“What are you gonna do?” Russell asked under his breath.
“That big varmint’s mine,” Preacher said.
Binnion reached the bottom of the stairs and went over to the door into the engine room. He rapped on it with the butt of his pistol and called, “Open up, boys. We’ve got some new guests.”
Wedge kept one hand on Heinrich’s throat and clamped the other around his upper arm to shove him along the deck toward the door. Heinrich looked a little like he was choking and he probably was, because Wedge barely allowed his feet to touch the deck.
The door into the engine room swung open. Preacher looked past Binnion and saw several pirates in there, peering out to see what was happening instead of watching their prisoners.
This moment wouldn’t come again, the mountain man thought.
In times of great danger, for Preacher to think was to act. He shouted, “Now!,” lowered his shoulder, and rammed into Wedge with all the power and drive he could muster.
The pirates were taken by surprise, just as Preacher hoped they would be. That gave Russell, Allingham, and Stahlmaske time to snatch up two pistols apiece and raise them toward the passenger deck. Shots roared from the weapons.
At the same time, Preacher slammed into Wedge. It felt a little like running into a mountain. Wedge wasn’t expecting it, though, and the collision drove him against the outer wall of the engine room. That impact jolted loose his grip on Heinrich’s neck.
As Russell fired toward the pirates on the passenger deck, he shouted through the open door of the engine room, “Come on, Cap’n!” Bellowing angrily, Captain Warner and the surviving members of the Sentinel ’s crew charged their guards. Guns boomed inside the engine room, but a second later the knot of struggling men spilled out onto the deck.
Preacher peppered Wedge’s granite-like face with a series of jabs. Often with big men like that, they had a weak spot on their nose or chin.
Not Wedge, evidently. He didn’t even seem to feel the punches. He still had hold of Heinrich’s arm, so he swung the young man like a club and smashed him into Preacher.
That sent both Preacher and Heinrich sprawling on the deck. At least Heinrich was out of the giant’s clutches now, Preacher thought as he rolled over and came up to meet Wedge’s bullish charge.
Up on the passenger deck, half of the pirates had gone down under the thunderous volley from Russell, Stahlmaske, and Allingham. Unfortunately, that still left half of the gang to fight back, and under the circumstances none of them cared about keeping any of the prisoners alive. Lead balls rained down around the three men who tried to duck for cover.
One of the shots tore through Allingham’s left arm and sent him toppling to the deck. Stahlmaske cried out in pain as a lead ball ripped through his thigh. Russell was luckier than he’d been at the trading post and was untouched this time. He scooped up another pair of pistols and blasted two more of the pirates to hell.
At that moment, Egon and Ludwig broke free of the men who had been holding them and tackled a couple of pirates at the railing from behind. They all went over and fell heavily to the cargo deck below.
Preacher ducked away as Wedge tried to envelop him in a bear hug. He knew that if Wedge got those tree-trunk arms around him, the massive pirate could crush every bone in his body. Preacher hooked a left and a right to Wedge’s belly, but again the blows seemingly had no effect.
Wedge was pretty fast for a big man, although his movements had a certain lumbering quality about them due to his sheer size. Preacher had to dodge ham-like fists that might have torn his head right off his shoulders if they had connected.
He launched a kick at Wedge’s groin, but the big man caught his foot before the blow could connect. Without much obvious effort, Wedge heaved Preacher over backward. Preacher slid on his shoulders across the deck and wound up next to the pile of weapons.
He grabbed his tomahawk and threw it. Wedge tried to bat it away but was too slow. The tomahawk struck his head a glancing blow, opening up a long gash that welled blood down the side of Wedge’s face.
That infuriated him. He bellowed again and thundered toward Preacher. The mountain man rolled desperately to get out of the way of those trampling feet. He hooked a toe behind Wedge’s left knee and kicked that leg with his other foot as hard as he could. He heard the sharp pop as the knee broke. Wedge screamed and toppled like a tree, falling off the boat into the river.
Preacher dived after him and landed on the big pirate’s back before Wedge could rise from the muddy water along the shore. It wasn’t deep here, but Preacher drove his knee into the small of Wedge’s back and pinned him down. With both hands on the back of Wedge’s head, Preacher forced his face into the bottom. Wedge bucked, but he wasn’t as strong in the water and couldn’t get the same sort of purchase. Preacher threw all his strength into the effort. He knew that Wedge’s nose and mouth had to be clogged with mud by now. The man wouldn’t be able to breathe at all.
It was a brutal, ugly thing, suffocating a man like this, but Preacher knew he had no choice. Gradually, Wedge’s struggles became weaker. Preacher felt a shudder go through the giant frame. Then Wedge went limp.
Preacher didn’t know how his friends were faring. This was the first chance he’d had to check. He raised his head and looked toward the boat.
Claude Binnion was backing away along the cargo deck, one arm looped around Sarah Allingham’s neck so he could drag her with him as the other hand pressed a pistol barrel into her side. Facing him were Russell, Captain Warner, and several of the crewmen, all armed now.
“I’ll kill her!” Binnion threatened. “She’s coming with me, and you’re gonna let me get away from here.”
