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  Look for These Exciting Series from

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with J. A. Johnstone

  The Mountain Man

  Preacher: The First Mountain Man

  Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man

  Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter

  Those Jensen Boys!

  The Family Jensen

  MacCallister

  Flintlock

  The Brothers O’Brien

  The Kerrigans: A Texas Dynasty

  Sixkiller, U.S. Marshal

  Hell’s Half Acre

  Texas John Slaughter

  Will Tanner, U.S. Deputy Marshal

  Eagles

  The Frontiersman

  AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS

  THE KERRIGANS A TEXAS DYNASTY

  HATE THY NEIGHBOR

  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 - An Ill Wind

  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

  BOOK TWO - The Murdering Savage

  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

  BOOK THREE - Descent into Hell

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

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  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 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: 978-0-7860-4046-9

  First electronic edition: June 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4047-6

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4047-5

  BOOK ONE

  An Ill Wind

  CHAPTER ONE

  Behind the stately façade of Kate Kerrigan’s four-pillared mansion lay a household in turmoil.

  The cook and the scullery maid, a rather unintelligent girl, the parlor maids, the butler, and two punchers who happened to be passing the house when the tumult began were all summoned to Kate’s bedroom, where her personal maid was trying to calm her distraught mistress.

  The maid stepped to the window and her hands parted, pinched forefinger and thumbs two feet apart, and studied something against the light that would have been invisible to the casual observer.

  “Well?” Kate said. “Is it as we feared?”

  The maid shook her head. “I’m sure I don’t know, ma’am.”

  “You don’t know! Why I have a good mind to box your ears, you silly girl. It’s as obvious as . . . well, as the picture on the wall over there.” Kate nodded in the direction of a framed portrait of an elderly gent with a walrus mustache. Hiram Clay was the president of the local cattlemen’s association and a man powerful enough to be courted. He’d given Kate the portrait as a gift and had begged her to keep it in her bedroom so that he could be close to her “ere fair face touches pillow and you drift into the sweetest dreams of your ever devoted Hiram.”

  Kate thought the picture hideous in the extreme and had vowed to get rid of it just as soon as a new association president was elected. But now, apart from using Hiram as a test of the maid’s vision, the portrait was far from her mind.

  Anxious people crowded into the bedroom where Kate’s breakfast lay untouched, her coffee untasted. As each one examined the long hair in the window’s morning light, Kate asked the same question. “Well? ”—“Well? ”—“Well?”

  And each time, fearful of losing their positions, the answer from cook, maids, and butler was always the same. “Ma’am, I can’t really tell.”—“I can’t see without my glasses.”—“It could be, but I’m not at all sure.”

  Finally, Willie Haynes the puncher, a tough little cuss who’d ridden for Charlie Goodnight back in the early days and was anything but the soul of discretion, stared at the hair, screwed up his face, and then said, “Yup, seen it right off. It’s as gray as a badger’s ass, boss.”

  Kate was taken aback by Haynes’s bluntness and after a few moments of stunned silence her icy voice matched her chilly demeanor. “Thank you, Willie, you can go now. You can all go. I want to be alone.”

  Haynes nodded and said, “Any time you need my opinion on a thing, Miz Kerrigan, you only have to ask.” As his fellow punchers tried unsuccessfully to steer Willie toward the door, the little cowboy added, “An’ I’m right sorry about the gray hair, boss, and how you’re all undone by it an’ all, but cheer up, you got plenty of red ones left.”

  Kate’s smile could have turned a Louisiana swamp water pond to ice. “Thank you. And thank you all,” she said. “Now I’m sure you have work that needs attending to.”

  The bedroom cle
ared rapidly as people beat a hasty retreat and Kate sat on the edge of the bed and studied the shoulders of her yellow silk robe for other treacherously ashen turncoats. There were none. She glanced at her breakfast tray, but was much too upset to eat. Well . . . perhaps she’d feel better after a piece of toast.

  Kate nibbled on a corner of the triangle of toast and her gaze fell on the chafing dish in the middle of the silver tray. No, she was too distressed to eat a bite, not even a crumb. But then, there was no harm in lifting the cover to take a look. She owed it to Jazmin, her wonderful cook, to at least see what she had prepared. Hmm . . . a nice plump pork sausage, slightly scorched the way she liked it, crispy bacon, and a sunny-faced egg.

