All being in readiness, Sam Heller fitted the lit end of a piece of fire cord to the howitzer’s touch hole. The howitzer vented like an erupting volcano, sending canister shot deep into the pass among the dense-packed marauders. It boomed. The shot screamed and the shell exploded. It hit the Free Company cavalry like a wrecking ball.
The slope at the foot of the cut and the pass itself had become one enormous killing ground. Marauders were wedged so tightly in the pass that those at the front were unable to turn and retreat. The western exit was jammed by mobs of foot soldiers who had eagerly rushed into the cut behind the last of the horsemen.
The platoons of Hangtree marksmen no longer fired volleys in unison. They fired at will. Most had repeating rifles, each picking a human target and downing it, adding a particularly vicious personal touch. They fired shot after shot without reloading.
The howitzer boomed again, clearing a wide passage deep into the cut, plowing its way through the Free Company swarms massed shoulder to shoulder.
The slaughter was prodigious. More, it was righteous.
The shock from an exploding shell knocked Jimbo Turlock from his horse. He decided that the better part of valor was to play dead.
Taking advantage of a lull in the hostilities, he stripped off the fancy navy blue tunic with golden horse-comb epaulets and elaborate gold braid and buttons that he wore as a mark of supreme rank as Free Company commander. He buried it in the sand and began crawling away from the battlefield.
He did not get far before being taken prisoner by an alert Hangtree lad of thirteen armed with a .22 squirrel gun “for shooting varmints.”
Victory was swiftly seized by the Hangtree defenders.
Most of the Free Company’s two hundred mounted marauders were killed outright in the Battle of the Pass. Some at the rear of the column managed to escape, as did a number of foot soldiers and camp followers. A good portion of the floor of Cross’s Cut was jammed with dead bodies, male and female, human and horse.
Johnny Cross pushed his hat brim back off his forehead as he surveyed the scene, one hand resting on the upper rim of a howitzer wheel. He and Sam Heller exchanged glances.
Johnny rapped his knuckles on the weapon. “Handy piece to have around, especially in a pinch.”
“The Army’s going to want it back,” Sam said.
Johnny shrugged, a gesture which Sam knew might mean much or nothing at all.
Marshal Mack Barton rode up, reining in beside the knoll. His eyes glittering slits, he smiled a self-satisfied smile.
“Talk about the cat who ate the canary,” Sam said.
“Careful—when he smiles like that it usually winds up costing somebody else some money,” Johnny cautioned. He greeted the lawman. “Hey, Marshal.”
“Some dustup, eh? What a fight!” Barton said.
“Uh-huh,” Johnny said noncommittally. “Say, Marshal, me being a taxpaying citizen of Hangtree County, I got a question for you.”
“Shoot,” Barton said cheerfully.
“Cross’s Cut is a valuable piece of property. Useful, too, not just to me and Luke but to lots of other folks who use it. It’s a shortcut that saves men and livestock long detours going to and from Wild Horse Canyon.”
“If you’re trying to sell me some real estate, forget it! I ain’t in the market,” Barton chuckled. “Don’t mind me, I’m just joking.”
“Now the cut is filled with about a hundred tons of dirt and rock, not to mention a couple hundred bodies of men, women, and horses,” Johnny continued. “What I want to know is, who’s gonna clean it up? Don’t seem right that I gotta take a loss after helping save the whole blamed county. I didn’t ask to fight a battle in my own background, especially if it puts me out of pocket.”
“I’m glad you asked me that question,” Barton began, only to be interrupted by a noisy clamor.
Behind him three well-guarded freight wagons came rolling up, halting in a cloud of dust. In addition to a shotgun messenger occupying the front seat of each along with the driver, several rifle-toting escorts rode alongside each wagon.
Blacksmith Hobson held the reins of the lead wagon, Deputy Smalls seated beside him. Smalls held a big shotgun, looking about as happy as his mournful basset hound face allowed him to express.
The freight wagon’s hopper held a half-dozen or so men. Chained men. So did the other two wagons.
The men were bruised, battered, dirty, and hatless, their clothes torn and ragged. Each man was fettered with a pair of iron cuffs around the ankles with a thirty-six-inch length of chain joining the cuffs.
Additionally, each set of ankle cuffs had one cuff rigged with an extra-large iron eyebolt, through which a length of stout chain had been passed, the single chain linking all the men together. There was enough slack in it to allow them to sit together and presumably move around in a constricted shuffling gait, but it did not give much in the way of freedom of movement.
“What-all you got there, Marshal?” Luke asked Barton.
“That’s an idea from one of our Georgia friends,” Barton said. “What you call a chain gang. Keeps the prisoners from wandering off and getting into trouble.” “Sorry-looking bunch,” Johnny said. “Who are they?”
“That’s what’s left of Denton Dick’s bunch,” Barton said.
“Denton Dick from Denton, Texas?”
“The very same. There he is yonder, sitting in that first wagon. Say howdy to Johnny Cross, Dick,” Barton ordered.
One of the prisoners in the lead wagon turned to face the marshal and the others, his chains rattling as he shifted position. Shame and woe had brought him low, so that he seemed shrunken, used-up. He sat forlornly with shoulders hunched, head bowed, droopy eyes rheumy and filmed, mouth so downcast that it looked like a horseshoe with the two ends pointing down. “Howdy,” he croaked, his voice flat and dry.
“That’s Denton Dick?” Johnny said, surprised.
“None other. He’s kind of hard to recognize without his big hat, I reckon,” Barton said.
“What’re you doing with him and them others?” Luke asked.
“Them rascals was looking to throw in with Jimbo Turlock, but we nipped them in the bud,” the marshal said. “Most of them didn’t do enough worth hanging for, so we’re gonna put them to work for the town to teach them the error of their ways.”
