Day of Reckoning

by William W. Johnstone

  “That is our plan, but, as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

  “What does that mean?” Dorland asked.

  “It means we will do our best to stop them before they ever reach the bank,” Duff said.

  * * *

  Shortly after leaving the bank, Duff returned to the medicine wagon. He had arranged to have the wagon and team of mules shipped to Cheyenne by rail, and now it was set up on Central Avenue, no more than twenty yards from the front of the bank. Meagan and Ina Claire were already in costume, and Duff stepped into the wagon to get into costume as well.

  Elmer was on top of the leather goods store, which was right across the street from the bank, standing behind the false front so he wouldn’t be noticed. That position allowed him a good observation, not only of the street but of the entrance into town, from both north and south.

  Wang, dressed in Chinese garb, was standing on the porch in front of the apothecary, which was but two buildings down from the bank. Because he wasn’t wearing a gun, and he had his arms folded across his chest, he didn’t represent a threat to anyone.

  There was a sign mounted on a tripod in front of the medicine wagon.

  Malcolm Campbell’s Scottish Heather Extract

  SHOW BEGINS AT FIVE P.M.

  ~Come one, come all~

  “When do you think they’ll come into town?” Meagan asked.

  “I don’t expect it’ll be too long,” Duff said. “If I am right, I think they’ll be in town is less than an hour.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” Meagan asked.

  Duff smiled. “Then I will be quite embarrassed.”

  Even as Duff was talking to Meagan, his attention was drawn to a lone rider coming from the south. He rode slowly into town, stopped for a moment in front of the bank, then twisted in his saddle to have a look all around. He was wearing a hat, but the sun fell on a bit of hair that hung from beneath the hat. The hair was bright red.

  “As a matter of fact,” Duff continued, “I think we will only have to wait another few minutes.”

  “Why? What makes you think that?” Meagan asked.

  Duff nodded toward the red-haired man, who was now leaving town the same way he arrived, toward the south.

  “I think they have just sent in their scout,” Duff said. “And since I doubt that he saw anything that was suspicious, he will report to the others that all is well.

  One mile south of Cheyenne

  “What does it look like?” Callahan asked.

  “Very quiet,” O’Leary said. “You was right to say we should hit it first thing in the mornin’. I rode all the way up ’n down Central Street ’n didn’t see hardly nobody at all. ’Bout the only thing I did see was a medicine show.”

  “A medicine show?”

  “Well, it was just the wagon really. Warn’t no show goin’ on, ’n the sign says there ain’t goin’ to be one ’til five o’clock this evenin’.”

  “Ha!” Cooper said. “By that time we’ll be scattered all to hell ’n gone, ’n ever’one of us will be rich men!”

  “How much is it we’re a-gettin’ again?” Manning asked.

  “Sixty thousand dollars apiece,” Callahan said.

  “I ain’t never even knowed nobody that’s got that much money,” Manning said. “Come on, let’s get this done.”

  “All right, boys,” Callahan said. “When we first ride into town, we’ll do it same way as we did when we robbed the bank in Centennial. We’ll ride from one end of town to the other, and two of you will check ever’thing out on the right, the other two ever’thing on the left, ’n I’ll look up ’n down the street. Are you ready?”

  “Hell yes, we’re ready!” Morris shouted. “Let’s go!”

  The five riders started to town, and though they wanted to keep their horses calm so they wouldn’t be too tired out if they had to run later, the horses seemed to sense the riders’ excitement and nervousness. The horses were rather skittish for the first few minutes. Finally, they got them all calmed down.

  Cheyenne

  “Here they come,” Duff said. He said the words quietly, almost conversationally. He turned to look up onto the top of the leather goods store and saw that Elmer had seen them as well. Elmer and Duff exchanged nods.

  A glance toward Wang showed that he, too, had seen the men coming into town.

  “It’s them!” Ina Claire said with a little gasp.

  “Wait, lass,” Duff said. “Don’t spring the trap too quickly.”

  The five men rode by, continuing on beyond the bank to the far end of the street.

