Thanks to Samantha Lien of JKS Communications, I am giving away one print copy of Where They Bury You.
Book Description:
In August 1863, during Kit Carson’s roundup of the Navajo, Santa Fe’s Marshal is found dead in an arroyo near what is now the Hubbel Trading Post. The murder, and the roughly million of today’s dollars in cash and belongings in his saddlebags, is historically factual. Carson’s actual explanation is implausible.
Who did kill Carson’s “brave and lamented” Major? The answer is revealed in this tale of a group of con artists operating in 1861-1863 in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. As a matter of historical fact, millions of today’s dollars were embezzled from the Army, the Church, and the New Mexico Territory during this time. In this fictionalized version, the group includes a Santa Fe poker dealer with a checkered past claiming to fall in love with one of her co- conspirators, and the historically accurate duo of the Marshal of Santa Fe and the aide de camp of the Territories’ Commanding General. It is an epic tale of murder and mystery, of staggering thefts, of love and deceit.
Both a Western and a Civil War novel, this murder mystery occurs in and among Cochise’s Chiricahua Apache Wars, the Navajo depredations and wars, Indian Agent Kit Carson’s return from retirement, and the Civil War. The story follows the con artists, some historical, some fictional, during their poker games, scams, love affairs, and bank robberies, right into that arroyo deep in Navajo country.
“Steve Kohlhagen knows the West, knows his history, and combines them here into a fastpaced, irresistible story!” raves Bernard Cornwell, award-winning author of over 50 historical fiction novels who USA Today calls “the reigning king of historical fiction.”
Excerpt From Where The Bury You:
Excerpt From Where The Bury You:
Cremony and the Apaches and the Toads
July 14, 1862
Cremony couldn’t get the line out of his head. “It’s a dark and stormy night.”
The line from Washington Irving’s satire, The History of New York.
He looked out at the bizarre scene. They had left Tucson three days ago. One hundred twenty-five soldiers with two hundred forty horses, cattle, and mules, plus supplies and artillery wagons, had marched through the parched, unforgiving alkaline desert. It was already past midnight. So it was now the 14th and they had left Carleton on the morning of the 11th.
Good God. Merciful Lord in heaven. All the water needed by all mankind for a year was plummeting down on them from the heavens.
It was like a plague. A river of water pouring down on them in the pitch black. He half expected to see fish swimming through the air at every blinding flash of lightening. How on earth the horses and the mules were going to survive this deluge he had no idea. Streams rushed through the campsite where only the desert and a few Gila Monsters had been at dusk.
First the floods of California. Then the merciless march across the desert to Tucson. Then the smothering heat of Tucson and the three-day march through the desert to here. And now this.
How do the Apaches survive in this environment? Why do they stay? Why would anyone want to claim this as their home?
Cremony covered his head and tried to sleep through the wind, the thunder, and the screaming of the horses and the mules.
He was awakened before dawn by one of his lookouts.
“Captain Cremony. Come look at this.”
The two crouch-ran to a spot on the periphery of the camp, sloshing through the mud and the running water. The rain had stopped.
They looked up at the surrounding hills. Burning torches being carried by men could be seen running around and over the hills. More than a dozen in all. Maybe twenty. It looked like fireflies in the trees.
“Shall I wake all the men, sir?”
“No, Sergeant. Tell Captain Roberts and make sure all the lookouts are on full alert. They are no threat to us. Apaches never signal an attack.”
“Then what are they doing, sir?”
“Damned if I know, Sergeant. I’ve never seen anything like it. They wouldn’t let us know if they were watching us. I have no idea. They’re no threat to us right now anyway.”
+++
“The runners have all been sent out,” Nahilzay said to Cochise and Mangas Coloradas. “They are carrying torches to all the People within three days of here, summoning them to Apache Pass to massacre the White Eye soldiers who are coming.”
They had just completed their war dance in the Chiricahuas and been blessed by the priests of all the clans. The Mimbres had come from Pinos Altos when Cochise had told Mangas of the number of soldiers West had said were headed to the Pass.
To the west, they could see the lightning from the storm, but could hear no thunder.
“We have eight hundred warriors here now,” Cochise said.
“There will be a thousand in two days’ time,” Geronimo said.
“More than enough.”
“I agree,” Mangas Coloradas said. “It is now time to stop the small fighting and running and time to stop the White Eyes forever. Right here.”
“And the White Eyes still in Tucson?” Geronimo said.
“If they come,” Cochise said. “We will let them see what’s left of these men who are about to die. Let them decide between a similar fate or returning to the place they call California.”
He looked toward the lightening in the dark western sky.
“This is our home. They can die here or return to their own homes. It is up to them. It is a good time for them decide.”
+++
Roberts awoke at dawn. The river was now a swollen torrent. Streams from the rains still flowed through the camp.
The men were breaking camp and were amazed to find the camp seemingly filled with all sorts of frogs, toads, and salamanders. One of the Corporal’s dog, Rucker, was chasing them, catching them, and eating them to the merriment of the men.
“Where did the frogs come from,” one of the Lieutenants said.
“They’re desert toads, actually,” Cremony said. “They live under the sand forever, almost in hibernation. When it rains, they emerge. Either that, gentlemen, or we have been visited by a Biblical plague sent by the Chiricahua priests. Let’s move out. We’ve got a nine hour march. Toads or no toads.”
His laugh wasn’t even comforting to him. The entertaining Rucker aside, there was no way the amphibians they saw hopping under their horses’ hooves for the next few hours could be a sign of anything good. Certainly not in the desert.
About Steven W. Kohlhagen:
Steve Kohlhagen is a former, now retired, Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, a retired Wall Street investment banker, and is on several corporate boards, most recently elected to the board of Freddie Mac. While at Berkeley he authored many economics publications, and he and his wife Gale jointly published the murder mystery “Tiger Found” under their pen name Steven Gale in 2008.
Kohlhagen was inspired to write his latest book “Where They Bury You” after reading Hampton Sides’ “Blood and Thunder,” a non-fiction history of Kit Carson and the West. Sides’ reporting of the factual murder of Marshal Joseph Cummings on August 18, 1863 led Kohlhagen to conduct further research on Carson and Cummings, including at the National Archives. He also pulled from his own knowledge of the West, as the writer divides his time between the New Mexico-Colorado border high in the San Juan Mountains and Charleston, South Carolina.
Website: http://stevenwkohlhagen.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenKohlhagen
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