A Lone Star Christmas

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Holiday books; Westerns

Synopsis

Smoke and Matt Jensen team up with Falcon and Duff MacCallister in this special Western adventure from the USA Today bestselling author!

They just wanted to get home for Christmas—but fate had other plans . . .

It's December 1890. A Texas rancher named Big Jim Conyers has a deal with Scottish-born Wyoming cattleman Duff MacCallister. Along with Smoke and Matt Jensen, the party bears down on Dodge, Kansas, to make a cattle drive back to Fort Worth. But before they can get out of Dodge, guns go off and a rich man's son is killed.

Soon the drive turns into a deadly pursuit, then a staggering series of clashes with bloodthirsty Indians and trigger-happy rustlers. And the worst is yet to come—the party rides into a devastating blizzard, a storm so fierce that their very survival is at stake.

From America's greatest Western author, here is an epic tale of the unforgiving American frontier and how, amidst fierce storms of man and nature, miracles can still happen.

Release date: May 26, 2011

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 401

Sample

It was cold outside, but in the depot waiting room, a wood-burning, pot-bellied stove roared and popped and glowed red as it pumped out enough heat to make the waiting room comfortable, if one chose the right place to sit. Too close and it was too hot, too far away and it was too cold.

There were about nine people in the waiting room at the moment, though Rebecca knew that only four of them, including herself, were passengers. Two weeks earlier, Benjamin Conyers, better known as Big Ben, had taken his 21-year-old daughter into Fort Worth to catch the train. Now, after a two-week visit with Big Ben’s sister in Marshall, Texas, it was time for Rebecca to return home. Her Aunt Mildred had come to the depot with her to see her off on the evening train.

Everyone agreed that Rebecca Conyers was a beautiful young woman. She had delicate facial bones and a full mouth; she was slender, with long, rich, glowing auburn hair, green eyes, and a slim waist. She was sitting on a bench, the wood polished smooth by the many passengers who had sat in this same place over the last several years. Just outside the depot window, she could see the green glowing lamp of the electric railroad signal.

“Rebecca, I have so enjoyed your visit,” Mildred said. “You simply must come again sometime soon.”

“I would love to,” Rebecca replied. “I enjoyed the visit as well.”

“I wish Ben would come with you sometime. But I know he is busy.”

“Yes,” Rebecca said. “Pa always seems to be busy.”

“Well, he is an important man,” Mildred said. “And important men always seem to be busy.” She laughed. “I don’t know if he is busy because he is important, or he is important because he is busy. I imagine it is a little of both.”

“Yes, I would think so as well,” Rebecca said. “Aunt Mildred, did you know my mother?”

“Julia? Of course I know her, dear. Why would you ask such a thing?”

“I don’t mean Julia,” Rebecca said. “I mean my real mother. I think her name is Janie.”

Mildred was quiet for a long moment. “Heavens, child, why would you ask such a thing now? The only mother you have ever known is Julia.”

“I know, and she is my mother in every way,” Rebecca said. “But I know too, that she wasn’t my birth mother, and I would like to know something more about her.”

Mildred sighed. “Well, I guess that is understandable,” she said.

“Did you know her? Do you remember her?”

“I do remember her, yes,” Rebecca’s Aunt Mildred said. “I know that when Ben learned that she was pregnant, he brought her out to the house. You were born right there, on the ranch.”

“Pa is my real father though, isn’t he? I mean he is the one who got my real mother pregnant.”

“Oh yes, there was never any question about that,” Mildred replied.

“And yet he never married my mother,” Rebecca said.

“Honey, don’t blame Ben for that. He planned to marry her, but shortly after you were born Janie ran off.”

“Janie was my birth mother?”

“Yes.”

“What was her last name?”

“Garner, I believe it was. Yes, her name was Janie Garner. But, like I said, she ran off and left you behind. That’s when Ben wrote me and asked me to come take care of you until he could find someone else to do it.”

“That’s when Mama, that is Julia, the woman I call Mama, came to live with us?”

