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  THE BACKSTABBERS

  A RED RYAN WESTERN

  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

  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

  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

  AFTERWORD

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 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.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 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: 978-0-7860-4434-4

  Electronic edition:

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4435-1 (e-book)

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4435-7 (e-book)

  CHAPTER ONE

  Beneath a black sky torn apart by a raging thunderstorm, the sidelamps of the Patterson stage were lit as Red Ryan and Patrick “Buttons” Muldoon approached the town of Cottondale, some sixty miles east of El Paso, Texas.

  Buttons drew rein on the tired team and shouted over a roar of thunder, “Hell, Red, the place is in darkness. How come?”

  “I don’t know how come,” the shotgun guard said. Red wore his slicker against the hammering rain. “The place is dead, looks like.”

  “Maybe they ran out of oil. Long trip to bring lamp oil all this way.”

  “And candles. They don’t have any candles.”

  “Nothing up this way but miles of desert,” Buttons said. “Could be they ran out of oil.”

  “You said that already.”

  “I know, and that’s still what I reckon. They ran out of oil and candles and all the folks are sitting in their homes in the dark, sheltering from the rain.”

  “Or asleep,” Red said.

  Lightning scrawled across the sky like the signature of a demented god, and for a second or two, the barren brush country was starkly illuminated in sizzling light. Thunder bellowed.

  “Buttons, you sure we’re in the right place?” Red yelled. Rain drummed on the crown of his plug hat and the shoulders of his slicker. “Maybe this isn’t Cottondale. Maybe it’s some other place.”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” Buttons said. “Abe Patterson’s wire said Cottondale is east of El Paso and just south of the Cornudas Mountains. Well, afore this storm started, we seen the mountains, so that there ahead of us must be the town.”

  Red said. “What the hell kind of town is it?”

  “A dark town,” Buttons said. “Remember the first time we seen that New Mexican mining burg, what was it called? Ah, yeah, Buffalo Flat. That looked like a dark town until you seen it close. Tents. Nothing but brown tents.”

  “With people in them as I recollect,” Red said. “Well, drive on in and let’s get out of this rain and unhitch the team.”

  “Yeah, the horses are tuckered,” Buttons said. “They’ve had some hard going, this leg of the trip.”

  “So am I tuckered. I could sure use some coffee.”

  Buttons slapped the ribbons and the six-horse team lurched into motion. Lightning flashed, thunder banged as nature threw a tantrum. As it headed for a town lost in gloom, the Patterson stage was all but invisible behind the steel mesh of the teeming downpour.

  Cottondale consisted of a narrow, single street bookended by rows of stores, a hotel, a saloon, and a livery stable. A large church with a tall bell tower dominated the rest. The town was a bleak, run-down, and windswept place. The buildings huddled together like starving vagrants seeking comfort in each other’s company. It was dark, dismal, and somber. Silent as a tomb, the only sound the ceaseless rattle of the relentless rain.

  Buttons halted the team outside the s
aloon. A painted sign above the door, much faded, read THE WHEATSHEAF. “We’ll try in here.”

  Red shook his head. “Try in here for what? Buttons, this is a ghost town. It’s deader than hell in a preacher’s backyard.”

  “Can’t be. Ol’ Abe said we have a passenger . . . what the hell’s his name again? Oh yeah, Morgan Ford. He’s got to be here and a whole passel of other folks.”

  Thunder rolled across the sky.

  When it passed, Red looked around and said, “Then where the hell are all them other folks?”

  “Sleeping the sleep of the just, that’s where. There’s a church in this town, and God-fearing folks go to bed early.” He angled a look at Red. “Unlike some I know.”

  Red reached under his slicker and consulted his watch. “It’s only eight o’clock.”

  “Farmers,” Buttons said. “Farmers go to bed early, something to do with all that plowing they do at the tail end of a horse. All right. Let’s try the saloon. Day or night, you ever seen an empty saloon? I sure as hell haven’t.”

