Read CHAPTER ONE of COYOTE’S PEOPLE by ANDREW McBRIDE

I’m very happy to announce my seventh novel – and seventh western novel – COYOTE’S PEOPLE has been published by prestigious, award-winning publishers Five Star Publishing.

The cover (designed by Kathy Heming) reflects the novel’s setting – southern Arizona.

UPDATE!

COYOTE’S PEOPLE IS NOW ALSO AVAILABLE AS AN E.BOOK!

As of April 2022, COYOTE’S PEOPLE, previously only available as a hardback and in hardback large print, is now also available as an e.book. The kindle version has been published by Andride Press.

The cover photograph is by YUKO U. SMITH. The cover design is by RICHARD HEARN.

COYOTE’S PEOPLE is a sort of companion piece to my acclaimed western novel THE PEACEMAKER. 

However, it is a stand-alone novel and you don’t need to have read any other Andrew McBride books to appreciate and enjoy COYOTE’S PEOPLE.

TAG LINE:

The Apache chief seeking peace in a time of  war... and the 17-year-old white boy caught in the middle.

BLURB:

‘Arizona Territory, the 1870s. Savage war rages between the white man and the Apache. And three people are caught in the middle: COYOTE, an Apache chief seeking peace, trying to find a refuge for his small band of wanderers; LIEUTENANT AUSTIN HAMILTON, commander of remote Camp Walsh, a man sympathetic to the Indians' plight; and CALVIN TAYLOR (nicknamed CHOCTAW), a 17-year old white boy. Choctaw has been taught to hate Apaches, something reinforced by his own bloody experiences. But his loyalties are torn when he unexpectedly falls in love with an Apache girl. Each finds himself at the center of this bitter conflict, enmeshed in treachery and violence, with their own lives, and the peace they're striving for, threatened by enemies on all sides…’

ISBN number: 978-1432867256 

TO BUY:

You can BUY a hardback of COYOTE’S PEOPLE from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Barnes & Noble. The sites below may not be showing very much at the moment, but watch these spaces! You can buy from here: https://www.amazon.com/Coyotes-People-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B09XBJJDCB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
and here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Coyotes-People-Andrew-McBride-ebook/dp/B09XBJJDCB/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

REVIEWS of COYOTE'S PEOPLE:

COYOTE’S PEOPLE has been piling up reviews on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Goodreads – ALL FIVE STAR! I’m flattered and humbled that my novel has been getting such a positive response. 

Here’s a quick sample:

LUCIA ROBSON: (Winner of the Owen Wister and Spur awards and ‘New York Times’ best-selling author)

‘An outstanding novel!’

ROBERT VAUGHAN: (Winner of the Spur Award and Pulitzer-Prize nominated author)

‘McBride’s wonderful book’

KATHLEEN MORRIS: (winner of the 2020 Peacemaker Award for best first Western novel)

'McBride does a masterful job of... illustrating that justice and truth make uneasy bedfellows with blind hatred, blood lust and revenge...Very well done.'

RICHARD PROSCH: (Winner of the Spur Award) 


'Five stars. Highly recommended!'

WAYNE D. DUNDEE: (Peacemaker Award-winning novelist)

‘Western fiction at its best!’

W. MICHAEL FARMER: (Winner of Will Rogers Medallion Awards, the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award and Best New Mexico Book Award)

'Coyote’s People is a page-turner, entertaining and insightful, filled with the truth only fiction can provide.'

OTHER REVIEWERS:

‘A stunning book… We're clearly in the hands of a master… I would go so far as to say that if Andrew had written this book fifty or sixty years ago in the heyday of western fiction it would be an acknowledged classic. And hopefully, if there's any justice in the world, it will still achieve that status.’

‘A breath-taking, page-turning, wrenchingly heart-breaking tale.’ 

'A superb western adventure'

I’ve created a blog as an ongoing scrapbook of my reviews as they accumulate. You can read THE FULL REVIEWS here: https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2020/05/reviews-of-coyotes-people.html

To give you a flavour of the novel, CHAPTER ONE follows.

COYOTE’S PEOPLE

Chapter One

Around him men stood with rifles raised. They stared into the darkness at the Apaches that might be there, waiting to attack.

Choctaw swallowed a rock-sized lump of fear in his throat. His arms trembled slightly, and his hands ached, holding his Spencer carbine up to his shoulder. He looked along the barrel past the front sight. Beyond was the gray gloom of the Gila River Canyon.

