Firestick

Book 1: Firestick Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

Johnstone Justice. What America Needs Now. In this exciting new series, bestselling authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone pay homage to America's trail-hardened backwoodsmen who, like a fine grain whiskey, only get better with age . . . REAL MEN DON'T RIDE INTO THE SUNSET In his mountain-man days, Elwood "Firestick" McQueen was practically a living legend. His hunting, tracking, and trapping skills were known far and wide. But it was his deadly accuracy with a rifle that earned him the Indian name "Firestick." His two best buddies are Malachi "Beartooth" Skinner-whose knife was as fatal as a grizzly's chompers-and Jim "Moosejaw" Hendricks, who once wielded the jawbone of a moose to crush his enemies in the heat of battle. Of course, things are different nowadays. The trio have finally settled down, running a horse ranch in West Texas-and spending quality time with their lady friends. But if you think these old boys are ready for lives of leisure, think again . . . Firestick is the town marshal. Beartooth and Moosejaw are his deputies. And when a hired gunman shows up with bullets blazing, these three hard-cases are ready to prove they aren't getting older. They're getting deadlier . . . Live Free. Read Hard.

Release date: June 30, 2020

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

There was a time when Elwood McQueen considered wading into a good brawl with fists, feet, and elbows flying to be about as much fun as a fella could have with his britches still on. But those days were mostly past . . . Mostly.

And so it was, on a sunny afternoon in April when he got word of a ruckus breaking out in the Silver Spur Saloon, McQueen went there with the intention of taming things down, not joining in the ruckus. After all, as the duly appointed marshal of the little West Texas town of Buffalo Peak, that’s what folks expected from him as part of his duties—to tame things down.

But no sooner had he stepped through the batwings of the Silver Spur than the strict performance of his duties was put to the test. For starters, the first thing he laid eyes on was the homely, angrily snarling face of Greely Dunlap. That alone was enough to sour the good intentions of practically anybody. And then the whiskey bottle came sailing through the air and nearly ended its flight against McQueen’s forehead. He managed to duck at the last second, the bottle only skimming off his hat instead of splitting his skull.

“Now you made me waste a whole bottle of good whiskey, you duded-up son of a sidewinder,” bellowed a tall, lanky cowpoke, addressing the man he had viciously swung the whiskey bottle at, missing his mark, and then losing his grip on the bottle when the man ducked. “That earns you more of an ass-whuppin’ than you already had comin’ to begin with!”

“You tell him, Grady,” Greely Dunlap said, shouting encouragement to his younger and even homelier little brother. “A double ass-whuppin’ is what’s called for, says I, and there’s no sense wastin’ any more time about it.”

“Make it a triple,” added a third man, one Newt Woolsey by name, a short, stocky redhead who regularly hung around with—and got in trouble with—the Dunlap brothers. “I want me a piece of that slippery-fingered skunk, too, and I ain’t about to be left out!”

The object of all this anger was a middle-aged man of average height and build who stood on the back side of a round-topped gaming table, where he and the trio now converging on him had apparently been playing cards. The individual being threatened was a stranger to McQueen. He had wavy yellow hair, with a smooth-shaven face made up of rather delicate features, and he was clad in a gray frock coat and black string tie, attire qualifying him for the “duded-up” assessment from Grady Dunlap.

But anyone bothering to look a little closer would have noted something more: There was a hard-edged wariness in the stranger’s eyes that conveyed no hint of fear or delicate intentions when it came to what he was faced with.

“Be careful, Firestick,” advised Art Farrelly, the balding fireplug of a bartender on duty at the Silver Spur that afternoon, as McQueen came out of his crouch and took a long stride forward. “Those Dunlaps are spoiling for a fight, and you know what mean drunks they can be.”

“Yeah, well, gettin’ damn near scalped by a flyin’ whiskey bottle don’t exactly put me in a friendly mood neither,” McQueen muttered out the side of his mouth as he proceeded straight for the knot of men clustered around the card table.

There was only a handful of other customers in the place at that hour, a mixture of cowpokes and shiftless townies bellied up to the bar and shifted down a ways from where the trouble was getting ready to boil over. The sight of McQueen continuing to advance with fire in his eyes caused the bunch to collectively shift down a bit farther.

