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eBook Category: Historical Fiction
eBook Description: A woman ... pride ... anger ... grief ... and venom! Eli Burke's raging flight from shattered dreams aboard his faithful horse, Kicker, brings unimaginable consequences for the rider and his mount. As Burke fights for his life, alone on the arid plains of Old West Colorado, he must confront his deep loss and the signs missed along the way, as well as discover what is most important to him in this world ... what he misses most of all.

eBook Publisher: Echelon Press, Published: 2005, 2005
Fictionwise Release Date: August 2005

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [33 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [67 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [11 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [211 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [11 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [67 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [84 KB] , hiebook (KML) [62 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [73 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [10 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [12 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [54 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [20 KB]
Words: 3336
Reading time: 9-13 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
ISBN: 159080449X

"Rosalie!" He screamed her name while an explosion of gunpowder, sounding like a demon roar of Lucifer, propelled the fatal bullet.

"Rosalie!" He shouted her name again and again as five more bullets stabbed the cobalt sky, but his rage at her was no match for the grief that lay before him. He wanted someone to blame for his own actions, and Rosalie was convenient.

Eli Burke lifted his face toward the sun, the lines around his eyes deepening their creases in defense against its brightness; the four-inch brim of his hat unable to provide adequate shelter from the unbroken sky. The rest of his lean countenance was a mixture of reddened skin, stubble, and sweat-hardened dust from a trail full of misery.

"Sorry about that, Kicker," Burke managed to say after the land settled back to a suffocating quiet. "But I reckon you're better off now."

The black horse lying in the dirt couldn't respond to his long-time partner's sentence, the cowboy's parched voice rumbling like a chair dragged across the saloon floor back at the beginning of this misfortune ... back at Skinny's place. Kicker was dead, that first bullet relieving the stallion from the burden of struggling to move and draw breath with the combined venom of a dozen rattlesnakes consuming his life like flames through dry tinder. No matter the circumstances, it wasn't easy for a cowboy to put down a good horse. It was devastating when the steed was his closest friend and constant companion. Burke wanted someone to pay.

Unbidden, an image of a beautiful woman flickered in his thoughts, and Eli spat a rare curse in response. He was a quiet man, viewing displays of emotion as a sign of frailty or the result of too much strong drink, but this was a heavy load to bear. As his gaze took in the lifeless form of his horse, his mind accused him in a voice only he could hear. Yesterday, he should have stopped sooner for rest. He shouldn't have pushed the endurance of horse and rider just to get those extra miles-miles now stretching like an arid barrier between him and that worthless town of Dry Gulch he'd left behind in the dust of a headlong sprint from shattered dreams. Bitter indictments circled his thoughts like a pack of wolves around wounded prey.

Eli's fury bested him when he first lit out, changing to an all-consuming lust for distance that wouldn't be satisfied. Half blind with a burden of weariness and thirst, Burke guided Kicker straight into another no-good town, this one located in flat rocks populated entirely by a nest of rattlers.

The first dagger of fangs from the rocks snapped them out of their exhausted trance, adrenaline providing a source of energy they hadn't possessed moments earlier. The athletic stallion jumped and sprang throughout the middle of the lethal foes, searching for a way out of death's trap, while Eli blew off six shots in quick succession from the barrel of his revolver. To his dismay, bleary eyes conspired against him, causing him to miss the coiled attackers. Burke was a dead shot, able on a good day to hit a jackrabbit on the run, but today was anything but good. If those pulls of the trigger had only found their marks, Kicker would be hurting, that's for sure, but he just might still be alive. And Eli would still have his best friend. The inner accusations transformed to demons of guilt, a shouting lynch mob, deafening in their appetite for vengeance.

His hand journeyed to the unmoving neck of the black steed, palm quivering with a combination of fatigue and sorrow. The course timbre of Eli's voice broke the enfolding funereal silence once more.

"Forgive a fool like me for leading us into that forest of fangs, boy. I know you did your best to get us out of there in fine shape, and you almost did just that. All I got is a pain in my leg from hitting it somehow during the fracas. If I'd been able to plug any of those vipers, you'd still be alive. I know it. It was my fault for running us so hard. Running from that miserable town and that low-down cheating woman..."

The confession paused while his throat gulped back fervent emotions attempting to pass. "Trouble is, boy, I ain't never going to be in fine shape without you." Burke could feel a rush inside, building like a wall of water after a hard rain. The muscles of his rugged jaw tensed, and hands became fists as he resisted the flood the way a dam holds a river at bay. He cleared his throat before releasing syllables in a more controlled tone, but not devoid of feeling.

"I miss you already, Kicker," he said, a single tear carving an unnoticed line through the dust on his cheek. "You were the best I ever laid eyes on."

As his knees hit the dry earth next to his lifeless companion, the cowboy's memories unlocked under the climbing sun, spilling images of times he and his four-legged compadre spent together. He had come upon the horse while performing a summer of work for a local rancher. It seemed the spectacular yearling was intended for the rancher's daughter, but the child would have none of him after the colt spun and kicked her square with a flash of rear hooves, breaking her leg when she first attempted to hug his neck the way little girls embrace a doll or a stuffed animal. The rancher sensed the young horse was a good animal with a keen mind, but the daughter's tears soon became a mother's desire for retribution. Eli always considered himself fortunate to be at the right place at the right time, arriving at the front entrance of the ranch house to collect his pay the same moment the frustrated owner exited his door, ears ringing with loud demands regarding instant dispersal of the offending horse.

"Foolish womenfolk," the embattled man grumbled, his face a mixture of consternation and distress. "Can't talk any sense into them. That's the best horse I've ever seen, and I've got to get rid of him here and now, all because he had to go and kick my daughter."

Dispersions against his wife's stubbornness poured from the jaws of the barrel-chested cattleman while an idea took shape in Burke's mind. On more than one occasion, the cowboy caught himself admiring the young colt, wondering who would be the recipient of such a fine animal, and envying their good fortune at the same time. He was dejected at the news the colt was for the rancher's daughter, the information dashing any hope of his ever procuring the horse for himself, slim though it was to begin with. Burke tried to keep any enthusiasm for his resurgent objective in check behind a measured tone of voice.

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Carlson," he said, surprising himself with his calm manner. "If you don't mind none, I've got a notion that might help out you and me both." The boss's eyes grew interested at the mere suggestion of a solution, and Burke hastily continued so as not to lose hold of the moment. "Instead of you paying me in silver for the work I've done for you, how about I only take one month's wages and that colt off your hands instead? As I see it, you'd be rid of your current predicament with the womenfolk of your household, and I'd have myself a good horse to take the place of my own which should rightly be retired by now." The call of distant cattle joined a soft chorus of breeze in the Cottonwoods while the cowboy held his breath, every passing second cutting into Eli's hope of owning a new horse.