I’m very happy to announce my ninth novel – and ninth western novel – MEXICAN SUNSET has been published by Andride Press. It was published as an e.book on September 17 2024 and as a paperback on October 15 2024.
The cover (from an Adobe Stock image, design by Richard Hearn) reflects the novel’s setting – southern Arizona and
the Sierra Madre mountains of Sonora, Mexico.
MEXICAN SUNSET is the ninth in my series acclaimed
western novels featuring the same central character, CALVIN TAYLOR (sometimes
known as ‘CHOCTAW,’ although he’s not an Indian.) It is a stand-alone novel. However, in it
Calvin Taylor is taking stock of his life and does refer back to earlier
adventures, particularly those recounted in THE PEACEMAKER. But you don’t need to have read any other Andrew
McBride books to appreciate and enjoy MEXICAN
SUNSET.
I wanted the book to have an
elegiac, end-of-the-west feel, as captured in films like ‘The Wild Bunch,’ where the real frontier Old West is already being
overtaken by legends and folklore, as represented by the Dime Novels and the
‘Wild West shows’ that proliferated in the late 19th Century.
'The Wild Bunch' (1969)
BLURB:
1886. Geronimo and the last band of Apache hold-outs have surrendered.
The Indian Wars in the United States are over. Which poses a problem for Calvin
Taylor: what does an Indian scout do when there are no more hostile Indians to
track down? Taylor can use the skills he’s learned to hunt down lawbreakers of
all races, working as a hired gun on a fading frontier; or help mark the
passing of that frontier by becoming a celebrity in a Wild West Show, a living
museum piece.
Instead he decides to go to Mexico and join the Mexican Army, who have
their own Apache hold-outs to conquer: the mysterious renegades known as ‘The
Nameless Ones,’ hiding deep in the Sierra Madre. He’s also on a quest to find
the woman he loved and drove away, who may be hiding with them, and perhaps
heal his empty life that way.
As he climbs into the grim and forbidding mountains Taylor faces
violence and danger not only from Apaches, but also from an unexpected enemy: a
ruthless and cunning bandit known as ‘The Scorpion,’ who is after the same
woman, for twisted reasons of his own. Only he intends to kill her…
What do you think? Feel free to comment (and on the sample
chapter too.) All feedback very much appreciated!
ISBN Number: 979-8341014213
REVIEWS
MEXICAN SUNSET already has one rating – 5 star! As reviews
accumulate, I’ll created a
blog as an ongoing scrapbook of them.
SAMPLE CHAPTER
To give you a flavour of the
novel, a SAMPLE CHAPTER - CHAPTER THREE
- follows.
THE SETTING: Arizona Territory
1886. The central character of the novel is Indian scout CALVIN TAYLOR. Taylor
is present when the last hostile Indians in the United States – Chiricahua
Apache hold-outs led by GERONIMO and NACHAY – surrender to the U.S. Army,
commanded here by GENERAL NELSON MILES. Miles begins the process of
transporting the surrendered Indians to the nearest railhead at Fort Bowie,
where they’ll be placed on a train to Florida. However, Taylor learns two of
Geronimo’s band – a young warrior called BESH and an older man called MACHOGEE
- have not surrendered their weapons and have broken away. He suspects they’re
still in the vicinity hoping to disrupt the peace, perhaps by ambushing the
soldiers and killing Miles himself. Taylor and a friendly Apache scouting for
the army, JOSÉ, set out to prevent this…
Four Apaches in 1886, before they
surrendered: GERONIMO (2nd from left) NACHAY – son of COCHISE – (3rd from
left)
MEXICAN SUNSET
Chapter Three
Late in the
afternoon they came to the mouth of Wolf Canyon.
The soldiers set
up camp. Cook fires were lit and evening meals prepared – in this army, there
were no company cooks, soldiers on campaign were expected to feed themselves.
The Chiricahuas
camped a little distance away, lighting their own fires.
Meanwhile, Taylor
hunkered down, chewed a piece of jerky and let his eyes wander over his
surroundings as unobtrusively as possible.
Wolf Canyon was a
narrow, twisting high-sided pass. A dandy place for an ambush.
