Rainhorse: Brotherhood Protectors World Read online

  Rainhorse

  Brotherhood Protectors World

  Jesse Jacobson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Also by Jesse Jacobson

  Original Brotherhood Protectors Series

  About Elle James

  Copyright © 2018, Jesse Jacobson

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  © 2018 Twisted Page Press, LLC ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used, stored, reproduced or transmitted without written permission from the publisher except for brief quotations for review purposes as permitted by law.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please purchase your own copy.

  Note: This book was previously released through Amazon Kindle World.

  Brotherhood Protectors

  Original Series by Elle James

  Brotherhood Protectors Series

  Montana SEAL (#1)

  Bride Protector SEAL (#2)

  Montana D-Force (#3)

  Cowboy D-Force (#4)

  Montana Ranger (#5)

  Montana Dog Soldier (#6)

  Montana SEAL Daddy (#7)

  Montana Ranger’s Wedding Vow (#8)

  Montana SEAL Undercover Daddy (#9)

  Cape Cod SEAL Rescue (#10)

  Montana SEAL Friendly Fire (#11)

  Montana SEAL’s Bride (#12) TBD

  Montana Rescue

  Hot SEAL, Salty Dog

  Author’s Note

  Rainhorse is a reoccurring character in a series referred to as the World of Rainhorse. All Rainhorse books are written so they can be read as a standalone, or as part of the series. John “Jackson” Rainhorse and Lindsay Vanderbilt are the main characters of the Rainhorse series. Several supporting characters have their own story in the World, however.

  All Rainhorse books in order of timeline:

  Guardian Ranger

  Rainhorse

  Rainhorse Returns

  Long Ghost

  Wounded Falcon

  A Good Samaritan

  John “Jackson” Rainhorse is a full-blooded Cheyenne, former Special Ops Army Ranger and reformed assassin, his life forever changed by a sixteen-year-old girl named Lindsay, who he saved from certain death.

  Rainhorse leaves his life as a killer-for-hire and goes deep into hiding. Two years later the former Ranger learns that the daughter of his high school sweetheart, a beautiful teen named Lona, has been kidnapped and is to be sold as a human sex slave by a criminal organization that has been terrorizing an entire reservation.

  Rainhorse discovers that the powerful organization has been hooking young adults on drugs and then ‘buying’ or stealing their children to sell into slavery. The retired assassin vows to end the suffering and save Lona. Along the way, an old flame is rekindled and begins to burn.

  Lindsay discovers the whereabouts of Rainhorse and seeks him out, unwittingly throwing herself into the middle of the chaos as the Cheyenne races against the clock to put an end to the tyranny.

  Chapter 1

  (Plentywood, Montana)

  The owner of the roadside bar, Vernon Gill, was busily wiping down the counter top when he first saw the silver Toyota Camry pull into his lot. A tall stranger in a cowboy hat emerged from the vehicle and began walking toward the door of The Blue Buffalo Tavern. Through the window Gill could see the mysterious man was huge, tall and broad at the shoulder. He wore a serious facial expression, one might even call it somber. The bar owner stopped wiping the counter top as the visitor approached. The stranger would be trouble, he predicted, and with his experience at reading people, he was rarely wrong.

  Gill had bought the Plentywood, Montana establishment twenty years earlier, after serving eighteen years in the Marines. The tavern had made ends meet throughout his ownership, that is, until recently. The economy hit him hard and he found himself cash poor. If something didn’t change within the next six months, he’d have to fold the tent and spend the rest of his life pinching pennies and playing bingo. He was now in his mid-sixties, so retiring had a certain appeal, but the thought of going out as a failure ate at his insides.

  The Blue Buffalo was a long-standing establishment in Plentywood. Gill knew just about everyone in town by name, whether they patronized his business or not. For those that did drink there, he knew the preferred drink of each man and woman. Most of the time he had it ready for them by the time they reached the bar. Still, none of that tradition paid the bills. He needed cash, and soon.

  Gill heard the door creaking open and the stranger appeared in the doorway, pausing for a moment, looking to his left, then his right. With the evening sun setting in the distance behind the stranger as he stood in the open doorway, all Gill could initially see was the man’s silhouette, and it cast a big shadow, one clouded in mystery.

  The stranger was at least six-feet-four. He wore an oversized stained raffia straw cowboy hat, pulled down low on his brow, hiding most of his face. His thigh-length brown Scully lamb leather jacket was unbuttoned. The man walked with a confident gait, though his Durango Rebel boots made hardly a sound on the wooden floor.

  When he reached the bar, he placed his enormous hands on its clean, polished surface. He used his fingers to brush the smooth surface, as if admiring the quality of the wood. He paused long enough to check his six, silently evaluating whether he’d been noticed or followed. Satisfied, he sat on the bar stool.

