Cold-Blooded Read online

  Look, for These Exciting Series from

  WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE

  with J. A. Johnstone

  The Mountain Man

  Preacher: The First Mountain Man

  Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man

  Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter

  Those Jensen Boys!

  The Family Jensen

  MacCallister

  Flintlock

  The Brothers O‘Brien

  The Kerrigans: A Texas Dynasty

  Sixkiller, U.S. Marshal

  Hell’s Half Acre

  Texas John Slaughter

  Will Tanner, U.S. Deputy Marshal

  Eagles

  The Frontiersman

  AVAILABLE FROM PINNACLE BOOKS

  HELL’S HALF ACRE: COLD-BLOODED

  William W. Johnstone

  with 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

  THOSE JENSEN BOYS! TWELVE DEAD MEN

  THE JENSEN FAMILY FIRST FAMILY OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  Teaser chapter

  PINNACLE BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2015 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: 978-0-7860-3946-3

  First electronic edition: May 2017

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3596-0

  ISBN-10: 0-7860-3596-X

  CHAPTER ONE

  “My dear Senator Jennings, you can’t stand fifty-three criminals against a wall and shoot them down with Gatling guns,” Major General Thomas Lambert said. “The public would never allow it.”

  “It’s all about money, General,” Senator William Jennings said. “We can’t afford the dollars to keep the scum alive any longer.”

  “I am aware of that,” Lambert said. “And I’ve been in touch with the warden of Huntsville and I’m very sympathetic to his problem.”

  Lambert was a beautiful infantry officer, resplendent in blue and gold. A trimmed, spade-shaped beard spread across his chest and his great mane of iron gray hair fell in perfumed ringlets to his shoulders.

  “There’s always the Indian Territory,” Jennings said. In stark contrast to the army officer, Jennings was a thin, spare man with the aesthetic face of an English Lake Poet.

  “Out of the question, my dear sir,” Lambert said. “We have quite enough problems with outlaws and renegades in the Territory as it is. We will not allow you to send us more miscreants.” He smiled. “Add fuel to the fire, so to speak.”

  Rain drummed on the roof of the senator’s private railcar, which had been pulled into a siding two miles north of Houston. Outside, the capes of the army guards glistened in the light cast from the carriage windows, and their fixed bayonets gleamed.

  Inside, the car smelled of cigar smoke and brandy and of Senator Jennings’s sweaty frustration.

  “The cost is outrageous, General,” he said. “It’s out of all proportion to the number of men involved. Murderers, rapists and outlaws of every stripe. I can’t lease them out as labor. No one will hire them because they represent such a danger to the community. Those men out there in the cages require extra guards around the clock, another vast expense that Huntsville, indeed the great state of Texas, cannot afford.”

  “Then I have two suggestions to make,” General Lambert said. He turned to his aide. “Major Holt, please read them to the senator.”

  Holt was young, eager, the son of a senator and very much a political soldier. He had seen no action nor did he desire any. Washington was his battlefield, a mahogany desk his steed.

  “General Lambert suggests thusly,” Holt said. He read from the paper in his hands. “The prisoners be returned to Huntsville and there be hanged one by one under the greatest secrecy.”

  “There is no secrecy in Huntsville,” Jennings said. “I have been told to make the prison less costly, but hanging fifty-three in one go would certainly cause a riot. Gentlemen, conditions in Huntsville are vicious, brutal and cramped. The governor tells me he currently has two thousand men in one hundred and thirty cells, each cell designed to house just one man. Convicts are lashed, starved, chained in solitary for months at a time and revolt is in the air. Fifty-three hangings could tip them over the edge and the impact on neighboring communities would be horrendous.”

  Lambert took that with a nod, Holt with a smile.

  “My other plan,” the general said, staring at the glowing tip of his cigar, “is that you drive the convicts into the desert somewhere and shoot into the cages. Then you leave them there. The wounded will soon die of thirst.”

  “Wise solution though it may be, I have a problem with that, General,” Jennings said. “Like the hangings, the word will get out. When men drink they go on the brag and a secret like that will not be kept. With an election growing ever closer you can imagine what a field day my opponent would have. Why, I’d be crucified in his newspapers as a mass murderer.”

  Lambert opened his mouth to speak but Jennings held up a silencing hand. “Perhaps at this juncture I should note that none of these criminals are condemned men. No, they are all serving sentences of thirty years to life.”

