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  and J. A. JOHNSTONE

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  MacCallister

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  Perley Gates

  Have Brides, Will Travel

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  The Chuckwagon Trail

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  TILL DEATH

  A HAVE BRIDES, WILL TRAVEL 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 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

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by J. A. Johnstone

  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.

  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: 978-0-7860-4735-2

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-4736-9 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-4736-4 (eBook)

  Chapter 1

  “How is it that with all the roamin’ around we’ve done for more’n forty years, we never made it up into this part of the country?” Scratch Morton asked as he peered out the railroad car window at the heavily timbered slopes rolling past. The hillsides came up fairly close to the roadbed on both sides.

  “I don’t know,” Bo Creel replied from where he sat on the hard wooden bench next to his old friend. Bo stretched his legs into the aisle that ran down the middle of the car and crossed them at the ankles. “I reckon we just never had a good enough reason to drift up this way.”

  Washington State was a long way from Texas, that was for sure, and was where Bo and Scratch hailed from. Not that they had spent most of their time there over the years, as Scratch had indicated.

  They had grown up in the Lone Star State and had, in fact, taken part in the fight for Texas’s independence from Mexico when they were in their middle teens. In those days, that had been considered being a man “full-growed,” especially if a fella was big enough to pick up a rifle and take part in the fight against the dictator Santa Anna’s army. Bo and Scratch had done just that at San Jacinto, back on that warm April day in 1836.

  Since then the two of them had been through a lot together: triumph and tragedy, dreams fulfilled and hopes lost, and restless natures that wouldn’t be denied as they drifted fiddle-footed around the frontier, not searching for trouble but inevitably finding it.

  In recent months they had taken to working for a matrimonial agency, of all things. Cyrus Keegan, who ran the business out of Fort Worth, provided mail-order brides for lonely bachelors all over the West, from the Rio Grande to the Milk River, from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Those brides often needed protection when they were traveling to meet their new husbands, and Bo and Scratch provided it. At their semi-advanced age, Bo and Scratch were considered safe enough chaperones and guards for young ladies.

  This trip was just getting started, but already it had been quite a journey for Bo and Scratch, all the way up here to the Pacific Northwest from New Mexico, where their previous chore had resulted in a surprising number of powder-burning ruckuses.

  That was all right, though; neither of the Texans enjoyed being bored, and flying lead broke up the monotony just fine as long as it didn’t come too close.

  At the moment they were on their way to Seattle. Cyrus Keegan had given them the job in person, once things were squared away down in Silverhill. Bo and Scratch never could have made it up here in time if they hadn’t been able to make connections on several different railroads.

  Now they were rocking along in a passenger car belonging to the Northern Pacific, which had only recently completed its route through this part of the country and become the nation’s second transcontinental railroad. Farther back in the train, Bo’s and Scratch’s horses rode in one of the livestock cars.

  More than likely, the horses would have to be stabled once they reached Seattle, because the next leg of the journey would be by ship.

  “Alaska,” Scratch mused as he thumbed his cream-colored Stetson back on his thick silvery hair. “I swear, until mighty recent, if somebody had asked me, I would’ve said it was part of Roosha.”

  “Not since 1867. And I’m sure you heard of Seward’s Folly back then, because we talked about it. You’ve just forgotten.”

  “I never forgot a thing! My mind’s like a steel trap.”

  “Rusted shut?” Bo asked with an innocent look.

  “I thought Seward’s Folly was when Pancho Seward up and bought that house of ill repute down in Laredo—”

  Scratch didn’t get any further than that, because the train suddenly lurched violently and both Texans were thrown forward against the back of the bench seat in front of them. The adventurous lives they’d led had allowed them to retain the reflexes and reactions of younger men, and they were able to catch themselves against the seatback and push to their feet.

  “What in blazes!” Scratch said.

  The train was still moving, but a lot slower now. Wheels screeched loudly on the steel rails. Other men in the car stood up and asked questions, and some of the women let out frightened cries because obviously something was wrong.

