Brotherhood of Evil

Book 6: Family Jensen

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

The Greatest Western Writer Of The 21st Century

In one of the most shocking chapters in the Jensen family saga, America's fearless frontier clan is about to take on an enemy as cold and relentless as evil itself--a mad, sadistic surgeon skilled with knives and his gang. They're gunning for the Jensen Sugarloaf ranch to ravage Jensen women, and spill an ocean of Jensen blood. . .

When the Jensen boys decide to take a trip to Smoke Jensen's ranch--leaving Sally, Pearle, and Cal alone at the Sugarloaf--the family homestead becomes an easy target for enemies, outlaws, and one hell of a hardcase named Jonas Trask. A former army doctor with a degree in cruelty, Trask and his vicious band of followers descend on the nearby town of Big Rock with a vengeance. First, he takes out the sheriff. Then, he kidnaps Sally Jensen. Now, he waits for the Jensen boys to return, like lambs to the slaughter. It doesn't take long for Matt, Preacher, and Smoke to see that they're up against a vicious maniac. What they can't figure out is why this mad doctor Trask is doing this--or how they're going to stop him. One thing is sure: the brothers will perform the operation with surgical precision, blazing guns, and not a shred of mercy. . .

Release date: October 1, 2015

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Bitter cold rain sluiced down from gray, leaden skies, turning the single street of Espantosa, New Mexico Territory, into a muddy bog. It was the middle of the afternoon, but the thick overcast made it seem more like twilight.

No one was out and about except one man, who muttered curses under his breath as he attempted to run up the street. The mud kept trying to suck the boots off his feet, so his run was more of a stumble.

Petey Tomlin was plumb miserable. He wore an old slicker, but it leaked in several places. Even if it hadn’t, pounding rain always found a way to work itself inside a man’s duds and make him wet and uncomfortable. In less than a block, Tomlin felt like he was soaked to the skin. Water ran in a steady stream from the brim of his battered old hat and made it difficult for him to see where he was going.

He kept his eyes on the yellow glow up ahead that marked the front windows of the Gilt-Edge Saloon. That was his destination. He carried important news for the men who waited there.

Espantosa didn’t have boardwalks along the two blocks of its business district. Most of the establishments opened directly onto the street. A few, like the Gilt-Edge, had covered porches, but that didn’t help Tomlin stay out of the rain.

He could dry off and warm up later, he told himself, once he’d let Jack Shawcross know what he had seen at the livery stable down the street.

Shawcross had sent him to the stable to check on the horses, or so he’d claimed. Tomlin thought Shawcross had done it mostly to make him miserable. He got mean like that sometimes, especially when he’d been putting away the booze. He and the rest of the bunch had been in the Gilt-Edge all afternoon, drinking and playing cards and taking turns going upstairs with the saloon’s lone bar girl.

Tomlin hadn’t been up there with her yet. He was usually one of the last for anything good and the first for any unpleasant job like going out in the rain.

He would have to wait even longer for female companionship. He knew his boss would want to deal right away with what he’d discovered at the livery stable.

Maybe Shawcross would be feeling generous after that. He might even toss Tomlin an extra double eagle in appreciation for what he’d done.

He reached the steps leading up to the saloon’s porch and climbed them, stomping to knock some of the mud off his boots, but the blasted stuff was just too thick and sticky.

At that time of year, the batwings were fastened back on either side of closed double doors. He grasped the right-hand doorknob, opened it, and stepped into the welcome warmth coming from a potbellied stove in the corner.

“Stop right there!” bellowed Ben Gormley, the craggy-faced bartender and the saloon’s owner. “Don’t come trackin’ all that mud in here. Go outside and take them boots off.”

The little outlaw ignored the man who stood behind the bar and scuttled across the room toward the round, baize-covered table where Jack Shawcross was playing poker with four members of the gang. Three more men were at the bar, nursing mugs of beer. The nine owlhoots were the only people in the Gilt-Edge’s main room, other than the owner.

“Damn it!” Gormley said as he started out from behind the bar. “I told you—” He stopped instantly and shut up as Shawcross lifted a hand.

“Petey wouldn’t be hurrying like that if he didn’t have something important to tell us,” the outlaw boss said.

“Sorry, Jack,” Gormley muttered as he retreated behind the hardwood again.

