Shawn O'Brien Town Tamer # 1

by W. , Johnstone, William

  “Well, lookee here,” the rancher said. “I could use a wolf pelt.”

  He raised his rifle, but Shawn pushed down the barrel, his eyes on the big lobo that was staring at him with amber eyes.

  “Leave the wolf be,” he said. “He could be an old friend of mine. . . .”

  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, MacCallister (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-ofa-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!

  Born to a family of hard-fighting Scotsmen. Sworn to a legacy of blood and honor. Duff MacCallister brings his own brand of justice to the new American frontier—in this explosive western saga from bestselling authors William W. Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone.

  SHOOTING IS THE ONLY WAY OUT

  In a town like Chugwater, Wyoming, you know who your friends are, who your enemies are, and who your kill-crazy maniacs are. For Duff MacCallister, the last category belongs to Johnny Taylor and his gang. Duff has wrestled with this polecat before, and knows that his bite is worse than his smell. But when Taylor’s gang tries to rob a bank—and Duff manages to shoot one and arrest Taylor’s brother—the outraged outlaw raises a stink straight out of hell. First, he begins to randomly slaughter innocent townsfolk one by one. Then, he leaves a note on the bodies warning: “We will kill more of your citizens if you do not let my brother go.” Now, he’s kidnapped a woman as bait—lighting a fuse under Duff MacCallister that’s bound to ignite the biggest, bloodiest showdown in Chugwater history. . . .

  FIRST TIME IN PRINT!

  MACCALLISTER, THE EAGLES LEGACY:

  DEADLOCK

  by William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  CHAPTER ONE

  The sound of a shot rolled down through the gulch, picked up resonance, then echoed back from the surrounding walls. Emile Taylor, who was holding a smoking pistol, turned to the others with a smile on his face. He had just broken a tossed whiskey bottle with his marksmanship.

  “I’d like to see somebody else here who can do that,” he snarled.

  Emile was one of six men who had made a temporary camp in an arroyo that was about five miles west of the town of Chugwater.

  “Emile, there ain’t nobody said you wasn’t good with a gun, so there is no need for you to be provin’ yourself to us,” Johnny said. Johnny was Emile’s brother. “Anyhow, that don’t really matter all that much.”

  “What do you mean it don’t matter?”

  “Hopefully, we ain’t goin�
�� to be gettin’ into no gunfights. The only thing we’re goin’ to do is ride into town, rob the bank, then hightail it out of there before anyone knows what hit them. And if we pull this off right, there won’t be no shootin’.”

  “What if someone tries to shoot at us?” Emile asked.

  “Then you can shoot. But I don’t want no shootin’ unless we absolutely have to.”

  Emile was about five feet four inches tall, with ash-blond hair and a hard face. Johnny was two inches taller, with darker hair. Johnny was missing the earlobe of his left ear, having had it bitten off in a fight the last time he was in prison. Although the two men were brothers, they didn’t look anything alike until one happened to look into their eyes. Their eyes were exact duplicates: gray, flat, and soulless.

  “After we do the job I think we ought to split up . . . ever’ man for hisself,” Al Short said. “That way, if they put a posse together they won’t know which one to follow.”

  “No, but they might choose to follow just one of us,” Julius Jackson pointed out. “And whoever the one is they choose to follow is goin’ to be in a heap of trouble.”

  “Besides which, if we do that, where at will we divide up the money amongst us?” Bart Evans asked.

  “I don’t know,” Short said. “I didn’t think about that.”

  Evans chuckled. “You didn’t think about it? Hell, man, the money is what this all about. How can you not think about it?”

  “What we ought to do is, once we leave town, just wait behind a rock and shoot ’em down,” Clay Calhoun suggested.

  “You mean you’d shoot them from ambush?” Emile asked. “That ain’t a very sportin’ thing to do.”

  “Hell, yes. I ain’t like you, Emile. I ain’t tryin’ to build myself no reputation. If someone is comin’ after me, I don’t need to kill the son of a bitch fair and square. . . . I just want to kill him.”

  “Clay has a point,” Evans said. “The best way to handle a posse would be to set up an ambush. Besides which, most of ’em will be nothin’ but store clerks and handy men anyway. Prob’ly ain’t none of ’em ever used a gun more ’n once or twice in their life anyway, so even you faced ’em down, there wouldn’t be nothin’ you could call sportin’ about it.”

  “Well then, if we’re goin’ to do that, ambush ’em I mean, maybe it would be better for us to all stick together,” Jackson said.

  “No,” Short replied. “I still think it would be best if we split up. I think we’ll have a better chance that way.”

  “All right,” Calhoun said. “How about this? Instead of all of us separatin’, what if we was to break into two groups? That way the posse will still have to make a choice as to who to follow. And if they decide to split and follow each group, it will cut their numbers in half, which means we would have a better chance.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a pretty good idea,” Short said.

  “No need for any of that,” Johnny said. “I’ve got an idea that will throw them off our trail, once and for all, so that we all get away clean. Only we’re going to need different horses.”

  “What do you mean we are going to need different horses?” Jackson asked. “We got horses already. We got good horses.”

  A big smile spread across Johnny’s face. “Yeah,” he said. “But these ain’t the horses we’re goin’ to use when we hold up the bank. These horses ain’t even goin’ to get close to town.”

  “That don’t make no sense to me a’ tall,” Evans said.

