Beginner's Luck

by Len Levinson

  DUANE BRADDOCK WENT FROM NAIVE YOUNG ORPHAN TO THE RIP-ROARING LEGEND CALLED THE PECOS KID ... HE DID IT WITH HELP FROM FRIENDS AND ENEMIES ALIKE.

  Lester Boggs—A wiry cowboy who loves liquor and the ladies, and vows to teach Duane everything he knows.

  Clyde Butterfield—A cheroot-chewing over-the-hill gunslinger who always seems to be there for Duane, and has some mysterious link to Duane’s past.

  Vanessa Fontaine—The kind and lovely saloon singer who takes Duane under her wing, much to the fury of the man who loves her.

  Edgar Petigru—The richest man in town, also the most hated man in town, and momentarily Duane’s worst enemy.

  Len Farnsworth—The cheating, heartless publisher of the local newspaper, who conjures up the story that innocent Duane is really the ruthless Pecos Kid, then lives to see it come true.

  Joe Braddock—The outlaw father Duane never met, but knows is watching over him until Joe’s killer is brought to justice.

  Also by Len Levinson

  The Rat Bastards:

  Hit the Beach

  Death Squad

  River of Blood

  Meat Grinder Hill

  Down and Dirty

  Green Hell

  Too Mean to Die

  Hot Lead and Cold Steel

  Do or Die

  Kill Crazy

  Nightmare Alley

  Go For Broke

  Tough Guys Die Hard

  Suicide River

  Satan’s Cage

  Go Down Fighting

  The Pecos Kid:

  The Reckoning

  Apache Moon

  Outlaw Hell

  Devil’s Creek Massacre

  Bad to the Bone

  The Apache Wars Saga:

  Desert Hawks

  War Eagles

  Savage Frontier

  White Apache

  Devil Dance

  Night of the Cougar

  THE

  PECOS KID

  Book 1

  BEGINNER'S LUCK

  LEN LEVINSON

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1992 by Len Levinson. All Rights Reserved.

  Ebook © 2013 by AudioGO. All Rights Reserved.

  Trade eISBN: 978-1-62064-858-2

  Library eISBN: 978-1-62460-199-6

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE OLD CONCORD STAGECOACH RUMBLED across the trail, lanterns gleaming into the night. The driver flicked his whip across the horses’ haunches, as moonlight reflected upon buttes, spires, and caprock escarpments on the distant horizon.

  Inside the cab, a salesman, two soldiers, a lawyer, a cowboy, and a hatless young vagabond sat with knees jammed together, enveloped in the fragrance of springtime. They’d been on the road five days, sleeping in ramshackle roadhouses, alert for Indians.

  The young man was nearly eighteen years old, tall, with black hair and ill-fitting clothes. He peered out the window at a town down the road, glittering like a sprawl of diamonds across the valley. His name was Duane Braddock, he had thirteen dollars and change in his pocket, and was on the first journey of his life.

  He didn’t know a soul in Titusville, and had heard that big towns were sinkholes of sin and depravity, with drunken men shooting each other at random, and scarlet women luring lovelorn males into the fires of hell. Paradoxically, he was eager to see these harrowing prospects; they provoked his youthful curiosity and sense of adventure. For better or worse, he’d lived an unusually sheltered life. Until two weeks ago, he’d been sequestered in a Benedictine monastery high in the Guadalupe Mountains. An orphan, he’d been brought there an infant, and raised by the brothers and fathers.

  Duane had spent his brief life praying, studying, and singing Gregorian chant, planning to become a brother, and then possibly a priest, but it started unraveling two weeks ago. He’d been forced to leave for fighting with another acolyte, beating him rather badly with a frying pan. The old abbot had said: “If you can’t live in peace with us, you’ll have to go somewhere else!”

  Duane had never known peace, as if he didn’t quite mesh with the world. Even the tranquillity of the monastery hadn’t subdued his inner demons, and often he’d doubted that he was truly called to the religious life. He’d longed to see the outside world, and he’d experienced weird stirrings concerning certain Mexican girls who’d come to the monastery to pray.

