Hanging Fire

by Eric Red

  HANGING FIRE

  A JOE NOOSE WESTERN

  ERIC RED

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  EPILOGUE

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 Smash Cut Productions, Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-4298-2

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4299-9

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4299-0

  To Barbara . . .

  for all the wonderful times

  with our family in Jackson Hole.

  CHAPTER 1

  Joe Noose had heard, never trust a man with three names. He wondered if the same held true for women.

  Bonny Kate Valance stood there in handcuffs. The wrist restraints were shackled loose with a two-foot chain because she would be riding a horse the next two days. It would be her last ride. Their point of departure was the U.S. Marshal’s office in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. At the end of the trail fifteen miles across the Teton Pass over the Idaho border lay the town of Victor. The gallows there would be Bonny Kate’s final destination. The notorious female outlaw had been sentenced to execution by hanging and it was Joe Noose’s job to get the woman there safe and sound so the state could kill her.

  The irony was not lost on Noose.

  Noose was a big man. He towered six foot three on a broad, muscular, and rugged frame. His handsome, leathery, unshaven chipped face some said looked like a picture of a Roman gladiator. Noose had never seen a picture of a gladiator, but it had always seemed like a compliment and he took it as such. On his massive block of a head his unkempt brown hair had need of a clipping. His giant hands, big as steer hooves, were encased in leather gloves against the cold. A heavy worn brown duster covered his upper torso over a checkered shirt and red bandanna around his neck. The coat had dark stains that could be mud or blood, likely both. His Stetson was tipped low over his pale blue eyes to shield them from the sharp Wyoming sun breaking over the mountain range near Hoback.

  It was there by the fork in the Snake River a month before that Noose had spent a fateful and violent few days. At the end of that misadventure fifteen men lay dead, all but three by his own hand, but the men he had killed were responsible for the murders of the three lawmen and it was justice because the murderers had it coming.

  Joe Noose had come out of it with one bullet in him—the other bullet went clear through—a bunch of busted ribs, and a few broken bones but his resilience was high; the massive cowboy was healthy and strong and healed quick. Now save for a few lingering bruises and scars on his person that made him look even tougher, folks would never know the hell he’d been through.

  The best thing Noose had gotten out of the nasty Hoback business with the Butler Gang was he had made two friends. The first was standing on four legs right in front of him, sixteen hands high, saddled up, and ready to ride: his horse, Copper. The mighty and fearless stallion was aptly named for his bronze coat; when the light was right as the morning sun was now, its hide gleamed with the metallic magnificence of a suit of armor on a medieval steed. Copper’s smart eyes were moist and brown, and powerful muscles rippled beneath its smooth tawny hide. The horse had saved Noose’s life, and the love and loyalty it had for its owner, and its owner for it, was palpable.

  The other friend Joe Noose had made was walking on her own two legs out of the Jackson Hole U.S. Marshal’s office right now. Sort of walking, anyhow. Marshal Bess Sugarland was a young hardy woman, strong and attractive with vigorous outdoor looks and flashing intelligent blue eyes. Her gaze was straight and forthright and her manner the same, although her gait was presently crooked from the wooden leg brace she hobbled on and the Winchester repeater she was using as a crutch. A bullet had nearly taken off her leg in Hoback and the wound was healing slower than Noose’s wounds had, but Marshal Bess didn’t let it slow her down. She was the law in the town of Jackson now, whether she liked it or not.

  The seven-star badge on her small chest glinted in the morning sun. Her chin was firmly set and her composure determined as she limped across the stable behind the U.S. Marshal’s office up to Noose and the outlaw standing alongside their horses, getting ready to embark on their fateful journey.

  Bess nodded to Noose then turned her gaze to Bonny Kate, choosing her words and tersely delivering them. “It ain’t for me to judge you, Miss Valance. It’s for the Lord to do that. But let me tell you one thing and you listen so you hear it good. Nothing better happen to my friend, or else.”

  Bonny Kate smiled darkly. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” There was haughtiness in the condemned outlaw’s posture, with her large bosom stuck brazenly outward in her denim shirt and her shapely blue-jeaned hips cocked in a defiant pose above her black rattlesnake-skin cowboy boots. Her demeanor displayed neither respect nor regard. Everything about the doomed Bonny Kate Valance seemed to whistle past the graveyard.

  Bess leaned in nose to nose with Bonny Kate and spoke in the kind of low, quiet way that got people’s attention. “I don’t make threats, I make promises, Miss Valance. And I promise if Joe Noose don’t come back from your hanging in one piece, I’ll dig you up and kill you again. That’s a promise I’ll keep.”

