Family Jensen Hard Ride to Hell, The (The Family Jensen) - Softcover

William W.Johnstone

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786031182 ISBN 13: 9780786031184

Publisher: Pinnacle Mass Market, 2013

Synopsis

Smoke Jensen and his adopted son Matt are cooling their heels in Colorado when they are called to the Dakotas. Preacher, the legendary mountain man, is in the midst of a vicious struggle. Someone has kidnapped a proud Indian chief's daughter and grandchild. When the kidnapping turns to murder, and Preacher vanishes after clashing with a ruthless Union colonel turned railroad king, Matt sets out to infiltrate the Colonel's gang of killers; Smoke seeks out the only honest citizens in the crooked town of Hammerhead. It will take brave men to blow Hammerhead wide open and force the Colonel and his gunmen on a hard ride into a killing ground. And the Family Jensen will make sure there is hell to pay...

About this title

About the Author

William W. Johnstone is the USA Today and New York Times bestselling author of over 300 books, including PREACHER, THE LAST MOUNTAIN MAN, LUKE JENSEN BOUNTY HUNTER, FLINTLOCK, SAVAGE TEXAS, MATT JENSEN, THE LAST MOUNTAIN MAN; THE FAMILY JENSEN, SIDEWINDERS, and SHAWN O’BRIEN TOWN TAMER. His thrillers include Phoenix Rising, Home Invasion, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge, and Suicide Mission. Visit his website at www.williamjohnstone.net or by email at dogcia2006@aol.com.
 
Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact checker to one of the most popular western authors of all time, J.A. Johnstone learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.  
 
He began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western history library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.
 
“Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling. ‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers, and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: be the best J.A. Johnstone you can be.’”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Family Jensen Hard Ride to Hell

By William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

Copyright © 2013 William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7860-3118-4

Contents

......

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The two men stood facing each other. One was red,the other white, but both were tall and lean, and thestiff, wary stance in which they held themselves beliedtheir advanced years. They were both ready for trouble,and they didn't care who knew it.

Both wore buckskins, as well, and their faces werelined and leathery from long decades spent out in theweather. Silver and white streaked their hair.

The white man had a gun belt strapped around hiswaist, with a holstered Colt revolver riding on each hip.His thumbs were hooked in the belt close to each holster,and you could tell by looking at him that he was ready tohook and draw. Given the necessity, his hands wouldflash to the well-worn walnut butts of those guns withblinding speed, especially for a man of his age.

He wasn't the only one with a menacing attitude. TheIndian had his hand near the tomahawk that was thrustbehind the sash at his waist. To anyone watching, itwould appear that both of these men were ready to tryto kill each other.

Then a grin suddenly stretched across the whiskeryface of the white man, and he said, "Two Bears, you oldred heathen."

"Preacher, you pale-faced scoundrel," Two Bearsreplied. He smiled, too, and stepped forward. The twomen clasped each other in a rough embrace and slappedeach other on the back.

The large group of warriors standing nearby visiblyrelaxed at this display of affection between the two men.For the most part, the Assiniboine had been friendly withwhite men for many, many years. But even so, it wasn'tthat common for a white man to come riding boldly intotheir village as the one called Preacher had done.

Some of the men smiled now, because they hadknown all along what was coming. The legendary mountainman Preacher, who was famous—or in some casesinfamous—from one end of the frontier to the other, hadbeen friends with their chief Two Bears for more thanthree decades, and he had visited the village on occasionin the past.

The two men hadn't always been so cordial with eachother. They had started out as rivals for the affections ofthe beautiful Assiniboine woman Raven's Wing. For TwoBears, that rivalry had escalated to the point of bitterhostility.

All that had been put aside when it became necessaryfor them to join forces to rescue Raven's Wing from agroup of brutal kidnappers and gunrunners. Since thatlong-ago time when they were forced to become allies,they had gradually become friends as well.

Preacher stepped back and rested his hands on TwoBears's shoulders.

"I hear that Raven's Wing has passed," he saidsolemnly.

"Yes, last winter," Two Bears replied with an equallygrave nod. "It was her time. She left this world peacefully,with a smile on her face."