“She did. You were only two months old when Julia came. She and Ben had known each other before, and everyone was sure they were going to get married. But after the war, Ben seemed—I don’t know, restless, I guess you would say. Anyway, it took him a while to settle down, and by that time he had already met your real mother. I’ll tell you true, she broke his heart when she left.”

“Why did my real mother leave? Did she run away with another man?”

“Nobody knows for sure. All we know is that she left a note saying she wasn’t good enough for you,” Mildred said. “For heaven’s sake, child, why are you asking so many questions about her now? Hasn’t Julia been a good mother to you?”

“She has been a wonderful mother to me,” Rebecca said. “I couldn’t ask for anyone better, and I love her dearly. I’ve just been a little curious, that’s all.”

“You know what they say, honey. Curiosity killed the cat,” Aunt Mildred said.

Hearing the whistle of the approaching train, they stood up and walked out onto the depot platform. It was six o’clock, and the sun was just going down in the west, spreading the clouds with long, glowing streaks of gold and red. To the east they could see the headlamp of the arriving train. It roared into the station, spewing steam and dropping glowing embers from the firebox. The train was so massive and heavy that it made Rebecca’s stomach shake as it passed by, first the engine with its huge driver wheels, then the cars with the long lines of lighted windows on each one disclosing the passengers inside, some looking out in curiosity, others reading in jaded indifference to the Marshall depot which represented but one more stop on their trip.

“What time will you get to Fort Worth?” Aunt Mildred asked.

“The schedule says eleven o’clock tonight.”

“Oh, heavens, will Ben have someone there to meet you?”

“No, I’ll be staying at a hotel. Papa already has a room booked for me. He’ll send someone for me tomorrow.”

“Board!” the conductor called, and Rebecca and her aunt shared a long goodbye hug before she hurried to get on the train.

Inside the first car behind the express car, Tom Whitman studied the passengers who would be boarding. He didn’t know what town he was in. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what state he was in. It wasn’t too long ago that they’d left Shreveport. He knew that Shreveport was in Louisiana, and he knew it wasn’t too far from Texas, so he wouldn’t be surprised if they were in Texas now.

“We are on the threshold of the twentieth century, Tom,” a friend had told him a couple of months ago. “Do you have any idea what a marvelous time this is? Think of all those people who went by wagon train to California. Their trip was arduous, dangerous, and months long. Today one can go by train, enjoying the luxury of a railroad car that protects them from rain, snow, beating sun, or bitter cold. They can dine sumptuously on meals served in a dining salon that rivals the world’s finest restaurants. They can view the passing scenery while relaxing in an easy chair, and they can pass the nights in a comfortable bed with clean sheets.”

At the time of that conversation, Tom had no idea that within a short time he would actually be taking that cross-country trip. Now he was in one more town of an almost countless number of towns he had been in over the last six days and ten states.

This town wasn’t that large, and although there were at least ten people standing out on the platform, there were only four people boarding, as far as he could determine. One of those boarding was a very pretty young, auburn-haired woman, and he watched her share a goodbye hug with an older woman, who Tom took to be her mother.

One of the passengers who had just boarded was putting his coat in the overhead rack, just in front of Tom.

“Excuse me,” Tom said to him. “What is the name of this town?”

“Marshall,” the passenger answered.

“Louisiana, or Texas?”

“Texas, Mister. The great state of Texas,” the man replied with inordinate pride.

“Thank you,” Tom said.

“Been traveling long?” the man asked.

“Yes, this is my sixth day.”

“Where are you headed?”

“I don’t have any particular destination in mind.”

“Ha, that’s funny. I don’t know as I’ve ever met anyone who was travelin’ and didn’t even know where they was goin’.”

“When I find a place that fits my fancy, I’ll stop,” Tom said.

“Well, Mister, I’ll tell you true, you ain’t goin’ to fine any place better than Texas. And any place in Texas you decide to stop is better than any place else.”

“Thank you,” Tom said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

In the week since he had left Boston, Tom had shared the train with hundreds of others, none of whom had continued their journey with him. He had managed to strike up a conversation with some of them, but in every case, they were only brief acquaintances, then they moved on. He thought of the passage from Longfellow.

