Massacre at Powder River

by William W. Johnstone

  “What fool would keep a journal like that?” Teasdale asked in anger, and Matt knew that his bluff had worked.

  “What I don’t understand is how you could do something like that to a fellow countryman—someone who is supposed to be your friend,” Matt said.

  “Frewen is an incompetent idiot,” Teasdale replied with a scoff. “He has lost thousands and thousands of dollars for his investors. Once they find out what I have done, they will thank me.”

  “And will they thank you for murdering so many of Mr. Frewen’s men? How many was it? Six?”

  “I had nothing to do with anyone getting killed,” Teasdale said.

  “What about Kyle Houston? Carlos Silva? Jake Scarnes? What about Carter, Hodge, and Decker? Did you have nothing to do with them being killed?”

  “What are you talking about? You killed those men!” Teasdale said.

  “Because you offered them money to kill me. You are the one who set it in motion, Teasdale.”

  “You can’t hold me responsible for that.”

  “I can, and I do. By my count, Teasdale, no fewer than twenty-two men have died because of your greed and ambition. And that isn’t counting how many were killed last night when your own men started shooting at each other. You are a mass murderer, Teasdale. You have killed more men that Billy the Kid.”

  “You—you are crazy!” Teasdale said. “No court will believe that!”

  “No court will believe it? No court? You don’t understand, do you? I am the court. I am the prosecutor, I am the jury, I am the judge, and I am the executioner. I find you guilty as charged, and I sentence you to death.”

  Matt cocked his pistol, raised it, and aimed it at Teasdale’s head.

  “No! God no!” Teasdale cried. He dropped down to his knees and held his hands up as if praying. “I beg of you. Don’t kill me! Don’t kill me! I didn’t know so many people were going to be killed. I thought Frewen would give up and go home.”

  “William!” a woman’s voice said. Margaret Teasdale had just appeared in the door that opened onto the hall from the parlor. “You did that? You are the cause of all those men being killed? You are the cause of Moreton Frewen’s troubles?”

  “You don’t understand, Margaret,” Teasdale said. “I did it for you. I did it all for you.”

  “For me? You did it for me? How dare you say that?” Margaret said. “Clara is the best friend I have in this world. How can I ever face her again?”

  “Stand up, Teasdale,” Matt said.

  “No, please, no.”

  “Stand up, William! Stand up and face him like a man, for God’s sake!” Margaret said.

  Teasdale got up, and when he did, it was obvious to all in the room that he had wet his pants. He began shaking uncontrollably.

  Matt eased the hammer down, then lowered his pistol. “The killing ends now,” he said. “How many men do you have outside?

  “I had seventeen, counting the men who were out on the range looking for you. But four were killed, last night, and five were wounded. There are eight left.”

  “Reed, go outside and call them in. I want them disarmed and standing out front. All eight of them.”

  Reed left to carry out Matt’s instructions. Teasdale walked over to the wall, then leaned against it, shaking and whimpering.

  “What happens to me?” Morrison asked.

  “You are the biggest disappointment of all, Morrison,” Matt said. “Frewen trusted you completely. The boy looked up to you. All of your men respected you. Benedict Arnold has nothing on you.”

  Morrison looked down in shame.

  “Don’t ever show your face at the ranch again. Leave, now.”

  “I’ve got some things back at the ranch, I’ll have to go back ...”

  “No. No going back. Leave now.”

  “Come, Teasdale,” Matt said, motioning toward the front door with his pistol. When they stepped out onto the porch, Reed and the eight remaining men had gathered out front. Reed saw Morrison mounting his horse.

  “Hey, Morrison, where are you going?” Reed called.

  Morrison didn’t reply. Instead, he urged his horse into a rapid trot through the gate and up the road, riding quickly away from Thistledown.

  “Men,” Matt said. “There is no job for you here. There is no money for you here. My advice to you is to leave.”

  “Where are we supposed to go?” one of the men asked.

  “I don’t care where you go,” Matt said. “But I’ll tell you this. If I ever see any of you again, I’ll shoot you on sight.”

