Damnation Valley

Book 4: Frontiersman

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns; Action & Adventure

Synopsis

America's most popular western novelists ride hard in their newest adventure as fearless pioneer Breckenridge Wallace carves out a future in the unforgiving American frontier.

JUSTICE IS HARD TO REACH WHEN IT'S ON THE OTHER SIDE OF HELL.

A Rocky Mountain winter has left Breck reeling from the carnage unleashed by bloodthirsty trapper Judd Carnahan-and readying a quest for vengeance as ruthless as their prey. It gets even deadlier when Carnahan lays siege to a trading post on the Yellowstone River. He's left the owner dead and kidnapped a pretty hostage who can turn a nice profit once he puts her to work.

Following his trail takes Breck clean to Santa Fe, where Carnahan's set up a brothel bursting with hardened beauties, a saloon for cutthroats and thieves, and a trap for the Frontiersman who's tracked him every bloody step of the way. But over the rough, merciless miles it's taken Breck to get here, he's built up a raging fury that's going to make this unholy town swim in blood.

Release date: June 26, 2018

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Breckinridge Wallace held on to the tomahawk with his thumb and flexed his other fingers. He had been waiting for a while to kill a man, and he didn’t want his hand to get stiff.

As Breckinridge gripped the tomahawk firmly again, he lifted his head a little and listened. His hearing was keen, but the sound he thought he had just heard was so faint, he wasn’t sure but whether it was his imagination.

He wasn’t really the sort to be gripped by flights of fancy, though, so he pressed his back harder against the tree trunk, looked over at Morgan Baxter, who was crouched behind a boulder, and nodded.

Their quarry was coming.

Earlier, the two men had pulled their canoe ashore on a gravel bank next to the Yellowstone River. Breckinridge thought he had spotted shadowy figures darting through the trees and underbrush alongside the stream, following their course, and the logical assumption was that somebody was trailing them and planned to ambush them.

Morgan hadn’t seen the men stalking them, but he and Breckinridge had been partners for a while, and he had learned to trust Breck’s instincts.

“What do you want to do?” he had asked in a voice quiet enough not to be heard over the bubbling of the river.

“First good place we come to, we’ll go ashore and head off into the woods. That’ll lure ’em after us, and then we can jump ’em, whoever they are.”

“If they’re thieves, won’t they just steal the canoe and the supplies in it?”

Breckinridge hadn’t thought about that. He was a young man who believed in direct action, and sometimes the subtleties of strategy escaped him.

“We’ll take the packs with us,” he’d decided.

That was just what they did.

Breckinridge shouldered the heaviest packs, since he was a foot taller and weighed seventy or eighty pounds more than Morgan. Morgan had an added disadvantage because his right leg ended just below the knee. A stout wooden peg took its place. An evil man named Jud Carnahan was responsible for that mutilation. It had taken some time for Morgan to recover from the injury that had almost killed him, but he had regained most of his strength and learned how to get around on the peg without too much trouble.

Breckinridge intended to settle the score for what had happened to his best friend, as well as for all the other terrible things Carnahan had done, and this journey they were on was the first step in that quest.

They had tramped into the woods bordering the Yellowstone for about half a mile before stopping. A clump of boulders provided a place for Morgan to take cover, while Breckinridge waited behind a thick-trunked pine. Morgan had pulled a brace of flintlock pistols from behind the leather sash around his waist and held them with his thumbs on the hammers, ready to cock and fire the weapons. Breck preferred the tomahawk for close work.

They were going to feel mighty foolish if whoever was following them turned out not to be a threat, Breckinridge told himself. But out here in the Rockies, hundreds of miles from civilization, it paid not to take any unnecessary chances.

Of course, in his experience, civilization had never been all that safe, either. Back home, he’d had to worry about a murder charge that wasn’t true hanging over his head, and he’d gotten in trouble any number of times in St. Louis. Anywhere there were people, a good number of ’em were going to be sorry sons, and that was just the way of the world.

Not far away, a footstep whispered on the soft duff under the trees. Breckinridge raised the tomahawk a little. A man stepped into view between him and the rocks where Morgan was hidden. The man wore buckskins, and his reddish-bronze face was painted for battle. Breck recognized him right away as a Blackfoot and knew his instincts had been right. The Blackfeet hated all white men and killed every one they came across.