With a series of jerks as the train took up the slack between the cars, it pulled away from the station, eventually smoothing out and picking up speed. Once the train settled in to its gentle rocking and rhythmic clacking forward progress, Tom leaned his head against the seat back and went to sleep.

Once Rebecca boarded, found her seat, and the train got underway, she reached into her purse to take out the letter. She had picked the letter up at the post office shortly before she left Fort Worth to come visit her Aunt Mildred. The letter, which was addressed to her and not to her father, had come as a complete surprise. Her father knew nothing about it, nor did she show it to her Aunt Mildred. The letter was from her real mother, and it was the first time in Rebecca’s life that she had ever heard from her.

Her first instinct had been to tear it up and throw it away, unread. After all, if her mother cared so little about her that she could abandon her when Rebecca was still a baby, why should Rebecca care what she had to say now?

But curiosity got the best of her, so she read the letter. Now, sitting in the train going back home, Rebecca read the letter again.

Rebecca knew about her mother; she had been told a long time ago that Julia was her stepmother. But she didn’t know anything about her real mother, and on the few times she had asked, she had always been given the same answer.

“Your mother was a troubled soul, and things didn’t work out for her. I’m sure that she believed, when she left you, that she was doing the right thing,” Big Ben had said.

“Have you ever heard from her again?” Rebecca wanted to know.

“No, I haven’t, and I don’t expect that I will. To tell you the truth, darlin’, I’m not even sure she is still alive.”

That had satisfied Rebecca, and she had asked no more questions until, unexpectedly, she had received this letter.

From the moment Rebecca had received the letter, she had been debating with herself as to whether or not she should go to Dodge. And if so, should she ask her father for permission to go? Or should she just go? She was twenty-one years old, certainly old enough to make her own decision.

She just didn’t know what that decision should be.

She read the letter one more time, then folded it, put it back in her reticule, and settled in for the three and one-half hour train trip.

The train had arrived in the middle of the night, and when Tom Whitman got off, he wondered if he should stay here or get back on the train and keep going. Six and one-half days earlier he had boarded a train in Boston with no particular destination in mind. His only goal at the time was to be somewhere other than Boston.

Now, as he stood alongside the train, he became aware of a disturbance at the other end of the platform. A young woman was being bothered by two men. Looking in her direction, Tom saw that it was the same young woman he had seen board the train back in Marshall.

“Please,” she was saying to the two men. “Leave me alone.”

“Here now, you pretty little thing, you know you don’t mean that,” one of the two men said. “Why, you wouldn’t be standin’ out here all alone in the middle of the night, if you wasn’t lookin’ for a little fun, would you now? And me ’n Pete here are just the men to show you how to have some fun. Right, Pete?”

“You got that right,” Pete said.

“What do you say, honey? Do you want to have a little fun with us?”

“No! Please, go away!” the young woman said.

“I know what it is, Dutch,” Pete said. “We ain’t offered her no money yet.”

“Is that it?” Dutch asked. “You’re waitin’ for us to offer you some money? How about two dollars? A dollar from me and one from Pete. Of course, that means you are going to have to be nice to both of us.”

“I asked you to go away. If you don’t, I will scream.”

Pete took off his bandana and wadded it into a ball. “It’s goin’ to be hard for you to scream with this bandana in your mouth,” he said.

Tom walked down to the scene of the ruckus. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I do believe I heard the lady ask you to leave her alone,” he said.

Tom was six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. Ordinarily his size alone would be intimidating, but the way he was dressed made him appear almost foppish. He was wearing a brown tweed suit, complete with vest, tie, and collar. He was also wearing a bowler hat, and he was obviously unarmed. He could not have advertised himself as more of a stranger to the West if he had a sign hanging around his neck proclaiming the same.

The two men, itinerant cowboys, were wearing denim trousers and stained shirts. Both were wearing Stetson hats, and both had pistols hanging at their sides. When they saw Tom, they laughed.

