Predators and Prey Read online

  PREDATORS AND PREY

  by F. M. PARKER

  “F. M. PARKER BRINGS THE WEST TO LIFE,” Publishers Weekly declares in assessing the growing acclaim directed at one of America’s premier frontier novelist. Now with this powerful and ambitious work, F. M. Parker demonstrates his mastery anew.

  The year is 1859, and in England, beautiful Caroline Shepherd is recruited by a handsome missionary to join other young women in a trek westward to the Mormon state in the mountain west of America. In the Rockies, young fur trapper Sam Wilde is left for dead by savage fur pirates led by DeBreen. Far away in Texas, rancher Nathan Tolliver finds himself alone after his twin brother is murdered by land thieves, whom Nathan tracks down and kills. To find a wife to share his cattle kingdom, Nathan joins four Texans riding northward in a hunt for mates.

  On the trackless Great Plains, the threads of life of these characters intertwine. The women going westward toward Salt Lake City, thinly guarded and, like beasts of burden, pulling their scant belongings in carts harnessed to their shoulders, become a magnet for myriad predators. A lusting Pawnee chieftain looks on them as natural prey, DeBreen sees them as easy pickings for profit and pleasure, the Texans see them as a source of wives. Nathan falls in love with the reluctant Caroline and vows to protect the Mormon women at all costs and against all odds. Brigham Young has sent a band of armed men from Salt Lake City to meet the handcart company and to bring every woman to his land of Zion. They arrive with guns at the ready to keep the women from changing their plans as the dangers increase and go off with the Texans.

  This gripping novel explodes with frontier passion and adventure. Based on the true events of the Mormon effort to forge a polygamous nation - Brigham Young called “Deseret” - in the heartland of America, it is at once an epic of endurance and a shattering journey into the soul. Historical fiction at its best.

  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.

  Visit www.fearlparker.com for more details.

  “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

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Author's Note

  Predators and Prey

  PROLOGUE

  The Making of the Great Plains

  Only the primeval sun saw the birth of the mountains in that ancient time of orogeny on the northern continent of the Earth.

  A compressive force of unimaginable power ushered in that age of mountain building. For a time span of millions of years, the crust of the continent was squeezed from the east and west, and the thick rock layers arched upward, bending until they stood at steep angles. In places the mighty force completely overturned the rocks so that they lay upside down. A giant range of mountains was formed, stretching some three thousand miles north to south and spanning the continent. Stony mountain peaks stabbed four, five miles high, wounding the sky in scores of places.

  As the mountains rose, streams of a thousand sizes came to life and tumbled with awesome violence down from the high ramparts. The myriad currents cut and tore at the steep flanks of the mountains, grinding the rock to sand and silt and rushing away with it to the lowlands. Where the grade became less steep on the lower reaches of the streams, the currents slowed and wandered in meandering courses, dropping their load of eroded mountain debris. The valleys of the streams became choked with swamps and shallow lakes as thousands of cubic miles of sediment were spread in flat, ever-thickening layers.

  Time ticked off the millennia, one after another, adding to millions of years. During the long epoch of erosion a broad plain grew at the base of the mountain range and extended toward the rising sun for many hundreds of miles.

  So flat was the land surface that the larger animals could see each other for long distances, to the limits of their vision.

  Far away at the extreme eastern edge of the plains, the streams coalesced to form a grand river. This stupendous flow poured in a never-ending current to the south, finally debauching into the salty brine of one of the great oceans of the world.

  As time continued to whisper its passing, the climate of the Earth began to cool. Glaciers thousands of feet thick formed and advanced across the northern portion of the plains, each time to retreat and die. In the harsh, frozen part of the cycles, the land was buried under an unbelievably large expanse of ice and swept by hurricane winds that never ended. Wet, warm, pluvial times, the interglacial periods, melted the ice, creating torrents that scoured the mountains and plains and sped off to add their volume to the prodigious south-flowing river.

  A dramatic change occurred in the climatic cycles of the Earth. The continental glacier retreated and the deluge came, but the next phase of the cycle did not arrive. Instead the land grew drier and drier. Broad forest died and the plains became a prairie, a sea of tall grass.

  The great animals that had lived and thrived during the rugged glacial period, the woolly mammoth, the wide-horned bison, the saber-toothed tiger, and the vulture condor all died. However, the bison left a legacy, for in its genes there existed the potential for change. As the plains became ever more dry, each succeeding generation of the bison grew smaller and smaller, adapting to the changing clima
te and the decreased availability of food. It became a miniaturized replica of its ancestor, weighing a mere ton or less. This new breed of bison flourished by the millions on the grassy prairie.

