The Family Jensen Read online

  THE FAMILY JENSEN:

  HELLTOWN

  MASSACRE

  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

  Title Page

  Prologue

  BOOK ONE

  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

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Sounding something like gunfire, the sharp rapping of hammers driving nails deep into wood drifted past the iron bars in the jail cell’s small single window. The man lying on the uncomfortable bunk underneath the window listened to the racket, and a grim smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “You think it’s funny, Jensen?” The angry voice came from a man who sat on a three-legged stool in the aisle that ran between the iron-barred enclosures in the cell block. His hat was pushed back on a balding head, and a soup-strainer mustache drooped over his mouth. He had a lawman’s star pinned to his vest and a double-barreled Greener shotgun across his lap. He was taking no chances with that prisoner.

  The badge-toter went on, “Don’t you know what that is? Mr. Longacre’s men are buildin’ a gallows for you, boy.”

  The prisoner nodded without looking over at the lawman. “I know, Sheriff.”

  “I wouldn’t be grinnin’ if I was you. I’d be tryin’ to make my peace with the Lord, although I ain’t sure He’d pay any mind to prayers offered up by a lowdown murderer like you.”

  The prisoner didn’t respond. He’d had his say in court already and declared his innocence. Of course, it hadn’t done any good. How could it when the judge and the jury were bought and paid for by Cyrus Longacre’s money, the same as the so-called lawman who was guarding him? The defense attorney had been a pitiful drunk, the witnesses had all lied, and the verdict was a foregone conclusion.

  The young man on the bunk had always tried to stay on the right side of the law—well, most of the time, anyway—but what passed for law in that town wasn’t the real thing. The place was like a medieval fiefdom, where the only real law was the word of Cyrus Longacre, its iron-handed king. Bloody-handed, too, when you got right down to it, because Longacre was responsible for the death of at least one person the prisoner knew of and probably more. For sure, Longacre planned to be responsible for more deaths, unless somebody came along to stop him.

  Somebody was going to, the prisoner thought. Help was on the way.

  If it got there in time.

  The cell block door was ajar, so both the prisoner and the sheriff heard the door into the lawman’s office when it opened. Heavy footsteps thudded on the plank flooring. The cell block door swung back even more. A large, powerful figure appeared in the opening, his bulky frame practically filling it.

  “The boys and I thought we’d come give you a break, Sheriff,” the newcomer said.

  The prisoner sat up and swung his legs off the bunk. He moved with a swift, easy efficiency that spoke of a man in peak physical condition. As he came to his feet, he looked past the man who had just entered the cell block and saw several more hardbitten hombres. They wore cold grins on their faces as they looked through the bars at him.

  The sheriff stood up to greet the visitors. “I’m all right, Judd, I don’t reckon I need any relief right now—”

  “Sure you do, Sheriff,” the man called Judd broke in. “It’s getting on toward suppertime, and you must be hungry.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Why don’t you go down to the Swede’s place and get yourself something to eat?”

  “I-I dunno . . .”

  “We’ll watch the prisoner.” Judd’s voice hardened. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  The sheriff lowered the shotgun to his side, holding it with one hand while he wiped the back of his other hand across his nose. “Well, I, uh, reckon it wouldn’t hurt anything. I am feelin’ a mite hungry.”

  Judd nodded. “That’s what I thought. Go on now. Take your time. We’ll be here when you get back.”

  The sheriff glanced at the prisoner, swallowed hard, and shuffled out of the cell block. One of the hardcases who had come in with Judd slammed the door closed behind the lawman.

  Judd sauntered over to the door of the only occupied cell. He was tall, lean-hipped but broad-shouldered, with heavy slabs of muscle on his arms, back, and chest that bulged the shirt he wore. His hat was thumbed back on crisp, curly, black hair. As he grinned at the prisoner, he reached down to unbuckle the gunbelt strapped around his hips.

  “How are you doing, Jensen? Starting to worry about what’s going to happen come morning?”

  The prisoner shook his head. “I’m innocent. They’re not going to hang an innocent man.”

  Judd threw back his head and gave a booming laugh. “You’re joking, right? Plenty of innocent men have wound up dancing at the end of a hang rope. But that doesn’t matter, because you’re guilty. You slaughtered that poor girl, and you know it.”

  “I never hurt her. You know that.”

  Judd touched his chest. “Me? How would I know?”

  “Because if you didn’t kill her yourself, you know who did . . . and why.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong, mister,” Judd declared.

  “Why are you here?” The prisoner had a hunch he knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway.

  “The boys and I are just public-spirited citizens, doing our civic duty. Helping out the sheriff by guarding his prisoner while he gets some supper.”

  “He has deputies to handle that job,” Jensen pointed out.

  “Maybe so, but you don’t see any of them around, do you?”

  That was true enough. Nobody was there except Judd and his friends, and the man inside the cell.

  Judd had coiled his shell belt around the holstered Colt. He handed it to one of his companions and said, “Hang on to that for me, would you?”

