Devil's Creek Massacre Read Online Free

heard Apaches talking to each other. Sister Death danced among ocotillo and juniper, eagerly awaiting Duane's departure. “I don't want to die,” he whispered as his short life passed before his eyes. He saw himself studying in the scriptorium in the clouds, shooting a gunfighter named Otis Puckett in a small Texas town named Shelby, and writhing with pleasure in the naked arms of Miss Vanessa Fontaine.
    He struggled to hold his Colt ready for one last shot, but couldn't see any Apaches. Another gun fired, his ribs were smashed, and he struggled to breathe, hit in the vitals. In the distance, he heard volleys of gunfire, or maybe it was thunder, or perhaps even the voice of Lord God Almighty calling out to him.
    â€œOh, my Jesus . . . forgive us our sins . . . save us from the fires of hell . . . lead all souls into heaven . . . especially those most in need of your mercy . . . such as me.”
    He wished he could die straight out, but his fighting Texas heart wouldn't let go. He lay still on the ground, struggled to open his eyes, and it appeared that Vanessa Fontaine was standing before him, wearing a white diaphanous gown, peering at him with great concern, as if she wanted to help him. “Vanessa,” was the last word he spoke, then black waterfalls spilledover his eyes, and he plunged into the bowels of the raging noonday sun.
    Mrs. Vanessa Dawes awoke with a start in her Austin hotel room, approximately seven hundred and fifty miles away. The former Charleston belle lay on her maroon velvet sofa, a book open on her breast; she'd dozed off reading Lord Byron. She closed the tome, laid it on the floor beside her, and wondered why she felt uneasy. It was as though something terrible had happened, but often she was disturbed by nightmares and vague premonitions of doom.
    Her husband, the former Lieutenant Clayton Dawes, had been killed in action against the Apaches during the summer. His family had been old Yankee money, and his grandmother had bequeathed him a small fortune in securities and investments, which passed to his surviving widow, the former Miss Vanessa Fontaine of Charleston, South Carolina. Now wealthy again as in the halcyon days before the Civil War, she'd launched herself successfully in Austin society, which consisted mostly of ex-Confederate sympathizers such as herself.
    In a week, she was scheduled to attend a private ball at the residence of a wealthy Austin banker. The crème de la crème of Austin ex-Confederate society would be there. Vanessa loved to enact the great lady, and certainly never mentioned that she'd been a poor itinerant saloon singer before she'd met Lieutenant Dawes.
    Vanessa was bored with widow's weeds and toyed with the notion of marrying again. The most wealthy and presentable men in Austin would attend the ball, and she didn't hate the opposite sex by any means. To the contrary, they came in handy for performing escortduties and providing certain pleasurable pastimes best not mentioned in polite society.
    She drew her long legs around and planted them on the floor. Then she folded her hands together and looked out the window at another bright sunny day on San Marcos Street, not far from the former French legation to the Republic of Texas. She lived among others of her kind in a small out-of-the-way hotel, the Arlington, named after General Robert E. Lee's former estate in Virginia. Servants were available for every conceivable notion in the luxurious establishment, while the kitchen on the ground floor produced excellent meals for every occasion. Vanessa Fontaine could lie on her sofa for the rest of her life, be waited on by servants, and read beautiful poetry, but somehow she wasn't contented.
    She knew what she wanted, but considered the idea preposterous. Despite her best efforts, she couldn't forget a certain ex-lover who had shared her bed several months ago. In the cold light of logic, she'd thought him too young and unpromising for a lost wandering