Bury the Hatchet

Book 2: Buck Trammel Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

"Former Pinkerton agent Buck Trammel has made quite a name for himself in the Old West. Now hes got to live up to his own legendor get gutshot trying . . . Johnstone Country. The Bullets Stop Here. IF YOU CANT BEAT EM, SHOOT EM There are two things a man can never escape: his past and his destiny. For Buck Trammel, that past includes a fatal mistake that ended his career as a Pinkertonand a deadly shootout with the Bower gang in a Witchita saloon. Call it luck or call it fate, but the famous Deputy Wyatt Earp was there to give Buck some advice: Run for your life. Maybe it was Earps warning that saved him from the gangs wrath. Maybe it was destiny that brought him to the town of Blackstone, Wyoming, where his biggest problem is a father-son brewing war. But Trammels luck is about to run dry. . . The gangs ruthless boss, Old Man Bower, knows where Trammel lives. Hes assembled a small army of gunslingers. Hes hired a Pinkerton with a grudge against Trammel. And hes coming to town to bury the hatchet . . . Live Free. Read Hard."

Release date: August 25, 2020

Publisher: Kensington

Print pages: 352

Sample

“Guess you heard the good news, Sheriff.” Deputy Jimmy “Hawkeye” Hauk hitched up his belt as they began their morning foot patrol along Main Street. The sunrise in Blackstone, Wyoming Territory, always revealed a few drunks who’d passed out in the alleys between the many saloons along Main Street. Some just needed help going home. A few were actually dead from time to time, which required much more attention on the part of Sheriff Trammel and his deputy. “Word is they’re hanging Madam Peachtree down in Laramie some time in the next month or so.”

“Pinochet,” Sheriff Buck Trammel corrected him. “Her name is Pinochet, and yeah, I read about it in the Bugle, same as you.”

“Pinochet,” repeated Hawkeye, as if he was trying it on for size. “Anyway, you got any plans to head down there and see her swing? After all, you’re the one who brought her in.”

“And the reason why she’s swinging.” The big man shook his head. “Never was much for witnessing hangings myself, though. Too much of a spectacle for all the wrong reasons.”

“After what she done to you?” Hawkeye said. “All them times she tried to have you killed? Hell, she almost had the entire town destroyed while gunning for you.”

Trammel had no desire to relive the complexities of the Madam Pinochet matter with his talkative deputy. He genuinely liked Hawkeye and had come to rely on him. He admired the way the young man handled a gun. He wasn’t trigger-happy, but he wasn’t afraid to shoot when the time came. He was brave and even-tempered, and Trammel was glad to have him at his side.

But if the boy had one failing, it was that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He’d been born in Blackstone and had never lived anywhere else. He knew everyone and they knew him, but Trammel couldn’t call him a gossip. Hawkeye was proud of his new position and the knowledge it gave him. He wasn’t old enough yet to know when to talk and when to keep his mouth shut. It was the kind of practical knowledge only years could give him and he didn’t have enough behind him yet. Only experience could teach such lessons.

Lessons that Buck Trammel had learned long ago. The hard way.

“They hit us with everything they had.” He decided to boost the younger man’s ego. “But we fought them off anyway, didn’t we? You and me.”

The young man stood taller. Even though he was almost six feet tall, Hawkeye barely reached Trammel’s shoulder. “Yes, sir. We most certainly did.”

Both men looked up when they heard screams coming from farther along Main Street. The town’s main thoroughfare was lined with dozens of saloons, gambling dens, and kitchens that all catered to various crowds. Trammel knew the scream could have come from any of them.

When he saw Adam Hagen step out of the Pot of Gold Saloon, he knew the scream must have come from there. Trouble always had a knack for finding Hagen.

The gambler and new proprietor of the saloon lit a cigarette as the lawmen approached him. His red brocade vest and white shirt were as fresh as if he had just put them on, though Trammel imagined his duties at the Pot had probably kept him up all night. “Morning, gentlemen. And what a morning it is! The crispness of the mountain air. The calmness of a town just beginning to shake off the dust of a good night’s sleep. The—”

“That scream came from your place, didn’t it?” Trammel had no time for the gambler’s fancy talk. He knew Adam Hagen to be an elaborate man . . . in his words, in his dress, and in the saloons he had recently acquired. The two men had saved each other’s lives several times on the trail from where they’d first met in Wichita to Blackstone. They had once considered each other friends.

