Fighting Back, the next installment of the McIntyre Adventures, will debut on Friday, July 3, just in time for the big Sesquicentennial celebration. As readers will recall, Gus and his friends are rushing back to Texas after receiving a telegram that stated there was trouble at the Circle H Ranch.
Meet Flemming Ibbara, an immigrant from Spain who keeps to himself while trying to refurbish a small farm on the outskirts of Santa Angela, Texas. He works his farm during the early monring hours and arrives in town at mid-afternoon to report to his bookkeeping job at The Everything Mercantile.
Ibbara is twenty years old and the product of a Jewish father and Spanish mother. He fled Spain two years ago after bludgeoning a bully with a four-foot-long walking stick that never leaves his side. It was an act of self-defense on the campus of a college in Madrid. When the bully who accosted him died, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
His father put him on a steamship to American forthwith rather than take the chance of a guilty verdict in the corrupt court system of Spain. Here is an excerpt that explains what’s taking place on the cover:
In the dry, windblown environment of Santa Angela, Flemming Ibbara’s appearance was dapper for a rugged frontier town. For two fun-loving cowboys with too much alcohol in their bloodstream, he looked refined, foreign, wealthy, and an easy, bespectacled target.
Ibbara pretended to ignore the men who intended to block his path and jostle him. Dark, deep-set eyes studied them from above, tiny reading spectacles that rested atop a prominent nose.
Here we go again. When will these young thugs learn?
His right fist tightened on the walking stick that accompanied him wherever he traveled. His left hand retrieved a pocket watch from a tiny vest pocket, flipped open the lid, and revealed the day’s time. He wondered how long the confrontation might delay his arrival at the mercantile.
Ibbara stopped when he was ordered to, removed his glasses, and looked up at the drunken duo. Both wore six-shooters on their hips; the one on the left had his holster tied just above his knee. Most likely, he was the fastest of the two and would be Ibbara’s first target if things turned ugly.
And Flemming knew they would.
“Look what we have here, Davy,” the man on the left said.
“I’ve never seen shit piled so high,” Davy Moore replied.
“He smells like shit, too,” said the gunslinger, Tucker Morgan.
“Do you talk shit, too, mister?” Davy asked.
Both men laughed.
Ibbara stared but didn’t say a word. He was taking in every movement and calculating when he would need to strike.
As expected, the gunslinger took a step closer, pulled his pistol, and jammed the barrel into Ibbara’s shoulder.
“We’re talking to you, mister. What do you have to say for yourself?” he said.
Flemming just smiled, his dark, beady eyes measuring every movement. The cowboy’s glassy eyes would tell him when to make his move.
The gunslinger turned to his buddy and said, “I don’t think this ugly man can talk, Davy. He’s what society calls a misfit. He doesn’t belong walking among us normal folks.”
Behind Flemming’s smile was the knowledge that the overconfident gunslinger didn’t have his finger on the trigger of the pistol that thumped his shoulder. He wasn’t going to wait for that to happen either.
Buy FIGHTING BACK to find out what happens next. Just click the link below.