Title Page

DEATH RATTLE

THE GUNS OF SAMUEL PRITCHARD

SEAN LYNCH

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Copyright Page

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Copyright © 2019 Sean Lynch

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ISBN: 978-0-7860-4493-1

Electronic edition:

ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4494-8 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-7860-4494-2 (e-book)

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my son, Owen, who is fond of westerns.

PART ONE - SOLDIER

PART ONE

SOLDIER

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Atherton, Missouri, October 1863

Samuel Pritchard quietly eased back the hammer of the Hawken rifle. He didn’t want the telltale click to spook the flock only thirty yards from where he and his friend David “Ditch” Clemson lay concealed behind a fallen tree.

The rifle belonged to Ditch’s father. The Pritchard family owned a similar weapon, but Samuel was rarely allowed to take it out, and never on a school day. Thomas Pritchard was a practical, hardworking, and devoutly religious man. He was also a man who didn’t like guns and believed his son’s time was better spent working at the family’s sawmill or devoted to his studies at Atherton’s only schoolhouse. Had he known seventeen-year-old Samuel cut class with Ditch to go hunting along the Missouri River, he’d have been more than displeased.

The boys were in the mile-long stretch of woods between their families’ properties, the Clemsons’ humble cabin and horse ranch, and the Pritchards’ prestigious, two-story home. Thomas Pritchard was known in Jackson County as a wealthy man.

Young Thomas Pritchard started out cutting and freighting wood along the Missouri River by himself, shipping it to Kansas City by barge. Before long he had a crew of local men working for him and was able to provide a solid living for his beautiful wife, Dovie, and their two small children, Samuel and Idelle.

But as the children grew, and the Terre Haute & Richmond, and Madison & Indianapolis railroads began pushing west, lumber was needed like never before. Thomas invested in a steam-driven saw, and then another, and soon his modest business was booming. When the war started, the Pritchard Lumber Company added government contracts to its burgeoning list of clients. That’s when the money really began rolling in.