Killer Take All
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AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS
KILLER TAKE ALL A DUFF MACCALLISTER WESTERN
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTON 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
Author’s Historical Note
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
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
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: 978-0-7860-4360-6
Electronic edition:
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4361-3 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 0-7860-4361-X (e-book)
Author’s Historical Note
In 1886 Thomas Sturgis, a rather substantial cattleman in northeast Wyoming, suggested to Union Pacific that a local company be created to lay tracks from Cheyenne, Wyoming, into northern Wyoming and Montana. Thus, the Cheyenne and Northern Railway was established. The initial investors included Thomas Sturgis, as well as the first president of the Cheyenne Club, a man named Phillip Dater.
The eventual goal of the railroad was to build all the way north to connect with the Northern Pacific line in Montana, but the immediate target was Fort Laramie, which would include the settlements of Walbach, Chugwater, and Uva, as well as some of the more substantial ranches in the area, such as the Goodwin, Davis, and Sturgis ranches. After a year and a half, the line was constructed 125 miles north, but there it stopped. Union Pacific took over the line in 1887, and in 1890 Union Pacific created the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway, which incorporated the Cheyenne and Northern as well as several other short-line railroad companies.
After a series of mergers and adjustments, the railroad was finally merged into the Burlington Northern system in 1981. Then in 1995, Burlington Northern merged with the Santa Fe Pacific to form the BNSF Railway, one of the U.S. Class I railroads serving especially the western half of the country, with a rail network of 32,500 route miles in 28 states.
The C&FL (Cheyenne and Fort Laramie Railroad) of our story (as well as the machinations and participants of its building) is fictional, though its existence is inspired by the early history of the Cheyenne and Northern.
Chapter One
Chugwater, Wyoming
Thad Gorman counted out twenty-six dollars for Bob Guthrie, owner of Guthrie Lumber and Supply. “Here’s what I owe you, Mr. Guthrie.” Gorman smiled. “I got a good price for my wheat, and I thank you for carrying me on your books.”
“Ahh, it’s all part of doin’ business, Thad. Why, most of the ranchers and farmers run a tab with me.” Guthrie chuckled. “And I run a tab with my suppliers. Did Sue come to town with you?”
“Oh yes, Sue and the two young’uns. They’re over at the mercantile now. She’s payin’ off Fred Matthews and stockin’ up with things we been puttin’ off till we had the money.”
“What about Slocum? Did he come into town also?”
“I expect he’ll be in tonight. I just got paid myself, so I haven’t paid him yet.”
“How’s Slocum workin’ out for you?”
Gorman chuckled. “Well, he’s not the friendliest feller I’ve ever known, but his work has been all right.”
“You were a good man to hire him,” Guthrie said. “Not everyone would be willing to hire someone like Drury Slocum, a man who had spent five years in prison.”
“I guess so. But it seems to me like ever’one deserves a second chance. Anyway I guess I’d better go pick up Sue ’n the kids before they spend all my money.”
When Gorman stepped into the Matthews Mercantile a couple of minutes later, he was greeted by a little girl who held out a doll. “Papa, look what I have! Isn’t she beautiful?”
“I suppose so, but she isn’t as beautiful as you are.” Gorman smiled at Ethel, his six-year-old daughter.
“Huh, there’s nothin’ beautiful about a doll,” Jimmy said. He was Gorman’s nine-year-old son. “I got me a pocketknife,” he added proudly.
It took half an hour for the farm wagon loaded with purchases to reach the family farm. When they drove into the yard, they were met by Drury Slocum, Thad’s farmhand and only employee.
“Did you get the money for the crop?” Slocum asked.
Gorman smiled. “Drury, you see all the things we bought while we were in town. Do you really have to ask that question?”
“I’ll take care of the team,” he said as he began to disconnect the two gray mules from the wagon.
“Mr. Slocum, would you like to take supper with us tonight?” Sue asked.
“Nah, soon as I’m paid I’ll be goin’ into town.”
“Look at it this way, Drury. You have to eat. If you eat with us, you won’t have to spend money for food in town,” Gorman said.
“Yeah,” Slocum said. “Yeah, that’s right, ain’t it?”
