Sherlock Holmes and The Texas Adventure by Dicky Neely

Author:Dicky Neely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sherlock Holmes, mystery, crime, british crime, sherlock holmes novels, sherlock holmes fiction, sherlock holmes western
ISBN: 9781780923550
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2013
Published: 2013-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Down the Mendoza Trail

We continued slowly down the trail looking for anything we might use to gain some information. This was a unique experience for us to say the least.

“Recall when we saw Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show about twenty years ago at the Earls Court show ground in London? I would never have imagined then we would one day be here seeing it first hand,” said I.

“Indeed,” said Holmes. “This is fascinating, a fantasy dream come true.”

Peralta rode out a little ahead of us. Suddenly he pulled up and quickly dismounted. He walked slowly and then bent down on one knee, picking up something. He produced a cigar butt.

“I know Senor Richard must have come this way at some time,” said Peralta.

“How do you know that?” Holmes dismounted.

“He smoked these Cubano cigars.”

“Very good Peralta! A man after my own heart!”

I, too, then dismounted and we walked along the trail and into the adjoining brush. Suddenly a strange sound intruded into my consciousness. The sound was a high pitched, whirring sound. We instinctively froze in our tracks.

“¡ Cuidado! Don’t move.” Peralta moved slowly and then stopped again. “Look there.”

And there, coiled in a patch of grass adjacent to a stand of prickly pear cactus was a large, thick bodied snake, staring menacingly and shaking its tail with its collection of rattles at an extreme rate.

“A rattlesnake!” exclaimed Holmes. “A western diamondback if I am not mistaken.”

“Si senor, it will not bother us if we leave him alone. Vamonos! Let’s move away,” said Peralta.

We backed off slowly and led the now somewhat skittish horses a distance. We remounted and once again headed down the trail.

“The snakes are moving slow now. As soon as it gets colder they will go underground till spring. But you still need to watch your step!”

We saw many tracks on the trail, all old and weathered. Apparently many animals used this trail. Presently we came to the banks of a creek. There was water flowing and from the size of the creek bed the water level was low.

“This is Apache Creek,” said Peralta.

We easily forded the stream and found no horse tracks on the other side.

“It doesn’t seem any horse has been this way lately,” said Holmes. “There was no sign of the missing man anywhere?”

“No,” replied Peralta.

“Is this stream always so low?” asked Holmes.

“No,” said Peralta. “It has gone down lately but for a while it was overflowing because of a large rainstorm.”

We dismounted and Holmes made a thorough investigation of the area.

“What are these?” Holmes was pointing to a series of ruts or possible drag marks which appeared all along the banks.

“Those are drag marks from boats as they are pulled ashore or into the water.”

“Where does the creek go?” asked Holmes.

It flows into the Laguna Madre, a large body of water running along the coast between the mainland and Padre Island.”

“So from here one could potentially reach the open sea?”

“That is correct, it would be possible. There are passes through Padre Island which open out into the Gulf waters,” said Peralta.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.