Dead Man Walking

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yeah, that’s, uh, terrible,” Stanton said. He glared at John Henry, who let out a grim chuckle and decided it wouldn’t do any good to point out that a few days earlier, Stanton had threatened to do the very same thing. Stanton hadn’t really meant it, though; John Henry saw that now. The man was just so afraid of the fever that he hadn’t been thinking straight.

  John Henry started thumbing fresh cartridges into his Colt as he asked, “So everything’s mopped up outside?”

  “Yeah,” Stanton said. He helped Weaver sit down in one of the armchairs. “What in blazes was all this about, anyway? Who were those lunatics?”

  “It’s a long story,” John Henry said. He glanced at Prentice and Penelope, who were still embracing, and added, “But it looks like we’ve got time.”

  * * *

  “So everybody in this town”—Judge Parker glanced at the report in his hand—“Copperhead. They all recovered from the fever?”

  “Yes, sir,” John Henry said. “Less than a dozen people died. From the fever, anyway.” His face took on a regretful cast as he remembered the aftermath of the battle along Copperhead’s main street. “Another four men were killed in the fighting with O’Reilly’s men.”

  Parker tossed the document onto his desk. His bushy eyebrows lowered slightly as he looked at John Henry and said, “I believe I asked you to apprehend O’Reilly alive if possible.”

  “Couldn’t be done,” John Henry said blandly. “Mr. Prentice and I fired in self-defense, and in defense of Miss Smith’s life as well.”

  “The slippery Miss Smith,” Parker said. “The one who . . . got away.”

  “There was a lot of confusion that night. Lots and lots of shooting, Judge, and wounded folks everywhere. But Miss Smith pitched in to help, just like she did when so many people were sick with the fever, and to tell you the truth, I just lost track of her.”

  “As did Mr. Prentice, a trained agent of the Secret Service.”

  “Well, in all fairness, Judge, he’d lost quite a bit of blood from that arm of his O’Reilly ventilated. I’m not surprised he was a mite addled.”

  Parker sat forward, glared, and said, “If you think for one moment—”

  He stopped short, blew out an exasperated breath, and shook his head.

  “Never mind,” the judge went on. “So what it amounts to is that you went to California, befriended a Chinese criminal overlord and his daughter, got in a fight at a notorious gambling den, killed a master counterfeiter that various people in Washington very much wanted to interrogate and send to prison, and then lost a prisoner who happened to be that master counterfeiter’s daughter.”

  “Stepdaughter,” John Henry corrected. “And I think it’s safe to say they weren’t close.”

  “Still, that’s a fair summing up?”

  “Well, I put a stop to them passing the rest of that counterfeit money. They would have kept it up for a while longer, probably in half a dozen more towns there in the Sierra Nevadas.”

  “There’s that to be thankful for, I suppose.” Judge Parker leaned back in his chair. “I could assign you to track down Miss Smith, you know.”

  “I reckon you could, Judge, but I’d bet that it’d be a waste of time. She’s a mighty smart young woman. I think she’ll lie low for a long time, long enough that we’ll never see her again.”

  “Mm-hmm. Mr. Prentice is retiring from the Secret Service, you know. The doctors believe that he’ll get most of the use back in his left arm, but it’ll never be like it was. I’m told that he thought it best that he move on to something else.”

  “Yes, sir, he told me he might see about going to work for Allan Pinkerton,” John Henry said. “Since he’s got some experience in that line of work, so to speak.”

  “Yes.” Parker’s voice took on a brisk tone as he continued, “I believe we’re done here, Marshal Sixkiller. Thank you for your good work.”

  “Just did the best I could at the time, Judge,” John Henry drawled. He stood up, put on his hat, and turned to leave the office.

  Parker stopped him by saying, “One more thing.”

  John Henry looked back at the judge.

  “I realize you just got back from a long, hazardous assignment,” Parker said, “but a band of outlaws is raising hell over in the Nations right now and somebody needs to put a stop to it. You’ve heard of Clyde Wolverton?”

  John Henry’s eyes narrowed.

  “Fella who claims to wear a necklace made out of teeth he pulled from the mouths of deputy marshals he killed?”

  “That’s the one,” Parker said. “Judging by the reports I’ve received, he’s assembled a group of desperadoes, all of them almost as evil as he is. How would you feel about rounding them up, Marshal Sixkiller?”

  Before leaving California, John Henry had bought Buck from Dunleavy, using his own money, and brought the gelding back here with him on the train. So now he had two good horses, Iron Heart and the big buckskin. He might need them both on a job like this.

  “I think I can run Wolverton and his bunch to ground, Judge.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Good luck, Marshal.”

  Billy Rainbow had called him a dead man walking, John Henry recalled as he left the redbrick courthouse, because of all the badmen who wanted to kill him. That number was about to go up again.

