New Release—A Good Day To Die by James Ciccone

 

You don’t want to make me mad. I’ve got a lot of hate in me, and I am not afraid of one blessed thing in this life. I’m Crawford Goldsby—better known as Cherokee Bill—and if you think you’re the one to bring me to justice you’re wrong…dead wrong.

They call me a half-breed, but I killed my first man by the time I was twelve, and I never stopped. Why? Because I like killing—and I’m damn good at it. Indian Territory wouldn’t be the same without me.

But this outlaw likes living, too, and when I rob that train carrying millions for a big payoff here in Indian Territory, I’ve got a plan to cut loose and run to South America—along with my fancy woman, Maggie.

Don’t get in my way. Indian Territory is mine. Oklahoma Territory is mine. If you cross me, your life is mine, too. I’m barely eighteen, and I can deliver a kill shot without even looking your way—yes, I’m that good.

Judge Parker can’t wait to get his hands on me over in Fort Smith. If he does, death by hanging will be end of me. Will Parker get his wish?  We’ll see…I’ve gotten confident in my own abilities to escape. If he gets his way at last, he won’t see Cherokee Bill running scared.

I’ll look the bastard in the eye and say, “It’s A GOOD DAY TO DIE…”

EXCERPT

Our gang, the Cook gang, was a ragtag assortment of homicidal maniacs, idiots, desperados, sexual perverts, gamblers, debtors, horse thieves, and perennial losers. And we all liked killing.

By the age of twelve, I had already managed to quit school, drink liquor, hang out with outlaws, shoot and kill a man, and gain an acquittal on a murder charge in open court. Admittedly, that was quite an impressive start in life.

In 1894, stories about me started hitting newspapers from as far away as New York and as close as the Fort Smith Elevator across the border in Arkansas. Of course, the reporters didn’t get the stories straight or put my real name out there, Crawford Goldsby. Instead, they used Cherokee Bill, and got folks all riled up by putting out that I was an outlaw with no fear, a robber on a reign of terror, a desperado at the same level of notoriety as Wild Bill Hitchcock, Billy the Kid, Jesse James, Johnny Ringo, the Calico Cowboy, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However, none of that was exactly true. It was far worse. The truth was I was a kid of only eighteen, and my “reign of terror with the law,” as they put it, was just getting started.