Rattlesnake Wells, Wyoming

by William W. Johnstone

  “Family’s as good a reason as any. Better than most, I guess,” said Libby. “Me, I ain’t been part of a family since I was real young. And all I wanted back then was to get shed of the one I had.”

  “If a family is what you want, maybe it’s not too late to build one around you,” Bob said.

  “Have kids, you mean?”

  “Not necessarily. There are as many ways to build a family as there are lonely people wanting to be part of one. You just have to keep your eyes open for the right ones to latch on to.”

  Libby regarded him. “You’re a strange man for a hick town marshal. You know that?”

  Bob grinned. “You’re hardly the first one to point that out.”

  “And deciding to let me go, I gotta say, ranks pretty high in your strange ways—not that I’m complaining, mind you.”

  “Just don’t let me hear about something you do in the future that will make me regret it,” Bob said.

  “Like shooting any more deputies, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Like that, for sure.”

  “Thank God I didn’t kill him like I thought I did.”

  “What you need to do to help make up for your past wrong deeds is take what we found in Brock’s money belt and, when you get back to Laramie, find a better path to walk from here on out.”

  At Libby’s pleading, they had taken time to bury Brock. In the process, they’d found a full money belt around his waist. Bob had handed it over to Libby along with his sanction for her to go free, not be placed in cuffs and taken back to face charges. He couldn’t say exactly why he’d made that decision. The best he could come up was that since she’d been through hell the past few days, including cheating death twice in just the past few hours maybe it was time for somebody to give her a break.

  “I will find a better path to walk, Marshal. I promise,” Libby said earnestly. “I’m not even gonna make a bottle of tequila the first thing I buy with that money when I get to Laramie. Maybe not the second or third, either.”

  “Sounds like a good start. You’re sure you can find your way to Laramie okay?”

  “Brock gave me good instructions.” Her expression turned somewhat sad at the remembrance. “Don’t worry about me making it through the night out here on my own. I’ve survived a hell of—excuse me—make that a heck of a lot worse. I’ll build a big ol’ fire and I’ve got guns and plenty of ammunition. I’ll be fine. I’ll strike out for Laramie first thing in the morning.”

  “When you get there, don’t forget to give that note I wrote about the escaped convicts to the marshal there. Tell him I’ll wire a more detailed follow-up as soon as I get back to Rattlesnake Wells.”

  Libby nodded. “Consider it done.”

  Bob turned to his horses—the two he’d arrived with plus a third upon which sat a slumped, silent, sullen-looking Arlo Sanders, once more handcuffed to the saddle horn. He’d been keeping quiet all during the exchange between Bob and Libby for one simple reason. He couldn’t talk. Brock’s smashing blow with the rifle butt had busted his jaw in at least three places, leaving the lower half of Arlo’s face badly swollen and throbbing with pain. Trying to talk—which was futile anyway because anything he attempted to say came out unintelligible—only made the pain more excruciating. He just glared hatefully at everything and everybody.

  Bob swung up into his saddle. Looking down at Libby, he said, “As soon as we turn and start to ride away, you ain’t thinking about taking a shot with one of those guns you spoke of a minute ago in a last-ditch attempt to make good on your promise to Brock about killing Arlo, are you?”

  Libby’s mouth twisted wryly. “I gotta admit I did some thinking along those lines, but in the end, seeing how miserable he is with his busted jaw and all, and considering how far you’ve got to ride before he gets any medical attention . . . I decided that wasn’t a bad trade-off. I think even Brock might understand.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I think you made the right decision. I hope we both did.” With that, he gave her a hat-pinch, then wheeled his horse about and nudged it, along with the others, eastward. Toward home, for him. Toward the gallows, eventually, for Sanders.

  Save a man in order to take him back for hanging.

  Bob wondered about the sense in that. He reckoned not all of his decisions made sense. But then, he was a strange one.

  TURN THE PAGE FOR AN EXCITING PREVIEW!

  Johnstone Country. Frontier Spirit Lives Here.