Binnion appeared to be the only one of the pirates still in the fight. The others were littered around the boat, either dead, unconscious, or badly wounded. He glanced toward where Preacher was rising out of the water and cried in alarm, “Wedge! Wedge! You’ve killed him, damn you!”
The sight of Wedge’s body lying in the shallow water at the edge of the river had distracted Binnion enough that he didn’t notice Heinrich Ritter coming up behind him. Heinrich must have circled the boat to get in that position. He moved quietly until he was close enough to rush Binnion.
The pirate heard Heinrich at the last second and tried to turn to meet his charge. Heinrich grabbed Binnion’s wrist and thrust his arm up as Binnion pulled the trigger. The pistol barked, but the ball flew harmlessly into the air.
Preacher saw Stahlmaske lying on the deck near the weapons. The count’s leg was bloody and useless, but he had pushed himself up so that he was leaning on his hands. Preacher called, “Count! Toss me a rifle!”
Stahlmaske did so, and Preacher caught the rifle deftly. As he brought it to his shoulder, he saw Heinrich grab Sarah and dive off the side of the boat with her, leaving Binnion standing there alone.
As the rifle boomed and kicked against Preacher’s shoulder, Russell, Warner, and a couple of the crewmen fired as well. All five shots smashed into Binnion and lifted him off his feet with their force. He crashed down on his back, riddled through and through, and kicked a couple of times as he lay there dying. When those spasms stilled, Preacher knew it was finally over.
Heinrich and Sarah rose dripping from the water. She was crying, and he had his arms around her, trying to comfort her. She clutched at his shirt and buried her face against his chest.
Preacher smiled. It looked like ol’ Heinrich might’ve solved his problem with Sarah, he thought. She would remember how he had risked his life to save her.
Romance could wait for later. Right now there was still work to do, wounds to patch up, bodies to pitch in the river, blood to be swabbed off the decks.
The Sentinel and everyone on her had gone through a baptism of fire.
Except for Preacher. This sort of danger and sudden death was all too familiar to him.
Ten days later, the sternwheeler reached the mouth of the Yellowstone River. The rest of the journey to this point
had been uneventful, thank goodness.
Warner’s crew was a little shorthanded because of the men who had been killed in the various battles, so Heinrich, Egon, and Ludwig had pitched in to help. The captain told them they had the makings of good river men, if they wanted to stay once the boat got back to St. Louis. Preacher was pretty sure none of them would take him up on the offer.
As he’d hoped, Heinrich and Sarah had been spending a considerable amount of time together. Whether that would turn into something lasting, Preacher had no idea. Time had a way of taking care of things like that, one way or the other.
Allingham had been wearing a sling to support his wounded arm, but he seemed to be coming along well. He was more determined than ever to return to Vermont when his term in the Senate was finished, and Margaret was looking forward to that. They both were.
Count Stahlmaske had a devoted nurse in Gretchen. The rifle ball had missed the bone in his thigh, and the wound was healing. The count had already started walking a little with the help of a cane Preacher had made for him from the branch of a cottonwood. He hadn’t offered his thanks for that gesture, nor had Preacher expected any.
Once the Sentinel was tied up, the crew began pitching camp on shore. The party would remain here for several weeks while fur trappers brought their pelts to sell to Simon Russell, representing the American Fur Company. Russell had asked Preacher again to stay on, to make the return trip downriver with them.
“We might run into more trouble,” he pointed out as he and Preacher stood on the shore. Preacher was tightening the bindings on the supplies he had placed on the pack horse he’d brought along.
“You’ve got some good fightin’ men along if you do,” the mountain man replied. “I reckon they’ve proved that plenty of times over by now.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the same as having Preacher along,” Russell argued.
“You’ll be fine. Shoot, the way things usually go, you’ll be less likely to run into trouble if I ain’t anywhere around.”
“You do seem to attract it,” Russell said with a rueful chuckle.
“And I don’t understand why. I’m—”
“A peaceable man,” they both said together.
After Russell had said his goodbyes, Count Stahlmaske limped over to Preacher, using his cane to lean on. He gave the mountain man a brusque nod and said, “So, you are leaving.”
“Yep. The other side of the mountain’s callin’ to me.”
“You are a foolish American. You could be a rich man if you would work for the fur company. In ten years you might well be running the entire operation.”
Preacher grunted and said, “No offense, Count, but what you just described sounds like pure dee hell to me.”
“That is because you are a barbarian. A savage.”
Preacher nodded gravely. “Yep.”
Stahlmaske held out his hand and said, “But I wish you luck anyway. Even a barbarian can use some good fortune on occasion.”
Preacher shook the count’s hand. Neither man smiled. But Stahlmaske added quietly, “Once I might have been like you.”
Preacher remembered how Gretchen had said that he and Stahlmaske didn’t get along because they were too much alike. Maybe she was right. But each of them had taken his own path, and those trails led to far different places.
Preacher swung up into the saddle, hitched Horse into motion, said, “Come on, Dog,” and rode west toward the mountains.
It felt good to be going home.