  The eight men looked at each for a moment, then they broke into a run toward the stable. Less than three minutes later, all of them were mounted, and leaving at a gallop.

  “Those men are riding my horses,” Teasdale said.

  “You don’t have any horses,” Matt said. “Reed, get the dead and the wounded onto a wagon and get them in town. What I told the men goes for you as well. I don’t ever want to see you around here again.”

  With the business taken care of, Matt motioned for Teasdale to go back inside. Margaret was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, weeping silently. Teasdale started toward her, but she turned away from him.

  “No!” she said. “Stay away from me! You disgust me!”

  Matt picked up the phone and called Marshal Drew.

  “Marshal? Matt Jensen. Come out to Thistledown, I’ve got a prisoner for you. That’s right, Thistledown. Your prisoner is William Teasdale.”

  Epilogue

  Number 10 Downing Street, London

  June 23, 1944

  “Mr. Prime Minister?” An RAF colonel said, sticking his head into the cabinet room where Winston Churchill and General Eisenhower were still in conversation. “We have the strike report on the American attack at Peenemünde.”

  “Yes, yes, let us hear it,” Churchill said. “This is where the Boche are launching their bloody buzz-bombs,” he said to Eisenhower, even though Eisenhower had already been thoroughly briefed.

  “Three hundred seventy-seven B-17s bombed the launch site at Peenemünde, the experimental headquarters at Zinnowitz, and the marshalling yards at Straslund. Three B-17s were lost and sixty-four badly damaged. There were two hundred ninety-seven escort fighters, consisting of P-38 Lightnings and p-51 Mustangs. Three of the Mustangs were shot down. The launch pad near Werke Süd was a complete loss.”

  “Thank you, General,” Churchill said. “And my prayer for the American boys who carried out the raid,” he added to Eisenhower after the RAF colonel left.

  Churchill refreshed his drink, then he held up the bottle of Tennessee mash for Eisenhower.

  “Recharge your glass, General?”

  “No, I’m fine, thank you,” Eisenhower said. “I would like to hear the rest of your story, though. What happened to Teasdale and Frewen?”

  “Teasdale was tried and found guilty of receiving stolen property. He should have been tried for murder, but they didn’t think they could make the case. He didn’t serve one day in prison; instead he was deported back to England where he was disgraced and ostracized by his peers. Three years after he returned, his wife found him one morning, slumped over his desk with a bullet in his brain. He committed suicide. Margaret, I am glad to say, remarried, and lived comfortably until she died, about six years ago.

  “Frewen drove all his cattle a thousand miles north to Alberta where he sold out. Then, for the next thirty years, he traveled the world, investing in inventions, disinfectants, forests, poets, artists, and gold, silver, and coal mines. He never succeeded at any venture he tried, though he never quite went bankrupt. Late in life, he actually became a member of Parliament, and I am happy to say that I was the first one to welcome him. I loved that old man, despite his faults and foibles.”

  “And Morrison?”

  “Believe it or not, Morrison and I corresponded for a while. And he and Uncle Moreton even reconciled. He was a sheriff’s deputy down in Texas the last time I heard from him.”

  “R
eed?”

  “Less than six months later, Reed was killed in an aborted bank robbery.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what happened to the boy,” Eisenhower said. “I know where he wound up.”

  Churchill chuckled. “I never heard again from some of the cowboys I met—Jeff Singleton, for example, or Tibby Ware, or any of the others. I’m sure they never thought I would amount to anything—and indeed, whether I have or have not will be for history to decide. But I do wonder, sometimes, if they have ever made the connection between the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the boy who used to eat ‘grub’ with them.”

  “You don’t have to tell me anything more about Matt Jensen, either,” Eisenhower said. “I have read enough books about that gentleman to know what a stalwart and heroic career he had.”

  Churchill held up his finger. “General, I have something I would like to give you.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have kept it for lo, these many years. But because it is truly American in origin, by rights, it should belong to an American. And not just any American, but to one who is worthy. Wait here for a moment.”

