Torture Town

by William W. Johnstone

  Dooley and Meeker had beaten Matt to the position, and both were already in the loft of the livery.

  “Hey, Meeker, ain’t that Matt Jensen?”

  “Yeah,” Dooley said. “I expect Draco will give us a bonus for killin’ him.”

  Dooley and Meeker, both of whom had rifles, stood in the open door of the loft. Matt didn’t see them at first, but when Meeker’s shot whizzed by his ear, it got his attention. He fired two quick shots, and both Meeker and Dooley fell.

  “Son of a bitch!” Cates said, shouting from the second-floor balcony of the hotel, down to Dagan, who was behind the corner of the apothecary. “He’s done kilt four of us! Quit shootin’ at the others! Shoot at Jensen!”

  Cates shot first, and the bullet hit the edge of the door of the livery, just before Matt stepped inside. Turning, he saw someone standing on the hotel balcony, and another near the corner of the druggist, both men aiming rifles in his direction.

  They were out of pistol range, so Matt reached down to pick up one of the rifles dropped by the two men he had just shot. Bending down at that precise moment was a fortuitous move for him, because a bullet took off his hat. Had he not bent down exactly when he did, the bullet would have crashed into his head.

  Matt jacked that lever down. It ejected a live cartridge, but it was necessary to reassure him that the rifle was loaded and cocked. Raising the rifle to his shoulder, he aimed at the man on the ground, deciding he could more easily get cover than the man on the hotel balcony. He squeezed the trigger, then jacked a second shell into the chamber and brought the rifle to bear on the man the balcony. He didn’t even check the first man. He knew, without looking, that he had hit him, and he knew, without looking, that he had killed him.

  He fired a second time, and the man on the balcony turned a flip in midair as he fell, landing on his back on the boardwalk below.

  By now, the cowboys from both ranches had armed themselves, and they reappeared on both sides of the street, with weapons in hand.

  “No! No! Stop! Stop!” Sylvia shouted, running out into the street between the two groups of armed men. “Stop the shooting!”

  “Sylvia! No! Come back here!” Rex shouted, running out after her.

  Draco watched the two run out into the street, and, looking toward Strawn, who was on top of the feed store, he pointed toward Rex and Sylvia. Lifting his rifle, he aimed at the girl, and pulled the trigger.

  Sylvia went down.

  “Sylvia, no!” Rex screamed in agony. The next round dropped him.

  The cowboys—from both ranches—were stunned by what they just saw, and not one shot was exchanged between them.

  Matt ran out into the street, then looked back, trying to determine the origin of the shots, but he saw nobody.

  Rex got to his hands and knees and crawled toward Sylvia, who was still alive, but barely.

  “I love you,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. She returned the embrace.

  “Sylvia!” Morgan shouted, running toward his daughter.

  “Rex!” Ben called, running from the opposite side of the street, toward his son.

  The cowboys from both ranches, their guns put away, moved silently toward Rex and Sylvia, who were on the ground, locked in embrace.

  Morgan dropped to his knees beside them, and reached out for his daughter.

  “Sylvia! Sylvia!” he called in anguish.

  “I . . . love him . . . Papa,” Sylvia said, the words barely audible.

  Gently, Rex put Sylvia’s hand in her father’s hand. There was no life left. Rex looked at Morgan, then at his father. He shook his head sadly, then took his last breath.

  “My God,” Ben Ross said. “What have I done? What have I done?” He looked at Morgan. “Morgan, I have been such a fool all these years, and look now, what it has done.”

  “We have both been fools,” Morgan replied.

  “What now?” Strawn asked. “Jensen has kilt all our men. We sure as hell can’t steal a thousand head by ourselves.”

  Strawn and Draco, having left their firing positions, were now on the ground behind the feed store.

  “The bank,” Draco said.

  “What?”

  Draco smiled. “Right now, the whole town is in such an uproar that there won’t be nobody payin’ attention. We can go into the bank and clean it out. And there won’t be no cows to herd.”

  “Yeah,” Strawn said. “Good idea!”

  Matt knew that the shots that killed Rex and Sylvia had come from First Street, and because he had heard the two shots coming from two different locations, he knew there were at least two shooters left. He studied all the buildings hard to try and find their location. That was when he saw Wes Gregory, the hostler, standing just inside the livery. Gregory was trying to get his attention.

  “The bank,” Gregory said when Matt approached. “Bodine and Strawn just went into the bank.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said. He moved quickly to the side of the Birdcage Theater, which would allow him to approach the bank without being seen. Then, reaching the bank, he looked in through the window.

  There was only one teller in the bank and he was shirtless. He was shirtless because, under the guns and watchful eyes of the two robbers, he was putting bound stacks of bills onto the shirt.

  Matt recognized both men. One was Strawn and the other, as Carter had said, was Rufus Draco. He felt a sense of satisfaction at having, at long last, caught up with him.

  “How much money is there?” Draco asked.

  “Fif . . . fifteen thousand,” the teller said, stuttering in his fear.

  “Ha!” Draco said. “And only two of us to divide it up.”

  Matt opened the front door and stepped inside.

  “The money isn’t going to be divided,” Matt said.

  Startled, the two robbers turned toward him.

  “Jensen!” Draco said.

  “Hello, Draco,” Matt said.

  Both Draco and Strawn fired. Matt returned fire, getting off two shots so fast that it sounded like one.

  Draco and Strawn missed.

  Matt didn’t.

  Epilogue

  There were so many to bury over the next few days that Tom Nunnlee had to send out for help, and other undertakers and grave diggers arrived from Tome, Las Luna, Valencia, and even as far away as Albuquerque. Counting Jesse Billings, and the seven others who had been in the process of being buried when the war had started, there were a total of twenty-one to be buried.

