brought death and destruction to the ancient Pueblo of Acoma, killing a third of its people and enslaving or maiming survivors.
In the mid-1880s Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch holed up at a ranch near the town of Alma, New Mexico, while about the same time the notorious outlaw Tom Ketchum moved into Catron County for an extended stay. In the late eighteen hundreds the "cowboys" from Texas, backed by eastern big-moneyed interest such as John Chisum, John Slaughter, and others, promoted violence in their attempts to take the water and fields from earlier settlers whose lands bordered the area’s streams and rivers.
In 1884, resistance to the "cowboys" came in the form of eighteen-year-old Elfego Baca who deputized himself and rode across the plains 110 miles from Socorro to Middle Plaza on the San Francisco. The local Slaughter-Ranch-bunch objected to his catching and holding one of them Charlie McCarthy in an adobe house with a floor dug below ground level. From inside the house Baca demanded the ranch hands "be out of there by the count of three." Outside, the cowboys joked about the young man not being able to count, but young Baca called their bluff in a single quick breath, shouting "One-two-three!" then quickly shooting through the door. The showdown, one of the most unequal and unique in American history, was dubbed the "Frisco War." Elfego Baca won it and later Walt Disney made a TV series from it.
But our story is not set in the past; it is modern-day New Mexico, where outer space and other advanced research of every kind takes place in some of the most sophisticated and secret scientific laboratories on earth. But even there, nefarious actions and adventures take place, as we shall see.
D ON J UAN DE O NATE
1598
HISTORICA
S ORRO
In the year 1598, a third generation Spanish–Mexican named Don Juan de Onate negotiated a deal with the king of Spain to colonize the land that lay northeast of Mexico. For three years de Onate recruited priests, servants, and five hundred soldiers mostly with families then led them across the treacherous deserts of northern Mexico on his way to invade the land of eighty thousand Puebloans, a place we now call New Mexico.
In the spring of 1598, the last Spanish conquistador and his caravan crossed the great river just north of present day El Paso, Texas. From there they struggled north to where he believed "the heathens," who had lived on their lands for thousands of years and worshipped in their traditions, were ripe for conversion and subjugation mostly subjugation.
Within days, de Onate’s caravan was lost and running short of drinking water and food, and mutiny was being discussed among the troops. But alas, good fortune awaited Onate and his caravan; they stumbled upon a native village of the Piro-speaking people, called Teypna. The Teypanas, unlike the other villagers de Onate had encountered, showed no fear of the strangers and for the first time on the trek indigenous people indicated friendliness toward the invaders.
The head man of the village crossed the river to talk with the invaders, who begged for food; the Teypanas obliged. De Onate, being the generous gentlemen that he was, reciprocated by renaming the native Pueblo "Socorro," Spanish for assistance.
Over four hundred years after that naming, Socorro plays a part in our story and this small town is where our chief of detectives of the Socorro County Sheriff’s Department, Miitrai Riley, lives.
PROLOGUE
She was never really sure who tossed the bola that night, but was quite sure Will Craven was the only space scientist ever decked by one.

It started in front of the rectory when Will heard the swish, swish, swish , just after he left the porch and the light went dark. But he didn’t stop or turn back, just kept going, feeling his way toward the street and his Porsche. Then came the "hit" and his legs didn’t work; he fell forward and on the way down his head hit a boulder and his lights went out.
She found out about it a week later and after that things got complicated .

A PRIL 21, 2018 S ORRO , N EW M EXICO
Friday was dress down day for all personnel of the Socorro County Sheriff’s Department, except officers on patrol, and had been so for nearly a year. Today was Friday, but twenty-nine-year-old Chief of Detectives Miitrai Riley had dressed up, like she did every Friday since Hunter went away to war, twenty seven months ago 792 days to be exact. And, nobody in the sheriff’s department resented her doing so; they knew why she did it.
It was five thirty when the regular Friday afternoon boss-called meeting brok