  The abbot had made the decision for him, expelling Duane from the monastery in the clouds. A roof every night and three regular meals a day were things of the past. Whatever he needed now, he’d have to tear out of the world with his bare hands.

  The end had come suddenly and with stunning forcefulness. An orphan bully named Jasper Jakes had learned the truth of Duane’s parentage from records in the abbot’s office, which revealed that Duane was the bastard son of an outlaw killed in the Pecos country, and a prostitute who’d died shortly thereafter.

  Jasper Jakes had made painful remarks concerning Duane’s ancestry at every opportunity. After several days of mounting anger, Duane lost control in the monastery kitchen, and attacked Jakes. Before the fight could be stopped, Duane had broken Jakes’s jaw, shattered his nose, and knocked out a tooth. He himself had taken one hard shot to the forehead, but that was his total damage.

  Duane shuddered as the memories flooded his mind. He would’ve killed Jakes, if they didn’t stop him, and he knew that a dangerous beast dwelled within him, which was frightening to contemplate. But he couldn’t bear the shame of his deepest embarrassment revealed to the world. Duane had felt like dirty, damaged goods, and no matter how hard he struggled, he’d never wash off that indelible stain—the devil’s brand on his soul. Other boys had lost parents to wild Indians, disease, floods, and outlaw raids, but at least their parents had been married, and their fathers hadn’t been killed by lawmen.

  Duane had vague recollections of his father, who’d smelled of whiskey and tobacco, and wore a black mustache, but was it memory or hallucination? He had been less than a year old when his father was shot, and his mother expired soon thereafter, so how could he remember her blond curls and gentle kisses? But they couldn’t’ve been that bad, he said to himself. And even if they were, surely God would forgive them, for aren’t we His Children?

  His body ached, crammed in with the others, and he wanted to stretch his long legs, but across from him sprawled a sergeant in the 4th Cavalry, snoring loudly. During the trip, Duane had examined his fellow passengers, and most interesting, in his estimation, was the droll, lanky cowboy named Lester Boggs.

  Boggs wore a wide-brimmed hat, a drooping, tobacco-stained sandy mustache, and a green bandanna draped around his sunburned neck, but his most arresting feature was the six-shooter gleaming evilly in his holster, slung low and tied down. To Duane, Lester Boggs represented the epitome of what a real man should be, a far cry from the monastery’s solemn-faced brothers and fathers, who were always doing penance for something they considered vile.

  Duane had tried to strike up a conversation with Boggs, seeking to draw stories and information out of him, but the cowboy fended off all inquiries, sipping pale amber liquid he referred to as “medicine,” out of a whiskey bottle with the label partially torn off.

  Boggs was tanned, with callused hands, and moonbeams emitting from his eyes. Duane wished he could be a man of the world like Boggs, not a solitary kid of dubious parentage,
and ignorant about life.

  Duane would be eighteen in only three weeks, and was anxious to realize his potential, although he wasn’t quite sure what it was. His education had been good and evil as interpreted by Jesus Christ, Saint Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Saint Benedict, and all the other luminaries of Holy Mother Church. Brother Paolo, his teacher and spiritual advisor, had told him that he could accomplish any goal, if he kept his mind pure, but Brother Paolo had once served time in a California jail for being a bandito.

  The horses plodded toward the end of their day’s labor, and Duane heard the driver joking with the shotgun guard atop the coach. The buildings of Titusville loomed closer, with lights aglow in the center of town. Crack! went the driver’s whip over the horses’ flanks. “We’ll have us a good steak at the Crystal Palace Saloon,” the stagecoach driver said to the shotgun guard. “And a bottle of Old Crow.”

  Duane had read about far-off exotic lands, and now at last was free to travel anywhere. He was tired of reading books and singing in the choir, and didn’t feel qualified to deliver sermons to men and women twice his age. He also wanted to get married as soon as possible, because strange internal physical events were occurring beyond his control.

  The sergeant twitched his nose, opened his eyes, and looked out the window. “Thar it is,” he muttered. “ ’Bout goddamn time.”

  The lawyer awakened next to him, a sleepy grin on his face. “Which way is the cribs?”

