Will Tanner

by William W. Johnstone

  “Why, sure,” Will replied. “That oughta be understood.”

  “Good,” Perley said, grinning. “I thought that mighta been part of the deal, so I threw my old wore-out saddle on Sam. He’s more used to that one, anyway.”

  When Will turned to take the reins of the mule from Perley, Eli decided it was the opportunity he was waiting for. He suddenly pushed away from the tree trunk and lunged at the lawman. Anticipating such an attempt, Will dropped the reins, spun around, and met Eli’s charge with a stiff right hand flush on Eli’s nose. The result of the punch stopped Eli’s head while his feet kept going, and dropped him flat on his back. While he lay there stunned for a few moments, Will retied his wrists.

  “I figured that bastard was playin’ possum,” Perley remarked soberly. “I reckon you figured the same thing.”

  “Tell you the truth,” Will said, “I was kinda hopin’ he’d try something like that.” He and Perley pulled the stunned outlaw to his feet and helped him up into the saddle.

  With Eli sitting on Perley’s mule, his hands bound and his feet tied under the mule’s belly, in case he took a notion to jump off and take off running, Will said “So long” to Perley. “I hope I’ll see you again, if you’re in this part of the territory again,” Perley said.

  “I expect you might,” Will replied, and shook his hand. “Thanks again for your help.” He stepped up into the saddle and turned Buster to the east.

  Perley stood watching him until he could no longer see him through the trees. That was one hell of a right hand, he thought.

  * * *

  Marshal Daniel Stone happened to be at the jail under the courtroom when a weary deputy rode slowly down the street, his packhorse behind, followed by a prisoner on a mule. “Well, I’ll be . . .” Stone started. “He did it—that son of a gun did it. He said he’d bring Eli Stark back for trial. I ain’t ever seen Eli Stark before, but I’m bettin’ that’s him sittin’ on that mule.” He hurried out to meet Will at the hitching post. “Randolph, you’ve got a prisoner to lock up,” he called back to jailer Sid Randolph. Randolph went back inside and called a couple of guards out to take possession of the prisoner.

  “Is that him?” Stone asked when Will stepped down, “Stark?”

  “Yep,” Will replied. “That’s him, and he’s got a few nicks and scratches the doctor might wanna look at.”

  “Well, we’ll certainly do our best to make him feel welcome,” Stone said sarcastically. “Anybody wanted in three territories like Mr. Stark, here, deserves the best we can give him.” His remarks were met by the snarling countenance of Eli, still intent upon displaying a show of defiance. After watching the guards as they untied Eli’s ankles and pulled him off the mule, Stone turned his attention to Will. “You look like you’re a little hard for wear, yourself. I reckon he didn’t come that easy, did he? Why don’t you go on home and get something to eat, and get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll go over your report in the morning. All right?”

  “I ’preciate it,” Will said. “I could use a good home-cooked meal right now.” There was a reason he was eager to go home that was more compelling than his desire for a home-cooked meal, however. And she would most likely be helping her mother to prepare for supper about now. “I’ll see you in the mornin’,” he said to Stone, then hesitated long enough to watch the guards escort Eli through the door to the jail before climbing back on the buckskin. Suddenly feeling tired, now that he was done with the Tarbows and the Starks, he turned Buster and Perley’s mule toward the stables.

  Stone watched him for a few moments before following Randolph inside the jail. There was no physical resemblance between the two men, yet he couldn’t help being reminded of a younger version of Fletcher Pride. Pride’s death was a monumental loss, and Stone hoped like hell Will was going to stick. He needed men like him. Stone was also experienced enough to suspect that Will was going to be doing a lot of thinking in the next day or two. He had a decision to make, and it had to be much more difficult, considering the circumstances he had been forced to deal with on his first assignment. In the short time Will had worn the badge, he had been baptized in a bloodbath of killing that would discourage the average man. If he had to bet on it, however, Stone would wager that Will Tanner would be back in the morning.

  * * *

  It was only the second time she had witnessed it, but already it seemed like a familiar sight. She lingered at the window for a few moments to watch the easy stride of the rangy lawman as he walked from the stables, his saddlebags over his shoulder, the rifle in his hand, the weathered flat-crowned hat pulled low over his sandy hair. She could not deny a fascination, like the fascination for a tawny mountain lion, handsome although deadly—and too dangerous to attempt to tame. Sophie knew her mother had had concerns about her casual attitude with Will Tanner, and Sophie was well aware of the folly in becoming involved with a man who lived by the sword. She knew better than to let herself think of him in any regard beyond a casual friend. Or do I? she thought as she went to the front door.

  “Well, welcome home,” Sophie called out cheerfully through the screen door when Will reached the porch steps. “Did you catch the man you went after?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did,” Will answered.

  “Good. Then I suppose you’ll be in town for a few days now,” Sophie said. “At least, that’s the way it usually was when Fletcher arrested an outlaw. He stayed in town until they had the trial.”

  “I reckon,” Will said. He had not really been told as much by Stone, but that seemed logical, since he was the arresting officer.

  She opened the screen door for him and stood aside to let him pass. “You want me to heat some water for you? It looks like you brought a good bit of Oklahoma back with you.”

