Forty Times a Killer

by William W. Johnstone

  “I have the highest respect for education,” he says, “but such is the folly of youth, and wanting to see the world beyond the four walls and the blackboard.”

  True to this vow, Bill attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion (“I saw Gary Cooper in Beau Geste when I was a kid and I thought the French Foreign Legion would be fun”) but was rejected, thankfully, for being underage. Instead, he joined a traveling carnival and did all kinds of odd jobs. It was listening to the veteran carny folk, some of whom had been on the circuit since the late 1800s, telling amazing tales about their experiences, that planted the storytelling seed in Bill’s imagination.

  “They were mostly honest people, despite the bad reputation traveling carny shows had back then,” Bill remembers. “Of course, there were exceptions. There was one guy named Picky, who got that name because he was a master pickpocket. He could steal a man’s socks right off his feet without him knowing. Believe me, Picky got us chased out of more than a few towns.”

  After a few months of this grueling existence, Bill returned home and finished high school. Next came stints as a deputy sheriff in the Tallulah, Louisiana, Sheriff’s Department, followed by a hitch in the U.S. Army. Then he began a career in radio broadcasting at KTLD in Tallulah, which would last sixteen years. It was there that he fine-tuned his storytelling skills. He turned to writing in 1970, but it wouldn’t be until 1979 that his first novel, The Devil’s Kiss, was published. Thus began the full-time writing career of William W. Johnstone. He wrote horror (The Uninvited), thrillers (The Last of the Dog Team), even a romance novel or two. Then, in February 1983, Out of the Ashes was published. Searching for his missing family in a post-apocalyptic America, rebel mercenary and patriot Ben Raines is united with the civilians of the Resistance forces and moves to the forefront of a revolution for the nation’s future.

  Out of the Ashes was a smash. The series would continue for the next twenty years, winning Bill three generations of fans all over the world. The series was often imitated but never duplicated. “We all tried to copy the Ashes series,” said one publishing executive, “but Bill’s uncanny ability, both then and now, to predict in which direction the political winds were blowing brought a certain immediacy to the table no one else could capture.” The Ashes series would end its run with more than thirty-four books and twenty million copies in print, making it one of the most successful men’s action series in American book publishing. (The Ashes series also, Bill notes with a touch of pride, got him on the FBI’s Watch List for its less than flattering portrayal of spineless politicians and the growing power of big government over our lives, among other things. In that respect, I often find myself saying, “Bill was years ahead of his time.”)

  Always steps ahead of the political curve, Bill’s recent thrillers, written with myself, include Vengeance Is Mine, Invasion USA, Border War, Jackknife, Remember the Alamo, Home Invasion, Phoenix Rising, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge, and the upcoming Suicide Mission.

  It is with the western, though, that Bill found his greatest success. His westerns propelled him onto both the USA Today and the New York Times bestseller lists.

  Bill’s western series include The Mountain Man, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, MacCallister (an Eagles spin-off ), Sidewinders, The Brothers O’Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter, and the upcoming new series Flintlock and The Trail West. May 2013 saw the hardcover western Butch Cassidy, The Lost Years.

  “The Western,” Bill says, “is one of the few true art forms that is one hundred percent American. I liken the Western as America’s version of England’s Arthurian legends, like the Knights of the Round Table, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Starting with the 1902 publication of The Virginian by Owen Wister, and followed by the greats like Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and of course Louis L’Amour, the Western has helped to shape the cultural landscape of America.

  “I’m no goggle-eyed college academic, so when my fans ask me why the Western is as popular now as it was a century ago, I don’t offer a 200-page thesis. Instead, I can only offer this: The Western is honest. In this great country, which is suffering under the yoke of political correctness, the Western harks back to an era when justice was sure and swift. Steal a man’s horse, rustle his cattle, rob a bank, a stagecoach, or a train, you were hunted down and fitted with a hangman’s noose. One size fit all.

  “Sure, we westerners are prone to a little embellishment and exaggeration and, I admit it, occasionally play a little fast and loose with the facts. But we do so for a very good reason—to enhance the enjoyment of readers.

  “It was Owen Wister, in The Virginian who first coined the phrase ‘When you call me that, smile.’ Legend has it that Wister actually heard those words spoken by a deputy sheriff in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, when another poker player called him a son of a bitch.

  “Did it really happen, or is it one of those myths that have passed down from one generation to the next? I honestly don’t know. But there’s a line in one of my favorite Westerns of all time, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, where the newspaper editor tells the young reporter, ‘When the truth becomes legend, print the legend.’

  “These are the words I live by.”

  Turn the page for an exciting preview!

  THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITER OF THE 21ST CENTURY

  William Johnstone is acclaimed for his

  American frontier chronicles. A national bestseller,

  the legendary storyteller, along with J. A. Johnstone,

  has written a powerful new novel set in Texas—

  one century after the Revolutionary War.

