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    Smith's Monthly #1: Smith's Monthly, #1
    Smith's Monthly #1: Smith's Monthly, #1
    Smith's Monthly #1: Smith's Monthly, #1
    Ebook373 pages5 hours

    Smith's Monthly #1: Smith's Monthly, #1

    By Dean Wesley Smith

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    About this ebook

    Over fifty-five thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith.

    In this first monthly volume the full novel Dust and Kisses, plus four short stories and two serialized novels, The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy and The Adventures of Hawk.

    Short Stories

    The Road Back

    The Secrets of Yesterday

    The Big Tick of Time

    The Case of the Dog-Bit Arm

    Full Novel

    Dust and Kisses

    Serial Fiction

    The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy (Part 1)

    The Adventures of Hawk (Part 1)

    Nonfiction

    Introduction: Welcome to the Craziness

    The First Tee Panic

    Poems

    He Went Out

    The Last Croak

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWMG Publishing
    Release dateAug 4, 2016
    ISBN9781536516777
    Smith's Monthly #1: Smith's Monthly, #1
    Author

    Dean Wesley Smith

    Considered one of the most prolific writers working in modern fiction, USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith published far more than a hundred novels in forty years, and hundreds of short stories across many genres. At the moment he produces novels in several major series, including the time travel Thunder Mountain novels set in the Old West, the galaxy-spanning Seeders Universe series, the urban fantasy Ghost of a Chance series, a superhero series starring Poker Boy, and a mystery series featuring the retired detectives of the Cold Poker Gang. His monthly magazine, Smith’s Monthly, which consists of only his own fiction, premiered in October 2013 and offers readers more than 70,000 words per issue, including a new and original novel every month. During his career, Dean also wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, he wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of almost a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown. Dean also worked as a fiction editor off and on, starting at Pulphouse Publishing, then at VB Tech Journal, then Pocket Books, and now at WMG Publishing, where he and Kristine Kathryn Rusch serve as series editors for the acclaimed Fiction River anthology series. For more information about Dean’s books and ongoing projects, please visit his website at www.deanwesleysmith.com and sign up for his newsletter.

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      Smith's Monthly #1 - Dean Wesley Smith

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      The Road Back

      The Secrets of Yesterday

      The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy

      The Big Tick of Time

      The Adventures of Hawk

      The Case of the Dog-Bit Arm

      The First Tee Panic

      He Went Out

      Dust and Kisses

      The Last Croak

      About the Author

      Copyright Information

      Introduction

      WELCOME TO THE CRAZINESS

      DEAN WESLEY SMITH

      I’M HAVING A HARD TIME actually believing that I need to write this. The idea of a magazine filled entirely with one writer’s short stories, serials, articles, and full novels seems just nuts, plain and simple.

      And honestly, with me being that writer, doing almost one hundred thousand words of content every month, it becomes totally insane.

      Yet here I am, writing this first introduction.

      And honestly, this idea would have been impossible to do just four years ago. But publishing has changed and writing fiction has changed and this magazine is going into a new world.

      A crazy new world, granted, but a new world.

      So let me tell you just a little about myself first. I’ll make it quick, I promise so you can get on to the stories and serials and novel.

      I sold my first short story in 1975 at the ripe old age of twenty-five. I had just the year before moved back to Moscow, Idaho to return to college after spending time in the late 1960s and up to 1974 both skiing and playing professional golf. I got back to college in late 1974 and because of an English requirement in my architecture degree program, I took a beginner’s poetry class.

      The instructor of that class forced her students to send off poems to this national college poetry contest. I was the first student of hers to ever win it or even get into the book. So for a year I wrote poems and mailed them all over the place and got into a bunch of literary magazines with them. Then, as a lark, because I couldn’t type, I wrote out this one-thousand-word short story and had a friend type it. I mailed it before I could think twice about it.

      It got bought.

      So I wrote another one real quick, again the massive length of one thousand words.

      The editor purchased that story as well.

      Then for the next seven years I bought into every myth in publishing and wrote slow and rewrote everything to death and sold nothing. Nada. Zip. (Thankfully, all those stories burned up in a house fire in 1985.)

      Finally in 1982, after dropping out of law school in my last year because I didn’t want to be a lawyer, I started to study how other professional fiction writers that I admired did it. Duh. Wish I had thought of that seven years earlier. So I started to follow the advice from Heinlein and Bradbury and Ellison and Block.

      And I started selling and never looked back.

