Nighthawk

F.M. Parker

Description

Russ, only a boy, kills two lawmen he thought were outlaws. He flees. Crazy Caloon escapes from Yuma prison. He tries to kill Russ. They join a gang of bandits. Beautiful Samantha and her father have a ranch on the edge of bandit land. Russ becomes her secret protector. In a battle to save Samantha, Caloon and Russ fight the band of outlaws.

Sujets

• Westerns
• Western (genre)
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: Fearl M. Parker
• Date de parution: 01 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908400468
• Langue: English

Extrait

Nighthawk
by F. M. PARKER
Russ was just a boy one day and a killer and outlaw the next. Instead of tending his father s cattle and saving to build a ranch of his own, he was fleeing into the desert. It wasn t the path he had chosen. When he killed those two lawmen, he thought they were outlaws after his father They were lawmen after his outlaw gather. To protect his father, he gave up his future and fled into a bleak and lawless land.
Crazy Caloon had planned his escape from Yuma prison with great care and made his break in a powerful lightening storm. On the banks of the Gila River he tries to kill Russ for his horse and pistol. Instead they unite and join the ruthless gang of bandits led by Raasleer.
Samantha and her father and grandfather start a ranch on the edge of bandit land. Russ, upon seeing the beautiful young girl and knowing the danger she is in, becomes her secret protector. Now he wants to find a way to get back on the right side of the law. In a final battle for survival and to save Samantha, Crazy Caloon and Russ must fight Raasleer s fierce band of outlaws.
* * *
From Nighthawk
The rhythm of Russ s breathing subtly changes, increasing slightly. Then the volume faded and Caloon could no longer hear it. He knew with certainty that Russ was awake, that somehow even though asleep, he had received a signal of danger and was now roused and alert.
Barely audible, muffled by Russ s blankets and probably also by his had, Caloon heard the click of Russ s six-gun being cocked. Caloon smiled and nodded in the blackness of the night. With his keen reflexes, Russ might survive for a short time in the dangerous world he lived in. Maybe just for a little while
About the Author