The outlaws spent freely and generally behaved themselves in Espantosa, which they had adopted as their unofficial headquarters. Nobody wanted to get on their bad side—which, according to their reputation, was very bad indeed.

Tomlin took off his hat and tilted it so that water ran off and formed a puddle in the sawdust on the floor. The sawdust would soak it up, given time.

Shawcross turned his attention back to the cards in his hand but asked Tomlin, “How are the horses, Petey?” He snickered. “Staying dry?”

“I didn’t check on ’em,” Tomlin answered.

Shawcross frowned and looked at Tomlin coldly. “That’s what I told you to do, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but some fellas rode into the livery stable just before I got there. I saw ’em goin’ in, and somethin’ about one of ’em struck me as familiar. So I snuck up to the door and watched while they talked to ol’ Ramon. I got a good look at ’em then, and I recognized one of them, just like I thought.”

Shawcross slapped his cards on the table, facedown, and snapped, “Damn it. Spit it out already.”

“It was Luke Jensen, Jack. I’m as sure of it as the day I was born.”

The name was loud in the saloon. Shawcross sat up straighter, as did the other men at the table. The three men drinking at the bar stiffened, set their drinks down, and turned around.

“You’d better not be trying to have a little sport with me, Petey.” Shawcross’s voice was soft, but it held a steel-edged quality that made a shiver go through Tomlin.

“I’d never do that, Jack.” Even though you might deserve it for all the times you’ve tormented me. “It was Jensen, right enough. He didn’t look exactly like he did in El Paso last year. He was a little skinny, like he’d been sick or something. But it was him, no doubt about it.”

Shawcross turned his head and said to the men at the bar, “One of you go get Clancy.” Then he got to his feet. The cards, the game, and the pile of greenbacks and coins in the middle of the table obviously were forgotten. He drew the heavy revolver from the holster at his hip, opened the cylinder, and took a cartridge from one of the loops on his shell belt. He thumbed it into the empty chamber and snapped the cylinder closed.

Around the table, the other men began doing likewise.

Shawcross pouched the iron and looked out the window at the falling rain. He was a lean, lantern-jawed man. His cheeks still bore the faint pockmarks of a childhood illness. His deep-set eyes burned with a fire that might be hate or insanity or both. “You said there were some other men with Jensen?”

Tomlin nodded. “Yeah, three more. A couple who looked younger than him, and one old-timer. I didn’t recognize any of ’em.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s their bad luck to be here today. And to be friends with that bounty-hunter.”

The man who had hurried upstairs in response to Shawcross’s order reappeared with another outlaw following him. The second man was stocky and had a shaggy head of sandy hair, along with a ragged mustache of the same color. His hat was pushed to the back of his head, his gun belt was draped over his shoulder, and he was clumsily fastening his shirt buttons. His long red underwear was still visible through the gap.

“I don’t understand what the dadblasted hurry is,” he complained.

Shawcross called up the stairs. “Luke Jensen is in town, Clancy.”

The shaggy-haired man stopped. His eyes widened for a second. “Why the all-fired hell didn’t somebody say so? Let’s go get him!”

“That’s what we’re doing.” Shawcross turned back to Tomlin. “Did you happen to hear Jensen and his friends say where they were headed?”

“No, I hustled back here quick as I could in all that mud. Not many places in Espantosa they could go, though. The saloon here and the hotel are just about it. Shoot, they might still be at the livery stable. You know how that old Mex likes to talk.”

Shawcross nodded slowly. “We’ll find them. Grab your slickers, boys, and let’s go.”

The outlaws pulled on slickers, tugged down their hats, and stepped out onto the porch. From behind the bar, Gormley shook his head as he watched them go, as if he felt sorry for the man who was the object of their wrath and his unfortunate companions.

The mud made sucking sounds as the men walked along the street toward the livery stable in the next block. Both of the stable’s big front doors were open, allowing lantern light to spill out into the street, but Shawcross and his men couldn’t see into the building from where they were.

As they drew near the hotel, Shawcross said, “Neal, Wilson, check in there.”

The two men hurried ahead, tracked mud into the hotel lobby, and returned to tell Shawcross that no strangers had arrived recently.

“And that slick-haired clerk was too scared not to be tellin’ the truth, boss,” one of them added.

Shawcross nodded. “They have to still be at the stable, then.” He pointed to four of the men and went on. “You boys head around back and come in that way. The rest of us will take the front.”

