Too Soon to Die
Look for these exciting Western series from bestselling 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
THE JENSEN BRAND TOO SOON TO DIE
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
THE JENSEN FAMILY FIRST FAMILY OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
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
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2019 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: 978-0-7860-4400-9
Electronic edition:
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4401-6
ISBN-10: 0-7860-4401-2
THE JENSEN FAMILY FIRST FAMILY OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
Smoke Jensen—The Mountain Man
The youngest of three children and orphaned as a young boy, Smoke Jensen is considered one of the fastest draws in the West. His quest to tame the lawless West has become the stuff of legend. Smoke owns the Sugarloaf Ranch in Colorado. Married to Sally Jensen, father to Denise (“Denny”) and Louis.
Preacher—The First Mountain Man
Though not a blood relative, grizzled frontiersman Preacher became a father figure to the young Smoke Jensen, teaching him how to survive in the brutal, often deadly Rocky Mountains. Fought the battles that forged his destiny. Armed with a long gun, Preacher is as fierce as the land itself.
Matt Jensen—The Last Mountain Man
Orphaned but taken in by Smoke Jensen, Matt Jensen has become like a younger brother to Smoke and even took the Jensen name. And like Smoke, Matt has carved out his destiny on the American frontier. He lives by the gun and surrenders to no man.
Luke Jensen—Bounty Hunter
Mountain Man Smoke Jensen’s long-lost brother Luke Jensen is scarred by war and a dead shot—the right qualities to be a bounty hunter. And he’s cunning, and fierce enough, to bring down the deadliest outlaws of his day.
Ace Jensen and Chance Jensen—Those Jensen Boys!
Smoke Jensen’s long-lost nephews, Ace and Chance, are a pair of young-gun twins as reckless and wild as the frontier itself . . . Their father is Luke Jensen, thought killed in the Civil War. Their uncle Smoke Jensen is one of the fiercest gunfighters the West has ever known. It’s no surprise that the inseparable Ace and Chance Jensen have a knack for taking risks—even if they have to blast their way out of them.
CHAPTER 1
Sugarloaf Ranch, Colorado, 1902
The door slammed so hard it shivered in its frame. The echoes of its violent closing mingled with the sound of a loud, disgusted, very unladylike snort coming from the hallway just outside Smoke Jensen’s study and office, followed by angry footsteps stomping away.
“Well”—Sally Jensen looked at her husband from the depths of a comfortable armchair across the room—“aren’t you going to go after her?”
Smoke leaned back in his chair behind the desk and looked at his wife, still slim and beautiful more than a quarter of a century after he had first laid eyes on her. The faint lines around her eyes and mouth, the streaks of silver here and there in her thick dark hair, were invisible to him.
“And do what?” he asked. “Denny’s a grown woman. I can’t exactly put her over my knee and paddle her.”
“I don’t recall you ever doing that even when she was a child. But you could give her a stern talking-to.”
Smoke cocked his head a little to the side and frowned. “You know our daughter as well as I do. Do you really think that would do any good?”
“So you’re just going to let her be headstrong and stubborn?”
“At this point, I don’t reckon we have a whole heap of choice in the matter.” Smoke shrugged. “But that doesn’t mean she’s going to ride in that race.”
“How are you going to stop her?” Sally wanted to know.
“The Sugarloaf is still our ranch. I reckon we’ve got some say in what happens around here.”
“I’d like to think so.”
Smoke stood up. Like Sally, he looked a good ten or fif
teen years younger than he really was, a powerful, broad-shouldered man apparently in the prime of life. In his study in his own house, he wasn’t wearing a gun, but a walnut-butted Colt lay on the desk within easy reach and on a rack behind him rested several fully loaded Winchesters and shotguns. He was the fastest, deadliest man with a gun in the history of the West, and having shooting irons all around him was as natural as breathing, although these days he considered himself just a middle-aged, peace-loving rancher.
Sally stood up, too, and moved to put a hand on his arm. “I’m too protective of her, aren’t I? She’s proven more than once that she’s her father’s daughter.”