  “The engineer’s trying to stop in a hurry,” Bo said. He raised his voice so the other passengers in the car could hear him as he called, “Everybody grab on to something!”

  Another jolt rocked the car, so heavy this time that, for a second, Bo thought the train might derail. The cars stayed upright, though, as the train finally shuddered to a halt.

  Bo and Scratch had braced themselves on the seat and were able to keep their feet. Some of the other men hadn’t been as quick to react and spilled to the floor in the aisle.

  From somewhere outside came sudden, booming reports of gunfire. Scratch said, “You folks stay where you are and keep your heads down!” He looked at Bo. “I reckon we’re gonna see what this is all about?”

  “What do you think?” Bo said as he drew the walnut-butted Colt on his hip and stepped over one of the fallen passengers. He hurried toward the vestibule at the front of the car.

  Scratch was right behind him. The silver-haired Texan carried two long-barreled Remington revolvers with ivory grips, and they
were in his hands as he emerged onto the car’s front platform.

  A shot blasted somewhere not far away. Bo heard the wind rip of the bullet as it passed close beside his ear. He pivoted toward the sound and saw a man on horseback about twenty feet away, thrusting a gun at him for a second try at murder.

  Bo’s Colt snapped up and spewed flame. The would-be killer, who had a red bandanna pulled up over the lower half of his face, rocked back in the saddle as the .45 slug ripped through his upper right arm. His gun flew out of his hand before he could get another shot off. His horse began to dance around skittishly, and the wounded man quickly lost his grip and toppled off his mount.

  On the other side of the platform, Scratch crouched at the railing and leveled both Remingtons at a handful of masked riders charging up that side of the train. The men fired their guns into the windows of the cars they passed, shattering glass and prompting terrified screams from the passengers inside.

  They didn’t notice Scratch until they came alongside the platform, so he took them by surprise as he began triggering both Remingtons. Lead scythed through the group of riders, knocking two of them out of their saddles. A couple more twisted and cried out under the slugs’ impact.

  They concentrated their fire on the platform then, as they realized that a deadly threat lurked there. Scratch ducked back, grabbed Bo, and dived to the floor as a storm of bullets ripped through the air just above them.

  Farther up the train, toward the engine, an explosion roared and a cloud of smoke billowed up. “They’ve blown the door to the express car!” Bo said as the riders on both sides of the train abandoned their attack and charged forward along the railbed.

  Scratch raised his head to look around. “Appears they ain’t gonna bother robbin’ the passengers. Must be something in the express car safe they’re more interested in.”

  Shots continued to come from up ahead. Bo said, “The express messengers are putting up a fight.”

  “Want to go give ’em a hand?”

  “I was thinking about it,” Bo said.

  As Bo stood up, he glanced toward the spot where the man he’d shot had fallen. The hombre wasn’t there anymore. Bo figured one of the other outlaws had picked him up.

  Holstering his Colt, Bo stepped across to the rear platform on the next car and gripped the iron grab bars on the side. He climbed to the roof with a speed and agility that belied his years. Scratch came up behind him.

  The Texans drew their guns again and started forward, sticking to the middle of the roof and crouching as they hurried so they wouldn’t be spotted as easily from the ground.

  There were two more passenger cars ahead of the one in which Bo and Scratch had been riding, then the express car. A thinning cloud of smoke from the dynamite that had gone off hung over that car. The outlaws on that side of the train had dismounted and scattered, taking cover in nearby brush and behind rocks as they fired at the express car.

  The ones on the other side had galloped ahead, no doubt to take over the engine and keep the engineer and fireman from causing any trouble. Bo spotted them up there around the cab.

  That was a problem to be dealt with later, if at all. It was more important right now to keep those robbers from looting the express car.

  Not that he and Scratch had any stake in whatever was in the safe. Nobody was paying them to fight off these owlhoots. They were doing it because they had a deep and abiding dislike of lawbreakers, despite the fact that they themselves had been accused of being outlaws over the years and had wound up behind bars a few times because of it.