That was in the past as far as Trammel was concerned. Their friendship ended the moment Hagen had decided to take Madam Pinochet’s place as the territory’s chief vice merchant.

Hagen shrugged. “And what if it did? One is apt to hear a scream or two from a house of ill repute from time to time.”

Hawkeye spoke out of turn. “The sheriff told you he’d leave you alone so long as you kept things to a dull roar around here. That scream’s not part of the bargain.”

Hagen smiled at the young man. “Would you look at that? Pin a star on a gadfly and watch him turn into Wild Bill Hickok.” He looked up at Trammel. “Has he even begun to shave yet?”

Trammel wouldn’t be baited. “You’re going to tell me where that scream came from or we’re going to kick in every door in the place.”

“The change I’ve witnessed in you since you came to Blackstone is especially fascinating” Hagen frowned. “A few months ago, you were in a lookout chair at the Gilded Lily in Wichita minding drunks and drovers. Now you’re the pious lawman of Blackstone.” He looked away. “Guess the old saying about beggars and horseback still holds true.”

Trammel felt his temper begin to rise. He didn’t like Hagen bringing up their former association. He didn’t like Hagen at all. Not anymore. “I asked you a question.”

Hagen sighed as another scream came from the Pot of Gold, this one louder than the last.

Trammel took a step closer to Hagen, looming over him. “What room?”

“Let it burn itself out, Buck. It’s just one of my customers getting rambunctious. I’ll handle it myself when he’s done.”

Trammel pushed past him and stormed into the saloon. Hawkeye was right behind him.

From the boardwalk, Hagen called out, “Room twenty, damn you. But don’t kill anyone this time. Death is bad for business.”

Trammel ignored the stares he and Hawkeye drew from the men at the gambling tables and standing at the bar. Every working girl in the place ignored their potential customers and looked up in the direction from where the screams had come. They knew that, one day, the screams might be coming from them.

Trammel took the steps two at a time as an unholy shriek came from Room Twenty. He used his bulk to barrel through the door, splintering it from the jamb.

A large man had one of Hagen’s girls pinned against the wall by the neck. He held a knife to her eye. Both of them looked at Trammel as the door slammed open and he stepped inside.

The man’s knife twitched. “Take one more step, law dog, and I swear I’ll—”

Trammel tomahawked the man’s knife hand away from the woman as he yanked him away from her. The assailant’s grip broke and the woman ran toward Hawkeye as Trammel threw the big man back onto the bed, causing it to collapse beneath his weight.

Hawkeye drew his pistol and held it on the man as he shielded the young lady from further harm. “Don’t move, mister. You’re under arrest.”

The panicked working girl bolted from the room, knocking Hawkeye out of the way, sending his pistol toward the ceiling.

The attacker bellowed as he clumsily lunged off the collapsed bed at Trammel, his knife held high in his right hand.

Trammel sidestepped the lunge, grabbed the big man’s right hand, and pushed the arm farther back. A sickening crack made the man scream as his shoulder broke. The knife dropped to the bed as he spilled onto the floor.

Trammel put his foot on the back of the screaming man’s head, pinning him to the ground. “Tell me it’s over and I’ll let you up.”

Hawkeye grabbed the knife off the bed and tucked it into his belt.

Hearing no response, Trammel applied more weight to the back of the man’s neck. “Is it over?”

“You broke my arm!”

“I’ll do more than that unless you come along peacefully.”

“Fine!” the man yelled as best he could. “It’s over.”

Trammel grabbed a handful of greasy hair and pulled the man to his feet. The sheriff was about to lead him toward the door when the man’s left arm swung around wildly and broke his grip. Trammel staggered back with a handful of the man’s hair still in his hands. He launched himself into Trammel, knocking him back against the wall.

The attacker staggered back and threw a left hook that Trammel easily dodged.

By then, Trammel’s rage had already boiled over. The sheriff buried a straight right hand into the man’s belly, doubling him over. He snatched him by the back of the neck and his britches and threw him through the closed window.

Trammel and Hawkeye looked out the window to see the man had hit the ground and rolled down the small embankment that ran behind all of the establishments along Main Street. His legs were still moving, but barely.