"That's good to hear," Preacher said. "I never knewa finer lady."

"I miss her. Every time the sun rises or sets, everytime the wind blows, every time I hear a wolf howl orsee a bird soaring through the sky, I long to be withher again. But when the day is done and we are to betogether again, we will be. This I know in my heart.Until then ..." Two Bears smiled again. "Until then Ican still see her in the fine strong sons she bore me, andthe daughters who have given me grandchildren." Henodded toward a young woman standing nearby, whostood with an infant in her arms. "You remember myyoungest daughter, Wildflower?"

"I do," Preacher said, "although the last time I saw her,I reckon she wasn't much bigger'n that sprout with her."

"My grandson," Two Bears said proudly. "Little Hawk."

Preacher took off his battered, floppy-brimmed felthat and nodded politely to the woman.

"Wildflower," he said. "It's good to see you again." Helooked at the boy. "And howdy to you, too, Little Hawk."

The baby didn't respond to Preacher, of course, buthe watched the mountain man with huge, dark eyes.

"He has not seen that many white men in his life,"Two Bears said. "You look strange, even to one soyoung."

Preacher snorted and said, "If it wasn't for this beardof mine, I'd look just about as much like an Injun as anyof you do."

Two Bears half-turned and motioned to one of thelodges.

"Come. We will go to my lodge and smoke a pipeand talk. I would know what brings you to our village,Preacher."

"Horse, the same as usual," Preacher said as hejerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the big graystallion that stood with his reins dangling. A large,wolflike cur sat on his haunches next to the stallion.

"How many horses called Horse and dogs calledDog have you had in your life, Preacher?" Two Bearsasked with amusement sparkling in his eyes.

"Too many to count, I reckon," Preacher replied."But I figure if a name works just fine once, there ain'tno reason it won't work again."

"How do you keep finding them?"

"It ain't so much me findin' them as it is themfindin' me. Somehow they just show up. I'd call it fate,if I believed in such a thing."

"You do not believe in fate?"

"I believe in hot lead and cold steel," Preacher said.

"Anything beyond that's just a guess."

Preacher didn't have any goal in visiting the Assiniboinevillage other than visiting an old friend. He hadbeen drifting around the frontier for more than fiftyyears now, most of the time without any plan other thanseeing what was on the far side of the hill.

When he had first set out from his folks' farm as aboy, the West had been a huge, relatively empty place,populated only by scattered bands of Indians and ahandful of white fur trappers. At that time less than tenyears had gone by since Lewis and Clark returned fromtheir epic, history-changing journey up the MissouriRiver to the Pacific.

During the decades since then, Preacher had seen theWest's population grow tremendously. Rail lines crisscrossedthe country, and there were cities, towns, andsettlements almost everywhere. Civilization had cometo the frontier.

Much of the time, Preacher wasn't a hundred percentsure if that was a good thing or not.

But there was no taking it back, no returning thingsto the way they used to be, and besides, if not for thegreat westward expansion that had fundamentallychanged the face of the nation, he never would have metthe two fine young men he had come to consider hissons: Smoke and Matt Jensen.

It had been a while since Preacher had seen Smokeand Matt. He assumed that Smoke was down in Colorado,on his ranch called the Sugarloaf near the townof Big Rock. Once wrongly branded an outlaw, SmokeJensen was perhaps the fastest man with a gun to everwalk the West. Most of the time he didn't go looking fortrouble, but it seemed to find him anyway, despite allhis best intentions to live a peaceful life on his ranchwith his beautiful, spirited wife, Sally.

There was no telling where Matt was. He could beanywhere from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border.He and Smoke weren't brothers by blood. The bond betweenthem was actually deeper than that. Matt had beenborn Matt Cavanaugh, but he had taken the nameJensen as a young man to honor Smoke, who had helpedout an orphaned boy and molded him into a fine man.

Since Matt had set out on his own, he had been adrifter, scouting for the army, working as a stagecoachguard, pinning on a badge a few times as a lawman....As long as it kept him on the move and held a promiseof possible adventure, that was all it took to keep Mattinterested in a job, at least for a while. But he neverstayed in one place for very long, and at this point in hislife he had no interest in putting down roots, as Smokehad done.

