Nickel's Luck Read online

  Nickel’s

  Luck

  A Novel

  S. L. Matthews

  © 2019 S. L. Matthews

  Nickel’s Luck

  first edition, November 2019

  Cinch Ranch Publishing

  Walling, TN

  slmatthewsauthor.com

  Editing: Shayla Raquel, ShaylaRaquel.com

  Cover Design: Damonza.com

  Interior Formatting: Melinda Martin, MelindaMartin.me

  Nickel’s Luck is under copyright protection. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, 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.

  “Lorena” song lyrics transcribed from purchased copy of sheet music dated 1856; original lyrics by Rev. Henry De Lafayette Webster.

  ISBN 978-1-7341162-0-5 (paperback)

  In loving memory of Pops, the man who gave me my first Zane Grey novel.

  You taught me to follow my nose,

  never to take wooden nickels,and to be wary of those ornery “hillside gougers.

  ”Love you, Pancake Cowboy. I’ll never forget.

  And

  In loving memory of Bev, who always believed.

  My Guardian Angel.

  My heart bleeds, yet I know you’re there.

  Contents

  PART ONE: GOLDEN BOY OF INDIANOLA Chapter 1: The Wave-Hopper

  Chapter 2: Revelations and Rebirth

  Chapter 3: Sacrifice

  Chapter 4: Yesterday’s Cowboy

  Chapter 5: Cowboy Dentistry

  Chapter 6: Gal Leg

  Chapter 7: Old Joly

  Chapter 8: Threat of the Devil Fruit

  Chapter 9: The Beast That Grows

  Chapter 10: Cinnabar Dreams

  Chapter 11: Sand Crabs

  Chapter 12: Ink and Wisdom

  PART 2: EDGE OF THE MAP Chapter 13: Bawl of the Peacock

  Chapter 14: The Squall

  Chapter 15: Return of the Mistress

  Chapter 16: World’s End

  Chapter 17: Man of Music

  Chapter 18: Mind Tricks and a Fiddle

  Chapter 19: Birth of a Siren

  Chapter 20: The Burden

  Chapter 21: Road to Victoria

  Chapter 22: Victoria

  Chapter 23: The Color of Deceit

  PART 3: ON THE TRAIL Chapter 24: Mustang Grey

  Chapter 25: The Telling

  Chapter 26: The Green Boys

  Chapter 27: Mercy

  Chapter 28: Josephine

  Chapter 29: The Figurehead

  Chapter 30: The Crossing

  Chapter 31: The Telling of Scars

  Chapter 32: Bannack’s Homecoming

  Chapter 33: Consequences of Friendship

  Chapter 34: One Vermin Down

  Chapter 35: Aurelie

  Chapter 36: The Angel and the Demon

  Chapter 37: Path of the Devil’s Fruit

  Chapter 38: Swaying a Skeptic

  Chapter 39: Naming the Dime Novel

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Part One

  Golden Boy

  of Indianola

  Chapter 1

  The Wave-Hopper

  Indianola, Texas, September 1870

  The first time young Ryder drowned, it became the beginning of something new—an idea he perceived as infinite immunity to the perils of daily life. Ryder was ten and eager as usual to try new things. Things no one else said could be done. His brothers’ favorite pastime, aside from eating, was helping him achieve an impressive list of can’t-be-dones just to see him try.

  Scampering to the end of the pier with two of his brothers, Ryder stopped short and turned into the stiff, salty wind with a huff. It was a good run. The three of them had leaped and bounded throughout town, dodging citizens and wagons, and even raced through the netmaker’s tangled web of real estate.

  Trouble was brewing though, for the workday ended and they were ready for more fun before heading home to face dinner with the brats and, even worse, the dreaded chores.

  “Whatcha wanna do now?” Ryder asked, receiving a swift punch to the shoulder in reply.

  “Do that, Ry, I dare you!” Zelus jumped up and down as he pointed, yelling something about wave-hoppers.

  “Do what?” he asked. He saw nothing except a group of dolphins breaking through the waves in graceful leaps.

