False Flag Attack

The stagecoach bounced along the uneven trail through Indian lands. A year ago there would have been danger from Indians. But Ulysses Grant had sent General Philip Henry Sheridan, who had brought the horrors of war to Confederate civilians, to annihilate the plains Indians. In his winter campaign of 1868-69, Sheridan attacked the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes in their…

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Claim Jumpers

The shots he heard were too numerous to be a hunter’s work. Maybe Indians had come upon a trapper. Better check it out. If Indians got the trapper, they would be onto him next. Two guns stood a better chance than one, especially when the second wasn’t expected. The firing had stopped as he peered into the creek bed. A…

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Finding a Place

The Apaches had found his trail. Despite his Kiowa training, he had slipped up. His mistake could cost him his life. His canteen was full from the spring where he had left his horse. He had hoped the Apaches would accept the gift and let him be. But a white man on foot in the desert was too easy prey.…

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Doubts about the Law

Doubts About The Law was published in CHRONICLES, September 2009. “Rawhide” Andrews was a Texas Ranger. He came to the force after it was reconstituted in 1874, the Rangers having been discredited in the years following the War of Yankee Aggression as an enforcement unit for carpetbaggers. Comanches were in decline from smallpox and cholera and from the near extinction…

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How The West Was Restored

How The West Was Restored was published in CHRONICLES, November 2009. He had finally done it. He had mastered the physics of time. He was ready to visit the past. He had made his first fortune in U.S. Treasury bond futures in the early 1980’s. Wall Street had thought that the Reagan tax cuts would drive up interest rates because…

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Correcting A Legal Transaction

Correcting A Legal Transaction was published in CHRONICLES, October 2009 The trial was fixed. The judge knew it. The rancher had the town buffaloed. The jury would deliver the verdict the rancher wanted. The judge was concerned that the rancher’s rowdies would use the verdict for a lynching. The rancher didn’t want any more nesters around. The nester’s wife was…

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