The way the four men at the table were positioned, only one of them—the yellow-haired stranger—was facing toward McQueen. This made him the only one with any awareness of the marshal’s approach. Woolsey had his back turned completely, and the Dunlap brothers, closing in on the stranger from either side, were focused solely on him, their intended target.

The stranger’s eyes widened hopefully for a moment, but then, having no way to be certain on whose side the big, wide-shouldered new arrival would turn out to be, they once again took on their wary appraisal.

“All right,” McQueen said in a loud, clear voice as he stepped up close behind Woolsey. “Everybody smooth down your hackles and just stand easy. Whatever this is about, there ain’t gonna be no lettin’ it get out of hand.”

“The hell there ain’t,” Greely barked a quick reply. The sudden intervention of McQueen’s voice had caused him only the slightest start and wasn’t enough to make him take his eyes off the stranger as he continued talking. “We caught this slick varmint cheatin’ at cards and we’re about to teach him how that don’t go around here. But we ain’t fixin’ to gut him or shoot him—we ain’t even heeled, just like you warned us when we come to town. So it ain’t no never-mind of yours, Marshal. We’re just gonna give him a good thumpin’ to drive home the point of be in’ more careful who he tries to cheat in the future.”

“Yeah. Comes down to it, we’ll practically be doin’ a public service,” added his brother, Grady.

“Nobody was being cheated, Marshal—if, in fact, that is your calling,” said the stranger, addressing McQueen’s lack of a badge, which he often neglected to pin on. “The truth of the matter is that the poor attitude these gentlemen display toward losing is matched only by the poor skill they display when it comes to playing poker.”

“Now he’s callin’ us liars,” said Woolsey, his words intentionally adding more fuel to the fire.

“That’s a name I’ll stand from no man!” roared Grady in response. And before McQueen could say or do anything more to try and stop him, the older Dunlap brother accompanied this exclamation by unleashing a clubbing backhand aimed straight at the face of the yellow-haired man.

The stranger, somewhat distracted by the arrival of McQueen, was caught partially off guard. But his reflexes were sharp enough that he still managed to jerk his face back in time to avoid the full impact of the blow. Nevertheless, it landed hard enough to knock him staggering away from the table.

McQueen lunged forward, reaching to grab Woolsey by the shoulders, with the intent of flinging the smaller man out of his way so he could get at the brothers before they closed in on the stranger and inflicted more damage. In his haste, however, the marshal forgot what a wily scrapper the redhead was in his own right. Although he’d never turned to look directly back at McQueen, Woolsey had been very aware of how close he’d moved up behind him. So when the lawman’s hands started to clamp onto his shoulders, Woolsey bent his knees just enough to drop below the closing fingers and at the same time twisted sharply at the waist, whipping around with the point of his elbow and driving it full-force into McQueen’s stomach.

A great gust of air exploded from the marshal as he doubled forward. Anticipating this, Woolsey suddenly straightened his legs and simultaneously jerked his head straight back, hard, slamming it into McQueen’s lowering face.

Now it was McQueen’s knees that buckled, though not purposefully. He lurched to one side, stunned by the head butt. He could taste blood filling his mouth and feel the sticky warmth of it dribbling down over his chin.

On the other side of the table, the yellow-haired stranger struggled to regain his balance as the Dunlap brothers rushed him, angling in from either side. Wanting badly to land a blow of his own, Grady allowed his eagerness to outweigh his caution and ended up paying for it when he stepped into a lightning-fast right jab the stranger threw even as he was still leaning back. The fist-to-chin collision popped solidly, stalling Grady’s forward momentum.

Landing the punch seemed to somehow reset the stranger’s balance, enabling him to get his feet planted as he turned to face the oncoming Greely. Once again, his fists lashed out in a blur of speed, leading with another jab, a left this time, followed instantly by a right hook that snapped Greely’s head to one side and caused him to do a stutter-step off in that direction rather than continue his straight-ahead charge.

