Hunter gave awry snort. His coyote friend appeared to be appropriating the affections of his gal. It seemed sometimes that most all the males in the county were in love with Annabelle Ludlow. Hunter couldn’t blame them. She was a rare, striking beauty, and a girl of heart and substance. If he got his way—and he was determined to—he was going to marry the girl, and he and she were going to raise a whole passel of young’uns right here in the Black Hills, on a wild horse ranch of their own.
If he had his way, and the girl’s father didn’t get his . . .
Trouble was likely afoot in that regard, but Hunter didn’t want to think about Graham Ludlow at the moment. Right now he had his hands full with Sheriff Frank Stillwell.
Annabelle was no hothouse flower. Despite Hunter’s protestations, she helped him haul Luke Chaney over to the wagon and dump him into the box. Most girls would have been stricken with the vapors over such a task. Annabelle merely scowled down at the dead man, her disdain for him plain in the set of her fine jaws, then brushed her hands on her jeans when they were done with the job.
“Don’t worry about me now,” Hunter told her, taking her once more in his arms. “I’ll be fine.”
“At least take my Winchester.” Anna glanced at the carbine she always carried in her saddle scabbard.
“No. Going in armed will only be asking for trouble. Like I said, don’t worry, now.”
Annabelle sighed in defeat. “I am going to worry about you,” she said with crisp defiance, gazing up at him, her green eyes as clear as a mountain lake, a wry humor crinkling their corners. “When you’re finished, you meet me at our usual place so I can make sure you’re still of one piece.”
“And if I’m not?”
Annabelle pursed her lips angrily and reached up to snap her index finger against the underside of his hat brim. “Everything better be in its rightful place. I’ll be checking!”
Hunter chuckled. He kissed her once more and climbed into the wagon. Bobby Lee was already mounted on the seat to his right.
Hunter turned the wagon around, pinched his hat brim to his girl standing gazing up at him admonishingly, fists on her hips. He rattled on past her, threaded the crease between the buttes, and swung onto the main trail.
A half hour later, a nettling apprehension raked chill fingers across the back of the ex-Confederate’s neck as the town of Tigerville appeared before him, sprawling across a low dip of tawny ground surrounded by the narrow spikes of pine-clad knolls that sloped from higher ridges toward the town. The hillocks and natural dikes seemed to be pointing out Tigerville to weary travelers who, having journeyed this far off the beaten path, had lost hope of finding any hint of civilization at all out here in this vast, rugged, pine-bearded and gold-spotted country east of the Rockies.
Tigerville, named after the now-defunct Bengal Mine, was far from the howling hub of boisterous humanity that was Deadwood, fifty miles north. But Tigerville was no slouch in that regard, either. Now as Hunter rattled and clomped down the town’s main street, he was surrounded by the din of player pianos, three-piece bands, and laughing women disporting their wares from boardwalks and the second-floor galleries of sporting parlors, of which Tigerville had several of note.
Men of all sizes, shapes, and colors, including blacks and blanket Indians, crisscrossed the street still muddy from an earlier rain, some with frothy ale mugs in their fists and/or painted ladies on their arms. There were miners, prospectors, cowpunchers, market hunters, railroad surveyors, soldiers from the local cavalry outpost, as well as cardsharps, run-of-the-mill rowdies, grubline-riding tough nuts, and confidence men.
The buildings were mostly wood-frame and false-fronted business establishments with more than a few of Tigerville’s original crude log cabins and tent shacks remaining to give testament to its humble roots.
The King Solomon’s Mine, owned by Graham Ludlow and Max Chaney, sat on the high ridge to the east of town, like the castle ruins of some vanquished lord overlooking the humble dwellings of his unwashed subjects. Gray tailings stretched down the mountain below the mine, around which was a beehive of activity including men at work with picks and shovels, handcars rolling in and out of the mine portals, thundering ore drays traversing trails switchbacking up and down the mountain’s face, as well as the constant, reverberating hammering of the stamping mill in its giant timber frame at the base of the ridge, behind the barrack-like, wood-frame mine office.
Hunter turned his attention to the street before him. The office of the county sheriff was on the east side, roughly two-thirds of the way through the half-mile length of Custer Avenue. Hunter angled Titus toward the jailhouse, and felt another cold-fingered massage of apprehension.
Sheriff Frank Stillwell was tipped back in a hide-bottom chair on the front porch, his five-pointed star glistening on his brown wool vest. His high-topped black boots were crossed on the rail before him. As Hunter turned the mule up to the hitching rack fronting the sheriff’s long, unpainted, wood-frame office, Stillwell’s mud-black eyes turned to regard him with customary malignancy.
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over 300 books, including the series Preacher, the First Mountain Man, MacCallister, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Flintlock, Those Jensen Boys!, Savage Texas, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, and The Family Jensen. His thrillers include Tyranny, Stand Your Ground, Suicide Mission, and Black Friday.
Visit his website at www.williamjohnstone.net.
Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J. A. JOHNSTONE learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.
The elder Johnstone began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western History library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.
“Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers—and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: Be the best J. A. Johnstone you can be.’”
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