Because of that, Matt actually had more in commonwith Preacher than Smoke did, but all three of themwere close. The problem was, whenever they got togethertrouble seemed to follow, and it usually wasn'tlong before the air had the smell of gunsmoke in it.

Right now the only smoke in Two Bears's lodgecame from the small fire in the center of it and the pipethat Preacher and the Assiniboine chief passed back andforth. The two men were silent, their friendship notneeding words all the time.

Two women were in the lodge as well, preparing ameal. They were Two Bears's wives, the former wives ofhis brothers he had taken in when the women were widowed,as a good brother was expected to do. The smellscoming from the pot they had on the fire were mightyappetizing, Preacher thought. The stew was bound tobe good.

A swift rataplan of hoofbeats came from outside andmade both Preacher and Two Bears raise their heads.Neither man seemed alarmed. As seasoned veterans ofthe frontier, they had too much experience for that. Butthey also knew that whenever someone was movingfast, there was a chance it was because of trouble.

The sudden babble of voices that followed the abrupthalt of the hoofbeats seemed to indicate the same thing.

"You want to go see what that's about?" Preacherasked Two Bears, inclining his head toward the lodge'sentrance.

Two Bears took another unhurried puff on the pipein his hands before he set it aside.

"If my people wish to see me, they know where I amto be found," he said.

Preacher couldn't argue with that. But the sounds hadgotten his curiosity stirred up, so he was glad whensomeone thrust aside the buffalo hide flap over thelodge's entrance. A broad-shouldered, powerful-lookingwarrior strode into the lodge, then stopped short at thesight of a white man sitting there cross-legged beside thefire with the chief.

"Two Bears, I must speak with you," the newcomer said.

"This is Standing Rock," Two Bears said to Preacher."He is married to my daughter Wildflower."

That would make him the father of the little fellaPreacher had seen with Wildflower earlier. He noddedand said, "Howdy, Standing Rock."

The warrior just looked annoyed, like he wasn't interestedin introductions right now. He looked at thechief and began, "Two Bears—"

"Is there trouble?"

"Blue Bull has disappeared."

CHAPTER 2

Blue Bull, it turned out, wasn't a bull at all, not thatPreacher really thought he was. That was the name ofone of the Assiniboine warriors who belonged to thisband, and he and Standing Rock were good friends.

They had been out hunting in the hills west of thevillage and had split up when Blue Bull decided tofollow the tracks of a small antelope herd while StandingRock took another path. They had agreed to meetback at the spot where Blue Bull had taken up the antelopetrail.

When Standing Rock returned there later, he saw nosign of Blue Bull. A couple of hours passed, and BlueBull still didn't show up. Growing worried that somethingmight have happened to his friend, Standing Rockwent to look for him.

This part of the country was peaceful for the mostpart, but a man alone who ran into a mountain lion or abear might be in for trouble. Also, ravines cut across thelandscape in places, and if a pony shied at the wrongtime, its rider could be tossed off and fall into one ofthose deep, rugged gullies.

"You were unable to find him?" Two Bears askedwhen his son-in-law paused in the story.

"The antelope tracks led into a narrow canyon, and sodid Blue Bull's," Standing Rock replied. "The groundwas rocky, and I lost the trail."

The young warrior wore a surly expression. Preacherfigured that he didn't like admitting failure. StandingRock was a proud man. You could tell that just by lookingat him.

But he was genuinely worried about his friend, too.He proved that by saying, "I came back to get moremen, so we can search for him. He may be hurt."

Two Bears nodded and got to his feet.

"Gather a dozen men," he ordered crisply. "We willride in search of Blue Bull while there is still light."

Preacher stood up, too, and said, "I'll come with you."

"This is a matter for the Assiniboine," Standing Rocksaid, his voice stiff with dislike. Preacher didn't understandit, but the young fella definitely hadn't takena shine to him. Just the opposite, in fact.

"Preacher is a friend to the Assiniboine and has beenfor more years than you have been walking this earth,Standing Rock," Two Bears snapped. "I would not askhim to involve himself in our trouble, but if he wishesto, I will not deny him."