  The saloon was as empty as last year’s bird nest. Cobwebbed and dark, the shadows were as black as spilled ink. The mahogany bar dominated a room with a few tables and chairs scattered around a dance floor. A potbellied stove stood in a corner. Red thumbed a match into flame and held it high. The guttering light revealed pale rectangles on the walls where pictures had once hung, and the mirror behind the bar had been smashed into splinters.

  “Ow!” The match had burned down and scorched Red’s fingers. Irritated, he repeated, “Like I said . . . we’re in a damned ghost town.”

  Buttons had been exploring around the bar, and his voice spoke from the murk. “Three bottles. All of them empty.” Lightning flared as Buttons stepped toward Red in the dazzle, and he flickered like a figure in a magic lantern show. “We’ve been had. This is what they call a wild-goose chase.”

  “I don’t think the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company is one to play practical jokes,” Red said. “Abe never made a joke in his life.”

  “You’re right. Abe wouldn’t play a trick on us,” Buttons said. “But it seems somebody is, and if I find who done it, I’ll plug him for sure.”

  “Unhitch the team and let the horses shelter overnight in the livery stable. I’ll get a fire going in the saloon stove and boil up some coffee.”

  “Fire will help us dry off. Damn, Red, this was a wasted trip.”

  Red smiled, “It’s on the way back to the Patterson depot in San Angelo. We didn’t lose anything by it.”

  “Except a fare,” Buttons said.

  “Yeah, except a fare. But I reckon Abe Patterson can afford it.”

  Buttons closed his slicker up to the neck and stepped toward the door. Red lingered for a few moments and decided that the chairs would burn nicely in the stove. He craved coffee and the cigarettes he could build without the downpour battering paper and tobacco out of his fingers.

  Button’s voice came from the doorway, sounding hollow in the silent lull between thunderclaps. “Red, you better come see this. And you ain’t gonna like it.”

  Red’s boot heels thudded across the timber floor as he walked to the open door. “What do you see? Is it a person?”

  “No, it’s that,” Buttons said, pointing.

  A hearse drawn by a black-draped horse stood in the middle of the rain-lashed street. Just visible in the murk behind the large, oval-shaped windows was a coffin, not a plain, hammered pine box, but by all appearances a substantial casket made from some kind of dark wood accented with silver handles and hinges.

  “What the hell?” Red said.

  “I don’t see anybody out there,” Buttons said. “Who the hell is in the box?”

  “Maybe our passenger.”

  “Red, don’t make jokes,” Buttons said. “I’m boogered enough already.”

  “Let’s take a look out there. A hearse doesn’t just appear all by itself.”

  * * *

  Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon stepped into the street that was suddenly illuminated by a flash of lightning that glimmered on a tall, cadaverous man who wore a black frock coat and top hat and seemed uncaring of the rain that soaked him. The man’s skin was an ashy gray, as though he spent too much time indoors, and he held a hefty Bible with a silver cross on the front cover in his right hand, close to his chest.

  “Well, howdy,” Buttons said. “Who the hell are you?”

  Lightning shimmered, turning the rain into a cascade of steel needles, and thunder boomed before the man spoke. “I am the Reverend Solomon Palmer of this town. You have come for our dear, departed brother Morgan Ford, have you not?”

  Rain ran off the brim of Buttons’s hat as he shook his head. “Not the dear departed Morgan Ford, mister. The alive and kicking Morgan Ford.”

  “Alas, Brother Ford passed away two days ago,” Palmer said.

  “From what?” Buttons stepped back, alarmed. “Nothing catching, I hope.”

  “From congestion of the heart,” Palmer said. “I watched his pale face turn black and then he gave a great sigh and a moment later he hurried off to meet his Creator.” The preacher clutched his Bible closer. “He was a fine man, was Brother Ford.”

  “He was a fare,” Buttons said. “And now he isn’t. There ain’t no profit in dead men for the Abe Patterson and Son Stage and Express Company.”

  “Ah, but there is,” Palmer said. He smiled, revealing teeth that looked like yellowed piano keys. “Come with me . . . Mister . . . ah . . .”

