A Lamb to the Slaughter

Book 2: Tinhorn Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The second installment in a bold, new, action-packed series set in Texas from legendary national bestselling Western authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone.

Johnstone Country. Where Life Is A Gamble.

The national bestselling authors of violent, bullet-riddled Old West yarns return to the Texas frontier town where Sheriff Buck Jackson and Deputy Flint Moran are quickly learning that enforcing the law means being fastest on the draw—or being killed by someone quicker . . .
 
Welcome to Tinhorn, Texas. Now Go Home.

Two drifters, flush with cash and looking to buy cattle, arrive in town—one nursing a bullet wound he claims he received accidently when his friend was cleaning his gun. Jackson and Moran are suspiciouss but have no reason to challenge their story—until four more drifters show up looking for the first two. Moran may not be lightning quick when it comes to numbers, but reports say the Wells Fargo office was held up by six men . . .
 
But Moran is going to need more bullets. He’s been called upon to go after Abel Crowe and his three sons on a murder and kidnapping charge. And with Jesse Slocum breaking out of prison to wreak vengeance on Sheriff Jackson, who killed Slocum’s brother, the young deputy is going to make his name one bullet at a time—or die trying . . .

Release date: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

“I ain’t sure how much longer I can make it,” Bart McCoy gasped when Roy Tate reached up to help him out of the saddle. “I’m bleedin’ pretty bad.”

“You just hang on,” Roy told him. “We’ve gotta let these horses rest, or we’re gonna be tryin’ to make it to Tinhorn on foot. I’m gonna set you down under the trees. We’ll let the horses drink some water and rest a little, and I’ll see if I can tighten that bandage up some more. Accordin’ to that feller back at that store at the crossroads to Athens, we can’t be but about an hour’s ride from Tinhorn. That was almost four hours ago, so don’t cash in on me now. We’ve got plenty of time to get there before suppertime. Come on. Lean on over this way.”

Although wounded, Bart reluctantly did as asked and leaned over to let Roy catch his weight on his shoulders.

“I believe we lost that posse,” Roy said as he walked Bart over to settle him against a sweetgum tree while he took care of the horses. “I believe they went after Eli and the other boys. When I get back, I’ll build a small fire big enough to boil us a cup of coffee. That’ll buck you up a little.”

“I ’preciate it, Roy,” Bart forced out painfully. “You coulda left me back there at the fork and gone with Eli and the others. I ain’t never gonna forget that.”

“I couldn’ta just rode off and left you with a bullet in your side, like Eli and them did,” Roy declared.

“I wouldn’ta blamed you if you had gone with ’em, ’cause there ain’t no tellin’ if you’ll ever get your share of that money. Eli ain’t even gonna count it till they’re somewhere safe tonight.” Bart knew it wasn’t like Roy Tate to trust anyone with his share of a holdup. He also knew Eli Curry well enough to know he would hardly go to the trouble of finding them to give them their share of that Wells Fargo cash shipment. Eli was a loser all the way around.

Instead of his share of the cash, Bart got a bullet in his side. He never was a lucky individual, so he wasn’t surprised that of the six men, he was the only one the Wells Fargo guard shot before Eli shot down the guard. Bart’s only hope for the present was that there might be a doctor in the little town of Tinhorn. He was still in a mild state of shock at Roy Tate volunteering to stay with him to find a doctor before the money was split. It just wasn’t like him to let anybody ride off with his share of the money.

Almost as if he knew what Bart was thinking, Roy looked at him and smiled. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you. You’ll get your share of the money. We both will. See, when we was gettin’ ready to leave that first place we stopped to rest the horses . . . you remember that, right? And Eli was tellin’ you how sorry he was we was gonna have to leave you, ’cause we had to ride fast? Well, when he was tellin’ you that, I noticed nobody was payin’ any attention to those three money bags tied behind Eli’s saddle. I told myself, ‘them bags look uneven, one hangin’ on one side, and two hangin’ on the other’. So I thought it’d be a good idea to even ’em up a little. That black Morgan he rides oughta appreciate it, and this way, we don’t lose our share of the job.”

Bart was so shocked by Roy’s bold statement he almost forgot his pain for a few moments. “I swear,” he blurted. “Are you japin’ me?”

Roy shook his head.

“You took one of those bags offa Eli’s horse?”

Roy nodded, grinning all the while.

“You know he’ll be comin’ after us,” Bart warned.

“He don’t know where we went,” Roy said. “He didn’t ask me where I was gonna take you, so I didn’t even have to tell him a lie. If he had any notion of comin’ to find us and give us our share of the money, don’t you reckon he mighta asked me where we was headed?”

