Twelve Dead Men

by William W. Johnstone

  “When people are fighting for their homes and loved ones, they’re liable to surprise you,” Ace called back. “Let Meredith go, McLaren. She never did anything to hurt you or your brother. You’ve got no grudge against her.”

  “The hell with that! She’s gonna get me outta here. I didn’t mind killin’ to avenge Pete, but I sure never figured on dyin’ to do it!” McLaren continued backing away.

  Ace couldn’t get a shot from where he was without taking too big a risk of hitting Meredith. He tried to figure out what McLaren’s plan was.

  Ace glanced around, looking for getaway horses, but saw none tied at the hitch racks. The earlier storm had prompted men to put their mounts out of the weather and the gang had left their horses down at the livery stable. Anyway, McLaren was going in the other direction. Maybe he thought that if he could reach the hills outside of town, he could lose any pursuers there, especially if he kept Meredith with him as a hostage.

  Ace didn’t want to let things get that far. He was gathering his strength and courage to charge McLaren and try to dodge the outlaw’s bullets until he was close enough to tackle the man when a large shape suddenly moved out of an alley mouth behind McLaren.

  “Otis, mi amigo!” José called as he put his head down and charged.

  McLaren rasped a curse, and José crashed into him like a maddened bull.

  The collision staggered McLaren. As he tried to catch his balance, Meredith twisted in his grip and got a hand under his chin, shoving it up and back. That broke McLaren’s hold on her. She dived away from him, sprawling in the muddy street out of the line of fire.

  Ace surged up from behind the water trough and triggered a shot. McLaren threw lead back at him, then turned and ran. Ace charged after him. Hearing boots slap against the muddy street, he glanced over and saw that Chance had sprinted out of the saloon to join him.

  McLaren twisted and fired back at them as he fled, but the shots went wild. The duster flapped around him like a pair of giant black wings. The Jensen brothers held their fire, knowing their shots would be more accurate if they closed in first.

  A chill went through Ace as he realized McLaren’s path was going to take him right to the gallows where his brother had been hanged that morning. The trapdoor was still down, and the rope with its noose on the end still hung through the opening where it had been ever since Pete McLaren’s corpse was removed.

  Otis McLaren ducked behind the thirteen steps and used them for cover. Ace and Chance slid to a stop as the outlaw’s bullet whined between them. Ace lifted both guns and fired as the revolver in Chance’s hand blasted.

  McLaren staggered back, his gun hand sagging. Clearly, at least one of the Jensen brothers’ bullets had gone between the gallows steps and found its target. McLaren brushed against the hang rope and reached up with his free hand to grab the noose and hold himself up.

  Ace and Chance fired again as McLaren tried to raise his gun. The outlaw jerked back as the slugs pounded into him, then he leaned forward. He’d been hanging on to the noose with his left hand. That arm went through the loop as life fled from his body. The rope caught him and held him up for a second, then his arm slid out of it and he splashed facedown in the mud underneath the gallows.

  He didn’t get up again.

  Ace covered McLaren as Chance eased up and checked the body.

  “Dead,” Chance reported, and Ace finally lowered his guns.

  They turned and trudged back up the street toward the crowd gathered in front of the Melodian. Meredith was there, having run to join her brother. Lee Emory stood leaning on the rifle while his other arm was tight around his sister’s shoulders. Miguel was beside them, a rag tied around his wounded arm as a makeshift bandage. José, Crackerjack, Colonel Howden, and the other townspeople who had joined in the battle waited for the Jensen brothers. Judge Ordway and Timothy Buchanan watched from the boardwalk.

  Miguel said, “Is he—?”

  “He’s dead,” Ace said. “No more McLarens to threaten Lone Pine.”

  Pete and Otis has been responsible for a lot of death and suffering before justice had finally ended both of their lawless careers. All too often, Ace reflected, justice extracted a large price.

  But it was a price that had to be paid.

  Fontana hurried forward to meet Chance and put a hand on his arm. “You’re all right?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry about Orrie.”

  “He was a good man. A lot braver than anybody ever expected.”

  “You’ll have to find another piano player.”

  “I will,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “One of these days. When I feel up to singing again.”

