Sidewinders

by William W. Johnstone

  More shots rang out from the ledge above the camp as Scratch and Chloride joined in the fight. The Devils had thought they held the high ground, but now they saw they were wrong about that. They scattered and sought cover among the rocks.

  From the corner of his eye Bo saw Martha slam clubbed fists across Sue Beth’s face. The older woman sagged, obviously stunned. Bo triggered another shot, then bent to grab Martha’s arm and haul her to her feet. At the same time, he kicked away the little revolver Sue Beth had dropped.

  “Get behind the trees!” Bo told Martha as he pushed her in that direction. He snapped a fourth shot toward the rocks where the Devils had taken cover and then darted behind one of the pines as soon as he saw that Martha was safe behind one of the thick-trunked trees. Gun thunder still echoed from the slopes around them as the battle continued.

  Bo took a moment to thumb fresh rounds into the empty chambers of his gun. While he was doing that, he heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats from the trail. The posse was running the gauntlet down below, but with most of the Devils shooting at him, Scratch, and Chloride, the chances of the lawman’s entourage making it past Wolf Head Rock were a lot better.

  Bo snapped the Colt’s cylinder closed and thrust the gun past the tree trunk. He slammed out three shots just as one of the outlaws tried to dart from one rock to another. The man went down writhing in pain from a bullet-shattered shoulder.

  The hoofbeats grew louder. Bo glanced toward the path that led up from the main trail and saw the members of the posse surge into sight with their guns blazing. Two more of the Devils went down, but Phillip Ramsey pitched out of the saddle as a bullet tore through his arm. Sergeant Gustaffson jerked as he was hit, but he managed to stay on his horse and kept firing the rifle clutched in his hands.

  Reese Bardwell’s horse suddenly went out from under him as a bullet struck it. The big engineer was thrown clear, slamming to the ground and rolling over several times as he landed. His rifle had flown out of his hands when he fell.

  Reese came up within arm’s reach of one of the outlaws. The man fired at him at such close range that it seemed impossible for him to miss. Reese kept coming, though, swinging one of his huge fists in a sweeping blow with so much power behind it that when the punch smashed into the outlaw’s jaw, he was lifted clean off his feet and thrown backward. He sprawled on the ground, limp and motionless, either dead or out so cold that he was no longer a threat.

  Bo was watching as Reese Bardwell started to turn around. He saw the black-bearded figure leap out from behind one of the rocks and line his gunsights on Reese. Tom Bardwell might have hesitated for just a split second when he recognized his brother, but then the gun in his hand roared and spouted flame and smoke anyway. Bo fired at the same instant and saw Tom Bardwell jerk under the impact of the slug that drove into his chest. Bardwell stumbled back a step and fell to his knees.

  Reese was still on his feet, holding a hand to his side now. Bo saw crimson welling between the engineer’s fingers. Reese took a step toward his wounded brother. Tom Bardwell, his face a twisted mask of hate, struggled to lift his gun and shoot his brother again, but his strength suddenly deserted him. The revolver slipped from his fingers and thudded to the ground. Bardwell followed it, flopping face-first.

  Reese turned and looked at Bo for a second. Then he gave the Texan a curt nod of thanks.

  The shooting was over. The rest of the posse dismounted, and Sheriff Manning moved quickly to check the bodies of the outlaws who lay sprawled here and there on Wolf Head Rock.

  While Manning was doing that, Bo stepped over to a groggy Martha Sutton, who was shaking her head as she struggled to get to her feet.

  Sue Beth Pendleton was gone.

  Bo took Martha’s arm and helped her stand up. “Are you all right?” he asked her. He didn’t see any blood on her, but a bruise was already starting to show on her jaw.

  “Yes, I . . . I’m fine,” she said. “Mrs. Pendleton walloped me pretty good, but I—” She stopped short and looked around. “Where did she go?”

  “She must have slipped off during the ruckus,” Bo said. He saw that the revolver Sue Beth had had hidden somewhere in her clothes still lay on the ground where he had kicked it. He picked it up and tucked it behind his belt while he looked around for her.

  “Bo!”

