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  with J. A. Johnstone

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  AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS

  THE TRAIL WEST HANG HIM TWICE

  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

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Teaser chapter

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 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: 978-0-7860-4054-4

  First electronic edition: February 2018

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4055-1

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4055-6

  CHAPTER ONE

  Some things, a man knows, he ought never do.

  Like placing your hat on a bed. Or riding a pinto horse—unless you happen to be an Indian. Or borrowing a pocketknife that has the blade open but then returning it with the blade closed. Or not sharpening a straight razor three times on each side. Or removing the ashes from a stove on a Friday. But here sat Dooley Monahan in the Elkhorn Saloon in Denver City, Colorado, about to make the worst move of his life.

  Which was saying a lot.

  “One card,” Dooley told the dealer while tossing his discard onto the center of the table.

  The dealer, a pockmarked man with a handlebar mustache, sleeve garters, and shaded spectacles, deftly slid a paste card across the green felt cloth toward Dooley’s pile of chips, which happened to be a lot smaller than when he had taken that empty seat four hours earlier.

  The stagecoach messenger—the one the size of a grizzly with about as much hair, not the other driver, who was bald and had no teeth—drew three cards. The merchant wearing the bowler hat and plaid sack suit took three as well. The dealer sent the stagecoach driver, the bald one, two cards.

  That was it. The dealer had folded on the first bet, and the other chairs had been vacated during the course of the four hours, and no one in the Elkhorn appeared willing to try to bust the stagecoach driver’s—the bald one, without any teeth but a massive pile of chips—run of luck.

  Dooley watched as the players picked up their cards, shuffled them into the proper places among the cards they held.

  “Your bet.” The dealer nodded at the toothless stagecoach man, who grinned, wet his lips, and studied his chips.

  “Check,” the man said.

  “Check,” said Dooley.

  That caused the stagecoach messenger—the one who looked like a grizzly, and smelled like one, too—to use his substantial neck to turn his substantial head at Dooley.

  “You ain’t even looked at your card, mister,” the big cuss said, and tapped a substantial finger on the felt, pointing at the card Dooley had drawn.

  Dooley sipped his beer. “I don’t have to,” he said.

  That caused the big man to straighten and study Dooley closer. Then he eyed the dealer, who merely shrugged and said, “Your bet, sir.”

  The big one looked at his cards, then at Dooley, then at the dealer, then at that double-barreled coach gun, which he used to guard against stagecoach robberies. Dooley did not plan on robbing any stagecoach, and, at this point, he wasn’t even sure he planned on sticking in the game once the betting started.

  The grizzly bear looked back at Dooley.

  “You some kind of clear voyager?” he asked.

  Dooley blinked.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I heard you,” Dooley said. “I just don’t understand what you mean.”

  “I said either you’s some kind of clear voyager or this here’s ’bout as crooked a deal as I’ve ever had—and I’ve had me a passel of crooked deals.”

  Dooley’s mouth turned to sand, and he had just swallowed about a fifth of his freshly poured beer. He began running those superstitions through his head again as the big man placed his cards on the table and lowered the right hand toward the substantial scattergun that would make even Buffalo Bill Cody or Wild Bill Hickok nervous.

  Never place your hat on a bed . . . Always sharpen your straight razor three times on each side . . . Don’t ever take ashes out of a stove on a Friday . . . And don’t be a danged fool and . . .

  The merchant interrupted Dooley’s thoughts.

  “Do you mean clairvoyant?”
>
  Now the leviathan turned his massive head at the merchant. “That’s what I said, gol darn it.”

  Dooley grinned, shook his head, and said—after breathing a sigh of relief: “I’m no clairvoyant.”

  Which turned out to be the wrong thing to say.

  Because the stagecoach messenger rose, tipping his chair over. “Then that means this here be a crooked deal.”

  The man’s hand reached for the shotgun, a massive Parker ten-gauge that looked more like a howitzer than a scattergun. And as big as that cannon seemed, the big cuss’s hand practically dwarfed it.

