Hard Luck Money

by J. A. Johnstone

  “I’ll try not to cut you too much—”

  “The hell with that!” Tyler burst out. “Just get me loose so we can get out of here!”

  Less than a minute later, the ropes fell away from the Ranger’s wrists. The Kid grabbed Tyler’s arm and helped him to his feet. With smoke coiling thickly around them and flames casting a nightmarish glow over everything, they stumbled toward the doors.

  They had just emerged from the barn when the thunder of hoofbeats welled up close by. Guns crashed in the night.

  The Kid and Tyler stumbled to a halt at the sight of the outlaws who had left a short time earlier galloping hellbent for leather back to the ranch.

  Chapter 31

  The outlaws weren’t shooting at him and Tyler, The Kid realized a second later. The men were twisted in their saddles to throw lead at someone behind them. They were being chased, not doing the chasing.

  The Kid could think of only one reason for the gang to act like that.

  Tyler figured it out, too, and let out an excited whoop. “The Rangers must be right on their tails!”

  “Yeah, but with that fire behind us, we’re good targets, too!” The Kid warned.

  Sure enough, some of the outlaws had spotted them. Muzzle flashes split the night as bullets whined in the direction of The Kid and Tyler.

  “Split up!” The Kid barked. “Try to get hold of a gun!”

  “Now you’re talkin’!” Tyler shouted as he broke into a run.

  They veered apart, and luckily the outlaws had more pressing worries than two escaped prisoners. They left their saddles and took cover wherever they could as another volley of gunfire roared out from the riders pushing them closely.

  The Kid had a pretty good idea what had happened. Grey, Brattle, and the others had run right into a force of Rangers shortly after leaving, and they’d been forced to flee back to the ranch, the closest spot where they could put up a fight.

  A man on horseback loomed up close beside The Kid. In the garish light spreading out from the burning barn, he recognized the outlaw called Dodge.

  Recognizing The Kid, he yelled a curse and tried to swing his gun around to blast a shot at him. The Kid grabbed Dodge’s arm and shoved it aside as the revolver roared. Dodge yelled again as The Kid hauled him out of the saddle and sent him crashing to the ground.

  The Kid pounced, snatching the gun out of Dodge’s hand and whipping it against the outlaw’s head. Dodge went limp. He was knocked out cold.

  For all The Kid knew the gun was empty, but he reacted instinctively as a slug sizzled past his ear from behind. Whirling and dropping to one knee he lined the sights and pulled the trigger. The Colt bucked in his hand.

  The slug punched into the outlaw’s guts. He doubled over, dropped his gun, and collapsed. The Kid ran over to him and scooped that weapon from the ground, filling both hands with iron.

  He spotted Alexander Grey running toward the ranch house, dragging a struggling Beatrice with one hand while he carried the valise full of money with the other. Brattle, Bert Hagen, and Ike Calvert followed close behind Grey, engaged in a running battle with the Rangers as they covered Grey’s retreat.

  Once they were behind the thick stone walls of that house, they would be able to hold off the Rangers for a while, The Kid thought. Eventually those dedicated lawmen would root out their quarry, but would likely pay a high price in blood.

  He ran toward the side of the house, then slid along it until he found an open window. He stuck the guns in his waistband and pulled himself up and into the darkened, castle-like building.

  Drawing the revolvers again, he waited tensely, listening. Shots racketed from the front of the house, sounding like quite a battle. Eventually the Rangers would be able to circle, come in from behind the place, and the outlaw defenders wouldn’t be able to hold it.

  The Kid planned to speed that up.

  He catfooted through the rooms, guided by the roar of gunshots. When he reached the door of the big front room, he paused.

  No lights burned in the room, but the red glare from the burning barn lit up the place, casting black, eerie, dancing shadows around the room. Brattle, Hagen, and Calvert had torn the curtains from the windows and broken the glass so they could shoot out easier.

  Beatrice was crying and trying to get away from her brother. Grey lost patience and backhanded her savagely across the face, knocking her to the floor. He set the valise on the table, drew a pistol from his pocket, and went to join the others as they tried to fight off the Rangers.