“Looks like he’s still movin’,” Hawkeye observed. “So he’s still alive.”

“Yeah.” Trammel spat blood out the window in the man’s direction. “Let’s go get him.”

As they turned to leave the room, Adam Hagen was standing in the doorway. “Was that really necessary? Do you know how long it’s going to take me to get that window replaced?”

Hawkeye hurried past him, but Trammel took his time. “The girl’s fine, by the way.”

“I know she’s fine,” Hagen said. “I just checked on her before I came in here. But you still owe me the cost of a new window, Trammel.”

“He pulled a knife on me,” the sheriff said as he pushed past him into the hallway. “You remember how much I hate knives, don’t you, Adam?”

“And do you know how much a new window will cost me? I’m a businessman now, Buck,” Hagen called after him as the sheriff walked down the stairs. “I don’t have to be the only one making money here. You could have your share, just like I offered, you know. It’s not my fault you’re so damned stubborn.”

Trammel didn’t dignify it with an answer as he went down the stairs to retrieve his prisoner.

Trammel and Hawkeye ignored the injured man’s pleas for a doctor as they practically dragged the man all the way back to the jail.

He screamed when they dumped him onto a cot in one of the cells and slammed the door shut. “I need a doctor, damn you!”

“Seems like everyone we dump in here needs a doctor.” Hawkeye grinned. “Maybe we’re gettin’ what you might call a reputation for being rough?”

“That’s a reputation I can live with.” To the prisoner, Trammel said, “We’ll see about getting you a doctor as soon as we’ve finished our patrol. You interrupted us while we were in the middle of making it, so you’ll have to wait.”

The man slumped on the cot, his ruined right arm lying limp on the cell floor. “You’d better get me a doctor damned fast, boy. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

Hawkeye laughed as he turned the key in the cell door. “Where have we heard that one before?”

“Don’t know how many times you heard it,” the prisoner said, “but this time, it holds water.” He glared up at the sheriff. “I know who you are, Trammel. So do a lot of people.”

Trammel knew his name had appeared in the papers a few times as a result of the Madam Pinochet incident. He hadn’t been happy about all of the attention, but gunfights and shoot-outs on main streets were big news back east and elsewhere, so he had no choice but to go along with it and wait for it to die down.

“The longer you keep talking, the longer it’ll take for you to get a doctor to look you over.” He elbowed his deputy. “Come to think of it, we haven’t had our coffee yet, have we, Hawkeye?”

Hawkeye played along. “Can’t remember that we have.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m no damned good until I’ve had that first cup to start the day. We’d best get ourselves some before we resume our patrol.”

“Sounds good to me, boss.”

They ignored the man’s threats as they left the cells and shut the door leading to the office behind them.

Hawkeye sheepishly laid the keys on Trammel’s desk. “Boss, we just had some coffee not half an hour ago.”

Trammel sometimes forgot how gullible the young man could be. “That was just for his benefit. You stay here and keep an eye on him. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble in his condition, but keep an eye on him just the same. I’ll go fetch Doctor Downs right away to take a look at him. His arm’s broken, and he probably busted a few ribs when he fell out that window. Don’t want him dying on us if I can help it. Get started on writing up the report in the meantime.”

Hawkeye eagerly pulled up a chair and took the paper from the bottom drawer of his desk. The boy’s spelling was horrible and his grammar was even worse, but he enjoyed writing up reports, so Trammel let him.

The sheriff scooped up the keys from the desk as he left. “I’ll lock the door on my way out. Best to keep it that way until I get back. That drunk might have friends, and if he does, it’d be best if we faced them down together.”

“I’ll be too busy with this here report to do anything else,” Hawkeye said. “Say, boss. What did Mr. Hagen mean back there? That stuff about beggars and horses.”

Trammel knew Hagen had a unique ability of saying something that could stick in your mind all day. He knew he had fallen prey to it from time to time. “It’s an old saying. ‘Put a beggar on horseback and he’ll ride to hell on account of he doesn’t know any better.’”

Hawkeye looked more confused than ever. “Well, you ain’t no beggar and Blackstone sure ain’t no hell.”

Sometimes, Trammel admired the way the boy’s mind worked. “I’ll be back with the doctor as soon as I can.”