  The shout from above made him look up. Scratch stood on the ledge with Chloride. He called down, “Are you all right, Bo?”

  Bo was waving to indicate that he wasn’t hurt when hoofbeats suddenly sounded close by. Martha cried out a warning. Bo jerked around and then leaped aside as one of the horses belonging to the Devils loomed up, practically on top of him. He caught a glimpse of Sue Beth riding the unsaddled animal as he threw himself out of the way just in time to avoid being trampled. He pushed himself to his knees as she galloped toward the path leading down to the main trail.

  Before she could reach it, Andrew Keefer leaped in her way, yelling and waving his arms. The horse veered away from the stocky mine superintendent. Then Henry Manning shouted, “Mrs. Pendleton, wait!” He tried to grab the bridle Sue Beth had slipped onto the horse, but she frantically jerked the animal away from him.

  The horse was already spooked from all the gunfire and powder smoke. Neighing shrilly, it reared up and danced backward. Out onto Wolf Head Rock it went, plunging and bucking, and Sue Beth screamed as she fought to bring the horse under control. That scream turned into a shriek of terror as hooves slipped on snow-covered rock and the horse’s legs skidded out from under it. Bo and everyone else watched in horror as the horse slid off the edge, taking Sue Beth with it.

  “My God,” Martha said in a shocked, hollow voice. A big hand fell on her shoulder, and she turned to find herself standing next to Reese Bardwell. She buried her face against his massive chest as a shudder went through her.

  A few yards away, Phillip Ramsey stood with his right hand clutching his bloodstained upper left arm. He glared at Reese and Martha and then shook his head. The young bookkeeper wasn’t hurt too bad, Bo thought . . . at least not physically.

  He left Reese Bardwell comforting Martha while Ramsey looked on in disgust. Bo had spotted Olaf Gustaffson sitting propped up against a rock, and now he hurried toward the sergeant.

  “How are you, Olaf?” Bo asked as he knelt beside the non-com.

  “I think I’ll live,” Gustaffson replied. “A bullet got me in the side and knocked out a chunk of meat, but it went on through and didn’t hit anything too important, I hope.” He looked toward the protruding rock where Sue Beth and the horse had fallen. “I’m sorry about Mrs. Pendleton. What a tragedy.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Bo said.

  By evening, everyone was back in Deadwood except the troopers who had been left to guard the loot at the Devils’ hideout. The next day, Chloride and several other drivers would take wagons up there to retrieve the gold and bring it back to town, where somebody would have to sort out which part of it belonged to who. Bo was glad he wasn’t going to have anything to do with that job.

  Reese Bardwell, Ramsey, and Gustaffson had had their wounds patched up by one of the local doctors, and they were all expected to make a full recovery. Sue Beth Pendleton’s broken body was down at the undertaker’s, along with the bodies of the outlaws. John Tadrack was going to be busy for a while.

  It didn’t seem right that those varmints would be laid to rest properly while Lieutenant Holbrook and the other soldiers killed in the avalanche would probably sleep for eternity under those tons of rock . . . but that was the way of the world, Bo knew. Justice was a relative thing, and often incomplete.

  The Texans and Chloride were striding along the boardwalk when the door of the Argosy Mining Company opened and Lawrence Nicholson stepped out in front of them. The mine owner smiled and said, “Good evening, gentlemen. I’ve been hoping you’d come along so I could have a word with you.”

  “What do you want?” Chloride asked, not bothering to be overly polite about it. />
  “Why, I’d like to offer you your job back, Mr. Coleman,” Nicholson said. He looked at Bo and Scratch. “And I’d like for the two of you to work for me as well.”

  Scratch shook his head. “We’re a mite too old to swing a pickax.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll find something better than that for you. I’m sure I’ll need some good men to guard our gold shipments.”

  Bo said, “You shouldn’t have any more trouble. All the Deadwood Devils are either dead or behind bars in Sheriff Manning’s jail.”

  “The Deadwood Devils aren’t the only bandits in the world, you know,” Nicholson said. “I’m sure there’ll be more trouble in the future.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll have to find somebody else to handle it,” Scratch said. “We’re makin’ a run for Mexico, soon as the snow melts.”