  Working by feel in the dark hallway, The Kid counted the rounds he had left in the two revolvers. One still held three bullets, but the other had only one cartridge left in its cylinder. He quickly transferred a bullet from one gun into the other so he had two rounds in each.

  Four shots for four men. No room for error. In the rage that gripped him, The Kid was beyond caring.

  His hands tightened around the gun butts as he stepped out and raised the Colts.

  “We’re all gonna die here!” Calvert whimpered as he paused in his firing.

  “Shut up, you old coot!” Grey told him. “You deserved to die a long time ago.”

  “He’s not the only one,” The Kid called in a loud, powerful voice.

  The outlaws whirled to meet the new, unexpected threat. As Brattle came around, The Kid squeezed off a shot from his left-hand gun and saw the slug smash into the segundo’s forehead and on into his brain. The impact snapped Brattle’s head back as the bullet exploded out the back of his skull.

  The Kid fired the right-hand gun at the same time, sending a bullet driving into Hagen’s chest. The renegade prison guard crumpled.

  That left Grey and Calvert. Father and son. The Kid heard a bullet from Calvert’s gun sing past his ear as he triggered both Colts again. Calvert cried out and rose up on his toes, staggering back against the window behind him. He might have tipped over the sill and fallen out of it if several shots from outside hadn’t struck him in the back at that moment, flinging him forward like a bloody rag doll.

  Alexander Grey was still on his feet, and The Kid’s left arm stung where a slug from Grey’s gun had lanced it. He was wounded and out of bullets, and he had failed to kill Grey.

  The Kid dropped the empty guns and threw himself forward as Grey fired again. The bullet sang over his head as he landed on the table and slid across it, snatching up the valise full of money. Grey kept pulling the trigger, but The Kid held up the valise and felt the bullets thudding into it as the thick sheafs of greenbacks served as a shield.

  He crashed into Grey and they went down. The gun flew from Grey’s hand, skittering across the floor.

  The Kid ignored the pain in his arm and slammed punches against Grey’s face and body. Grey might have fancied himself a criminal mastermind, but physically he was no match for Kid Morgan. The Kid locked his hands around Grey’s throat and rammed the man’s head against the floor. He squeezed harder and harder, fully intending at that moment to choke the life out of Alexander Grey.

  “Waco!” Beatrice cried. “Waco!”

  Her voice penetrated the red haze in his brain and caused him to glance up. Shock went through him at what he saw.

  She had picked up her brother’s gun and was pointing it at him. “Don’t kill him. I can’t let you kill him.”

  “Beatrice ...”

  “He deserves to hang.”

  The Kid realized she wasn’t threatening him.

  She was covering Grey.

  He pried his fingers from around the man’s neck and sat back, breathing heavily.

  The front door crashed open then. The Rangers had decided to risk a charge when the shooting from the house stopped. Tyler yelled, “Kid! Kid, are you in here?”

  “Over here,” The Kid replied wearily.

  Tyler rushed over to him, and to The Kid’s surprise, so did Asa Culhane.

  “Kid, you all right?” Culhane asked. “Hell, you’re bleedin’.”

  “The arm? It’s fine.” The Kid
put a hand on the table to brace himself as he climbed to his feet. Culhane reached out to help him.

  “There’s the hombre behind all of it, Sergeant,” Tyler said to Culhane as he pointed at Alexander Grey.

  “Did you kill him, Kid?”

  The Kid looked at Beatrice, who had set the pistol on the table when the Rangers came in. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t kill him. He’ll live ... to hang.”

  The Kid sat in the lobby of the best hotel in Fort Worth and watched Asa Culhane cross the vast room toward him. The Ranger was carrying his black Stetson, and his Western-cut suit and string tie made him look more like a wealthy cattle baron than a lawman.

  Culhane took a seat in a well-padded armchair beside the The Kid and balanced the hat on his knee. “How’re you feelin’, Kid?”