  “They aren’t going to do anything,” Ina Claire said, disappointed.

  “Hold on,” Duff said. “I believe they are just looking things over. They’ll be back.”

  True to Duff’s prediction, when the riders reached the other end of the street they turned and started back toward the bank.

  Duff snapped the reins over the team of mules, and the wagon started forward. Then, just on the other side of the bank, he turned the wagon so that it blocked off the approaching riders.

  “Ladies, get down on the opposite side of the wagon,” Duff said.

  “Callahan, what the hell is that damn medicine wagon doing, parking in the street like that?” Cooper asked.

  “I don’t know,” Callahan replied. “You!” he shouted. “Get that damn wagon out of the street!”

  “I dinnae think so,” Duff said, climbing down from the driver’s seat. He was holding a pistol in his hand.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doin’, mister?” Callahan demanded.

  “I’m stopping you from robbing the bank,” Duff replied.

  “Callahan, that’s the same son of a bitch that sent us to jail!” Manning yelled.

  “Five to one? I don’t think so, mister,” Callahan said.

  “He isn’t by himself,” Ina Claire said, stepping out from behind the wagon, brandishing the sawed-off shotgun.

  “Damn!” Cooper shouted. “That’s the cap’n’s daughter.”

  “I’m glad you remember me,” Ina Claire said. “I want that to be the last thing on your mind before you die.”

  “Ha!” Callahan said. “Five of us against one man and a girl?”

  “And a woman,” Meagan said, stepping out then.

  “And a Shaolin priest,” Wang said, having walked up from the apothecary so that he was now standing beside Duff.

  “Hell, Callahan, the Chinaman don’t even have a gun,” Morris said.

  “He don’t need a gun, sonny,” Elmer said. “I know Wang, ’n without a gun he’s better than any two men with a gun.”

  Elmer had dropped down from the roof of the leather goods store and now stood in line with Duff, Wang, Meagan, and Ina Claire. Less than ten yards separated the two groups. The difference was, Callahan and his gang were still mounted, Duff and the others were on foot.

  “I’ll be for asking ye men to dismount, now, and drop your gunbelts,” Duff said.

  “The hell we will!” Callahan shouted, pulling his pistol. The others, taking their cue from Callahan, drew their guns as well.

  For the next thirty seconds, Central Street could have been a battlefield in Tel-el-Kebir, or Shiloh, or Little Big Horn. Guns roared and billowing smoke clouds obscured the action.

  Then the guns grew silent, the only sound remaining being the hoofbeats of the retreating horses.

  All five men of the Callahan gang lay on the street, dead or dying from their wounds. Morris, who had pointed out that “the Chinaman don’t even have a gun,” was dead, a throwing star having severed his jugular vein.

  Cautiously Duff approached them. Ina Claire started forward as well, but Duff held out his hand.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Callahan was still alive, though barely.

  “Three hundred thousand dollars,” Callahan said.

  “What?”

  “I damn near got my hands on three hundred thousand dollars,” Callahan said, a smile
on his face. “That’s a lot of money.”

  Duff started to tell him that it had all been a ruse, that the bank didn’t actually have three hundred thousand dollars, but he held his tongue.

  “Aye,” he said. “’Tis a lot of money.”

  “Damn,” Callahan said. “I coulda . . .” he gasped a couple of times, then died.

  * * *

  A crowd began gathering in the street.

  “Did you see that? That girl shot ’em!” someone said. “Who woulda thought a little girl woulda done somethin’ like that?”

  Ina Claire stepped up to the bodies and looked down at them.

  “Don’t let this bother you, darlin’,” Elmer said, walking over to stand by her. “These are the same sons of bitches that kilt your ma and pa. If ever there was anyone who needed killin’, it’s these five sorry bastards that’s lyin’ here.”

  “It’s not bothering me,” Ina Claire said. She broke down the shotgun and pulled the empty paper casings from each barrel. Then, bending down, she lay one of the expended shells on Cooper’s body and the other on Manning.