  “A damned disgrace if you ask me,” General Lambert said. “They did the crime and should pay the penalty.”

  “Blame the judges,” Jennings said. “Just lock them away where they can do no more harm and let the citizens of Texas pay for them. That’s the modern attitude in the law courts these days, I’m told.”

  “Damned impertinence,” Lambert said. “Coddling criminals like that.”

  “Can I speak?”

  This from a thickset man wearing an old Union greatcoat, a bowler hat, and a muffler around his bull neck. Under the coat he wore a checked jacket and pants and he carried a Colt in a shoulder holster. He was a scar-faced man in his midfifties and looked like a vicious criminal himself.

  “Yes, you may,” Jennings said. “General Lambert, this gentleman’s name is Herbert Coffin. He’s been hired to supervise the transportation of the prisoners to . . . well, wherever we can take them.”

  Both officers in the car glanced at Coffin as though he smelled like something dead, a result of the soldiers’ disdain for civilians and an acute awareness of their gulf in class. Earlier, Coffin had not been offered brandy and cigars.

  Jennings saw the expressions on the
officers’ faces and thought his employee’s bona fides would help him rise in their esteem. He made matters worse.

  “During the war Mr. Coffin served the Union as a camp guard at Point Lookout,” he said. “He knows how to deal with prisoners.”

  It was the wrong thing to say to Lambert, a fighting soldier who had served in the war as a major of infantry and had battled both Comanche and Apache since.

  “I heard that in two years fourteen thousand prisoners died at Point Lookout, the result of disease, starvation and beatings,” he said.

  Coffin shrugged. “They were rebs. What did they expect?”

  Lambert’s face flushed with anger but Jennings deflected the general’s wrath. “What was it you wished to say, Mr. Coffin?” he said.

  “I’ve got a solution to your problem, Senator. You want to dump fifty-three convicts, so dump ’em in a place where they’ll never be noticed.”

  “And where might that be?” Jennings said.

  “Two hundred and fifty miles northwest of here there’s a dunghill of a town called Fort Worth. And its worst area is the Third Ward, a stinking slum they call Hell’s Half Acre.”

  “I’m aware of the town,” Jennings said. “But I’ve never visited there.”

  “Your only interest should be the Acre,” Coffin said. “I’ve spent time there and it’s full of saloons, bawdy houses, dance halls and opium dens. It’s a haven for gunmen, highway robbers, card sharks, whores and con artists.” Coffin reached inside his coat and produced a newspaper clipping. “Here, Senator, read that to the military gentlemen. It’s about the Acre.”

  Jennings glanced at the clip then read aloud, “‘It’s a slow night which does not pan out a cutting or shooting scrape among its male denizens or a fatal morphine experiment by one of its frisky females.’”

  Jennings handed the paper back to Coffin, his face bright. “We dump the convicts there?” he said.

  “Those boys out there will fit right in, Senator. In the Acre they’ll be among their own kind and nobody will even notice them. I reckon in a couple of months or so, they’ll all be dead.”

  Jennings clapped his hands. “Brilliant! What do you think, General Lambert? I believe we have found the answer, thanks to Mr. Coffin, solved in the space of a moment.”

  “It is an excellent solution to your problem, Senator,” Lambert said. “Dump trash among trash and no one will take heed.” He grudgingly looked at Coffin and said, “How long to get your wagons there?”

  “Two weeks, I reckon,” Coffin said. “Good weather or bad. I’ll drive ’em, by God.”

  Jennings said, “Good! I think that calls for another drink. Mr. Coffin, a brandy with you?”

  “No,” Coffin said. “I reckon I’ll step outside and check on my prisoners.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Herb Coffin left the railcar and walked into the lashing rain. An army guard nodded and Coffin nodded back. “Going to check on my prisoners,” he said.

  “Hell to be a prisoner on a night like this,” said the soldier, a middle-aged man with a cold clay pipe in his mouth.

  “Hell to be a prisoner on any night,” Coffin said. Lightning scrawled across the sky and thunder rumbled.

  There were three caged prison wagons, the fifty-three convicts split among them. Murderers and robbers were confined twenty to a wagon, the remaining wagon more sparsely occupied with six rapists, the remainder blacks and Mexicans.

  No attempt had been made to shelter the wagons from the rain. They were parked out in the open and their occupants were soaked, a few of them coughing.