He glimpsed
General Miles, a tall figure in a pith helmet, striding among his troops.
Meanwhile soldiers began setting up the general’s tent, which was, naturally,
the only tent of any size in this outfit. It was a Sibley, standing pretty
close to twelve feet when fully assembled. Lieutenant Gatewood supervised.
Taylor strode
over. He told Gatewood, “Lieutenant, if I were you, I’d set the general’s tent
up back here.” He jabbed a thumb over his right shoulder, indicating behind
him. “Out of rifle range of those canyon walls.”
“What’s up?”
Taylor told him
about Besh and Machogee. As he did so José wandered over, his Winchester
carbine cradled in his arms.
Gatewood said,
“I’d better warn the general.”
Taylor said, “All
right, long as you don’t spook him. While you do that, me and José’ll have a
look around.” He asked the Apache, “If you were after Bear Coat, where would
you put yourself?”
José shrugged.
Gatewood said,
“Watch yourself, Taylor.”
Taylor smiled. “I
usually do, most times.”
“This isn’t like most times.”
“Uh?”
“If it comes to fighting, this might be the
last scrimmage of the whole American Indian Wars. After fighting Apaches all
this time, you don’t want to get killed by the last bullet fired.”
Taylor thought
about that. “That would be kind of stupid, wouldn’t it?”
“Good luck.”
José wandered off
as if he wasn’t going anywhere in particular.
Taylor chewed
jerky he didn’t taste for another minute or so, then strode over to his horse on
the picket line. Figuring the renegades might be watching him, the scout
pretended to inspect Blue’s feet and hocks. He ducked under the animal’s belly
so that he was crouched low among the horses, hidden by them. He hooked his
Winchester rifle out of its saddle-scabbard. Then he moved swiftly through and
out of the horse herd and half-ran up the nearest slope into cover.
Taylor paused in a
clump of mesquite. Maybe Besh and Machogee weren’t watching him and he’d
performed a silly pantomime for no reason.
Then again, maybe
they were.
The sun was
sliding down in the west, shadows capturing the canyon. The sky was in its
getting-close-to-sundown colours, mauve turning purple. It was a time of day he
liked ordinarily, but not now. There was a load of worry in his guts, the cold
rottenness of fear.
He was more scared
than he ought to be.
Gatewood’s words
had done it. ‘This might be the last
scrimmage of the whole American Indian Wars.’ In his mind’s eye, Taylor
read a grim epitaph on his tombstone:
Survived fifteen years of fighting
Apaches, killed by the last bullet fired.
When a turkey
gobbled nearby, he almost jumped out of his moccasins.
He told himself: For Christ’s sake. Of course it wasn’t a
real turkey, they didn’t gobble this time of day. A turkey call was the signal
he’d arranged with José.
He gazed at where
the signal had come from, a riot of brush and rocks on the far slope. He
strained his eyes looking for José, seeing nothing, and then there he was,
standing between two tall boulders. The Apache indicated upslope and behind
him. So he was going to scout up there. Taylor gestured that he’d climb upslope
on this side.
José vanished.
Taylor wiped off the sweat on his hands on his pants and took up his
Winchester. He did possess a Colt pistol, but had left it in his saddle bags.
If he let a bronco Apache get within
short gun range of him, he deserved everything he got.
He began scaling
the slope.
The earth was
shale and sand, strewn with small rocks and brush, so it was hard work moving
quietly, even in his Chiricahua moccasins, with their soles stuffed with grass.
He took his time about it, pausing and listening frequently. He passed through
tangled thickets of mesquite and palo verde trees. By then the sun had almost
set. Only its topmost rim showed, a pale golden glow above the western horizon.
The land around him was rapidly darkening, pearly light fading, and shadows
claiming everything.
As there was no
sense in blundering about blindly, Taylor held still and listened.
He strained his
ears until he thought they’d hurt. Hearing sundown noises. Birdsong. A coyote
letting loose a long howl. Squirrels chittering. A horned owl hooing. The
belch-like croak of a red-spotted toad.
So far, so normal.
And then one sound
that wasn’t.
The rattle of a
stone clattering down slope.