  Well, perhaps just a bite or two. After all, she mustn’t disappoint Jazmin.

  * * *

  The chafing dish was empty but for a morsel of bacon when Kate’s butler, old Moses Rice, tapped on the door and stepped into the bedroom.

  “Gennel’man to see you, Miz Kate,” he said.

  Kate felt slightly full, as if she’d eaten too much. “Who is he, Moses? If he’s a drummer, tell him he must talk with Mr. Cobb.”

  “Ma’am, the gent says he’ll only talk with you,” Moses said. His wrinkled face took on a look of wonder. “He says he’s a prince.”

  “Prince indeed?” Kate said. “Prince of what?”

  “Of the plains, ma’am.” Moses scratched the gray wool on the side of his head, remembering. “He said for me to tell you his name is William Frederick Cody, Prince of the Plains, and showman ex . . . extra . . .”

  “Extraordinaire,” Kate said.

  Moses’s face lit up and his smile flashed. “That was it, Miz Kate. Do you know the gennel’man?”

  “I’ve heard of him. Show him into the parlor and offer him coffee. Tell Mr. Cody I’ll join him directly.”

  As her lady’s maid helped her change into a rococo, a pleated day dress of white cotton with a built-in corset that laced up the front, Kate tried to recall what she knew of William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill as she’d heard him called. He’d been an army scout and Indian fighter and now had his own Wild West show that contained picaresque elements of frontier life. Bill’s show had crossed the ocean to perform for old Queen Victoria, or was he about to do that? No, she couldn’t remember which. One thing was certain, Mr. Cody had become a very famous man, and it was said that he cut a dash with the ladies.

  So why his visit to the Kerrigan ranch? Perhaps he was passing and decided to stop and pay his respects.

  Kate checked herself in the full-length mirror and was pleased to see that her hair fell over her shoulders in thick ringlets of burnished red, not a traitorous gray in sight.

  “How do I look, Flossie?” she said.

  “Like a princess from a fairy tale,” the maid said.

  “Then I’m fit to meet the prince,” Kate said. “Very well, I’ll see Mr. Cody now.”

  Flossie, remembering the affair of the hair, nodded and said, “You look very young and lovely, ma’am.”

  “Then let us hope that Mr. Cody appreciates the efforts we’ve made on his behalf,” Kate said.

  “Oh, any fine gentleman would, ma’am,” Flossie said. And then worried for a moment that she’d spoken out of turn, she whispered, “If you don’t mind me saying so.”

  But Kate, moving with all the grace of a Celtic queen, was already opening the bedroom door and didn’t hear.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Kate Kerrigan stepped into the parlor, a tall, broad-shouldered man wearing gloriously beaded white buckskins rose to his feet. A large red bandana draped loosely around his neck, and in his hands he held a plumed, high-crowned hat with a prodigiously wide brim. He wore polished, thigh-high black boots and around his hips, as Kate noticed at once, hung a silver-studded gun belt and in the holsters a pair of ivory-handled Colts.

  “Mr. Cody, I presume,” Kate said, offering her hand.

  Buffalo Bill made a leg and bowed with a sweeping gesture of his feathered hat that was worthy of Athos, Porthos, or Aramis and for sheer elegance and grace probably out-courtiered all three.

  Bill kissed Kate’s hand, and when he straightened, he said, “Your obedient servant, madam.” Then, in an overly dramatic display, he raised his hat as though shielding his eyes from the sun. “By all that’s holy, Mrs. Kerrigan, I’m blinded by the dazzling beauty of your person.” Bill adopted a heroic pose, threw back his head, and declaimed, “Thus did King Menelaus of Sparta stand in astonished awe when he first beheld fair Helen on the massy ramparts of Troy.”

  Kate, well used to compliments from men, was nonetheless impressed by the frontiersman’s rhetoric and knowledge of the classics. “You are very gallante, sir,” she said. “Please resume your seat.”

  She was uncomfortably aware that Buffalo Bill Cody was a fine-looking man with a rampant masculinity that even Frank Cobb, her rugged segundo, would have trouble matching.