“He’s gonna be mad as hell when he stops for the night and finds out one of them bags is missin’,” Bart said. “If he don’t notice before that. When him and the other boys left us back on the other side of Tyler, and we started out, you cut back and changed directions so many times, I thought you were tryin’ to lose a posse. Then I thought you were just tryin’ to see if you could hurry me along, so I’d go ahead and bleed out, and you wouldn’t have to fool with me no more.”

Roy laughed. “No such a thing, partner. I was more concerned with not leavin’ a trail for Eli to follow, in case he discovered he was missin’ a bag before we got very far. I know he wanted to do the dividin’ up hisself, but I don’t figure we’re cheatin’ him or the other boys. There’s four of ’em and they’ve got two bags. That’s two shares to a bag. There’s two of us and we’ve got one bag. Seems fair to me. I ain’t never cheated a partner in this business.” He decided not to explain one of the reasons he didn’t want to leave a trail for Eli was because Bart’s condition left some question about whether or not he would make it. There was no sense in sharing Bart’s share with the others, if he failed to survive his wound.

They sure as hell didn’t offer any help to take care of him.

With Bart settled against a tree, Roy went to take care of the horses, and when he came back, he collected enough dry branches and limbs to build a fire. “You feel like you could drink a little coffee?”

“I reckon,” Bart answered. “A little bit, anyway. I don’t think I can eat anything right now.”

“That’s good ’cause I ain’t got anything to eat. We oughta find something to eat in Tinhorn. You ever been there?”

“Nope.” Bart gasped painfully when he tried to shift his position against the tree.

“Well, I hope they’ve got someplace to buy somethin’ to eat, since me and you can afford to buy us anything we want,” Roy boasted.

“How much you think is in that bag?” Bart asked, his curiosity stronger than his sense of pain at the moment.

“I don’t know, but Eli said the total shipment was fifty thousand dollars, and they had it in three separate bags. Them bags looked pretty much equal, so what’s three into fifty thousand?” He brushed the leaves away to expose some bare ground to use for a slate. “Too bad we ain’t got Numbers here. He could do this in his head.” Roy broke off a twig to use for a pencil and scratched his figures out on the ground. He worked for a while, trying to remember the little bit his mother had tried to teach him before she gave up. “Hell, I know that fifteen thousand doubled is thirty thousand, and another fifteen would make forty-five thousand. So that just leaves five thousand to split up three ways. Like I said, those three bags looked pretty much the same to me. So, we know we got at least fifteen thousand in that bag, plus a third of five thousand.” He paused to work those figures in his mind. “I expect we’ve got sixteen thousand dollars, plus a little extra. That’ll give us at least eight thousand apiece. Ain’t bad for a day’s work.”

“How come nobody saw that bag after you took it off Eli’s saddle?” Bart asked, still amazed Roy had gotten away with it.

“I dropped it under the creekbank, just in case he did notice it was gone,” Roy said with a chuckle.

“Let’s go ahead and count it now,” Bart said. “It’s gonna drive me crazy till we do.”

Roy laughed. “It’s workin’ on my mind, too, so I’ll empty it out here on the ground and we’ll see how rich we are.” They carefully counted all the money in the sack. When they came up with a total of twenty thousand dollars they figured they must have miscounted, and counted it again. When they reached the same total the second time, they realized that pure luck had given them a sack with ten thousand dollars each.

“Them other two sacks was just holdin’ thirty thousand,” Roy exclaimed. “Damned if we didn’t skunk ’em on the money split, and we didn’t even know it!” He threw his head back and issued a real horse laugh. “He’s gonna be fit to be tied when he finds out we got ten thousand apiece.”

After the horses were rested, Roy got Bart back in the saddle again. Feeling wealthier than when they had stopped, they continued on to the town of Tinhorn. Coming in from the north, the most critical question in Bart’s mind was answered right away when Roy spotted the sign on the first house they saw. DOCTOR JOHN THOMAS BEARD it read.

“Well, danged if that ain’t convenient,” Roy declared. Looking up ahead, he could see the town was a little more than he had expected. The next building on the same side as the doctor’s was a hotel. “That’s convenient, too.” Although he couldn’t read nor write, he knew the word hotel, just like he knew saloon and doctor. “This place is bigger ’n I thought it was.” He turned his horse onto the path that led up to the doc’s office and living quarters.

“Looks like you got a patient coming in,” Doc’s wife, Birdie, informed him. “Two men on horseback. One of them bent over like he’s hurt. Want me to go see?”

