They Came to Kill

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Dupre and Deadlead joined Jamie, as well.

  The Frenchman said, “We were on our way here when an unfortunate incident occurred. We ran into a group of Apaches, either a hunting party or perhaps some warriors from another band on their way here to join forces with Perro Blanco. Whoever they are, they outnumbered us and gave chase. So now we are between the proverbial rock and hard place, no?”

  “Sounds like it,” Jamie agreed. “Anybody hurt?”

  “Not so far,” Tennysee said. “Pete, Greybull, and Pugh stayed at the other end along with Dog Brother and that Scandahoovian. They said they’d hold off the bunch comin’ from that direction. It’s our job to deal with the varmints on this side.”

  “At least we’ve got some good cover,” Deadlead said as he knelt behind another rock. Suddenly, he snapped his rifle to his shoulder and fired. “Got him! One of the varmints figured he could run from one patch of shadow to another. He was wrong.”

  Jamie had reloaded his Sharps while they were talking. “Plenty of targets out there to shoot at, boys. Try to make every shot count, too. We may have to hold out for a while.”

  “Until we run out of ammunition?” Dupre said. “You know what will happen then, Jamie.”

  “I’m sort of hoping Preacher will show up before then.”

  * * *

  A while later, when the gray light of approaching dawn had begun to filter into the gap, the warriors from Perro Blanco’s village made another rush, but with help from the deadly accurate trio of frontiersmen who had joined him, Jamie turned them away again. Shots came from the other end, too, from time to time, but the standoff continued.

  As the sky continued to lighten, Perro Blanco started ranting at his captors in Apache.

  Jamie told his three companions, “Keep an eye out and give a holler if those varmints try anything else. I’m going to go talk to our guest.”

  Tennysee laughed. “I don’t reckon you’ll get much polite conversation outta that one, Jamie!”

  Jamie walked over to where Perro Blanco lay on the rocky ground. With his ankles lashed together and his hands tied behind his back, he wasn’t able to do anything except squirm around futilely. Jamie figured Perro Blanco’s position had to be pretty uncomfortable. Knowing that didn’t bother him the least little bit.

  Jamie hunkered on his heels, staying back far enough that the war chief couldn’t spit on him. Perro Blanco fell silent and glared murderously at him.

  “You might as well save your breath . . . Lieutenant Charlton,” Jamie said.

  Perro Blanco’s expression didn’t change, but Jamie thought he saw a flicker of surprise in the man’s eyes. Jamie frowned and leaned closer. It was light enough in the gap for him to see that those eyes were blue.

  “Yeah, I know who you are,” Jamie went on. “It wasn’t that hard to figure out. Lieutenant Damon Charlton disappears down here after the rest of the patrol he’s leading is wiped out, and not long after that, the Apaches have themselves a new war chief whose name means White Dog.”

  “Ligai Chinii,” Perro Blanco said through clenched teeth.

  “What? I don’t really savvy your lingo.”

  “My name . . . Ligai Chinii!”

  Jamie nodded. “I reckon I understand. That’s Apache for White Dog, right? You can call yourself anything you want, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re still Damon Charlton.”

  Perro Blanco writhed furiously in response to that.

  “My name is Jamie MacCallister. I know your father. He’s the one who sent me down here to look for you. Are you hearing me, mister? Your father believes you’re still alive. I don’t reckon he ever dreamed that you wound up leading the very Apaches who wiped out your patrol, though. How’d you manage that? Are you just so loco, so ruthless, that the Apaches figured it would be a good thing to have you on their side instead of torturing you to death?”

  Jamie’s frown deepened as he looked more closely at the captive and saw the scars covering Perro Blanco’s body.

  “They did torture you,” he said in astonishment. “But you didn’t die.” Jamie nodded slowly. “They must’ve figured the spirits were protecting you, and that made you special. That’s how you became one of them. But the pain you’d endured . . . it must have driven you mad. Made you kill-crazy.” Jamie shrugged. “So you fit right in with the rest of them, well enough that after a while they made you their war chief.”