  Nicholson sighed. “I can’t persuade you to change your minds?”

  Bo shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “That is too bad. I can’t get you to work for me, and I’m going to be losing my chief engineer and superintendent, too. Possibly even my bookkeeper.”

  “How do you figure that?” Bo asked with a frown.

  “Now that Marty Sutton knows how Reese and Phillip feel about her, I fully expect both of them to resign from the Argosy and go to work for the Golden Queen, so they can continue their rivalry for her affections.”

  “Now that could cause some problems,” Bo said.

  “But somebody else’ll have to handle that fracas, too,” Scratch added.

  Nicholson chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I’m not really that upset about it. I figure that sooner or later, Marty will decide between the two of them and then settle down to get married and have children, and she’ll let me buy her mine at a reasonable price. If you put the Argosy and the Golden Queen together, you know, it would be the biggest mining operation in this part of the country.”

  “That thought crossed my mind,” Bo said, not mentioning that at the time he had been trying to decide whether or not Lawrence Nicholson was really the ringleader of the Deadwood Devils.

  Nicholson nodded and bid them a good night. As the three men strolled on down the street, Scratch asked, “How would you feel about comin’ to Mexico with us, Chloride?”

  “What, you mean you want to associate with an old-timer like me?” Chloride asked with a disgusted snort.

  Scratch grinned. “I reckon we’ve sorta got used to havin’ you around.”

  “Well, thanks but no thanks. I got a job drivin’ for Miss Sutton, and I intend to keep it.” Chloride grinned under his bushy mustache. “Besides, I got a feelin’ that bein’ around the Golden Queen’s gonna be pretty entertainin’ once those two young fellas are all healed up.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” Bo said. He paused and looked across the street. The Red Top Café sat there, closed and dark. Bo couldn’t help but think about how nice it would have been to walk into the warmth of that place, to have a bowl of stew and a piece of pie and a cup of coffee, to look across the counter and see Sue Beth Pendleton with a friendly smile on her face . . .

  “‘Smile and smile, and be a villain,’” he murmured.

  “What’s that?” Scratch asked.

  Bo shook his head. “Nothing.” He paused. “Wind’s turned around to the south. It feels a little warmer already. Won’t be long before the snow’s all gone, and we can light a shuck for Mexico.”

  Built on dreams. Forged in blood. Defended with

  bullets. The town called Fury is home to the bravest

  pioneers to ever stake a claim in the harsh,

  unforgiving land of Arizona Territory.

  In William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone’s

  blockbuster series, the settlers take in a

  mysterious stranger with deadly secrets—

  and deadlier enemies . . .

  Turn the page for an exciting preview of

  A Town Called Fury: Redemption

  Coming in July 2011

  Wherever Pinnacle Books are sold

  PROLOGUE

  29 October, 1928

  Mr. J. Carlton Blander, Editor

  Livermore and Beedle Publishing

  New York, New York

  Dear Carlton,

  Thank you so much for pointing me toward this Fury story! I know you didn’t mean for me to get a “wild hare” (or is that “wild hair”?) and just go charging out to Arizona at the drop of your not-inconsequential hat, but that’s exactly what I did. The story runs deeper than you could have known—or the sketchy reference books say, for that matter—and I found a number of the participants still alive and kicking, and best of all, talking!

  As you know, the story actually begins long before the events you provided me to spin into literary fodder. They begin in 1866, when famed wagon master Jedediah Fury was hired by a small troupe of travelers to lead them West, from Kansas City to California. Jedediah was accompanied on this mission by his twenty-year-old son, Jason, and his fifteen-year-old daughter, Jenny, they being the last of his living family after the Civil War. Jedediah was no newcomer to leading pilgrims West. He’d been traveling those paths since after the War of 1812.