* * *
An hour later, Slocum came into a house that was redolent with the aroma of fried chicken, biscuits, mashed potatoes, and gravy.
“Drury, are you ready to be paid?” Gorman asked.
“Yeah.”
Gorman reached over to the sideboard where lay the three hundred seventy-five dollars he had been paid for his wheat crop.
“I’ll be giving you thirty-five dollars,” Gorman said. “The extra five dollars is a bonus.”
“I’ll take it all,” Slocum said.
Gorman smiled. “Yes, I didn’t think you would turn down the extra five dollars.”
“No, I mean I’ll take all the money.” Slocum pulled his pistol and pointed it at Gorman.
“Mr. Slocum, what are you doing?” Sue called out, her voice high-pitched with fright.
Slocum didn’t answer. He pulled the trigger, shooting Thad Gorman in the chest from point-blank range. The bullet lodged in Gorman’s heart, killing him instantly. Slocum then turned his gun on Gorman’s screaming wife and crying children, firing three more times.
With the four members of the Gorman family lying on the floor, Slocum grabbed two pieces of chicken and two biscuits and left the house.
* * *
Slocum was in the Wild Hog Saloon later that same evening. His plan was to be very visible in town, then when word came that the Gorman family had been murdered, he would have the alibi of having been in town. That way, he wouldn’t have to go on the run. But something he overheard from a nearby table caused him to change his mind.
“It was the hired hand that did it. Mrs. Gorman was still alive when Duff MacCallister ’n Elmer Gleason stopped by to buy some hay from ’em. She told ’em it was their hired hand that done the killin’. They tried to bring her into town but she died before they could get her to the doctor.”
Not everyone in the saloon knew that Slocum worked for Gorman, and those who did hadn’t noticed that he was there. Slocum got up and went through the back door as if going to the privy.
He had no horse of his own, nor did Thad Gorman. Slocum had come into town riding one of the two mules Gorman owned. He had considered stealing a horse, but he didn’t want to take a chance. He needed to get out of town as quickly as possible.
But the mule wouldn’t cooperate.
“Get up, you worthless, long-eared galoot!” Slocum said, trying to urge the mule into a gallop.
He headed south, and no matter what he did to force the mule into a gallop, it wouldn’t respond. Then, quite unexpectedly, the mule balked, bucked, and threw Slocum off its back. The mule decided to run then, leaving Slocum stranded on the road.
Sky Meadow Ranch
“There is someone in the mine,” Wang Chow said to Duff and Elmer Gleason the next day. Wang was speaking of a gold mine, played out now, that sat at the extreme north end of Sky Meadow.
“How do you know?” Elmer asked.
“Tracks go into mine but do not come out,” Wang said.
“Well, let ’im snoop around,” Elmer said. “He won’t find anything, and if he does, we can give him a commission for finding it.”
Before Duff had built Sky Meadow, before even he and Elmer Gleason were friends, Elmer had discovered and was working an old mine that had been abandoned by the Spanish more than a hundred years earlier. Legally the mine and all proceeds belonged to Duff, but he shared the money with Elmer, and Elmer invested back into the ranch so that he was not only the ranch foreman, but a junior partner.
“Elmer, have you considered that it is nae someone looking for gold?” Duff asked in the heavy Scottish brogue that he had not lost in all the time he had been in America.
“Well, who else could it be?”
“Perhaps it is the one who murdered Xinshng Gorman,” Wang suggested.
“I’ll be damned. That’s what you was thinkin’ too, ain’t it, Duff?”
“Aye.”
“Well then, maybe we should go have us a look,” Elmer suggested.
* * *
“I’ll go in first,” Elmer said when they reached the mouth of the mine. “There don’t nobody in the whole world know this mine better ’n I do.” He was justified in making such a comment, since he had actually lived in the mine for almost six months.
Elmer went in first, surrounded by a bubble of golden light cast from the torch he had lit. Duff and Wang followed, but were just outside the light.
“All right, mister, you can just stop right there!” a voice called from the darkness before Elmer.
“Who the hell are you?” Elmer asked.
“It don’t matter who I am. You’re in light ’n I ain’t.”
Elmer started to reach for his gun.
