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  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  witch J. A. Johnstone

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  AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS

  COLTER’S JOURNEY

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with 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

  BOOK ONE - SOUTH PASS

  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

  BOOK TWO - GREEN RIVER

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  BOOK THREE - COLTER’S HELL

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  THE EDGE OF VIOLENCE A Tim Colter Western

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2016 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.

  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.”

  PINNACLE BOOKS, the Pinnacle logo, and the WWJ steer head logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7860-3811-4

  First Kensington hardcover printing: June 2016

  First Pinnacle paperback printing: July 2017

  First electronic edition: July 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3812-1

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-3812-8

  BOOK ONE

  SOUTH PASS

  CHAPTER 1

  “Run, Tim! Run!”

  Tim Colter was buttoning his trousers after answering nature’s call when he heard his mother’s scream. He didn’t even have time to slip the suspenders back over his shoulders. He peeked above the bush and felt all the color and all the blood drain from his face.

  He had heard the stories. By Jacks, he had even imagined something like this happening, and had dreamed of being the hero. Saving the day. Having the newspapers back home in Danville write about him. Making Mr. Scott think a little bit more about him. Most important, feeling those ruby red lips of Patricia, Mr. Scott’s daughter, kissing him after he had saved her life.

  “Run!” his mother shouted again. “Ru—” The tomahawk slammed into her head, and she fell without a word onto the grass beside the Scott family dog, which looked like a porcupine or a pincushion from all the arrows sticking out of the poor mutt’s body.

  “Get that boy!”

  Tim’s eyes swung away from his mother. Another Indian was mounted on a big black horse with a perfect white star on its head. The man wore buckskins and long black hair that hung in braids. He pointed a smoking musket in Tim’s direction.

  Tim remembered hearing the gunshot a few moments ago and thinking how glorious it would have been if Indians had attacked the Scotts and Colters’ camp, how he could run to the rescue and use his slingshot to drive off the Sioux or the Cheyenne or the Blackfeet or whatever they were.

  Tim Colter they would say, and they’d compare him to David when he’d tackled Goliath.

  He had sighed, figuring the shot had come from that Pennsylvania rifle of Mr. Scott’s, who had been admiring a turkey he had seen off in the nearby woods.

  From behind the bush, Tim saw Mr. Scott with his own rifle across his outstretched legs, leaning against the rear wheel of the Conestoga wagon . . . the one being repaired. Blood covered Mr. Scott’s face, and his head tilted at an ugly, unnatural angle.

  The Indian who had brained Tim’s mother let out a curse, dropped the tomahawk, and pawed for a pistol stuck in a thick black belt.

  Tim heard the screams of his sisters and Patricia Scott. He heard the shouts of men, Indians and probably his father. The grunts of the oxen and Papa’s prized Percheron stallion, the one he had figured would be the envy of every settler in the Oregon Territory when they finally reached The Dalles and moved on to Oregon City.

  He heard something else, too, and felt a bee buzz past his left ear.

  The Indian had fired his pistol at him. Tim realized he had come just a few inches from death. Only then did he truly understand what was happening.

  Only then did he turn and run.

  The suspenders slapped against his woolen trousers as he scrambled down the hill. Behind him came whoops as the Indians chased him. He had a head start of maybe thirty yards on the savages, he figured, and he was going down a steep slope, picking up speed, feeling the wind in his face.

  He felt terrified.

  If he tripped, lost his balance, fell, he knew he was dead.

  Another bullet sang over his head and exploded in the rotting trunk of a massive tree that had fallen over ages ago. Tim leaped over the log, and felt the brambles and saplings sting his arms, his face, and those cumbersome suspenders as he reached the patch of woods. Mr. Scott had said there might be a river or a stream beyond those woods. Certainly there had to be running water. Mr. Scott had said that he could hear it.

  Running water? Tim had thought it must have been the wind rustling through the trees.

  He ducked underneath the last branch, leaped over a boulder or something—he couldn’t tell exactly what it was—and came out of th
e woods. Mr. Scott had been right. It was a river or creek.

  Behind him came the curses of men, and he knew he had not much time to live. Unless he could find a hiding place.

