Springfield 1880 Read online

  Look for these exciting Western series from

  estselling 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

  Matt Jensen

  MacCallister

  The Red Ryan Westerns

  Perley Gates

  Have Brides, Will Travel

  The Hank Fallon Westerns

  Will Tanner, Deputy U.S. Marshal

  Shotgun Johnny

  The Chuckwagon Trail

  The Jackals

  The Slash and Pecos Westerns

  The Texas Moonshiners

  AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS

  SPRINGFIELD 1880

  WILLIAM W.

  JOHNSTONE

  AND 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

  PROLOGUE

  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

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  CHAPTER 71

  CHAPTER 72

  CHAPTER 73

  CHAPTER 74

  CHAPTER 75

  CHAPTER 76

  CHAPTER 77

  CHAPTER 78

  CHAPTER 79

  CHAPTER 80

  CHAPTER 81

  CHAPTER 82

  CHAPTER 83

  CHAPTER 84

  CHAPTER 85

  CHAPTER 86

  CHAPTER 87

  CHAPTER 88

  CHAPTER 89

  CHAPTER 90

  EPILOGUE

  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.

  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: 978-0-7860-4041-4

  Electronic edition:

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4076-6 (e-book)

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4076-9 (e-book)

  PROLOGUE

  In 1880, the Springfield Armory of Springfield, Massachusetts, sent roughly one thousand new Model 1880 trapdoor .45-70-caliber rifles to Army troops stationed on the American frontier for testing in the field. The factory and the US Army hoped the new rifles would be an improvement over Springfield’s Model 1873 rifle.

  This is the story of two hundred and fifty of those Springfield 1880s.

  CHAPTER 1

  The last thing Second Lieutenant Grat Holden wanted to see was the dust he just spotted. It drifted in the cloudless sky beyond the “Two Heads,” the outcropping of rocks that topped the Dos Cabezas, which was how the mountains got their name. He had seen dust earlier, too, on the other side of the trail and had shrugged that off as a dust devil. Now, he unfastened the flap that protected the Schofield .45-caliber revolver on his left hip.

  Hooves beat toward him. Sergeant Byron Lusk reined in his dun gelding and turned his head to water a rock with tobacco juice. “Beggin’ yer pardon, suh, but—”

  “I see it, Sergeant,” Holden said.

  “Figured you would, sir. Almost didn’t even ride up to tell you.”

  “Be glad you did, Sergeant. I don’t see everything.”

  “Like that, suh?”

  Holden followed the gray-haired sergeant’s crooked finger, which pointed southeast, toward the pass they found themselves bound to pass in a few minutes. The lieutenant, however, saw only Arizona rocks, Arizona sky, and felt the Arizona heat. He was soaked with sweat beneath his dark tunic, but it wasn’t just the heat that caused him to sweat.

  “What was it, Sergeant?” Holden asked.

  “Looked like the sun reflectin’ off somethin’. Rifle. Knife. Pretty brass concha.” He chuckled. “Maybe gold. Wouldn’t that be somethin’?”

  Pulling the reins up on his bay gelding, Holden raised his right hand and heard the command called out from the first wagon behind him down to the fourth. As soon as the horse stopped, he turned to his saddlebags and found the pair of binoculars, which he brought to his face after pushing up the brim of his battered slouch hat and studied the trail, the hills above the trail, and the split between the “Two Heads.”

  “More dust, suh,” Lusk said.

  Without lowering the binoculars, Holden asked, “Where?”

  “On the trail. Somewhere between the hills.”

  The lieutenant swept another look through his glasses, but, seeing nothing, lowered them in his left hand and studied the road before him. “On the trail?”

  “Yes, suh. But if it’s a rider, he ain’t come out yet.”

  “Unless he’s riding toward Dos Cabezas, Apache Pass, or Fort Bowie,” Holden said. Dos Cabezas wasn’t much of a town to be riding to at a pace fast enough to raise dust seen by the naked eye fro
m that distance.

  “He ain’t, suh.” Lusk pointed to the road. “Rained yesterday. Good soaker.”

  Holden nodded. “I know, Sergeant. No tracks. Maybe he sees our dust, though.”

  More tobacco juice splattered the road. Sergeant Lusk wiped his mustache, beard, and lips with the brown-stained end of one of his gauntlets. “We are close to Bowie, suh.”

  “Close to Apache country, too, Sergeant.”