  The dealer had reached for the much slimmer Colt in a shoulder holster. The merchant simply turned about as pale as Dooley thought his own face must be looking about now. Blue, Dooley’s merle hound, growled. A saloon gal bringing drinks toward the neighboring table abruptly took her ryes and bourbons and beers and one glass of champagne toward the other side of the saloon. And the folks sitting at the neighboring table stopped playing cards and quickly cleared out of the way.

  That’s when the other stagecoach man—the jehu without any teeth—broke into laughter.

  “Sit down, you ignorant oaf,” he said to the grizzly bear. “He ain’t no clear voyager and this ain’t no crooked deal.”

  The grizzly trained his angry eyes at the skinny old man, who downed a shot of rye and smiled a toothless smile.

  “He ain’t got to see what card he drawed on account I didn’t bet,” the jehu said as if explaining a math equation to a bumpkin. “He’s waitin’ to see how this hand plays out, you fool. So bet, check, or fold.”

  Those words finally registered, and the giant released his grip on the shotgun. One of the neighboring poker players decided to be a gentleman and lifted the grizzly’s chair off the floor, smiled at Blue, who settled back down by Dooley’s chair’s legs, and the man returned to his own chair at his own table.

  Dooley finished his beer.

  After the giant settled back into his seat and reexamined his cards, he snorted, gave Dooley a sideways glance, and said, “I still think you might be a clear voyager.”

  Bet and find out, Dooley started to say, but he had already broken one of the sacred vows of cowboys and poker players and decided now was not the time to push his luck. He shrugged, and nodded at the saloon gal and called out, “Another round for my compatriots.”

  “Thank you,” everyone said except the grizzly, who spit into the sawdust and said, “I wasn’t no conned patriot, mister. I wore the blue with the finest artillery regiment in Rosecrans’s army.”

  “What were you?” the slim jehu said, sniggering. “A cannon?”

  The grizzly frowned and slid his winnings into the pile in the center.

  “It’ll cost you my whole pile to find out.”

  As the dealer eyed the chips, greenbacks, and coins, the merchant tossed his cards onto the deadwood. “I am too drained after this excitement to think clearly,” he said, “so I shall fold.”

  The toothless driver of stages laughed. “On account you didn’t draw what you needed.”

  The merchant did not respond.

  Said the dealer: “I make that right at one hundred thirty-seven dollars and fifty-five cents.”

  “You done all that in your noggin?” the toothless jehu said.

  “He’s probably one of ’em clear voyagers, too,” the grizzly bear growled.

  Dooley swallowed down his nerves and looked at the one card he had drawn, still facedown on the felt, but did not lift it . . . yet.

  The skinny driver grinned and said as he reached for his chips, “Why don’t we make it an even five hundred dollars?” He tossed in some greenbacks and gold coins.

  “But you checked,” the merchant pointed out.

  “There’s no law against checking and raising,” the dealer said.

  “But it’s not gentlemanly,” the merchant said.

  Dooley had to agree with the merchant’s assessment, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was to see what the dealer had delivered him. Since Dooley was neither a clairvoyant nor a clear voyager, he stretched his left hand across the table, put his fingers on the card, and thumbed the corner up just slightly. He left the card on the table and laid the four cards he kept on top of them.

  “I guess that’s a fold . . .” The sentence stopped in the toothless coot’s throat as Dooley picked up his cards and asked the dealer:

  “So it’s five hundred to me?”

  “That’s right.”

  Holding the five cards in his left hand, Dooley began counting what he had left. It amounted to a little more than $230.

  “Tell you what, mister,” the toothless codger said. “That’s a fine dog you got lyin’ there by your boots. I mean, if you want to raise.”

  Dooley grinned. “How much you think old Blue’s worth?”

  Thin lips cut off the toothless grin.

  The merchant’s chair legs scraped across the floor, and the man pushed back his bowler and walked around. “I know a few things of dogs.” He studied Blue, who did not seem the least interested. “That’s an Australian shepherd, I think. Maybe seven, eight years old. Good dog.”

  “You some dog clear voyager?” the grizzly bear asked.

  The merchant smiled. “No. I just know dogs. A dog like that, in Denver, would go for six hundred dollars.”

