Renegade General 01, page 1
part #1 of Renegade General Series
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Lieutenant-General Mordecai “Swoop” Swellen was a born fighting man. When so ordered, he would “swoop” in and decimate any declared enemy. He was also known for his tactical brilliance and red hot anger.
But in 1890, when faced with engaging the local Lakota Indians near his fort, which he knew would lead to disaster, he just walked away from his command. His vindictive superiors branded him a coward, a traitor to the United States, and put a thousand-dollar bounty on his head.
The military started a massive hunt for him, but somehow Swellen stayed one step ahead of his many pursuers.
Now, the fugitive Swoop becomes involved with a new, mountain-climbing, cog and rail train system, and its Sicilian company, working in Pike’s Peak, Colorado. Swoop is hired by the system’s Sicilian owner-inventor, Arturo Zapello, to thwart sabotage, theft and murder within his own company, and further foil one of his sinister crew chiefs, Carlo Greco, a renowned swordsman obsessed with challenging the locals to duels to the death.
RENEGADE GENERAL 1: SWELLEN’S RECKONING
By W. Hock Hochheim
Copyright © 2023 by W. Hock Hochheim
This electronic edition published May 2023
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Published by Arrangement with the Author.
Visit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books.
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter One: Broken China
Chapter Two: Pour the Rye
Chapter Three: A Frozen, Muddy Road
Chapter Four: Kicking the Hornet’s Nest
Chapter Five: Death of the Lakota Ghosts
Chapter Six: A Bounty Killing in Texas
Chapter Seven: The Cowboy and the Sicilian
Chapter Eight: A Duel to Die Twice For
Chapter Nine: A Spider Web of Travel
Chapter Ten: You Should Not Know My Name
Chapter Eleven: Half Way and Back from Hell
Chapter Twelve: Vulgar Latin
Chapter Thirteen: More Lost Teeth
Chapter Fourteen: Thorny Bounties
Chapter Fifteen: Dead Man’s Contract
Chapter Sixteen: Ditch Digger Pat Weeps
Chapter Seventeen: Tabby Stallmouth
Chapter Eighteen: Kill Me. Kill You.
Chapter Nineteen: Seeing In One Second
Chapter Twenty: Gravestones As Wind Breaks
Chapter Twenty-One: Catty’s March on Logan
Chapter Twenty-Two: A Weapon In Your Hand
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Evil Eyes
Chapter Twenty-Four: Scouting for the Scout
Chapter Twenty-Five: Kill-a Zapello!
Chapter Twenty-Six: Greco’s Reckoning
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Canvas Body Bag
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Fernando’s Reckoning
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Tabby’s Reckoning. Deming’s Reckoning
Chapter Thirty: Subsequent Reckonings
Chapter Thirty-One: Tricked and Succumbed
Chapter Thirty-Two: 1903! The Return of Swoop Swellen
Epilogue
About the Author
Author’s Note
The rambunctious, wild, temper-tantrum known as Swoop Swellen first appeared in the pages of my international thriller, China Alamo. as a surprise supporting character. By popular demand, he now returns in this all-new Renegade General series all on his own. Action, adventure, intrigue, mystery, gunfights, fistfights, vindictive swordfights and revenge in the “new west” of the 1890s all surround Swoop Swellen as the trap closes in and in...
Chapter One: Broken China
Master Lay’s Kung Fu School, Peking, China 1903
“MEN WILL KILL the doctor,” the boy whispered in Chinese into Swellen’s ear.
The neighborhood child had charged into Master Lay’s Kung Fu class in a noisy clutter of interruption. This annoyed the strict Sifu Lay’s school rules. Mordecai “Swoop” Swellen left the wooden class floor and ushered the neighborhood boy near the lobby front door. He took a knee and asked him in Mandarin to repeat the shocking message.
“You must go to the doctor’s office.” the boy said, “They told me to tell you to come to doctor’s office or they will kill him and his wife.”
“Who said this?” Swoop asked.
“Two men, Americans like you. They have guns.”
Swoop felt a wave of anguish overcome him. His worst nightmare had suddenly come true. They’d found him. Discovered. And as far away as China? How could this be? And his one remaining mission in Peking after the Boxer Rebellion, his one assignment was to protect the American Dr. Bellmont and he had failed. Now the doctor’s life and his new family were in danger because of his own secret past.
“They said they are waiting for you at the doctor’s office.”
“Okay, kid. Go home,” he said.
The Kung Fu class continued on behind him. Swoop stood and nodded and bowed at Master Lay from across the room who’d frequently cut his eyes at him and the boy. Swoop had a sinking burn that he would never see Master Lay again. He grabbed his leather bag and shoes. He circled the kwoon floor and after a bow, slipped out the back door, just in case the child messenger was followed.
He scanned the rear alleyways and yards, then jogged across the kwoon’s small backyard, through an alley and out onto a narrow, dirt, back street.