      Since then I have sold well over one hundred novels to traditional publishers and hundreds and hundreds of short stories. I also worked as a publisher and as an editor. I wrote over twenty Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, and a bunch of movie novelizations including The Tenth Kingdom with my wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley.

      I wrote scripts, movies, and comics along the way as well. Anything a professional writer would do to keep the money flowing. I wrote under upwards of fifty or more pen names over the years as well. I have only worked as a fiction writer and in the publishing world since I left my last real job in 1988. (Wow, that’s a long time.)

      So last spring I was doing a ghost novel for a New York publisher because the writer was too sick to write it and they needed it and they tossed more money at me than was decent. I couldn’t talk about the novel itself, but on my blog I detailed out each day of the ten days it took me to write the novel. It seemed a lot of writers and fans really loved that, even though I couldn’t tell them anything about the book.

      So in July, 2013, as I cast around for a new challenge for myself and my writing in this new indie publishing world, I came upon the idea of doing a series called Writing in Public. Every day now on my blog at www.deanwesleysmith.com I put up a post about what I managed to do during the day, including details about my day.

      Far more information that most people want, but alas, I started it, so I’m keeping going now into the second month. And people tell me they enjoy it and are reading it. Even my wife finds it entertaining and she lives in the same house with me. She tells me that now she knows what I do all day.

      But if I was going to Write in Public starting on August 1st, I needed to tell people where the stories were going and when they would be out. That’s fairly easy to do in this indie world, so I hadn’t given it much thought past that. Then one day I was casting about for a title to get me started on a new novel when I grabbed one of my Zane Gray Magazines.

      Right beside that were the Mike Shayne Magazines. And on another shelf were the Asimov’s SF Magazines and the Ellery Queen Magazines. In Zane Gray’s Magazine, Zane Gray tended to do an entire novel every month. I thought that would be fun, so I mentioned it to my wife on a drive to see some Shakespeare plays down in Ashland, Oregon in June.

      I told her I figured I would do mostly new, filling the entire magazine every month, and when I couldn’t, I had enough stories in my inventory to keep the magazine going for a very long time.

      Surprisingly, she didn’t laugh at me. It always worries me when she doesn’t laugh at one of my hair-brained schemes.

      In fact, she liked the idea a lot and helped me fine-tune the entire thing. And she was the one who came up with the title Smith’s Monthly.

      So now this starts into the new world, with the very first issue of Smith’s Monthly. It’s going to be available in trade paper and electronic. I hope you’ll stay with me on this ride.

      All I can promise is entertaining fiction. A lot of it, actually.

      Every month.

      —Dean Wesley Smith

      September 6th, 2013,

      Lincoln City, Oregon

      USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith returns to the world of his acclaimed thriller Dead Money with a new problem for professional poker player, Doc Hill.

      Doc agrees to help find a missing college student, the son of the Las Vegas Chief of Police. But little did Doc know that such a simple case would turn out to be so large and ugly and dangerous.

      The Road Back gives readers a perfect introduction to the world of Doc Hill and professional poker.

      When you are short-stacked in poker,

      and in life, the road back

      to being in contention

      often has a very sudden end.

      ONE

      DO WE HAVE any idea where he might be? I asked Annie over my shoulder.

      She had crouched down behind my chair at the no-limit ring game I had joined a few hours before at the Bellagio. I was almost a thousand up and had been enjoying the game as a warm-up for a series of poker tournaments coming later in the week to the Bellagio.

      I seldom played regular ring games anymore, only tournaments. But at times it felt right to just sit and play for a time. This hot September afternoon was one of those times to relax in the air-conditioned poker room and drink iced tea and win a little money in the process.

      Not a clue, she said. Dad’s got all the information.

      Annie had her long brown hair pulled back and the white blouse and dark slacks she wore accented her perfect body. She was the best-looking former Las Vegas detective I had ever met, with brown eyes that could stare through to your soul. Actually, she was one of the best-looking women I had ever met, and also one of most deadly poker players in the modern game.

      In the year we had been together, she had taken down a dozen tournaments and won two World Series of Poker bracelets for two different events.

      Now she wanted my help to find some guy her dad thought was missing. Actually, her dad, Detective Bayard Lott, also a former Las Vegas police detective, wanted her help and she was asking if I would help out as well.

      You want me to deal you in, Doc? the dealer asked.

