Trammel did not have the strength to stand in the same place where he had just killed so many men and debate a man like Charles Hagen. But he knew the rancher would not let him go until he got an answer, so he gave him one. “I never thought I was going to live through this dustup, Hagen, so I didn’t really think it through. But I’ve had plenty of time to do that while I was unconscious just now and it all just settled into place. We’ll keep it real simple. By making this thirty on eleven, we take the notoriety out of what happened here. No legends, no campfire tales, no glory. Blackstone goes back to being a peaceful place and the Blackstone Ranch goes back to lording over the town like it always has.”
“It’s not that simple anymore, Trammel. Things have gone too far.”
“That’s just the way it’s going to be, Hagen. You let Bookman go to jail for the attempted murder of your son and of me. In exchange for your silence, your name gets kept out of this. We pin all of the unpleasantness between us on Bookman”—Trammel eyed the rancher carefully—“and it all ends with him. No further questions about why he did what he did it. No further questions about who told him to do it.”
King Charles Hagen walked away from Trammel and stared up at his ranch high on the distant hill. “John Bookman and I have ridden a good piece together. We’ve been through a lot. He knows a lot, too. Maybe too much for what you’re proposing.”
“Every journey comes to an end one way or the other,” Trammel told him. “And Bookman knows an awful lot about an awful lot of people. Stands to reason there are some folks who won’t want him to testify in court. Too much of what he knows might come out. No one wants that. Not you, not the judges, and not the county. Or do you?”
For the first time since arriving in Blackstone, Trammel felt Hagen’s discomfort. This decisive man was actually struggling with what to do next. “Damn it, Trammel. You’re practically condemning this man to a death sentence.”
“He condemned himself the second he put a gun to my head. Anything that happens to him now is all his doing.”
Hagen slowly turned to face him. “As I recall, I pointed a gun at your head the same time John did. That mean I’m condemned, too, Buck?”
Trammel was still angry about what had happened in the rancher’s home not so long ago. He was embarrassed by the memory and angry that any man could claim they had been able to cow him like that.
He also knew that he was on the edge of brokering some kind of peace with Hagen that he needed. Trammel had been fighting too many people for too long. Adam Hagen, Charles Hagen, Lucien Clay, Jesse Alcott, the Pinkerton men, the bounty hunters. Not to mention all of the usual drunks and dregs that needed jailing in town. The drunks and dregs came with the job. The rest of it could go away with a simple peace, and he needed that peace with Hagen.
Trammel had been willing to give up glory by sharing the events of Stone Gate with the Blackstone Ranch. He had to be willing to be humble for the sake of peace.
“No, you’re not condemned. But you quit trying to fight Adam and me. Blackstone is a town, Mr. Hagen, not a battleground. I won’t have anyone treat it like one. Not you. Not anyone.” It took him a great effort to swallow every bit of pride he had as he held out his hand to the rancher. And he could see King Charles Hagen struggle just as much to take it.
Trammel looked through the opening in Stone Gate when he heard the ranch hands call out that someone was approaching. He saw they were still in the process of pulling the dead men and horses from the road when a team of horses pulling a wagon appeared. Smith, the liveryman, was driving the team, and Emily was sitting right beside him.
Hagen broke their grip and stepped aside. “Looks like you don’t need my help anymore, Trammel. You’ve got your own doctor.”
Hawkeye rushed to greet her and help her down from the wagon. But, ever an impatient woman, she had already jumped down on her own and was running to Trammel before Hawkeye got there.
At the sight of her, his leg didn’t hurt so much anymore. “Looks like I do at that.”
CHAPTER 31
A week later on a crisp October morning, Sheriff Buck Trammel rode alongside the wagon Doctor Emily Downs was driving. She had operated properly on the stab wound in his leg and he was well on his way to walking without a limp.
Adam Hagen sat beside her, dressed in a black suit and matching coat draped around his shoulders like a cape on account of his arm still being in a sling.