A few minutes ago, all had been peaceful. The freight outfit was camped just south of the river, wagons coiled into a defensive circle. The crew, thirteen bullwhackers, had finished their evening meal. Pipes were being smoked and dusk was deepening when the stock became nervous, and the teamsters also.

They had reason to be, here in southern Arizona Territory. They were deep in Apacheria, where the White Mountain and the Chiricahua Apache country overlapped. Six Murphy wagons full of goods, the guns, ammunition, and gear of the outfit, the coffee, bacon, and tobacco in the mess wagon, would tempt any sizable war party. Apaches weren't said to be keen on beef, but they would want the mules inside the corral.

The men found cover, behind wagons and elsewhere, and stood to arms, watching the skyline. Above, a full moon hung like a dollar of blue ice cut out of the night, turning the ground before them into a checkerboard of black and silver. One of the teamsters called, “Who's out there?”

Choctaw couldn’t see who the speaker was, but he recognized the voice of the wagon master, John Shadler.

There was a small sound, like a faint musical note, and a blackness showed against the gray and came nearer and stepped into moonlight and became a man walking towards them.

Shadler called, “Hold it.”

The approaching man halted.

The wagon boss asked, “Who are you?”

The newcomer said, “Prospectors.” His English was accented, maybe Mexican. This fit with what Choctaw could see of him in the uncertain light: the shape and wide brim of his hat, and what he was wearing, maybe a serape. Although he was bigger than most Mexicans Choctaw had seen.

Shadler’s voice came again. “How many of you out there?”

“Four.”

“Okay. Come ahead.”

The stranger strode forward and Choctaw saw he was indeed wearing a battered sombrero and serape. And big-roweled spurs making that slight music. This man carried a Henry rifle. Something flashed on his right cheek. A thin scar, like a blue weal, across the bone. There was a rustle of movement, a rattle of hooves, and three more men filed from the darkness, leading four horses and a pack mule.

Around him, Choctaw heard teamsters sigh out their relief. Weapons were lowered.

The four men halted in a group just short of the wagons. They all appeared to be Mexicans. Shadler walked over to them, his rifle hanging in his right hand. He told them, “We can’t do much talking. And we’ve got to keep our voices down. We got a lot of oxen here, and they get spooky at night. Stampede real easy.”

The scar-faced man seemed to be the Mexicans’ spokesman. He said, “I understand.”

“Where you headed?”

“Tucson. Mexico. We been prospecting upriver a ways. Up the Gila Canyon. No luck, so we decide to go back to Mexico.”

“Prospecting, huh? Where's your pack animals? How come you only got one mule?”

“We sold 'em to get horses. Better for to go quick through Indian country.”

“See any Apaches?”

The big Mexican shook his head.

“Any signal smoke?”

“No.”

“All right. Throw your horses in the corral. You can camp over there,” Shadler indicated. “And I’d appreciate it if you keep the noise and talk to a minimum. Like I said—”

Scar-face smiled faintly. “I know. The oxen.”

*****

Choctaw was one of the two youngest members of this outfit, alongside a boy named Finn. Both were seventeen. Their main job was looking after the mules. But this evening they were given an additional task, night herding.

So, whilst the other teamsters slept, Choctaw and Finn patrolled the calf yard and corrals and made sure no thieves made off with the livestock. Then it was daybreak and the outfit rose from their blankets and began their daily routine. They skipped breakfast and got moving, whilst the night herders and night guards slept in the wagons. Round about ten, after covering maybe eight miles, the freighters halted. The stock needed a few hours’ rest if they were going to haul through the afternoon.

The teamsters started on their morning meal. Finn and Choctaw had learned the hard way that if they slept in and missed breakfast, they wouldn’t eat again until dusk. So both were awake as the cookfires were lit.

Choctaw sat under the lead wagon. He hadn't been in Arizona long but had already realized shade was precious out here. You grabbed it whenever you could.

A lesson Finn didn’t seem to have learned. He straddled the tongue of the same wagon, shaping a cigarette.  Which showed he was crazy, in Choctaw’s opinion. It was only midmorning, it was February, and yet the sun was already fierce. And Finn, being so fair-skinned, was peeling badly. He was a lanky, straw-haired boy with a pleasant face you’d have trouble remembering.

Choctaw was luckier, as he was more dark-complexioned. His skin had tanned almost as brown as an Indian's in sun and wind. But his features had nothing Indian about them. As far as he knew, he didn’t have a drop of Indian blood in his veins. But being born at Fort Towson, in the Choctaw Nation in Indian Territory, where his father had been an army contractor and sometime storekeeper, had landed him with his nickname. He was white, his parents were white, his hair was dark brown not black, tousled not straight, and his eyes were as blue as a Swede’s. He was working on his first mustache and trail beard. For all that, he was still “Choctaw” to everyone in this outfit.