“Well now, tell me, Dutch, have you ever seen a prettier boy than this Eastern dude?” Pete asked. He slurred the word ‘Eastern’.

“Don’t believe I have,” Dutch replied. Then to Tom he said, “Go away, pretty boy, unless you want to get hurt.”

“Let’s hurt him anyway,” Pete said, smiling. “Let’s hurt him real bad for stickin’ his nose in where it don’t belong.”

“Please, sir,” the young woman said to Tom. “Go and summon a policeman. I don’t want you to get hurt, and I don’t think they will do anything if they know a police officer is coming.”

“I think it may be too late for that,” Tom replied. “These gentlemen seem rather insistent. I’m afraid I’m going to have to take care of this myself.”

“Ha!” Pete shouted. “Take care of this!”

Pete swung hard, but Tom reached up and caught his fist in his open hand. That surprised Pete, but it didn’t surprise him as much as what happened next. Tom began to squeeze down on Pete’s fist, putting vise-like pressure against it, feeling two of Pete’s fingers snap under the squeeze.

“Ahhh!” Pete yelled. “Dutch! Get him off me! Get him off me!”

Dutch swung as well, and Tom caught his fist in his left hand. He repeated the procedure of squeezing down on the fist, and within a moment he had both men on their knees, writhing in pain.

“Let go, let go!” Pete screamed in agony.

Tom let go of both of them, and stepped back as the two men regained their feet.

“Please go away now,” Tom said with no more tension in his voice than if he were asking for a cup of coffee.

“You son of a ...” Pete swore as he started to draw his pistol. But because two of his fingers were broken, he was unable to get a grip on his pistol and it fell from his hand. The young woman grabbed it quickly, then pointed it at both of them.

“This gentleman may be an Eastern dude, but I am not,” she said. “I’m a Western girl and I can shoot. I would like nothing better than to put a bullet into both of you, and if the two of you don’t start running, right now, I will do just that.”

“No, no, don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Pete cried out. “We’re goin’! We’re goin’!”

The two men ran, and the young woman laughed. To Tom, her laughter sounded like wind chimes. She turned to him with a broad smile spread across her face.

“I want to thank you, sir,” she said. She thrust her hand toward him, but when he shied away she looked down and saw that she was still holding the pistol. With another laugh, she tossed the gun away, then again stuck out her hand.

“I’m Rebecca Conyers,” she said.

“I’m Tom ... ,” Tom hesitated for a moment before he said, “Whitman.”

“You aren’t from here, are you, Mr. Whitman?”

Tom chuckled. “How can you tell?”

Rebecca laughed as well.

“What are you doing in Fort Worth?”

“This is where the train stopped,” Tom replied.

Rebecca laughed again. “That’s reason enough, I suppose. Are you looking for work?”

“Well, yes, I guess I am.”

“Meet me in the lobby of the Clark Hotel tomorrow morning,” she said. “Someone will be coming to fetch me from my father’s ranch. He is always looking for good men. I’m sure he would hire you if you are interested.”

“Hire me to do what?”

“Why, to cowboy, of course.”

“Oh. Do you think it would matter if I told l him that I have never been a cowboy?”

Rebecca smiled. “Telling him you have never been a cowboy would be like telling him that you have blond hair and blue eyes.”

“Oh, yes. I see what you mean,” he said.

“It’s easy to learn to be a cowboy. Once he hears what you did for me tonight, you won’t have any trouble getting on. That is, if you want to.”

“Yes,” Tom said. “I believe I would want to.”

As Rebecca lay in bed in her room at the Clark Hotel half an hour later, she wondered what had possessed her to offer a job to Tom Whitman. She had no authority to offer him a job; her father did the hiring and the firing, and he was very particular about it.

On the other hand, before she left to go to Marshall last week, she heard him tell Clay Ramsey that he might hire someone to replace Tony Peters, a young cowboy who had left for Nevada to try his hand at finding gold or silver. Rebecca had a sudden thought. What if he has already hired someone to replace Peters?

