Look for these exciting Western series from
bestselling authors
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
and J. A. JOHNSTONE
The Mountain Man
Preacher: The First Mountain Man
Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter
Those Jensen Boys!
The Jensen Brand
Matt Jensen
MacCallister
The Red Ryan Westerns
Perley Gates
Have Brides, Will Travel
The Hank Fallon Westerns
Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal
Shotgun Johnny
The Chuckwagon Trail
The Jackals
The Slash and Pecos Westerns
The Texas Moonshiners
AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS
THE FIRST MOUNTAIN MAN PREACHER’S FRENZY
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
THE JENSEN FAMILY FIRST FAMILY OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
PINNACLE BOOKS, the Pinnacle logo, and the WWJ steer head logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7860-4414-6
Electronic edition:
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4415-3
ISBN-10: 0-7860-4415-2
THE JENSEN FAMILY FIRST FAMILY OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
Smoke Jensen—The Mountain Man
The youngest of three children and orphaned as a young boy, Smoke Jensen is considered one of the fastest draws in the West. His quest to tame the lawless West has become the stuff of legend. Smoke owns the Sugarloaf Ranch in Colorado. Married to Sally Jensen, father to Denise (“Denny”) and Louis.
Preacher—The First Mountain Man
Though not a blood relative, grizzled frontiersman Preacher became a father figure to the young Smoke Jensen, teaching him how to survive in the brutal, often deadly Rocky Mountains. Fought the battles that forged his destiny. Armed with a long gun, Preacher is as fierce as the land itself.
Matt Jensen—The Last Mountain Man
Orphaned but taken in by Smoke Jensen, Matt Jensen has become like a younger brother to Smoke and even took the Jensen name. And like Smoke, Matt has carved out his destiny on the American frontier. He lives by the gun and surrenders to no man.
Luke Jensen—Bounty Hunter
Mountain Man Smoke Jensen’s long-lost brother Luke Jensen is scarred by war and a dead shot—the right qualities to be a bounty hunter. And he’s cunning, and fierce enough, to bring down the deadliest outlaws of his day.
Ace Jensen and Chance Jensen—Those Jensen Boys!
Smoke Jensen’s long-lost nephews, Ace and Chance, are a pair of young-gun twins as reckless and wild as the frontier itself . . . Their father is Luke Jensen, thought killed in the Civil War. Their uncle Smoke Jensen is one of the fiercest gunfighters the West has ever known. It’s no surprise that the inseparable Ace and Chance Jensen have a knack for taking risks—even if they have to blast their way out of them.
CHAPTER 1
The alligator lunged at Preacher, massive jaws wide open and sharp teeth ready to clamp down on him with flesh-rending ferocity and bone-crushing power. The mountain man dived out of the way and then flung himself back across the muddy ground, slipping and sliding a little on the bayou bank. The gator writhed after him, its tail thrashing wildly as it pursued him. Preacher had to leap straight up to avoid the next savage attack.
He turned in midair so he faced the same direction when he came down on top of the gator.
Preacher clamped his knees around the deadly reptile’s barrel-shaped torso and yanked his hunting knife from the sheath at his waist. As the alligator curled its head around toward him, trying to reach him with those deadly teeth, Preacher leaned forward and rammed the blade into the creature’s right eye as hard as he could.
The gator spasmed, thrashing so hard that it almost threw Preacher off. Even in the beast’s death throes, those massive jaws continued snapping, so Preacher figured the safest place for him was still on top. He hung on, hugging that wet, scaly hide as he ripped the blade free and struck again and again.
The gator rolled over onto him. Preacher’s ribs groaned from the weight. Then abruptly the burden lifted and Preacher found himself on top again—but only long enough for him to grab a breath and replace the air that had been forced out of his lungs.
The gator rolled onto him again and both of them tumbled off the mossy bank into the bayou. Water splashed high around them and flooded into Preacher’s mouth, nose, and eyes. He gagged and spat out the stinky, slimy stuff.
A few yards away, the gator continued to flail and send water flying into the air with its futile struggles. Death had claimed the creature already, Preacher’s knife having pierced its prehistoric reptilian
brain, but that message hadn’t caught up with the alligator’s body.
Where one of the blasted critters lurked, there could be another—or more—Preacher reminded himself. Not to mention cottonmouth moccasins and who knew what other dangerous things. Best to get out of the bayou as quickly as he could.
