Forever texas, p.1
Forever Texas, page 1
Look for these exciting Western series
from bestselling authors
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
MacCallister
The Red Ryan Westerns
Perley Gates
Have Brides, Will Travel
Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshall
Shotgun Johnny
The Chuckwagon Trail
The Jackals
The Slash and Pecos Westerns
The Texas Moonshiners
Stoneface Finnegan Westerns
Ben Savage: Saloon Ranger
The Buck Trammel Westerns
The Death and Texas Westerns
The Hunter Buchanon Westerns
FOREVER TEXAS
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
AND
J.A. JOHNSTONE
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
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by 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.
KENSINGTON BOOKS and the WWJ steer head logo are trademarks of Kensington Publishing Corp.
ISBN: 978-1-4967-4776-5 (ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-4967-3534-8
Chapter 1
The first shot pinwheeled the tall man’s hat off his head. The second sent him diving for cover, and the third spooked his mount and sent it crow-hopping and snorting into the pucker-brush.
He heard a harsh, barking laugh followed with shouts of “Die, gringo!” . . . then shots volleyed at him from all sides.
The tall man managed to crank off a shot of his own. He heard a groan and a curse drift up on the still, hot air as the gunfire echoed and tapered off. Regis Royle had enough time to suck in a sharp breath between his tight-set teeth before a fresh fusillade pinned him tight in a wedge of sun-warmed sandstone.
He counted what he thought might be several guns still blazing, or someone was good at reloading. He trailed his fingers to his gun belt and felt his sheathed knife. He had three shots left in his gun. Fresh ammunition rested snugly in his saddlebags on the ass end of the horse he’d likely never see again.
“What you want here, gringo?”
Regis Royle spun his gaze toward the voice and closed his hand tighter on the walnut grips of his revolver. He saw nothing save for an anaqua tree. In the blue sky far beyond, a lone gray cloud teased apart on a breeze. A meadowlark bobbed on a spiny jag and warbled its morning song.
“Who’s asking?”
Ragged laughter echoed off the slabs of sandstone chiseled by wind and time.
Not a man prone to twitching at imagined spooks, Royle nonetheless felt a shiver of ice ripple his backbone. He hunkered lower and eyed around the boulder, looking longingly toward the receding view of his squirrel-headed, bucking mount, and with it his shiny new rifle.
He held the pose as if he were part of the warming stone. The meadowlark rose into the air, trailing dewy notes, and in a series of short swoops landed on a jut of gnarled mesquite some distance to the west—two hundred, three hundred feet.
Could be the bird was a friendly sort. Could be if Regis were a betting man, and at times he was, that bird was looking for a handout, a morsel from a kindly stranger. Could be that bird found the curious laughing man for him. Could be now was the time to place a bet.
Regis almost shrugged, almost smiled at his fanciful notion. Then he didn’t smile, for he noted a shifting of light, less than a shadow’s worth, in a darkened gap in the stony declivity beyond and below the twitchy, curious little yellow-and-brown bird.
“Thanks, bird friend,” he whispered, and licked away a slow drop of sweat from the corner of his mouth, unseen beneath his thick black moustache. Too early by half for this sort of tomfoolery. He had land to check on, friends to catch up with, and an appointment in Brownsville to keep.
Now he was more annoyed than afraid for himself. He’d known, of course, of the danger of brigands out here, and had even been reminded of the cautions he should take when friends at the docks learned he was riding inland alone, on his way to Corpus Christi to visit other friends.
“Why you want to do a thing like that, Cap?” Lockjaw Hames had said. “No sir, if I was you I’d stick to the water. Safer around here. No injuns or Mexicans out to lay a man low, steal his boots and his hair, then pillage what’s left out of his middle.”
Lockjaw, who earned the odd moniker because his lips rarely seemed to move when he spoke, a task he was unafraid to undertake, had shuddered then as if he’d had a vision of something horrific happening that was fated.
Lockjaw was as solid a seaman as they’d come. Reputedly a former slave and now self-proclaimed free man, he was also the biggest man Regis had ever met, and that was saying something, as Regis himself was north of six feet tall by several inches.
Lockjaw was a steady presence on the steamers and riverboats, turning his hand to whatever task Regis or his partner in the shipping trade, Cormac Delany, asked of him.
Didn’t mean Regis was about to take his advice to heart. He’d chuckled and said, “I appreciate your concern on my behalf, Mr. Hames, and I will endeavor to remain on the good side of the soil with breath in my lungs.”