The prisoner Somerset, still recovering nicely from his wounds, sat in the wagon’s flatbed. His newly healed feet were tied together by a rope and his good left arm was tied to his waist. The broken fingers on his left hand were healing nicely, according to the doctor.
Deputy Hauk, his balance and vision restored to almost normal, brought up the rear. “Ain’t life funny?” he observed.
Trammel had come to the conclusion that his deputy’s recent brushes with death had served to make him more introspective than before. The sheriff had never considered himself a thoughtful man, but had decided to indulge Hawkeye’s nature until he had fully regained his faculties. “What do you mean?”
“I mean a week ago today, at this very moment, we was all doin’ somethin’ different. I was ridin’ out to Stone Gate to warn you about Alcott and his men comin’ your way before I rode up to the Hagen place and set them a-runnin’ to you. Mr. Hagen here was defending Mrs. Downs from them Pinkertons while Somerset was thinkin’ about all that freedom he was going to enjoy in Laramie.
“Now, look at us. Ridin’ together on a beautiful day to watch Mrs. Pinochet swing for her crimes, and Somerset gets to spend a year or so in jail.” Hawkeye shook his head. “Guess that’s what I meant when I said life sure is funny.”
“None of us are laughing,” Somerset grumbled from the flatbed.
Trammel did not blame the prisoner for being sour. He was looking at several years in prison once he went before a judge. Allan Pinkerton might pull some strings to get his spy free, but given the recent embarrassment he had received over what the newspapers had come to call the Alcott Affair, his influence was not as great in Wyoming as it may have once been.
Trammel looked over at Hagen, who had made remarkable progress in the weeks since his shooting. Emily told him his shoulder was healing surprisingly well, and he was beginning to look more like his normal self.
“You planning to confront Clay about sending Alcott our way?”
“And let him know what we know? Nonsense.” He pulled the black coat tighter around his shoulders. “I never allow my enemies to know my mind, Buck. We know Alcott and his men were working for Clay when they attacked us. I’ll allow him to stew in his own anxiety for a while until I’m ready to exact my revenge, should I decide to take revenge at all. Until then, I’ll just string him along and make him wait. Seeing what he does may prove interesting. He’s gone after us twice now and failed. That must be weighing heavy on his mind.”
Trammel knew all about heavy minds. A heavy mood had descended over town in the days since the Alcott incident. Despite the watered-down story he had written into his report, newspapermen from all over came to cover the Raid on the Blackstone Ranch. Alcott’s attachment to the Pinkerton Agency only whetted their appetite for scandal in the hopes of painting Allan Pinkerton the one who had plotted everything from the beginning. Some chose to emphasize the renegade mercenary angle, but most of the reporters opted for the eastern aggression angle, painting King Charles Hagen as a pioneer’s pioneer and a symbol of the new American Westerner.
Trammel had sought to curb the rancher’s power. But all he had done was help make him even more powerful.
Maybe Hawkeye was right. Life sure was funny.
Trammel realized he had slipped into one of his introspective moods again when he snapped out of it and saw Emily smiling at him. He found himself smiling, too.
Life may be funny, he decided, but with a woman like her by his side, it could also be very good indeed.
Keep reading for a special excerpt of the next
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br /> western adventure
from WILLIAM W. and J. A. JOHNSTONE!
BULLET FOR A STRANGER
A RED RYAN WESTERN
Red Ryan is one of the fastest guns in the West.
But this time, he’s in for the longest, hardest ride of his life.
Where danger lurks around every turn—
and all roads lead to hell . . .
JOHNSTONE COUNTRY—WATCH YOUR BACK.
Gold. Silver. Cold hard cash. Stagecoach guard Red Ryan and his driver Buttons Muldoon have ridden shotgun on some pretty valuable cargo in their day.
But they’re about to learn—the hard way—that the most dangerous cargo of all is human. They’ve been hired to escort a cowardly traitor facing an army court-martial in New Orleans. Every hired killer in Texas wants him dead, including gun-handy Hannah Huckabee, a woman with a mysterious past and an agenda of her own. But she’s just one of the dangers they’ll face along the way. There are cutthroat gangs bent on slaughtering anything on two legs. And 700 miles of the deadliest terrain Red Ryan has ever had to shoot his way out of . . .