  But he wasn’t dead yet. He still had plenty of fight in him. Clyde Wolverton and the other varmints in his gang would find that out soon enough.

  And as John Henry Sixkiller rode out of Fort Smith later that day, there was a smile of anticipation on his face. He could practically smell the gunsmoke already.

  He wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Keep reading for a special excerpt of

  the next explosive book in the

  Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter series.

  BURNING DAYLIGHT

  by WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE and J. A. JOHNSTONE

  Bounty hunter Luke Jensen has always relied on

  his guns, his brains, and his guts to bring in

  the deadliest outlaws in the West. But when

  a family needs his help, he’ll have to use

  something else: his heart . . .

  BLOOD IS THICKER THAN SLAUGHTER

  Luke Jensen has seen some sorry-looking bounties in his time, but this one takes the cake. A wanted poster is offering a reward of one dollar and forty-two cents—plus one busted harmonica—to capture Three-Fingered Jack McKinney. Turns out, McKinney’s twelve-year-old son Aaron wants revenge on his daddy for abandoning him and his mom. The reward is all the money Aaron can scrape together. Luke can’t say no to the poor boy—or his beautiful mother—so he agrees to go after McKinney and his bank-robbing gang.

  Good deeds, however, are like good intentions—the road to hell is paved with them. And when Aaron McKinney decides to tag along, it puts Luke in the middle of a father-and-son reunion that’s life-or-death, blood-for-blood, and kill-or-be-killed . . .

  Look for BURNING DAYLIGHT on sale now,

  wherever books are sold.

  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 t
he 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 One

  Luke Jensen froze with the glass of whiskey halfway to his lips as he heard the metallic ratcheting of a gun being cocked above and behind him. He glanced at the nervous-looking bartender and asked quietly, “He’s on the balcony, isn’t he?”

  The man’s lips were tight. His double chin bounced a little as he gave a short nod.

  “I’d get down, if I were you,” Luke advised, then he dropped the whiskey and threw himself to the side as a gun roared.

  The deafening blast filled the saloon. From the corner of his eye Luke saw a bullet gouge out a piece of the hardwood bar and send splinters flying.

  By the time he hit the sawdust-littered floor a split second later, his long-barreled Remingtons filled both hands. The guns roared and bucked as he triggered them. The .44 slugs smashed into the chest of the man standing on the balcony and rocked him back a step before he stumbled forward against the railing.

  Luke recognized the man who had just tried to kill him. His name was Son Barton, a West Virginia mountaineer who had fled his home state because he had a habit of shooting people who annoyed him. He had headed west, fallen in with several other killers and outlaws, and ridden the dark trails for the past few years. Luke had tracked the gang to this Arizona Territory settlement and intended to collect the rewards on them.

  The wanted posters said DEAD OR ALIVE, but it looked like Son Barton was going to be dead because life was fading fast in his eyes. The gun he had fired at Luke slipped from nerveless fingers and fell to the saloon floor. As Barton tipped forward over the railing and followed, he turned over once in the air and landed on his back with a resounding thud. He gurgled once but didn’t move and didn’t make any more sounds after that, either.

  Still holding the Remingtons, Luke put a hand on the floor, pushed himself to one knee, and tried not to groan from the effort. These days, he felt every one of his years. He stood the rest of the way up and glanced out the window.

  The four horses he’d been looking for were tied up at the hitch rail outside. Barton’s three friends were still unaccounted for.

  The bartender poked his bald head up enough to gaze wide-eyed over the hardwood. The few men who had been drinking in the saloon had stampeded out as soon as the shooting started.

  Luke said, “The other three upstairs, too?”

  The bartender shook his head. “Just two of ’em. Only got three girls workin’ for me. The fourth man said he was goin’ over to the store to pick up some supplies.”

  Since the settlement was small that man was bound to have heard the shots. He’d be heading to the saloon to see what had happened, but it would take him a while get there, so Luke didn’t worry about him for the time being. The other two upstairs concerned him more. And with good reason.

  A man burst through the door of the room where he’d been frolicking with one of the soiled doves and began spraying lead from a Winchester as fast as he could swing the barrel back and forth and work the rifle’s lever.

  The bartender ducked again.

  Luke dived forward and slid through beery sawdust underneath a table. Bullets whapped against the wood above him. His head and shoulders emerged from the other side. He tipped the Remingtons up and fired two more shots. One missed, but the other caught the rifleman in the throat and jerked his head back as it bored on up into his brain. Blood shot out a good three feet from the wound as he went over backward.

  The rifleman’s frenzied firing had served as a distraction, Luke realized. The third member of the gang had made it almost all the way down the stairs while Luke had been dealing with the rifleman. And this hombre held a shotgun. He leveled it and squeezed off one barrel as Luke desperately tried to roll aside.

  The buckshot hit the floor, except for one piece that plucked at Luke’s shirtsleeve. He wasn’t hurt, though, and as he came up on a knee again, he thrust the Remingtons out in front of him and triggered them.