The big black man had paused, sacks of quicklime balanced on each shoulder, his bulging arms steadying them, and said, “Ain’t no call to get uppity about it, boss. But you don’t come crawling back to the safety of the docks saying how come ol’ Lockjaw didn’t warn you!” He’d stomped off, loading the hold of the Missy B., a recently acquired craft Cormac had christened after a younger sister long dead, or as Cormac had said, “called to her glory.”
And now here Regis was, pinned down in the rocks and grasses of this pretty river valley by an outlaw, no doubt. “Looks like you were right, Lockjaw,” Regis mumbled.
Another shot, this time slicing in from east of him, scored a fresh groove in the dusty rock above his head. “Okay, at least two outlaws.”
As if in response to his thought, a third, then a fourth shot, each from different directions, pinged and whined in ricochet harmlessly above him. For the moment he was safe, but if they—by his best guess that would make at least four scurvy-addled curs out for his blood—decided to close in, he’d be a dozing fawn to their pouncing lion.
His ire with himself almost outweighed any animosity he felt toward the would-be thieves. Almost. He’d save his full steam for dealing with the prairie scum. And he knew he would, in part because Regis Royle was a man who never failed at anything he attempted.
He had fought his way to his position as partner in a shipping business, co-owner of a growing fleet of riverboats plying the waters of the Rio Grande and up and down the coast. He and Cormac had worked like demons during the Mexican War, the wounds of which were slowly healing, though still bleeding aplenty, since 1846.
Here it was 1852 and he was still scrapping his way through life. He sighed and carefully extended a long leg and flexed it, massaging his knee. A bullet pinged a few inches below the heel of his stovepipe boot. He yanked it back and sucked in
He needed a plan, because sitting here wasn’t getting a damn thing done. What sort of plan could he hope for? Stand up and shout, “Hey, gents, how about we talk this over?” He grunted at the folly of his thoughts. No, best wait them out, keep alert, and take advantage of the relative safety of this rocky hidey-hole he’d managed to wedge himself into.
Then another thought came to him: What if he weren’t the only critter in this hole? If it got cold at night, which it would surely do, would a pesky rattler slide out of that crevice behind him and try to get cozy with whatever warmth might exude from his cramped body?
The idea didn’t do much for his mood. Regis cursed his horse again, a feather-headed thing with a balky streak a mile wide. When he got back to Brownsville, he was going to buy it from the hostler he’d rented it from and either train it right or shoot it in the head and start with a fresh beast.
A smile tugged a corner of his moustache upward. He was thinking of the very reason he’d ventured out on this fine jaunt in the first place. It had been three days since he’d left Brownsville and ridden northward to Corpus Christi. He’d intended to pay a call on friends who’d moved there, attend a fair he’d heard was to take place in that bustling town.
Really, it was little more than a convenient excuse to get away from his beloved steamers. He still enjoyed the work, but he’d been at it for years without letup. He was still a young man, but sometimes he felt like he was ninety and ready for a rocking chair by a fireplace.
He knew the itch, for it had never really left him. He wanted to—no, he needed to venture beyond the waterways. And a trip on horseback, even if only for a few days, would help scratch that pesky, restless feeling.
But a funny thing happened on his way north. He’d cut inland a bit, in a northwesterly fashion, and he’d found a distraction he’d not even known he had been seeking. In fact, it up and smacked him in the head before he knew what was happening.
Actually, it had been more of a slow saturation of his senses. The day had been hot, as were most days in April in southern Texas, and he found himself riding without care or hurry. In light of his current situation, he knew he’d been lucky to make the journey unmolested.
Even the balky buckskin had seemed lulled into peacefulness by the green rolling prairie Regis found himself in. The wind played over an ocean of long floss-tipped grass stems, as if they were the surface of an endless sea. A little farther on and the land sloped gently to his left. Soon he smelled it, the earthy richness of flowing water. And then he saw it at the same time he heard it.
Or rather, he heard a splash. His horse’s ears perked, and he reined up and watched something he’d never before witnessed. The scene fascinated him and hooked him in all at once. A herd of wild mustangs, perhaps half a hundred, were wading into the river to his left, dipping their muzzles and sipping long of the cooling flow.
All of them, that is, but a magnificent dappled brute of a stallion with wide flexing nostrils and a near-black mane and tail. His gaze scanned the far bank and raked across the all-but-hidden presence of Regis and his horse. Then the stallion’s gaze swung back and locked with Regis’s eyes.