Trammel enjoyed how Emily Downs’s kitchen always smelled like baked bread and coffee. The widow’s mother-in-law was a dour old woman who had lost her ability to speak after the sudden death of her son more than a year before, but she hadn’t lost her ability to cook.

Trammel was enjoying some of that fine coffee while he sat in the kitchen waiting for Emily to come down from dressing. Upon being named sheriff of Blackstone, he’d rented a room in her house rather than in the run-down hovel that came with the job at the Oakwood Arms or at the Hagen-controlled Clifford Hotel.

Trammel’s predecessor—Sheriff Bonner—had used a room at the Oakwood, and given how he’d been shot in the back as he fled his debts, Trammel decided to make his lodgings elsewhere. Mayor Welch, who owned the Oakwood, was annoyed at the loss of income, but the town elders applauded the sheriff for finding much cheaper lodgings at Doctor Downs’s place.

Trammel looked out the window as he sipped his coffee. He ignored the black-clad widow’s vacant stare from her perch in the chair next to the stove. Her expression never changed, whether she was at church or sitting outside enjoying the sunshine at her daughter-in-law’s orders.

But he always felt there was something extra in the way she looked at him. It was as though she could see through all of the fame and glory he had received for bringing Madam Pinochet and her allies to justice. It was like she could see into his very soul and all of the many sins he had committed in his thirty years. He didn’t know if that was the case, but if it was, he doubted she’d ever get bored, for there was plenty to see.

“Good morning,” Emily Downs sang as she entered the kitchen. She gave her mother-in-law a kiss on the forehead, which garnered no response from her.

“And good morning to you, Sheriff Trammel,” she said with false propriety. They were on a first-name basis when they were alone, but kept to formal titles when others were around.

“And a good morning to you, Doctor Downs,” he answered.

She had chestnut-brown hair and bright eyes that were even more captivating in the gentle light of the morning. Her simple dress did an adequate job of disguising the curves of her body of which Trammel had become so fond.

“I trust you slept comfortably.”

She turned her back to her mother-in-law to hide her blush, as she had spent a good portion of the night in Trammel’s bed. “Most comfortably, thank you.” She lifted the coffeepot from the stove. “More coffee?”

He smiled. “Thanks.”

“I understand you’ve already had a busy morning.”

Even though he had been the sheriff of Blackstone for several months, the speed with which news spread around the small town at all hours of the day and night still fascinated him. “How the h—?” He remembered the widow was there and caught himself. “I mean, how did you know? You just got up.”

“I heard the screams coming from Main Street and imagined it was something that required your attention. Am I right?”

He chose his words carefully for the widow’s sake. “Someone got rough with one of the dance hall girls at the Pot of Gold. Hawkeye and I had to take care of it. You might need to check on the girl involved.”

Emily filled her own cup and set the pot back on the stove. “And the man who attacked her? I trust he needs attention, too, thanks to you.”

“When you get around to it.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Fell out a window,” Trammel said. “Busted up some. He’ll probably keep until you tend to the girl. She’s more important.”

Emily strategically moved the kitchen chair so her back wasn’t to her mother-in-law and she wasn’t sitting too close to her boarder, either. “How bad is he?”

Trammel shrugged. “He fell out a second-story window and rolled down the embankment. His right arm is broken, and I’d be surprised if his ribs weren’t cracked, if not broken. His lungs work fine, though, and he’s not bleeding much.”

“Imagine that,” she chided. “Only a half-dead patient for once. You’re getting benevolent in your old age, Sheriff.”

He couldn’t really argue with that. In his time in Blackstone, Trammel had developed a reputation for being rougher than he had to be with some characters, which had led to a drop in crime since the Madam Pinochet incident. His size had usually been enough to discourage most men from stepping out of line, but now that he had some notoriety behind him, men tended to do what he said.

He also knew notoriety was a double-edged sword and it would only be a matter of time before someone decided to test it in an effort to gain some notoriety for themselves.

He would worry about that if and when it happened. For now, he was content with the morning’s work while enjoying the widow’s coffee and Emily’s company.

“The Pot of Gold is Adam’s new place, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Opened last week,” Trammel said. He knew what was coming next. It had been a bone of contention between them for months.

