The Sons Of Grady Rourke

THE DEAD MAN’S JOURNEY—Journada del Muerte, the locals called it: the blistering ocean of sand and sage between the Rio Grande River to the west and the Sacramento mountain range to the east. The bones of men and horses had bleached in the mile-high desert for three hundred years. Spanish conquistadors were the first white men to explore this new furnace of the Southeastern New Mexico Territory—and the first to perish. In the thin air, the riders coming down the mountain were sharply etched against the blue sky. Steam, blowing out of the ice-encrusted nostrils of their mounts and their two pack horses, surrounded the horsemen in a white veil. Descending the eastern face of the Sacramento mountains, the horses walked slowly and painfully on cracked hooves. The icy earth offered only a steep path paved with shards of glass; blood seeped around well-worn iron horseshoes. When the riders looked to the sky, they saw that the white sun would stay high enough for them to make Fort Stanton, ten miles into the valley. The riders knew the trail since boyhood. Words were not wasted in country where a man’s mouth would crack and bleed like his horse’s hooves. Beyond the fort lay the clapboard settlement of Lincoln. When Grady Rourke died, his sons, Sean, Patrick, and Liam, came back to claim the family land . . . What was left of it. It was January, 1878, when the Rourke brothers came back to this hard and dangerous land. They thought they were coming home. What they didn’t know was that they were about to become part of a vicious struggle for power. And that they would be forced to choose sides with either John Tunstall and Alexander McSween or J. J. Dolan and Sheriff William Brady. The battle would quickly become the infamous Lincoln County War—a dirty little war with no rules, no heroes, and no happy endings. Douglas Savage, the acclaimed author of Cedar City Rendezvous and Highpockets has taken the historical facts surrounding the Lincoln County War and its fascinating characters, and fashioned one of the most readable and revealing tales of the American frontier.

Sinder weaves together the parallel stories of Ceit, grown to adulthood and having taken her rightful place as Matrarc of the Society, and her great-grandmother, Ainsley Robertson in 1924 Ireland, and the inception of the community that would come to inhabit Sinder Avenue. In 1996, Venice Beach, Ceit struggles with the confines of superstition and tradition that have defined the Society since its start. As her younger brother, Alan, turns eighteen, Ceit enacts a plan to end the Society for good. And in doing so, releasing Alan from what she sees increasingly as a toxic and antiquated way of life as well as freeing herself from her mortal ties to the human realm. In 1924, Ainsley Robertson lives in a secluded community outside of Cork, led by her father, an abusive and cruel ceannaire. Ainsley’s story opens with her expecting a baby in a world where being an unwed mother is a criminal act. Ainsley grows to realize her own gifts and connection to the world of the fae as she navigates a world dominated by dogma and oppression. As the sparks of what will become the Society grow to a flame, Ainsley becomes the Matrarc of her people, leading them to a new world, and a new tradition.

This publication will fill a gap in the bibliographic reference shelf by identifying historical novels for both adult and young adult readers. ^IAmerican Historical Fiction^R contains over 3,000 titles set in states and historical regions of the United States. Entries are organized by time period. The newest titles, as well as old favorites, are covered. The volume is indexed by author, title, genre, subject, and geographic setting.

This book details Lee’s life from Gettysburg to his death just five years after the South’s surrender at Appomattox. Rather than retreating bitterly from life, Lee sought to heal the nation, even meeting with his rival, Ulysses S. Grant, while the former Union general occupied the White House. Leaving his military life behind, Lee went on to become president of Washington College, where he was revered for his fairness as well as his willingness to help struggling students.

One hundred miles off the coast of Puerto Rico, a top secret experiment too dangerous to be conducted on land is being conducted aboard the U.S. nuclear attack submarine Sam Houston—an experiment that has gone horribly wrong. A predator is loose in the Sam Houston—a microscopic killer that strikes without warning, driving its victims to terrifying heights of violent, self-destructive insanity. Soon madness and terror reign eight hundred feet below the ocean's surface, as those infected race to defeat the silent killer—unaware that another enemy follows in their wake. A diesel submarine relic is pursuing nuclear-powered Sam Houston into a final, deadly confrontation in the deepest waters of the Atlantic.