      No, thanks, Al, I said, pushing back from the table as Annie stood and stepped back. I flipped him a twenty-five dollar chip and he tapped it and nodded thanks before slipping it into his tip slot.

      I turned and nodded to Ben, the brush in charge of the room at the moment who was headed my way from the poker room desk.

      Cash you out? he asked.

      I flipped him a twenty-five dollar chip as well and said, Thanks. Just add it to the account.

      I had had a running account at the Bellagio for almost ten years now. Made it easier than hauling racks of chips to the cage all the time. And after the two tips, I had five hundred in starting money in my stack and another eight hundred and fifty in winnings.

      My chip vanished into Ben’s pocket and he worked to rack the rest as I turned and headed with Annie out of the poker room and into the noise and bells of customers filling the slots.

      Dinner? I asked, realizing I was starting to get hungry as we turned toward the front of the casino.

      Dad’s meeting us in the Café Bellagio, she said.

      I laughed, taking her hand. You were pretty sure I was going to help you, huh?

      Not really, she said, smiling at me as we wound our way through the people toward the restaurant. I would have gotten the information from Dad and told you later if you were really interested in staying in the game.

      It was enough warm-up, I said. More than enough, actually.

      Lucky for those guys at the table, she said, laughing. You warm-up much more and they would have been broke.

      That’s the point, isn’t it? I asked.

      She agreed and then waved at her father sitting at a semi-private four-person table off to one side of the café where it looked out over the pool. The smell of hamburgers and steaks drifted from the direction of the kitchen and my stomach rumbled. I really was hungrier than I had realized.

      I liked her dad a great deal. He looked pretty sharp for his sixty-three years with short-cut white hair, broad shoulders, and only a hint of a gut around his stomach. He had a wicked sense of humor and his laugh could start an entire room laughing with him.

      He and a bunch of his retired detective friends played poker every week in the basement of his house and worked to solve cold cases for the Las Vegas Police Department on the side. They called themselves the Cold Poker Gang. Annie and I helped them when we could.

      But from what Annie said, this didn’t sound like a cold case. More like a missing person problem. And in Vegas, there were always a lot of those.

      For all sorts of reasons.

      TWO

      I WAS INTO my rib steak and onion rings, Annie was picking at her hamburger, and her dad was about halfway done with his French Dip before Annie finally broached the subject.

      So who is missing and why are you involved, Dad?

      Steve Benson Junior, he said between bites.

      Both Annie and I glanced at him.

      Finally Annie asked exactly what I was thinking. The son of Chief of Police Steven Benson?

      One and the same, her dad said. Chief Benson called me, asked if I would look into it for him.

      He thinks his son is in trouble? I asked.

      Annie’s dad shook his head. Not that kind of trouble. He’s a good kid, graduate student at UNLV focusing on Nevada history. But his dad this morning went to meet him for breakfast and Steve didn’t show up. Steve’s best friend hasn’t seen him either.

      And his dad’s worried? Annie asked.

      I would be too, her father said, smiling at her. Steve is like you in that he calls when he has to cancel something.

      He have a car? I asked.

      Red Jeep SUV, he said. About a year old. It’s missing as well.

      So he went somewhere and hasn’t returned yet, Annie said. More than likely he’s fine.

      Her dad nodded. That’s what the Chief thinks as well, but he’s still worried. Steve’s cell isn’t picking up. I think that’s really why the Chief called me. He doesn’t want this out yet, so he’s just calling in personal favors at the moment.

      I sat back munching on a crisp onion ring, thinking. My little voice was telling me that something was wrong with this kid. I didn’t know him and I didn’t know his father, but this felt wrong for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on.

      However, when at a poker table, I had learned to trust that little voice when it told me something was wrong with a play another player made. And in life I had also learned to trust that voice. And right now the very same voice was telling me we needed to move on this and fast.

      I finished the onion ring and leaned forward toward Annie’s dad. Could you call the chief and ask him if Steve is back yet? And if not, could we go look at his apartment?

      Detective Lott slid the key across the table at me, smiling. Steve wasn’t back five minutes before you two showed up, and I got this key from the Chief before coming over here.

      I just shook my head and grinned as Annie patted her father’s arm, smiling. It was no wonder the guy had been such a great detective in his day. He was a half step ahead of everything.

      THREE

      STEVE’S APARTMENT near the university seemed far neater than I would have expected a grad student’s apartment to be. And it was clear with only a quick look that there was nothing at all out of place.

      Nothing.