  LIBERTY—OR DIE FOR IT

  One hundred years ago, American patriots picked up rifles and fought against British tyranny. That was Boston. The enemy was King George III and his British troops. Now, in Last Chance, Texas, in the Big Bend River country, it’s Abraham Hacker, a ruthless cattle baron who will slaughter anyone who tries to lay claim to the fertile land and anything on it. For Last Chance, freedom is under siege one violent act at a time . . . until wounded Texas Ranger Hank Cannan arrives in town. Seeing the terrorized townsfolk, Cannan is ready to start a second revolution. It’s going to take a lot of guts. But one way or the other, Cannan is out to set Last Chance free . . . with bullets, blood, and a willingness to kill—or die—for the American right of freedom . . .

  DAY OF INDEPENDENCE

  by William W. Johnstone

  with J. A. Johnstone

  On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Texas Ranger Hank Cannan was in one hell of a fix.

  In fact, he told himself that very thing.

  “Hank,” he said, “you’re in one hell of a fix.”

  He uttered that statement aloud, as is the way of men who often ride long and lonely trails.

  About ten minutes earlier—Cannan couldn’t pin down the exact time—a bullet had slammed into him just above his gun belt on his left side, and another had hit his right thigh.

  In addition, after his horse threw him, he’d slammed his head into a wagon wheel and now, for at least part of the time, he was seeing double.

  With so many miseries, Cannan reckoned that his future career prospects had taken a distinct downhill turn, especially since the bushwhacker somewhere out there in the hills was seeing single and was a pretty good marksman to boot.

  The rifleman had earlier stated his intentions clearly enough, but Cannan could not bring himself to agree to his terms.

  Yelling across a hundred yards of open ground, the man had demanded Cannan’s horse, saddle, guns, boots and spurs, his wallet, watch and wedding ring, and whatever miscellaneous items of value he may have about his person.

  “And if I don’t?” Cannan called back.

  “Then I’ll kill you as dead as a rotten stump.”

  “You go to hell!” Cannan said.

  “Ladies first,” the b
ushwhacker yelled.

  Then he laughed.

  That exchange had happened a good five minutes ago, and since then . . . nothing.

  Between Cannan and the hidden rifleman lay flat, sandy ground, thick with cactus and mesquite, but here and there desert shrubs like tarbrush and ocotillo prospered mightily.

  The Texas sun—scorched hot and drowsy insects made their small music in the bunchgrass. There was no other sound, just a vast silence that had been scarred by rifle shots.

  Cannan, long past his first flush of youth, gingerly explored the wound on his side with the flat of his hand. It came away bloody.

  One glimpse at his gory thigh convinced him that he had to end this standoff real quick or bleed to death.

  But the drawbacks to that plan were twofold: His rifle was in the saddle boot and the horse under that saddle could be anywhere by now, as was his pack mule.

  The second, and much more pressing given his present circumstances, was that the only weapon he had available to him was his old Colt .45.

  Now there were many Rangers who were skilled with the revolver, fast and accurate on the draw and shoot.

  Cannan wasn’t one of them.

  His colleagues rated his prowess with a Colt as fair to middling, but only on a good day, a nekkid-on-the-back-porch kind of good day.

  Hank Cannan could never recall having one of those.

  But most gun-savvy men allowed that he had at least the potential to be a widow-maker with a rifle—except now he had no rifle.

  After his horse tossed him, he’d landed in a creosote bush and his forehead had crashed into an ancient wagon wheel half buried in sand. It had been the wheel’s iron rim, still intact, that had done the damage and made Cannan see stars and, later, two of everything.

  He’d hunkered down in the creosote bush and had propped up the wheel in front of him, where it provided at least an illusion of cover. But he knew he had to move soon before he grew any weaker.

  His only hope was to outflank the bushwhacker and Injun close enough to get his work in with the Colt at spitting distance.

  Cannan stared out at the brush flat, sweat running through the crusted, scarlet stain on his forehead.

  He didn’t like what he saw.

  The ground was too open. Even crouched, he would present a big target. Two or three steps, and he’d be a dead duck.

  Cannan sighed. Jane a widow after just six months of marriage, imagine that. It just didn’t seem right somehow. He’d—

  “Hey you over there!” the bushwhacker yelled. “You dead yet?”

  “Yeah, I’m dead,” Cannan called out. “Damn you, I’m shot through and through. What do you think?”

  “I’m a man gets bored real easy, and this here standoff is getting mighty tiresome. When do you reckon you’ll pass away, if it’s not asking an impertinent question?”

  “By nightfall, I reckon. Depending on how I bleed, maybe a little sooner.”

  “Hell, that’s way too long. I got places to go, things to do.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience,” Cannan said.

  “Tell you what,” the rifleman said.

  Cannan said nothing.

  “I’ll take your hoss and leave you to die at your leisure. I can’t say fairer than that. What do you reckon, huh? State your intentions.”

  “All I can say is that you’re a good Christian,” Cannan said. “Straight up an’ true blue and a credit to your profession.”

  “Well me, I learned that Christian stuff from a real nice feller I shared a cabin with one winter over to Black Mesa way in the Arizona Territory. He’d been a preacher until he took up the bank-robbing vocation. We were both on the scout at the time, you understand.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” Cannan said. “Being on the scout an’ all.”

  “Well, anyhoo, come spring I split his skull open with a wood axe, on account of he had a gold watch chain I wanted. I’m wearing it right now in fact.”