  The female outlaw stared at the marshal in disbelief, shook her head in resignation, and chuckled. “The ideas folks have about me. None of ’em true. I swear.” The outlaw sighed ruefully and shrugged her soft and delicate shoulders. “But folks best believe what they best believe, and bein’ as they all think me to be the Antichrist in petticoats there’s no telling any of ’em otherwise, so off I go to be—”

  Bonny Kate made a pulling gesture by her neck with her closed fist, cocked her head sideways, crossed her eyes, and stuck her tongue in her cheek, making a popping sound with her lips in a gr
otesque imitation of hanging. Then she rearranged her face back to normal again and wore a perplexed, confounded expression that was almost comical. “Now, here’s the part I don’t get. My mama always told me to wear clean drawers, and my whole life that has been just what this girl has done only to end up hanged as an adult and soil myself like an infant. You know that’s—”

  “Shut up, Bonny Kate. Get your posterior on that horse. You got a date with the hangman and we don’t want to keep him waiting.” Marshal Bess turned her tight, worried gaze to Joe Noose, who stood calm and patient beside Copper, brushing the horse’s golden withers with his big, rough hand. The two friends made eye contact and in their shared gaze was an unspoken shorthand born of friendship. The conversation was had in simple glances.

  A nod from Noose telling Bess he was going to be all right. A returned nod and then a second one from Bess told him to be careful. A grin and friendly touch of his finger to the tip of his Stetson from Noose told Bess to stop being foolish and quit her worrying. Joe Noose never had to say a word, and with one easy, powerful sweep of his leg he swung into the saddle of his bronze horse and was mounted up.

  This time Bess smiled back. She rounded on Bonny Kate Valance and swept up the barrel of her Winchester, now a loaded weapon, not a crutch, aimed right at the convicted woman’s narrow gut below her ample bosom. Again, Bess didn’t need to speak. A quick levering of the repeater and couple of up-and-down motions of the rifle barrel communicated the message perfectly well, and Bonny Kate took the meaning clearly. With her relative freedom of mobility in her handcuffs, the woman outlaw grabbed the saddle pommel of her tough old loaned chestnut quarter horse and slung a boot into a stirrup. After a few unladylike grunts and ungraceful clambering of her shapely legs, she struggled into the saddle and sat the horse.

  “Let’s ride,” said Noose. A nudge of his lantern jaw indicated the towering gorge of the Teton Pass to the west, just a few miles south from the spectacular snow-capped peaks of the Grand Teton mountain range rearing majestically against the brightening morning sky to their right.

  “Farewell, Bonny Kate Valance,” Bess said.

  Bonny Kate ignored Bess and with a toss of her fiery red mane of hair skillfully spurred her horse and headed off at a trot west across the field.

  “See you soon, Bess,” Noose said to the fretting female lawman below him, cradling her rifle and watching up at him with worried eyes.

  “You do that,” she said. Noose reined Copper around and patted its muscular flanks, and the big majestic bronze horse took off at a steady trot falling in right behind the Appaloosa carrying the condemned woman. Together, the two rode toward the mountains, beginning their long and hopefully uneventful journey to the steep rise of the towering pass a few miles distant. The sunlight still hadn’t touched the mountain range and the staggering sloped gradients carpeted with pine trees and yawning rock ravines lay in wait, cloaked with foreboding shadow.

  The morning air at the Wyoming high elevations was cold, crisp, and clear, rich with the scents of soil and birch. Joe Noose looked back only twice. The first time he saw Bess now stood at the window inside the U.S. Marshal’s office, capably cradling her Winchester as she watched him go. The woman looked confident and calm, for she could still get a clean shot off at Bonny Kate from there.

  The second time Noose looked back was half a mile farther on and Bess still stood in the window, a tiny speck, but her gun was down because they were out of range of the rifle. Perhaps it was just how small Marshal Bess’s little figure appeared in that window but Noose felt the pain in his friend’s forlorn bearing so he didn’t look back again. Dutifully, Noose returned his gaze to the fetching, wild redheaded woman prisoner on the horse ahead. Bonny Kate Valance struck him as pretty damn unconcerned about being hanged by the neck until dead, like she was cocksure that was never going to happen.

  Did she know something he didn’t?

  Reckon I’ll soon find out, Noose figured. In his favor, he had a Henry rifle in one saddle holster, a Winchester repeater in the other, two Colt Peacemakers freshly manufactured, cleaned, and oiled in his belt side holsters, plus enough ammo for each firearm in his bandoliers and saddlebags to hold off a small army. And he had just one unarmed woman to contend with. What could possibly go wrong?

  Probably plenty, like it usually did.

  Already, Joe Noose wanted this over with.

  CHAPTER 2

  The six lawmen were definitely out of their element and a very long way from home. They were dirty and saddle weary and had ridden for three months from the state of Arizona and the town of Phoenix, cradle of their jurisdiction. It had been a hard ride with more hard miles ahead a certainty, but they had reached their destination and there was relief in that. The officers had a job to do and were close to completing it. Still, all six of the posse had to admit the scenery of the Jackson Hole valley at the base of the gargantuan cyclopean snowy peaks of the Grand Teton mountain range was spectacular and took a man’s breath away with the sheer scope and scale of the sight. None had seen anything like it. It was impressive country beyond question, even if a man did get winded at the eight-thousand-foot elevation, but this was no vacation.