  “Oh-ho, ride ’em, Ry,” Alastor, the elder brother, said. “You always say you can ride anything.”

  “So?”

  “So, bet you can’t ride a dolphin. They ain’t easy like Uncle Sly’s old milk cow.”

  Ryder clinched his jaw. “I guess I could ride one if I wanted to,” he declared, frowning at the slick-skinned beasts playing in the horizon.

  Alastor stuck his hands on his hips and laughed in Ryder’s face.

  “Not even one!” he argued. “I guess you’re just like Daddy says: a braggart and a liar.”

  “I ain’t a liar!” Ryder’s cheeks grew red.

  “Shore you are. You’re lyin’ now, ’cause you can’t do it.” Alastor leaned in close. “You’re too scared to try.”

  Ryder wasn’t scared. He had ridden all manners of critters around town—sheep, cows, goats, even a camel or two. Most anything that walked, hobbled, flew, or hopped off one of the big trade ships was fair game to him.

  Without regard to the waves crashing below the pier, Ryder tugged at his shoes. A finger pierced through the thin, worn hide, but he was too angry to care about another hole his daddy would have to patch. He was not a liar, or a braggart, either. It was true—he could ride anything he set his mind to. He’d show them!

  Barefoot, the boy dove off the pier and surfaced below. The waves were stronger than usual, and his shirt and britches clutched his skin as though they were in a desperate plea to turn around. The race through town had tired him, yet Ryder knew little fear. He was a fisherman’s son, after all; swimming was as instinctive as breathing. He took a few deep breaths, focused on the band of wave-hoppers, and swam at an angle to intercept their path.

  At least, he tried. The waves near the beach weren’t this bad, and he remembered too late his mother’s advice not to dive off the pier. He swam against the breaking current, sputtering as big waves broke over him, washing him backward.

  Liar. Can’t. Braggart. Didn’t they know better? He was born of luck and skill, everyone said so. What were a few strong waves between him and his goal to ride a wave-hopper?

  Tiring, Ryder tread water, lining up his progress, only to discover his plight too late. The dolphins were not any closer. In fact, they were gone. Even worse, waterlogged britches sagged around his scrawny waist. He feared the weight would yank them right off his ass.

  Had he paid attention before diving in, Ryder might have noticed the storm clouds offshore driving heavy waves that rolled him without mercy. He turned back to the pier, now out of reach, and screamed the names of the ancients.

  Alastor and Zelus watched, amused at the joke their brother was playing on them. Ryder was a good swimmer, so it was funny, his pretense of trouble.

  “I told him he couldn’t catch a dolphin,” Al said, snickering.

  “He’s just funnin’ us, ain’t he?” Zelus, only eight, still didn’t understand the difference between pranks and sincerity.

  “He won’t say he’s wrong, so he’s
playin’ to scare us into forgettin’ he couldn’t catch a hopper. You know Ry—he’s always funnin’.”

  Brows furrowed into a tight line, Zelus clung to Al’s hand and watched his favorite brother bobbing up and down in the water. He wasn’t flapping or hollering. If anything, it looked like he wasn’t able to hold his arms over his head.

  “He don’t look much like he’s funnin’ to me,” Zelus said, looking up at his brother. “Al?”

  Alastor didn’t answer. Ryder, it seemed, had given up on swimming and was being carried farther out to sea. His head bobbed along the surface, then vanished.

  “Al!” Zelus screamed. “I don’t see him! I don’t see him!”

  Realization sank like an anchor into the pit of Alastor’s stomach. Ryder wasn’t playing a game at all. He was drowning.

  Alastor stood rooted to the dock, mouth agape. fleeting thoughts knotted up in his brain but never reached his legs.

  Zelus, failing to coerce his older brother into action, spotted a fishing boat. They were veering toward shore, coming in with their catch. Obeying their momma’s rule that a whistle be hung around the neck of the oldest sibling when near the water, Zelus reached up, found the chain tucked under Al’s shirt, and yanked.