  “It’s not bothering me at all,” she said as she straightened back up. “I feel like Mama and Papa can rest in peace now.”

  “Aye, you’re right, lass. And they’d be proud of you, the way I’m proud of you,” Duff said.

  “Thank you,” Ina Clair said. “Thank all of you for helping me.”

  “Aye. Ye couldn’t have stopped us, lass,” Duff answered. “Now we should be going home. This day of reckoning is over.”

  Keep reading for a special preview of

  THOSE JENSEN BOYS!

  Twelve Dead Men

  by National Bestselling Authors

  William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  For generations, the Jensen family has staked their claim in the heart of the American West. Now the legacy continues as twin brothers Ace and Chance Jensen find justice . . . swinging from a hangman’s noose.

  THE BAD ALSO DIE YOUNG

  In a court of law, it takes twelve jurors to convict a killer. Two of them are Jensens. It all started when those Jensen boys, Ace and Chance, got roped into jury duty. It should have ended when justice was served with the killer dancing on the end of a rope. But no. This is just the beginning of the death sentence for Ace, Chance, and the other ten terrified jurors.

  A JURY OF TWELVE MEN AND DEAD

  He’s one of the most notorious outlaws in the West. He’s also the brother of the hanged killer. Now he’s here in town—and plans to slaughter the jurors, one by one. There’s just one hitch:

  Ace and Chance aren’t getting ready for Judgment Day. They’re gunning for justice—Jensen style . . .

  Coming soon from Pinnacle Books

  Chapter One

  “Nice, peaceful-looking town,” Chance Jensen commented as he and his brother approached the settlement.

  “Think it’ll stay that way after we ride in?” Ace Jensen asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it?”

  “I’m just going by our history, that’s all. Seems like every time we show up in a place, hell starts to pop.”

  Chance made a scoffing sound. “Now you’re just being . . . what’s the word?”

  “I was thinking crazy,” Ace said.

  The brothers drew rein in front of a livery stable at the edge of town, halting Ace’s big, rangy chestnut and Chance’s cream-colored gelding in front of the open double doors.

  Not many people would have taken them for twin brothers, despite the truth of their birth. When they swung down from their saddles, Ace stood slightly taller than Chance and his shoulders spread a little wider. Dark hair peeked out from under his thumbed-back Stetson. The battered hat matched his well-worn range clothes and the plain, walnut-butted Colt .45 Peacemaker that stuck up from a holster on his right hip.

  A flat-crowned brown hat sat on Chance’s lighter, sandy-colored hair. He preferred fancier clothes than his brother, in this case a brown tweed suit and a black string tie. A .38 caliber Smith & Wesson Second Model revolver rode in a shoulder holster under the suit coat, out of sight but handy if Chance needed to use it.

  Which he could, with considerable speed and accuracy. Both Jensen brothers possessed an uncanny ability to handle guns that had saved their lives—and the lives of numerous innocent people—in the past.

  A tall, rawboned man in late middle age ambled out of the livery stable to meet them. He wore overalls and a hat with the brim pushed up in front. Rust-colored stubble sprouted from his lean cheeks and angular jaw, and a black patch covered his left eye.

  “Do you gents for somethin’?” he asked.

  “Stalls and feed for our horses,” Ace said.

  The liveryman studied the mounts for a second and nodded in approval. “Nice-lookin’ critters. Be four bits a day for the both of ’em.”

  Ace took two silver dollars from a pocket and handed them over.

  “That’ll cover a few days,” he said. “My brother and I don’t know how long we’ll be staying here in . . . ?”

  “Lone Pine,” the liveryman said. “That’s the name o’ this place. Leastways, that’s what they call it now.”

  “Did it used to have another name?” Chance asked.

  A grin stretched across the man’s face. He chuckled and said, “When it started, they called it Buzzard’s Roost.”

  “That sounds a little sinister,” Ace said.