  Gill nodded at him, “What’ll you have, stranger?”

  “Whiskey,” he replied, in a deep, growly voice. “Jim Beam, Devil’s Cut, if you have it, Black if you do not.”

  “That’s some fine whiskey. Devil’s Cut, comin’ up,” Gill replied, reaching under the bar. The owner noted that the big man had turned his attention to the only other people in the bar, three cowboys and a woman sitting at the corner of the counter, about eight-feet away from him. The three men had been chatting the woman up for about forty-five minutes. She seemed slightly uncomfortable, the stranger thought. She was in her mid-forties with looks that were passable, if unextraordinary. Her hair was mousy and she was fleshy around the middle. She did have very large breasts, though gravity had already begun its evil work. All in all, she was undoubtedly hot-looking enough to men who had one beer too many in a bar where there were no other female customers.

  The big stranger sipped his Devil’s Cut slowly, casually listening in on their conversation.

  “You’re lookin’ mighty fine tonight, Stacy,” said the first man, an overweight cowboy wearing an oversized black Stetson.

  “Thank you,” Stacy replied. “You do know I’m old enough to
be . . . your older sister, right?”

  “Don’t make no difference to us,” replied a second man, tall and lanky with wire-rimmed glasses and large ears protruding through poker-straight oily hair.

  “I got some Blue Dream out in the truck,” the third man said, a large, strongly-built mountain of a man with an unkempt beard. “That shit is smoooo-ooth, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  Stacy chuckled, somewhat nervously, “I don’t want none of your weed, boys. I have to get up and work tomorrow.”

  “Well, how about another drink?” black hat guy said. “What is that, vodka and cranberry juice?”

  Stacy looked at him cautiously, “Okay, one more, then I gotta go.”

  “Now you’re talkin,’” oily hair guy said. “Hey Vern, send us over three Rainiers and a drink for the lady.”

  The bartender filled their drink order and returned to the center of the bar, casually polishing a beer mug in front of the big stranger.

  “How you doin’ there, partner?” Gill asked.

  The stranger turned the rest of his drink up and downed it, “I will have another, thank you.”

  Gill nodded and pulled the bottle from under the bar. He looked at the stranger as he poured, noting the man was still looking downward, his hat brim clouding his face.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before,” Gill said. “You’re new in town?”

  The stranger nodded, “Just passing through, really. Looking for an old school chum I have not seen in some time.”

  “This old chum lives here?” Gill asked.

  “That is what I have been told,” the stranger replied. “His name is Apollo. Tony Apollo.”

  Gill froze in his tracks, realizing his premonition about the stranger being trouble was all too accurate. He knew the name, Tony Apollo, well. Apollo was bad news, really bad news. Gill stayed away from him as much as possible. Apollo was the slime ball kingpin of the drug and sex trade on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation, just eleven miles from his bar in Plentywood.

  The reservation was embroiled in a serious drug problem, specifically a crystal meth addiction problem. They also suffered from a prostitution and sex trade epidemic, which was directly related to the drug horrors. The reservation was already besieged with other horrors: poverty, disease, joblessness and violence. Drug users had taken to selling their children, daughters, wives, girlfriends and sisters for the potent stimulant, and Tony Apollo was playing puppet master to it all. He targeted young parents. First, he’d get the users hooked on meth, making them want more and more. When they could no longer pay for the product with cash, he’d pressure them to willingly give up a member of the household to his sex trade business in exchange for a supply of meth. If that didn’t work, he’d just kidnap the child, knowing the meth addict parents would never call the police and risk cutting off their source.

  Gill knew instantly that the big stranger was not just an ‘old school chum’ looking to reconnect with Apollo, but what he was actually there for remained a mystery. He certainly didn’t look like a cop, Vice or DEA, that was for sure. An associate of Apollo, perhaps? Maybe. Competitor? Less plausible, but possible. Hit man? That seemed most likely.

  “The name rings a bell,” Gill volunteered.

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  Before Gill could answer, the cowboy with the black Stetson fell off his chair, onto his rear end, in a state of drunkenness. His beer mug shattered on the floor. Stacy and the other two cowboys began wailing in laughter.

  “You’re drunk on your ass,” oily hair guy cried out, laughing all the while.

  Black hat guy looked dazed for a moment and then began laughing himself. Bearded man helped him to his feet.

  Gill scowled, looking back at the stranger, “I’ll be back—got a cleanup on aisle three.”

  “Hey, Vern, there’s broken glass all over,” bearded man yelled out.

  “Yeah, I see it. I see it,” Gill scoffed. “I’m cuttin’ you boys off.”

  “Just one more and we’re on our way,” bearded man said.

  “No way,” Gill rebuked. “You boys settle down. I’m runnin’ in the back for a broom, mop and a bucket. Stay away from that glass. No nonsense now, ya hear?”