  The man was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he glowered at Jamie. But after a moment, he whispered in English, “Damn you . . . damn you for. . . for bringing all that up again.”

  “You don’t want to remember who you were,” Jamie said. His voice was hard and flat. “Well, considering all the things you’ve done, if I was in your place I don’t reckon I’d want to remember when I was a decent human being, either.”

  Damon Charlton tried to lunge up at Jamie. If he’d had fangs, he would have struck like a snake. But he was just a man, tied up, helpless, ravaged by hate and madness. Deciding to capture him and bring him back had been a mistake, Jamie realized. He wasn’t going to be doing anyone a kindness, and certainly not General Owen Charlton.

  “Jamie, here they come again!” Dupre called. “And there are more of them now! They’ve gotten reinforcements!”

  Jamie grimaced and leaped to his feet. He hurried back to the mouth of the gap and dropped behind the same rock slab he had used for cover earlier. He thrust the Sharps’ barrel over the rock and looked down the slope at the attacking horde of Apaches. Some of them fired old muzzleloaders up at the gap, and the balls from those rifles whined through the air as they ricocheted.

  Mostly, though, the Apaches sent a swarm of arrows flying up the slope. Jamie ducked one of them that whipped perilously close to his head, then drew a bead and pressed the trigger of the Sharps. One of the Apaches sailed backward as the shot blew away a good-sized chunk of his head.

  As Jamie set the Sharps aside and reached for his revolver, he heard renewed firing from the other end of the gap, as if the Apaches on the other side had just launched a renewed attack, too. He wondered if the two groups had coordinated their actions somehow, or if it was just happenstance.

  Either way, they were closing in and on the verge of overwhelming the defenders.

  Jamie and his companions emptied their guns in a furious volley that mowed down many of the Apaches—but for every warrior that fell, another one took his place. Sometimes more than one. The savage horde swarmed into the gap, and in a matter of seconds, the battle became bloody, hand-to-hand chaos.

  Jamie rammed the empty revolver back into its holster and yanked out the bowie knife. He laid into the attackers who crowded around him, and gore sprayed like rain. With his other hand, he caught hold of an Apache’s neck and squeezed until the man’s windpipe was crushed. Then Jamie threw the choking, dying warrior into the path of two more men who were rushing him.

  His companions battled just as desperately, but they were about to be overwhelmed and dragged down. Once they were off their feet, that would be the end for them, and they knew it. So they fought with the intensity of insane men.

  From the corner of his eye, Jamie caught a glimpse of one of the warriors bent over Perro Blanco, cutting his bonds and freeing him. Jamie kicked a man in the belly, slashed another’s throat, knocked a third man away from him with an elbow. He struggled to get through the crowd of killers and reach Perro Blanco . . . or rather, Damon Charlton. If nothing else, Jamie swore to himself, the white lieutenant turned Apache war chief would die today. That would spare the young man’s father more pain in the long run.

  Suddenly, two massive figures strode through the melee, flailing around them with giant, clublike arms that sent warriors flying. Greybull, who had been at the other end of the gap, was entering the battle at this end, and alongside him was none other than Nighthawk. Jamie’s heart leaped as he recognized the big Crow warrior. Greybull’s presence meant that the battle at the other end was won, and if Nighthawk was he
re, then probably so, too, were Preacher, Audie, and the other men who had gone after the Mahoney brothers.

  The arrival of the second group was enough to swing the advantage away from the Apaches. The reinforcements had taken them by surprise, and the tide of battle changed within minutes. Jamie spotted Preacher with a Dragoon in each fist spewing flame, and despite the close quarters, every shot made by the mountain man was deadly accurate. Apache warriors fell like ninepins before the onslaught of hot lead.

  “Ahhhhhh!”

  The crazed scream came from Perro Blanco as he hurled himself at Jamie. The former lieutenant had picked up two knives, and they flashed in the light from the sun that had risen high enough to penetrate the gap. Jamie needed every bit of his quickness to fend off the maddened attack. Sparks danced from steel as the blades clashed again and again.

  The rest of the battle seemed to retreat around Jamie and Perro Blanco. Jamie knew that if he took his attention off his opponent even for a fraction of a second, the war chief would bury one of those blades in him.

