The Five Dollar Mail (Book 1: The Green & Book 2: Lynch's Boys)

101: The Story So Far (as dictated by Saint)

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork of Saint by Liezl Buenaventura All graphics by me.

Sorry I missed yesterday. Having some connection issues all day.

Saint is going to do today's post for us. He's crabby and jonesing for a smoke, so bear with him.

It's a synopsis of the previous 100 chapters, so if you have not read up to that point, I am warning you now that it does contain spoilers up to chapter 100. If you have read from the beginning and are up to 100, there are no spoilers for chapters past 100.

I'm glad you enjoyed this enough to reach this point, and I hope you all are looking forward to coming along for the ride for the next book, which will pick up directly after this.  The section of the book you are just finishing up ( up to chapter 104) are available on Amazon under the title of The Five Dollar Mail Book 1: The Green. Book 2: Lynch's Boys is also available if you don't want to read it week by week (and, of course, if you would rather read it properly edited and polished).

There's a third book available,  Riders and Kickers: The Five Dollar Mail Anthology, and it's a collection of side stories, backstories, and novellas that I haven't decided if I'm going to post  here or not. Book 4: The Road Home is being finished up and is already in the beginning stages of the publishing process.

I want to tell you that if it weren't for you, I probably would have found reasons to slack off on this thing a long time ago. It's not that I don't enjoy it, I do. In fact, I'm having a blast. But you know how hard it is to motivate yourself to do thing on a schedule when it's a self imposed schedule. This was sort of an experiment I challenged myself to, and I would have never succeeded in it if not for you folks reading.

Thank you. A lot.
'gina

Fragmented sunlight shafted through the shutters on the bunkhouse windows, illuminating the acrid haze of tobacco, sweat, leather, and wood smoke within. The embers of a low fire glowed warmly in the soot darkened stone fireplace that dominated the bunkhouse.

The swarthy young man at the table leaned his chair backwards so that it tottered precariously, crossing his long legs on the table in front of him. The wobbling chair groaned, threatening to dump him ass over teakettle onto the dirty flagstones of the floor. He drained the dregs of his coffee and stuck a peppermint stick between his lips, glaring a warning as he did so.

"Yeah, don't ask." He glanced warily around at the door, roaching back the dark hair brushing his broad shoulders with his fingers. "Look, it upsets the Little Miss...Lily...when I smoke, alright?" He muttered sheepishly in his thick New Jersey accent. And I don't wanna hear about it, so...not a word. Va bene. For those of you just joining us, I'm Pete Bari, but everyone calls me Saint. I'm a stagecoach driver. And here's what's been going on at Green River Station. Pull up a chair."

"The new hire, Lily, came out here because her brother Jesse's working here as a Pony Express Rider. They had a position open as a cook and housekeeper to help England out...actually, England's name is really Fiona, but where's the fun in that? Anyways, she hated me. Not England, I'm talking about Lily. She's heard all kindsa stuff about me...none of it good and most of it true...and it didn't help that the first thing I did on her first day on the job was get her good and mad at me. Let's just say I ain't her favorite person and leave it at that.

"Her uncle Chet's left her some kind of deed to...well, we don't know to what. Whatever it is is important enough or valuable enough for someone to send this lawyer over here to try and buy it out from under her. Guy was a stronza and a horse's rear end. Needed a real ass kicking...unfortunately, I was away when the time came to deliver one. Fortunately, our stocktender, Hungerford, was here and as much as I hate to have to compliment the guy, he did a fine job of it.