  Blinking, he spotted the mound of sticks in the middle of the running water, saw the pond that had pooled behind it, and then he remembered hearing all those stories about beavers and beaver dams. Quickly stepping into the water, he felt the iciness numb him, and suck breath out of his lungs. It was summer, late summer in fact, and he had never expected the water to be so cold. He moved quickly into deeper water, closer toward the beaver dam. Behind him, the noise of footsteps and curses came closer, and he drew in as much air as his lungs could hold, and disappeared underneath the water.

  It won’t work, he told himself. He was no swimmer. And surely the Indians would realize he was hiding in the dam . . . if he could even reach the dam. In the freezing water, he groped and found his way in the darkness. The beavers might even attack him with their sharp teeth. That would be his luck. Instead of being the hero who had saved his mother and his sisters and Patricia Scott from that dreadful fate worse than death, he would be killed by rabid animals.

  In death, he would be the butt of jokes. He imagined someone saying, “Did you hear the one about that boy from Pennsylvania who got killed by beavers?” they would say at Fort Vancouver. “Happened around South Pass in the summer of ’forty-five. Fool kid. They found his bones amongst the aspen and pines.”

  He came up into the darkness, though he could see cracks of sunlight.

  In the corner, a beaver glared at him. No, two beavers. But they kept their distance. They just stared. And stank.

  The place had a musky odor that almost took Tim’s breath away. Or maybe it was the cold.

  Stop tapping those tails! Tim mouthed the words. He feared the Indians would hear the warning the beavers kept sounding. Then he realized that the sound did not come from the two animals. His teeth kept chattering.

  Something splashed in the stream or the pond or the lake or the river. Tim ground his teeth so tight that his jaw ached, but he no longer heard that noisy clicking from his mouth. One of the Indians yelled something, and another answered. He could not understand the words. More Indians had joined the pursuers. A few ran down the creek. They shouted at one another in a mix of languages. He recognized a few curse words spoken in English.

  “Mon Dieu!” one of the savages said in French.

  Another answered.

  “Forget him,” said another, more of a grunt but spoken in English. “He’s a kid. He’ll be dead in two days out here.”

  An eternity later, Tim heard only the rippling of water. The Indians had left him. The beavers still stared.

  He had dropped his slingshot. He unfastened the suspenders and brought them up to study them. Can they be used as a weapon? He shook his head and submerged them in the water, releasing his hold, hoping they might sink.

  Worthless, these suspenders, he told himself. Like me.

  His top teeth clattered against his bottom teeth, and he brought his arms out of the water and desperately tried to squeeze warmth into his body. He shook. He prayed. He thought he might cry, but no tears came.

  What he wanted to do was to swim back out of the beaver dam, and reach the shore. Darkness would fall soon. The Indians were gone. He started to move, just to reach the shore, to feel the fading sun warm his body before nightfall came. A twig popped and he stopped. It could have come from a deer, or a moose, or maybe his own imagination, but he moved back toward the edge of the dam.

  “Indians are stupid,” Mr. Scott had said. “Some of them are probably smarter than Jenkins.”

  Jenkins had been the guide who had been hired back in Independence, Missouri, to lead the Scotts, the Colters, and other families to the Oregon Territory. Tim had liked the man he thought of as Just Jenkins.

  “Ain’t got no first name,” the grizzled old man in buckskins had kept saying. “It’s just Jenkins.”

  Tim wished Just Jenkins and the other twelve families were with him.

  He listened. He heard nothing but the rippling of the water, and maybe the wind, and the two beavers moving around near him.

  It would be so easy to slip out of the dam, wade back to shore, and lie down. Wake up. Wake up from the awful nightmare.

  Yet he did not move. He listened, and although he heard nothing, no Indian grunts, no flintlock being cocked, no curses, no horses, no shouts or screams, he decided he would have to spend the long, frigid night in the dam.

  He wasn’t sure he could do it. Wasn’t sure the beavers would let him. He thought for certain that he had already lost all feeling in his legs. He could touch bottom, though, at least as long as he could remain standing. As long as the Indian that had remained behind. Tim was certain someone was out there, someone human. No. Not human. He remembered seeing his mother dropped by a tomahawk to her head. He remembered seeing poor Mr. Scott propped up against the Conestoga’s wheel.

  The screams of his sisters and beautiful Patricia Scott still rang in his ears.

  Human beings did not do those kinds of things to other human beings.

  Some animal was out there, probably at the edge of the woods, waiting for Tim to show himself. And be killed. Murdered.