Meanwhile, McQueen was still dealing with the unexpected burst of aggression from the scrappy Newt Woolsey. Momentarily staggered by the smaller man’s initial attack, the marshal fought to right himself and get braced for whatever the redhead tried in the way of a follow-up. When it came, it was another example of Woolsey’s shrewdness and the fighting skills he’d honed to compensate for his lack of size. He went for McQueen’s legs, aiming a piston-like kick meant to crush the bigger man’s kneecap and either dislocate it or possibly break the leg.

But McQueen’s history of being in ruckuses had taught him a thing or three about fighting, as well—including a host of defensive moves, both orthodox and the kind a body sometimes made up on the spot. His reaction to Woolsey’s attempted kick fell in the latter category. Seeing the foot cock back and then start to hurtle toward his knee before he was properly balanced for a quick sidestep, the marshal instead leaned forward and swung his fist in a downward chop that struck hard just above Woolsey’s ankle. The impact resulted in a loud crack of gristle and bone as the redhead’s foot and leg were knocked violently away, suddenly making him the one off balance. He pitched to the floor, reaching frantically for his damaged foot with both hands while howling in pain.

Pausing only long enough to backhand some of the blood from his mouth, McQueen pounced on Woolsey. He resorted to a variation of what he’d originally meant to do when he’d first reached for the redhead. Leaning over, he seized the fallen man by the scruff of his neck and the waistband of his trousers. Straightening up, shoulders and thick arms bulging under his homespun shirt, the marshal lifted the still-howling Woolsey and whirled him around as if he were no more than a toddler. When he’d turned to where he was facing the three other combatants, McQueen hoisted his burden to chest height and then thrust his powerful arms outward, releasing Woolsey and sending him airborne until he crashed across the lower backs of the Dunlap brothers as they were bunching together in their renewed attempt to gang up on the stranger.

Woolsey yipped like a kicked dog, the sounds he emitted mixing with the grunts of surprise that escaped Greely and Grady as they were slammed forward and knocked off their feet. All three of the troublemakers tumbled down, tangled together in a kicking, arm-thrashing, cursing pile.

Shoving away the table and swatting aside tipped-over chairs, McQueen barged forward, following the missile he had launched. On the other side of the flailing pile, the yellow-haired stranger stood poised with raised fists, the expression on his face once again wary, but also touched with a hint of amusement.

“Hope you don’t mind me hornin’ in,” McQueen said to him as he leaned over to yank the limp form of Woolsey off the pile and toss it to one side, “but I figure you’ll be okay with sharin’ the finishin’-up of these last two with me.”

Grinning as he reached down to pull Grady back to his feet, the stranger said, “Always been a big believer in sharing, Marshal. One apiece works out about as even as a fella could ask for.”

And so it went that, for the next handful of minutes—after getting both Grady and Greely upright and finding they still had the hankering for a fight left in them—the stranger and the marshal stood back-to-back and obliged that hankering with a flurry of traded punches. The stranger continued to demonstrate a measure of finesse and boxing skill—ducking, sticking, jabbing, cutting Grady down steadily but unhurriedly. Greely and McQueen—and Grady, too, for what little offense he was able to muster—relied more on hooks and sweeping roundhouses mixed with a few elbow smashes, the occasional uppercut, and lashing kicks from time to time.

Greely was big and strong, but he also was flabby around the gut and soaked inside with too much alcohol. And although McQueen was a good twenty years older and not as spry as he’d been in his heyday, he was still powerfully built through the chest and shoulders and relatively trim at the waist. So his whittling down of Greely was not as clean or precise as the methods being employed by the stranger, but he was nevertheless getting the job done.

None of which was to say the Dunlaps were willing to go down easy. They were tough and durable and damned stubborn about hitting the floor. Even after they were clearly bested, they refused to quit.

This, then, was the scene presented to Jim Hendricks, a mountain of a man who happened to be one of McQueen’s two deputies, as he barged through the Silver Spur’s batwings. All four combatants, bloody and battered, were still on their feet throwing increasingly arm-weary punches.