  Nor could Jamie go on the attack. It was all he could do to block all the slashes and thrusts directed at him.

  Inevitably, one of those thrusts got through. Jamie felt the bite as Perro Blanco stabbed him in the left shoulder. He grimaced and took a step back, but the rock wall was behind him and he couldn’t go any farther. The arm holding the bowie sagged.

  A look of savage glee appeared on Perro Blanco’s face as he leaped in to finish off his hated enemy. He raised the other knife high for the killing stroke . . .

  Just as Jamie intended.

  Jamie’s arm flashed up again. The bowie leaped from his hand in a powerful throw and drove into Perro Blanco’s chest. The war chief stopped short, eyes widening in surprise. He stumbled forward and tried to strike at Jamie with the knife. But he lacked the strength, and as he moved his knees unhinged. He fell onto them and then leaned forward, slowly collapsing and pushing the knife even deeper in his chest.

  Not that it mattered. The Apache war chief Perro Blanco—Lieutenant Damon Charlton of the United States Army—rolled onto his side, as dead as he would ever be.

  Jamie leaned back against the wall, his chest heaving, blood trickling around the knife still lodged in his shoulder. A few more shots rang out here and there, but for the most part, the battle appeared to be over.

  Preacher went toward him, a grin on his rugged face. “Just take it easy, Jamie, you got a knife stuck in you.”

  “Yeah, I kind of noticed that. I don’t think it’s too bad, but it’ll need some patching up.”

  “Lots of fellas around here got plenty of experience at that.” Preacher looked down at Perro Blanco. “He didn’t make it, eh? You kill him?”

  “He didn’t give me much choice,” Jamie replied grimly. “And I’d already figured out that was the best thing for everybody’s sake.”

  “And that idea you had . . . ?”

  Jamie drew in a deep breath. “It was a crazy notion, all the way around. Lieutenant Damon Charlton died a long time ago, when he was taken prisoner after his patrol was wiped out.”

  Preacher looked at Jamie for a moment, then said, “That’s what you’re gonna tell the boy’s pa?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m going to tell him.”

  “Probably a good idea.” Preacher put an arm around Jamie to help him away from the wall where he was leaning. “Let’s get that knife outta your shoulder. Don’t want you bleedin’ to death. Kate ’d never forgive me.”

  CHAPTER 50

  “We had extra horses we took from them Mahoneys, so we rode like blazes gettin’ back down here,” Preacher explained later, while Audie was wrapping a bandage around Jamie’s injured shoulder. “When we did, we hit those varmints on the north side of the gap without them knowin’ we was comin’, so with them caught in a crossfire, it didn’t take long to clean ’em up. Then we rushed on through the gap to give you boys at the other end a hand.”

  “And just in time, too,” Jamie said. A solemn look came over his rugged face. “Too bad about Lars. He and his brother were mighty close. I’m not sure he would’ve wanted to go on without Bengt.”

  Lars Molmberg was the only one in their group who had been killed in this battle. Everyone else who had been defending the gap had suffered some sort of injury. They were a bloody, bedraggled bunch—but alive.

  Jamie had no real idea how many Apaches had survived, but judging by the number of bodies, it couldn’t have been many. He believed the ones who were left wouldn’t be much of a threat for a long time to come, especially since Perro Blanco’s effort to unite the different bands had ended.

  Sooner or later another strong leader would arise among the Apaches, and then the frontier would be ripe once again for more bloody savagery. But maybe by that time, things would be settled with Mexico, the railroad would be built, and civilization would be spreading through that part of the country.

  Or maybe not. Jamie was no fortune-teller. All he knew was that he had done the job he’d been sent to do, and he was ready to go home.

  Home to MacCallister’s Valley. Home to Kate.

  Preacher must have read his mind. The mountain man said, “I reckon you’ll be headin’ back to Santa Fe and then on to Colorado?”

  “Pretty soon,” Jamie said with a nod. “Noah wants to scout around a little more down here and map out a possible route for that railroad. I don’t expect to run into any more trouble from the Apaches, though. The ones who are left will be holed up in the hills and licking their wounds for a long time. So if you want to start on out to California with Fletch and Clementine. . .”