No, she was sure he had not. Her father tended to be much more methodical than to hire someone that quickly. But that same tendency of his to be methodical might also work against her, for he would not be that anxious to hire someone he knew nothing about.

Well, Rebecca would just have to talk him into it, that’s all. And surely when her father heard what Tom Whitman had done for her, he would be more than willing.

Rebecca wondered why she was so intent on getting Mr. Whitman hired. Was it because he had been her knight in shining armor, just when she needed such a hero? Or was it because with his muscular build, his blond hair and blue eyes, that he might be one of the most handsome men she had ever seen? In addition to that, though, there was something else about him, something that she sensed more than she saw. He had a sense of poise and self-assuredness that she found most intriguing.

Because it had been unseasonably warm, and because Tom liked to sleep with fresh air, he had raised the window when he went to bed last night. He had taken a room in the same hotel as Rebecca because she had suggested the hotel to him. He was awakened this morning by a combination of things, the sun streaming in through his open window, and the sounds of commerce coming from the street below.

He could hear the sound of the clash of eras, the whir of an electric streetcar, along with the rattle and clatter of a freight wagon. From somewhere he could hear the buzz and squeal of a power saw, and the ring of steel on steel as a blacksmith worked his trade. Newspaper boys were out on the street, hawking their product.

“Paper, get the paper here! Wyoming to be admitted as state! Get your paper here!”

Tom got out of bed, shaved, then got dressed. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror, he frowned. He was wearing a three-piece suit, adequate dress if he wanted to apply for a job with a bank. But he was going to apply for a job as a cowboy, and this would never do.

Stepping over to the window, he looked up and down Houston Street and saw, on the opposite side, the Fort Worth Mercantile Store. Leaving his suitcase in his room, he hurried downstairs and then across the street. A tall, thin man with a neatly trimmed moustache and garters around his sleeves stepped up to him.

“Yes, sir, may I help you?”

“I intend to apply for employment at a neighboring ranch,” Tom said. “And I will need clothes that are suitable for the position.”

“When you say that you are going to apply for employment, do you mean as an accountant, or business manager?” the clerk asked.

“No. As a cowboy.”

The expression on the clerk’s face registered his surprise. “I beg your pardon, sir. Did you say as a cowboy?”

“Yes,” Tom said. “Why, is there a problem?”

“No, sir,” the clerk said quickly. “No problem. It is just that, well, sir, you will forgive me, but you don’t look like a cowboy.”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “That’s why I’m here. I want you to make me look like a cowboy.”

“I can sell you the appropriate attire, sir,” the clerk said. “But, in truth, you still won’t look like a cowboy.”

“Try,” Tom said.

“Yes, sir.”

It took Tom no more than fifteen minutes to buy three outfits, to include boots and a hat. Paying for his purchases, he returned to the hotel, packed his suit and the two extra jeans and shirts into his suitcase, then went downstairs, checked out, and took a seat in the lobby to wait for the young woman he had met last night.

As he waited for her, he recalled the conversation he had had with his father, just before he left.

“You are making a big mistake by running away,” his father had told him. “You will not be able to escape your own devils.”

“I can try,” Tom said.

“Nobody is holding it against you, Tom. You did what you thought was right.”

“I did what I thought was right? I can’t even justify what I did to myself by saying that I did what I thought was right. My wife and my child are dead, and I killed them.”

“It isn’t as if you murdered them.”

“It isn’t? How is it different? Martha and the child are still dead.”

“So you are going to run away. Is that your answer?”

“Yes, that is my answer. I need some time to sort things out. Please try to understand that.”

His father changed tactics, from challenging to being persuasive. “Tom, all I am asking is that you think this through. You have more potential than any student I ever taught, and I’m not saying that just because you are my son. I am saying it because it is true. Do you have any idea of the good that someone like you—a person with your skills, your talent, your education, can do?”

“I’ve seen the evil I can do when I confuse skill, talent, and education with Godlike attributes.”

Tom’s father sighed in resignation. “What time does your train leave?”