“She’s tough and capable when she needs to be,” Smoke agreed. A wistful smile touched his face. “But she’s still my little girl, too.”
“She and Louis spent so much time away from here while they were growing up, it seems like we missed their childhood.”
Smoke rested his hands on his wife’s shoulders, then drew her into an embrace. “We did what we had to because of Louis’s health problems and to give him the best chance for a normal life. Look at him now, studying law, marrying a fine young woman, and getting a son of his own in the bargain. I’d say things turned out all right.”
“But you’re an optimist, Smoke. You always think things turn out all right . . . and if they don’t, you make them turn out all right, at the point of a gun, if need be.”
“Well, I always said that a gun’s just a tool, so you’d better use it the right way.” His voice hardened slightly as he added, “I’ve known plenty who tried to use one the wrong way, and we might run into hombres like that again.”
“Oh,” Sally said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”
CHAPTER 2
Denise Nicole Jensen was headed for the corral behind the biggest of the Sugarloaf’s barns when she realized she was still stomping her booted feet against the ground like a little kid throwing a tantrum. She halted for a moment and drew in a deep breath, willing herself to calm down. She wasn’t sure why she was so upset. She had expected her mother to react in exactly the way she had.
It wasn’t like being forbidden to do something had ever stopped Denny in the past.
Moving at a more deliberate pace, she approached the corral. In her early twenties, Denny was a very attractive young woman with curly blond hair she wore loose at the moment under her brown Stetson perched atop her head and tilted back slightly. She knew her mother thought she didn’t like to wear dresses, but that wasn’t strictly true. She just preferred to dress appropriately for whatever the situation in which she found herself. On the ranch, that meant jeans and boots, and currently, a man’s red-checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up over her tanned forearms.
Three people stood outside the corral, leaning on the fence watching as one of the Sugarloaf hands worked with a horse inside the enclosure. One of the spectators was Calvin Woods, the ranch’s foreman who had gone to work for Smoke as a young man—little more than a boy, really—many years earlier. He had grown to be a top hand and a more than capable ramrod for the ranch’s large crew.
Next to Cal stood Denny’s twin brother, Louis Arthur Jensen. The resemblance between him and Denny was strong, although Louis’s hair was a sandy shade of brown, darker than Denny’s blond curls. He took more after his mother Sally and lacked the rugged features of many of the Jensen males, although his jaw had a hint of toughness and his eyes were keen, penetrating, and intelligent.
Plagued by ill health growing up—a bad heart and an assortment of other ailments—Louis had spent much of his childhood living with relatives in England while seeking medical treatments from a variety of doctors there and on the continent. Denny had lived with him on the country estate, and it was there she had learned to ride.
In the past year, since the two of them had returned to live on the Sugarloaf, Louis’s health seemed to have benefitted from the sun and the fresh air and the generally more active life he led, although he still had to be careful not to overexert himself. A specialist in San Francisco had warned that his heart could still give more trouble any time. Louis tried not to let that hold him back too much. His stubborn streak might not be as wide as his sister’s, but he was still a Jensen, after all.
Next to Louis stood a dark-haired, nine-year-old boy. Wearing range clothes and a cowboy hat, Bradley Buckner leaned forward and grasped one of the corral rails as he watched what was going on. Inside the corral, the ranch hand had just finished saddling a young horse. The animal was dark brown, with white stockings on the left foreleg and right hind leg and a white blaze on its face.
“When can I ride him?” asked young Brad with excitement in his voice.
Cal chuckled. “Don’t get in a big hurry. We don’t know how he’s going to take to this whole process. He’s still pretty green, you know. But there’s nobody better than Rafael at getting a horse ready to ride.”
The ranch hand, Rafael De Santos, was a middle-aged Mexican in ranch clothes. A small, pointed beard adorned his chin and gave his leathery face a mark of distinction. He ran a hand along the horse’s slightly quivering flank and murmured to the animal in a mixture of soft, liquid Spanish and English. Some men broke horses. Rafael preferred to take his time and build them into being good saddle mounts.
