Sidewinders

by William W. Johnstone

  While the girls tittered, he looked at Abigail, raised his brows, indicated the empty chair at the table, and asked, “May I?”

  “Certainly,” she said. She was on the edge of laughter, herself.

  The man sat down—right next to Jenny, who nearly fainted.

  He was tall, over six feet, and had wavy, sandy hair, and it was cut fairly short. His eyes were blue, but not regular blue, like hers, nor sky blue, like Jason’s. They were a deep, deep blue, as blue as she imagined the ocean would be if you swam down so far that your lungs were ready to burst. And he was, well, gorgeous, if you could call a man that.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” said the vision sitting beside her. “My name is Lynch, Rafe Lynch, and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Rafe.”

  Jenny stuttered, “Hello, Rafe. I’m Jenny Fury.”

  “Like the town!” He smiled wide. “Coincidence?”

  She barely had her mouth open when she heard Megan say, across her, “Her father was the wagon master who started us West and her brother is our marshal, and I’m Megan MacDonald and my brother owns the bank.”

  Megan ran out of air, and Jenny just said, “Yes. What Megan said, I mean.” She felt herself flush hotly and took a quick sip of her soda pop.

  It was Abigail who saved her. She reached over and put a hand on Rafe’s arm. “Can I get you somethin’, honey?”

  Rafe picked a little chunk of ice out of the bowl and ran it over his forehead. “A beer, if you wouldn’t mind, Abby.”

  She said, “No problem at all,” and stood up. Before she left, though, she said, “Rafe, honey, why don’t you tell the girls, here, how you just beat the dust storm to town? I swan, I would’a been scared to death!”

  He grinned. “Don’t take much to scare you, does it, Abby?”

  She laughed, and he just kept grinning, even as he turned back toward the girls. “How old are you two? Unless it’s uncalled for to ask, I mean.”

  Megan said, a little too proudly, “I’m twenty-one. Jenny, here, is only nineteen.”

  Oh, terrific. Now she was marked as the baby of the group. She was going to have a word or two with Megan later. That was for sure! As calmly as she could, she said, “But I’ll be twenty come June.”

  There. That was better.

  “And your brother’s the famous Jason Fury I been hearin’ so much about?”

  Jenny had never heard that he was famous, but she said, “Yes, I guess so. But he’s just my brother.”

  Rafe Lynch ran the last of his ice over his forehead again, then popped it into his mouth. He pointed an index finger at Jenny and said, “You’re funny. Why, I heard about him back in California! Somethin’ about a couple a’ Indian attacks. And yeah, somethin’ else . . .” He smiled and thumped his temple. “It’s gone right outta my head for the time bein’.”

  Abigail was back, and slid his beer across the table before she sat down again. “You tell ’em yet how you beat the dust storm?”

  Jenny wanted to know what the other thing was that he’d heard, but held her tongue while Rafe took the first sip of his beer. Megan, she noticed, was leaning forward eagerly. Way too eagerly for somebody who was supposed to be soft on her brother, Jason, she thought. That was something else she was going to have to talk to Meg about later on.

  Rafe started talking about the storm, how he saw it coming on the horizon and nearly stopped. But then he saw signs of Apache far to the south, and hightailed it . . .

  Jenny listened as raptly as Megan. He was so handsome and charming, and had little lines that fanned out from the corners of his deep blue eyes when he smiled or laughed. Even his name was wonderful. She’d never known anyone called Rafe before.

  She was smitten.

  Over in California, near the Pacific coast and the upstart town of Los Angeles, Ezra Welk sat at the back of his room at Maria’s place, listening to the morning birds singing over the desert while he smoked a cigar. He was a tall man, although he preferred to think of himself as compact, and studied the ash on the end of his cigar before he rolled if off on the edge of the sole of his boot.

  He was alone in the room, and had been ever since seven, when the little spitfire he’d spent the night with had left. Her name had been Merlina, he thought. Hell. She was probably servicing some caballero downstairs right now, behind the back bar.

  That’s where he’d found her, anyway. Quite the little bucking bronca, that gal.

  He hoped her next “rider” was as satisfied as he was. He rolled the ash off the end of his cigar in the ashtray, this time—cut glass pretending to be crystal, he thought—and let out a sigh. He wasn’t that tired. Well, maybe a bit tuckered out from Señorita Merlina, but that’d pass. No, if he was tired of anything, he supposed it was just life itself.