  I have not been able to ascertain the names of all the folks who were in the train, but what records I could scrounge up (along with the memories of those still living) have provided me with the following partial roster: the “Reverend” Louis Milcher, his wife (Lavinia) and seven children, ages five through fifteen; Hamish MacDonald, widower, with two half-grown children—a boy and a girl, Matthew and Megan, roughly the ages of Jedediah’s children; Salmon and Cordelia Kendall, with two children (Sammy, Jr. and Peony, called Piney); Randall and Miranda Nordstrom, no children (went back East or on to California—there is some contention about this—in 1867); Ezekiel and Eliza Morton, single daughter Electa, twenty-seven (to be the schoolmarm) and elder daughter Europa Morton Greggs, married to Milton Griggs, blacksmith and wheelwright (no children); Zachary and Suzannah Morton (no children), Zachary being Ezekiel’s elder brother; a do-it-yourself doctor, Michael Morelli, wife Olympia, and their two young children (Constantine and Helen); Saul and Rachael Cohen and their three young sons. There were a few other families, but they were not listed and no one could recall their names, most likely because they later went back East or traveled farther West.

  The train (which also contained livestock in the forms of a number of saddle horses and breeding stock, a greater deal of cattle, goats, and hogs—mostly that of Hamish MacDonald and the Morton families—and, of all things, a piano owned by the Milchers) left for the West in the spring of 1866. It was led by Fury, with the help of his three trusty hirelings. I could only dig up one of the names here: a Ward Wanamaker, who later became the town’s deputy until his murder several years later (which follows herein).

  Most of the wagon train members survived Indian attacks (Jedediah Fury was himself killed by Comanche, I believe, about halfway West, several children died, and Hamish MacDonald died when his wagon tumbled down a mountainside, after he took a trail he was advised not to attempt), visiting wild settlements where now stand real towns, and withstanding highly inclement weather. About three-fifths of the way across Arizona, they decided to stop and put down stakes.

  The place they chose was fortunate, because it was right next to the only water for forty or fifty miles, both west and east, and it was close enough to the southernmost tip of the Bradshaws to make the getting of timber relatively easy. There was good grazing to be had, and the Morton clan made good use of it. Their homestead still survives to this day as a working ranch, as do the large homes they built for themselves. Young Seth Todd, the last of the Mortons (and Electa’s grandson) owns and runs it.

  South of the town was where Hamish MacDonald’s son, Matthew, set up his cattle operation, which had been his late father’s dream. He also bred fine Morgan horses, the only such breeder in the then territory of Arizona. His sister, Megan, ran the bank both before and after she m
arried, she having the head for figures that Matthew never possessed.

  For the first few years, everyone else lived inside the town walls, whose fortress-like perimeter proved daunting to both Indians and white scofflaws, and the town itself became a regular stopover for wagon trains heading both east and west.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. What concerns us here is the spring of 1871, the year that gunfighter Ezra Welk went to meet his maker. Former marshal Jason Fury (now a tall but spare man in his eighties, with all his own teeth and most all of his hair, and, certainly, all of his mental capacities) was very much surprised that I was there, asking questions about something “so inconsequential” as the demise of Ezra Welk.

  “ Inconsequential?!” I said, as surprised by his use of the word as its use in this context.

  “You heard me, boy,” he snapped. “Salmon Kendall was a better newsman than you, clear back fifty or sixty years!”

  I again explained that I was a writer of books and films, not a newspaperman.

  This seemed to “settle his hash” somewhat, however, it was then that I changed my mind about the writing of this book. I had planned to pen it pretending to be Marshal Fury himself, using the first-person narrative you had asked for. However, in light of Marshal Fury’s attitude (and also, there being other witnesses still living), I decided to write it in third person.

  And so, as they say, on with the show!

  CHAPTER 1

  The black, biting wind was so strong and so fierce that Jason feared there was no more skin left on his upper face—the only part not covered by his hat or bandana.

  His nostrils were clogged with dust and snot, despite the precautionary bandana, and his throat was growing thick with dust and grit. Whoever had decided to call these things dust storms had never been in one, he knew that for certain. Oh, they might start out with dust, but as they grew, they picked up everything, from pebbles to grit to bits of plants and sticks. He’d been told they could rip whole branches from trees and arms off cacti, and add them into the whirling, filthy mess, blasting small buildings and leaving nothing behind but splinters.