“Did you have a chance to speak with him yet? About mending fences?”

Trammel sipped his coffee. “The opportunity to do so didn’t present itself, Doctor. Besides, the fence between us is just fine as it is.”

She lowered her cup. “I wish you boys would figure out a way past your differences. You were friends once, Buck. Good friends.”

“That was then. This is now. He works his side of things and I work mine.” He saw no reason to explain himself, especially in front of the widow.

Hagen had decided to hold on to Madam Pinochet’s ledger of illegal actions in the territory. He had also expanded her opium trade against Trammel’s wishes. While there may not be any laws against opium in Wyoming or in Blackstone, he hated the practice. In his time as a policeman in New York City and later, with the Pinkerton Agency, he had seen what smoking the sticky tar could do. He had seen good men brought low by the desire to hitch a ride on the dragon’s back one more time.

Opium may not have been illegal, but that didn’t make it right. Hagen’s desire to peddle flesh was bad enough in Trammel’s eyes, but he knew if Hagen didn’t do it, someone else would. Robbing men of their souls was something Buck Trammel would never tolerate.

“Friendships in this life are so hard to come by,” Emily went on. “Especially good friendships like the one you had with Adam. Maybe you could be a good influence on him if you were close to him again.”

Trammel laughed as he got up to pour himself another cup of coffee from the stove. “The die for Adam Hagen was cast long before he left Blackstone and only hardened in the years since. There’s no amount of praying or cajoling that’ll make him change unless he wants to. Or has to, if it comes to that.” He poured his coffee. “And if it comes to that, it’ll probably be thanks to me.” He held out the pot to her. “More coffee before we head out to tend to your patients?”

She drained her cup and gently placed it back in the saucer as she stood. It was a delicate motion, but sounded as loud as a judge’s gavel in the quiet of the kitchen. “I’ll get my shawl and bag. I’d appreciate it if you’d escort me to the jail to see the prisoner, Sheriff. After that, I’d like to look in on that poor girl he assaulted.”

Trammel shut his eyes as she left the kitchen. He knew her tone well enough to know she was upset. He felt the widow’s constant glare upon him as he set the coffeepot back on the stove. Her eyes were as vacant as they were alive.

He finished his coffee in two swallows and smiled at her as he set his cup aside. Her look never changed.

He held the back door open for Emily as she appeared with her shawl wrapped around her shoulders and her husband’s old medicine bag in her hand. “Can I carry that for you?”

She walked past him into the chilly morning. Trammel sighed as he quietly shut the door behind him.

Out on the boardwalk and still out of view of anyone who might see, she swung her bag and hit him in the side.

Trammel stifled a yelp. “What the hell was that for?”

“For being pigheaded,” she said without breaking her stride. “I swear, Buck Trammel, you’re a tough man to love sometimes.”

Trammel smiled as he caught up with her. She had told him she loved him several times since they had become a couple, but he never tired of hearing it. He easily matched her pace with a little swagger to his step. “So you love me, huh?”

He yelped again when she pinched his side. “Don’t get too cocky on me, Sheriff. I might not be a real doctor, but I know all the right places that hurt.”

He rubbed the spot where she’d pinched him. “Yes, ma’am.”

Ambrose Bowman ignored his guest for a time, preferring to quietly rock back and forth in his rocking chair as he watched the morning sunshine cast its gentle light on the family graveyard behind his house in Wichita, Kansas. It was his favorite time of the day, or at least, it had been since he’d laid his oldest son and nephew in their graves six months before.

Old Man Bowman could remember a time when he did not hold that title, when there were only two graves carved out of the harsh Kansas dirt, for his grandfather and grandmother, who had worked themselves to death making something of this godforsaken land. Now, it was filled with other Bowman dead who had gone to glory since: his father, who had lived to the ripe old age of sixty, surpassing his wife, who’d died while giving birth to Ambrose.

His father had always resented Ambrose for causing the death of his beloved wife and never let the boy forget it. Even now, as he approached his eightieth winter, he carried the scars of that resentment with him. He had used the feelings to make him the man he had become: the man who controlled the most successful cattle ranch in Wichita.

The man who watched the grass grow tall over his eldest son’s grave.

Ambrose did not look at his guest as he told him, “I don’t like you, sir. I don’t like you or your ki. . .