The four outlaws drifted off into the rain, quickly vanishing into the gloom. That left six men to tramp the rest of the way down the street to the stable.

Tomlin scrambled up next to Shawcross. “You reckon Jensen will start shootin’ as soon as he lays eyes on you, Jack?”

“He might. He probably heard that I swore to get him after he killed Trace last year.”

Shawcross and Trace Bennett had been closer than brothers. Best friends and partners in leading the gang, they had been responsible for spreading outlawry across a wide swath of West Texas and New Mexico Territory.

The notorious bounty hunter Luke Jensen had trapped Bennett in a café in El Paso, gunning him down so that Trace had died in a welter of broken crockery, tangled in a checked tablecloth. Dying was bad enough; to do it in such undignified circumstances was an unforgivable insult.

Shawcross would have gone after Jensen then and there, as soon as he’d heard about what had happened, but a bunch of Rangers had ridden into town just then and the gang had to light a shuck to avoid being captured. By the time they’d made it back a couple weeks later, Jensen had already collected his blood money and was long gone.

Shawcross had insisted that he would cross trails with Luke Jensen again someday, and when he did, Jensen would die.

In the squalid little New Mexico settlement, it looked like that day had come.

“Clancy, Wilson, with me,” Shawcross said softly. “You other three spread out a little as we go in. Wait for Jensen to start the ball. I want him to know who’s gonna kill him and why he’s fixing to die.”

The others nodded in understanding. Usually, it was best not to give an enemy any more chance than you had to, but the outlaws outnumbered Jensen and his pards more than two to one, and they would be caught in a crossfire, to boot. They wouldn’t stand a chance.

As the outlaws moved into the broad, open doorway, they unfastened their slickers and swept them back so they could get to their guns in a hurry. The hard rain drummed on the roof, and the four men standing inside the stable, talking to old Ramon while the hostler tended to their horses, didn’t seem to hear the newcomers enter.

Shawcross’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath at the sight of one of them. Tomlin was right. The tall man with the craggy, unhandsome but compelling face and curly dark hair was Luke Jensen, no doubt about that. He looked like he had lost some weight and his face was a little pale in the lantern light, but it was him.

A man a few years younger and a couple inches shorter than Jensen stood with him. He had sandy hair under a thumbed-back hat, and his shoulders seemed incredibly broad in the slicker he wore. The third man was a little taller than Luke, fair-haired, powerfully built, and younger still.

That left the grizzled, whip-thin old-timer who wore a buckskin shirt and an old, steeple-crowned hat that had seen much better days. Sitting next to him was a big, shaggy dog of some sort, looking miserable with its wet fur matted to its body. Somebody as ancient as the old man probably didn’t represent any threat, but they would gun him down anyway.

There was no law in Espantosa to say they couldn’t.

It was the dog who noticed them first. His big head swung toward them, and he bared his teeth in a snarl that suddenly made him look more wolf than dog.

That got the old man’s attention. He turned to look and said in a voice cracked with years, “Looks like we got comp’ny, boys.”

“Yeah,” Jensen said, turning slowly to face Shawcross and the other outlaws. Recognition showed on his face. “Jack Shawcross. I didn’t expect to run into you here.”

“I’ll just bet you didn’t,” Shawcross grated.

“You got some idea of settling the score for Trace Bennett?”

“You killed him!”

Jensen shrugged. “The reward posters said dead or alive. I took them at their word, especially when he drew on me first.”

Quietly, the broad-shouldered man told old Ramon, “Drift on into the tack room, tio, and keep your head down.”

Ramon swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Sí, Señor Jensen.”

Shawcross caught that and said quickly to Luke, “Jensen, eh? Your brother?”

A faint smile touched Luke’s lips under his thin mustache. “That’s right. This is my brother Smoke, and this is my other brother Matt. They call the old-timer Preacher.”

As Petey Tomlin stood a couple yards to the right of Shawcross, Clancy, and Wilson, he felt his guts turn to water. Everybody had heard of Smoke Jensen, who was quite possibly the fastest, deadliest gunfighter in the entire West, and Matt Jensen’s fame as a pistoleer was growing rapidly, too. And as for Preacher . . . well, that old man was a living legend, no two ways about it.

Tomlin wondered if he could turn around and run back out into the downpour before they killed him.

Too late. Jack Shawcross yelled a curse, and his hand stabbed toward the gun on his hip.