  But that twenty-one did not count Rex and Sylvia, for whom special arrangements were being made.

  “Are you sure this is what you gentlemen want?” Nunnlee asked. “A special casket built large to hold both of them?”

  Ben Ross and Morgan Poindexter were standing together.

  “Yes,” Ben said.

  “But this is most unusual. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like this. Nor have I ever even heard of it. Burying two people in the same casket. Especially a man and woman who aren’t even married.”

  “Don’t worry. They will be married.”

  “What do you mean, they will be married?” Nunnlee asked. “How can they possibly be married?”

  “God will marry them,” Morgan said.

  Matt stood at the edge of the cemetery. The day before, there had been funerals for six innocent citizens of the town, three men, two women, and a child. But there had been only burials for the fifteen outlaws, including Draco and Strawn, who had, ultimately, been responsible for the mass slaughter.

  Today, the cowboys from both the BR and Tumbling P were gathered around the gravesite, along with more than half the town, as the specially constructed and oversized casket was lowered into the double grave. The cowboys from the two ranches had approached each other, made new friends, and renewed old friendships.

  Morgan and Nate sat under a canopy with Ben and his wife, Nancy, sitting beside them.

  Marshal Hunter came up to stand beside Matt.

  “I . . . uh . . . wasn’
t much help to you,” Hunter said.

  “You got the people off the street, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But that’s all I did.”

  “You probably saved ten or fifteen lives by doing that,” Matt said. “So don’t sell yourself short.”

  “Thanks.”

  Matt took off the star and handed it Marshal Hunter. “If you would, please give this badge back to Sheriff Ferrell. I won’t be using it anymore.”

  “All right.”

  Matt turned to walk back toward Spirit, who was tied to a nearby hitching rail.

  “I suppose we’ll never see you again, will we?” Marshal Hunter asked.

  Matt lifted his hand in a wave, but he didn’t turn around.

  “Never is a long time,” he said.

  J. A. Johnstone on William W. Johnstone

  “When the Truth Becomes 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, which 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 the aftermath of a post-apocalyptic 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 and propelled him onto both the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists.

  Bill’s western series include The Mountain Man, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, Mac-Callister (an Eagles spin-off), Sidewinders, The Brothers O’Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter, and the upcoming 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, which 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!

  THE UNTOLD SAGA OF SHAWN O’BRIEN

  From acclaimed storytellers William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone, who brought us

  The Brothers O’Brien, comes an explosive new series featuring the gunslinging O’Brien who brought peace, law, and order to the American frontier . . . one bullet at a time.

  A MAN WHO TAMED THE WEST—

  ONE TOWN AT A TIME

  Unlike his brothers, Jacob, Sam, and Patrick, Shawn O’Brien isn’t content to settle down on the family ranch in New Mexico territory. With his razor-sharp eye, lightning-fast draw, and burning thirst for justice, Shawn is carving out a reputation of his own. As a town tamer, he takes the most dangerous, lawless towns in the West and makes them safe for decent men, women, and children. When a stagecoach accident leaves Shawn stranded in Holy Rood, Utah, it doesn’t take long to realize he’s landed in one ornery circle of hell. Ruled by a cruel and cunning crook turned merciless dictator named Hank Cobb, Holy Rood is about as unholy a place as any on the frontier. Anyone who breaks Cobb’s rules is severely punished. Anyone who defies Cobb’s hooded henchmen dies by rope, stake, or guillotine.

  But Shawn O’Brien isn’t just anyone.

  He’s the town tamer.

  And this time, he’s going to paint the town red . . .

  SHAWN O’BRIEN, TOWN TAMER

  by WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with J. A. Johnstone

  On sale March 2014, wherever

  Kensington Books are sold.

  Chapter One

  Hours of jolting, swaying misery ende
d suddenly as the stage came to a harness-jangling halt. It remained still until the following dust cloud caught up and covered the four passengers inside with a coat of fine, mustard-colored grit.

  The driver climbed down, stepped to the window, and stuck his shaggy head inside. A patch made from a scrap of tanned leather covered his right eye.

  “Town coming up, folks, but this stage don’t stop there,” the man said. “Fact is, no stage stops there. We go on through Holy Rood at a gallop, so hold on tight an’ say your prayers if you got ’em.”

  Shawn O’Brien had been lost in thought, deep in heartbreaks of the past, but now he stirred himself enough to say, “Why is that? Why all the hurry?”

  “Because Holy Rood is a downright dangerous place to be, young feller,” the driver said. “Especially if you got a sin to hide.”

  “Hell, we’ve all got a sin to hide,” a passenger said.

  He was a pleasant-faced man who wore the broadcloth finery and string tie of the frontier gambler, his black frockcoat now a uniform tan from trail dust.

  “Then repent for yer sins an’ hold on like I told you,” the driver said. “This here stage is barrelin’ through that damned town like a deadheading express.”

  “Oh dear,” said a small man with the timid, downtrodden look of a henpecked husband. “When we left Silver Reef, Wells Fargo didn’t inform me that my life would be in such peril.”

  “Hell, they never do.” The driver grinned. “Holy Rood ain’t on the map as far as Wells Fargo is concerned.”

  The gambler smiled at the little man. “What sin are you hiding, mister?” The humor reached his eyes. “Looking at you, I’d say whiskey and women are your downfall.”

  “Good heavens no,” the man said. “My lady wife would never allow it. She bade me promise on our wedding eve that my lips would ne’er touch ardent spirits nor my loins join in unholy union with those of another woman.” The little man seemed to shrink into his seat. “She’s a stern, unbending woman, my wife, much given to the virtues of holy scripture and liberal doses of prune juice.”