The shotgun wedding, p.1
The Shotgun Wedding, page 1
Look for these exciting Western series from
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WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
and J. A. JOHNSTONE
The Mountain Man
Preacher: The First Mountain Man
Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter
Those Jensen Boys!
The Jensen Brand
Matt Jensen
MacCallister
The Red Ryan Westerns
Perley Gates
Have Brides, Will Travel
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Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal
Shotgun Johnny
The Chuckwagon Trail
The Jackals
The Slash and Pecos Westerns
The Texas Moonshiners
AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS
THE SHOTGUN WEDDING
A HAVE BRIDES, WILL TRAVEL WESTERN
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE AND J. A. JOHNSTONE
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 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.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
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.”
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-4412-2
Electronic edition:
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4413-9 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-7860-4413-6 (e-book)
CHAPTER 1
“You take the one on the right,” Bo Creel said as he walked forward slowly, holding the Winchester at a slant across his chest. “I can handle the other two.”
“Wait a minute,” Scratch Morton said. “You mean their right or our right?”
“Our right. Your man’s the one with the rattlesnake band around his hat.”
“You mean the ugly one?”
“They’re all ugly.”
“Bein’ dead ain’t gonna make ’em any prettier,” Scratch said, “but I reckon that’s where they’re headin’ mighty quick-like.”
Bo said, “We’ll give them a chance to surrender. That’s the only proper thing to do, seeing as we’re duly appointed lawmen and all.”
Scratch muttered under his breath about that, something that included the words “dad-blasted tin stars” and some other, more colorful comments, then said, “All right, Deputy Creel, let’s get this done.”
“Sure thing, Marshal Morton.”
* * *
They continued up the dusty street toward the three hard cases standing in front of the Silver King Palace, the largest and fanciest drinking establishment in the settlement of Silverhill, New Mexico Territory. The gun-wolves wore arrogant sneers on their beard-stubbled faces. They were killers and didn’t care who knew it. In fact, they were proud of their infamous deeds.
And clearly, they weren’t the least bit worried about the two older men approaching them.
They should have been. They didn’t know what ornery sidewinders Bo Creel and Scratch Morton could be.
At first glance, the two Texans didn’t look that formidable, although they stood straight and moved with an easy, athletic grace not that common in men of their years. Both had weathered, sun-bronzed faces, which testified to decades spent out in the elements. Bo’s dark brown hair under his flat-crowned black hat was shot through heavily with white. Scratch’s cream-colored Stetson topped a full head of pure silver hair.
Bo looked a little like a preacher, with his long black coat, black trousers, and white shirt, and with a string tie around his neck. Scratch was more of a dandy, wearing a fringed buckskin jacket over a butternut shirt and brown whipcord trousers tucked into high-topped boots.
Both men were well armed at the moment. Bo had the Winchester in his hands and a Colt .45 revolver riding in a black holster on his right hip. Scratch carried a pair of long-barreled, silvered, ivory-handled Remington .44s in a hand-tooled buscadero gun rig. All the weapons were very well cared for but also showed signs of long and frequent use.
Bo and Scratch had been best friends since they met more than forty years earlier, during the Runaway Scrape, when the citizens of Texas fled across the countryside before Santa Anna’s vengeful army. Though only boys at the time, they had fought side by side in the Battle of San Jacinto, when those Texans finally turned around and, against overwhelming odds, gave the Mexican dictator’s forces a good whipping. Texas had won its freedom that fine spring day in 1836, and a lifelong friendship had been formed between Bo and Scratch.
In the decades since, they had roamed from one end of the West to the other, enduring much tragedy and trouble but also living a life of adventure that perfectly suited their fiddle-footed nature. Every attempt they had made to settle down had ended badly, until finally they had given up trying and accepted their wanderlust. Along the way they had worked at almost every sort of job to make ends meet.
Every now and then they had even found themselves on the wrong side of the law.
But right now they wore badges, which was mighty uncommon in their checkered careers. Despite being handier than most with guns and fists, they had hardly ever been peace officers.
More likely they’d be disturbing the peace . . .