  “We hear ya, Vern,” black hat guy said, giggling.

  Gill disappeared in the back.

  “Now, what were we talkin’ about?” black hat guy asked.

  “You were flapping your gums about Little Big Horn again,” oily hair guy said, rolling his eyes.

  “Right,” black hat guy affirmed. “All I was saying is that if Custer hadn’t disobeyed direct orders from his commanding officer, that battle would have never happened. Hell, all he had to do was listen to his own Indian scouts. He couldn’t even do that. The entire 7th Cavalry got wiped out that day, and it was all on his head.”

  “I’m so damn tired of hearin’ you go on about Custer,” bearded man complained. “Aren’t you sick of it, Stacy?”

  “It’s better than hearing you all talk about football,” Stacy admitted.

  Gill popped out of the back and began to clean up the spilled beer and broken glass.

  “How about that last beer?” black hat guy asked.

  “Okay, one more beer then off with all three of you, and I mean it,” Gill barked. “How about you, Stacy?”

  “No, I’m done,” she said. “I’m gonna finish this one and go home.”

  Oily hair guy grimaced, “Home? Hell, it’s early. We’re just startin’ to party. We’re going to head to the quick mart, buy some more beers and head down to the river dock. Come with us.”

  “If you think I’m getting in a truck with you boys after the way you’ve been drinking, you have another thing coming,” Stacy snapped back. “In fact, Vern, why haven’t you taken these boys’ keys away?”

  “They aren’t driving,” Gill replied. “The quick mart is next door and then they walk to the river dock. As long as they don’t drive away from here, I don’t give a shit. They can all drown as far as I’m concerned.”

  “You see there,” oily hair guy said to Stacy. “We’re totally safe. C’mon, doll. Let’s have a little fun.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gill said to the stranger, returning to his position behind the bar. “These assholes would piss their own pants if someone didn’t point out their zipper for them. What were you asking?”

  “I was asking whether you knew where I could find Tony Apollo?” the stranger replied, lowly.

  If the stranger was a hit man, and did kill Tony Apollo, it would not hurt his feelings, Gill thought. Nope, not one bit. In fact, he’d make a private toast to the man. He hated what Apollo was doing to the people on the reservation, and in Plentywood. He also knew that Apollo still held influence with the sheriff’s department and the tribal police—the kind of influence only money can buy. Rumor had it he even had a contact within the FBI who warned him about any activity that might concern him. Things were ugly on the res these days, the worst conditions he’d seen, but most of that ugliness could come to an end if Apollo was out of the picture—he and that scumbag friend of his, Hank Rattling Thunder.

  “Do you mind me asking what your business is with Tony Apollo?” Gill asked.

  The stranger shrugged, “Like I said, he is an old . . .”

  “School chum,” Gill finished for him, chuckling. “I heard you the first time but I’m not buyin’ it, stranger.”

  “I do not understand your response,” the big man said. His face was expressionless.

  Gill raised his eyebrows, “Funny, you don’t look confused.”

  “This is how I look when I am confused,” the stranger said, plainly.

  He placed his right hand, palm down on the bar. Gill could see folded money peeking out from between his fingers.

  “Look, it is obvious to me that you know where I can find him,” the big man said. “I have heard tell that people around here do not care for the man too much.”

  “Well, that’s certainly true,” Gill resp
onded, stoically. “There’s a lot of people around here who don’t like him.”

  The stranger nodded, “And for good reason, it is my understanding. In fact, I have heard that you, specifically, do not like him. I have also heard that you know just about everything there is to know in this town.”

  “Who told you all that?” Gill asked.

  “Neha Littlebird.”

  Gill nodded, a solemn expression formed on his face, “Sweet lady. I was sorry to hear about her daughter. How do you know her?”

  “She is an . . . old friend,” he said.

  “You seem to have a few of those here,” Gill said. “It’s hard to believe you need me.”

  “It has been many years since I’ve been here. I require your assistance.” The stranger gazed at Gill with a serious look. It made the bar owner feel that a polite ‘no’ was not going to be an option.

  Gill looked to see if his conversation with the big stranger was drawing attention from Stacy or the three men. It wasn’t. He looked back at the big man, “Look, what Apollo is doing to the people on the res is worse than criminal—it’s genocide. I hate the man . . . but I’m sorry, I can’t get involved.”

  “I have a thousand-dollars in cash here. It is yours,” he whispered. “What I want in return is an address where I can find Tony Apollo. I also wish to buy your silence.”

  Gill looked again at the three men, who were still trying to convince Stacy to leave with them. There was no one else in the bar. He looked at the cash under the big man’s hand. He needed the money, but he didn’t need the heat that snitching out Tony Apollo could bring.