As he pulled himself out of the water, a foot in a high-topped black boot stomped down right in front of him, squishing water out of the muddy ground. Preacher stopped and raised his head so his eyes could follow the whipcord-clad leg up to the burly torso of a man pointing a flintlock pistol at his face. From Preacher’s angle, the barrel of that pistol looked about as big around as the mouth of a cannon, with the hammer already pulled back and cocked, ready to fire.
“You never should’ve come into the swamp, mountain man,” the fellow said.
Preacher thought about the gator and everything else he had run into in this blasted muck and knew the man spoke the truth.
Preacher made his home in the mountains, and he never should have left.
St. Louis, three weeks earlier
“There she be,” Preacher said as he reined Horse to a halt atop a brush-dotted hill with a view down toward the settlement sprawled beside the Mississippi River.
“I know,” Charlie Todd said as he brought his horse to a stop, as well. “I’ve been here before, remember? Aaron and I outfitted here before we headed west.”
Even after all this time, Charlie’s voice still had a little catch in it when he said his friend’s name. They had been close, and Charlie hadn’t forgotten—would never forget—the terrible way Aaron Buckley had died.
“I know how you feel, but you’re doin’ all you can for him,” Preacher said. “Takin’ his share of the money from those pelts back to his family is more ’n a lot of fellas would do.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the four packhorses on lead ropes trailing behind them. Those animals carried bundles of beaver pelts that Preacher and Charlie planned to sell in St. Louis.
Charlie and Aaron came from the same town back in Virginia, and the two young men had headed west together, looking to make their fortune in the fur-trapping business—and have some adventures along the way, to be honest about it.
They had found adventure, all right—more than they had bargained for since teaming up with the rugged mountain man known as Preacher.
“You’re sure about not comin’ back out here?” Preacher went on as he and Charlie sat on horseback, looking down at St. Louis in the distance. A faint haze of smoke from all the chimneys hung over the settlement, a sure sign of so-called civilization.
Charlie sighed and nodded. “I’m sure, Preacher. I’ve had enough of the frontier. You’re cut out for it, but I’m not.”
Preacher regarded his young companion for a moment. Charlie’s time in the mountains had toughened him, honing away the soft pudginess, turning his fair skin bronze, giving his features a harder, more seasoned cast than they’d had when Preacher first met him.
But at the same time, Preacher knew the truth of what Charlie said. The young man had survived the wilderness and all its dangers, and he could be justly proud of that fact, but the time had come for him to go home.
“All right,” Preacher said. “Let’s go sell these furs.”
He nudged the rangy gray stallion called Horse into motion and started down the trail made by thousands of saddle mounts and pack animals as fur trappers set out for and returned from the distant mountains. Ahead of them, the big, wolflike cur known only as Dog bounded on down the gentle slope, on the lookout for a rabbit or some other prey in the clumps of brush.
Suddenly, he stopped and stood stiff-legged, the hair on the back of his neck and along his backbone standing up a little.
Preacher heard the low growl that came from the cur’s throat and reacted instantly. “Dog, hunt!” he yelled. “Split up, Charlie!”
He jerked Horse to the left even as he shouted the commands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Charlie veer swiftly to the right. Charlie had spent enough time with Preacher to know that he needed to follow the mountain man’s orders immediately, without hesitating or even thinking about them.
At the same time, Dog leaped forward, low to the ground. As a rifle boomed from the brush, the ball kicked up dirt well behind the big cur. He disappeared into the growth, his thick fur making him heedless of any branches that might catch and claw at him.
Preacher guided Horse with his knees as he yanked two loaded and primed flintlock pistols from behind the broad belt at his waist. He saw a muzzle flash from the brush close at hand, followed instantly by the roar of a shot and a spurt of powder smoke. A low hum sounded in his ear as the ball passed close.
Thumbing back the hammer of his left-hand pistol, he pointed it and pulled the trigger. The weapon, double-shotted with an extra-heavy charge of powder, bucked hard in Preacher’s hand, but his great strength controlled the recoil. The balls ripped through the brush, rewarding the mountain man with a cry of pain.
Somebody else screamed over where the brush thrashed around, and Preacher figured Dog had introduced himself to that ambusher. He threw a glance toward Charlie, still mounted and with his rifle at his shoulder. Preacher fired into the brush in the other direction.