  Coffin lit a cigar and stopped at the first wagon. “How many of you boys are still alive?” he said.

  “All of us,” a man’s voice said from the darkness. “We won’t cash in our chips until we get our hands around your throat, Coffin.”

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance,” Coffin said. “I’m taking you boys for a long drive in the country. You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  Coffin took a billy club from his pocket and slammed it into the bars. The prisoners were packed so closely that he hit heads and shoulders and men cried out in pain.

  “Answer me when I ask a question,” Coffin said. “You’ll like that, won’t you?”

  A few of the prisoners muttered yes, but then a wide-shouldered man with a ragged prison beard pushed his way to the bars of the cage and said, “I’m going to kill you, Coffin. I swear, I’ll gut you like the swine you are.”

  Coffin grinned, the rain in his face. “Well, if it ain’t Major Ford Talon, the hero of the South. After the sixty lashes I gave you at Huntsville I thought for sure you’d be dead by now.”

  “You cut my back up, Coffin. But I wouldn’t let you kill me. You hear me, I willed myself to stay alive until the day I could get a bullet into your miserable carcass.”

  Coffin said, grinning, “You’re a walking dead man, Talon. We’re all going to a place, but you ain’t never gonna get there. Study on that for a spell until your guts turn into jelly.”

  “I’m not a boasting man, but I don’t scare easy. I’ll get to where we’re going, Coffin, and by God, then I’ll get you,” Talon said.

  Coffin pulled his Colt and pointed it at Talon’s head. “Pow!” he said.

  He walked away laughing, the heedless rain falling around him.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “I don’t want no trouble from you, Casey,” Luke Short said.

  Sheriff Jess Casey nodded. “Very commendable of you, Luke.”

  Short studied the wanted dodgers on the office wall and said, “You can take that one down. Poke Ritter got all shot to pieces by lawmen a month ago up in the Indian Territory.” He shook his head. “Pity. Poke was a good man.”

  “Says there he was a murderer and a bank robber,” Jess said.

  “Ah well, to each his own, I guess,” Short said. “He was still a good man.”

  “Luke, you didn’t come in here to keep me up to date on my wanted posters,” Jess said. “What can I do for you?”

  “So that everything is aboveboard and out in the open, I want your legal permission to shoot a man.”

  “What man?” Jess said.

  “You know Banjo Tom Van Meter? He played in my orchestra at the White Elephant for a spell. He’s the one who cut up Bill Tate that time.”

  “No, I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “Well, no matter. The thing is he took Lulu Lanahan away from me, plans to pimp her himself. As a gentleman I can’t let that stand. It’s a matter of honor.”

  “And you want me to say it’s all right to put a bullet in him?” Jess said.

  “Sure I do. Banjo Tom always goes around heeled, so it will be a fair fight,” Short said. “Hell, if it helps, I’ll let him draw first.”

  “No matter, Luke. I can’t give you the law’s permission to kill a man. Let Banjo Tom be and find yourself another Lulu.”

  Short’s face registered his displeasure. “If Tom Van Meter asked your permission to kill me would you give it to him?”

  “Probably, Luke, probably.”

  “All right, then from this day onward we’re enemies, Casey,” Short said.

  Jess smiled. “I thought we were that already.”

  “Oh yeah? Well now we’re even worse enemies than we were before.”

  Luke Short slammed out of the office and Jess listened to the departing thud of his shoes on the boardwalk. He nodded to himself. It might be a good idea to have words with Banjo Tom and warn him that Luke made a mighty dangerous enemy.

  * * *

  A strange restlessness in him, Jess stepped to the window and looked out on crowded Main Street. People promenaded on the boardwalks and the wheels of commerce, the heavy freight wagons, trundled past, trace chains rattling as the great Percherons leaned into their collars. It was still early morning but dust clouded the air and beige streaks of horse dung lay everywhere.

  Things had been quiet in Hell’s Half Acre for a week now. The only incidents of note were a cutting at the Silver Garter saloon, Kurt Koenig’s place, and a minor shooting scrape on Rusk that left no one injured except a passerby who got his left thumb shot off. The shooter, a businessman named Miller, paid the victim compensation and later a fifty-dollar fine for the discharge of a firearm in a public place. A pregnant woman gave birth in a dance hall after taking part in a polka and there was a suicide by hanging at a slum tenement on 12th Street. And of course, Luke Short wanted to kill a man legally.