  That was a funny thing, wasn’t it? He couldn’t think of another way to put it, though, when a feller was sick and tired of, well, everything.

  He took another drag on his cigar, then put it out before he stood up and gave his collar a tug. He supposed he’d best see about finding himself some breakfast, and then think about what to do.

  This is all Benny Atkinson’s fault, he thought unpleasantly as he left his room and started downstairs. Why in hell did Benny have to show up in the first place?

  West of Fury, the wagon train sat forlornly, broken and wind-whipped. Two of the wagons had blown clean over during the night, killing the occupants of one of them. The Banyons had managed to fall asleep somehow, Riley Havens guessed, and when their wagon went over, they were crushed by Martha’s chifforobe.

  Ferris said it had taken two men with shovels to scrape up Darren’s skull.

  Three of the other men had set off to dig a couple of holes, and it wouldn’t be very long before he was asked to come out and say some words over the dearly departed. What could he say? That Darren Banyon was the second to the cheapest cheapskate he’d ever met, but that he was a good man with his horses? And Martha Banyon . . . That she could be sharp tongued and had already caused more than one blowup in the troupe, but that she could sing so sweet and pretty that it could make a grown man go all gooey?

  He supposed he should just say the best parts. He’d leave the Bible-thumping to a couple of the other travelers. They sure enough had a crop of them on this journey, including a real Catholic priest.

  But he supposed that Sampson Davis, wherever he was, leveled the field, good and evil-wise. There was something just plain nasty about the man. It wasn’t in his voice or his looks or the way he carried himself, and so most people in the train liked him all right. But there was something . . . evil, that’s what it was, downright evil . . . lurking behind those eyes. Riley seldom wished any man ill, but, may the good Lord forgive him, he hoped Sampson Davis had died in the dust storm.

  “Mr. Havens?” Young Bill Crachit, a sixteen-year-old on his own, and with his own wagon, stepped around to the tailgate where Riley was sitting. “I guess we’re ready for you, sir.”

  Riley hopped down, then ground out his smoke under his boot. “Thanks, Bill,” he said as the two of them started toward the burial site. “Sampson Davis show up yet?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bill said. “Rode in a half hour ago. Why?”

  “No reason,” Riley answered. “Just keepin’ tabs on the train members, that’s all.”

  They came to the site of the graves. Somebody had found the wood and twine to tie together some crude crosses, and the bodies had already been lowered. When the gathered crowd saw Riley and Bill coming, they stopped their low hum of conversation and looked toward Riley.

  He took off his hat. “I’m not one for Bible verses,” he said. “I’ll let you, Fletch, or you, Father, take care of that part. But I can tell you about the Banyons. I didn’t know ’em long, but long enough to know that Darren was the best I’ve seen for soothing a colicky mare or knowin’ how to hitch his team just right, so they didn’t ever sore. Martha was a beauty, and when it came to singin’ a tune, I doubt anyone would say she wasn’t the bes
t they’d ever heard, especially in a wagon camp when people need some of the civilized things around them, fine things like music and manners.”

  Someone in the crowd tittered at that, and he cleared his throat. “Well, maybe I made a bad choice of words right there. But I think you all know what I meant. And now, if one of you more religious gents will take over?”

  He stepped aside, and Fletcher Bean took his place between the head markers. Solemnly, he bowed his head, opened his Bible, and began, “Let us pray . . .”

  Jason got up the nerve to go talk to Rafe Lynch around two in the afternoon, long after the girls had gone home. He found himself walking slower and slower as he neared Abigail’s place, though, and had to mentally kick himself in the rump for being so scared. Lynch wasn’t going to do anything, he told himself, not and ruin his harbor in a whole fresh territory!

  That helped a little, so he was walking faster when he came up to Solomon’s store. He knew full well that it was Sunday, but that had never before stopped Solomon from being open. Curious, he stopped and peeked in the front window, cupping a hand over his eyes to cut the glare.

  What he saw surprised him. He saw the backroom door open, and Dr. Morelli step out and shake hands with Solomon, who’d been kneeling against a counter. The look on Solomon’s face was ecstatic, and he pushed Morelli aside to go into the room, but Morelli blocked his passage, speaking to him very seriously. Solomon nodded just as solemnly, and then burst out in a fresh grin. He leapt up in the air, laughing, and finally Jason could make out some words through the glass.