  Chance put an arm around her and drew her against him, letting her rest her head on his shoulder.

  “This arm’s going to make it hard for me to keep up with all the marshal duties for a while,” Miguel said to Ace. “You sure I can’t interest you and your brother in those deputy badges?”

  “We’ll be glad to lend a hand,” Ace said with a tired smile. He looked at Meredith and saw her smiling back at him. “I reckon we’ll be around here for a while . . . but let’s keep it unofficial.” Badges would just make it harder to leave when the time finally came to move on.

  One thing Ace was sure of—sooner or later the Jensen boys would just have to drift.

  Keep reading for a special preview

  of William W. and J. A. Johnstone’s

  The Kerrigans, a Texas Dynasty

  HATE THY NEIGHBOR

  They risked their lives to make a home in the heart of West Texas. Now the Kerrigan family must face the deadliest challenges of the land they love—and the evil that men do.

  COME HELL OR HIGH WATER . . .

  After a two-year drought, the Kerrigan ranch is dry as a bone and dusty as a honky-tonk Bible. On the brink of ruin, Kate Kerrigan hires the rainmaker Professor Somerset Lazarus, who promises salvation—in the form of a deluge. Kate is desperate enough to try anything. But when four angry gunmen show up, ready to lynch the phony rainmaker for swindling them out of their money, the Kerrigans have to choose sides fast—before the bullets start to fly. It doesn’t take a divining rod to figure out that these unsatisfied customers want more than a refund. They have their sights set on the Kerrigan ranch. And it’s just a matter of time until it’s raining water or raining bullets. Either way, there will be blood . . .

  Look for it wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Behind the stately façade of Kate Kerrigan’s four-pillared mansion lay a household in turmoil.

  The cook and the scullery maid, a rather unintelligent girl, the parlor maids, the butler, and two punchers who happened to be passing the house when the tumult began were all summoned to Kate’s bedroom where her personal maid was trying to calm her distraught mistress.

  The maid stepped to the window and her hands parted, pinched forefinger and thumbs two feet apart, and studied something against the light that would have been invisible to the casual observer.

  “Well?” Kate said. “Is it as we feared?”

  The maid shook her head. “I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.”

  “You don’t know! Why I have a good mind to box your ears, you silly girl. It’s as obvious as . . . well . . . as the picture on the wall over there.” Kate nodded in the direction of a framed portrait of an elderly gent with a walrus mustache. Hiram L. Clay was the president of the local cattlemen’s association and a man powerful enough to be courted. He’d given Kate the portrait as a gift and had begged her to keep it in her bedroom so that he could be close to her “ere fair face touches pillow and you drift into the sweetest dreams of your ever devoted Hiram.”

  Kate thought the picture hideous in the extreme, and had vowed to get rid of it just as soon as a new association president was elected. At the moment, apart from using Hiram as a test of the maid’s vision, the portrait was far from her mind.

  Anxious people crowded into the bedroom where Kate’s break
fast lay untouched, her coffee untasted. As each one examined the long hair in the window’s morning light, Kate asked the same question. “Well?” “Well?” “Well?”

  And each time, fearful of losing their positions, the answer from cook, maids, and butler was always the same. “Ma’am, I can’t really tell.”

  “I can’t see without my glasses.”

  “It could be, but I’m not at all sure.”

  Finally, Willie Haynes the puncher, a tough little cuss who’d ridden for Charlie Goodnight back in the early days and was anything but the soul of discretion, stared at the hair, screwed up his face, and then said, “Yup, seen it right off. It’s as gray as a badger’s ass, boss.”

  Kate was taken aback by Haynes’s bluntness and after a few moments of stunned silence her icy voice matched her chilly demeanor. “Thank you, Willie, you can go now. You can all go. I want to be alone.”

  Haynes nodded. “Any time you need my opinion on a thing, Miz Kerrigan, you only have to ask.” As his fellow punchers tried unsuccessfully to steer Willie toward the door, the little cowboy added, “An’ I’m right sorry about the gray hair, boss, and how you’re all undone by it an’ all, but cheer up, you got plenty of red ones left.”