  In this warmer, drier time, a brown-skinned man came onto the plains and stalked the bison herds. The man was skilled and killed the animals he needed. Only the white buffalo wolf competed with the brown man as he journeyed where the buffalo journeyed and lived in harmony with the herds for twelve millennia.

  Then a new clan of man, one with white skin, came onto the broad prairie. The quiet tread of the moccasined foot and the silent bow of the Indian were joined by the hobnailed boot and thunderous rifle of the white man.

  The two clans of man became enemies and pursued each other across the prairie. They fought savage battles. The victor slew the vanquished without mercy.

  The white man won most of the battles, relentlessly extending his domain. He began to build permanent villages on the eastern edge of the prairie.

  A new sect of man, adhering to a religion never before seen upon the earth, came from many countries and gathered on the edge of the prairie at a place called St. Joseph. These people, formed into groups and held together by their religious faith, marched out almost totally unarmed from the border settlement and into the wilderness. They were searching for a place they called Zion.

  This story takes place during the time of the migration of those religious men and women—Saints, they called themselves—of that latter-day religion.

  1

  Red River, Texas—March 3, 1859

  The man came out of the stone house on the bluff above the Red River while the cold dawn was still too black for shooting. A tall, ghostly figure, he walked swiftly to the corral, caught and saddled a horse, and rode off. He spurred the horse to a gallop across the two hundred yards of meadow surrounding the house. The oak woods on the hillside swallowed rider and mount into its gloomy depths.

  “Goddamn,” cursed Santell, lowering the telescope from his eye.

  “I told you we should’ve got closer.” Kunzel’s voice came from the brush near Santell. “If the range had been shorter, I could’ve killed him even in this poor light.”

  “Shut up,” growled Santell. “This is the closest we could get and still have cover in the woods.” The ranch man had been very lucky by leaving so early in the day. But that made no difference in the final outcome. When the man returned, he would die, for Santell and his two men would still be there waiting. Santell raised the telescope and focused the round field of magnification back on the house.

  “What now?” asked Cotter from Santell’s other side.

  “There should be one more man,” replied Santell. “We’ll kill him when he comes outside.”

  “It’s a hell of a shame one of them don’t have a woman,” Kunzel said. “Are you sure they don’t? I could use some lovin’ today.”

  “You’re always ready for a woman,” Santell said. “But you’ll find none here. There’s only the two Tolliver brothers. You’ll have to be satisfied with your share of their land and cows. When we’re done here, we’ll ride to Austin and you can buy all the women you can handle.”

  “You had better be certain that you have the correct information about these Tollivers,” Cotter said. “We don’t want any relatives showing up and asking questions about their disappearance, or our claim of ownership to their land.”

  “I got it straight. There’ll be no problems,” Santell said. Cotter was a worrier and an aggravating man. However, he had a skill with a pen that was worth a fortune. He could prepare a deed or bill of sale and forge a dead man’s signature that no one could tell was false.

  Santell had no doubt that his plan would succeed in taking the ranch from the Tollivers. He was in possession of four other ranches and had not paid a cent for any of them. Soon he would be very rich. He chuckled low in his chest at the thought.

  “Did you say something?” asked Cotter.

  “No,” said Santell. He watched the door by which the first man had left the house.

  Three days before in the early-evening dusk, Santell and his men had crossed the Salt Fork of Red River and located the ranch headquarters. They had stolen through the woods and spied upon the house until full darkness. After spending the night in a hidden camp they had begun to prowl the land, counting the cattle and riding the boundaries marked with stone monuments. The grass was dense and tall. The Salt Fork and several springs provided abundant water. Though they had found but three hundred head of cattle, the land easily could support a herd of five thousand. By nightfall today, the Tolliver land, buildings, and cattle would become Santell’s, and his men’s. And later Santell’s alone, for he had a second plan.

  As Santell lay watching the building in the meadow, he tried to recall all the isolated ranches and farms in Oklahoma and Texas that he and his men had plundered. The number was too large. The images of dead men, and raped and slain women, were blurred and intermingled. He could clearly remember only the last four. Those were ranches they had carefully selected, killed the owners, forged deeds, and now claimed as their own property.