  “That’s what I was thinkin’, all right. After everything they’ve gone through, those youngsters need a new start. I wouldn’t mind helpin’ ’em get it.”

  “You buried her brothers, back up there along that bluff?”

  Preacher nodded. “Yep. Said proper words over ’em and everything. Probably more ’n they deserve, in fact, but . . . well, family’s still family, I reckon, no matter how sorry they are. Sometimes folks need to grieve for what never was, as much as for what they lost.”

  That seemed sensible to Jamie. The past was always there, branching into more trails than any man could ever follow, and all too often, ghosts walked those trails, crying out for what might have been, cries that could never be answered. The best a man could do was turn his eyes and his heart toward the infinite paths that still waited in front of him . . .

  And keep moving forward, answering the call of the frontier.

  Turn the page for an exciting preview!

  JOHNSTONE COUNTRY—WHERE IT’S NEVER QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT.

  Two of the unlikeliest heroes in the Old West, Slash and Pecos have left their bank-robbing days behind them. But to keep themselves out of jail and on the right side of justice, they’ll need to work some inside jobs—outside the law. . . .

  The Cutthroats are back. The bad guys are history.

  Living life on the straight and narrow is easier said than done for a pair of crooks like Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker. But these reformed sinners are doing their damnedest to make an honest go of it, even if they have to gun down the occasional ambusher on the road to salvation. They’ve managed to safely deliver a church organ to a mountain parish when their sometime employer—Chief U.S. Marshal Luther T. “Bleed-’em-So” Bledsoe—recruits them for a treacherous job that might just get them killed.

  Marshal Bledsoe wants them to pick up a shipment of gold in the mining town of Tin Cup in the Sawatch Mountains. Here’s the catch: Slash and Pecos’s wagon is just a decoy for robbers while the real shipment takes a less-traveled road nearby. Bledsoe’s plan is foolproof—or so they think. When a ruthless gang ambushes the real gold shipment, it’s up to Slash and Pecos to go after the stolen goods and trigger-happy bandits. And they won’t be alone. A lady Pinkerton, Hattie Friendly—who is anything but—has survived the ambush and is hell-bent on getting the gold back. Even
if she has to team up with a pair of ornery old cutthroats like Slash and Pecos. . .

  A GOOD DAY FOR A MASSACRE

  A SLASH AND PECOS WESTERN

  On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.

  CHAPTER 1

  “You two old scalawags stop that wagon and throw your guns down, or we’ll fill you so full of lead, they’ll need an ore dray to haul you to Boot Hill!”

  The shout had vaulted down from somewhere on the forested ridge jutting on the right side of the old wagon trail. The words echoed around the narrow canyon before dwindling beneath the crashing rattle of the freight wagon’s stout, iron-shod wheels.

  Jimmy “Slash” Braddock turned to his partner, Melvin Baker, aka the Pecos River Kid, sitting on the freight wagon’s seat to his left, and said, “Whose callin’ us old?”

  Driving the wagon, handling the reins gently in his gloved hands, Pecos turned to Slash and scowled. “Who . . . what?”

  “Someone just called us old.”

  Pecos lifted his head and looked around, blinking his lake-blue eyes beneath his snuff-brown Stetson’s broad brim. “I didn’t hear nothin’.”

  “You didn’t hear someone call us old from up on that ridge yonder?”

  “Hell, no—I didn’t hear a damn thing. I think you’re imaginin’ things, Slash. It’s probably old-timer’s disease.”

  “Old-timer’s disease, my butt.” Slash’s brown-eyed gaze was perusing the stony ridge peppered with lodgepole pines and firs, all cloaked in sparkling, smoking gowns of high-mountain sunshine. “I heard someone insult us way out here on the devil’s hindquarters.”

  A rifle cracked on the ridge. The bullet punched into the trail several feet ahead of the two lead mules and spanged shrilly off a rock. Instantly, the mules tensed, arching their tails and necks. The off leader loosed a shrill bray.