  Kate’s smile could have turned a Louisiana swamp water pond to ice. “Thank you. And thank you all. Now I’m sure you have work that needs attending to.”

  The bedroom cleared rapidly as people beat a hasty retreat and Kate sat on the edge of the bed and studied the shoulders of her yellow silk robe for other treacherously ashen turncoats. There were none. She glanced at her breakfast tray, but was much too upset to eat. Well... perhaps she’d feel better after a piece of toast.

  Kate nibbled on a corner of the triangle of toast and her gaze fell on the chafing dish in the middle of the silver tray. No, she was too distressed to eat a bite, not even a crumb. But then, there was no harm in lifting the cover to take a look. She owed it to Jazmin, her wonderful cook, to at least see what she had prepared. Hmm. . . . a nice plump pork sausage, slightly scorched the way she liked it, crispy bacon, and a sunny-faced egg.

  Well, perhaps just a bite or two. After all, she mustn’t disappoint Jazmin.

  * * *

  The chafing dish was empty but for a morsel of bacon when Kate’s butler, old Moses Rice, tapped on the door and stepped into the bedroom. “Gennel’man to see you, Miz Kate.”

  Kate felt slightly full, as if she’d eaten too much. “Who is he, Mose? If he’s a drummer, tell him he must talk with Mr. Cobb.”

  “Ma’am, the gent says he’ll only talk with you.” Moses’s wrinkled face took on a look of wonder. “He says he’s a prince.”

  “Prince indeed?” Kate said. “Prince of what?”

  “Of the plains, ma’am.” Mose scratched the gray wool on the side of his head, remembering. “He said for me to tell you his name is William Frederick Cody, Prince of the Plains and showman ex . . . extra . . .”

  “Extraordinaire,” Kate said.

  Mose’s face lit up and his smile flashed. “That was it, Miz Kate. Do you know the gennel’man?”

  “I’ve heard of him. Show him into the parlor and offer him coffee. Tell Mr. Cody I’ll join him directly.”

  As her lady’s maid helped her change into a rococo, a pleated day dress of white cotton with a built-in corset that laced up the front, Kate tried to recall what she knew of William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill as she’d heard him called. He’d been an army scout and Indian fighter and now had his own Wild West show that contained picaresque elements of frontier life. His show had crossed the ocean to perform for old Queen Victoria. Kate frowned. Or was he about to do that? She couldn’t remember which. One thing was certain, Mr. Cody had become a very famous man, and it was said that he cut a dash with the ladies.

  So why his visit to the ranch? Perhaps he was passing and decided to stop and pay his respects.

  Kate checked herself in the full-length mirror and was pleased to see that her hair fell over her shoulders in thick ringlets of burnished gold, not a traitorous gray in sight. “How do I look, Flossie?”

  “Like a princess from a fairy tale,” the maid said.

  “Then I’m fit to meet the prince,” Kate said. “Very well, I’ll see Mr. Cody now.”

  Flossie, remembering the affair of the hair, nodded and said, “You look very young and lovely, ma’am.”

  “Then let us hope that Mr. Cody appreciates the efforts we’ve made on his behalf,” Kate said.

  “Oh, any fine gentleman would, ma’am.” And then worried for a moment that she’d spoken out of turn Flossie whispered, “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

  But Kate, moving with all the grace of a Celtic queen, was already opening the bedroom door and didn’t hear.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Kate Kerrigan stepped into the parlor, a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing gloriously beaded white buckskins rose to his feet. A large red bandanna draped loosely around his neck, and in his hands he held a plumed, high-crowned hat with a prodigiously wide brim. He wore polished, thigh-high black boots and round his hips, as she noticed at once, hung a silver-studded gun belt and in the holsters a pair of ivory-handled Colts.

  “Mr. Cody, I presume,” Kate said, offering her hand.

  Buffalo Bill made a leg and bowed with a sweeping gesture of his feathered hat that was worthy of Athos, Porthos, or Aramis and for sheer elegance and grace probably out-courtiered all three. He kissed Kate’s hand and then straightened. “Your obedient servant, madam.” In an overly dramatic display, he raised his hat as though shielding his eyes from the sun. “By all that’s holy, Mrs. Kerrigan, I’m blinded by the dazzling beauty of your person.” He adopted a heroic pose, threw back his head and declaimed, “Thus did King Menelaus of Sparta stand in astonished awe when he first beheld fair Helen on the massy ramparts of Troy.”

