A Jensen Family Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

“I . . . I . . . Sure, I guess so—”

  Birch yelled, “Now hold on! Nobody’s gonna be talkin’ to the damn law. If anybody’s got anything to say, it’s gonna be us.”

  “You boys won’t be doin’ any talkin’,” Scratch said.

  “Oh?” Birch put his hands on his waist and demanded, “Why the hell not?”

  “Because if you don’t let go of that fella and get the hell out of here right now, you’re gonna be dead,” Scratch said. “That’s why not.”

  Birch stared at him for a couple of heartbeats, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what he had just heard.

  Then, howling a curse, he stabbed his hand toward the gun on his hip.

  CHAPTER 2

  Bo and Scratch had been in enough gunfights over the years that they didn’t have to talk about what they were going to do or even exchange a glance. They just knew instinctively how to proceed in this deadly confrontation.

  Bo went left and Scratch went right, splitting apart to make themselves more difficult targets.

  The Colt leaped into Bo’s hand as if by magic. Scratch was just a hair slower hauling out the Remingtons but faster on the draw than most men.

  Birch and one of his companions cleared leather before the other two would-be thieves, so they were the biggest danger. Bo targeted Birch. They fired at almost the same time, the reports coming so close together, they sounded like one shot.

  Bo felt as much as heard the wind-rip as Birch’s slug passed within a couple of inches of his ear. It missed because a shaved fraction of an instant earlier, Bo’s bullet had slammed into Birch’s chest and had caused him to jerk his hand slightly.

  Birch took a step back and swayed a little as he gazed down in horror at the blood bubbling from the hole in his chest.

  Then he folded up like an empty paper sack being crumpled in a giant hand.

  A few yards away, Scratch fired while on the move. Both long-barreled, ivory-handled Remingtons roared and bucked in his hands.

  The man he targeted got a shot off, too, but it went wide to Scratch’s left, passing harmlessly between him and Bo. Meanwhile, the two .44 slugs from Scratch’s revolvers pounded into the man’s body, one striking him in the chest while the other ripped into his Adam’s apple.

  The man went over backward, crimson fountaining from his bullet-torn throat.

  The other two had managed to get their guns out by now, but seeing what had happened to their companions unnerved them. One yelled a curse and fired, but his shot didn’t come anywhere close to either Bo or Scratch.

  With more time to aim, Bo drilled the third man through the shoulder, shattering bone and spinning him halfway around. The man cried out in pain and dropped his gun, then clutched his wounded shoulder with his other hand as he fell to his knees. Blood welled redly between his fingers.

  If he was lucky, he might be able to use his right arm again, at least a little, but it would take a long time for him to recover that much. He was out of the fight now, that was for sure.

  The fourth and final man who had been trying to rob Cyrus Keegan saw Scratch’s revolvers swinging rapidly toward him. He dropped his gun so vehemently that it flew a good six feet in front of him before it thudded to the ground.

  “Don’t shoot!” he cried as he thrust both hands into the air. “For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”

  Scratch’s thumbs had both hammers drawn back. He held them there and said, “Don’t move, hombre. If you do, I’ll let daylight through you, sure as hell.”

  “I . . . I won’t. I swear! I don’t want any trouble!”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” Bo said. “It looked to me like you and your pards were trying to rough up and rob this fella.”

  “We . . . we were just gonna take his money. You didn’t have to kill Birch and Sadler!”

  “They shouldn’t have thrown down on us,” Scratch drawled. “That’s the reason they’re dead.”

  Bo motioned with his gun and said, “Back away, mister, but don’t try to run off.” He looked at the intended victim. “Are you all right, Mr. Keegan?”

  Cyrus Keegan had stood stock-still while the shooting was going on. He was pale and wide eyed but still composed. He nodded and said, “I think so. They hadn’t gotten around to really trying to hurt me yet. But they would have.”

  “More than likely,” Bo agreed. “Step off to the side over there, just in case either of these varmints gets any more ideas.”

  That seemed pretty unlikely. The wounded man was still on his knees, clutching his shoulder and whimpering, while the man who had surrendered still had his hands in the air and looked too scared to try anything.

  The gun thunder had been enough to attract plenty of attention. Bo heard shouts from the street, then running footsteps. A couple of men carrying shotguns burst into the alley from the passage beside the saloon.

  Seeing law badges pinned to the newcomers’ shirts, Bo and Scratch pouched their irons and stood easy, hands in plain sight. Making a man holding a scattergun nervous was never a good idea.

  The deputies pointed the weapons at Bo and Scratch. One of them demanded, “What in blazes is goin’ on here?”

  “Gentlemen,” Keegan said as he moved forward a little, “I can explain everything.”