  Alastor bent in an attempt to recoil from the earsplitting blasts of his brother, yet his eyes remained fixated on the place where Ryder battled for life.

  Zelus blew and blew on the whistle, jerking Al one way, then the other to attract the fishermen.

  “My brother!” he yelled as one stood upright in the boat, already searching for the disaster. “There!” he pointed, where, for a moment, Ryder’s body was spotted in the surf. He looked like a strange boy-fish, surfacing for a moment, only to disappear again. It was enough. Zelus watched the boat turn into the wind, the men aboard yelling and gesticulating. Now he was crying.

  Zelus wailed every time he saw a man dive below the surface and come up empty-handed. They would not find him. The sea had claimed Ryder, just like in all the tales told by fishermen and sailors alike. Two, three, four times they dove before he lost count. He hoped they’d find his body so he could be buried in the ground instead of lost to the sea forever.

  Dropping to his knees on the dock, he hugged his legs and glared through his tears at his remaining brother. This was all Alastor’s fault, but he stood there, still as the stone statues Momma said they were named for, and he let Ryder die. Zelus swore a silent retribution.

  A chorus of shouts from the boat drew the grieving boy’s attention. Rocking to his heels, he saw a man swimming toward the boat with something in the crook of his arm. The boy stood on tiptoe, stretching tall for a better look. His heart hammered in his throat. They found Ryder.

  Drownings happened from time to time; it was a part of living by the Big Water. No one understood that better than the sailors and fishermen, and they did their part to spread the word with hushed tones when tragedy struck. Some shied away from using the unfortunate’s name altogether, believing an already angry sea would rise up and retaliate, swallowing them whole.

  For a time, citizens and sailors alike would gather to pay their respects and ponder over the brevity of life, so fragile compared to the monsters of the deep. This was different. When they dropped Ryder on the dock, there was no breath. No heartbeat. Dead was dead, the fishermen said. The boy swallowed enough seawater to flood all of Indianola.

  He looked like some sort of half-boy half-sea creature dragged from the depths, drenched to the bone, cold and pale. Zelus sat by his head and cried his name. Over and over he cried, his hatred toward Alastor exuded in a glare, who looked on with his shoulders slumped.

  Ryder’s body seized and jerked. A sailor with more ink than a newspaper print noticed a sign of life, grabbed his body, and rolled him over, pounding his back. His chest heaved, and he began expelling alarming amounts of water.

  Zelus and the fishermen jumped back, regarding the marvel warily. It might be some sort of trick or curse. The Mistress, she was full of tricks meant to lure men to a watery grave. One could not be too careful.

  Only Old Joly the sailor continued to work on the boy, pounding on his back until he coughed, again and again. Ryder wheezed, hacked, and spit, his cold wet cheek smooshed against the planks of the dock, expelling water back to the sea.

  No one ever comes back, they said. Word spread through the streets of Indianola, a mere boy of ten years faced Davy Jones and walked away to tell the tale.

  “Keep up, you sodden little imp.” Following the shifty amble of his father through the streets of town, an aching Ryder lengthened his stride. His father never moved fast, but Ryder’s legs still wobbled. Once in a while, his knees would take a fit and buckle, but he brushed himself off and carried on. It had only been two days since the drowning, and Momma would pitch a fit at his father for dragging him from his bed and out into the town without her say-so.

  He longed to close his eyes and feel his mother’s hand smooth back the ruffles of his gingerbread-baked brown hair. His limbs and feet were heavy, his eyelids sagged, and every time he stifled a yawn, his stomach seized up and he tasted salt. Something stung him while in the water, for he had a painful welt on his shoulder blade and another splotch on his left leg. Plus, it felt like fish were swimming around in his gut.

  Miserable as he was, Ryder grinned at the surrounding town. So what if he still coughed up seaweed? He was alive to enjoy the warmth of the sun on his face and the dry ground under his feet. No matter his drowning occurred within sight of shore—he had battled the ocean and won.

  Yet, it was not the drowning bolstering the young imp’s grip on life, but a lifeless object, used well and without value in a port town.