Unlikely any
animal had made that noise. But a human, however careful, was too heavy-footed
to move as silently as a critter of the night.
There was a man moving on the slope above him.
Taylor eased his
fingers on the rifle he held, discovering they ached from gripping the
Winchester so tightly. Fear was in him now, in the usual places: a lump of ice
in his belly, a dry tightness in his throat, a faint dizziness, a slight
trembling in his arms. A feeling he’d known – how many times?
Too many.
Taylor went back
to listening hard. He detected other small, out-of-place noises, the disturbing
of small stones perhaps, and tracked them. They seemed to be moving above him
and to the left. There was a flash of movement, streaking through the near
dark: a squirrel fleeing downslope, away from some threat.
The barrel of the
rifle Taylor held gleamed, catching the light of the Apache moon, nearly full,
on a sky deepening from indigo to black. He drew the rifle barrel back from
moonlight into shadow.
He listened some
more. And heard nothing. The man above him was holding still.
Taylor decided it
was his turn to move.
And do it quietly
through dim light and over tricky ground.
Reluctantly, he
began to climb the slope.
Straight off, he
almost made a mess of it. He slipped and his knee splashed into shale. But he
was lucky; a coyote yarred only an instant later and masked most of the noise
he made.
Or so he hoped.
Taylor climbed
higher, moving from one piece of cover to another. He went as quietly as he
could, and he’d learned to move very quietly indeed. For all that he seemed to
make enough racket, crunching over loose ground, to fill Arizona.
Then he was almost
at the crest. Another few yards and he’d be outlined against the sky. And he
didn’t want that.
So he paused
there, hunkered down. He wiped more sweat off the palms of his hands on his
pants, and studied the ground below him.
Slopes choked in brush
and low trees, their black limbs making bars across the pale earth, blotched
with shadow. A tessellated pattern of black and pearl. He couldn’t see José. Or
anybody.
For all that, his
senses were telling him something
down there was out of place.
After a time his
attention settled on an unusual patch of greyness on the earth, under some
bent-low mesquite bushes.
Taylor stared at
this greyness until his eyes started to ache. By then he thought he’d worked
out what he was looking at.
A man was lying
there, face down, sighting along a rifle barrel. Someone with long grey hair
reaching past his shoulders,
Machogee.
Taylor got down
between rocks, pulling the butt of the Winchester into his shoulder, aiming at
the sprawling man, dividing the grey hair with the front sight of his rifle. He
thought: Got you, you son of a bitch.
His finger started
its squeeze.
There was a small
sound in his right ear. Behind and above him.
Taylor spun over.
A piece of the darkness above him moved forward, partly into moonlight, and
became a man.
Crouched like a
panther on a jutting ramp of ground. A dark face split by a horizontal band of
white paint, slashing the cheeks from ear to ear. A knife gleaming in his right
hand.
Besh!
The Apache sprang.
As the Indian
plunged down on him, Taylor kicked out.
By luck his foot
caught Besh under the left side ribs and hooked him into the air. Besh
somersaulted forward and crashed down on brush and rubble. Taylor lunged at
him, was kicked in the stomach in return and did his own forward somersault.
Landing drove all the air out of his lungs.
Both men were slow
rising. But the Apache was quicker than his enemy. He was a tough bastard,
bouncing back after a fall like that. Taylor was still on his knees, looking
around for his rifle, when Besh was on his feet, the knife in his hand. He
lunged at his enemy.
He grunted “Zas – tee!” (Kill!)
Taylor rose to
meet the other’s charge. He grabbed for the man’s knife wrist, missed, and felt
the fire of pain along his left forearm. He gasped. Taylor sprang back, feeling
the knife snatch at his shirt front. A rock caught him behind his heel and he
fell backwards. Twisting, he landed on his side. Carried by momentum, Besh
spilled over him, ploughing to his knees. He started to scramble up.
Taylor launched
himself across space, landing on Besh’s back. But the Apache twisted, hooking
an arm behind Taylor’s head, going to one knee and yanking the white man
forward. He tossed Taylor over his right shoulder like a feed sack. Taylor
somersaulted headlong and came down on his back. He seemed to land on every
rock in Arizona.
He lay stunned.
