Forty Guns West

by William W. Johnstone

  Black Hawk smiled. “By doing so he has told us that whatever else happens to the evil men is in our hands. He will do nothing to interfere.”

  “How do you know that?” the man dared to ask.

  Black Hawk shifted his obsidian eyes to the man, but did not take offense. “How I know is but one of the reasons I am chief of this tribe and you are not.”

  The man wisely nodded his head and backed away, knowing he had come dangerously close to overstepping that invisible line.

  One of Black Hawk’s closest friends and advisors chuckled in the misty morning air. “Good reply.”

  Black Hawk waggled one hand from side to side. “Not too bad for so early in the morning.”

  The two men laughed softly.

  Black Hawk said, “We have gone far enough north. Today we begin taking a life for a life.”

  * * *

  “Look!” Tom Evans cried, jumping to his feet and pointing to the east.

  About a quarter of a mile away, on the crest of a hill, Preacher sat his horse and was staring at the camp of the man-hunters.

  “What’s he doing?” Derby Peel asked.

  “He ain’t doin’ nothin’,” Van Eaton said. “He’s just starin’ at us.”

  “There’s a reason for it,” Bones said, looking at Preacher. “Preacher don’t do nothin’ without thinkin’ it through. But damned if I can figure out what it is.”

  The man-hunters turned at the sound of a thud. For a moment they were frozen where they stood, staring at the sight. Benny Atkins swayed on his feet, his eyes looking in horror at the arrow protruding from his belly. Then he screamed as the first waves of pain hit him. He sat down heavily on the ground, both hands holding onto the shaft of the arrow.

  Clift Wright jumped for his rifle. He managed to bring the weapon to his shoulder just as an arrow entered the right side of his neck, the arrowhead ripping out the left side. His eyes widened in horror as blood filled his mouth.

  Joe Moss, using a stick for a crutch, hobbled for his guns. He didn’t make it. Two arrows tore their way into his flesh, one in his back and the other in his chest.

  Preacher sat his horse and watched the scene without expression.

  Ray Wood began yelling as mounted Indians charged the camp, seeming to come out of nowhere. Ray’s yelling stopped abruptly as an Ute lance ran him through, pinning his flopping body on the cold ground.

  Bones, Van Eaton, Lige Watson, and several more who had already saddled their horses, left their supplies behind and fled the scene, riding hard. The other men were slaughtered. Some were taken alive ... they were the less fortunate ones. Utes could be quite inventive with torture.

  Ed Crowe died cursing Preacher. One of the attacking Ute, who spoke English, would wonder at that for the rest of his life. White men certainly did many strange things.

  Alan James, Derby Peel, Fred Lasalle, Evans, Haywood, and Winters died in the camp. Tatman, Price, and Titus were taken alive.

  With the blood lust running hot and high, one of the younger Utes galloped his horse toward Preacher, his lance-point level with Preacher’s chest. A sharp shout from Black Hawk brought the brave to a halt just a few yards from Preacher. The young Ute stared hard at Preacher, then his eyes touched upon that terrible-looking pistol in Preacher’s right hand.

  “Back off,” Preacher said in the Ute’s own tongue. “I am not your enemy.”

  The young Ute lowered his lance and turned his pony’s head. He rode back to the camp and jumped down, a scalping knife in his hand.

  Preacher holstered his pistol and rode away.

  * * *

  Willie and Lucas, Lige Watson, Pierre, Homer, Calhoun, Van Eaton, and Bones made it out alive. The only supplies they had were what they had carried in their saddle bags.

  “I can’t believe no white man would just sit back and watch whilst red savages attacked other white men,” Lige panted the words.

  “What tribe was that?” Calhoun asked.

  “Who knows?” Bones said. “They all look alike to me.”

  Homer fell to his knees and vomited up his fear, while Willie and the giant, Lucas, clung to each other, both of them trembling in fright.

  “Now we know why Preacher was layin’ back,” Pierre said. “He fixed it up with them savages to do us in. Damn his eyes!”

  “Take anything we got and wrap them horses’ hooves,” Van Eaton said. “We got to hide our trail and find a place to hole up. It’s the only chance we got. I’ll make a wager them Injuns was from the same tribe as them we kilt in that valley. They ain’t never gonna give up looking for us.”