  Kate sat and said, “Have you . . .” She had trouble finding her voice, coughed, and tried again, “Have you had coffee, Mr. Cody?”

  “My dear lady . . . may I call you Gloriana?” Bill said.

  “No. Kate will do just fine.”

  “Then Kate it is.”

  Bill placed his hand on his heart as though he was about to impart a secret of the most private kind, as indeed he was. “Kate, it has been my lot since boyhood to enjoy but one daily cup of the sable brew that sharpens the wits and invigorates the body. But after the cup that cheers, I feel drawn to partake in . . . what shall we call it? Ah yes, stronger stuff.”

  “How remiss of me, Mr. Cody,” Kate said, rising. “Would bonded bourbon be more to your liking?”

  “Not a drop, dear lady.” Bill made one of his heroic gestures, his right hand extended, warding off temptation. “Not so much as a taste.”

  Kate moved to sit again, and Bill exclaimed in some haste, “But . . .”

  “Yes?” Kate said.

  “I could not but notice the exquisite slenderness of your hands, dear lady,” Bill said. “I think three fingers of bourbon from you would be a small enough portion of the viper that resides in the bottle.”

  Kate smiled, moved to the drinks tray, and poured Bill a generous glass of Old Crow. After she’d settled in her chair again and Bill had begged her indulgence to smoke a cigar, they made small talk until he’d finished his second bourbon and the cigar had burned down almost two-thirds of the way. Then Kate said, “As much as I enjoy your company and your dashing tales of derring-do on the plains, Mr. Cody, I suspect that your visit to my ranch is not entirely a social call.”

  “And indeed it is not, dear lady,” Bill said. “You have gone right to the heart of the matter. Indeed, your arrow has sped unerringly to the bulls-eye. In short, I am here to humbly beg a boon.”

  Now Kate was slightly wary. “What is the nature of this favor, Mr. Cody?”

  Bill leaned forward in his chair and his long, silvery hair tumbled over his shoulders. “Let me precede my request by stating that that our fair land is in winter’s frosty grip, torn by tempests, blasted by blizzards, snowbound, icebound, and, worst of all, homebound. In short, the weather up north is rotten and folks are staying home.”

  “So I’ve been told, Mr. Cody,” Kate said. “A traveling lightning rod salesman assured me that the extent and severity of the snowstorms are most singular and the government had declared them potentially a disaster of the greatest moment.”

  “The drummer spoke the unvarnished truth, dear lady,” Bill said. “Everywhere is as cold as a banker’s heart and I am reliably informed that in Kansas boiling water freezes so fast the ice is still warm.”

  Kate smiled and said, “Mr. Cody, say no more. I understand your predicament, and I’d be honored to have you spend the winter on my ranch. I have twelve guest rooms and I’m sure we can find one that suits you.”

  “Kate, your generosity is boundless, but, alas, if it were only that simple,” Bill said. “No, dear lady, there is indeed a major complicat
ion.”

  “Ah, you have someone else with you, a lady perhaps?”

  “I have six hundred someone elses,” Bill said. “And almost twice that number of horses, buffalo, and other animals.”

  “Six hundred people, Mr. Cody?” Kate looked shocked. “And animals? Buffalo?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And cowboys, Indians, and sharpshooters. And my private train.”

  “Private train, Mr. Cody?”

  “Yes. That is why I’m asking you if I can use your railroad spur,” Bill said.

  “My railroad spur, Mr. Cody?”

  “Yes, dear lady, to offload my people, animals, supplies, wagons, and tents. With your gracious permission we would set up camp, and spend the winter far away from the northern tempests.”

  It took a while for Kate to find the words, and then she said, “How . . . I mean, how much land would you need?”

  “Not much, dear lady, just ten to fifteen acres, a small corner, the merest morsel of your range.”

  “But, Mr. Cody, the Kerrigan ranch can’t feed that many people, to say nothing of the animals. Our winter graze is thin and our supply of hay limited. I do not wish to sound uncharitable, but . . .”

  “Fear not, dear Kate. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West is self-sufficient. We have to be since we travel all over the country and around the world. We bring our own food, fodder for the stock, and even our own cooking stoves and firewood. All we need is said railroad spur and a small patch of ground amid your boundless acres.”