  “Just a wide place in the trail, back in them days. Couple saloons and a store. Owlhoots all over New Mexico Territory—hell, all over the Southwest—knew you could stop at Buzzard’s Roost for supplies and a drink and maybe a little time with a Injun whore, and nobody’d ask any questions about where you’d been or where you planned to go. Folks who lived here would forget you’d ever set foot foot in the place, happen the law come lookin’ for you.”

  “So it was an outlaw town,” Chance said.

  “And now look at it,” the liveryman said with a sigh that sounded somehow disapproving. “Place is plumb respectable these days.”

  That appeared to be true. Lone Pine had a business district that stretched for several blocks, lined with establishments of all sorts. Saloons still operated here, to be sure, but so did restaurants, mercantiles, apothecaries, a blacksmith shop, a saddlemaker, lawyers, doctors, a newspaper—the Lone Pine Sentinel, Lee Emory, Ed. & Prop., according to the sign painted in the office’s front window—and even a shop full of ladies’ hats and dresses.

  Dozens of residences sat along the tree-lined cross streets. Lone Pine appeared to be a bustling settlement in pleasant surroundings, at the base of some foothills that rose to snow-capped peaks in the west, with green rangeland lying to the east.

  Ace spotted a marshal’s office and jail a short distance along the main street, too. With any luck, he and Chance wouldn’t see the inside of it during their stay in Lone Pine.

  He planned to hold on to that hope, anyway.

  “The way you talk about Buzzard’s Roost makes it sound like you were here during those days,” Chance said to the liveryman.

  “Oh, I was. I surely was.”

  “But you weren’t one of the owlhoots.” Chance grinned.

  “Nope. Didn’t have nothin’ but a piece of ground with a corral on it in those days, but I rented out space in it to anybody who come along, no matter which side o’ the law they found theirselves on. Had to, or else risk gettin’ shot. Slowly but surely, things begun to settle down, and I made enough dinero to start buildin’ a barn.”

  The man jerked a knobby-knuckled thumb over his shoulder at the structure behind him.

  “It looks like you’ve done well for yourself,” Ace said. “I’m Ace Jensen, by the way. This is my brother Chance.”

  “Crackerjack Sawyer,” the liveryman introduced himself.

  “Surely Crackerjack isn’t your real name,” Chance said.

  “Castin’ doubts on a fella’s name ain’t too polite,” Sawyer said, his eyes narrowing.


  “My brother didn’t mean anything by it,” Ace said. He cast a warning glance at Chance. “Sometimes he talks before he thinks.”

  “Well, as it happens, that ain’t the name my ma called me. ’Twas Jack. But I’m from Georgia, and when I come out here back in the Fifties, some folks called me a cracker. That sorta got put together with my name, and it stuck.”

  “We’re pleased to meet you, Mr. Sawyer.”

  “Jensen . . .” the liveryman repeated slowly, frowning. “Since you was bold enough to ask me about my name, I’ll ask you boys about yours. Are you related to Smoke Jensen?”

  The brothers got that question fairly often, since just about everybody west of the Mississippi—and a good number of those east of the big river—had heard of the notorious gunfighter and adventurer Smoke Jensen. These days, Smoke was a rancher in Colorado, but he hadn’t exactly settled down all that much, as Ace and Chance had good reason to know.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Chance said to Sawyer. “My brother thinks Smoke Jensen is some long-lost relative of ours.”

  “As a matter of fact, we’ve crossed trails with him several times, and his brothers Matt and Luke, too,” Ace said. “They’re friends of ours, but as far as we know we’re not related to them.”

  “A long time ago—must be goin’ on ten years now—Smoke come through Buzzard’s Roost. Rumor had it he was on the owlhoot then, but come to find out later the charges against him weren’t true. He already had a rep as a fast gun, though. Some other hombres who were here fancied themselves hard-cases and tried to prove it by bracin’ Smoke.” Sawyer shook his head. “Almost quicker’n you can blink, all four of ’em wound up dead in the street. Never seen the like of it, in all my borned days.”

  “That sounds like Smoke, all right,” Chance said.

  “Well, we’re not looking for any trouble like that,” Ace added. “We’re just planning on spending a little time in a nice, peaceful town before we move on.”