  “You mean this?” The Kid looked down at his left arm, which was supported by a black silk sling. “The doctor says I ought to wear this thing for a few more days, but I don’t really need it. I could throw it away and saddle and ride right now.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Culhane sighed. “Well, I put that gal on the train like you asked me to. I think she was a mite peeved at you for not seein’ her off yourself.”

  “I didn’t think it would be a good idea.”

  “She don’t hold no grudges against you. Shoot, without you speakin’ up for her, she might’ve been in trouble with the law, too. Cap’n Hughes thought she ought to be charged as an accomplice to everything the gang did after she showed up at that plantation. Accordin’ to the letter of the law, he’s probably right.”

  “But being good and proper Texans, the letter of the law is less important than justice being done, am I right?”

  Culhane chuckled. “You sure are. Anyway, she’s on her way back to Louisiana. I don’t know what she’s gonna do when she gets there.”

  Neither did The Kid, but at least Beatrice would have the money to do whatever she wanted to. He had already wired instructions to Claudius Turnbuckle to see to that. She could start a new life without having to look back ... if she could bring herself to do it.

  Sometimes it was awfully hard to forget about the past, even when you wanted to.

  “What about Tyler?” The Kid asked.

  “Ranger Beaumont? He got a chewin’ out for leavin’ his post like that ... and a commendation for helpin’ us round up those owlhoots. He’s gonna have to be on his best behavior for a while, though. He come mighty close to gettin’ the both of you killed. If I hadn’t come along to check on him and seen what sort of trouble you boys was in, you’d have been outta luck. Same as if there hadn’t been enough Rangers on hand at the Veal Station post to go after that bunch. You heard that old sayin’ about the skin o’ your teeth, Kid? I’d say that you’re livin’ proof of it!”

  The Kid thought about all he had lost over the past few years and said wryly, “Yeah, I’m mighty lucky, all right.”

  But he supposed it balanced out. For every time he’d been tormented as viciously as if all the imps of Hell were after him, there were other times when a guardian angel was watching over him. That was the only way to explain the triumphs and tragedies of his life.

  “You gonna come down to Huntsville to watch the hangin’ when it’s time for Alexander Grey to swing?” Culhane asked.

  “He hasn’t even gone on trial yet,” The Kid pointed out.

  “No, but the trial starts next week, and it won’t take long. With you and Ranger Beaumont to testify against him, he’ll hang, all right. No doubt about that.”

  “I don’t have any interest in watching it. I’ll stay for the trial, but then I’ll be moving on. And if I never see or hear anything about Alexander Grey again, that’ll be just fine with me.”

  Culhane fidgeted with his hat for a second and then looked up at The Kid again. “Does that, uh, mean you ain’t gonna be takin’ the Rangers up on that offer?”

  “To pack a badge full-time?” The Kid shook his head. “I don’t think I’m cut out for that, Asa. I’m too much of a drifter.”

  Just like my father, he thought. We are all our father’s sons.

  “Well, I can’t say as I’m surprised.” Culhane put his hat on and heaved himself to his feet. “But since you’re gonna have to hang around Fort Worth for a while until the trial’s over, you’re gonna need something to help you pass the time.”

  The Kid groaned as he stood up, too. “You don’t have some other little chore for me to do, do you? Something that involves me getting shot at or blown up?”

  Culhane chuckled. “Not hardly. I just thought you might like some company, that’s all. I know somebody who’s grateful to you for helpin’ clear her old pa’s name.” Culhane nodded toward the other side of the lobby.

  The Kid looked over there and saw the tall, blond, lovely figure of Katherine Lupo standing just inside the door.

  The Ranger said something behind him, but The Kid didn’t hear what it was. He was already crossing the room to meet Katherine as she started toward him.

  Turn the page for an exciting preview of

  SIDEWINDERS: TEXAS BLOODSHED

  by William W. Johnstone with J. A. Johnstone

  HOME SWEET DEADLY HOME

  If there’s anything better than going home

  to Texas, it’s getting paid to do it.