  Keep your head clear, he kept telling himself. Don’t fall asleep. Don’t move around. You can do this. You can wait. You have to live.

  Sometimes, though, he wondered why he should live.

  His mother’s words echoed inside his head. “Run, Tim! Run!” He had obeyed his mother. That’s what sons were supposed to do. He had run. He had hidden. So he was still alive.

  He wanted to throw up, but, somehow, kept the bile down. He listened. He shivered. And silently he cried. The tears had finally broken free, and he could taste their saltiness as they ran over his lips.

  Darkness came quickly, and the night would be lonely. He wanted to move around, just to make sure the blood still flowed and had not frozen in his legs and waist, but he knew better. Someone was out there, waiting. Waiting to kill him.

  A man he had never met, never seen, never heard of.

  Maybe, he thought, death would be welcome. It had to be better than standing up in a smelly beaver dam in freezing water on a bitterly cold night. It certainly didn’t feel like the summer nights he had enjoyed back in Danville, Pennsylvania.

  Yet his mother had told him to run. She wanted him to live. He had to live. He would not be killed in some beaver dam and become a person men and women and kids all along the Oregon Trail laughed about.

  He wanted to sing just to stay warm. He knew better, though. Knew that an Indian waited out in the woods with a weapon—pistol, spear, or bow and arrow.

  He mouthed the words to “Home Sweet Home” and tried to remember how Patricia Scott had sounded when she had sung it time after time, night after night, all the way from Danville, Pennsylvania, to Independence, Missouri. To Fort Kearny to Chimney Rock to Scotts Bluff. To Fort Laramie and Independence Rock and all the way to South Pass. He tried to remember her voice, to recall the words to that sweet song that had often made him homesick for the iron works and the furnaces, and the forests and lush greenness of the summers in Pennsylvania.

  All he could hear, though, were Patricia’s screams.

  He had run. He was no hero. Tim Colter was nothing but a miserable little coward.

  CHAPTER 2

  For nigh on two weeks, he had been drunk. But

  Jed Reno wasn’t that drunk.

  Lowering the brown jug and using his massive right hand to wipe off the whiskey—he was drunk enough to call that hooch whiskey—running into his beard, Reno stared hard at Malachi Murchison, who had only been drunk for a day or two. “What did you say?” Reno leaned forward.

  “Start a war. That’s what I say.” Murchison stopped to burp. “Well, it’s what he says.”

  He . . . Reno had to think. They had been talking about Louis Jackatars. Reno had never cared a fig for the man. Come to think on it, h
e never even liked Malachi Murchison, even after that old reprobate had bought the jug of rotgut they had practically finished.

  “With the Blackfeet?” Reno snorted. “Ain’t enough of ’em left to make much of a war.”

  Murchison leaned over to fetch the jug. He drank a snootful and laughed. “Blackfeet. Sioux. Crow. Shoshone. Jackatars don’t rightly care one way or tuther. But it’d give us somethin’ to do. Since nobody wants to buy no more beaver no more.” He leaned forward and whispered into Reno’s face. “Remember ’em times, Jed?”

  His breath stank. Clapping his hands, Murchison leaned back, laughing, and rocking on his heels. “’Em was the glorious days of our youth, pard. When we’d trap those ‘hairy bank notes’ for all ’em dandies of the boulevard back east. Trap ’em, we would, all spring and fall, find some squaw to keep us warm in the winter and in the spring.” Murchison lifted the jug, took another slug, and pitched the container back to Reno. “And in the summer, you remember, Jed? You recollect when the engages would show up on the Green. What a time we’d all have! Ain’t that right, Jed? Surely, you ain’t forgotten all ’em glorious days.”

  Reno managed to swallow some of the awful whiskey they served at Bridger’s Trading Post to men like him and Malachi Murchison. The settlers who came flocking in on their way west, well, they’d get something more tolerable to drink.

  “Remember?” Malachi Murchison reached for the jug, and Reno was happy to oblige the fellow.

  “Hasn’t been that long ago.” Reno spoke the words softly. “I ain’t getting so old I can’t recollect four years back.”

  Four years. That had been the last time the caravans had come from the settlements, the last glorious Rendezvous on the Siskeedee-Agie—the Green River, north along the Black’s Fork of the Green.