  A spur.

  During their stroll, the town favored Ryder with kindness. Men rumpled his hair and patted him on the back, grinning.

  “You’re a luck child, boy,” they’d say. “It was lucky for you that fisherman got to you before the Mistress did.”

  Ryder knew who the Mistress was and glared dolefully toward the edge of their world. Seagulls dove through salt-laden air, calling noisily to their friends. He sniffed and choked back a cough. The smell of the saltwater town never bothered him before, but then, his lungs had never been baptized in it before, either. Women they passed stopped to pet, hug, and kiss Indianola’s golden child, marveling at his bravado in overcoming his drowning so quickly. Ryder glowed under their praise, especially the pretty ones, but his father never let him enjoy their attentions for very long. The boy groaned when Oren led him to the tobacco shop. Daddy’s vices—and his pleasures—always came first.

  Inside, Ryder slouched on a crate by the counter and hacked great racking coughs. His lungs still hurt, and the smell of exotic tobacco, dips, and cigars were overpowering. The proprietor looked at him and shook his head.

  “Your wild boy still looks blue around the gills today, Oren.”

  “He’s fine,” came the reply.

  “Wicked cough, though. If I’d swallowed that much water, I’d be—”

  “I said the boy’s fine!” Oren Wheeler’s bark silenced further discussion, but the man behind the counter tousled Ryder’s brown hair and patted his shoulder.

  “You’re a brave boy, and a lucky one at that,” he whispered.

  “Thank you, sir,” Ryder said with a raspy squeak. He wanted to get into the fresh air where the smoke wasn’t scraping his lungs and searing his eyes. He waited, hacking and clearing his throat, while his father perused cases of cigars. The man selected the best a meager paycheck afforded—a pair of smokes that smelled to Ryder like the fart end of a bloated fish lit afire. Momma would be mad over that too. The money dropped for tobacco would have put food on their table, but he dared not mention it aloud. His daddy was touchy about money because he never had it. With over a dozen kids to feed, Oren was always grumpy.

  Outside, he steered Ryder to the smoking bench outside the cigar shop. It was time to face his father. Judging by the set jaw and narrowed slits of hi
s eyes, it would not be a pleasant conversation.

  “You gonna tell me about it, boy?” Oren lowered his chin and curled his fingers. They looked more like stout claws to Ryder, but he ran his mouth anyway.

  “Al and Zelus should’ve done that already,” he said.

  “Alastor didn’t have much to say. Zelus says you jumped in to catch a damn dolphin ’cause Al said you couldn’t ride one. Is that true?”

  Ryder slid to the other side of the bench and picked at his fingernails. They were a sight more interesting to look at than Oren’s pinched face.

  “Yessir,” he replied, hoping a simple answer was enough to satisfy Oren. It wasn’t.

  “So you wanted to ride a dolphin.”

  “I would’ve done it easy enough—if I caught one.”

  Oren seized Ryder’s arm and thrust his snarled lip in the boy’s face. “You didn’t pay much attention to the water, did you? Didn’t notice the wind drivin’ in from a storm? You didn’t pay mind to the tide either, did ya? Goin’ out, wasn’t it . . . and carried you with it!” Veins pulsed in Oren’s neck. They seemed to be propelling the loud, angry tone—lightning to match his father’s thunder.

  “No. Al made me mad, and—” Ryder coughed again.

  “You’re a damn fool, boy,” his daddy interrupted. “These townsfolk’ll say how brave you are, but you and me, we know better. You’re weak between the ears. They all say you’re lucky, but eventually your empty head’s gonna catch up to your sound luck. Zelus said your brother just stood there watching you drown. You would’ve died if not for your little brother. What if someone drowned trying to save you? Do you think their lives were worth yours?”

  Ryder shrugged. “Nobody died.”

  “The sea, she’s marked you, boy. You escaped this time, but she’ll come at you again. The Mistress always feeds on dumb-headed little boys like you.”

  “If that’s true,” Ryder mused, “she’d have claimed you years ago, Daddy.”