  The noncommissioned officer chuckled. “Hell, suh, we’re surrounded by Apache country.”

  Holden looked back at his command. He was twenty-seven years old. The men behind him made him feel ancient. Five years out of West Point, five years in Arizona Territory, and he was a battle-hardened veteran of the frontier. The men he commanded, with the exception of his sergeant, were as new as what they were hauling in four government freight wagons.

  Brand-spanking new Springfield trapdoor rifles, fresh from the armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. Crates of them, not to mention the new triangular bayonets that could be affixed underneath the barrel and enough .45-70-caliber cartridges to start a war. The Army didn’t need to start another war. They had a good one going on with the Apaches. Sometimes, Holden thought the Apaches might win.

  Back at Fort Bowie, Colonel Carlton Smythe didn’t think much of sending experimental Springfield rifles to be tested by troops, most still wet behind the ears, against veteran Apache guerrillas. Nor did Colonel Smythe like rifles. The cavalry used shorter carbines, easier to maneuver on horseback. And he despised bayonets. Shoot, Holden hadn’t even seen one saber carried by an officer in that desert country except during parades.

  So Colonel Smythe had sent Lieutenant Holden to Fort Lowell in Tucson to fetch the weapons, the ammunition, and some new green troops, and bring them back to Fort Bowie.

  Rubbing the beard stubble on his cheeks and jaw, Holden tried to figure out his best course. Make it through the little pass, and they would be a few miles from the village of Dos Cabezas. Another twenty-five miles, through Apache Pass, and they would be home safe at Fort Bowie.

  It was just getting there . . . alive . . . that troubled him.

  “You know what the colonel says.” Sergeant Lusk shifted his chaw to another cheek.

  “Yeah.” Holden leaned back in the saddle. “But he hasn’t fired a Springfield or any rifle in the five years I’ve been here. He leaves that to his junior officers and their men. He hasn’t led anything but Fourth of July parades and courts-martial.”

  “That’s one reason I like you, suh. You speak your mind. You tell the truth. And you fight, suh. You fight alongside the rest of us. I figure you ain’t no officer at all.”

  That led Holden to grin . . . till the sergeant said, “Just gettin’ kilt over weapons that might not be worth spit . . . I dunno, suh.”

  “Want to leave the wagons behind?”

  “No. Don’t reckon we should do that, suh.”

  Again, Holden looked back. He had eight troopers on four wagons. Ten men.

  “Maybe the Apaches heard the same Colonel Smythe heard, suh. That these weapons ain’t worth spit.”

  Holden shook his head. “I’ve seen Apaches armed with a blunderbuss that likely hadn’t been fired since the Revolution. I’ve seen them throw rocks. And, begging the colonel’s pardon, I don’t think the Springfield Armory would send us a rifle that will blow up in our faces. Might not be better than what we have now, but an Apache or some Mexican bandit would likely sell his soul to have one. Especially as many as we’re carrying.”

  “Lieutenant!” Sergeant Lusk pointed to the opening of the passage.

  A rider came loping out. He was raising a lot of dust.

  CHAPTER 2

  Holden let out a curse, wheeled his horse around, and loped back to the first wagon where he barked orders at the two blond-headed troopers, one pudgy, the other weighing about as much as a cholla cactus.

  The troopers—he couldn’t remember their names—stared at him blankly.

  “Ich verstehe nicht.”

  The other said, “Ich Rann Sie nicht verstehen.”

  Then both said, shrugging, “Nein.”

  Holden cursed the two Germans probably just off the boat. He cursed the recruiters who sent those two pilgrims to Arizona. He cursed his father for sending him to the United States Military Academy, and he cursed his commanding officer. Then he yelled at the two men, both Americans, in the next wagon.

  “Set the brakes to the wagon and crawl into the back. Cock your weapons and wait for me. But if somebody shoots me off my horse, do your best to stay alive. And pass the word down!”

  It was a silly order. He’d shouted so loud the men in the last wagon understood, and maybe even the two Germans got an idea about what he wanted because both took their Springfield carbines.

  Those were 1873 trapdoor models with twenty-two-inch barrels, and they fired the same caliber as the ones in the crates they had been hauling for close to a hundred miles. He doubted if the recruits with him had fired a weapon since Jefferson Barracks, and if shooting started . . . God help the mules pulling our freight.

  The bay gelding carried Holden back to Sergeant Lusk, who had brought up his Springfield, also a carbine, and rested the butt against his right thigh while keeping the reins in his left hand.

