Exclusive Sneak Peek (Desert Steve novel) – The Dalton Gang

Here is a sneak peek of a first draft scene from my upcoming historical fiction novel based on the life of Desert Steve, who founded a town in the middle of the California Desert in the 1920..

Steve trailed his mom and dad as they left the church, with the usual compliments to the preacher. Steve liked listening to his sermons. Bold and confident, he stood behind the pulpit with a thunderous voice, explaining and urging how to live a godly life. It all made sense to Steve, those lessons for how to live, what to avoid, how to work hard, and how to treat others.

Steve shook the preachers hand firmly, as his dad had taught him. “Thank you, sir, for the lesson today.”

The man smiled. “You are most welcome, Steve. So good to see you here today.”

He caught up to his parents. His mom was carrying Baby William and Rosa was holding her other hand. Sarah walked a little ahead.

“Sarah,” his mom called out, “would you go find Minnie and Charlie? They were out back the last I saw.”

Sarah nodded and ran off to do her mom’s bidding. As the oldest, she was often like a surrogate mom to the five younger kids. After all, she was seventeen. 

“Phebe, you all take the buggy back. I’m going into town for a bit. I’ll take Steve.”

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Steve loved going into town with his dad. He loved th farm—the land, the rocks, the animals, and insects, the hills in the distance (which he had explored many times, though he was not supposed to go out there by himself). But towns—the streets, building, a microcosm of humanity, all living and working together to form a community. Stores, gas stations, hotels, banks, other services. He knew the town had started as an Indian trading outpost, but had grown into a proper town. How did one plan a town? Who did it? Were there rules about how to lay out streets, which buildings go where? It seemed like so much fun!

“Where we going, dad?” Steve asked as his dad pulled up behind him on Molly, Dad’s horse.

“We need to order some supplies and I need to pick up some tobacco.” His dad smoked a pipe, which Steve thought was quite distinguished. He wanted to smoke one, too, but his dad said he had to wait until he was 12. (His dad didn’t know that he’d fashioned a crude pipe out of a corn cob and tried it out a few times by pilfering a small amount of tobacco from his dad’s stash.)

They arrived at the general store and Steve slid down to the ground. His dad tied up the horse and went inside, but Steve stayed on the wooden sidewalk, watching. The main street was slightly muddy from the rains last night, and he watched as buggies, horse, and pedestrians walked by. He wondered why they couldn’t pave the roads with bricks or stones. He had seen that in larger towns in pictures. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to do. Then, you could design it so little ruts for the water to flow through. He’d read about just such a thing in ancient Roman roads. If they could do it, surely modern humans could.

A commotion down the road to the right caught his attention. In front of the First National Bank, a couple of men were yelling something as they ran to their horses. Then three men came out of the Condon Bank across the street from First National. Steve peered closely. Something wasn’t right. They looked…funny. 

The first two men did not ride off, but retrieved their guns from the horses and headed back towards the bank. Down in the distance, Steve saw another group of men with guns approaching stealthily along the edge of the buildings. Someone yelled, “bank robbery!” Scanning the street, he saw other citizens with guns taking up positions. Another shout: “The Marshal is on his way!”

Steve ran to the horse and pulled his dad’s rifle from the baggage, along with a bag of bullets. He ran, crouching, to a row of barrels set up in front of the clothing store next door. Loading the gun, he took up a position that made himself as small a target as possible, while still able to see the front doors of both banks. 

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