  One of the deputies swung his shotgun toward Keegan and snapped, “Hold it right there.”

  Keegan stopped and hastily thrust his hands up, too.

  “I’m unarmed,” he said. With a nod toward Bo and Scratch, he added, “And these two men haven’t done anything wrong. They kept me from being robbed, and they may well have saved my life.”

  “Are those fellas dead?” the second deputy asked as he stared at the robbers called Birch and Sadler, who lay motionless in slowly spreading pools of blood.

  “If they ain’t, they’re doin’ a mighty good imitation of it,” the first deputy responded with a note of impatience in his voice. “Of course they’re dead!”

  “I’d be glad to explain everything,” Keegan said again.

  “Save it for the marshal.” The first deputy glanced over his shoulder. “Here he comes now.”

  Indeed, another man had entered the alley behind the buildings. He strolled unhurriedly toward the scene of the shootings, but Bo noted that the lawman kept his hand on the butt of the gun at his hip, just in case he needed it. Such caution was common among men who packed a star.

  This man was well built, a little taller than average, wearing a brown suit and vest and hat. His badge was pinned to his coat lapel. A luxuriant mustache adorned his upper lip, and thick, wavy hair came down over his ears and touched his collar. He was a handsome man and obviously a bit of a dandy.

  The deputies spread out a little so the marshal could step up between them. He came to a stop and said, “Mr. Keegan, is that you?”

  “Yes, Marshal,” Keegan replied, putting his hands down.

  With an amused smile on his face, despite the carnage in the alley, the marshal said, “For a man in your line of work, you seem to find yourself in the middle of trouble fairly often.”

  “I know, and I can’t explain it, Marshal. You know what a peaceable man I am.”

  The lawman just grunted and said, “Tell me what happened here.”

  “These men”—Keegan waved a hand to indicate the two bodies, the wounded man, and the one with his hands still in the air—“grabbed me off the street, brought me back here, and were going to assault and rob me. I was quite in fear of losing my life, not just my money and valuables, when these two gentlemen came along and intervened on my behalf.”

  Coolly, the marshal regarded Bo and Scratch, then asked, “And who might you be?”

  “Bo Creel,” Bo said, introducing himself.

  “Scratch Morton,” Scratch added.

  The marshal appeared to consider for a moment before saying, “I don’t recognize the names from any wanted posters.”

  “That’s because there ain’t any dodgers out on us,” Scratch said.

  That might be stret
ching the truth just a little, Bo thought. He and Scratch had run afoul of lawmen—usually, but not always, crooked ones—in the past, and a few, mostly spurious, charges had been levied against them here and there. Nothing serious enough to have bounty hunters tracking them down, but there were areas in the West where rewards were still posted on them.

  As far as they knew, however, they weren’t wanted in Texas, so there was no need to bring up any of those other places.

  “You killed those two men?” the marshal asked as he nodded toward Birch and Sadler.

  “We gave them a chance to walk away,” Bo said.

  “They weren’t of a mind to,” Scratch said. “They drew first.”

  Keegan said, “That’s very true, Marshal, and I’ll testify to it if I need to.”

  “You’ll need to,” the marshal said. “There’ll have to be an inquest on these deaths.”

  He relaxed and hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets as he looked at Bo and Scratch.

  “But I don’t doubt that they’ll be ruled justifiable killings. Because of that, I’m not going to take you two gents into custody. In fact, you may have the thanks of the community coming to you. There’s been a rash of such violent robberies recently. A couple of the victims have been beaten so badly they died. So there’s a good chance you just rid Fort Worth of a pair of murderers and will be responsible for two more being locked up.”

  The robber who had surrendered blurted out, “I never killed nobody, Marshal. That was all Birch’s doin’. If anybody tried to put up a fight, he’d get mad and hit ’em too much and too hard.”

  The lawman smiled and said, “We’ll be sure that’s entered into the record at your trial.”

  He turned to his deputies. “Get the prisoners out of here. That one’s shoulder will need patching up, but you can send for the doctor once you’ve got them behind bars, where they belong. And get the undertaker back here, too.”

  To Bo and Scratch, he said, “As I said, you’re not under arrest, but don’t leave town until after the inquest is held.”

  “We weren’t plannin’ to, Marshal,” Scratch said. “We just got here.”

  “And found yourselves up to your necks in a shooting scrape almost right away,” the lawman mused. “Does trouble seem to follow you around?”

  “It’s sort of stubborn that way, all right,” Bo said.

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen, the Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Flintlock, and Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers The Doomsday Bunker, Tyranny, and Black Friday.

  Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.

  The elder Johnstone began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J. A. worked hard—and learned.

  “Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers—and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: Be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”

  Visit the website at www.williamjohnstone.net.