Luke, Smoke, Matt, and Preacher hadn’t been getting in any hurry to get back to Sugarloaf, Smoke’s sprawling ranch in Colorado. They had been taking it easy as they rode through Arizona and New Mexico.

Luke knew that deliberate pace was mostly because of him. The other three had pulled him out of a bad spot. He’d been held captive for a good while under harsh conditions in an outlaw stronghold,1 and as a result he wasn’t in the best of shape. None of the others wanted to push him too hard.

He appreciated their concern, but at the same time it annoyed him a little. He didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for him.

He had already given some thought to going his own way and letting his three companions head back to Sugarloaf without him. He was grateful for what they’d done—they had saved his life, no doubt about that—but he had spent many years as a loner and even though he had been reunited with his family, that wasn’t going to change.

As he stood in the livery stable that was pleasantly warm and smelled of horseflesh, straw, and manure and saw the outlaw named Jack Shawcross reach for his gun, Luke knew that if he and the others survived the next few seconds, it would be time for them to split up.

But first there was some killing to do.

He had already opened his slicker for a couple reasons. Doing so let his damp clothes air out and start drying. More important, he was in the habit of making it easy to reach for his guns.

His hands flashed across his body to twin ivory-handled Remingtons riding butt forward in cross-draw holsters. The long-barreled revolvers came out smoothly and spouted fire from their muzzles as he brought them level.

Both slugs plowed into the chest of Jack Shawcross, who had cleared leather but hadn’t had time to raise his gun. He jerked the trigger as his muscles spasmed under the shock of Luke’s bullets, but the slug smacked into the ground at his feet.

To Luke’s right, Smoke’s .45s roared. His lead hammered two more outlaws off their feet.

To the left, Matt and Preacher were about to deal with the remaining three gunmen. Matt had his Colt out, and Preacher had drawn the pair of revolvers he wore, his movements amazingly swift and supple for a man his age.

At that instant, however, shots blasted behind them and Preacher’s hat flew off his head, plucked from its perch by a bullet that narrowly missed his skull.

Some of the gang had slipped around the stable and come in the back, Luke realized. They were still outnumbered and were caught in a crossfire. “Spread out!” he shouted as he triggered his Remingtons again and saw another man stagger from the bullet that ripped across his side.

Luke and Smoke went to the right, Matt, Preacher, and the big cur called Dog to the left. Smoke pressed his back against one of the thick beams that supported the hayloft. He fired in opposite directions, front and back, at the same time.

Luke ducked behind a grain bin and grimaced as a flying slug struck the bin’s lid and sent splinters spraying against his cheek. He fired both Remingtons again at the outlaws who had come in the front doors and were scattering under the onslaught of Jensen bullets.

Matt dived off his feet and rolled against the gate of a stall. As he came to a stop on his belly, he fired up at an angle at one of the outlaws who had snuck in through the stable’s back door. The slug caught the man under the chin, ranged up through his brain, and flipped him off his feet. He was dead when he hit the ground.

Preacher drifted into an empty stall and fired over its side wall. A gunman in the rear of the stable flew backward as if he’d been punched by a giant fist. Both of Preacher’s bullets had found their mark. The man hit the back wall, bounced off it, and reeled out through the open door. He collapsed in the rain, which made dark pink streaks run around him as it washed away the blood welling from his wounds.

At the same time, Dog leaped at one of the other men, who triggered a shot at the cur but hurried it and missed. He paid for that in a heartbeat as fangs tore into his neck and Dog’s weight knocked him off his feet.

Matt gunned down another man with a well-placed shot, and another volley from Luke’s Remingtons blew away a sizable chunk of an outlaw’s head. The gun-thunder inside the stable had been deafeningly loud, but the echoes began to fade away as all the weapons fell silent.

All that was left were Dog’s snarls as he finished mauling the man he had taken care of.

“Looks like they’re all done for,” Luke said into the eerie hush that followed the violence.

“Any of you fellas hurt?” Smoke asked.

“I’m fine,” Matt said as he got to his feet and brushed straw and dirt off the front of his shirt.

“I ain’t hurt,” Preacher said angrily, “but one o’ them scoundrels put a hole in my hat!”

“That hat’s been to hell and back,” Smoke said with a grin as he reloaded one of his Colts. “I don’t reckon one more bullet hole is going to do that much more damage to it.”