  He turned and grunted as an arrow tore into his chest and penetrated his heart. Van Eaton had hunted his last man.

  Lige Watson lost control of his senses and ran screaming from the shady glen. He ran right into the Ute lance. The Ute left him pinned to the ground. Lige would be a long time dying.

  Pierre died on his knees, praying.

  Homer was taken alive.

  Calhoun ran blindly in panic, fighting the slashing branches and stumbling through the thick underbrush. He could not believe his eyes when he saw Preacher, sitting his horse about a hundred yards away.

  “Help me!” Calhoun screamed, hearing the Utes coming up fast behind him.

  “Man who needs help hadn’t oughtta left home in the first place,” Preacher told him.

  “You’ll burn in hell for this!” Calhoun screamed at the mountain man.

  “I might,” Preacher acknowledged. “But you’ll be there afore me.” He lifted the reins and rode away just as the avenging Utes reached the man.

  Bones, Willie, and Lucas had lept into their saddles and whipped their near-exhausted horses into a run.

  They didn’t get far.

  Bones and Lucas were taken alive, the Utes having known for days that Bones was the leader. His death would be most unpleasant. The Utes looked at the tiny Willie, trying to figure out exactly what sort of man he was. They’d never seen a dwarf. They finally decided it would be bad medicine to harm such a thing. They turned him loose.

  Ignoring the screams, Black Hawk rode over to Preacher.

  “Howdy,” Preacher said.

  Black Hawk studied the mountain man for a moment. “You know why we do this?”

  “I know. All who are with you are family members of Wind Chaser’s bunch.”

  In the Ute society, such offenses as stealing, adultery, and murder were private matters, the punishment left up to the family members.

  “It ought to be that way in my society, too,” Preacher added, knowing his words would please the chief.

  “I have severely chastised the warrior who threatened you, Ghost Walker. But in battle the blood runs hot.”

  “I understand.”

  “Tell me about the other band of evil men.”

  Preacher hesitated, then said, “They are better mannered in the white man’s way than the ones you just killed, but they are much worse in here.” He pointed to his heart.

  Black Hawk nodded his head at that. He understood perfectly. He turned his horse and rode back to the blood-spattered camp. Willie rode his horse over to Preacher. The little man was so scared he stank of it.

  “What am I gonna do?” he asked.

  “Stay just as far away from me as you can, Shorty. ’Cause I might take me a notion to kill you yet.”

  “You’ve got to help me. I can’t survive alone out here!”

  “That’s your problem. You come a-huntin’ me, to kill me. Now you want me to help you. No way. You’ll survive. You know the way back. I got no sympathy for you a-tall. Now get movin’. Get clear out of my sight and do it fast. Git!”

  Willie got.

  * * *

  Dutch was jumpy. He was all knotted up inside and couldn’t keep his food down. Something was wrong. He had chosen this place to hide with great care, and felt they would be safe. But he hadn’t heard a bird sing or a squirrel chatter all morning. The woods were as still as a graveyard.

  “So
mething’s awfully wrong around here, Dutch,” Percy said, lumbering up, his big gut leading the way.

  “Yeah. I feel it, too.”

  “I heard screamin’ last night.”

  “You, too?”

  “Yeah. It was faint, but I heard it. Like to have made me puke.”

  “I been told that Preacher is hell in any kind of fight—and we shore known that for a pure-dee fact now—but he don’t go in for torture.”

  “Somebody was shore dyin’ hard last night.”

  “Anybody else hear it?”

  “Not that I know of. I was on guard. Give me goose bumps all over.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.”

  Percy looked toward the clearing and his eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost. About four hundred yards away, there sat Preacher, just sitting in his saddle as big as you please, looking right at the camp. “Dutch!” Percy gasped. “I ain’t a-believin’ my eyes.”

  “What are you talkin’ ’bout?”

  “Preacher!”

  “Preacher? Where?”

  “Right there!” he pointed.

  Dutch turned and as he did, his belly exploded in pain. He looked down at the shaft of the arrow that protruded from his gut. “Oh ...” was all he managed to say before another arrow split his spinal cord and he dropped to the ground.

  Percy shouted out the warning but it was too late, far too late. He took one step and went down with several arrows in his body.

  The Utes were all over the camp a few silent seconds later and the fight was brutal and brief. The braves knew who to kill quickly, and who to take alive. They had been following the group for days, and after studying the men, Black Hawk had pointed out the gentry.