  “Well, wear it in good health,” Cannan said.

  There was a moment’s pause, then the bushwhacker said, “You’re a right personable feller, a white man through and through, and it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  “You too,” Cannan said.

  He wiped away sweat and blood from his forehead with the back of his gun hand then gripped the blue Colt tighter.

  He needed a break. He needed the drop. And right then neither of those things seemed likely.

  But there was one option open to Hank Cannan, stark though it was.

  He could die like a Texas Ranger.

  Better one moment of hellfire glory, bucking Colt in hand, than to slowly bleed to death in the brush like a wounded rabbit.

  But first . . .

  Cannan reached into his shirt pocket and found the tally book and a stub of pencil that every Ranger carried.

  He held the little notebook against his bent left knee and wrote laboriously in large print:

  DEAR JANE, I THOUGHT OF YOU TO THE

  LAST. I DIED GAME, AS A RANGER SHOULD.

  YOUR LOVING HUSBAND,

  Henry Cannan, Esq.

  Cannan read the letter, read it again, and smiled, deciding it was crackerjack.

  He tore the page out of the tally book, folded it carefully, and shoved it into his pocket where an undertaker was sure to find it.

  Then he rose painfully to his feet, and, his bloody face set and determined, staggered toward the hidden gunman.

  He planned to keep on shooting until the sheer weight of the bushwhacker’s lead finally put him down.

  They say fortune favors the brave, and if that is so, Cannan caught his first lucky break.

  His ambusher, a big, bearded man wearing a black coat and pants, was in the act of mounting his horse and didn’t see Cannan coming at him.

  He’d also slid his rifle into his boot. A fatal mistake.

  The Ranger tottered forward, then the bearded man turned his head and saw him.

  He grabbed for the Winchester under his knee as Cannan two-handed his Colt to eye level and fired.

  It was a nekkid-on-the back-porch kind of day for Ranger Hank Cannan.

  He scored a hit, then as the big man tried to bring the rifle to bear, scored another.

  The bushwhacker’s horse did not behave well.

  A tall, rangy, American stud, it got up on its toes and white, fearful arcs showed in its eyes. The horse attempted to shy away from Cannan’s fire, and its rider cursed and battled to get his mount under control.

  It was now or never for the Ranger.

  A plunging, moving target is difficult to hit and he missed with his third shot, scored again with his fourth.

  Cannan had no time to shoot a fifth because the bearded man toppled out of the saddle and thudded onto the ground, puffs of dust rising around him.

  Aware that he’d only one round left, Cannan, bent over from the pain in his side, advanced on the downed man. But the bushwhacker, whoever he was, was out of it.

  Blood stained the front of the white shirt he wore under his coat, and the left side of his neck looked as though it had been splashed with red paint.

  The man stared at Cannan with rapidly fading blue eyes that held no anger or accusation.

  Cannan understood that, because he recognized his assailant as Black John Merritt, bank robber, sometime cow town lawman, and lately, hired gun.

  Professional gunmen like Merritt held no grudges.

  “I recollect you from your wanted dodger,” Cannan said. “The likeness didn’t do you justice.”

  “You’ve killed me,” Merritt said.

  “Seems like.”

  “My luck had to run out sometime, I guess.”

  “Happens to us all.”

  “I got lead into you.”

  “You surely did.”

  “I hope your luck doesn’t run out.”

  Merritt licked his lips.

  “Hell, got blood all over my damned mouth.”

  “You’re lung shot
,” Cannan said. “Saw that right off.”

  “Figured I was.”

  Merritt had been leaning on one elbow, now he lay flat and stared at the sky, scorched almost white by the merciless sun. He gritted his teeth against pain, but made no sound.

  Then he said, gasping a little, “Who are you, mister?”

  “Name’s Hank Cannan. I’m a Texas Ranger.”

  Merritt smiled, his scarlet teeth glistening. “I should have suspicioned that. You boys don’t know when you’re beat.”

  “Goes with the job, I reckon.”

  Cannan lowered the hammer of his Colt and shoved it into the holster.

  He felt lightheaded and the pain in his side was a living thing with fangs.

  “Why did you decide to bushwhack me, Merritt?” he said.

  “I was bored. It gave me something to do.”

  “You tried to kill me because you were bored?”

  “Why not? I’m a man-killer by profession. Another killing more or less don’t make much of a difference. I’ve already gunned more than my share.”

  “Merritt, I don’t much like talking harsh words to a dying man, but you’re a real son-of-a-bitch and low down.”

  “Truer words were never spoke, Ranger.”

  The gunman was barely hanging on and gray death shadows gathered in his cheeks and temples. His gaze was still fixed on the sun-scorched sky, as though he wished to carry that sight with him into hell.

  Merritt’s words came slow, labored, like a man biting pieces off a tough steak. “Where you headed?” he said.

  “I’m hunting a man. I go where he goes.”

  “What manner of man?”

  “A man like you.”

  “Then he’ll head for Last Chance.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A town on the Big Bend, down by the Rio Grande.”

  “There are no towns in this part of Texas. Nothing for miles around but sand, cactus, and rock.”