His real name was Calvin Taylor but he couldn’t remember the last time anybody had called him that. Sometimes he almost forgot it himself.

He was gangling, as his weight had not kept pace with his latest spurt of growth, taking him to six feet. He was still a virgin, although how he was mystified him. He’d come close to losing that burden a number of times. Some girls and women involved on those occasions had told him he was handsome.

Finn lit his quirley. “I see them Mexicans is still with us.”

“Huh?”

“I figured they’d have ridden off by now.”

“Maybe they’re going to stay with us all the way to Tucson.”

Choctaw felt thirsty. Reluctantly, he got out from under the wagon. He walked a few yards over to a clump of prickly pear and nicked some pads off with his clasp knife. He rubbed the pads against the sand, wiping off the vicious fur of spines. Choctaw wounded the pad with his knife and sucked.

And tasted dust. The flavor of a bullwhacker's life. After a while, food, drink, and cigarettes all tasted of dust.

Still . . . it was better than going home. He’d take dust, thirst, and heat any day, rather than return to his pa. He felt a free man here. Dirty, tired, and frightened sometimes, but free.

That was an illusion, of course. He was no longer a prisoner of his father but of Schmitt and Gottlieb, freighters of Prescott. They shackled him with five dollars and ninety cents a week and two greasy meals a day, and for that he night herded their oxen and took care of Evil Jenny, his mule, and the other just-as-evil mules, and labored to get the wagons across the Ninety Mile Desert and make eighteen miles a day doing it, so that Schmitt and Gottlieb showed a profit.

Finn asked him, “You figure them Mexicans is what they say they is? Prospectors?”

“Why shouldn’t they be?”

“My pa says you can never believe a greaser.”

“What about Luis?”

Luis was the assistant wagon master, and hailed from Sonora. An agreeable, humorous man, though he’d give you hell if you fell down on your job.

Finn filtered smoke down his nostrils. “I don’t mean Luis. I never think of him as a Mex. He’s more like a white man. No, I mean these new fellers.”

“What do you think they are?”

Finn shrugged. “They could be bandidos or something.”

Choctaw shaped his own quirley. “Maybe somebody should drift over to where they are and listen in on ’em.”

“You mean spy on ’em?”

It was Choctaw’s turn to shrug.

Finn gave him an alarmed look. “I wouldn’t do that, Choc. Might be risky.”

“Why?”

“You might end up with a knife in your back. My pa says them spics are terrible knife people.”

Choctaw sneered at the fear in the other boy’s face. “I ain’t scared of no Mexican.”

Choctaw walked off. He didn’t actually know where he was going, although he was heading in the general direction of the Mexicans’ campfire. But he wasn’t really planning to spy on them. That was just big talk . . .

He glimpsed a bosky of mesquite trees on a low hill nearby. His belly was starting to ache for breakfast. Choctaw strode over and plucked some beans off a tree, chewing a few, taking the edge off his hunger. He gazed at the land around him.

A landscape unlike any he’d ever seen, or imagined. Along all horizons were a run of purplish mountains. Strange bare mountains without trees, their edges sharp as knife cuts against a hot blue sky. Below the mountains lay the desert, rusty earth streaked with the green of mesquite, and studded with cactus. That included the ones Mexicans called saguaro, standing like bullet-headed giants, arms raised in surrender.

Choctaw heard voices.

Lower and softer than Anglo voices, and talking in Spanish. Choctaw moved into the grove of mesquites. He stared through the screen of branches and slowly made out, at the base of the slope before him, the Mexicans sitting around their campfire. Or at least three of them. Then one got to his feet and strode about.

This man was something to look at. He wore a large felt sombrero, bell-bottomed leather chaps with buttons all down the sides, and a short, winged, olive jacket. True, his clothing was scuffed and faded, but he was still a charro, one of those Mexican cowboys.

Choctaw heard a small noise behind him, stones rustling underfoot. He turned.

The fourth Mexican stood facing him.

Choctaw recalled Finn saying, about these newcomers, “They could be bandidos.” Easy to think that about this man. He was clean-shaven and very hard looking, with high, powerful cheekbones pushing forward, his nose flattened against his broad cheeks. His face might have been formed out of sun-darkened rock.

Something else Finn had said: “Spics are terrible knife people.” Choctaw remembered that too. Because the Mexican stepped forward and, sure enough, there was a knife in his hand.