  Sheriff Waylon Bojack knew he had no actual authority as a peace officer in Wyoming but believed the piece of paper in his coat gave him plenty: it was a legal judge’s court order—even though the damn government had said the only worth this document had was paper to wipe his butt with.

  We’ll see about that, the sheriff thought.

  Sitting his horse stoically at the head of the posse of five other Arizona deputies, Sheriff Bojack cut a distinguished figure who inspired respect with his silvery beard and clean-cut hair on a leathery, lined, heroic face deeply tanned from the desert sun. Waylon Bojack looked every inch the honest, tough, and incorruptible veteran professional lawman who had seen many gunfights in his forty-year tenure. He didn’t need a badge to convey that, but wore one on his coat anyway. His sky blue eyes were piercing and direct beneath the perpetual squint he had developed from a life spent under the blazing Arizona sun—while he didn’t need to squint here, it had become his habit. He was a legend in Arizona law enforcement with a formidable reputation and spotless record but nobody in Wyoming knew him from Adam. His suntan made him clearly not from around these parts and he and his men got many inquiring and curious looks from the good people of Jackson they rode past on the streets.

  Walking past on the street, a local grocer carrying a crate of potatoes passed Sheriff Bojack’s horse and smiled a friendly greeting to the stranger. The lawman tipped his hat and leaned in his saddle with an affable smile. “Sir, may I ask you question?”

  “Sure you can.” The grocer stopped to talk.

  “I’m Sheriff Waylon Bojack from Phoenix, Arizona, and these here are my men.” The lawman gestured his hand to the five hearty younger riders as clean-cut and tanned as he was. All of them touched their hat brims respectfully. Bojack fixed the grocer in his manly blue-eyed gaze. “We’ve been told that the U.S. Marshal’s office presently has a prisoner who goes by the name of Bonny Kate Valance.”

  “Oh yes, we sure do.” The local gave a smile and Bojack immediately lost his. “Can you direct me to the U.S. Marshal’s office, please?” he said.

  “Straight down Broadway on the right. Can’t miss it. Our marshal is Bess Sugarland.”

  “A woman?” Sheriff Bojack was taken aback. He had never met a female in that position of law enforcement authority and if anybody asked him, he would have said he hoped he never would. The Arizona lawman wondered if this would change the equation.

  “Yes, sir,” the grocer replied agreeably. “Marshal Bess. She’s the law around here.”

  “Then I look forward to making her acquaintance. Thank you for your help and your time, sir.” With another tip of his Stetson, Sheriff Bojack spurred his horse forward and with a fresh sense of urgency rode toward the local U.S. Marshal’s office followed by his men on horseback.

  Waylon Boja
ck knew it was almost finished—he just didn’t know how it was going to play out.

  * * *

  These lawmen did not look happy when they saw the empty cell, was her first thought.

  A few hours had passed since Marshal Bess Sugarland stepped away from the window, feeling weighed down with sadness and dread as Joe Noose and Bonny Kate Valance shrank from view as they headed toward the Teton Pass. The Winchester felt heavy but useless in Bess’s hands because it would do her no good at the present. She didn’t even want to use it for a crutch even though the length of the gun and bend of the wooden stock fit her height and armpit perfectly. With a weary sigh, the female lawman set the repeater on the gun rack and hobbled back to her desk, sat herself, and spent the morning going over paperwork—reports to file, warrants to issue, and such. It had been an otherwise uneventful morning. A few locals came in with various problems she had to give them advice on, but she could do that from her chair.

  One thing Bess was happy about was the jail cell was empty, door left open, and that evil slut lady outlaw was out of her purview. It felt like a great weight lifted and the marshal felt relieved every time she cast a glance across the room and saw the unoccupied cell.

  It was around eleven in the morning when the Arizona posse showed up. The sound of their horses outside caught Bess’s attention and she looked up at the sound of spurs on the porch, laying eyes for the first time on the six respectable, capable-looking peace officers who doffed their hats in respect as they entered her office.

  “Howdy. What can I do for you gentlemen?” Bess said brightly, rising to her feet with some difficulty onto her wood-braced, injured leg.

  That’s when she noticed the dark, malignant looks the entire posse, especially the leader, gave to that empty cell: six sets of cold eyes fixed on it. For an instant, the lawmen’s veneer of polite courtesy vanished, replaced by a bitter, mean-spirited disappointment she could feel as much as see. But the moment passed, and just as quickly, the men assumed the deferential, gentlemanly attitudes they had led with in making their first impression walking through the door.