“No,” Doc answered and put his coffee cup on the table. “I’ll go see what they need.” He got up from the kitchen table and walked to the front of the house, which served as his office. He arrived just as Roy was coming in through the front door.

“You the doctor?” Roy asked.

“I’m Dr. Beard. What can I do for you?”

“My partner’s got a gunshot wound, and he’s bleedin’ pretty bad,” Roy said. “Can you take a look at it?”

“Bring him on in here and we’ll see how bad it is. Can he walk? Do you need help carrying him?”

“No, sir,” Roy replied. “I can get him in here without no trouble. It was an accident. I was cleanin’ my gun—”

“I don’t care how he got shot,” Doc interrupted. “That’s between him and whoever shot him. Just bring him in and put him on that table in there.” He pointed to the open door of his examining room. “Where is the wound?”

“In his side.”

“Well, take him in there and get his shirt off him, and we’ll take a look.” Doc went back to the kitchen to tell his petite Cherokee wife he would need her, while Roy went outside to help Bart get off his horse.

“What did you tell him about how I got shot?” Bart grunted painfully as he leaned on Roy for support.

“I started to tell him I was cleanin’ my gun and it accidentally went off, but he didn’t let me finish. Said he didn’t care how you got shot, so I don’t reckon we have to worry about him causin’ us any trouble.” Roy helped Bart inside the door, then took him to the examining room and helped him get his shirt off.

Doc went in followed by Birdie, carrying a pan of hot water. “This is my wife. She’ll be helping me.” To prevent any insult to his wife because she was an Indian, he always introduced her as his wife, especially when working on gunshot wounds and strangers who looked as if gunshot wounds were not unusual in their lives.

“Ma’am,” Roy greeted her politely and Bart nodded his head.

After a careful examination, Doc informed Bart the bullet was deep in his side and would continue to cause him pain unless it was removed. “On surgery like this, I usually charge twenty-five dollars because I’ll have to do a lot of cutting and stitching. It won’t kill you if I just fix the hole, but it’ll aggravate you for the rest of your life.”

“Go ahead and fix me up right, Doc,” Bart said without hesitation. “I’ve got the money to pay you. Don’t worry about that.”

“We’ll get started right away.” Doc motioned to Birdie to get the chloroform. “It’s gonna take a good little while,” he told Roy, “so you might want to get yourself something to eat, or a drink or two. But if you’d rather wait here, you can just make yourself comfortable in the parlor. He won’t know whether you’re here or not. I’m gonna put him to sleep.”

Birdie came back then with a clean cotton cloth and a bottle of chloroform.

“I noticed a hotel right down the street there,” Roy said. “I think I’ll go see if we can get us a room. I don’t think Bart’s gonna be ready to travel right away. I reckon I’ll have plenty of time to take care of the horses, too.”

“Good idea. He might feel a little sick from the chloroform,” Doc told him and watched him go out the door. If he’s thinking about staying in the hotel, maybe they do have enough money to pay my bill, he was thinking. “You couldn’t tell it by looking at him,” he said aloud.

“What you say?” Birdie asked.

“Nothing. I was just talking to myself.” Doc took the bottle of chloroform and the cotton pad from her and returned to his patient.

After he got Bart to lie back on the table in a comfortable position, he poured some of the chloroform on the cotton pad and held it under Bart’s nose. “Just breathe in real deep,” he instructed and continued the process until Bart passed out.

The surgery was quickly done, and the wound bandaged before Bart showed any signs of waking up, so he was still on the table when Roy returned.

“How’s he doin’, Doc?” Roy asked when he came back in the office to find Doc Beard sitting at his desk.

“He’ll be ready to go in a few minutes,” Doc answered. “He’s just waking up right now. I’ll tell you, since he might still be a little groggy from the chloroform, tell him to leave that bandage on for three days before he changes it. Tell him to keep it dry. And don’t take a bath for three days.”

Roy chuckled in response. “Won’t be no trouble there. He can go three months, if you want him to. When can he ride?”

“To start with, it’d be best not to have him bouncing around on a horse for a couple of days,” Doc advised. “After that, it’s up to him. If it doesn’t bother him, he can get on a horse then.”

“Fine and dandy,” Roy said. “’Preciate you takin’ care of him. I’ll settle up with you now, and he can pay me later. How much did you say it was?” Doc told him it was twenty-five dollars, same as he had quoted him.

“Twenty-five,” Roy repeated. “That’s a little steep, but I ain’t complainin’. I’ll tell Bart you charged fifty,” he japed. “I rented us a room in the hotel, so I’ll see if I can get him over there to rest up.”

“You feel like eatin’ some supper?” Roy asked after Bart had rested up a little and seemed to have recovered from his surgery.