  There are a lot of ways a man can end up on a wanted poster. There’s the easy way (murder), there’s the hard way (robbery), and then there’s

  Dooley Monahan’s way (by accident). On the trail west with his trusty horse and dog, the hapless gunslinger stops a mean, hungry bear from making lunch out of the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody.

  In turn, Cody grubstakes Dooley to the purchase of a silver mine in the lawless, violent boomtown of

  Leadville, Colorado. Dooley can’t believe his good luck. But when he guns down three deadly outlaws, the grateful townsfolk pin a sheriff’s badge on Dooley.

  And that’s when his luck runs out . . .

  Turns out there’s a war going on between two rival gangs. Stagecoaches are being robbed every other day, and fingers are being pointed at Dooley himself. There’s a tradition here in these parts, he discovers.

  If a sheriff’s no good, they hang him. And if the next one’s no better, they hang him twice . . .

  National Bestselling Authors

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with J. A. JOHNSTONE

  THE TRAIL WEST

  HANG HIM TWICE

  Live Free. Read Hard. www.williamjohnstone.net

  Available wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.

  Chapter 1

  Some things, a man knows, he ought never do.

  Like placing your hat on a bed. Or riding a pinto horse—unless you happen to be an Indian. Or borrowing a pocketknife that has the blade open but then returning it with the blade closed. Or not sharpening a straight razor three times on each side. Or removing the ashes from a stove on a Friday. But here sat Dooley Monahan in the Elkhorn Saloon in Denver City, Colorado, about to make the worst move of his life.

  Which was saying a lot.

  “One card,” Dooley told the dealer while tossing his discard onto the center of the table.

  The dealer, a pockmarked man with a handlebar mustache, sleeve garters, and shaded spectacles, deftly slid a paste card across the green felt cloth toward Dooley’s pile of chips, which happened to be a lot smaller than when he had taken that empty seat four hours earlier.

  The stagecoach messenger—the one the size of a grizzly with about as much hair, not the other driver, who was bald and had no teeth—drew three cards. The merchant wearing the bowler hat and plaid sack suit took three as well. The dealer sent the stagecoach driver, the bald one, two cards.

  That was it. The dealer had folded on the first bet, and the other chairs had been vacated during the course of the four hours, and no one in the Elkhorn appeared willing to try to bust the stagecoach driver’s—the bald one, without any teeth but a massive pile of chips—run of luck.

  Dooley watched as the players picked up their cards, shuffled them into the proper places among the cards they held.

  “Your bet.” The dealer nodded at the toothless stagecoach man, who grinned, wet his lips, and studied his chips.

  “Check,” the man said.

  “Check,” said Dooley.

  That caused the stagecoach messenger—the one who looked like a grizzly, and smelled like one, too—to use his substantial neck to turn his substantial head at Dooley.

  “You ain’t even looked at your card, mister,” the big cuss said, and tapped a substantial finger on the felt, pointing at the card Dooley had drawn.

  Dooley sipped his beer. “I don’t have to,” he said.

  That caused the big man to straighten and study Dooley closer. Then he eyed the dealer, who merely shrugged and said, “Your bet, sir.”

&
nbsp; The big one looked at his cards, then at Dooley, then at the dealer, then at that double-barreled coach gun, which he used to guard against stagecoach robberies. Dooley did not plan on robbing any stagecoach, and, at this point, he wasn’t even sure he planned on sticking in the game once the betting started.

  The grizzly bear looked back at Dooley.

  “You some kind of clear voyager?” he asked.

  Dooley blinked.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard you,” Dooley said. “I just don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I said either you’s some kind of clear voyager or this here’s ’bout as crooked a deal as I’ve ever had—and I’ve had me a passel of crooked deals.”

  Dooley’s mouth turned to sand, and he had just swallowed about a fifth of his freshly poured beer. He began running those superstitions through his head again as the big man placed his cards on the table and lowered the right hand toward the substantial scattergun that would make even Buffalo Bill Cody or Wild Bill Hickok nervous.