“Uh-uh,” the voice said from the darkness. “I already got my gun out, ’n if you pull that ’n of your’n, I’ll shoot you.” Slocum appeared then, holding a pistol in his hand and pointing it at Elmer. “You know who I am, Gleason?”
“Yeah, Slocum, I know who you are. What I don’t know is why the hell you are here. After what you done I figured you’d be long gone by now. Hell, ever’body figured that.”
“Yeah, I would be if that damn mule I stole from Gorman hadn’t throwed me ’n run off. You got a horse here?”
“What if I do? I ain’t goin’ to let you have it.”
Slocum’s laugh was short and without any real glee. “You think I’m askin’ you for it? I ain’t a-askin’. I’m goin’ to kill you ’n take it.” He extended his hand and pulled the hammer back.
A bright muzzle flash lit up the mine even beyond that of the flickering torch, and the sound of the gunshot was almost deafening in the closed-in area. The gun flew from Slocum’s hand as Duff and Wang suddenly appeared. A narrow wisp of smoke curled up from the end of the Enfield Mark 1 pistol Duff was holding.
“We’ll be for taking you in now, Slocum,” Duff said.
“How you plannin’ on gettin’ me there? Like I said, I ain’t got no horse to ride.”
“You can walk, can’t you?” Elmer asked.
“What do you mean, walk? It’s five miles to town,” Slocum complained.
“You don’t have to walk if you don’t want to,” Elmer said. “We can drag you into town.”
Chapter Two
Chugwater, two weeks later
The courtroom was filled to capacity for the murder trial of Drury Slocum. Wang Chow had testified to finding Slocum hiding in the abandoned mine on Sky Meadow, and Elmer had just testified to finding, along with Duff, the bodies of Thad Gorman and his family. At the moment, Duff was on the witness stand.
“Tell the court if you would, please, the condition of the bodies when you and Mr. Gleason found them.” Jim Robison was the prosecuting attorney.
“Mr. Gorman and the two wee ones were already dead,” Duff said. “Mrs. Gorman was nae yet dead, but she died before we could get her to the doctor.”
“Did she say anything before she died?”
“Aye.”
“What did she say?”
“She said ’twas the black-hearted Slocum that shot her.”
“Objection, Your Honor, to the term black-hearted.” Milton Gilmore was the court-appointed defense attorney for Slocum.
“Sustained,” Judge Goff said.
“Do you see Slocum in this room?” Robison asked.
“Aye,
he is sitting at the defense table.”
“Thank you. Your witness, Mr. Gilmore.”
Gilmore stood, but he didn’t approach the witness. “Mr. MacCallister, did you actually see the defendant shoot Thad Gorman or any of his family?”
“Nae, I dinnae see such a thing.”
“Thank you, no further questions.”
Robison eschewed any redirect, and as Gilmore had no witnesses for the defense, he began his summation.
“Remember this,” he said, holding up his finger to emphasize his point to the jury. “Both Mr. Gleason and Mr. MacCallister testified that they did not, personally, see the defendant shoot the Gorman family. We have only hearsay evidence from someone who cannot be questioned. Hearsay evidence is not enough to convict, and without proof beyond a doubt, you must acquit.”
Robison gave the closure for prosecution. “We have the sworn testimony of two witnesses who heard, in her dying testimony, the declaration that Mrs. Gorman and her entire family had been shot by Drury Slocum. In addition, three hundred and seventy-six dollars was found on Slocum’s person when he was arrested. Where did he get such a sum of money?
“Mr. Gorman was paid four hundred twenty-five dollars for his crop. He paid Guthrie Lumber twenty-six dollars, which left him with three hundred and ninety-nine dollars. Mrs. Gorman spent twenty-four dollars at Matthews Mercantile, which left Gorman three hundred seventy-five dollars. That money was not found at the house and it wasn’t found there because it was in Slocum’s pocket.
“Prosecution rests, Your Honor.”
“Jury may retire to consider the verdict. Court is in recess,” Judge Goff said with a rap of his gavel.
Less than ten minutes later, Marshal Bill Ferrell, acting as the bailiff, shouted out to the court. “Oyez, oyez, oyez, this court is about to reconvene, the honorable Judge Amon T. Goff presiding. Everybody stand until the judge is seated.”