  “Sure, Judd.” The man practically chuckled with anticipation. “I’d be glad to.”

  Judd reached into his pocket. “Just so happens I’ve got a key here that’ll unlock this cell door. You want me to unlock it, Jensen?”

  “If you do, are you going to let me walk out of here and ride away?”

  “You know better than that.” The key rattled against iron as Judd thrust it into the lock. “But even if I said yes . . . even if we let you go . . . you wouldn’t do that, would you? You wouldn’t just ride away and never come back.”

  Judd didn’t deserve an honest answer, but the prisoner gave him one anyway. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t. You’re too blasted stubborn for that. Step back.”

  Jensen didn’t budge. Several of the
men with Judd raised the guns they had drawn and pointed the revolvers at him.

  “You’re not going to shoot me,” the prisoner said in a cool, steady voice. “It’s too important to Longacre that I swing.”

  “Oh, you’ll swing, all right,” Judd said, “but there’s nothing saying you can’t be carried to the gallows with a couple of bullet-shattered knees. It’s up to you whether you’re able to walk to your death or not.”

  With his face hardening into bleak lines, Jensen backed away from the iron-barred door.

  Judd pushed it open and stepped into the cell. “Might as well get this over with.” He balled his hands into massive fists. “You won’t enjoy it, but it won’t kill you. That’s for the hangman to do.” With that, he launched a punch at the prisoner’s head.

  Judd was taller and heavier, and for a man of his size, he was quick.

  But the jailbird was quicker. He ducked under the blow, causing Judd’s fist to sail harmlessly over his head. Missing threw Judd off-balance. He stumbled forward a step, right into the hard punch that slammed into his midsection.

  With Judd’s cronies right outside the cell, Jensen had little chance of escaping a beating. He was going to deal out as much damage in return as he possibly could.

  Judd gasped and turned pale as the blow drove most of the air from his lungs. Twisting aside, his assailant clubbed his hands together, and brought them crashing down against the thick muscle on the side of Judd’s neck, knocking him against the bars on the cell’s side wall. His hat fell off.

  The prisoner lowered his head and drove his shoulder into Judd’s chest, causing Judd’s head to bounce hard off the bars. Almost too fast for the eye to see, Jensen landed a left jab solidly on Judd’s nose. Blood spurted as cartilage crunched under the impact. He howled in shock and pain.

  One of the men outside the cell shouted, “Get in there and get him!”

  Judd swept out an arm like the trunk of a young tree and bellowed, “No! He’s mine!”

  Like a maddened bull, he charged.

  The cell was too small for him to work up much momentum. Jensen’s superior speed, quickness, and agility once more came into play as his hands shot out and grabbed the front of Judd’s shirt. Pivoting smoothly, he used the bigger man’s momentum against him and with a heave sent Judd crashing face-first into the bars on the other side of the cell.

  Judd rebounded and went down hard, landing on his back on the cell’s stone floor. The prisoner pounced on him, drove a knee into his belly, and locked his hands around Judd’s neck. Caught without much air in his lungs, Judd’s face turned red as he struggled for breath. Jensen’s grip on his neck prevented him from getting any.

  Judd bucked and writhed, but the prisoner hung on with grim determination, like a cowboy riding a wild bronc. He ducked his head and hunched his shoulders so Judd’s flailing fists fell harmlessly on his back. He wasn’t going to choke the life completely out of the big man, but wanted him to wake up sweating and crying out from nightmares when he dreamed about what happened in that cell.

  With his pulse thundering so loudly inside his head Jensen barely heard the swift rush of feet behind him. He didn’t have time to turn, and he probably wouldn’t have let go of Judd’s throat anyway. Something slammed into the back of his head and drove him forward. Probably a gun butt, he thought fleetingly. The men surrounded him, knocking him loose from Judd, kicking him, stomping him, pistol-whipping him. He still thought they wouldn’t kill him unless it was by accident. Cyrus Longacre wanted the show that a hanging would provide.

  So he could endure the beating, Matt Jensen told himself. He could endure, and soon Smoke and Preacher would be there and everything would be different. Longacre would realize the truth of that scripture about reaping the whirlwind.

  But at that moment, as red-shot darkness descended on him, Matt couldn’t help wish he had never ridden into Helltown.

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter 1

  Ten days earlier

  When the sign was first put up, it read HALLTOWN, probably because the town’s founder had been named Hall, Matt Jensen mused as he brought his horse to a stop and smiled. Some wag had crossed out the A and above it painted a somewhat shaky E, so the sign now welcomed travelers to HELLTOWN.

  Funny, Matt thought, the settlement didn’t look very hellish. It looked like hundreds of other Western cowtowns. Tucked into a rugged region of Nevada, it was surrounded by rangeland that rolled up to the snow-capped mountains visible in the distance. It was pretty country in its way. Matt wondered how the hunting would be in those mountains. He was willing to bet the fishing would be good in the icy streams tumbling down from the heights.