Dressed in Chinese clothes, the Scotch-Irish Swoop always walked the streets of Peking like a native, despite being six feet tall and having somewhat curly, brown-reddish hair. This anonymity came because the regional streets and avenues bustled with legation-embassy members from numerous European countries, the U.S. and Canada. Post Boxer Rebellion, all the local Chinese were acclimated to a “melting pot” of international pedestrians and lifestyles. This section of Peking looked like western towns or in some areas, bigger western cities in the U.S., except for some of the distinct oriental architecture, or the occasional camel train hauling goods to markets.
Mordecai “Swoop” Swellen had lived there in China for almost three years. Not only was he tasked by an Army Major Johann Gunther in 1901 to protect the young Dr. Bellmont, but he was also considered a respected hero inside the legation communities. Swoop was a champion of the Boxer Rebellion, a wild, warrior protecting the embassies in their darkest of times, those days known by Western historians and newsmen as the “55 Days of Peking” siege. The new American Ambassador Devin Larmes even hired him on for extra security, all under Swoop’s accepted alias of one “Robert Small.”
Those enduring and early survivors of the Rebellion heard whispers and rumors that Robert Small was once some kind of vicious American officer, possibly even a general! And that “Small” was not his real name. But no one really cared in those dark hours as he was revered as another fearless lifesaver with guns protecting them from the Boxers. As peace developed, the negative rumors slowly disappeared, and he just became…just good ol’ Robert Small to everyone. Even the Marines stationed there called him Robert Small and told tales of his rebellion-squashing heroics.
Dr. Bellmont and his Chinese wife and their young son required little security this third year of his medical residency as Bellmont welcomed and treated the area Chinese for their ailments. He’d become rather beloved in the community. While the legations paid Bellmont for medical services, the locals could trade eggs, chickens, bread, silks, whatever in exchange for his treatments. Some he treated for free. As a result, Swoop felt less and less concern for Bellmont’s safety as the years ticked by.
His days escorting the Bellmont family, his extra job of trolling the embassy grounds, almost with policeman-like status, quickly became uneventful, if not downright boring, the typical curse of so many security jobs. But this monotonous languor was better than being a hunted man, always on the run back in the United States.
He had Major Johann Gunther and a hefty salary from Bellmont’s rich, California father to thank for these calm times and easy job.
So, Swoop studied the books in the British Legation library and attended Kung Fu classes four days a week out in the city, learning Chinese hand, sword and knife fighting.
One positive thing about serving on embassy security was, he was a legal man of arms in China. Pistols, knives and rifles. In the leather bag rested his two-gun, pistol belt with two Colt .38, double-action revolvers. The bullet belt loops were full, and he had a box of rounds in the bag’s side pocket. The gun belt also held a ubiquitous, large, double edge, fighting knife with an ornate handle in an artistic sheath, one he once confiscated from a dead Boxer he killed, like so many, with his bare hands. Back in his quarters at Bellmont’s residence were many other weapons. Would he, could he ever return to those rooms again?
He’s been visiting a Chinese woman named Y
Who could have found him in China? But, whomever, however, now some hunters had. And now they’d captured his friends to use as bait. Dr. Bellmont’s office was just outside the official multi-embassy grounds on Legation Street, a site of horrible battles just three years earlier. It was once again full of shops, houses and normal China life.
The neighborhood boy warned him of two men, but Swoop knew there would at very least three, the third or even more would be across the street or staked out in the area, perhaps in or atop the two-story stone buildings that lined the avenue. That’s where he’d hide and spy, if in their boots. These others would be lookouts or snipers for a quick kill, as Swoop knew well he was wanted alive or dead.
These hunters had to be ex-military to track him here, probably from that Ditch Digger bounty business, and would plan for his reputation of pure violence from those dead Diggers Swoop had escaped from since 1892.
Swoop did not run straight to Bellmont’s office. Instead, there was section of various stores a few blocks away, and he was bound for the largest department store in the neighborhood. Once inside the store, Swoop purchased the common, large conical, Oriental, straw hat. And in the women’s department, he purchased a long, black-haired wig.
Once again on the outside steps of the store, he pulled the wig over his reddish-brown hair and shoved the big hat atop his head. The lengthy black hair covered his shoulders. With this disguise, along with his customary Chinese outfit he already wore, he hoped to sneak close to Bellmont’s office unnoticed. He hoped the Americans would expect him to look like his wanted posters, dress like a Westerner and appear to be his old Scottish-Yankee, “cowboy” self.
He walked toward an alley next to the store and once a few steps inside the passageway, pulled his two-gun belt from his bag and buckled it on under the long loose, colorful, silk jacket.
He quickly arrived on the corner of Legation Street and peeked all around and up too. Chinese rooftop eaves were turned upward to prevent evil spirits from above looking down at them. And this time evil surely lurked above. He immediately spotted the upper half of a man atop the building right across from the Bellmont’s office. The man wore a dark Stetson-like hat.
Swoop shuffled across the street and down the side of that building. He knew the three-story edifice was a cramped series of decrepit apartments. He’d reconned the building once before to evaluate the safety of the Bellmont office location. The rooftop was a natural surveillance and attack point.