J. A. Johnstone on William W. Johnstone
“Print the Legend”
William W. Johnstone was born in southern Missouri, the youngest of four children. He was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. Despite this, he quit school at age fifteen.
“I have the highest respect for education,” he says, “but such is the folly of youth, and wanting to see the world beyond the four walls and the blackboard.”
True to this vow, Bill attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion (“I saw Gary Cooper in Beau Geste when I was a kid and I thought the French Foreign Legion would be fun”) but was rejected, thankfully, for being underage. Instead, he joined a traveling carnival and did all kinds of odd jobs. It was listening to the veteran carny folk, some of whom had been on the circuit since the late 1800s, telling amazing tales about their experiences, that planted the storytelling seed in Bill’s imagination.
“They were mostly honest people, despite the bad reputation traveling carny shows had back then,” Bill remembers. “Of course, there were exceptions. There was one guy named Picky, who got that name because he was a master pickpocket. He could steal a man’s socks right off his feet without him knowing. Believe me, Picky got us chased out of more than a few towns.”
After a few months of this grueling existence, Bill returned home and finished high school. Next came stints as a deputy sheriff in the Tallulah, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department, followed by a hitch in the U.S. Army. Then he began a career in radio broadcasting at KTLD in Tallulah, which would last sixteen years. It was there that he fine-tuned his storytelling skills. He turned to writing in 1970, but it wouldn’t be until 1979 that his first novel, The Devil’s Kiss, was published. Thus began the full-time writing career of William W. Johnstone. He wrote horror (The Uninvited), thrillers (The Last of the Dog Team), even a romance novel or two. Then, in February 1983, Out of the Ashes was published. Searching for his missing family in a postapocalyptic America, rebel mercenary and patriot Ben Raines is united with the civilians of the Resistance forces and moves to the forefront of a revolution for the nation’s future.
Out of the Ashes was a smash. The series would continue for the next twenty years, winning Bill three generations of fans all over the world. The series was often imitated but never duplicated. “We all tried to copy the Ashes series,” said one publishing executive, “but Bill’s uncanny ability, both then and now, to predict in which direction the political winds were blowing brought a certain immediacy to the table no one else could capture.” The Ashes series would end its run with more than thirty-four books and twenty million copies in print, making it one of the most successful men’s action series in American book publishing. (The Ashes series also, Bill notes with a touch of pride, got him on the FBI’s Watch List for its less than flattering portrayal of spineless politicians and the growing power of big government over our lives, among other things. In that respect, I often find myself saying, “Bill was years ahead of his time.”)
Always steps ahead of the political curve, Bill’s recent thrillers, written with myself, include Vengeance Is Mine, Invasion USA, Border War, Jackknife, Remember the Alamo, Home Invasion, Phoenix Rising, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge, and the upcoming Suicide Mission.
It is with the western, though, that Bill found his greatest success. His westerns propelled him onto both the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists.
Bill’s western series include Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, the First Mountain Man, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, MacCallister (an Eagles spin-off), Sidewinders, The Brothers O’Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter, and the new series Flintlock and The Trail West. May 2013 saw the hardcover western Butch Cassidy: The Lost Years.
“The Western,” Bill says, “is one of the few true art forms that is one hundred percent American. I liken the Western as America’s version of England’s Arthurian legends, like the Knights of the Round Table, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Starting with the 1902 publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister, and followed by the greats like Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and of course Louis L’Amour, the Western has helped to shape the cultural landscape of America.
“I’m no goggle-eyed college academic, so when my fans ask me why the Western is as popular now as it was a century ago, I don’t offer a 200-page thesis. Instead, I can only offer this: The Western is honest. In this great country, wh
ich is suffering under the yoke of political correctness, the Western harks back to an era when justice was sure and swift. Steal a man’s horse, rustle his cattle, rob a bank, a stagecoach, or a train, you were hunted down and fitted with a hangman’s noose. One size fit all.
“Sure, we westerners are prone to a little embellishment and exaggeration and, I admit it, occasionally play a little fast and loose with the facts. But we do so for a very good reason—to enhance the enjoyment of readers.
“It was Owen Wister, in The Virginian, who first coined the phrase ‘When you call me that, smile.’ Legend has it that Wister actually heard those words spoken by a deputy sheriff in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, when another poker player called him a son of a bitch.
“Did it really happen, or is it one of those myths that have passed down from one generation to the next? I honestly don’t know. But there’s a line in one of my favorite Westerns of all time, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, where the newspaper editor tells the young reporter, ‘When the truth becomes legend, print the legend.’
“These are the words I live by.”
Turn the page for an exciting preview from USA Today Bestselling Authors William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone
BUTCH CASSIDY: THE LOST YEARS
“Johnstone is a masterful storyteller, creating a tale that is fanciful and funny, exciting and surprisingly convincing . . . great fun.”
—Publishers Weekly
THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITER OF THE 21ST CENTURY
In a small Texas town in 1950, a Pinkerton detective interrupts a game of dominoes to learn the truth about Butch Cassidy—who is still very much alive. He’s the old-timer playing dominoes.
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