F. M. PARKER has worked as a sheepherder, lumberman, sailor, geologist, and as a manager of wild horses, buffalo, and livestock grazing. For several years he was the manager of five million acres of public domain land in eastern Oregon.
His highly acclaimed novels include Skinner, Coldiron, The Searcher, Shadow of the Wolf, The Shanghaiers, The Highbinders, The Far Battleground, The Shadow Man, and The Slavers.
SUPERBLY WRITTEN AND DETAILED PARKER BRINGS THE WEST TO LIFE. Publishers Weekly
ABSORBING SWIFTLY PACED, FILLED WITH ACTION! Library Journal
PARKER ALWAYS PRESENTS A LIVELY, CLOSELY PLOTTED STORY. Bookmarks
REFRESHING, COMBINES A GOOD STORY WITH FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE. University of Arizona Library
RICH, REWARDING DESERVES A WIDE GENERAL READERSHIP. Booklist
Also by F.M. Parker
Novels
The Highwayman Wife Stealer Winter Woman The Assassins Girl in Falling Snow The Predators The Far Battleground Coldiron - Judge and Executioner Coldiron - Shadow of the Wolf Coldiron - The Shanghaiers Coldiron - Thunder of Cannon The Searcher The Seeker The Highbinders The Shadow Man The Slavers Nighthawk Skinner Soldiers of Conquest
Screenplays
Women for Zion Firefly Catcher
The Making of the Land - A Prologue
Only the hot eye of the primeval sun saw the birth. Watched the water womb of the ocean torn aside and the breast of a new continent rise to life upon the earth. This earliest dawning of the land took millions of years, but only a minute of time in the unimaginably long life of the world.
Propelled by some irresistible energy within the bowels of the earth, the continent battled to emerge, crowding away the salty brine of the sea. Exposed for the first time to the brilliant light of the day were massive layers of sandstone, limestone, and shale piled thousands of feet thick by the energetic waters of the sea. During the passage of a few more million years, the broad land plain grew a fertile cover of soil and came alive with countless species of life.
A great mountain range with scores of tall peaks lay to the north of the plain. The mountain s crest cut crosswise the path of the prevailing storms that drove in from the west, forcing the moisture-laden air to rise abruptly. And the sky-brushing crown of the mountain milked the clouds, wringing billions upon billions of gallons of water from them to fall upon land.
The water rushed down from the rocky crags of the mountains, collected into rivulets, which grew into creeks that merged to form a mighty river. Lesser streams were born on the plain itself. Some of them hurried off to find the sea. Most found the mighty river from the north and added their volume to its prodigious flood.
For countless thousands of years the great river meandered back and forth across the plain, cutting into the land, carving a wide valley to carry its never ending flow. And the millennium passed, score after score, adding to millions of years.
During this long span of time, gigantic pressure again built up in the crust of the earth. The awesome might, too powerful to be contained, began to lift and arch the plain.
The change in the slope of the land altered the grant of the streams, forcing them from their channels, destroying them. All except one, that is, the giant river from the north. The source of its water, the mountains, were also rising and their increased height squeezed ever more moisture out of the clouds. This enlarged volume of water and the steepening of the grade charged the river with new vigor and energy. It now moved more swiftly and carried vast quantities of sand and gravel.
Using its torrent of water as a blade and the abrasive sand and gravel as the teeth of that blade, the river sawed at the bottom of its channel, fighting to retain its familiar bed. At times it almost lost, forced within inches to abandon its course. In the end it won, but it was a strange-appearing river; though it had long looping meanders of old age, it flowed swiftly with the lustiness of youth.
The upward bowing of the land had created great tension upon the rock layers. One added inch of movement exceeded the strength of the rock and faults of unbounded force sliced up through the earth s crust. Vents and fissures gaped open at the surface. The zones of weakness along the fault zones reached deep within the earth, tapping into the live core of the planet and allowing boiling, molten rock to gush out.
Red-hot and charged with volatile gasses, the liquid rock flowed down the slightest incline, smothering square mile after square mile with a blanket of death. As the lava surged across the ancient landscape, it trapped the panicked animals, burning them to ashes in a moment, and incinerated the grasses and weeds into a thin carbon film.
Sometimes the outpourings slowed and even stopped, and at other times burst forth with great violence, blowing ash thousands of degrees hot upon the land. One lava flow piled upon another. After many eruptions over hundreds of centuries, hard rock more than two miles thick was formed.
This cataclysmic upheaval of the land threatened the river. Faults slashed across its course and lava poured into its channel. But again the river beat back its attackers. As the walls of the faults rose to bar its passage, the mighty torrent pounded great gaps through them. And the cold mountain water of the stream solidified the liquid lava into massive blocks, then ground those chunks of dead rock into sand and flushed it away to the ocean.
Finally the stress on the stone foundation of the plain slackened and faded away. The lava cauldrons deep within the earth were again capped off. The land rested. The rains fell.
The river and lesser streams continued to devour the land as they had since time immemorial. One stream was especially aggressive, the one that stemmed from the direction of the morning sun. It cut headward, breeching the channels of smaller currents and consuming their floods. It could not rival the north river, however, and paid homage by bestowing its total flow upon that ancient stream.
The voracious appetite of all the many currents wore away the ash and softer lava beds, leaving the superhard cores of the volcanic eruptions standing as young, angular mountains surrounded by wide flat valleys.
The climate turned dry, a desert grew, and its desiccating winds ravaged the country. The streams that had once run all year now had only short seasons of life in the sun, flowing in their courses only small fractions of their lengths before the thick sand and gravel of the valley bottoms swallowed them hungrily.
Some of the animal and plant species adapted to the harsh land of desert valleys and mountains. Other species d.
That is the way man found the land.
CHAPTER 1
Arizona Territory-February 1884
The winter storm, howling like a she-wolf that had lost her pup, rushed down from the arctic. Powerful gusts of wind buffeted the stone walls of the ranch house built on the bluff above the valley. The hammer blows of the wind rattled the window pane where John Blackaby stood looking out.
Blackaby reached out a calloused old hand and pressed the glass tightly into its sash to stop the noise. He shivered at the touch of the frigid glass. Getting old, he thought. I can t stand the cold like I used to. He was glad for the flames that crackled in the fireplace behind him.
Wind-driven curtains of snow scurried away to the south, hiding the valley from Blackaby s view beyond a few hundred yards. From the bunkhouse smoke rose, to be snatched away and shredded by the wind almost before it could climb out of the chimney.
To the right of the bunkhouse, the large stone corrals lay empty. All the horses and the dozen or so sick range cows that had been brought into headquarters for doctoring were in the stables, snugly hidden from the storm.
The nearest snow squall, torn suddenly by an erratic shift in the wind, split into many ribbons. The streamers of snow poured down like miniature waterfalls to bury the desert in white. And they pelted with stinging blows the three horsemen that pushed in from the east.
Blackaby spotted the dark forms of the men and walked to where his holstered six-gun hung on a wooden peg beside the fireplace. Three riders coming, he said to