Denny leaned against the fence on Brad’s other side and looked down at the boy. “How you doin’, kid?”
Brad pointed and said, “That’s going to be my horse.”
“I heard. A top hand needs a good mount, more than just about anything else.”
Brad turned his head to look up at her. “You think I’m gonna be a top hand?”
“Of course. Everybody who works on the Sugarloaf is.” Denny grinned. “I think it must be something in the air.”
“I hope so.” Brad added solemnly, “I want to earn my keep.”
“You’ll do that just by being my son,” Louis told him.
“That’s because you’re about to marry my mother. That’s not anything that I did.”
Denny chuckled. “I like that. Kid’s got an independent streak.”
“I wonder who else around here does,” muttered Louis. The comment drew a smile from Cal.
Inside the corral, Rafael continued talking to the horse. He put his left foot in the stirrup and rested a little weight on it. The horse shied, but Rafael stayed with him, hands stroking just like his voice. The horse settled down. Rafael took hold of the saddle horn and swung up.
Instantly, the horse exploded into wild bucking. Sunfishing, switching ends, twisting and writhing, and doing everything in its power to dislodge the unexpected weight on its back. Rafael stayed right where he was, stuck tight as a burr, until the horse slowed its frenzied bucking. Then he slipped smoothly from the saddle and started stroking and talking to the horse again.
Brad’s eyes were wide as he said, “He woulda killed me if he did that while I was trying to ride him.”
“That’s why it’s going to take some time before he’s ready,” Cal explained. “Sorry it won’t be in time for the wedding, but you can keep riding that mare you’ve been riding until Rafe’s got this young fella used to the idea.”
“That’s all right.” Brad paused, then added, “I wish I could ride in the race.”
Still grinning, Denny gave him a friendly push on the shoulder and said, “Even if you did, you wouldn’t beat me.”
Admiration shining in his eyes, Brad looked up at her. “You’re going to ride in the race?”
“I sure am.”
Louis gave her a dubious glance. “Mother and Father agreed to that?”
“I don’t have to ask their permission,” Denny replied with a trace of anger in her voice.
“So in other words, they didn’t agree. Especially Mother.”
“Don’t you worry about that. You just wait and see what happens tomorrow.”
A new voice spoke up from behind them. “I know what’s going to happen tomorrow. Louis and I are getting married.”
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Denny looked around to see that Melanie Buckner had come up to the little group at the corral. She was a very pretty, brown-haired young woman, several years older than Louis. That gap in their ages wasn’t enough to make any difference, and it certainly hadn’t stopped them from falling in love during a perilous journey from San Francisco through the Sierra Nevada Mountains the previous December. Nor had the fact that Melanie was a widow and had a young son given Louis any pause when he decided to ask her to marry him.
Denny, for one, was glad that her brother had worked up the gumption to pop the question. She liked Melanie a great deal, and she was looking forward to having Brad as her nephew.
All that was left was the actual wedding, which would take place at the ranch the next day. Of course, the ceremony itself wasn’t all that was going to happen. There was also an honest-to-goodness fandango to be held, the likes of which the Sugarloaf had never seen before. Since Smoke was the most famous resident of the area, scores of folks would come from the nearby town of Big Rock and from all over the valley to help celebrate the union of Smoke’s son Louis to Melanie Buckner. All of Smoke and Sally’s friends would be there to watch the ceremony and then participate in the huge feast and party to follow.
Before that, however, would be a horse race in which the riders would gallop a couple of miles up the valley from the ranch headquarters before making a big turn and heading back to the finish line as fast as possible. That was drawing a lot of interest, too, as well as plenty of wagers. Nothing cowboys liked better than betting on their favorite horses and their own skill as riders. Louis had worried a little that his and Melanie’s wedding was being turned into a rodeo, but she had assured him that she didn’t mind.
Denny happened to know that Melanie’s late husband Tom had been a cowboy and had died as a result of a riding mishap, so she suspected that Melanie might be putting on a brave face, at least to a certain extent, because she didn’t want to kick up a fuss.