Look for BULLET FOR A STRANGER, on sale now.
CHAPTER 1
“So, tell me,” Patrick “Buttons” Muldoon said, “when we reach Fort Concho, what do you calculate the Limey coward will look like?”
Shotgun guard Red Ryan’s gaze was fixed on the vast sweep of the Texas prairie ahead of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company coach. Without turning to look at Buttons, he said, “I have no idea. But I guess he’ll look like anybody else.”
Buttons had slowed the six-horse team to a walk, and the only sound was the steady fall of the horses’ hooves and the jingle of harness. The sky was bright blue, with no clouds, but the wind blowing from the north held an edge, a harbinger of the coming fall.
Buttons spat over the side of the stage, the ribbons steady in his gloved hands, and said, “I mean, will he be scared of his own shadow? One of them rannies who wear white drawers because they’ll never know when they’ll need a white flag?”
“You mean is he kissin’ kin to Moses Rose?” Red said.
Buttons grinned, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Then I don’t know,” Red said.
Buttons seemed disappointed. “Hell, Red, you don’t know nothing.”
“I don’t know the answer to a conundrum that don’t make any sense,” Red said. “How do I know what the hell the coward will be like?”
“Yeah, well, we’re taking him all the way to New Orleans, so I guess we’ll find out, huh?” Buttons said. “Hell, we might find out the hard way. Maybe he’ll try to stab us in the back.”
“Sure, and maybe along the trail he’ll haul off and do something cowardly,” Red said.
“Man, that’s something I’d surely like to see,” Buttons said. “I ain’t never seen a coward do coward stuff, especially a Limey coward.”
Red nodded. “Me neither. Now, quit talking for a minute and study on what that there blue thing is ahead of us.”
“What blue thing? Oh, wait, I see it.” Buttons was silent for a few moments, peering into the distance. Then he said, “It’s blue and white, but I can’t make it out. A tent, maybe?”
“Maybe. Whip up the horses,” Red Ryan said. “Let’s go find out.”
“Keep the Greener handy,” Buttons said. “It may be some road agent trick that we ain’t seen yet.”
“I reckon we’ve seen them all,” Red said. “But you never know.”
Buttons snapped his whip above the team, and the horses lurched into a fast trot. “You’ve got younger eyes than me, Red, he said. “Can you make out what it is yet?”
“Not yet. But I guess we’ll know soon enough.”
* * *
A large circle of blue and white striped canvas, much torn, spread across the prairie grass. Beside it were piled several leather trunks. A man and woman stood beside a battered wicker basket large enough to accommodate two people, and as Buttons Muldoon drove the stage nearer, the woman raised a hand and waved.
“Hell, Red, it’s a gal and a Chinee with her,” Buttons said. “In all my born days I ain’t never seen the like.”
“And she’s a right pretty gal at that,” Red said. His tanned cheeks bore a three-day growth of rusty beard and he wished he’d shaved.
Buttons reined the team to a jangling halt and then raised his hat. “Well, howdy, young lady,” he said. “We weren’t expecting to meet company on this run. Nothing as far as the eye can see but grass, and even more grass.”
Red smiled, showing his teeth. “He’s Buttons Muldoon, and my name is Red Ryan. We’re representatives of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company, and we’re at your service.”
The girl nodded. “Of course, you are. I’m Hannah Huckabee, and by profession I’m an adventuress. My companion is Mr. Chang.” Then, as though she thought an explanation necessary, “I saved his life from a street gang in Shanghai and he followed me home.” She had a very pleasing English accent.