  Churchill left the cabinet room for fully a minute while Eisenhower lit a cigarette, wondering what this was all about. When Churchill returned, he was holding a small silver box.

  “This is for you,” he said, handing the box to Eisenhower.

  Eisenhower looked at the box in curiosity.

  “Not the box—what is inside,” Churchill said.

  Eisenhower opened the box and saw inside a single bullet. He removed the bullet, then held it out to look at it, his curiosity still not satisfied.

  “It is a bullet,” Eisenhower said.

  Churchill chuckled. “Yes. But not just any bullet. This, my dear General, is a forty-four caliber bullet that Matt Jensen personally removed from the cylinder of his pistol. He gave it to me as a keepsake. But now, on behalf of a grateful nation for what you have done for us, I take tremendous pleasure in giving to you.”

  “Mr. Prime Minister, I don’t know what to say,” Eisenhower said. “I appreciate this, very much.”

  “I thought you might,” Churchill said. “Us ‘cowboys’ are simpatico that way. Oh, there is one way I would let you get rid of it, though,” he added.

  “How is that?”

  “If you could find a Colt .44 pistol and use it to personally put a bullet in Hitler’s head.”

  Churchill laughed, and Eisenhower laughed with him.

  In the car on the way back to 20 Grosvenor Square, Eisenhower opened his hand and looked at the bullet Churchill had given him. The thought that Matt Jensen had personally held this bullet, and now he was holding it, gave him a sense of connection to one of the heroes he had read about.

  “Kaye?”

  “Yes, General?” his driver replied.

  “Next time you order a batch of Westerns for me, see what you can find about Matt Jensen.”

  Turn the page for an exciting preview of the

  USA Today bestselling series

  MACCALLISTER, THE EAGLES LEGACY: The Killing

  A family of Scottish warriors.

  A stranger in a new land ...

  From the bestselling authors

  William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone,

  the blazing saga of Duff MacCallister,

  heir to a legacy of courage.

  Duff MacCallister fled the Scottish Highlands for a new world in Wyoming Territory. Betrothed to a good woman, Duff has the bad luck to be standing in the Chugwater Bank when a violent robbery explodes around him. With one man dead by Duff’s gun, and another under arrest, a team of bandits swarms outside of town. As witnesses, Duff, a banker and a beautiful barmaid are whisked into the town’s hotel for safekeeping as the outlaws threaten the defenseless town with a bloodbath if their fellow bandit isn’t set free.

  Except no MacCallister has ever run from trouble. With a scoped Creedmoor rifle, he goes after the Taylor gang, one bad guy at a time ... But Duff doesn’t know that fate—and a little twist of frontier justice—will give the Taylor Gang one last chance for a shocking, treacherous act of revenge ...

  MACCALLISTER, THE EAGLES LEGACY:

  The Killing

  On sale March 2012, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold

  Prologue

  Eight men had come to kill Duff MacCallister, and eight men now lay dead in the streets of Chugwater, Wyoming Territory. Before he headed back home, the entire town of Chugwater turned out to hail Duff as a hero. Duff had a few people of his own to thank: Biff Johnson for shooting the man off the roof who had a bead on him, Fred Matthews for tossing him a loaded revolver just in time, and Meghan Parker, who risked her own life to hold up a mirror that showed Duff where two men were lying in wait for him. Meghan also reminded Duff that Chugwater held a dance, once a month, in the ballroom of the Dunn Hotel.

  It was about a ten-minute ride back home, and as he approached, he saw a strange horse tied out front. Dismounting, he was examining the horse when Elmer Gleason stepped out onto the front porch.

  “Mr. MacCallister, you have a visitor inside. He is a friend from Scotland.”

  Duff smiled broadly. Could it be Ian McGregor? He stepped up onto the front porch, then went inside. “Ian?” he called.

  It wasn’t Ian; it was Angus Somerled. Somerled was standing by the stove, holding a pistol which was leveled at Duff.

  “Somerled,” Duff said.