Surely a fall like
that had broken his spine?
He gazed at the
night sky. It was a restless sky, scattered with stars that shifted about,
changing places with each other. He wished they’d quit doing that.
Taylor seemed to
ache from the back of his neck to the soles of his feet. He was completely
immobile, without an ounce of strength, no air left in his lungs, pretty much
every bone broken. Each time he’d tried wrestling with Besh he’d ended up like
this, flat on his back in the dust.
Maybe he couldn’t
beat this man in a hand-to-hand fight.
Why hadn’t Besh
closed in and finished him off?
Taylor attempted
to lift his head and surprised himself. He managed it. Besh stood a dozen yards
away, glancing around. Taylor made another surprising discovery. He could still
think: he worked out the Apache was looking for his knife, or Taylor’s rifle,
or another weapon.
The white man told
himself: you can lift your head up, you lazy son of a bitch, see what else you
can raise off the ground.
Somehow he managed
to sit up. Next he struggled to his knees.
Besh bent to the
earth, straightened and turned towards his enemy, the knife in his hand. He
braced himself, ready to charge.
Taylor glimpsed movement
in the tail of his left eye. He turned his head and glanced at the long slope
behind and below him. A man thrust forward into view.
Machogee with his
rifle raised, butt to his shoulder.
The Apache aimed;
Taylor found himself looking into the muzzle of the weapon.
Machogee pitched
headlong, throwing his rifle ahead of him. It clattered on stones.
There was the
sound of a shot.
While Taylor
stared at the fallen man Besh yelled, “Zas-tee!”
He charged his enemy.
Taylor plunged his
hands wrist-deep in shale and came up with both hands full. As Besh leaped at
him, he flung a hail of stones into the Apache’s face. Besh cried out and
lifted his arms to shield his eyes. With absolutely the last of his strength,
Taylor sprang at his opponent.
The white man bore
the Indian to the ground, sprawling over him. The knife was in the Apache’s
hand, trapped between them. Taylor got both hands to the Indian’s hand, turning
the blade he held downwards so the point rested on the centre of Besh’s chest.
Taylor pressed down,
leaning his full weight on the back of his hands. His body weight drove the
blade into the Apache’s chest, all the way to the guard. Besh groaned; then his
mouth filled with blood. It came out of both sides of his mouth, and his nose.
The dying man kicked and writhed below the living one. Then his movements
slowed, and the rattle started in his throat.
White man and
Indian lay together like spent lovers. Then Taylor, conscious of how much blood
was soaking through his shirt, found the strength to roll aside.
José approached,
rifle in hand.
The Apache gazed
at the white man in alarm. “You hurt?”
Taylor shook his
head. The Indian still looked doubtful; Taylor realised that was because of the
blood all over his shirt. He said, “This ain’t mine.” But then the long cut on
the underside of his left forearm reminded him that wasn’t the whole truth. It
burned like hell. He asked, “You get Machogee?”
“He’s one of the
nameless ones.”
Which meant yes.
Apaches were forbidden from saying the names of the dead, unless in exceptional
circumstances. Taylor said, “You saved my life. Gracias.”
José gave a small,
don’t-mention-it shrug. “You seemed to be having a time of it.”
“With-?”
Just in time, Taylor stopped himself from
saying the name of the man he’d killed. He gazed at Besh, lying face up in the
moonlight, the haft of the knife standing straight up in the middle of his
chest.
Taylor said, “He
was better at wrestling than me.”
“You won.”
“I fought dirty.”
José made a
sarcastic noise at this strange concept of the white man. “He’s the one who’s
dead.”
Wearily Taylor
rose to his feet. “We better report back to Long Nose. Let’s hope that rifle
shot didn’t spook the Chiricahuas.”
It hadn’t.
Gatewood listened gravely as Taylor described what happened. Then the soldier
said, “Maybe that’s your place in the history books.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you realise? You might be the last man
to shed blood in these whole American Indian Wars.” Long Nose smiled
ironically. “Close to three hundred years of killing, and it all ends with you,
Taylor.”
****
All but CIMARRÓN (only available as a hardback at present) are available as e.books. MEXICAN SUNSET is available as an e.book and a paperback.