The mustang stallion stared for long moments, an unfelt breeze riffling his topknot. He flicked his ears, snorted once, and stomped a foreleg. The splashing alerted the other drinking horses, and the entire mass of them—brown, fawn, black gray—swung their dripping muzzles upward and seemed to stare at him.
Regis felt at once awed, at home, and unnerved, a combination of feelings he’d not experienced since the war’s battles. The herd wasted no time in stomping up and out of the river. In moments, there was little more to prove that their presence had been real but dissipating swirls of mud that soon the river carried away.
He guessed the water for what it was—the Santa Calina, a flowage of clear, cool water that fed live oaks and anaquas along its banks. Those trees gave way to the waist-high grasses of the prairie he’d been admiring.
He took the mustang herd’s advice and guided his horse through the grasses until they broke through and emerged along the muddy creek’s bank. He slid from the saddle but held the reins as the horse sipped long and deep, glancing often at the spot where the mustangs had been across the river but moments before.
When the horse had slaked its thirst, Regis squatted low upstream and lifted his hat free. He squinted—the sun had been given free rein to annoy his sight—and scooped the refreshing liquid onto his face, down the back of his neck, and finally over the top of his head.
It felt so good that he remained squatting at the edge of the water and let his eyes close as he breathed in the lush, verdant smells surrounding him. A kiskadee called out, and another answered, somewhere up in the high, blue sky.
With a sigh, he stood and mounted up and kept riding, spying turkeys, quail, antelope, and deer, all eyeing him with interest and perhaps a twinge of suspicion as the wayward breeze carried his strange scent to them. They would scatter in all directions, coyotes as much to blame as Regis’s presence in this otherwise seemingly untouched place.
It wasn’t so much a valley as a wide, endless sea or rolling green cut through by the Santa Calina. Rough, wild, vague thoughts formed in his mind, drifted out again, and reformed, telling him little more than one thing. He knew, somehow deep in his guts and bones, that he wanted to be here for longer than just the duration of this pleasant ride.
He surprised himself by realizing he wanted to live here, to possess it somehow. But how? And why? Did he not have a life, a thriving business, friends, several women—prominent young things themselves the daughters of men of society—who wished to impress him? Why here, then? What was it about the place, other than its obvious raw beauty?
In this manner, Regis’s thoughts rambled and ricocheted off one another as he rode, much of the time at little more than a leisurely walk, the horse in no hurry, either.
It wasn’t until he heard a crashing and a stamping in a thicket to his left, between him and the river, from which he’d strayed, that something happened that would alter forever the course of his life, the lives of countless others, and the very land on which he rode.
For Regis Royle, steamship captain, saw cattle. A vast herd of them—feisty feral beasts little more than ornery goats with wide horns and blood-red eyes and burr-stickled hides. Cattle that fought and stomped one another and rubbed their rank hides raw against mesquite trees. But they were cattle. And in that moment an idea came to Regis Royle almost wholly formed. He would ranch this very land.
He knew instinctively that if it weren’t him, someone would, for it teemed with life. And what gave life its very essence? Water, the tincture of life itself, for without it life will not last. But here in the midst of this hot-as-sin place known as South Texas, there was ample water and lush green grasses, and massive herds of wild mustangs, hundreds, perhaps thousands strong, barely outmatching herds of balky, crazy-eyed cattle. And that wasn’t to mention the wild game.
Here a man could own land, good and valuable land—though he knew some might debate those descriptions—and never go hungry. And more than that, he could raise beasts, horses, and cattle and sell them to others for profits that one day might far exceed the solid earnings he’d made from plying the waters of the Rio Grande.
And here, here it all was. He might be no landman, but he, by golly, knew opportunity when he saw it. And this was it—prime ranching land, water and all.
That had been three days prior, and thoughts of the place throughout his long, slow trip had leeched into his mind, his heart, the marrow of his very bones, and would not let him be.
He’d been poor company, he knew, to his kind friends in Corpus Christi, but he’d been haunted by the place, and he had cut short his trip by a day in order to repeat the journey from north to south, half expecting the mystical place to have been little more than some fiendish trick of the brain, some devilish whim sent from on high to torment him, for what purpose he knew not.
But it had not been the case. Instead, he had been, if possible, even more impressed with the sights and smells and sounds and feel of the Santa Calina range. All of it had been repeated—the stretches of lush grasses, gamma near water, the ample game and stock roaming the hills, the very creek, the Santa Calina itself.