The “peace” of Silverhill was about to be disturbed, all right. Like most mining boomtowns, this could be a raucous, wide-open place, but there weren’t many gunfights on Main Street in the middle of the day.
Bo hoped there wouldn’t be this time, either, but he wasn’t convinced of that. Not by a long shot.
Bo and Scratch came to a stop about twenty feet away from the trio of hard cases. The one in the middle, who had long, greasy red hair under a black hat with a Montana pinch, clenched a thin black cigarillo between his large, horse-like teeth and growled, “We heard the law was on the way. What in blazes do you old pelicans want?”
Scratch said, “We want you boys to unbuckle your gunbelts and let ’em drop, then hoist those dewclaws and march on down to the jailhouse. You’re under arrest.”
“Under arrest?” the redhead repeated mockingly. “What for?” The second man, short and stocky, with a walrus mustache, said, “It’s probably got somethin’ to do with that piano player you plugged, Bugle.”
“Shut up, Tater,” the bucktoothed redhead snapped.
The third man, who had the gaunt, hollow-eyed look of a lunger, said, “Now you’ve gone and told these lawdogs your names.”
“We already knew who you are, Scanlon,” Bo said. “There are wanted posters for all three of you in the files in the marshal’s office.”
“So we wouldn’t have been inclined to just let you ride out of town, anyway,” Scratch added. “But killing a man . . . well, that sort of leveled it off and nailed it
Tater looked up at Bugle and said, “See, I done told you we oughta start shootin’ as soon as we seen ’em headed this way. Now it’s gonna be an even break.”
“An even break?” Bugle said. He seemed to like to repeat things. “How in blazes do you figure that? These two old fools ought to be sittin’ in rockin’ chairs somewhere, instead of bein’ about to die in the middle of a dusty street!”
“Oh,” Bo said, “I don’t reckon we’re quite that old.”
Bugle’s sneer twisted into a hate-filled grimace as his hands darted toward the guns on his hips.
Bo snapped the Winchester to his shoulder. He had already jacked a round into the chamber before he and Scratch started down here, so all he had to do was squeeze the trigger. The rifle cracked.
Bugle’s head jerked back and the cigarillo flew out of his mouth as Bo neatly drilled a slug an inch above his right eye. The bullet made a nice round hole going in but blew a fist-sized chunk out of the back of Bugle’s skull when it erupted in a pink spray of blood and brain matter. He went over backward, with his guns still in their holsters.
Beside Bo, Scratch slapped leather. The Remingtons came out of their holsters so fast, they were a silver blur. The cadaverous-looking gent called Scanlon was a noted shootist, but Scratch shaded him on the draw by a fraction of a second.
That was enough. Flame shot from the muzzles of both Remingtons. The .44 caliber slugs hammered into Scanlon’s chest and knocked him back a step just as his fingers tightened on the triggers of his own guns. One bullet plowed into the dirt a few feet ahead of Scanlon. The other went high and wild. He caught his balance and tried to swing the guns in line for another shot, but Scratch, with time to aim now, calmly shot the gun-wolf in the head.
Meanwhile, Bo was realizing that he might have made a mistake in shooting Bugle first. The short, dumpy Tater didn’t look like he’d be much of a threat when it came to gunplay, and Bugle was the one who’d shot and killed the piano player in the Silver King, after all.
But while Bo was busy blowing Bugle’s brains out, Tater drew an old Griswold & Gunnison .36 with blinding speed and thumbed off a shot. Bo felt the heat of the round against his cheek as it barely missed spreading his brains on the street.
Brass sparkled in the hot, dry air as Bo worked the Winchester’s lever and sent the empty he had just fired spinning high in the air. He slammed the lever up and fired again, but not in time to prevent Tater from getting off a second shot. This bullet tugged at Bo’s coat, but this attempt was a narrow miss, too.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” the old saying went. But Bo hadn’t missed. His bullet shattered Tater’s right shoulder and knocked him halfway around.
Tater was stubborn. Not only did he stay on his feet, but he also didn’t even drop the gun. Grimacing in pain, he reached over with his left hand and plucked the weapon out of his now useless right hand.