  The royalty who had come to America to kill men for sport were no longer the haughty, sneering, arrogant bunch of several months back. They stood in a group, their hands bound cruelly behind them. They knew they were facing death, and they were not facing it well. They stank of fear and relaxed bladders and bowels. The sweat dripped from their faces and their legs shook so hard several had to be helped to stand as the stony-faced Utes stared at them, the contempt they felt for such fear showing only in their eyes. Preacher still sat on his horse out in the clearing, Black Hawk sitting on his horse beside Preacher.

  “For the love of God, man!” Sir Elmore Jerrold-Taylor screamed at him. “Help us.”

  “For the love of God?” Preacher muttered. “For the love of God?”

  “The white man calls upon his God to help him?” Black Hawk asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Will this God of yours help them?”

  “Well, now, I can’t speak for God, but if I had to take a guess, I’d say no.”

  “Good. I would not like to fight a God.”

  Preacher held out a hand and the Ute solemnly took the offering and shook it. “I’ll be goin’ now, Black Hawk. You’re welcome in my camp any time.”

  “And you in mine, Brother To The Wolf.”

  Preacher swung his horse and rode away. He wanted to put some distance between the Utes, their prisoners, and himself. He knew this bunch was going to die slow, long, and hard. And he knew why.

  Black Hawk rode his horse into the center of the camp, his pony gingerly stepping around a sprawled out body.

  “We have gold!” Burton Sullivan shouted at the chief. “We have money and jewels and all sorts of things we can give you.”

  “I will have them soon,” Black Hawk said. “You have no more use for them.”

  “Filthy savage!” Baron Zaunbelcher screamed at the chief.

  “Savage?” Black Hawk questioned. “You call me a savage? You are a very amusing person.”

  “Why?” Robert Tassin screamed at Black Hawk. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  “I have done nothing to you. Yet. But I will.”

  “Why, damn you? Why?” Sir Elmore shouted.

  Black Hawk smiled sadly. “Because Wind Chaser was my younger brother. I helped in his upbringing after our mother died. That’s why.”

  EPILOGUE

  Days later, Preacher holed up in a cabin he’d built some years back. He’d cleaned out the place, for pack rats and birds had been busy there, and then began cutting firewood for the winter ahead. He found his old scythe where he’d left it, sharpened it up with a stone, and worked for a solid week, from can see to can’t see, cutting forage for his horses. He worked himself hard so he would not have time to think about what happened to the royalty, even though he knew perfectly well there was nothing he could have done to prevent it.

  The entire Indian nation had put a death sentence on the heads of the man-hunters as soon as they learned of the massacre of Wind Chaser and his band. There was no way any of them would have been able to leave the mountains. And Preacher doubted that any of the men he’d sent packing had made it very far out. He didn’t have a guilty conscience about what had happened, he just didn’t want to think about it.

  When his domestic chores were done, Preacher went hunting and started jerking and smoking the meat. He set out fish traps and began smoking his catch. He picked berries to make pemmican and dug up tubers and wild onions for the cellar. When he had done all he could do in preparation for winter, he relaxed. He hoped he wouldn’t see a single solitary soul ’til spring. The past summer had given him a bellyful of people, both good and bad, but mostly bad. He occasionally thought of Patience and Prudence and those folks with them and wondered how they were. He knew they’d made it out of the wilderness safely, for a trapper friend of his told him that.

  Preacher knew that the area west of the Mississippi was going to run red with blood very soon. As pioneer families began moving onto the land, the Indians were going to fight to preserve their way of life. It was going to be a terrible time for many years to come. But Preacher didn’t know how he could do anything to prevent the blood from being spilled.

  One fall afternoon Preacher sat on the porch, smoking his pipe and watching the sun go down. A family of wolves who were denned not far away had begun coming around and Preacher recognized both the male and his mate from a year or so back. They came around this evening to check on him.

  “Howdy,” he said to them, and then was amused in watching the young in their rough and tumble play. “Life’s pretty good, ain’t it?”

  The wolves sat in front of the porch, cocked their heads to one side and looked at him.

  “Yeah,” Preacher said. “Life is pretty darned good. If a man just knows how to live it and rolls with the flow.”

  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 One

  “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.