Franklin Pierce was president of the United States in 1855, the Mexican War had just ended, the horrors of the American Civil War had not yet begun. The last of the free spirits known as the Mountain Men were securing their place in the legends of the frontier. Among these fierce adventurers was a man who called himself Highpockets. Into the harsh wilderness Highpockets had come to escape the soot of the cities and the terrible memories of war; with nothing but the strength of his heart sand hands he had carved out a life of freedom in the nearly inaccessible high places of the Rocky Mountains. In the autumn of his days Highpockets stumbled across a half-frozen, half-dead immigrant boy who had wandered in the snow and ice—terrified after having been separated from the wagon train carrying his Eastern European family across the vast new world. Highpockets called the boy Cub and took him to the wilderness domain the old man called My Mountain. There, for one long winter, they lived together; the young boy learned a new language and a way of life that he’d never even imagined existed. By the end of the winter, the old man knew that Cub had learned everything he needed to know to survive in a land as dangerous as it was awesomely beautiful. It would have to be enough and more than enough . . . for at the end of that winter Highpockets had agreed to face the council of his old enemy, Painted Elk, to atone for the murder of the chief’s son. Both Cub and Highpockets would be judged by the council of Elders . . . and both would learn that justice in the high places was both fair . . . and deadly.

Most folks would not trifle with the Hart brothers. Such folks walked. Some folks did not know better. They are planted—not so deep as to keep the cold of the high country from their bones, but deep enough to keep the wolves from their place of repose. That would do. They were well known as gun men, as shootists, as bounty hunters. Their first loyalty was for each other. Their honor was kept for themselves. Wherever they rode the people knew them and their deadly skills. The Hart brothers were going to the Cedar City Rendezvous. The territory was infested with renegades and outlaws; nearly all of them far less honorable and far more rapacious than the very capable Hart brothers. Death and rape and robbery seemed to come out of the ground with the rippling heat like surf against a shore. There seemed to be little that the law and decent citizens could do to stem the tide . . . Until the sheriff of Cedar City, Utah Territory, decided to let the criminal element take care of itself and send out invitations to the Rendezvous. Hundreds of killers showed up. “You are all here by invitation. There be five miles ‘tween here and town. The object is for you to get from here to there . . . alive enough to claim the fortune in gold. Those of you what make it that far will get an equal share. And the Governor’s unconditional pardon goes with the loot.” A murmur ran thorough the great company armed to its blackened teeth, Some of the shootists thought of saloons and every painted woman between Memphis and Frisco. The Hart Brothers thought of fertile farm land where a body could take root and grow along with crops and children, :Men, the rules be simple: Every man for hisself from here to the edge of town. You have until I get to town to find your place and cover. When I signal with my rifle, this shoot starts!” Before the sheriff was out of sight, the throng exploded in all directions toward rocky hills, scrub brush cover, and small box canyons. For fifteen long minutes there was silence. Then a shot rolled lazily through the stifling hear. A heartbeat later, the thin air erupted with musketry. In the first moments of the Cedar City Rendezvous, a dozen men fell from their saddles and dropped to the salty ground.

Rapid Response Team Memorandum Top Secret/Do Not Photocopy To: Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) From: U.S. Space Defense Operations Center, Colorado Situation Report: Unmanned Soviet Kvant-3 space laboratory destroyed by defective U.S. Orbital Weapons Platform. Communications inoperative. Soviet retaliation imminent unless immediate action taken. Target: U.S. Low-power Atmospheric Compensation Experiment (LACE)—the most powerful weapon in orbit. Equipped with SECRET hydrogen-fluoride, five megawatt chemical laser, LODE 4-meter firing mirror, and Teal Ruby AFP-888 aiming mechanism. Current Status: 38 degree circular orbit at 130 nautical miles FULLY ARMED AND OUT OF CONTROL. Operation: U.S. astronauts Colonel William Parker and Lt. Commander Jacob Enright to fly Space Shuttle Endeavor in mission to deactivate LACE. Risk Factor: HIGH Special Orders: In event of mission failure, U.S. shuttle crew to be terminated with EXTREME PREJUDICE. Brief: Presidential briefing NOT RECOMMENDED.