  For Scratch Morton and Bo Creel,

  always on the hunt for funds, the job is taking

  three vicious criminals from Arkansas to Tyler,

  Texas, for trial. Little do they know one of the

  criminals, the beautiful woman, is the most

  dangerous of all. Soon the journey home turns

  into a race for buried treasure, a shoot-out, and

  another double cross—until Scratch and Bo

  are making one last mad, bullet-sprayed dash

  through the land of their birth ...

  or the land of their death.

  SIDEWINDERS: TEXAS BLOODSHED

  On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold!

  Chapter 1

  Scratch Morton peered up at the gallows and said, “I’d just as soon go somewheres else, Bo. This place surely does give me the fantods.”

  “You don’t have anything to worry about,” Bo Creel told his old friend, “if you haven’t done anything to give Judge Parker cause to order you hanged.”

  Scratch frowned and shook his head. “I dunno. They don’t call that fella the Hangin’ Judge for no reason. He can come up with cause if he wants to.”

  Bo laughed and said, “Come on. We don’t have any business with the judge, hanging or otherwise.”

  The gallows they’d been looking at was no ordinary affair. It stood off to one side of the big, redbrick federal courthouse in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and had eight trapdoors built into it. When huge crowds gathered on the broad courthouse lawn to watch convicted criminals put to death, it was quite a spectacle at times. It wasn’t that unusual to see eight men kicking out their lives at once at the end of those hang ropes.

  As Scratch had said, Judge Isaac Parker wasn’t known as the Hanging Judge for no reason.

  The Texans continued strolling past the courthouse. It was a crisp, cold, late winter day, and large white clouds floated in the deep blue sky above Fort Smith. Off to their right, bluffs dropped steeply to the Arkansas River where it curved past the city, forming the border between Arkansas and Indian Territory.

  Bo and Scratch had been to Fort Smith before—they had been almost everywhere west of the Mississippi in their decades of wandering—but it had been a while, and after stabling their horses, they had decided to stroll around town and have a look at the place to see how much it had changed.

  They probably should have started somewhere besides the courthouse and its adjacent gallows, Bo mused. His old friend Scratch was generally a law-abiding sort, as was Bo himself, but they had wound up on the wrong side of iron bars a few times in their adventurous lives, albeit briefly and usually because of some sort of mistake.

&n
bsp; Both men were about the same height. Age had turned Scratch’s hair pure silver and put streaks of gray in Bo’s dark brown hair, but the years hadn’t bent their rugged bodies. Bo was dressed in a sober black suit and hat that made him look a little like a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, while Scratch was the dandy of the pair in high-topped boots, whipcord trousers, a fringed buckskin jacket over a white shirt, and a cream-colored Stetson with a fancy band.

  Scratch’s fondness for the flashy extended to his guns, a pair of long-barreled, ivory-handled Remington revolvers that rode comfortably in cut-down holsters. Bo, on the other hand, as befitted the conservative nature of the rest of his attire, carried a single Colt .45 with plain walnut grips.

  The similarity between them was that both Texans were fast on the draw and deadly accurate with their shots when they had to be, although they preferred to avoid trouble if that was at all possible.

  Trouble usually had other ideas where they were concerned, though.

  In fact, one ruckus or another had been dogging their heels ever since they had met as boys in Texas, during the infamous Runaway Scrape when the Mexican dictator Santa Anna and his army chased the rebellious Texicans almost clear to Louisiana. However, General Sam Houston had known what he was doing all along, and when the time finally came to make a stand, the Texicans lit into Santa Anna’s men in the grassy, bayou-bordered fields near San Jacinto and won independence for their land and people.

  Despite their youth at the time, Bo and Scratch had been smack-dab in the middle of that epic battle, and each had saved the other’s life that day. That was the first time, but hardly the last.

  They probably would have been fast friends for life anyway, even if they had settled down to lives as farmers and ranchers as they had intended. But Fate, in the form of a fever, had come along and taken Bo’s wife and children from him after several years of that peaceful existence, and rather than stay where those bitter memories would have haunted him, he rode away and set out on the drift.