Breckinridge raised the tomahawk and tensed to leap at the warrior. As he did, he heard a tiny crack somewhere behind him. Instantly, he knew that was a twig snapping under the foot of someone else.

“Behind us!” he shouted to Morgan as he leaped from behind the tree. “It’s a trick!”

He heard a flutter and then a thud, and knew without looking back that an arrow had just embedded itself in the tree trunk. If he’d moved a split second later, the wickedly sharp flint arrowhead would be buried in his flesh.

The warrior who had served as the decoy whirled toward Breckinridge and slashed at him with a knife. Breck twisted enough that the blade stirred the fringe on the sleeve of his buckskin shirt but didn’t cut him. He brought the tomahawk down on the warrior’s wrist and heard the sharp crack of bone breaking. The man’s fingers opened and he dropped the knife.

The Blackfoot had a tomahawk, too. He tried to yank it from the loop at his waist where he carried it, but Breckinridge didn’t give him enough time to do that. Breck swung his ’hawk in a backhand that shattered the warrior’s jaw. A swift, looping overhand swing cleaved the Blackfoot’s skull to the eyes.

While that was happening, both of Morgan’s pistols boomed. As the reports echoed through the forest, Breckinridge bent at the waist and twisted, kicked the dead Blackfoot away from him, and spotted another warrior charging at him. He dived for the man’s knees and upended him. They wound up in a tangle on the forest floor.

The Blackfoot was lean and wiry, but his muscles were like thick cables. He thrust a knife at Breckinridge’s throat, but Breck caught the man’s wrist while the point was just shy of its target. The Blackfoot was strong, but the strength of the massive young man sometimes called Flamehair was legendary on the frontier. Breck squeezed the warrior’s wrist until bones ground together. The Blackfoot let out an involuntary gasp as he dropped the knife.

His other hand had hold of Breckinridge’s wrist. For the time being, he was keeping Breck from dashing his brains out with the tomahawk. Breck knew he could overcome his opponent eventually, but he didn’t want to take the time to do that. He needed to see how Morgan was faring with the other attackers.

Breckinridge lowered his head and butted the top of it into the warrior’s face. He felt the hot spurt of blood from the man’s crushed nose. The stunning impact made the warrior’s grip slip. Breck yanked his arm loose and slammed the tomahawk down. More blood flew as the Blackfoot died.

Breckinridge surged up, saw Morgan a few yards away, wrestling with another warrior. A fourth Blackfoot lay sprawled on his back nearby, a dark hole in his forehead where the heavy ball from one of Morgan’s pistols had smashed into him. A pool of blood spread around the back of his head.

Morgan was putting up a good fight, but he appeared to be getting the worst of it. The warrior was on top of him, hands wrapped around his throat, choking the life out of him.

Breckinridge reached them in two swift strides, gripped the tomahawk with both hands, and swung it with all his strength. The ’hawk’s keen, blood-smeared head struck the warrior on the side of the neck, cut all the way to bone, and then sheared through the Blackfoot’s spine as well. The blow knocked the man off Morgan. He landed with his almost-detached head flopping grotesquely.

“You cut his head off!” Morgan gasped.

“Not quite,” Breckinridge said. “Are there any more of’em?”

Morgan sat up, rubbed his throat under the close-cropped brown beard where the Indian had been strangling him, and looked around.

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see any others.”

“Must’ve been just the four of ’em. The way they’re painted, they were lookin’ for trouble. Reckon they’re scouts from a bigger war party?”

“I don’t know,” Morgan said. “I’m no authority on such matters, but isn’t this a little far south for Blackfeet to be roaming around? They are Blackfeet, aren’t they?”

“Yep. And you’re right, they’re a little out of their usual stompin’ grounds. But we’ve seen how they like to come down here and raid the Crow villages in these parts.”

A bleak look settled over Breckinridge’s rugged, clean-shaven face. His words reminded him of how Jud Carnahan, among the man’s other crimes, had formed an alliance with the brutal Blackfoot war chief Machitehew in order to wreak bloody havoc on the Crow Indians who had befriended Breck. One of the Crow, the beautiful young woman Dawn Wind, had been more than a friend . . .