  Holden reined up and studied the dust and the rider. “Still just one?”

  “Yes, suh. Ain’t slowed down.”

  “Watch the hills, Sergeant, especially where you saw dust earlier.”

  “You are somethin’ cautious, Lieutenant.”

  Holden grinned. “I’m alive, Byron. I’m alive.”

  He found the binoculars again, and brought them to his face. It took him just moments to find the rider and bring him and the horse into focus. What he first saw, at least clearly, were the spurs. Brass. Army-issue. On black boots, also provided by Uncle Sam. He saw blue pants.

  The horse was steel dust. He saw the beaded gauntlets gripping the rein, the posture that told him the rider had likely been born in the saddle. The saddle seemed to be a McClellan. By then Holden’s heartbeat had steadied and his lungs had stopped heaving. He still sweated. He figured he would always sweat. But he was about to think that he had worked his men up, his horse up, and himself up for nothing.

  The binoculars raised, and he saw the rider’s face. The damned prankster seemed to be smiling, and his eyes, though squinting from the pounding in the saddle and the wind and the dust, might have been staring all the way across the remaining three hundred yards at Lieutenant Grat Holden. Laughing.

  “Sergeant Lusk.” Holden lowered the binoculars and shook his head.

  Lusk turned toward him.

  “Have the men stand down,” Holden said. “It’s the captain.”

  The noncommissioned officer stood in his stirrups and trained his bare eyes on the approaching galloper.

  “You sure, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What’s Captain Foster doin’, suh, ridin’ a horse like that?”

  “Other than acting like one son of a bitch, Sergeant, I don’t have a clue. But I’m sure he’ll tell us directly.”

  * * *

  Captain Jed Foster’s cackles could be heard over the pounding of the steel dust’s hooves. An expert rider, Foster pulled on the reins and the gelding slid to a stop in front of Holden and Lusk. By the time the dust cloud had settled, Foster was removing his buckskin gauntlets and shoving them into the deep pockets of his golden buckskin jacket with fringes longer than eight inches on the sleeves.

  “Hello, Mr. Holden.” Jed Foster was forty years old, and after close to twenty years in the service—the first four with the Seventh Michigan Cavalry during the War of the Rebellion, and the last decade and a half in the regular Army—he looked no older than Holden. Foster had a golden mustache with the ends twisted, a pointed goatee, and hair that fell to his shoulders.

  “Captain,” Holden said, offering a salute that was not returned, “you’re looking a lot
like Custer today, sir.”

  “I sure hope not.” Foster pulled at the stampede string securing his white hat dangling on his back and set the hat on his curly blond hair. “He is dead, you know, Mr. Holden. I’m very much alive.”

  “Yes, sir.” Holden had to smile. Very much alive described Jed Foster to a T. Tall, muscular, athletic, Foster was the envy of practically every junior officer at Fort Bowie . . . and quite a few of the married officers looked upon the dashing figure with a good amount of jealousy. He could waltz. He could do everything from the French contra dance to the mazurka or the galop or the quadrille.

  Holden noticed the bedroll and grip strapped behind Foster’s saddle.

  “Are you going somewhere, Captain?”

  “Taking a leave, Mr. Foster. The Army owes me six months. They’re giving me one.”

  “Where to, sir . . . if I may ask?”

  “I think Mexico, Mr. Holden. There’s nothing like celebrating Independence Day on the Fourth of July in Mexico.”

  “I don’t believe Mexico celebrates our independence, Captain.”

  Mexico. Jed Foster belonged in a place like San Francisco or New Orleans. Maybe the new mining metropolis just south of there called Tombstone. Chicago, New York, Boston, Charleston, or even Washington City.

  “Then I’ll celebrate her. By myself if I have to.”

  “Why Mexico, sir?”

  Foster grinned. He had perfect teeth, too, and dark blue eyes. “Mr. Holden, have you ever heard of tequila and señoritas?”

  “I have met tequila on two occasions and have conceded that he is the better man.”

  Foster laughed his thick laugh, shook his head, and beat the dust off his clothes. “And what about señoritas?”

  “I don’t get out of Bowie much, sir.”

  “You were just in Tucson.”

  “Only saw Fort Lowell, sir.”

  Foster’s tongue clucked. “One day, Grat, you and I will need to take us a trip. I can show you some fine places. Let you grow up some.”