  “Muldoon, but you can call me Buttons. And the feller in the plug hat is Red Ryan, my shotgun guard.”

  “Come with you where?” Red asked. “Me and Mr. Muldoon are not trusting men.”

  “I will do you no harm,” Palmer said. He glanced up at the black sky where blue lightning blazed. “Only the dead are abroad on a night such as this.”

  “Cheerful kind of ranny, ain’t you?” Buttons said. “I’ll have to see to my horses before I go anywhere, and I’ll take care of your hearse hoss.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe I just said that.”

  “Hearse hoss,” Red said. “It’s got a ring to it.”

  “Yes, I’d appreciate it if you’d take care of my mare,” Palmer said. “I think you’ll find hay in the livery, and perhaps some oats.”

  “And where will you be?” Buttons said.

  “Right here, waiting for you.” Palmer looked stark and grim and bloodless as the storm cartwheeled around him, putting Buttons in mind of a corpse recently dug up by a resurrectionist.

  * * *

  The horses were grateful to get out of the storm and gave Buttons and Red no trouble as they were led to stalls and rubbed down with sacking before Buttons forked them hay and gave each a scoop of oats.

  Buttons had been silent, deep in thought as he worked with the team, until he said, “Red, what do you make of that reverend feller?”

  “He’s a strange one.”

  “You mean three pickles short of a full barrel?”

  Red nodded. “Something like that.”

  “He said that there’s profit in the dead man. Did you hear him say that?”

  “More or less.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Enough to listen to what he has to say.”

  “Here,” Buttons said, turning his head to look behind him. “He ain’t a ghost, is he?”

  “A what?”

  “A ghost, a spook, a revenant . . . whatever the hell you want to call it.”

  Red smiled. “No, I think he’s just a downright peculiar feller. Man must be crazy to live in a ghost town.”

  Buttons pointed a finger. “See, you said it, Red. You said ghost.”

  “I was speaking about the town, not the preacher. Let’s go hear what he has to say.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Reverend Solomon Palmer led Red Ryan and Buttons Muldoon to a cabin behind a tumbledown rod and gun store that still bore a weathered sign above its door. The thunderstorm had passed b
ut had left a steady rain in its wake, and when Red and Buttons stepped inside, their slickers streamed water onto the dirt floor.

  Palmer lit a smoking oil lamp, and a mustard-yellow glow filled the cabin. Red noticed that a well-used Winchester stood in a gun rack, and hanging beside it, a holstered Colt exhibited even more wear. He decided right there and then that there was more to the Reverend Palmer than met the eye. The man might be a parson now, but that hadn’t always been the case . . . unless the firearms belonged to someone else.

  A log fire burned in a stone fireplace flanked by two rockers. A small dining table with a pair of wooden chairs completed the furnishings. Above the mantel hung a portrait of a stern-looking man in the uniform of a Confederate brigadier general. The old soldier had bushy gray eyebrows and a beard that spread over his chest, and he bore a passing resemblance to Palmer. The cabin had an adjoining room, but the door was closed. The place smelled of pipe smoke and vaguely of blended bourbon but had no odor of sanctity that Red associated with the quarters of the clergy.

  “Help yourself to coffee,” Palmer said, nodding to the pot on the fire. “Cups on the shelf.” The man removed his top hat, revealing thinning black hair. He set the hat down on the table. “Are you sharp set?”

  “We could eat,” Buttons said, a man who could always eat.

  “Soup in the pot, bowls on the shelf, spoons on the table,” Palmer said. “Eat and drink and then we’ll talk about Morgan Ford.”

  The coffee was hot, black, and bitter, but Red found the soup surprisingly good. “Good soup,” he said after he’d finished his bowl.

  “I spent some time as a trail cook for old Charlie Goodnight,” Palmer said. “I learned how to make bacon and beans and beef soup, because it was one of Charlie’s favorites.”

  A cook could acquire a Colt and a Winchester, but Red figured he’d never use them the way Palmer’s had been used. He still put a question mark against the reverend’s name.

  Buttons burped more or less politely and then said, “Tell us about the dead man in the box.”