But that was all in the past now. All that was left from those days were bitter memories and a hunger for vengeance.

Breckinridge helped Morgan stand up. Morgan looked around at the scattered bodies and said, “You killed three of them and I did for one. That’s usually about how it turns out.”

“I don’t keep count,” Breckinridge said. “They were clever varmints. Must’ve figured we might be onto them, so three of ’em circled around while the fourth one walked right up on us. Came close to workin’.” Breck bent and used the shirt on one of the dead men to wipe away the blood and brains smeared on his tomahawk. “Out here, though, close ain’t good enough most of the time.”

Morgan sat on one of the rocks while he reloaded his pistols. He said, “We’d better get back to the others. If there really is a Blackfoot war party in the area, they might run into trouble. We don’t want to lose those furs.” He paused for a second, then added, “And of course, we don’t want anything to happen to our friends.”

That brief delay was explained by the fact that Morgan’s father had been a successful businessman, and Morgan had been raised to take over that business someday. Sometimes he just naturally thought in terms of profit and loss, instead of human considerations. But he had a good heart and was the best friend Breckinridge had ever had, other than his brothers. In some ways, Morgan was closer to him than his brothers. They had shared a lot more dangers, that was for sure.

They hefted the packs and started back toward the river, leaving the dead Blackfoot warriors where they had fallen. The canoe was where they had left it, and as they were loading the packs back into the craft, another canoe came around a bend upstream, being paddled by two men. Two more canoes followed it into sight.

The lightweight canoes rode low in the water because they were packed with bundles of furs, mostly beaver. Breckinridge and Morgan had trapped some of those furs themselves, but many of them came from the stronghold where Carnahan’s band of thieves had hidden. Breck had recovered them after the final battle in which all of Carnahan’s gang, except for the leader himself, had been slain. There was no way of knowing who had taken those pelts originally, so after thinking about it, Breck had decided the best thing to do with them was to use them to finance his pursuit of Carnahan.

The men in the canoes spotted Breckinridge and Morgan on the bank and paddled toward them. They were a rough-looking bunch, most with beards and long hair, dressed in an assortment of buckskins, canvas and wool trousers, and linsey-woolsey shirts. Some sported coonskin caps while others wore the broad-brimmed, round-crowned felt hats common among mountain men. One man named Richmond even had a beaver hat like the ones the swells wore back East.

The nominal leader of the group was Charlie Moss. He had been in charge of the dozen men Morgan had hired back in St. Louis to bring him back to the mountains while he was still recuperating. He had set out to find Breckinridge and deliver the news that Jud Carnahan was still alive. Morgan had spotted him in the city and discovered that Carnahan was preparing to head back to the Rockies, no doubt bent on more treachery and evil.

After locating Breckinridge, who was still at the Crow village where he had spent the winter, half of the party had elected to set out on their own and do some trapping. Moss, Richmond, and the others had accepted Morgan’s offer of a job helping track down Carnahan. A large, well-armed group would have more of a chance of success than two men—even when one of those men was Breckinridge Wallace.

“I thought you fellas were scouting for a good place for us to camp tonight,” Moss said as the men grounded the canoes.

“We were,” Morgan said, “but we realized we were being stalked by a small party of Blackfoot warriors and had to deal with them.”

Moss’s eyebrows rose as he said, “Blackfeet? Where are they?”

Breckinridge jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “Back yonder a ways. They won’t give us any trouble.”

Moss grunted and shook his head.

“Somehow that don’t surprise me, Wallace. You reckon there are any more of them around?”

“We don’t know,” Morgan said. “So we’re going to push on and try to reach Absalom Garwood’s trading post as soon as possible. We ought to be there tomorrow. Then we can sell these furs and be one step closer to finding Carnahan.”

Breckinridge thought about everything Carnahan had cost him and then, as a vision of him smashing the man into bloody bits with his tomahawk filled his head, he said, “Can’t be too soon to suit me.”

Breckinridge had figured they would have to take the furs all the way back downriver to St. Louis to sell them, but Morgan had brought news of more than Jud Carnahan’s survival.