"I just want to lend a hand if I can," Preacher saidas he looked at Standing Rock. He didn't really care ifthe young man liked him or not. His friendship for TwoBears and for Two Bears's people was the only thingsthat really mattered to him here.

Standing Rock didn't say anything else. He juststared back coldly at Preacher for a second, then turnedand left the lodge to gather the search party as TwoBears had told him to.

The chief looked at Preacher and said, "The hotblood of young men sometimes overpowers what shouldbe the coolness of their thoughts."

"That's fine with me, old friend. Like I said, I justwant to help."

As they left the lodge, Preacher pointed to the bigcur that had come with him to the village and went on,"Dog there is about as good a tracker as you're evergonna find. When we get to the spot where Standin'Rock lost the trail, if you've got something that belongedto Blue Bull we can give Dog the scent and he'sliable to lead us right to him."

Two Bears nodded.

"I will speak to Blue Bull's wife and make sure wetake something of his with us."

Several of the warriors were getting ready to ride.That didn't take much preparation, considering that allthey had to do was throw blankets over their ponies'backs and rig rope halters. Preacher had planned tospend a few days in the Assiniboine village, but hehadn't unsaddled Horse yet so the stallion was ready togo as well.

The news of Blue Bull's disappearance had gottenaround the village. A lot of people were standing nearbywith worried looks on their faces as the members of thesearch party mounted up. Two Bears went over to talk toone of the women, who hurried off to a lodge and cameback with a buckskin shirt. She was Blue Bull's wife,Preacher figured, and the garment belonged to themissing warrior.

Two Bears swung up onto his pony with the litheease of a man considerably younger than he really was.He gave a curt nod, and the search party set out fromthe village with the chief, Standing Rock, and Preacherin the lead.

Standing Rock pointed out the route for them, andthey lost no time in riding into the hills where the twowarriors had been hunting. Preacher glanced at the skyand saw that they had about three hours of daylight left.He hoped that would be enough time to find Blue Bull.

Of course, it was possible that nothing bad hadhappened to Blue Bull at all, Preacher reflected. Thewarrior could have gotten carried away in pursuit ofthe antelope and lost track of the time. They might evenrun into him on his way back to the village. If thathappened, Preacher would be glad that everything hadturned out well.

Something was stirring in his guts, though, some instinctivewarning that told him they might not be solucky. Over the years Preacher had learned to trust thosehunches. At this point, he wasn't going to say anythingto Two Bears, Standing Rock, or the other Assiniboine,but he had a bad feeling about this search for Blue Bull.

Standing Rock pointed out the tracks of the antelopeherd when the search party reached them.

"You can see they lead higher into the hills," he said."Blue Bull followed them while I went to the north. Hewanted to bring one of the antelope back to the village."

"Why did you not go with him?" Two Bears asked."Why did you go north?"

Standing Rock looked sullen again as he replied, "Iknow a valley up there where the antelope like to graze.I thought they might circle back to it."

Two Bears just nodded, but Preacher knew that hisold friend was just as aware as he was of what had reallyhappened here. Standing Rock had thought he couldbeat Blue Bull to the antelope by going a different way.Such rivalry was not uncommon among friends.

"Did you see the antelope?" Two Bears asked.

Standing Rock shook his head.

"No. My thought proved to be wrong."

Two Bears's silence in response was as meaningfuland damning as anything he could have said. StandingRock angrily jerked his pony into motion andtrotted away, following the same path as the antelopehad earlier.

Preacher, Two Bears, and the rest of the search partywent the same way at a slower pace. Quietly, Two Bearssaid, "If anything happened to Blue Bull, StandingRock will believe that it was his fault for not going withhis friend."

"He wants to impress you, don't he?" Preacher said."Must not be easy, bein' married to the chief's daughter."

"He is a good warrior, but he does not always knowthat."

(Continues...)

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Family Jensen Hard Ride to Hell by William W. Johnstone. Copyright © 2013 by William W. Johnstone. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pinnacle Mass Market
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0786031182
• ISBN 13: 9780786031184
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 336