  The stagecoach rounded a bend, and rocked on its leather thoroughbrace suspension. A whiff of chimney smoke wafted through the window, and Duane’s mouth watered with anticipation of his next meal. He always seemed hungry, and hoped he could get a job before his money ran out.

  He had no idea where he’d sleep that night. He had no poncho in his sack, not even a blanket. The abbot, furious at the outbreak of violence, unceremoniously chucked Duane out the front gate without supplies, despite Brother Paolo’s ardent protestations, citing Duane’s age, inexperience, but the abbot refused to change his verdict.

  Duane wasn’t remorseful about leaving the monastery. He’d endured enough sanctimonious piety and ecclesiastical platitudes to last a lifetime, and didn’t want to become a dried-out old buzzard like the abbot. But he still believed in God, the Gospels, and Holy Mother Church. You don’t have to live in a monastery to be a good Christian, he told himself.

  Something wild dwelled inside him, and he’d yearned for an active outdoors life. Many times, studying in the scriptorium, he’d wanted to run alone in the ponderosa pines, to let off steam, but all he could do was turn the page. In Ecclesiastes, he’d read: In much learning, there is much sorrow, and Duane couldn’t agree more. Some writers said it one way, other writers declared it differently, but it all boiled down to one principle: Honor truth, love justice, and walk humbly with thy God. His only regret was that he’d never see poor, tormented Brother Paolo again. That devout ex-bandito had wagged his finger in Duane’s face and said in a grave voice: Beware the temptations of the secular world. At first it looks like a garden, but then it becomes an oven.

  Across the seat, Lester Boggs drew his gun out of its holster, spun the cylinders, and returned the weapon to its position of meditation on his hip. Then he bit off a fresh chunk of tobacco and worked his jaws like a cow.

  The stagecoach arrived at the edge of the town, and Duane perceived outlines of two- and three-story wooden buildings, some with lamps glowing in the windows. A dog ran out of the darkness and barked at the spokes of the stagecoach going round and round.

  The driver steered onto the main street of Titusville, and the first building was a saloon, with horses lined up at the hitching rail, and raucous laughter floating through bat-wing doors. Next came a hardware store closed for the night, a barber shop, and then a private home with no lamps on. Men strolled on the planked sidewalks, wearing boots and wide cowboy hats, carrying guns and knives, smoking cigarettes.

  Duane wanted to be manly like them, but he felt like an overgrown boy. The faint stubble of a mustache grew on his upper lip, but he’d never been alone with a woman since he entered the monastery. He was conscious of his monk’s sandals, old brown pants, dirty white shirt, and no hat.

  He was scared and exhilarated as the stagecoach rolled down the wide, potholed street. Three cowboys on horseback galloped past, waving their hats in the air, yipping and yelling like madmen. Duane stared at hotels ablaze with light, saloons full of roaring men, restaurants packed with diners, horses drinking from troughs. The tinkle of a piano came to his ears, and a woman laughed throatily in one of the saloons.

  Duane broke out into a cold sweat, and felt uncomfortable in his hand-me-down clothes. In only moments, he’d be on his own in a strange town, but Brother Paolo had given him the basic guidelines: Don’t gamble, don’t drink whiskey, and stay away from women.

  Duane spotted a woman waving from behind the front window of the Cattlemen Saloon, her face garishly painted, wearing a low-cut dress. He realized that she was a prostitute, and wondered what horrible circumstance had brought her to such a wanton state.

  The mere thought of women made him feel as if he were covered with ants. He’d enjoyed disgraceful dreams about Mexican girls at Mass in the monastery, and reproached himself for licentious imaginings. A man should be more than a pig rutting among the sows, he maintained.

  Meanwhile, his fellow travelers conversed in scurrilous tones about whiskey, women, and cards, the very items Brother Paolo had told Duane to avoid, and Duane coughed on the thick tobacco smoke roiling inside the cab. They were big, rough men, except for the salesman, who had smooth hands, big ears, and a beatific smile. “You know what’s the best hotel in town?” he asked Sergeant Cutlowe.