Swoop crossed the street and shuffled inside the building through a back door. He climbed the filthy steps to the closed rooftop door and silently dropped his leather bag just inside the roof door. He took off his jacket and draped it on his shoulders like a long cape, his arms free and hidden inside. He pulled one of his pistols and held it “boot-legged,” as in pointed down beside his thigh, yet still concealed beneath the long coat. Hat and head down, he pushed the worn, wooden door open and entered the roof.
“Hello, how are you,” he said in Chinese to the tall man in Western clothes about twelve feet away, who peered over a wall at the street below.
The man turned and looked him over. He was indeed an Anglo.
“Scat! Geet, Chinaman!” The man growled, waving his hand as a signal for him to leave.
“Oh?” Swoop said.
“I said go. This ain’t none of your business, Chinaman!”
“I think it is,” Swoop said in slow, perfect English, raising his head all the way up, his face now in full view from under the big hat.
Eyes-wide, the surprised man recognized Swoop and he began that telltale leg crouch, the bend at the knees, the beginnings of a gun draw. Swoop lifted his pistol and shot him in the stomach area, into his right side near his holster and gun. He shot low hoping the man would not fall over the wall to the street below, but rather double over forward.
The man didn’t fall over the wall. He had no time to. As the man doubled over forward a few inches, Swoop was in a mad charge, holstering the handgun and pulling his China knife. Swoop was on him in a second, his left hand swept off the Anglo’s hat and grabbed the man’s long head hair. Swoop yanked his head up, back and to the left. With that China knife in his right hand, Swoop plunged the blade into the man’s exposed neck and pulled it inward and on through the windpipe. The westerner was down and dead in thirty seconds or so, a bloody mess.
“Ditch Digger,” Swoop said, looking him over. Yes, a white man in his forties. Scarred face. Decent clothes. Nice gun rig. Worn boots. He had to be one of the Ditch Digger’s Bail Company of ex-military, bounty hunters.
“I’ll be back for you shortly, sidewinder,” Swoop muttered.
He took off his conical hat, grabbed the dead man’s hat and made for the corner of the roof. On his knees, he peeked at the Bellmont office and the street below. No one below seemed to care about the single, rooftop gunshot. There were always occasional gunshots from training sessions at the Legations just up the avenue. No one had burst out of the Bellmont office, looking skyward.
What was going on in there? He wondered staring at the office. Were they beating Bellmont? Raping his wife? What? And he couldn’t wait, he simply had to…swoop in. Swooping, that was how he got his old Army nickname. Swooping in.
He left the roof with his big, conical hat back on and the long coat still draped on his shoulders. He grabbed his bag by the door and dashed down the steps, ran out the back, up the alleyway and out to the avenue. All the while, he ran memories of the medical office layout in his mind. The front door had a bell on it, then the big lobby, then the door to the big medical office. There was a bathroom off the lobby, a luxury for this part of town. Where would the Ditch Diggers sit? Wait? Hide? Ambush? No entry to the office would be safe. He decided against any suicidal entry.
He decided to go with the mythology of the classic street showdown, made famous in the Blood and Thunder books by Eastern writers.
Once on the cobblestone street, Swoop set his bag down on the sidewalk, and tore off his hat and wig. He pulled both pistols and kept them boot-legged, concealed under his long jacket. He walked into the middle of the avenue, right in front of Bellmont’s office.
“Ditch Diggers!” Swoop yelled out. “Ditch Diggers!”
The nearby people on the street were a bit shocked at this
audacious display.
“Everybody get back! Leave!” Swoop yelled in Chinese and in English.
They did, confused and hustling off in all directions.
The front door opened. The bell rang. An American stepped out holding the Chinese, Mrs. Bellmont in front of him, He held a pistol to her head. A second American stepped out alone. The three, two gunmen and the trembling hostage, remained on the sidewalk in front of the office.
“Pat Weeps,” Swoop said, recognizing the solo man.
“The renegade general! Mordecai ‘Swoop’ Swellen. In…the…flesh,” the solo man said. “Looks like you have turned all Chinese.”
Swoop stood still and silent.
“If you don’t want to see this little lady’s head blowed off,” Pat Weeps said, “if you got any guns on under that jacket, you’d best drop them to the stones. You are surrounded.”
Swoop stood still and silent.
“General, there’s a man on the roof behind you with guns.”
“Not anymore,” Swoop said. “He’s dead.”
Swoop could see the ever-so-slight, set-back in their faces. He could see their eyes dart up to the roof and back.
“Will-ARD!” Pat Weeps cried out.
No answer.
“Well, we could just shoot you right now,” Weeps added, “bounty is the same.”
“Do you really think you’d survive that? Because I will kill you both. We’ll all die.”
“Ahh…this little lady…”
“Will die too,” Swoop said, “we’ll all die here today. If I’m going to die anyway, we’ll all die.”
“This ain’t no stand-off, Swellen, it’s two against one and…”