  “Ye’ve been a hard man to put down, Duff Tavish MacCallister, but the job is done now.”

  Duff said nothing.

  “Here now, lad, and has the cat got your tongue?”

  “I didn’t expect to see you,” Duff said.

  “Nae, I dinna think you would. Would you be tellin’ me where I might find my deputy?”

  “Malcolm is dead.”

  “Aye, I thought as much. Killed him, did ye?”

  “Aye—it seemed to be the thing to do.”

  “There is an old adage: if you want something done right, do it yourself. I should have come after you a long time ago, instead of getting my sons and my deputies killed.”

  “That night on Donuum Road, I was coming to give myself up,” Duff said. “None of this need have happened. Your sons would still be alive, Skye would still be alive. But you were too blinded by hate.”

  “We’ve talked enough, Duff MacCallister,” Somerled said. He cocked the pistol and Duff steeled himself.

  Suddenly the room filled with the roar of a gunshot—but it wasn’t Somerled’s pistol. It was a shotgun in the hands of Elmer Gleason. Gleason had shot him through the window, and the double load of 12-gauge shot knocked Somerled halfway across the room.

  “Are you all right, Mr. MacCallister?” Gleason shouted through the open window. Smoke was still curling up from the two barrels.

  “Aye, I’m fine,” Duff said. “My gratitude to ye, Mr. Gleason.”

  Gleason came around to the front of the cabin and stepped in through the front door.

  “Seein’ as how I saved your life, don’t you think me ’n you might start callin’ each other by our Christian names?”

  “Aye, Elmer. Your point is well taken.”

  “Sorry ’bout tellin’ you he was your friend. But that’s what he told me, and I believed him.”

  “And yet, you were waiting outside the window with a loaded shotgun.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, considerin’ that the fella you went to meet in Chugwater was from Scotland, and wasn’t your friend, I just got to figurin’ maybe I ought to stand by, just in case.”

  “Aye. I’m glad you did.”

  Gleason leaned the shotgun against the wall and looked at the blood that was on the floor of the cabin.

  “I reckon I’d better get this mess cleaned up for you,” he said.

  “Elmer, I’m sure you don’t realize it, but you just did,” Duff said.

  Chapter One

  One year later

  Duff Tavish MacCallister was a tall man with golden hair,
wide shoulders and muscular arms. At the moment, he was sitting in the swing on the front porch of his ranch house in the Chugwater Valley of southeastern Wyoming. This particular vantage point afforded him a view of the rolling grassland, the swiftly moving stream of Bear Creek, and steep, red escarpments to the south. He had title to twelve thousand acres; but even beyond that, he had free use of tens of thousands more acres, the perimeters limited only by the sage-covered mountains whose peaks were snowcapped ten months of the year.

  He had once owned a cattle ranch in Scotland, but it wasn’t called a ranch, it was called a farm, and he had only three hundred acres of land. He was a Highlander, meaning that he was from the Highlands of Scotland, but compared to the magnificent mountains in the American West, the Highlands were but hills.

  In the corral, his horse Sky felt a need to exercise, and he began running around the outside edge of the corral at nearly top speed. His sudden burst of energy sent a handful of chickens scurrying away in fear. High overhead, a hawk was making a series of ever-widening circles, his eyes alert for the rabbit, squirrel, or rat that would be his next meal.

  “I was talking to Guthrie yesterday,” Duff said. “He said if I wanted to build a machine shed he could get the plans and all the material together for me, but I’m not so sure I need another building now. What do you think, Elmer?”

  Elmer Gleason was Duff’s foreman and, at the moment, he was sitting on the top level of the steps that led up to the porch. Elmer was wiry and rawboned. He had a full head of white hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He leaned over to expectorate a quid of tobacco before he replied.

  “’Peers to me, Duff, like you near ’bout got ever’thing done that needs doin’ in order to get this ranch a-goin’,” Elmer said as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I don’t see no need for you to be buildin’ a machine shed till you get yourself some cows.”

  “I expect you are right,” Duff replied.