Movement caught Preacher’s eye as another man to his left stood up and fired an old-fashioned blunderbuss at him. Preacher had plenty of time to duck, and as he did, he turned in the saddle to bring his right-hand pistol to bear. Smoke and flame billowed from its muzzle, and the ambusher flew backward as if slapped by a giant hand. Preacher knew both balls had slammed into the man’s chest.
The first man he’d shot wasn’t out of the fight after all, he discovered a second later. The would-be killer burst out of the brush, shrieking in rage. Crimson coated the left side of his face from a wound that had laid his cheek open to the bone. One of the balls from Preacher’s pistol had ripped along there, and it should have been enough to leave the man whimpering in pain on the ground.
Instead, he used the agony to fuel his anger. He had a tomahawk in each hand and whipped them around as he rushed toward Preacher and Horse.
The stallion trumpeted shrilly. Horse would have reared up to fight back with slashing hooves, but Preacher didn’t want his trail partner to get hurt. He kicked his feet free of the stirrups, swung his right leg over Horse’s back, and dropped to the ground to meet the assault. He barely had time to let the empty pistols fall to the ground and yank out his knife and his own tomahawk.
The wounded ambusher’s arms moved in a whirlwind of motion as he slashed at Preacher, but the mountain man’s reflexes were up to the task of avoiding the strokes. He darted and weaved, blocked some of the blows and ducked others, and then he closed in to launch an attack of his own.
The knife in his hand flicked out and sliced through the inside of the man’s upper left arm. The blade cut deep, severing muscles and nerves, and the tomahawk in the ambusher’s hand dropped from suddenly useless fingers.
The man swung the right-hand tomahawk, coming close enough to knock the broad-brimmed brown hat off the mountain man’s head. That was the high-water mark of his attack, though. It had left him open to a sweeping stroke of the tomahawk in Preacher’s left hand. The weapon smashed into the side of the man’s head with the crunch of bone. His knees buckled, and Preacher stepped back to let him topple forward onto his ruined face.
Seeing no sign of anyone else about to attack him, Preacher turned to see about Charlie. The young man had drawn his pistol, and as Preacher watched, Charlie lifted the weapon and fired it.
Then he exclaimed, “Blast it!”
“He get away?” Preacher called with a dry tone in his voice.
Charlie turned in the saddle to look at him. “Yes, he made it to a horse and rode off. Shouldn’t we go after him?”
“Not sure it’d be worth the bother. You did for one of the varmints, didn’t you?”
“I think so—”
“Better be sure,” Preacher warned
him. “Nothin’ more dangerous than a man you think is dead—but ain’t.”
With a wide-eyed look of alarm on his face, Charlie hurriedly dismounted and drew his other pistol as he stalked into the brush. By the time he came back a minute later, Preacher had already started reloading his pistols.
“The other one on this side is dead, all right,” Charlie reported. He swallowed hard. “I, uh, shot him in the head. I aimed for his chest, but I guess the shot went a little high.”
“Got the job done, though, I expect.” Preacher tucked the ready pistols behind his belt again as Dog emerged from the brush with blood on his muzzle. Preacher nodded toward the cur and added, “So did Dog.”
“Why did they ambush us?”
“Those pelts,” Preacher said as he leaned his head toward the packhorses, which stood stolidly nearby, still attached by their lead ropes to Horse. “Some fellas think it’s a good idea to lurk out here on the trail and wait for somebody to come along with a load of furs they’re plannin’ to sell in town. This ain’t the first time I’ve been jumped by varmints like that.”
“Highwaymen,” Charlie said.
“Well . . . this trail ain’t exactly a highway, but I reckon it’s the same idea.”
“What about . . . those men?”
“The carcasses?” Preacher swung up onto Horse’s back. “I don’t feel like buryin’ ’em. Do you?”
“Not really,” Charlie replied. “I can’t say as I do.”
The two men rode on toward St. Louis as, overhead, buzzards began to wheel slowly through the sky.
CHAPTER 2
They delivered their pelts to one of the still-operating fur companies and got a good price for them, but the deal was not as lucrative as those Preacher had gotten in previous years. The man who ran this branch of the company had known Preacher for a long time, and he gave the mountain man the best price he could.
Preacher's Frenzy Page 1