  “I ain’t never been in Titusville afore, but a trooper told me that the best whores are at Miss Ellie’s.” Sergeant Cutlowe turned toward Duane and shook his finger. “Now you stay out of there, boy. Yer too young fer that shit.”

  Duane’s ears turned red in the darkness, as the stagecoach veered toward an immense building that took up nearly the entire block. The sign above the porch said:

  CARRINGTON ARMS

  Lights blazed from its windows, spilling onto the veranda, where men drank leisurely at tables. Someone fired a shot on a nearby street, and Duane jumped three inches off his seat. The sergeant leaned toward Duane. “You’d better git you a gun, Sonny Jim. “ Otherwise yer liable to git a bullet up yer ass. Some of these cowboys come to town after three months in a line shack, they git a few whiskeys in ’em—they go crazy as injuns. It’s always best to be heeled, know what I mean?”

  Duane nodded solemnly, as the stagecoach slowed in front of the hotel. He looked at his raggedy clothes, and feared that he’d appear outlandish to the citizens of the secular world. He knew he’d have to get some new clothes as soon as he found a job

  The stagecoach came to a stop, attracting the attention of everyone in the vicinity, and on high floors of the hotel, guests looked down at the vehicle pulling up to the door, bringing visitors from beyond the mountains, along with newspapers, mail, merchandise, and warrants for the arrest of certain individuals currently on the dodge.

  The stagecoach driver bounded to the ground, wiped his hands on his pants, and opened the door. Duane moved off his seat, squeezed through the narrow opening, and landed on the ground. He felt a crick in his back, and his right knee was sore as he unwound in front of the hotel. Lamplight glistened on his aquiline nose and high cheekbones.

  He was fascinated by the ornately gabled hotel before him, the largest building he’d ever seen, and wondered if he had enough money to stay there. Reaching into his pocket, he took out his coins and counted them in the palm of his hand, as if hoping they’d gained interest during the trip, but they totaled the same old thirteen dollars and change.

  “What’re you doin’, boy?” asked Boggs, who exuded the fragrance of fermented beverages. “Don't show yer money in the middle of the street. There's people here who'd slit yer throat fer what
yer got thar. Whar you stayin’ tonight?”

  “Don't know yet,” Duane replied, “but I figured I'd find out what they charge at the Carrington Arms.”

  “The most ‘spensive spot in town—hell, you don't want to go near that place. My advice to you is look fer a boardinghouse run by a fat lady. That way you can be sure you'll eat good.”

  “I was wondering how to find a job as a cowboy.”

  Boggs took a step backward, placed his fists on his hips, and regarded Duane. “You don't look like no cowboy to me.”

  “I'm not yet, but that's what I want to become.”

  “Wa'al, there's lots of ranches around here, and one of ‘em might want a wrangler.”

  “But I don't know how to ride a horse.”

  Boggs stared at him in disbelief. “How come?”

  Duane didn't want to admit where he was raised, so he shrugged and said mysteriously, “Been busy.”

  The cowboy scrutinized him carefully. “Where's yer hat?”

  “Haven't got one.”

  Boggs examined him again, as if trying to reach a decision. “I ain't got no dinero either, but there's a feller here what owes me ten dollars. Suppose I meet you at the Crystal Palace in about an hour? I'll buy you a steak, and we can talk, okay?”

  “That's all right,” Duane replied proudly, reaching into his pocket. “I can buy my own steaks.”

  The cowboy appeared exasperated. “I told you to put yer money out've sight. Kid, you don't keep yer wits about you, you won't have ‘em long. I'll be lookin’ fer you by the chop counter at the Crystal Palace.”

  Boggs walked away on his long bowed legs, and Duane felt as though a great man had just bestowed special honor upon him. He picked me out of the crowd, he thought, like John the Baptist finding Jesus, except that Boggs is a drunkard, and I'm the son of . . .

  He didn't want to think about his parents, but had a story worked out in case anybody asked. He knew it was wrong to lie, but sometimes the truth was too brutal to contemplate. Maybe I can become a cowboy, and have some respect, he speculated. Duane watched Boggs lope along the boarded sidewalks, spurs jangling with every step, and he couldn't wait for dinner at the Crystal Palace. He wondered what to do with himself until then.