Hell to Pay: A Journey to Apacheria 1886

Cha'a Many Horses #2

by Barbara Neville

If you like bad boys, with big hearts; you’ll want to meet Güero, Ma’cho, Táági and Bigan. And also our female protagonist; Cha’a Many Horses, badass cowgirl.
A 2016 NaNoWriMo winner.
Cha'a Many Horses and her compadres continue their journey through Apacheria, Arizona territory and Sonora, Mexico in 1886. The Apache are still under siege. Our multiracial heroes are threading their way between two warring cultures, not always successfully. Some are mistaken for outlaws, others for Injins. Bullets fly, knives flash. Will they survive their vacation?
While each of the books in the series is stand alone, there are ongoing stories which provide a cliffhanger at the end of each.
An excerpt from Hell to Pay: “…A velvet voice behind me says, “Why the hell are you here, Roxanne?”
I swivel around and almost fall off my barstool.
Holy fuck. It is her. I have to grab the edge of the walnut bar to right myself. How the hell? Is there no escape from her?
I can’t help myself. “Ma?” I blurt. “Damn it.”
I’ve sworn to never call the evil bitch that. Not after all she’s done. In fact, I’ve disowned her.
My Ma is Alexandra Rockefeller. Or, as I call her, X. Because X marks the spot where evil dwells.
My name was Rockefeller, too, until I had to change my identity to escape the authorities.
After I met Ma’cho, he named me Annie Talks To Horses. Because I do.
Then, my favorite grandfather came along and suggested I take his last name, which is rightfully mine as far as Injins are concerned.
Now, I’m Cha’a Many Horses. A much better name for an Osage Apache princess. Okay, also a Viking half breed. But still Injin to the core.
“Hello, Roxanne.” She walks over and busses my cheek. She always uses the full white eyes name she stuck me with at birth. The upstart. “Been fighting, I see.”
“Roxy or Annie, X. Cha’a even.”
“I named you Roxanne,” she says, bussing the other cheek.
“Fuck you, X,” I say. And, there it is. I’m blunt with mother.
The touch of her lips ignites a fiery inferno on my tender cheek. I put the less than frosty beer mug up to one of the injured spots to staunch the burn. Overacting, just for her.
She ignores that, and turns to hug Táági.
“Scorched earth, Ma,” I say, to her back, mug held tight to cheek. “Yore touch always burns like scorched earth.”
She turns her head far enough to shoot me a charming smile. “I’m happy to see you too, child.”
“I’m twenty-two years old. A full fledged adult. And it’s my life now, damn it.”
A lot of folk have vied for the title, but I swear, my Ma actually is the devil incarnate.”

368 pages, Paperback

Published February 5, 2017

About the author

2015 NaNoWriMo winner and prolific author; rustic western visionary Barbara Neville is an Arizona rancher and outdoorswoman, who writes what she knows. Her future worlds and historic past are set firmly in a longstanding tradition of caring for the land while living off of it. Cowhand, rancher, adventurer, prospector, artist and author of numerous books in the Spirit Animal series featuring Annie Many Horses. Neville writes of a speculative future, and the historic past, based on her real life experience. Her cats attend her writing sessions, preferring to lay on the keyboard. She ranches with goats, horses, guineas, peafowl, chickens, turkeys and Pyrenees livestock guardian dogs. Her dogs, goats and horses have fictional counterparts who appear in the pages of her books. She has led an unusual life of adventure, much of it off-grid.
Barb is descended from a long line of adventurous folk. Cowboys, ranchers, prospectors, settlers, homesteaders and more. She carries on the long tradition of taking the road less traveled. Her fictional world draws heavily on her own life and the people, places and experiences of previous generations.
Barb has been a rancher, horse trainer, cowhand, prospector, construction laborer, tree planter and a deckhand on Alaskan fishing boats. She has lived at various remote locations around the West.
She grew up an Air Force brat, living in such exotic locations as Spain and Hawaii. Thus she learned Spanish and Hawaiian Pidgin.
A one day round trip to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back afoot, and many mountain ski touring and snowshoe and hiking backpack weeks pepper her history. Surfing and snorkeling were her hobbies in Hawaii. A wilderness adventurer in many climes, she raises goats, makes her own cheese & rides the world's greatest horses one of whom made the cover of 'On the Rocks'.