  In the east, the gray morning turned hard blue and welled up to fill half the sky. The dull yellow orb of the sun rose up from its hiding place in the pit below the horizon. The sun’s rays struck the valley of the Red, drove the last night shadows into the low hollows and crevices of the earth, and killed them there.

  In the brighter light, Santell examined more closely the large single-story house and the round corral lying some one hundred yards upstream from it. The uncountable back- breaking tons of stone that had gone into the walls of both structures had been laid true and plumb. The work of a true craftsman.

  “Damn fine headquarters buildings,” Santell said. “Made of stone like that, they’ll last the lifetimes of two men. Add that to the excellent grazing land, and this is the best ranch we’ve stolen. All of this was done by the Tollivers, hardly more than kids, in just two years.”

  “Mighty nice of them to build it for us,” said Cotter.

  Santell agreed. Now he would take it away from the Tollivers with a couple of bullets. He would then move on along the frontier and take a dozen or two such properties for his own. It was a grand country where a man could get rich so easily.

  “There’s the second fellow just coming out the door,” said Kunzel in a low voice.

  A tall, young man stepped out of the house and stood in the yard. He stretched hugely, reaching up high, and then far out to the side. He glanced over his shoulder at the sun and then moved off toward a walled spring. Partway there, he halted and scooped up a rock. With a long, looping swing of his arm he sent the missile sailing out over the bluff in the direction of the river, lying some two hundred feet below. Whistling, he walked on toward the spring.

  “Doesn’t seem to have a worry in the world,” Cotter said.

  “He sure won’t be able to worry about anything in a minute,” said Kunzel, rubbing the stock of his .50-caliber rifle. “Want me to shoot him now, Santell?”

  “I haven’t seen a hanging for a spell,” Cotter said. “Why can’t we hang this fellow and watch him kick his way to hell?”

  Santell scratched his bearded jaw. “That’s a good idea. And we’ll let him continue to swing after he’s dead. When his brother sees him dangling by the neck, he’ll think he might still be alive and come hurrying to cut him down. That’ll bring him into easy gun range without fail.”

  Santell stood up. “Let’s ride down there. Act friendly until we get close enough to jump him. We’ll do this quick, because we’re going to be out there in the open and the other man could ride back at any time.”

  ***

  Jason Tolliver spotted the three horsemen the moment they broke free of the woods. He raised his hand in greeting. “Hi!” he shouted out to the men.

  “Hello, yourself,” Santell called back. “Can we get a drink from your spring?”

  “There’s plenty of water, and it’s good and cold,”
Jason said, and smiled broadly. It had been many days since Nathan and he had had visitors. His brother was often gone for long periods of time, and it was lonely.

  Santell reined his horse close to Jason and swung down to the ground. Kunzel and Cotter dismounted on the opposite side of Jason.

  “Your name Tolliver?” asked Santell.

  “Tolliver, that’s right. Jason Tolliver.” He bobbed his head and continued to smile in a happy, childish way at the new arrivals.

  He was pleased by the fact the man knew his name. “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Santell did not reply. The friendliness of the young man was strange. He should have been wary of three unknown men riding up and surrounding him. Tolliver wasn’t armed, not even with a belt knife.

  Jason cocked his head, waiting for the expected answer to his question. Finally he asked, “Why have you come to visit me and Nathan?”

  “To kill you and take your ranch,” Santell said. He raised his hand, signaling to Kunzel and Cotter.

  Cotter sprang forward and pinioned Jason’s arms to his side in a bear hug. Kunzel moved quickly upon the startled young man and slugged him savagely in the face. Then swiftly struck him again.

  Dazed, Jason slumped, hanging in Cotter’s arms. Blood began to stream from his nose and mouth.

  “Tie his hands behind him,” Santell directed. “Hurry now before he can start a fight.”

  Kunzel dug a length of rawhide from a pocket and roughly bound Jason’s hands. “He’s ready for the hanging,” Kunzel said.

  Jason straightened, his eyes coming back into focus. He shook his head, flinging the blood from his face in a spray of red droplets. With an uncomprehending expression he looked at the man who had hit him, and then at the man who gave orders to the others.

  “This should be a good show,” said Cotter. “He’s strong and won’t die fast.”

  “Put him on your horse,” Santell said. “Move, dammit. Let’s get this over with.”

  The men hoisted Jason up on the horse. “Keep your damn legs astraddle the horse,” growled Cotter as Jason started to lift a leg to dismount.