  “Ah yes, ma’am,” he said. “I reckon I could use a soakin’ at that, but I can heat the water myself.” He did feel downright grimy. There wasn’t much opportunity to take a bath when you were traveling with a man like Eli Stark, even if you wanted one.

  She started to close the door, but suddenly paused. “By the way,” she said as casually as she could affect, even though she was anxious to see his reaction, “Garth Pearson asked me to marry him.”

  It was too sudden for him to hide his shock, although he recovered quickly enough to respond indifferently. “I reckon I’m not surprised.” A long moment followed with no response from Sophie. So Will was prompted to ask, “What was your answer—if it ain’t too nosy for me to ask?”

  She shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, Garth is a wonderful man, and he’s got a great future ahead of him—you know, working for Judge Parker and all. I certainly have to consider that. But I told him I couldn’t give him an answer right away. I’ll have to search my feelings and decide if it’s the best thing for me—and him, too.” She gave Will a big smile and closed the screen door behind him. “Anyway, everybody but you already knows, so I just thought I’d give you the news.” She watched him closely, waiting for his response. He said nothing right away, but she had seen his shocked expression upon first hearing her announcement. It told her what she had suspected all along.

  After a long moment, during which he labored with his emotions, he stumbled through his reply. “Well, like I said, I reckon I ain’t surprised. He’d be a fool not to propose—I mean, any man would be.” He had a sudden impulse to tell her that he was half owner of the J-Bar-J ranch in Texas, and he didn’t expect to be a deputy marshal all his life. But somehow it didn’t seem right to tell her at this moment when she was considering Garth’s proposal. She had known Garth much longer than she had known him. In fact, when he thought about it, he realized that she hadn’t known him long enough to determine what kind of man he really was. He had a feeling her mother had given her plenty of warning of the heartache that came with loving a lawman, one working in Indian Territory, to boot. “Well,” he finally blurted, thinking he had come awfully close to making a complete fool of himself. “I reckon I’d best get washed up now. I don’t wanna be la
te for supper.”

  She watched him walk away. You’re certainly not making it easy on me, she thought, but things have a way of working out like they’re supposed to.

  New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

  William W. Johnstone

  And J. A. Johnstone

  Smoke Jensen was a towering Western hero. Now his

  two freewheeling, long-lost nephews, Ace and Chance Jensen,

  are blazing a legendary trail of their own.

  Riverboat gambling is a blast, until hotheaded

  Chance finds out just what he won in his final hand

  against a Missouri River gambler named Haggarty.

  Chance’s “prize” is a beautiful Chinese slave girl

  named Ling. The twins want to set Ling free

  and keep their cash, but at Fort Benton, Ling gives

  them the slip, robbing them blind. When they hunt

  her down in Rimfire, Montana, she’s with

  Haggarty, lining up their next mark.

  WHAT WOULD SMOKE JENSEN DO?

  Ace and Chance want payback. So does hard case

  Leo Belmont, who’s come all the way from

  San Francisco with a grudge and a couple of

  kill-crazy hired guns. Belmont wants revenge,

  and Ace and Chance are in the way.

  PROBABLY THIS.

  Soon the boys are fighting alongside Ling and

  Haggarty. Because it doesn’t matter now who’s right

  and who’s wrong—blazing guns and flying lead

  are laying down the law . . .

  THOSE JENSEN BOYS!

  RIMFIRE

  The exciting new series!

  On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Let’s take a ride on a riverboat, you said,” Ace Jensen muttered to his brother as they backed away from the group of angry men stalking toward them across the deck. “It’ll be fun, you said.”

  “Well, I didn’t count on this,” Chance Jensen replied. “How was I to know we’d wind up in such a mess of trouble?”

  Ace glanced over at Chance as if amazed that his brother could ask such a stupid question. “When do we ever not wind up in trouble?”

  “Yeah, you’ve got a point there,” Chance agreed. “It seems to have a way of finding us.”

  Their backs hit the railing along the edge of the deck. Behind them, the giant wooden blades of the side-wheeler’s paddles churned the muddy waters of the Missouri River.

  They were on the right side of the riverboat—the starboard side, Ace thought, then chided himself for allowing such an irrelevant detail to intrude on his brain at such a moment—and so far out in the middle of the stream that jumping overboard and swimming for shore wasn’t practical.

  Besides, the brothers weren’t in the habit of fleeing from trouble. If they started doing that, most likely they would never stop running.

  The man who was slightly in the forefront of the group confronting them pointed a finger at Chance. “All right, kid, I’ll have that watch back now.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Chance snapped. “I’m a grown man. And so are you, so you shouldn’t have bet the watch if you didn’t want to take a chance on losing it.”

  The Jensen brothers were grown men, all right, but not by much. They were in their early twenties, and although they had knocked around the frontier all their lives, had faced all sorts of danger, and burned plenty of powder, there was still a certain . . . innocence . . . about them, for want of a better word. They still made their way through life with enthusiasm and an eagerness to embrace all the joy the world had to offer.

