New Release — Death Stalks Apache Oro by Sam Fadala

The killings only happen at night, and only to the fairest of the “working girls” who live in their haven, the Citadel, near the town of Apache Oro, Arizona Territory.

Arizona Ranger John Briggs is called in to investigate, along with local law enforcement officials. Failure to find the murderer haunts them all—he’s someone local…maybe someone they all pass on the streets of Apache Oro every day.

But this is no ordinary killer. He manages to vanish into thin air, like the skinwalkers the Navajos speak of. Is he mortal? Is there any way to stop him?

One by one, the men of Apache Oro are ruled out as suspects. When the murderer strikes again, killing someone close to Briggs and severely wounding him, he knows he’s getting close to discovering the killer’s identity. Ranger John Briggs doubles down on his vow to find this heinous criminal, as DEATH STALKS APACHE ORO…

EXCERPT

     Terrence hired an architect to transfer his idea from imagination to paper. The vision was soon a reality. When he was satisfied with the plan, he called builders, skilled craftsmen of individual trades. His was a dream born of childhood expressed only to Anna, an older, experienced lady who would oversee the women. Only she would know why this rich man created a safe place for “free-living” women.

     “They will be protected here,” he said. “The girls will all be princesses. For the girls, the women, that is, it will be a haven, a true home. They shall never be harmed. If so, woe to the man who dares, because a force will retaliate most severely.” His words were lace, but they were encased in iron. Terrence hired men who would do the retaliation. Since no miner had a wife, and since every miner extracted from rock a small fortune in gold, it followed that in short order the odd hombre’s dream home for “his ladies” was larger than the fine hotel, more lavish than the saloon, Thurgood’s showpiece patterned after a “ranch” in Texas.

     Citizens of Apache Oro thought of the town as charmed. Was there not, along with gold, a million years of clear, cold water piped into every home, every store, even the railway station? Was there not an ice house supplied by a never-ending slough not far away? Ice for preserving food. Ice for that keg of good beer. And was it not a town where women could walk night streets safely? 

     It was such a place. 

     But something evil would come to the little wooden town, and peace would be shattered like crystal glass.

     

New Release -- THE LAST RIDE OF SHADOW BRIGGS by Sam Fadala

Justice must be served when eighteen-year-old Billy Point is murdered on the Arizona-Mexico border. But the prominent family of the young man is incensed that the lawman chosen to go after the killers is a retired Arizona Ranger—John Shadow Briggs.

Shadow Briggs has never been one to shirk his duty—and this time is no different. The best of the best, he follows the cold trail of the murderers, muddied by the attempts of the young man’s hot-headed father to take the law into his own hands.

The re-telling of this last assignment, the steady pursuit, and the final outcome is the precious gift Shadow Briggs bequeaths an aspiring young writer. This is the story of how tangled justice was sorted by one man. Duty lies heavy on a man’s shoulders, and some things can never be forgotten. Such was THE LAST RIDE OF SHADOW BRIGGS…

EXCERPT

     “There ain’t no call for this!”

     “Shet up, Luke!”

     “Por que?” Diego asked. “What for?” Archibald delivered another kick, this one landing in the heavy man’s stomach, making him wretch. “We only brought a little saint to del Bac,” he groaned in Spanish.

     “Fetch them horses.” The boys did. “Mount up,” he ordered Diez. Diego stood by his brother, reaching out to the cuts and bruises, pulling helplessly at cactus needles protruding from his face. Archibald landed his third kick, directed between the heavy man’s thighs and down he went. Point created two loops on the rope now, firing the double-noose into the air over an outstretched oak limb ten feet from the ground. The vaqueros were forced into their saddles, a horse on either side of the limb, both men mounted. Archibald slipped a noose over each head. “Drawed a bead on a helpless boy, did ya?”

     “Mi culpa!” Diego confessed. “I’m guilty. It was me.”

     “Too late, amigo,” Archibald laughed. “Too late.”...