“I know a good place for them to start.” Johnny said, a gleam in his eye.
“I’m way ahead of you. Who do you think’s gonna clear out Cross’s Cut?” Barton said, beaming, expansive.
“That a fact?” Johnny was surprised and impressed.
“No lie.”
“Well, if that don’t beat all! I’m obliged to you, Marshal, much obliged. Why, shucks, I don’t rightly know how to thank you.”
“Be sure to vote for me come Election Day. That’s all I ask,” Barton said, smiling a crocodile smile. “You, too, Luke.”
“Hell, Marshal, I’ll be proud to vote for you as many times as you like,” Luke said enthusiastically.
“Don’t say I never did nothing for you boys,” Barton said. “Now after them rannies clean out the cut and bury the dead, here and at Fort Pardee, we’ll find plenty of chores for them to do in town. Yes, sir. Meet Hangtree County’s brand-new, all-purpose chain gang!”
“Generally I don’t much hold with chaining a man up, but I got to admit, on them it looks good,” Johnny said.
Jimbo Turlock had hoped to go unrecognized, but as chance would have it he was paraded past the men at the howitzer.
Years of living off the fat of the land had increased Turlock’s girth, but Johnny had no trouble recognizing the pretender who had once considered himself an equal of the great Quantrill.
“Howdy, Jimbo.” Johnny’s smile was so warm that you would have thought he was genuinely glad to see the other.
He was. He was genuinely glad that Turlock hadn’t gotten away to escape the noose.
THIRTY
In the days that followed, most of the rabble h
orde of camp followers associated with the marauders were hunted down by the folk of Hangtree. Jimbo Turlock was one of prisoners held for trial. The results were not pretty. All were speedily found guilty and sentenced to death. Swift justice satisfied the law-abiding citizens of the county, who would have been the first to suffer had the Free Company triumphed.
Spread out over a few days so as not to have too much of a good thing, the condemned were executed the old-fashioned way, at the Hanging Tree. Long-dead, lightning-blasted and missing most of its limbs and branches, that grim old towering tree trunk stood sentinel on top of Boot Hill, across from the church and west of Hangtree town. By virtue of his position as the Free Company commander, Turlock was to be hanged last.
Executions were always popular and edifying events with mass attendance. Folks came from all over the county and even from Weatherford to see Jimbo Turlock swing.
A festive carnival mood filled the air. The area around Boot Hill was jam-packed with hundreds of spectators—men, women, and children—who’d come to see the show.
Execution hour found Turlock sitting astride a horse, hands tied behind his back. A length of corded hempen rope with a noose at one end hung from a gnarled tree limb overhead.
Marshal Mack Barton asked Turlock if he had any last words.
Turlock wanted to make a fine bold speech, but when the time came his throat was bone-dry, and he was unable to speak.
The hangman fitted the noose over Turlock’s head and around his neck, tightening it. He had a quirt, a short braided rawhide whip used to lash the horse holding the condemned man into motion.
Pastor Fulton wielded a Bible, reading aloud the psalm with the line about the “valley of the shadow of death.”
Among the crowd, Johnny Cross nodded approvingly. He’d always liked that psalm.
The preacher finished. The marshal and the hangman exchanged glances. Barton nodded, signifying yes, it’s time.
The hangman raised the quirt, bringing it down hard on the horse’s rump. The animal was reluctant to step off.
Professionally embarrassed, the hangman wielded the lash again, slashing the horse’s hindquarters.
The horse lunged forward. Turlock was brought up short by the noose around his neck. An overexcited spectator in the crowd vented an enthusiastic rebel yell of approval.
Hanging by the neck at the end of a rope, it was the last thing Jimbo Turlock heard in this world before crashing the gates of Hades:
A rebel yell!
ON SALE NOW!
From the bestselling masters of the American West comes
a heart-racing story of frontier justice, pioneer spirit,
and one town’s last-chance miracle.
Three weeks before Christmas, the little town of
Chugwater in Wyoming Territory is stunned by a
brutal crime. The mayor’s family has been
slaughtered in cold blood on their ranch outside
Rawhide Buttes. As the townsfolk gather to pay their
last respects, Duff MacCallister saddles up to go
after the killers. He returns with two outlaws—
a cold-blooded, nasty pair of snakes, Jesse and
T. Bob Cave. But shortly before they’re sentenced
to hang, the Cave brothers escape their fate.
Into this holiday hell-storm ride three friendly
travelers. Smoke, Sally, and Matt Jensen come to
Chugwater to spend Christmas with Duff,
but a deadly diphtheria outbreak leaves the
town of Rawhide Buttes beholden to the mercy of
the Cave brothers. It’s a desperate bind
to be stuck in, but Duff and his friends will use
every bullet they can find to shoot their way
into a merry but bloody Christmas.
A FRONTIER CHRISTMAS
by WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
GREAT BOOKS, GREAT SAVINGS!
When You Visit Our Website:
www.kensingtonbooks.com
You Can Save Money Off The Retail Price
Of Any Book You Purchase!
• All Your Favorite Kensington Authors
• New Releases & Timeless Classics
• Overnight Shipping Available
• eBooks Available For Many Titles
• All Major Credit Cards Accepted
Visit Us Today To Start Saving!
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All Orders Are Subject To Availability.
Shipping and Handling Charges Apply.
Offers and Prices Subject To Change Without Notice.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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. This 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.”
PINNACLE BOOKS, the Pinnacle logo, and the WWJ steer head logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7860-3362-1
First electronic edition: November 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3363-8
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3363-0
Notes
1 See the later adventures of Sixkiller in his own big series!
2 See Savage Texas.
3 For the doings of the murderous Stafford clan, see Savage Texas: A Good Day to Die.
Rebel Yell Page 30