“A man named Garwood has built a trading post on the Yellowstone, about fifty miles from here. Evidently he arrived last fall, built a cabin for shelter, and then expanded it into a larger building over the winter. We stopped there on the way up, and he said that if we had any pelts later, he would be in the market for them.”

“He built the place and is runnin’ it by himself?” Breckinridge had asked as he and Morgan sat cross-legged on buffalo robes in one of the lodges in the Crow village.

“No, he had some helpers. His sons, I suppose, since he called them his young ’uns. I didn’t see them, though. We weren’t there long, since I was eager to get on out here and find you.”

“From what I hear, independent traders don’t pay as much as what you’d get from the fur companies back in St. Louis.”

“Probably not,” Morgan had said, “but Garwood’s place is hundreds of miles closer than St. Louis. It would take us weeks to go all the way downriver and back. Weeks that Carnahan could use to disappear even deeper into the mountains.”

That comment had brought a scornful grunt from Breckinridge.

“We’ll be able to find him. Wherever he is, he’ll be up to such no good that we’ll hear about it.”

“You may be right about that. But I still think it would be better to take that pile of furs you have and sell them to Garwood.”

Breckinridge couldn’t argue with his friend’s logic. They had struck a deal with the six men who were going to accompany them, promising partial payment once the pelts were sold and the rest of the money when Carnahan had been brought to justice.

They had loaded the pelts in three canoes, the supplies they would be taking with them into another that would be paddled by Breckinridge and Morgan, and then the whole party had set off, paddling down the creek on which the Crow village was located until it merged with the Yellowstone. They had been traveling downstream for a couple of days on the river, making good progress since they didn’t have to fight the current.

They paddled several more miles downriver from the site of the battle with the Blackfoot warriors before making camp. The flames of a campfire were dancing merrily in the clearing where the men had spread their bedrolls when a voice hailed them from the river about fifty yards away.

“Hello, the camp! All right to come on in?”

Breckinridge had leaned his long-barreled flintlock rifle against a log. He picked it up as he came to his feet. His thumb rested on the rifle’s hammer.

Morgan and the other men were instantly alert, too. They weren’t expecting trouble, but out here a man always had to be prepared for it.

Breckinridge said, “You boys stay here. I’ll go talk to those fellas.”

“I’ll come with you,” Charlie Moss said. “If they’re lookin’ to start a fight, you’ll need somebody sidin’ you.”

That wasn’t necessarily true—Breckinridge had waded into plenty of ruckuses where he was outnumbered and still emerged triumphant—but he didn’t see any reason to hurt Moss’s feelings by saying so. He just nodded his agreement and let his long legs carry him toward the river. Moss had to hurry to keep up.

When they reached the bank, in the fading light Breckinridge saw two canoes floating a short distance offshore. There was only one man in each canoe. With four-to-one odds against them, they didn’t constitute any sort of threat, Breck supposed. He called, “Howdy, fellas. You by yourselves?”

“Just the two of us,” one of the men answered. “Name’s Roy Deming. This is my partner Fred Kane.”

“Howdy,” Kane said. “We saw your fire and thought you might be willing to have some company for the night. We can share some coffee.”

“Come on in,” Breckinridge told them. He still had his rifle cradled in his left arm in case of trouble, but he used his right hand to wave the men toward shore.

Deming and Kane dragged their canoes up onto the bank. Kane got a bag of coffee out of their supplies and carried it with him as he and Deming walked toward the fire with Breckinridge and Moss. As they entered the circle of yellow light cast by the flames, Breck studied the two newcomers.

Deming was tall and thin, with a shock of dark hair under a pushed-back hat. Kane was shorter and stockier without being fat. His brown hair fell to his shoulders, and he had a rather bushy beard to match. Both men wore new-looking buckskins.

“First time trapping out here?” Breckinridge asked.

Deming laughed. “Do we look that much like greenhorns?”

“Don’t worry about it. Spendin’ time in the mountains seasons a man pretty quick-like.”

Moss added, “At least you knew to call out when you came close to our camp. Taking a fella by surprise is a good way to get yourself shot.”

“That’s just common sense, isn’t it?” Kane asked.

“Yeah, but sometimes that’s in short supply, even out here,” Breckinridge told him.