  Never place your hat on a bed . . . Always sharpen your straight razor three times on each side . . . Don’t ever take ashes out of a stove on a Friday . . . And don’t be a danged fool and . . .

  The merchant interrupted Dooley’s thoughts.

  “Do you mean clairvoyant?”

  Now the leviathan turned his massive head at the merchant. “That’s what I said, gol darn it.”

  Dooley grinned, shook his head, and said—after breathing a sigh of relief: “I’m no clairvoyant.”

  Which turned out to be the wrong thing to say.

  Because the stagecoach messenger rose, tipping his chair over. “Then that means this here be a crooked deal.”

  The man’s hand reached for the shotgun, a massive Parker ten-gauge that looked more like a howitzer than a scattergun. And as big as that cannon seemed, the big cuss’s hand practically dwarfed it.

  The dealer had reached for the much slimmer Colt in a shoulder holster. The merchant simply turned about as pale as Dooley thought his own face must be looking about now. Blue, Dooley’s merle hound, growled. A saloon gal bringing drinks toward the neighboring table abruptly took her ryes and bourbons and beers and one glass of champagne toward the other side of the saloon. And the folks sitting at the neighboring table stopped playing cards and quickly cleared out of the way.

  That’s when the other stagecoach man—the jehu without any teeth—broke into laughter.

  “Sit down, you ignorant oaf,” he said to the grizzly bear. “He ain’t no clear voyager and this ain’t no crooked deal.”

  The grizzly trained his angry eyes at the skinny old man, who downed a shot of rye and smiled a toothless smile.

  “He ain’t got to see what card he drawed on account I didn’t bet,” the jehu said as if explaining a math equation to a bumpkin. “He’s waitin’ to see how this hand plays out, you fool. So bet, check, or fold.”

  Those words finally registered, and the giant released his grip on the shotgun. One of the neighboring poker players decided to be a gentleman and lifted the grizzly’s chair off the floor, smiled at Blue, who settled back down by Dooley’s chair’s legs, and the man returned to his own chair at his own table.

  Dooley finished his beer.

  After the giant settled back into his seat and reexamined his cards, he snorted, gave Dooley a sideways glance, and said, “I still think you might be a clear voyager.”

  Bet and find out, Dooley started to say, but he had already broken one of the sacred vows of cowboys and poker players and decided now was not the time to push his luck. He shrugged, and nodded at the saloon gal and called out, “Another round for my compatriots.”

  “Thank you,” everyone said except the grizzly, who spit into the sawdust and said, “I wasn’t no conned patriot, mister. I wore the blue with the finest artillery regiment in Rosecrans’s army.”

  “What were you?” the slim jehu said, sniggering. “A cannon?”

  The grizzly frowned and slid his winnings into the pile in the center.

  “It’ll cost you my whole pile to find out.”

  As the dealer eyed the chips, greenbacks, and coins, the merchant tossed his cards onto the deadwood. “I am too drained after this excitement to think clearly,” he said, “so I shall fold.”

  The toothless driver of stages laughed. “On account you didn’t draw what you needed.”

  The merchant did not respond.

  Said the dealer: “I make that right at one hundred thirty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents.”

  “You done all that in your noggin?” the toothless jehu said.

  “He’s probably one of ’em clear voyagers, too,” the grizzly bear growled.

  Dooley swallowed down his nerves and looked at the one card he had drawn, still facedown on the felt, but did not lift it . . . yet.

  The skinny driver grinned and said as he reached for his chips, “Why don’t we make it an even five hundred dollars?” He tossed in some greenbacks and gold coins.

  “But you checked,” the merchant pointed out.

  “There’s no law against checking and raising,” the dealer said.

  “But it’s not gentlemanly,” the merchant said.

  Dooley had to agree with the merchant’s assessment, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was to see what the dealer had delivered him. Since Dooley was neither a clairvoyant nor a clear voyager, he stretched his left hand across the table, put his fingers on the card, and thumbed the corner up just slightly. He left the card on the table and laid the four cards he kept on top of them.