“At nine o’clock tonight.”

Tom’s father walked over to the bar and poured a glass of Scotch. He held it out toward Tom and, catching a beam of light from the electric chandelier, the amber fluid emitted a burst of gold as if the glass had captured the sun itself. “Then at least have this last, parting drink with me.”

Tom waited until his father had poured his own glass, then the two men drank to each other.

“Will you write to let me know where you are and how you are doing?”

“Not for a while,” Tom said. “I just need to be away from everything that could remind me of what happened. And that means even my family.”

Surprisingly, Tom’s father smiled. “In a way, I not only don’t blame you, I envy you. I almost ran off myself, once. I was going to sail the seven seas. But my father got wind of it, and talked me out of it. I guess I wasn’t as strong as you are.”

“Nonsense, you are as strong,” Tom said. “You just never had the same devils chasing you that I do.”

Tom glanced over at the big clock. It showed fifteen minutes of nine. Shouldn’t she be here by now? Had she changed her mind and already checked out? He walked over to the desk.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Whitman, may I help you?” the hotel desk clerk asked.

“Rebecca Conyers,” Tom said. “Has she checked out yet?”

The clerk checked his book. “No, sir. She is still in the hotel. Would you like me to summon her?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Tom said. “I’ll just wait here in the lobby for her.”

“Very good, sir.”

Huh, Tom thought. And here it was my belief that Westerners went to bed and rose with the sun.

As soon he thought that, though, he realized that she had gone to bed quite late, having arrived on the train in the middle of the night. At least his initial fear that she had left without meeting him was alleviated.

When Rebecca awakened that morning she was already having second thoughts about what she had done. Had she actually told a perfect stranger that she could talk her father into hiring him? And, even if she could, should she? She had arisen much later than she normally did, and now, as she dressed, she found herself hoping that he had grown tired of waiting for her and left, without accepting her offer.

However, when she went downstairs she saw him sitting in a chair in the lobby. His suitcase was on the floor beside him, but he wasn’t wearing the suit he had been wearing the night before. Instead, he was wearing denims and a blue cotton shirt. If anything, she found him even more attractive, for the denims and cotton shirt took some of the polish off and gave him a more rugged appearance.

Although Tom had gotten an idea last night that the young woman was pretty, it had been too dark to get a really good look at her. In the full light of morning though, he saw her for what she was: tall and willowy, with long, auburn hair and green eyes shaded by long, dark eyelashes. She was wearing a dress that showed off her gentle curves to perfection.

“Mr. Whitman,” she said. “How wonderful it is to see you this morning. I see you have decided to take me up on my offer.”

“Yes, I have. You were serious about it, weren’t you?” Tom asked. “I mean, you weren’t just making small talk?”

Rebecca paused for a moment before responding. If she wanted to back out of her offer, now was the time to do it.

“I was very serious,” she heard herself saying, as if purposely speaking before she could change her mind.

“Do we have time? If so, I would like to take you to breakfast,” Tom said.

Rebecca glanced over at the clock. “Yes, I think so,” she said. “And I would be glad to have breakfast with you. But you must let me pay for my own.”

“Only if it makes you feel more comfortable,” Tom said.

“Let’s sit by the window,” Rebecca suggested when they stepped into the hotel restaurant. “That way we will be able to see when Mo comes for me.”

“Mo?”

“He is one of my father’s cowboys,” Rebecca said. “He is quite young.”

Rebecca had a poached egg, toast, and coffee for breakfast. Tom had two waffles, four fried eggs, a rather substantial slab of ham, and more biscuits than Rebecca could count.

“My, you must have been hungry,” Rebecca said after Tom pushed away a clean plate. “When is the last time you ate?”

“Not since supper last night,” Tom said, as if that explained his prodigious appetite. “Oh, I hope I haven’t embarrassed you.”

“Not at all,” Rebecca said. “Tell me about yourself, Mr. Whitman. Where are you from? What were you doing before you decided to come West?”

“Not much to tell. I’m from Boston,” Tom said. “I’. . .