      The apartment had one bedroom with a living room with only a couch and chair and a large desk in it. A small, clean dining room table with four chairs sat near the open kitchen. There was a bathroom off the bedroom.

      There was no sign at all of any woman’s touch in here. Everything was standard apartment except the large computer on an L-shaped desk on the left side of the living room and large wall of books on the right side, mostly textbooks that at a glance I was glad I never would have to read. My college days were a long ways behind me now.

      However, one full shelf was full of books on various aspects of Nevada history that looked very interesting, from the gold rush towns to railroad history to the founding of Las Vegas.

      All of them in perfect order by author.

      Annie was looking through Steve’s desk. There were a couple of books open on the desk on Nevada place names and another on lost mines of Nevada.

      Can you access that computer? I asked Annie. See what he was researching before he left?

      If it’s not password protected, she said, sitting down in the chair and moving the wireless keyboard closer toward her.

      Her father came out of the bathroom shaking his head. This kid is the cleanest kid I have ever seen. Nothing out of place, no sign that anyone else but him even visited here. Not even a hair on his comb.

      He folds his socks and underwear, I said. His bed is made, even though he slept in it recently. And he washed his breakfast dishes before he left, more than likely yesterday morning, since the dishes are completely dry as is the dish towel.

      Annie brought the computer up and then shook her head. Protected.

      He’s going to have a password book, I said. Upper drawer on the left.

      She opened the drawer and pulled out a small notebook, shaking her head. How did you know that?

      Someone like Steve is completely predictable. Every move, every detail. It’s how his mind works. He has no choice.

      Easy pickings on a poker table, Annie said.

      He’d never sit down at one, I said. He wouldn’t be able to handle the uncertainty that comes naturally with the game.

      Obsessive-compulsive? Annie’s dad asked.

      Borderline, Annie said, nodding. It goes toward hoarding or being neat freaks.

      We know which way Steve goes, I said.

      As Annie worked on the computer and bringing up the history, I went back into the small apartment bedroom. Steve had his shoes lined up perfectly along the bottom of his closet, from dress shoes through tennis shoes to boots. There was an empty spot between a pair of tennis shoes and a heavy pair of boots. That’s where he would put his hiking boots.

      His shirts were lined up hanging in his closet and there was a clear opening where a light casual shirt had clearly hung. More than likely brown from the patterns of the colors.

      I went into the bathroom and opened the medicine chest. There was an empty spot where a tube of suntan lotion would have sat right between a small jar of Vaseline and a tube of blister cream.

      I closed the cabinet and went back into the living room with the desk and books. He’s gone into the desert. More than likely yesterday morning. My guess is he was planning on returning before dark last night and something happened.

      Annie’s dad looked around at the apartment. I can see why the Chief was worried, now.

      Got it, Annie said, moving back through the history of what Steve had last looked at on his computer.

      The very last thing was a map of an area of the Nevada desert to the north and west of Las Vegas along Highway 95.

      Skeleton Mountains, Annie said, hitting a button to print up the map just as I was sure Steve had done.

      One of the books open on the desk referred to the area as well, and I picked it up as Annie kept going back through the history on the computer.

      Seems the Skeleton Mountains were a group of rocky peaks sticking up out of the desert about ten miles to the west of the highway. The article said that no one knew exactly how it got its name. From what I could tell in the book, the rocky peaks had just always been named that.

      And they weren’t that big, with the largest being not more than six or seven hundred feet off the desert. Compared to the mountains I spent the summer in every year in central Idaho, guiding rafts on the River of No Return, these Skeleton Mountains were nothing more than large piles of rocks.

      He was researching some old patented mining claims in those mountains, Annie said, again hitting the print button. All of them are long dormant and never produced anything of real value.

      So we know where he went, Annie’s father said, nodding.

      Get a search team set up from the Chief, I said to him as Annie printed a second copy of the map of the small group of mountains.

      Where are you going? Annie’s dad asked, as he pulled out his phone.

      Fleet’s in town and he loves testing out his new helicopter, I said, and Annie laughed. He’ll get us up there and we’ll see what we can see from the air, see if we can spot his car before you and the Chief get there.

      I was on the phone to my best friend and business partner, Fleet, and Annie’s father was talking with the Chief of Police as we headed out into the hot early evening air and Annie pulled the door to the apartment closed behind us.

      FOUR

      FLEET LIVED IN BOISE with his family. Annie and I had a house there as well, but unlike Fleet, we were seldom in Boise. Fleet had a wonderful wife and two kids there, but at the moment they were all here, letting the kids have one last vacation before school started up again.