  Everyone at the table stared incredulously at the merchant, who sat down. “Boys,” he said, “this is Denver City. You know how much a bath costs. Or an all-night woman. A dog like that is worth a lot of money.”

  “Last dog I had,” said the grizzly bear, “I et for supper.”

  The barmaid brought over the drinks, and Dooley paid her, and asked the dealer, “Table stakes?”

  Once the dealer nodded, Dooley slid the rest of his money into the pot.

  “Are you calling, sir, or raising?” the dealer asked.

  “Just a call.” He leaned over and scratched Blue’s ears.

  “What I figured,” said the toothless gent.

  The grizzly bear snorted, and reached inside his greasy buckskin jacket, withdrawing a piece of crumpled yellow paper. “This here is the deed to a mine I gots up in Leadville. You saw the poke I cashed in to sit in this game. That poke come out of my mine. If a damned blue dog is worth six hundred bucks in this town, I reckon my mine is worth five thousand. So that’s my bet.”

  “Hoss,” the thin jehu said, the word hissing through his gums. “You can’t be bettin’ your mine.”

  “I sure am, Chester. Because I know you’s bluffin’.”

  The dealer reached into the pot and withdrew the paper. His face registered distaste as he smoothed it out and said after a long while, “This looks to be a proper deed, duly registered. But as to the veracity of its value . . .”

  “It’s worth five thousand,” the toothless jehu said. “Ain’t the best mine in Leadville, but it’s plumb fine. He won’t tell nobody where it is, though.”

  “If you’ve got a valuable mine,” the merchant said, “why are you guarding the Leadville–Denver stage?”

  That, Dooley thought, was a mighty intelligent question.

  The grizzly bear growled. “Stage runs once a week. When I ain’t riding guard fer Chester, I’s workin’ my mine.”

  The merchant shook his head. “It’s a two-day run to Denver. A two-day run back. And if there’s snow, rain, or mud, it can be three days. So you’re saying that you work a mine two or three days only, and it’s worth five thousand bucks?”

  “Yep,” the grizzly said. “Ask Chester.”

  “I tell him,” the jehu said before anyone asked him, “that he ought to give up this job and concentrate on the mine. But he don’t trust nobody to guard his silver, so he rides shotgun.”

  Everyone sipped drinks and stared at the grizzly.

  “Boys,” the jehu said, “if you don’t believe it, he puts his money in the First Republican Bank of Denver.”

  The dealer shrugged. “It’s up to you players
. The Elkhorn has no money in this hand.”

  “A thousand dollars to you, Chester,” the grizzly told the toothless man.

  The lean driver looked at his hand, then at the grizzly bear, and cursed as he tossed in his hand.

  “Ha!” The grizzly bear leaned back in his chair. “I knowed you was bluffin’. So I reckon . . .” He reached for the pot, but Dooley cleared his throat.

  “It’s a thousand to me, then?” he asked.

  The front legs to the chair slammed against the hardwood floor, and the giant turned, surprised as Dooley said, “If my dog’s worth six hundred dollars, how much would you reckon that horse I tethered to the hitching rail out front is worth?”

  “That fine bay gelding?” the merchant asked. The man was sure observant—and he knew a whole lot about the cost of things in Denver City.

  “His name’s General Grant,” Dooley said.

  “Two thousand dollars,” the merchant said. “This is Denver City, so it’s Denver prices. If you were playing in Dodge City, I’d allow it would be worth six hundred, seven hundred.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t sell him in Dodge City for two thousand,” Dooley said.

  “But you’re bettin’ him . . . and your dog?” The grizzly bear grunted.

  “You got anything else worth betting?” Dooley asked. He turned to the merchant. “How much is that scattergun worth? . . . Denver City prices? Or maybe you have a mule? A horse? Some more pokes in your saddlebags?”

  The grizzly bear tossed his cards onto the table.

  “Horatio!” the toothless cur named Chester said. “Don’t be a damned fool. At least call the son of a gun. I was bluffin’. So was he. You got him beat. You ain’t got to fold, you ignoramus!”