Preacher just snorted disgustedly as he picked up the headgear in question and clapped it down over his thinning gray hair.

“Hold on a minute,” Matt said. “I count . . . nine of them. Six came in the front, and I would have sworn when they bushwhacked us from the back there were four more of them. That makes ten.”

Luke nodded grimly. “So one of them got away.”

“You want to take a look for him?” Smoke asked.

Luke thought about it for a second. It was doubtful the lone surviving gang member posed much of a threat to them, but he didn’t like leaving loose ends. “Maybe we’d better. No telling if the hombre might go in for some back shooting.”

Smoke opened the tack room door and asked the old hostler, “Are you all right in there, tio?”

“Sí, señor,” the man replied.

“You know who those fellas were, don’t you?”

The old man emerged tentatively and nodded. “Señor Shawcross and his men. They come here to Espantosa from time to time. They do as they please because everyone is too afraid to stand up to them.”

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Smoke said. “Do they stable their horses here?”

“Sí. This is the only place in town for the caballos.”

Smoke nodded. “Preacher, you and Dog stay here in case the fella tries to double back and grab a mount.”

Preacher didn’t argue with the decision. Even though he had mentored Smoke for many years and taught the younger man practically all he knew about surviving on the frontier, there was no denying that Smoke was a natural leader and usually knew the best thing to do.

“The rest of us will see if we can find him,” Smoke went on.

“Should be able to,” Matt said. “This settlement isn’t much more than a wide spot in the trail. There aren’t that many places he could have gone.”

The three of them holstered their guns, buttoned up their slickers, and slid Winchesters from saddle sheaths. They worked the levers on the repeaters, then stepped out into the rain, moving quickly so they wouldn’t be silhouetted in the doorway for more than an instant.

Since they were tracking just one man, they split up, Luke and Matt taking one side of the street, Smoke the other. They checked the alleys between the buildings, looked around parked wagons and behind rain barrels that were already overflowing, and poked into the alcoves of businesses that were already closed for the day. The proprietors figured they wouldn’t have any customers in the bad weather.

As Smoke approached the entrance of a store that appeared to be closed permanently, judging by the empty, dust-filled window, a dark figure suddenly stepped out of the alcove and pointed a gun at him. The Winchester flashed to Smoke’s shoulder, but he didn’t fire. The same hair-trigger reflexes that had saved his life many times kept him from squeezing the trigger as he realized the man’s gun was wobbling back and forth so violently he didn’t stand much chance of hitting anything.

Still, a lucky shot could be just as deadly as a well-aimed one.

Smoke yelled, “Drop it! Now!”

The man whimpered. His hand opened and the gun thudded to the muddy ground at his feet. It would need a good cleaning before it could be used again. “Don’t shoot me,” he pleaded. “Oh, Lord, don’t kill me, Mr. Jensen.”

The man was short and so scrawny that the ragged old slicker flapped around him like the clothes on a scarecrow. Smoke recognized him as one of the outlaws who had come through the front doors of the stable with Jack Shawcross.

Luke and Matt heard Smoke’s shouted warning and hurried across the street, moving as fast as they could in the thick mud. They held their rifles at a slant across their chests, ready to use the weapons instantly if need be.

“Looks like you got him, Smoke,” Luke called to his brother.

“Yeah. Question is, what are we going to do with him?”

“Please don’t kill me!” the little outlaw wailed again.

“Settle down, mister,” Smoke snapped, keeping the man covered. Even an hombre who didn’t appear to be a threat at all could have a trick or two up his sleeve. “What’s your name?”

“P-Petey. Petey Tomlin.”

“I’ve heard of him,” Luke said with a scornful note in his voice. “Even seen a wanted poster on him. He’s been riding with the Shawcross bunch for a while.”

Matt asked, “How much is he worth?”

“I believe the bounty was fifty dollars.”

“Fifty?” Matt chuckled. “Is that all?”

“He’s not exactly Jesse James, are you, Petey?”

“N-No, sir. I ain’t even close to bein’ Jesse James.” Tomlin gulped. “Mostly I hold the horses.”

Smoke asked, “Did you ever kill anybody?”

“No, sir! Leastways I don’t see how I could have. The times when we swapped lead with posses, I always tried to shoot high, so I wouldn’t hurt nobody.”

“But you were ready to help Shawcross gun us down just now,” Luke said harshly.

“What else . . .