They reached the fire, and the two men introduced themselves to Morgan and the others in Breckinridge’s party. Kane said, “I see you’ve already got a pot of coffee going, so we can use this I brought in the morning.”

“Help yourselves to some salt pork and beans,” Richmond offered. He’d been in charge of rustling up tonight’s supper.

As they were eating, Deming asked, “Any trouble with the Indians hereabouts?”

“We were told that the Crow usually get along pretty well with white men,” Kane added.

Breckinridge nodded and said, “That’s true. All the tribes in these parts will generally leave you alone if you leave them alone. Except the Blackfeet.”

The two newcomers exchanged a worried glance. Deming said, “I didn’t know this is Blackfoot country.”

“They figure anywhere they happen to be is Blackfoot country, and they’re mighty touchy about it, too.” Breckinridge paused. “We ran into a few of’em earlier today.”

“What happened?” Kane asked, his eyes wide.

“You don’t have to worry about those particular Indians,” Morgan said drily. “They won’t bother you.”

Kane and Deming looked at each other again, and Deming said, “Oh.”

“But they could have friends,” Breckinridge said, “so keep your eyes open. If you see any Indians, you’d do well to steer clear of’em, just on general principles.”

“We’ll remember that,” said Kane.

Deming frowned and added, “Mr. Garwood didn’t say anything about there being Blackfeet around here.”

“Could be he doesn’t know about it,” Breckinridge said. “You stopped at Garwood’s trading post?”

“We sure did,” Kane said. An enthusiastic note had entered his voice. “I’m looking forward to going back there, too.”

“Why’s that?” Morgan asked.

“Why, the girls, of course.”

Breckinridge, Morgan, and all the other men gathered around the fire sat forward a little.

“Girls?” Morgan repeated.

“Garwood’s daughters,” Deming said. “What was it he called them, Fred?”

“His young ’uns,” Kane replied. “Or do you mean their names? Let me see if I can remember . . . Desdemona, Ophelia, and . . . Eugenia, that’s it. Isn’t that right?”

Deming nodded and said, “Yeah, I think it is.”

Charlie Moss looked at Morgan and said, “I don’t remember seein’ any girls around that place when we stopped there a while back.”

“Yeah, but we didn’t go inside,” Morgan pointed out. “Garwood mentioned his children, but I just assumed they were boys—”

Kane laughed and said, “If you’d ever laid eyes on those three, Mr. Baxter, you wouldn’t ever take them for boys!”

“I think he likes to sort of keep them hidden away,” Deming said. “Can’t really blame him, them being probably the only white women in a hundred miles or more, and mighty nice to look at, to boot. I reckon he doesn’t want a bunch of scruffy fur trappers getting ideas in their heads . . . no offense meant.”

“Especially since we’re scruffy fur trappers, too,” Kane added with a laugh. He nodded toward the river. “I saw the bundles of pelts in your canoes. You boys have been really lucky so far this season, if you’ve taken that many furs.”

“Yeah, we have,” Breckinridge said. He didn’t want to have to explain the circumstances, so he didn’t mention that many of those pelts had been taken the previous summer and fall by other trappers whose identities were unknown to him.

The thought put a frown on his face. He hadn’t really considered it before, because all he really cared about was finding Jud Carnahan and settling the score with him, but what he was doing wasn’t really honest. Those furs weren’t his, by rights, and yet he was going to sell them and use the money. That wasn’t as bad as what Carnahan and his gang had done—they had murdered as well as robbed their victims—but it wasn’t exactly proper, either. Despite his numerous past brushes with the law, Breckinridge considered himself an honest man.

Maybe, once this was all over, he would try to find out the names of some of the men Carnahan had stolen from and killed. If he could track down their families, he could see to it that they got some of the money from the furs.

That would have to wait, though. Avenging those men, and all the others Carnahan had killed, had to come first.

The night passed quietly, and after breakfast the next morning the two groups parted, Deming and Kane heading on upstream to try their luck at trapping while Breckinridge and his companions paddled on down the Yellowstone toward the trading post.

Around midday they followed a narrow, winding valley between two high ridges until they reached a point where the valley widened out into a grassy meadow perhaps a mile wide. Set back a hundred yards on the northern bank of the stream was a large, rambling log building with a pole corral behind it and a log barn on the other side of the co. . .