Bo cranked the Winchester and fired his third shot. This one ripped through Tater’s throat and severed his jugular vein, judging by the arcing spray of blood from the wound. He dropped to the dirt like a discarded toy. The other two hard cases hadn’t moved at all once they hit the ground, but Tater flopped and thrashed a little and made a gurgling sound as he drowned in his own blood.
Then he was still, too.
The battle had lasted five seconds. Maybe a hair under. Echoes of the shots hung over Silverhill for a moment and then faded away.
“You hit?” Bo asked his old friend.
“Mine didn’t even come close,” the silver-haired Texan replied. “How about yours?”
“Close,” Bo admitted. “No cigar, though. But that’s because I misjudged old Tater. I thought Bugle was the more dangerous of the two.”
Scratch shook his head. “Hard to be sure about such a thing, just from lookin’ at a fella. I got to say, though, if I’d been in your place, I think I’d’ve made the same mistake. Comes down to it, those varmints are dead and we’re still kickin’, and that’s all that matters, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.” Bo took cartridges from his coat pocket and thumbed them through the Winchester’s loading gate to replace the rounds he’d fired. Quietly, he added, “Looks like folks are coming out of their holes.”
The street and the boardwalks had cleared out in a hurry when it became obvious gun trouble was imminent. Nobody wanted to get in the way of a stray bullet, and you couldn’t blame them for that. Now, up and down the street, people were stepping out of the businesses into which they had retreated and were peering toward the three bodies sprawled in front of the Silver King. A few even took tentative steps in that direction to get a better look. Before too much longer, a crowd would gather around the corpses, Bo knew, as the curiosity on the part of Silverhill’s citizens overpowered their revulsion.
“Reckon we ought the fetch the undertaker?” Scratch asked.
“I’m sure Clarence Appleyard is already hitching up his wagon,” Bo replied. “It never takes him long to get to the scene of a shooting.”
“No, he’s Johnny-on-the-spot. You got to give him that.”
They turned and walked back toward the squat stone building that housed the marshal’s office.
“Hell of a first day on the job, ain’t it?” Scratch asked.
“Well,” Bo said, “we knew the job might be dangerous when we took it.”
They were passing the Territorial House, the biggest and best hotel in Silverhill, and before either man could say anything else, the front doors flew open and several figures rushed out.
Almost before Bo and Scratch knew what was going on, they were surrounded by a handful of femininity as anxious, questioning voices filled the air around them.
CHAPTER 2
The five young women who surrounded Bo and Scratch were a study in contrasts. Two were blondes, one had hair black as midnight, another was a brunette, and the fifth and final female had a mane of thick chestnut hair falling around her shoulders. One blonde was small, dainty, and curly haired; the other was taller, with her wheat-colored tresses pulled back and tied behind her head. The young woman with dark brown hair had an elegant but cool and reserved look about her, while the one with raven’s-wing hair was sultry and exotic looking. Unlike the others, the tomboyish gal with chestnut hair wore boots, trousers, a man’s shirt, and looked like she was ready to go out and ride the range.
The one thing they all had in common was that they were beautiful. The sort of beauty that made men take a second and even a third look as their jaws dropped. In a boomtown such as Silverhill, they were definitely diamonds in the rough.
With a tone of command in her voice, the cool-looking brunette, Cecilia Spaulding, said, “Everyone just be quiet! Mr. Creel and Mr. Morton can’t answer our questions if everybody is talking at once.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” chestnut-haired Rose Winston shot back at her. “You heard all that shooting, same as we did. We just want to know if they’re all right.”
“I don’t see any blood on them,” the taller, more athletic-looking blonde, Beth Macy, said.
Bo figured it was time he got a word in edgewise. He said, “No, neither of us was hit.”
“You killed the men you were after, though, didn’t you?” Rose asked with a bloodthirsty note in her voice. “Those hombres who shot the piano player at the Silver King?”
“Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Scratch replied with a grin. “How’d you know what happened to that ivory pounder?”
“People were talking about it in the hotel lobby,” Cecilia explained. “It was quite the topic of conversation . . . as violence usually is.”