      Fleet had decided that our company needed a helicopter to go along with our own private jet. It seemed that over the years, his investments of my poker winnings had made us, as he said, stupidly rich. We gave millions away to charity every year and spent what we wanted and somehow just managed to get richer.

      Fleet was that good with business and investments.

      My father’s death a year ago had just added more millions than I wanted to think about into the picture.

      When Fleet bought the jet helicopter for the company, he had decided he wanted to fly it, much to his wife’s horror. And in the last year he had become a very good pilot.

      On the phone I told him what was going on and he almost beat us to the airport, even though we had a shorter distance to go. Any excuse to take out the helicopter was a great idea as far as he was concerned.

      Within forty minutes after leaving Steve’s apartment, we were airborne and headed for the Skeleton Mountains, the loud drone of the chopper a constant noise around us.

      So what do you think we’re going to find? Fleet asked through the communications links we all wore.

      Annie was in the co-pilot chair because she had taken a few lessons with the chopper last year. I was behind them, strapped in tight. I wasn’t afraid of flying, but I had to admit having my friend from childhood doing the flying didn’t instill great confidence, even though he had a lot of hours in the air already.

      Besides rocks and snakes? Annie asked.

      She moved slightly so I could see the wink she gave me.

      I smiled. Fleet was deathly afraid of snakes. Any kind and size of snake, actually. And everyone knew it.

      Not funny, he said.

      If we have to land, you can stay in the chopper, I said. There will be snakes.

      Fleet shook his head. You two sure know how to kill a good flight.

      Less than fifteen minutes after leaving the Las Vegas airport, the mountains sort of rose from the rolling desert floor in front of us. They were sure nothing to look at. Mostly rocks and scattered open areas covered in scrub brush. I hadn’t been kidding Fleet. Those rocks would be infested with snakes, since it was clear the area got little or no attention by humans at all.

      Come in from Highway 95, I said to Fleet. See if you can spot a road into those mountains.

      Fleet nodded and slowed until Annie pointed ahead.

      A bare excuse of a dirt road left the highway and wound toward the mountains.

      Fleet banked over it and followed the road, moving slowly as we all studied the area.

      There was no place to hide below us at all. Just open desert and scrub.

      Up ahead the road started to wind up a small canyon and then seemed to break out into an open flat area before going back into another canyon and deeper into the piles of rocks laughingly called mountains.

      Nothing but huge rocks and scrub brush.

      On the right, Annie said, pointing.

      It took me a moment, but finally I saw what she was pointing at. A glint of the sun reflected off some metal. At closer look I could see hints of a red car hidden beside a rock and covered with scrub brush. Someone had spent a lot of time in the task of hiding the car and had the car off the road so it couldn’t be seen by anyone driving in.

      Someone really wanted that hidden, Fleet said, shaking his head.

      My stomach was twisting like my rib steak was suddenly not agreeing with me.

      Same speed, I said to Fleet. Just keep going straight and off into the desert on the other side of the mountains.

      Like we’re on Fleet’s tour of the desert, he said and did as he was told.

      Annie had her cell phone to her ear as all of us watched the ground below. To the right of our flight path I could see a trail going up to what looked to be an old mine entrance. There was no sign of anyone there, but that meant nothing.

      Then, near where the dirt road came out the other side of another rock canyon and started across the desert, I spotted an old pickup truck parked under a rock outcropping. It was brown and clearly dusty and blended in perfectly with the rocks.

      Truck on the right, I said as we went past and out into the desert just as if we were a sightseeing chopper doing nothing unusual.

      Get us away from these rocks and turn back toward Vegas until we are completely out of sight, I said to Fleet.

      Looks like the kid found some real problems he didn’t expect in there, Fleet said.

      Dad, Annie said into her cell. We found Steve’s car, but looks like he’s in trouble with someone living in an old mine in the Skeleton Mountains.

      She waited for a second. They hid his car, she said. Spent a lot of time doing so, actually.

      Again a pause as her father said something on the other side of the conversation that I couldn’t hear.

      There is, Annie said. A brown pickup, dirty, also hidden. We’ve moved away from the mountains to not spook anyone in there.

      Then she gave a description of the truck to her father.

      This one-sided conversation was driving me crazy. I had a hunch that the longer we delayed, the less chance Steve was going to make it. He had clearly walked into something ugly.

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