  A few weeks of hunting, fishing, and just taking it easy sounded pretty good to him. He would pick up some supplies in the settlement and move on. Might spend one night here, he told himself, sleep in a real bed with a roof over his head for a change.

  Matt Jensen was young, but his face bore the permanent tan of a man who spent most of his time outdoors. The slight squint around his pale blue eyes spoke of the same thing. Those eyes had seen a lot. The frontier often grew an hombre up fast . . . either that or it killed him. The fact that Matt had survived revealed a lot about him.

  So did the ease with which he carried the .44 double-action Colt on his right hip and the Bowie knife sheathed on his left. The stock of a Winchester .44-40 stuck up from a sheath strapped to his saddle. He rode a big sorrel and didn’t have a pack horse. He was in the habit of traveling light. Everything he owned was in his saddlebags or rolled up in the bedroll tied on behind the saddle. That was the way of a wanderer.

  And Lordy, Matt Jensen had done some wandering in his life, which he had begun with another name. Although he had never forgotten his murdered family, he considered his life to have really started on the day he met Smoke Jensen. Smoke had raised the youngster called Matt, becoming both adopted father and brother to him, teaching Matt everything he needed to know to survive on the frontier, but more important, teaching him to be a man. There was never any doubt in Matt’s mind that when it came time for him to leave, he would take Smoke’s last name.

  Since striking out on his own, Matt had done a lot of things to make ends meet: cowboyed a little, ridden shotgun for various stage and freight lines, scouted for the army, cut trail for surveyors, guided wagon trains . . . anything to make a little money and at the same time keep him from being tied down. Anything legal and honorable, that is. Smoke wouldn’t have had it any other way, and Matt was the same.

  But always, always, the lure of the unknown was there, calling him on, tantalizing him with the prospect of what might be on the other side of the next hill or the next river.

  Those mountains he could see were sirens singing to him. He would heed their summons as soon as he could, but they were mountains, he reminded himself, and would still be there tomorrow.

  As he rode into town, he noticed a large building under construction at the eastern end of the settlement. The frame and the rafters were up, but it didn’t have any walls or roof yet. Judging by its size, shape, and placement in the community, Matt thought it looked like a railroad station. But there were no railroad tracks running into Halltown.

  Maybe some spur line was building in this direction, he thought. The folks in town could know about it and be getting a jump on the depot. Often the station would be built and ready before the steel rails ever reached a settlement.

  Matt reined the sorrel to a stop in front of Gibson’s Mercantile. He swung down from the saddle and looped the horse’s reins around a hitch rail. He had cast a thoughtful eye toward Temple’s Saloon as he passed it, but told himself to deal with practical matters and buy supplies first. Once that was taken care of, he could wet his whistle. There might even be a pretty girl to flirt with.

  He didn’t have to go to the saloon for that, he realized as he walked into the general store, which seemed empty of customers. The tiny clinking sounds his spurs made were magnified by the high ceiling and
echoed slightly as he went down a central aisle between rows of shelves filled with clothing, buckets, washboards, clothespins, pots and pans, chamber pots, bedding, lanterns, fancy lamps with shades, framed lithographs of famous paintings, rolled-up rugs, and scores of other odds and ends of daily life. Glass-fronted cases to the sides displayed candy and toys for the youngsters, and for the adults, knives, hatchets, axes, pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Barrels full of crackers and pickles sat in front of a counter that ran along the rear of the store. Beans, coffee, sugar, flour, and other staples were in barrels and bins behind the counter.

  Also behind the counter was a young woman who smiled at Matt as he approached. She had red hair, a scattering of freckles across her face, and brilliant green eyes. “Can I help you, sir?”

  Matt thumbed his hat back on his blond hair and returned the smile. “Ah, that lilt in your voice tells me you’re from Ireland, and a prettier Irish Maureen I’ve not laid eyes on in a long time.”

  “How did you know?”

  “That you’re from Ireland?” Matt asked, a little surprised by her question.

  “No, that my name is Maureen. Maureen Ferguson, and ’tis only your eyes you’ll be laying on me, good sir, and not even them if you don’t stop being so bold about it. I have a good broom back here, and I don’t mind using it to sweep trash out of my store.”

  She was smiling, but Matt had no doubt she meant what she said. Her eyes had turned fiery. He laughed. “I meant no disrespect, Miss Ferguson. It is Miss, isn’t it?”

  “’Tis.” She nodded and looked pointedly at his hat. “And to whom am I speaking?”

  He reached up and took off the Stetson, holding it in front of his blue, bib-front shirt. “My name is Matt Jensen, and it’s an honor and a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ferguson.”

  “Jensen. That’s a Scandahoovian name, isn’t it?”

  “So they say,” Matt replied, not bothering to tell her that in his case, it was also an adopted name. “But I’ve never been any closer to Norway or Sweden than Kansas. I was born there. I’m afraid I haven’t seen as much of the world as you have.”