Angel
soppingwetpanties
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, merchandise, companies, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.
This is my first Western romance.
I've taken a lot of literary license with history and geography so be forewarned.
As always, your comments and votes are appreciated.
Mistress SWP
The horseflies seemed thicker than last year, and on the Howard farm east of Joplin pastured foals stood in a shallow pond choked with cat tails to escape them. The war ended just a year ago, and the countryside was still marred with the carnage wrought by the great armies of the North and South. Scattered among the horses standing in the tall grass were fragments of Union cannon and Confederate breastworks, where 5,000 men lost their lives on this now hallowed ground.
The end of the war presaged an unprecedented economic expansion, and land that had laid fallow for years was pressed back into production. Freshly turned earth in fields planted with corn and sorghum checkerboarded the gentle rolling hills in southeastern Missouri. Commerce was bustling in Joplin. With the Civil War ending, men that had been away from home for years straggled home. As the city rebuilt and expanded, wood skeletons of new buildings lined the main thoroughfare and the heavily used road bore legions of potholes filled with muddy water.
With the great influx of people came great change. Chief among the changes was the noticeable increase in crime. Young men, trained by their governments to kill without compassion, migrated to Joplin looking for work, either legitimate or otherwise. Cole Younger was one of those returnees, having served under General Robert E. Lee, and then Colonel Jeb Stuart for three years, and in a Yankee prison for two more. The hardships visited upon him made an indelible mark on an idealistic and compassionate man, the horrors of war and imprisonment forcing him to become cynical, selfish and often indifferent to the consequences of his actions. He initially settled in Cape Girardeau, finding odd jobs and sleeping in the loft of the local livery. Having lived in a Yankee prison for two years, sleeping in a hay loft and eating the scraps left at the local boarding house was a luxury after fighting rats the size of small cats for the crusts of bread left by his sadistic prison guards.
Cole grew up in Jackson County, Missouri, not far from the Mississippi River. He lived in a cabin with a dirt floor with seven brothers and six sisters, his father a successful farmer and Sunday preacher and his mother the daughter of another prominent Jackson County farmer. He had an idyllic childhood, having many outdoor activities to occupy his time and wanting for nothing. Oftentimes he would spend hours fishing on the river, his haul of crappies and perch making up the family dinner that night. The seclusion away from his gaggle of brothers and sisters gave him time to contemplate his future, envisioning that he would go westward to stake his claim to the abundant free land so he could make his own mark on history.
But the war changed his plans, as it did for all young men of his generation. Brimming with enthusiasm, he joined the Confederate Army along with three of his other brothers. After debilitating campaigns at Manassas and then the siege at Vicksburg, two of his brothers had perished and Cole and his remaining brother Jim were dead tired and the Confederate Army was in tatters. He and his brother were taken prisoner during the siege, and what remained of his unit was combined with other shattered units to form the Army of the South, a collection of soldiers and opportunists that fought to the war's conclusion.
One of Cole's brothers-in-arms, Archie Clement, organized a ragtag group of former soldiers to engage in petty thievery to sustain themselves. Cole was angry that there was no "welcome home" to returning soldiers, but rather disdain at their disheveled looks and tattered clothes. After living in the trenches at Vicksburg, and then the Gratiot Street Prison in St. Louis, he was disillusioned at the world the war created. As a member of the losing side, he and his comrades were subject to scorn by local businesses and government officials. He didn't begrudge himself the few comforts he could steal from others, and after a few such raids he no longer felt remorse in taking what he thought he was entitled to, and became desensitized to the violence that often accompanied such thefts. After seeing his trench mates blown to pieces by Yankee artillery, or dying of their wounds because of a lack of medical care, violence became second nature to him.
Cole was a skilled horseman as well as a tenacious fighter. Two of the men Cole became acquainted with, Jesse James and his brother Frank, organized a gang with loftier goals -- to rob trains and banks. It was an easy transition for Cole. Instead of petty theft or the occasional hold-up, his skills could be brought to bear for much larger pay-offs. His conscience still tugged at him when violence was involved, but there was too much water under the bridge for Cole to turn back. He was a fugitive from justice, just like his fellow gang members, including his brother Jim.
* * *
There was a plume of dust rising from the parched earth as the sun began to set behind the rolling hills of southeastern Missouri. It was dusk, and there wasn't more than a few minutes of riding left before they'd have to camp for the night. With the brilliant red sky at their backs, the six riders on horseback tied down just outside the town. The six men, including the James and Younger brothers, had just plundered a train in southwest Missouri and were riding flush with their ill-gotten gain burgeoning in their saddle bags. They decided to split up, Cole electing to go with his brother Jim to Joplin.
Cole's information on the train was eerily accurate. The Flyer from Topeka to Joplin carried the payroll for the Erie-Pacific Railroad, and there was much more than the $5,000 he was told would be in the safe. Two riders boarded the locomotive, bringing the train to a stop. The four others blew open the door of the car containing the safe. The safe was loaded onto a covered wagon and later dropped off a cliff to pop open the door. The men split the payroll equally, so each had $2,000, more money than they ever had in their life. Before going to Joplin, the Younger brothers visited their childhood home, now owned by others, and buried their loot in a heavily wooded area near their former house, keeping only enough to sustain themselves for the next few months.
* * *
Millie Littlecrow was a barmaid in Joplin. Millie was of mixed race. She was told her father was of American Indian descent, a trail rider for a cattle ranch in Montana who was passing through Missouri. Her mother was a washerwoman whose family immigrated from Tijuana, Mexico. She left her home at the age of fourteen and had drifted across Missouri, accepting jobs mostly as a kitchen or house maid in a local tavern or hotel. By the time she was eighteen, she was no longer a girl, but a beautiful woman, with long wavy lustrous dark brown hair, a smooth olive complexion, and generous breasts, luscious and full, her young body displaying the full bloom of youth.