  Kate, well used to compliments from men, was nonetheless impressed by the frontiersman’s rhetoric and knowledge of the classics. “You are very gallante, sir. Please resume your seat.” She was uncomfortably aware that Buffalo Bill Cody was a fine-looking man with a rampant masculinity that even Frank Cobb, her rugged segundo, would have trouble matching.

  She sat down. “Have you”—she had trouble finding her voice, coughed. and tried again—“Have you had coffee, Mr. Cody?”

  “My dear lady . . . may I call you Gloriana?”

  “No. Kate will do just fine.”

  “Then Kate it is.”

  Bill placed his hand on his heart as though he was about to impart a secret of the most private kind, as indeed he was. “Kate, it has been my lot since boyhood to enjoy but one daily cup of the sable brew that sharpens the wits and invigorates the body. But after the cup that cheers, I feel drawn to partake in . . . what shall we call it? Ah yes, stronger stuff.”

  “How remiss of me, Mr. Cody,” Kate said, rising. “Would bonded bourbon be more to your liking?”

  “Not a drop, dear lady.” Bill made one of his heroic gestures, his right hand extended, warding off temptation. “Not so much as a taste.”

  Kate moved to sit again, and Bill exclaimed in some haste, “But—”

  “Yes?” Kate said.

  “I could not but notice the exquisite slenderness of your hands, dear lady,” Bill said. “I think three fingers of bourbon from you would be a small enough portion of the viper that resides in the bottle.”

  Kate smiled, moved to the drinks tray and poured Bill a generous glass of Old Crow. After she’d settled in her chair again and Bill had begged her indulgence to smoke a cigar, they made small talk until he’d finished his second bourbon and the cigar had burned down almost two-thirds of the way.

  Kate said, “As much as I enjoy your company and your dashing tales of derring-do on the plains, Mr. Cody, I suspect that your visit to my ranch is not entirely a social call.”

  “And indeed it is not, dear lady,” Bill said. “You have gone right to the heart of the matter. Indeed, your arrow has sped unerringly to the bulls-
eye. In short, I am here to humbly beg a boon.”

  Kate was slightly wary. “What is the nature of this favor, Mr. Cody?”

  He leaned forward in his chair and his long, silvery hair tumbled over his shoulders. “Let me precede my request by stating that that our fair land is in winter’s frosty grip, torn by tempests, blasted by blizzards, snowbound, icebound and, worst of all, homebound. In short, the weather up north is rotten and folks are staying home.”

  “So I’ve been told, Mr. Cody,” Kate said. “A traveling lightning rod salesman assured me that the extent and severity of the snowstorms are most singular and the government had declared them potentially a disaster of the greatest moment.”

  “The drummer spoke the unvarnished truth, dear lady,” Bill said. “Everywhere it is as cold as a banker’s heart and I am reliably informed that in Kansas boiling water freezes so fast the ice is still warm.”

  Kate smiled. “Mr. Cody, say no more. I understand your predicament, and I’d be honored to have you spend the winter on my ranch. I have twelve guest rooms and I’m sure we can find one that suits you.”

  “Kate, your generosity is boundless, but, alas, if it were only that simple,” Bill said. “No, dear lady, there is indeed a major complication.”

  “Ah, you have someone else with you? A lady perhaps?”

  “I have six hundred someone elses,” Bill said. “And almost twice that number of horses, buffalo, and other animals.”

  “Six hundred people, Mr. Cody?” Kate looked shocked. “And animals? Buffalo?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And cowboys, Indians, and sharpshooters. And my private train.”

  “Private train, Mr. Cody?”

  “Yes. That is why I’m asking you if I can use your railroad spur,” Bill said.

  “My railroad spur, Mr. Cody?”

  “Yes, dear lady, to offload my people, animals, supplies, wagons, and tents. With your gracious permission we would set up camp, and spend the winter far away from the northern tempests.”