“Yeah, I think so. I know I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”

“Well, let’s go on over to the dinin’ room and see if they’ve got a horse on the menu. Doc Beard told me they serve pretty good cookin’. Clara’s Kitchen is what they call the dinin’ room. We’ll see if Clara cooks good enough to satisfy two rich gents like me and you.”

They stepped into the hallway, Roy locked the door to their room and led the way down the hall to the inside door to the dining room. Bart walked carefully behind him. When they stepped inside the dining room, they automatically looked the room over before committing to a table.

Clara Rakestraw looked up when the door from the hotel opened and the two strangers walked in. She watched to see if they read the sign by the weapons table and was not surprised when they paid it no attention. It was the usual occurrence with customers new to town.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Clara greeted them. “May I ask you to leave your weapons on the table, there, while you’re our guests in the dining room?”

“Good evenin’ to you, little lady,” Roy answered her. “You certainly may ask us, but we ain’t inclined to take ’em off. We like to keep ’em handy, especially when that big feller, settin’ at the table by the kitchen door is wearin’ his.”

“He’s also wearing a sheriff ’s badge,” Clara politely told them. “Officers of the law are allowed to wear their weapons in the dining room.” She pointed to the sign in the center of the table pertaining to the matter, then gave them a friendly smile. “Maybe I need to print a bigger sign.”

“Ain’t no problem,” Roy said at once, but he was thinking she could make the sign ten feet tall if she wanted. He still wouldn’t be able to read it. “We was just so anxious to try the food out that we didn’t pay no mind to the sign.” He unbuckled his gun belt at once. “Come on, Bart, peel that belt off. They ain’t gonna feed us if you don’t.” When Bart winced suddenly in the process of removing his weapon, Roy asked, “You need help?”

“No, I got it,” Bart answered and carefully pulled his gun belt off, then handed it to Roy.

Seeing Clara’s inquisitive expression, Roy explained. “He just came from the doctor’s off ice. Had to have a little surgery done on his side, and he ain’t too frisky right now.”

“Well, let’s not make him stand here waiting,” Clara said, and ushered them to the closest table. “Bonnie will be taking care of you. Do you want coffee?”

“Yes, ma’am, we sure do,” Roy said.

Clara went at once to the kitchen to tell Bonnie. In less than a minute, Bonnie came to the table with two cups of coffee.

“Look here, Bart. They keep gettin’ prettier and prettier,” Roy declared. “Don’t matter whether the food’s fit to eat, or not, we’ll just admire the scenery.”

“You fellows are new in town, ain’tcha?” Bonnie asked.

“That’s right,” Roy answered. “And we could use some company to show us what there is to do here. Maybe you’d like to do that—show us a little of what we’ve been missin’.”

“Well, now, I don’t know,” Bonnie replied. “I reckon I’d have to check with my husband about that.”

“Hell, I won’t tell him, if you don’t,” Roy chuckled.

“He’d know, anyway,” Bonnie said. “He’s sittin’ right here. I’ll go ask him.” She pointed to Buck Jackson, sitting at the table by the kitchen door, and made a move to leave.

“Whoa! Wait a minute!” Roy exclaimed. “You’re married to the sheriff?”

“Why, yes. You didn’t know that? You are new in town.”

“I sure am,” Roy replied, “and I don’t wanna get throwed in the jailhouse my first day in town. Why don’t we just back up a little bit? You just bring me and my partner some supper, and we won’t bother the sheriff.”

“Good idea,” she said. “What’s it gonna be? Beef stew, or steak and potatoes?”

“I swear, I’m hungry enough to eat both of ’em. Because of Bart’s surgery, we missed dinner, didn’t we, Bart? I don’t know.” After a moment, Roy said, “I think I’ll try the stew. That oughta be quicker, since you just dish that out. You’d have to fry a steak, right?”

Bonnie nodded, so Bart took the same.

When she went to the kitchen, Roy commented, “I’d heard of Tinhorn, but I didn’t think they were big enough to hire a sheriff.”

“Well they’ve got one, and it looks like they wanted a big one,” Bart said, taking another look at Buck Jackson sitting by the kitchen door.

“You want some more coffee?” Mindy Moore asked.

“I think that oughta do me for the night. “Fix me up a plate for Ralph. I expect he’ll think I forgot him, if I don’t get back with his supper pretty soon.”

“I’ll tell Margaret to get it ready,” Mindy said as she filled his coffee cup. “Is Flint coming to eat here tonight?”

“Yeah,” Buck said, grinning broadly, for he knew it was more than a casual question. “He said he was plannin’ to get back in time to get some supper here. That’s the reason I’ve been settin’ here so long, but I reckon I’d better take Ralph his supper.”