  “A girl! It’s a girl!” Solomon shouted, and then gave Morelli one of those big bear hugs of his.

  Morelli freed himself after a moment, and when he walked outside again, Jason was standing there on the boardwalk, smiling at him.

  “Lived, didn’t it?” Jason asked with a grin on his face.

  The doctor allowed himself a small smile. “Yes, she did. I’m very happy for them, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “The baby isn’t quite right, Jason. I think there’s something wrong with her heart.” Morelli shook his head slowly. “But it was a tad early. Sometimes these things just fix themselves with time, if there is any. This may have been what killed the boys, too, but since their religion prohibits any sort of postmortem . . .” He stared at the ground for a moment, then looked up. “Well, I must go. My wife’s waiting dinner for me.” He tipped his hat and cut across the street, making a beeline for his house.

  Jason leaned back against the storefront, and shaking his head, muttered, “Well, I’ll be dogged.” He hoped Morelli was right about time fixing things. The last thing he needed was Solomon shooting up the place again.

  He was just opening the doors into Abigail’s place when someone fired a gun—and not too far from him! He whipped around and saw that it was Solomon Cohen himself, gun in hand, and screaming, “It’s a girl! It’s a girl!” He fired up into the air once again, then took off at a dead run, right down the center of town.

  Jason took off right after him.

  He caught up with Solomon only about six or seven steps later (Jason having the longer legs of the two, and not being nearly so giddy with joy) and wrested the gun away from Solomon.

  “Yes, we know it’s a girl! I reckon even the Apache, practically down on the Mexican border, know it, too!”

  Solomon wasn’t easily calmed or stilled, though. “But it’s a girl, Jason, and she’s alive!” he shouted, so loudly that it hurt Jason’s ears. He blinked, and had to quickly change position when Solomon tried to take his gun back.

  “There’ll be none a’ that, now. Why don’t you come on over to the office, and we’ll toast her with a cup a’ coffee. I made it, Ward didn’t,” he added as an incentive. Ward made terrible coffee.

  Solomon stood up straight. “Why, Jason! You’re not goin’ to arrest me!?”

  “Just until you settle yourself down. I can’t have you runnin’ all over town, shootin’ and maimin’ folks.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I know, Solomon,” Jason said as he began to get them aimed toward the jail. “I know you’re not tryin’ to harm a soul. But you gotta admit that you ain’t the best shot. What if you was to shoot somebody by accident and they died? Think about how bad you’d feel then! And think how bad I’d feel, havin’ to hang you after all we been through together!”

  By this time, Jason had Solomon nearly to the office, and Sol wasn’t fighting him. But in the half-second it took to let go of his arm and open the office door, Solomon snatched back the pistol, jumped away, and fired twice (down toward the open ground by the stockade wall), hollering, “Yahoo!”

  Jason grabbed him from behind, shaking his wrist until the gun fell into the dirt. “Jesus Christ, Solomon, gimme a break, all right?”

  “You shouldn’t be taking the name of a prophet in vain,” Solomon scolded.

  “And you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near firearms when your wife’s havin’ a baby!” Jason shoved him back toward the jailhouse. This time, he got him clear through the front door and locked in a cell, then had to run outside again to pick up his gun.

  The first thing Solomon said to him, once he came back inside, was, “So, I was promised coffee, already?”

  Across the street, the Reverend Milcher sat alone in his church. Lavinia and the children were nowhere to be seen, and even the shooting and the shouted news that Solomon Cohen’s child had lived—this time—wasn’t enough to make him take his eyes from the broken clay–tiled floor.

  Again, no one had come for Sunday service. No one except his family, and you could hardly count them.

  How would he feed his children without some funding? How could he pass a collection plate when there was no one there to hand it to?

  They had their milk cow, still, and she was heavy with calf. She’d calve any day, and then they could be sure of having milk. But he couldn’t slaughter the calf until fall, until it had put on enough beef-weight to make it worthwhile. Lavinia had the few vegetables she could coax from the desert floor, but that was it.

  This was indeed the wilderness, but there was no manna from heaven.

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

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  Copyright © 2011 William W. Johnstone

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  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. The 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.”

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  ISBN: 978-0-7860-2859-7