Hannah Huckabee, who looked to be in her late twenties, was a tall, slender woman with well-defined breasts and a narrow waist. She wore a tan-colored dress with plenty of flapped pockets that was short enough to reveal lace-up brown leather boots that were scuffed from hard use. A cascade of glossy black hair fell from under a pith helmet that sported a pair of dark-lensed goggles above the brim. Belted around her waist was a blue, short-barreled Colt with an ivory handle and on the opposite side a sheathed bowie knife of the largest size. A pair of expensive brass field glasses, probably of German manufacture, hung around her neck. Her eyes were a lustrous brown, the black lashes thick and long. When she smiled, as she was doing now, her teeth were very white . . . and Red Ryan thought her the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life.
Buttons Muldoon, ever a gentleman when he was around the ladies, said, “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but what are you and the Chinee gent doing all the way out here in the wilderness?”
“Right now nothing, except being lost,” Hannah said. She smiled her dazzling smile. “And, of course, I’m also talking to you, driving man.”
“He means how did you get here?” Red said.
The girl pointed to the tattered canvas on the prairie grass. “Hanging from that in a basket is how we got here.” Then, reading the question on Red’s face. “What you see here are the remains of a hot-air balloon. It was my intention to explore the Caprock Canyons for signs of the culture that existed there ten thousand years ago. I mean pottery, spear points, and the like. You know, the usual archaeological stuff. Mr. Chang and I were also getting in some long-distance practice for our coming around-the-world balloon trip.”
“Oh, I see,” Buttons said, trying to look wise, but he didn’t see at all.
Neither did Red.
“The Caprock Canyons are in the Panhandle country,” he said. “How come you ended up here?”
Hannah Huckabee shrugged her slim shoulders. “We left the New Mexico Territory three days ago and then got hit by a most singular thunderstorm with a strong north wind and were blown off course. The balloon was ripped up, and Mr. Chang and I came down here. We landed pretty hard and were lucky to escape with only a few cuts and bruises. We could’ve been killed.”
Mr. Chang bowed, then smiled and said, “We very lucky. Miss Huckabee very lucky lady. She prove that time and time again.”
“Well, I’m glad you made it. Nice to meet you, Miss Huckabee,” Buttons said. He touched his hat brim and gathered the ribbons in his hands. “Now we got to be on our way, a schedule to keep and all that.”
“Wait, where are you headed?” Hannah said.
“East, to Fort Concho, ma’am. Got a coward to pick up from the army,” Buttons said.
“A coward?” Hannah said.
“Yeah, an Englishman.”
“And where are you taking him, this coward?”
“To the great city of New Orleans, ma’am, where we’re meeting up with a British
warship that will take him back to London town to face justice for his cowardly deeds.”
“I declare, it must be an important kind of coward that merits his own warship,” Hannah said.
“I don’t know about that, ma’am, since I never picked up a coward afore,” Buttons said. Then, “But yeah, I guess he’s important enough.”
“And he has this Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company coach reserved just for him,” Red said. “Takes a mighty big auger to merit that kind of attention.”
“Mr. Ryan—”
“Call me Red.”
“Red, Mr. Chang and I have had nothing to eat or drink for three days,” Hannah said. “Do you have any food to spare? We’ll be grateful for a few crumbs.”
“Buttons?” Red said. “What do you say? Can we spare some grub?”
“Ma’am, it’s against company regulations, but I guess we could spare some cold bacon, sourdough bread, and water,” Buttons said. “It ain’t much, but you’re welcome to make a trial of it.”
“Right now, any food would be most welcome,” the woman said. “I can pay you in American money for what we eat.”
“No payment needed,” Red said. “It’s the official policy of the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company to feed the hungry and clothe the poor and needy.”
“I’ll get the grub,” Buttons said. He gave Red a sidelong look. “I never heard of that official policy.”
“Neither have I,” Red said. “But I’m willing to bet that ol’ Abe Patterson has it wrote down in the rules somewhere.”
* * *
Ignoring Buttons’s reminder that they were burning daylight, Red spread a blanket on the grass and laid out a meager lunch, including a wedge of seedcake that his plump driver had seen fit not to mention.
Bury the Hatchet Page 26