  They were twins, although that wasn’t instantly apparent. They were fraternal rather than identical. Ace was taller, broader through the shoulders, and had black hair instead of his brother’s sandy brown. He preferred range clothes, wearing jeans, a buckskin shirt, and a battered old Stetson, while Chance was much more dapper in a brown tweed suit, vest, white shirt, a fancy cravat with an ivory stickpin, and a straw planter’s hat.

  Ace was armed with a Colt .45 Peacemaker with well-worn walnut grips that rode easily in a holster on his right hip. Chance didn’t carry a visible gun, but he had a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber, double action Second Model revolver in a shoulder holster under his left arm.

  However, neither young man wanted to start a gunfight on the deck of the Missouri Belle. It was a tranquil summer night, and gunshots and spilled blood would just about ruin it.

  The leader of the group confronting them was an expensively dressed, middle-aged man with a beefy, well-fed look about him. Still pointing that accusing finger at Chance, he went on. “Leland Stanford himself gave me that watch in appreciation for my help in getting the transcontinental railroad built. You know who Leland Stanford is, don’t you? President of the Central Pacific Railroad?”

  “We’ve heard of him,” Ace said. “Rich fella out California way. Used to be governor out there, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right. And he’s a good friend of mine. I’m a stockholder in the Central Pacific, in fact.”

  “Then likely you can afford to buy yourself another watch,” Chance said.

  The man’s already red face flushed even more as it twisted in a snarl. “You mouthy little pup. Hand it over, or we’ll throw the two of you right off this boat.”

  “I won it fair and square, mister. Doc Monday always says the cards know more about our fate than we do.”

  “I don’t know who in blazes Doc Monday is, but your fate is to take a beating and then a swim. Grab ’em, boys, but don’t throw ’em overboard until I get my watch back!”

  The other four men rushed Ace and Chance. With their backs to the railing, they had nowhere to go.

  Doc Monday, the gambler who had raised the Jensen brothers after their mother died in childbirth, had taught them many things, including the fact that it was usually a mistake to wait for trouble to come to you. Better to go out and meet it head on. In other words, the best defense was the proverbial good offense, so Ace and Chance met the charge with one of their own, going low to tackle the nearest two men around the knees.

  The hired ruffians weren’t expecting it, and the impact swept their legs out from under them. They fell under the feet of their onrushing companions, who stumbled and lost their balance, toppling onto the first two men, and suddenly there was a knot of flailing, punching, and kicking combatants on the deck.

  The florid-faced hombre who had foolishly wagered his watch during a poker game in the riverboat’s salon earlier hopped around agitatedly and shouted encouragement to his men.

  Facing two to one odds, the brothers shouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight, but when it came to brawling, Ace and Chance could more than hold their own. Their fists lashed out and crashed against the jaws and into the bellies of their enemies. Ace got behind one of the men, looped an arm around his neck, and hauled him around just in time to receive a kick in the face that had been aimed at Ace’s head, knocking the man senseless.

  Ace let go of him and rolled out of the way of a dive from another attacker. He clubbed his hands and brought them down on the back of the man’s neck. The man’s face bounced off the deck, flattening his nose and stunning him.

  Chance had his hands full, too. His left hand was clamped around the neck of an enemy while his right clenched into a fist and pounded the man’s face. But he was taking punishment himself. His opponent was choking him at the same time, and the other man in the fight hammered punches into Chance’s ribs from the side.

  Knowing that he had only seconds before he would be overwhelmed, Chance twisted his body, drew his legs up, and rammed both boot heels into the chest of the man hitting him. It wasn’t quite the same as being kicked by a mule, but not far from it. The man flew backwards and rolled when he landed on the deck. He almost went under the railing and off the side into the river, but he stopped just short of the brink.

  With the odds even now, Cha
nce was able to batter his other foe into submission. The man’s hand slipped off Chance’s throat as he moaned and slumped back onto the smooth planks.

  That still left the rich man who didn’t like losing.

  As Ace and Chance looked up from their vanquished enemies, they saw him pointing a pistol at them.

  “If you think I’m going to allow a couple gutter rats like you two to make a fool of me, you’re sadly mistaken,” the man said as a snarl twisted his beefy face.

  “You’re not gonna shoot us, mister,” Ace said. “That would be murder.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.” An ugly smile appeared on the man’s lips. “Not if I tell the captain the two of you jumped me and tried to rob me. I had to kill you to protect myself. That’s exactly what’s about to happen here.”

  “Over a blasted watch?” Chance exclaimed in surprise.

  “I don’t like losing . . . especially to my inferiors.”

  “You’d never get away with it,” Ace said.

  “Won’t I? Why do you think none of the crew has come to see what all the commotion’s about? I told the chief steward I’d be dealing with some cheap troublemakers—in my own way—and he promised he’d make sure I wasn’t interrupted. You see”—the red-faced man chuckled—“I’m not involved with just the railroad. I own part of this riverboat line as well.”

  Ace and Chance exchanged a glance. If the man shot them, his hired ruffians could toss their bodies into the midnight-dark Missouri River and no one would know they were gone until morning. It was entirely possible that a man of such wealth and influence wouldn’t even be questioned about the disappearance of a couple drifting nobodies.