  “Then let me explain it to you,” Johnny said. “The way I got it planned out, we’re goin’ to steal us some horses from several different places. Then, just before we go into town to hold up the bank, we’ll hobble our horses in some place out of the way, and when we go into town to rob the bank, we’ll be ridin’ the stolen horses.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jackson said. “Why would we take a chance on ridin’ stole’d horses when the ones we got is perfectly good? What if we have to leave town at a gallop? We won’t know nothin’ a’ tall ’bout the mounts we’ll be stealin’.”

  “All they have to do is get us into town and out again, and any healthy horse can do that,” Johnny said. “Then when we get to a place that we will have picked out, we’ll dismount, take off our saddle and harness, then send the stolen horses on their way.”

  “Why would we do that?” Short asked. “I mean, if we go to all the trouble to steal ’em, why would we just turn ’em a’ loose?”

  “You said it yourself, Al. Like as not after we rob the bank, the marshal will be rounding up a posse,” Johnny said.

  “I reckon he will, but what does that have to do with stole’d horses?”

  “The posse will be trailin’ us by followin’ the tracks and such we leave when we ride away from the bank, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right, now follow me while I try to explain. When we turn them horses loose, where do you think they will go?” Johnny asked.

  “Well, I reckon they would—” Short started, and then he stopped in mid-sentence as a huge smile spread across his face. “Son of a bitch! They’ll more ’n likely go back wherever it was we stole ’em from.”

  “Yes,” Johnny agreed. “And if we steal each horse from a different place, then the horses will lead the posse all over hell’s half-acre. And while the posse is followin’ them, we’ll be takin’ off on our own horses.”

  “Yeah!” Short said. “Yeah, that’s real smart. Did you come up with that all by yourself?”

  “Ha!” Emile said, hitting his fist in his hand. “I may be the best shot in the family, but there can’t nobody say Johnny ain’t the smartest. And that’s why he is in charge.”

  “You need to get on into town now, little brother,” Johnny said. “Look around, see what you can see. But don’t get into no trouble.”

  “I’ll have a drink for all you boys,” Emile said as he started toward his horse. “One for each one of you.”

  “Just don’t get drunk and foolish,” Johnny cautioned.

  Duff MacCallister’s ranch, Sky Meadow, was fifteen miles south and slightly east of where Johnny Taylor and the others were plotting to hold up the Chugwater bank. Duff MacCallister left Scotland four years earlier, and shortly after arriving in the United States, he moved to Wyoming. Here by homesteading and purchase of adjacent land, he started his ranch. Since that time he had been exceptionally successful, and Sky Meadow now spread out across some 30,000 acres of prime range land lying between the Little Bear and Big Bear creeks.

  Little and Big Bear creeks were year-round sources of water, and that, plus the good natural grazing land, allowed Duff to try an experiment. The experiment was to introduce Black Angus cattle. He was well familiar with the breed, for he had worked with them in Scotland. His experiment was successful, and he now had 10,000 head of Black Angus cattle, making his ranch one of the most profitable in all of Wyoming.

  Duff’s operation was large enough to employ fourteen men, principle of whom was Elmer Gleason, his ranch foreman. In addition to Elmer, who had been with Duff from the very beginning, there were three other cowboys who had been with him for a very long time. These three men: Al Woodward, Case Martin, and Brax Walker, not only worked for him, they were extremely loyal and top hands, occupying positions of responsibility just under Elmer Gleason.

  Though the relationship between Duff and the three men was solid now, it had not gotten off to a very good start. Their first encounter had been at a community dance which was held in the ball room of the Antlers Hotel. The hotel was on the corner of Bowie Avenue and First Street in the nearby town of Chugwater.

  On that night, Duff had escorted Meagan Parker to the dance, but Woodward, Martin, and Walker had shown up without women. Given the general disproportionate number of single men to single women in the West, it was not all that unusual for young cowboys to come alone. But Woodward, Martin, and Walker spent the first half-hour getting drunk on the heavily spiked punch.

  “I got me an idea,” W
oodward said. “Martin, let’s me ’n you join one o’ them squares.”

  “We can’t, we ain’t got no woman to dance with us.”

  “That don’t matter none,” Woodward explained. “Once we start the dancin’ and the do-si-do ’n and all that, why, we’ll be swingin’ around with all the other women in the square.”

  “Yeah, Martin said. “That’s right, ain’t it?”

  “No, it ain’t right,” Walker said.

  “What are you talkin’ about? What do you mean it ain’t right?” Woodward asked.

  “Well, think about it. Whichever one of you takes the woman’s part will be do-si-do ’n with all the other men when you get to swingin’ around.”

  “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that,” Martin said.

  “Hell, that ain’t nothin’ to be worryin’ about,” Woodward said. “Next dance, why, we’ll just switch around. Martin, you’ll be the woman on the first dance, then I’ll set the next one out, and Walker, you can come in and let Martin be the man. Then on the third dance, why, I’ll come back in and be the woman. That way, all three of us can do-si-do with the other women.”

  “All right,” Martin said. “But let’s pick us a dance with some good-lookin’ women in it.”

  When the next sets of squares were formed, Woodward and Martin joined the same square as Duff MacCallister and Meagan Parker.

  “Well, lookie here, Martin,” Woodward said, pointing toward Duff. “Looks to me like you won’t have to do-si-do with all men. You’ll get one man that’s wearin’ a dress. That ought to count for somethin’.”

  The “man in a dress” remark was prompted by the fact that Duff MacCallister had arrived at the dance wearing kilts. But it wasn’t just any kilts; it was the green-and-blue plaid, complete with Victoria Cross, of a captain of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, better known as the Black Watch, the most storied regiment in the British Army.