Death Comes to Redhawk

Chapter One

The night was a sleeping child, peaceful, serene, but loaded with the promise of a loud awakening and needful of attention when it did.

The broad-shouldered man slept peacefully, his head resting on his saddlebags. It was the first truly restful sleep Kellen Malone had known in years, on this his first night outside Yuma Territorial Prison. Seven long years of sweat and toil were now behind him, leaving only calloused hands, a scar-covered back, and his precious dreams of revenge.

Malone had spent thirty-five years in life's schoolroom and experience had clearly been a stern teacher. The hopes he once shared with Alice Malone were now as faded as the jeans he wore; his chaps were as battered as Malone's hope for the future.

His face was burned dark from breaking rocks in the relentless, Arizona sun, and from the Indian blood that coursed through his veins. His mother had been a full-blooded Cherokee, his father a white trapper who took her away from the reservation. She survived the cruelties of the white man's government, but died giving birth to her son.

The unmistakable sound of a drawn-back pistol hammer broke the stillness of the desert morning. Malone's brown eyes were instantly alert and he cursed himself for sleeping so soundly. Instinctively, Malone's hand moved towards his gun.

"I wouldn't do that, Malone!"

Dotson was one of the guards at the prison, a cruel, sadistic man who enjoyed beating prisoners the way a fisherman enjoys tossing lines in the water. He was a lean man of average build, with wolfish eyes that twinkled brightly whenever he had the upper hand.

Dotson's eyes twinkled now.

Malone eased his hand away from the gun. "You don't mind if I get up...do you, Dotson? Wouldn't want folks thinking I died in my sleep."

"You're a sound sleeper, Malone. Might be the death of you yet," he said, grinning wickedly. "Go ahead. Get up. See if I care. You'll be spending all your here-ons laying down, anyway."

"You're getting better at slipping up on a body, Dotson."

Malone stood to his feet, knowing he could draw faster while upright. "Must be those Indian trackers back at the prison. Maybe they're rubbing off on you."

Dotson seemed to sense what Kellen was thinking. "And don't you try anything foolish, Malone! Just as soon kill you now as later."

"How'd you find me, Dotson? You couldn't track a five-legged pack mule if the critter left droppings every ten feet."

Dotson bristled at the remark. "Wasn't hard to find you, Malone. Anyone could figure you're on your way back to Redhawk to find your son."

Malone was not a fool; he had no doubt as to what Dotson had in store for him. He could only stall for time and hope for an opportunity.

"What do you want with me, Dotson?"

"Didn't think I'd let you go without saying my good-byes," he grinned, still leveling his gun at Malone's midsection. "That time you tried to escape, we had an awful time catching you."

Malone laughed out loud. "Yea, but it took you three days. Without those Apache trackers, you'd still be stumbling around in the desert, Dotson. Of course, I would probably have you by now."

"When we got you back to the prison, I'd have laid you open with that whip. That darned Ingalls had to take your side! Lost my job over the whole affair. The man's too easy on the prisoners, I think."