  “I guess that’s a fold . . .” The sentence stopped in the toothless coot’s throat as Dooley picked up his cards and asked the dealer:

  “So it’s five hundred to me?”

  “That’s right.”

  Holding the five cards in his left hand, Dooley began counting what he had left. It amounted to a little more than $230.

  “Tell you what, mister,” the toothless codger said.

  “That’s a fine dog you got lyin’ there by your boots. I mean, if you want to raise.”

  Dooley grinned. “How much you think old Blue’s worth?”

  Thin lips cut off the toothless grin.

  The merchant’s chair legs scraped across the floor, and the man pushed back his bowler and walked around. “I know a few things of dogs.” He studied Blue, who did not seem the least interested. “That’s an Australian shepherd, I think. Maybe seven, eight years old. Good dog.”

  “You some dog clear voyager?” the grizzly bear asked.

  The merchant smiled. “No. I just know dogs. A dog like that, in Denver, would go for six hundred dollars.”

  Everyone at the table stared incredulously at the merchant, who sat down. “Boys,” he said, “this is Denver City. You know how much a bath costs. Or an all-night woman. A dog like that is worth a lot of money.”

  “Last dog I had,” said the grizzly bear, “I et for supper.”

  The barmaid brought over the drinks, and Dooley paid her, and asked the dealer, “Table stakes?”

  Once the dealer nodded, Dooley slid the rest of his money into the pot.

  “Are you calling, sir, or raising?” the dealer asked.

  “Just a call.” He leaned over and scratched Blue’s ears.

  “What I figured,” said the toothless gent.

  The grizzly bear snorted, and reached inside his greasy buckskin jacket, withdrawing a piece of crumpled yellow paper. “This here is the deed to a mine I gots up in Leadville. You saw the poke I cashed in to sit in this game. That poke come out of my mine. If a damned blue dog is worth six hundred bucks in this town, I reckon my mine is worth five thousand. So that’s my bet.”

  “Hoss,” the thin jehu said, the word hissing through his gums. “You can’t be bettin’ your mine.”

  “I sure am, Chester. Because I know you’s bluffin’.”

  The dealer reached into the pot and withdrew the paper.
His face registered distaste as he smoothed it out and said after a long while, “This looks to be a proper deed, duly registered. But as to the veracity of its value . . .”

  “It’s worth five thousand,” the toothless jehu said. “Ain’t the best mine in Leadville, but it’s plumb fine. He won’t tell nobody where it is, though.”

  “If you’ve got a valuable mine,” the merchant said, “why are you guarding the Leadville–Denver stage?”

  That, Dooley thought, was a mighty intelligent question.

  The grizzly bear growled. “Stage runs once a week. When I ain’t riding guard fer Chester, I’s workin’ my mine.”

  The merchant shook his head. “It’s a two-day run to Denver. A two-day run back. And if there’s snow, rain, or mud, it can be three days. So you’re saying that you work a mine two or three days only, and it’s worth five thousand bucks?”

  “Yep,” the grizzly said. “Ask Chester.”

  “I tell him,” the jehu said before anyone asked him, “that he ought to give up this job and concentrate on the mine. But he don’t trust nobody to guard his silver, so he rides shotgun.”

  Everyone sipped drinks and stared at the grizzly.

  “Boys,” the jehu said, “if you don’t believe it, he puts his money in the First Republican Bank of Denver.”

  The dealer shrugged. “It’s up to you players. The Elkhorn has no money in this hand.”

  “A thousand dollars to you, Chester,” the grizzly told the toothless man.

  The lean driver looked at his hand, then at the grizzly bear, and cursed as he tossed in his hand.

  “Ha!” The grizzly bear leaned back in his chair. “I knowed you was bluffin’. So I reckon . . .” He reached for the pot, but Dooley cleared his throat.

  “It’s a thousand to me, then?” he asked.

  The front legs to the chair slammed against the hardwood floor, and the giant turned, surprised as Dooley said, “If my dog’s worth six hundred dollars, how much would you reckon that horse I tethered to the hitching rail out front is worth?”