  The shotgunner jerked. Luke bit back a curse as he saw that his aim had been a little off. He’d hit the varmint in the left arm and left shoulder. He might bleed to death eventually, but he was still on his feet and still had hold of that scattergun.

  Luke jammed the revolvers back into their holsters and grabbed hold of another table. As he swung it up, the wounded outlaw fired the shotgun’s second barrel. Luke felt the table shiver as the charge struck it. Then he lunged forward and shoved the table out in front of him. It hit the shotgunner and knocked him back against the wall behind him.

  Luke rammed the table into the man twice more, then, panting from the effort, shoved it aside and drew one of the Remingtons, even though the outlaw wasn’t a threat any longer. He had dropped the shotgun, which was empty, and slumped to the bottom of the stairs, stunned. Luke twirled the Remington around and rapped the butt against the outlaw’s head, knocking him out cold. No point in taking any chances.

  Outside, a swift rataplan of hoofbeats sounded in the street. Luke hurried to the entrance and shoved the batwings aside. Only three horses stood at the hitch rail. The fourth one was making tracks out of town with a cloud of dust curling up from its hooves. The rider leaned forward over the animal’s neck and frantically swatted his hat against its rump to urge it on to greater speed.

  “Well, hell,” Luke said.

  The bartender stuck his head up again. “Is . . . is it over?”

  “Yeah. The fourth one lit a shuck, and I don’t feel like chasing after him. Reckon I’ll have to be satisfied with the three I got . . . for now.” Luke started reloading the Remingtons, keeping an eye on the man he had knocked out. “You have any law in this town?”

  The bartender stood up. “Got a marshal. A deputy sheriff from Singletary, the county seat, swings by now and then, but you can’t ever tell when he’s gonna come through.”

  “A jail?”

  “Well . . . a smokehouse where Marshal Hennessy locks up fellas when he has to.”

  Luke pouched the iron he’d been reloading and took out the other revolver. “I suppose a telegraph office would be too much to hope for.”

  “I’m afraid so. The railroad didn’t come through here, so we never got a telegraph line. Summerville is just a sleepy little place, mister.”

  “That’s the name of this town?”

  “Yes, sir. Summerville, Arizona Territory.”

  Footsteps sounded on the boardwalk. A middle-aged, leathery-faced gent peered over the batwings and asked, “What in blazes is goin’ on in there, Doolittle? Sounded like a damn war broke out.”

  The bartender waved a pudgy hand at Luke. “This fella came in and was about to have a drink when some of my other customers started shootin’ at him.”

  The newcomer pushed the batwings aside and took a step into the room, revealing the lawman’s star pinned to his vest.

  Luke holstered the second Remington. “You’ll take note of how this gentleman phrased that comment, Marshal. All three of those men shot at me first. That makes this a clear-cut case of self-defense.”

  The bartender, Doolittle, nodded, making his double chin wobble again.

  “I take it they had a good reason for trying to ventilate you?” the marshal asked.

  “They considered it a good reason. They knew I
’ve been tracking them and planned to collect the rewards that have been posted for them.”

  Marshal Hennessy’s lips tightened. “Bounty hunter, eh?”

  “That’s right.” Luke gestured toward the body lying on its back. “That’s Son Barton. The one over there at the bottom of the stairs is Jimmy McCaskill. He’s just knocked out. You’ll find another dead one up on the balcony, but I don’t know which one he is. Didn’t get a good enough look at him, and I didn’t see the fourth man, the one who got away, at all. But Barton and McCaskill ran with Ed Logan and Deuce Roebuck, so I’m sure the dead man will turn out to be one of them.”

  As if he hadn’t heard what Luke was saying, Marshal Hennessy said, “I don’t like bounty hunters.”

  Luke sighed. “Most lawmen don’t. I understand that, Marshal. But we do serve a useful function, you know.”

  “Yeah, so do buzzards, but that don’t mean I got to cozy up to ’em.”

  “I’ll be satisfied if you’ll just agree to lock my prisoner up for the night. I’ll have him out of your hair tomorrow morning. We’ll ride up to the county seat where I can turn him over to the sheriff there.”

  Hennessy rasped his fingers over his beard-stubbled chin, then nodded. “All right, I suppose I can do that. You’re responsible for feedin’ the varmint, though. I’m not gonna ask the town to stand the cost of that.”

  “Fair enough.” Luke went over to McCaskill, bent and took hold of his collar, and started dragging his senseless form toward the door. “Lead the way, Marshal.”

  Hennessy did, trudging along Summerville’s only street until he came to a small but sturdy-looking smokehouse. Brackets had been attached on either side of the door, and a thick beam rested in them. He struggled to lift it, saying, “I keep telling the town council . . . uh . . . they oughta build me a real jail . . . but they say the town can’t afford it.”