  They leaped the gap between the next two passenger cars, then dropped to their knees and stretched out behind the shallow raised area in the center of the roof. It wouldn’t provide much cover but was better than nothing. From where they were, they had a good angle to open fire on the robbers.

  Before they did that, they thumbed fresh rounds into the cylinders of their guns so they had full wheels when they started shooting. They didn’t blast away indiscriminately, either, but aimed their shots where they caught a glimpse of the outlaws or at least the spurts of powder smoke from their guns.

  The steady, lethal fire raked through the brush and among the rocks. One of the outlaws toppled into the open after Scratch drilled a .44 bullet through his head. An arm snaked out from behind the same boulder, caught hold of the man’s foot, and dragged him back out of sight, but it was too late to help him. Scratch’s shot had killed him instantly.

  Below them in the express car, a rifle cracked frequently, interspersed with dull booms from a shotgun. The shotgun wasn’t going to be very effective at this range, Bo thought, but in a fight, it never hurt to have some buckshot flying around at your enemies. Might make them keep their heads down a little more, anyway.

  Some of the men who had taken cover in the rocks and brush raised their sights and returned the fire from Bo and Scratch. The Texans had to scoot backward and keep their own heads down as bullets whipped through the air above them. They took advantage of the opportunity to reload again, and then when the gun thunder let up, they poked their revolvers over the crest of the railroad car’s roof and slammed more rounds in the outlaws’ direction.

  Between the stubborn defenders inside the express car and the two Texans atop the train, the robbers were meeting much stiffer resistance than they had expected. That was what Bo figured a minute later when a harsh voice yelled, “Let’s get out of here!”

  “What about the boys up at the engine?” another man shouted.

  “They’re on their own, damn it!”

  Several men leaped to their feet and retreated, firing as they fled deeper into the brush where they had left their horses. Bo and Scratch sent more slugs after them to hurry them on their way. A moment later they heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats and caught glimpses through the undergrowth of men and horses moving fast in flight.

  Bo turned his head to look toward the engine and saw that the members of the gang up there were abandoning the robbery attempt as well. Four horses raced away from the rails, one of the mounts carrying double. More than likely that extra rider was the man Bo had shot through the arm.

  As the shooting died away but echoes continued to roll around in the hills on both sides of the tracks, Scratch said, “Looks like they’re takin’ off for the tall and uncut, Bo. You want to grab our horses out of the stock car and go after ’em?”

  “I reckon that’s more than anybody could expect of us,” Bo replied as he reloaded the Colt yet again with fresh cartridges from the loops on his shell belt. “Anyway, by the time we could do that, they’d have a big enough lead, we couldn’t catch them. Let’s climb down from here and see if anybody’s hurt bad.”

  “And find out how they got the dang train to stop in the first place,” Scratch added.

  Bo was a mite curious about that himself.

  Chapter 2

  They clambered down from the train on the same side as the blown-open sliding door on the express car. The dynamite had blasted the door right off, Bo saw, but he couldn’t tell how much damage it had done inside. He didn’t want to spook the men in the car, so as he and Scratch approached the jagged opening, he called, “Hello, in the express car! Hold your fire. We’re friends.”

  Now that the echoes from the gunfire had finally faded, the sound of shotgun hammers being cocked inside the car could be heard.

  “How do we know that?” a man demanded. “You could be some o’ them no-good snake-in-the-grass train robbers!”

  “We’re no train robbers,” Scratch responded. “We’re the ones who ran ’em off, you old codger!”

  The shotgun’s twin barrels poked out of the opening, and a leathery white-whiskered face appeared above them.

  “Old codger, is it? You look to be ever’ bit as old as I am, you fancy-dressed skalleyhooter!”

  It was true that Scratch’s outfit was a little on the fancy side. In addition to the cream-colored Stetson and ivory-handled guns, he favored a fringed buckskin jacket over a white shirt, brown whipcord trousers, and high-topped darker brown boots into which the trousers were tucked.