“How long are you gonna keep that man in jail?” Mindy asked. “I thought he was supposed to go on trial two months ago.”

Her question caused Buck to chuckle again. “He’s servin’ a life sentence. Me and Flint put him on trial. He’s there for life, or until he walks out. His cell ain’t locked. As his punishment, he has to keep the jail cleaned up and take care of any other prisoners we have in there. He’s doin’ a pretty good job, so far. I believe he’s gonna stay with us for a good while.”

“Who pays for the food you and Flint take him?” she wondered.

“Same deal as always,” Buck said. “He’s still a prisoner, so we still feed him. Same as it was for Roy Hawkins before he got killed. Ralph just took over Roy’s job. Well, well,” he said then, seeing his deputy, Flint Moran, walk in the door. “Here’s Flint now.” He was glad for the opportunity to change the subject. The topic of Ralph Cox was not one he was comfortable trying to explain. He was a former prisoner who had escaped from the jail before, but both Buck and Flint were convinced Ralph had just been unfortunate to have ridden with a real hardened killer. They’d become convinced he was no real threat to anyone, so they called off his trial and gave him the opportunity to stay in jail as a free man. With nothing legal about his pardon, they were reluctant to talk about it.

Seeing Buck still at the table, Flint said, “Good evenin’,” to Clara and walked on back to join him. As Flint passed the table near the door, Roy Tate looked over at Clara and shrugged, his two hands spread up and out, his face a mask of confusion. She understood his confusion and answered with a gesture of her own. Pointing to her chest, she mouthed the word badge.

Roy slowly shook his head and said to Bart, “I swear, this little town is eat up with lawmen.”

They both watched Flint as he pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with the sheriff. The other waitress had already gone to fetch his coffee by the time he was settled.

“I wonder if that other little gal is married to him,” Roy mumbled after Bonnie placed their food on the table.

“Maybe we oughta take our meals at the saloon, if they’ve got a cook,” Bart suggested.

“The desk clerk at the hotel said they had a cook at the saloon, but the cookin’ was a lot better here,” Roy said.

“Well, ’course he’s gonna say that,” Bart replied. “I reckon we’ll have to decide that for ourselves. It’s kinda crampin’ my style to be settin’ in here eatin’ with the sheriff and his deputy.”

“We ain’t got nothin’ to worry about,” Roy assured him. “Even if they’ve heard about that Wells Fargo job, it was a robbery by a gang of six men.”

“What if they’ve heard that one of that gang got shot, and me settin’ here with a bullet hole in my side?”

“We’ll tell ’em what I started to tell the doctor—that I shot you when I was cleanin’ my gun. They ain’t gonna arrest us for that. Even if they did, they’d just arrest me for shootin’ you, so let’s just eat this grub and get outta here.” Roy attacked his plate of stew with serious intent. He had consumed a good portion of it when he noticed Bart wasn’t eating at all. “Whaddaya waitin’ for? Ain’tcha gonna eat? I thought you wanted to eat a horse.”

“I thought I did,” Bart answered. “But all of a sudden, I don’t feel so good. I think maybe I shoulda stayed in that bed a little longer before I tried to set up here and eat.”

Noticing what looked to be some problem at their table, Clara walked over to see if anything was wrong. When she looked at the two plates, one of them half-finished, the other one untouched, she enquired. “Is something wrong with the food?”

Looking as if in pain, Bart answered, “No, ma’am, ain’t nothin’ wrong with the food. It’s me. The doctor knocked me out with some kinda medicine when he fixed my wound, and I think it must be makin’ me kinda sick.” He looked at Roy in distress. “I gotta go back to the room. Gimme the key.” When Roy made motions as if about to get up, Bart quickly insisted. “I don’t need no help. You stay here and take your time.”

“All right. If you’re sure.” Roy handed him the room key. “I’ll pay for yours, too. You just go on back to the room.”

Bart got to his feet and headed back to the hotel. He was in the hallway before he remembered to turn around, go back, and retrieve his gun from the table.

The little disturbance at their table did not go unnoticed at the table next to the kitchen door, especially when Bonnie returned to see if there was a problem. When Bart walked out the second time, Flint volunteered to go over to see if they needed any help.

“Is something wrong?” Flint asked when he arrived at the table. “Do you need some help, Clara?”

“No. This gentleman’s friend just had some surgery done and I think he got sick from the medicine Doc used to put him to sleep.” She looked back at Roy. “I’ll put his plate in a paper bag and you can take it back with you. Maybe he’ll feel more l. . .