Hendricks took one look and didn’t hesitate to react in a way he’d found to be always effective for such situations. Almost lazily, he drew the revolver from the holster on his hip, pointed it ceilingward, and fired off a shot. The whole room shook from the blast. Farrelly, the bartender, and the men lining the bar—even though they were watching Hendricks the whole time—jumped at the sound. More importantly, though, the brawlers froze in what they were doing and let their fists fall loosely to their sides, bruised faces turning to look at Hendricks.

“Whatever this was about, it is now over,” the deputy proclaimed. Then, aiming a scowl at McQueen, he added, “Thunderation, Firestick, how did you let yourself get involved in this? You oughta know better.”

“Aw, take it easy, Moosejaw,” McQueen replied wearily. “Like you never jumped in the middle of a fracas before.”

“That was the old days. We’re supposed to be older and wiser now. What’s more, we wear badges. That means we’re supposed to be breakin’ up fights, not joinin’ in.”

McQueen raised one hand and patted his chest. “Well, I forgot to put on my badge today. Reckon that must be why I slipped and allowed myself to be tempted into joinin’ this scuffle.” He looked around, glaring at the Dunlap brothers, both of whom remained standing, though weaving somewhat unsteadily. “But badge or no badge,” he added, “I still got the authority to charge these varmints with disturbin’ the peace and strikin’ an officer of the law. They know damn well who and what I am, and they decided to tangle with me anyway. So they’re gonna get what they got comin’.”

“You want to throw ’em in the hoosegow?” Hendricks said.

“That’s exactly what I want.” McQueen gestured offhandedly toward the sprawled form of Woolsey. “Have ’em drag their pet red-haired rat along for the trip and and throw him behind bars with ’em.”

“For how long?”

“I’ll let you know after I think on it some. I might decide to pile on a few more charges.”

Hendricks frowned. “You know Tolsvord ain’t gonna like that much.”

“That’s too bad,” McQueen said. “For his sake, we’ve gone easy on these no-accounts way too often. I figure it’s time we clamped down on ’em a little harder for a change—and past time for Tolsvord to recognize they’re a lost cause for him and everybody else.”

“If you say so, Firestick.” Hendricks waggled his gun at Greely and Grady. “You heard the man. Grab hold of your pet red-haired rat and bring him along. You’re all invited for a stay in the exclusive little hotel we run.”

Wordlessly, the brothers grabbed the sagging Woolsey—one by the feet, the other under his arms—and headed for the front door ahead of Hendricks. Before following them out, the big deputy looked over his shoulder and said, “I’ll send Moorehouse over to see about patchin’ you two up. Then I’ll have him take a look at these three.”

McQueen shrugged. “I suppose. No particular hurry, though . . . especially not for them.”

Once Hendricks was out the door with his charges, McQueen turned to the yellow-haired stranger who’d been standing quietly by with a bemused expression on his face. “Now then,” said the marshal. “I gave you the benefit of the doubt, because I know those three jackasses to be liars and troublemakers. Thing is, that don’t necessarily prove you ain’t a card cheat. I hope you’re not gonna disappoint me by turnin’ out to actually be one.”

“Trust me, Marshal, I very sincerely do not want to disappoint you,” said the stranger. “Like I told you before, those men were such terrible players there would be no need for me or anybody else to cheat in order to beat them.”

McQueen regarded him for a moment before making a gesture to indicate the paper bills that, along with the cards, ashtrays, and drinks, had been spilled from the table. “Reckon these winnin’s are yours, then.”

The stranger returned his gaze, the bemused expression remaining in place. He said, “If that’s intended to be some kind of trick to test my honesty, Marshal, then that would make me the one disappointed in you . . . I hadn’t yet had time to clean those gentlemen out entirely, you see. So not all of the money scattered there is mine. However, since I do know the amount I had in front of me before the trouble broke out, I’d like to claim what is. The rest can be returned to the men your deputy hauled away.”

“Minus the amount owed for damages, that is—from their part, not yours,” McQueen said.

“Sounds reasonable,” the stranger allowed.

“Reasonable, maybe. But not really necessary,” said Farrelly, the barkeep, who’d come out from his station to start righting chairs and putting things back in order. “The boss learned a long time ago to furnish this joint with sturdy trimmings that wouldn’t bust up so easy every time a fracas broke out. Looks like it paid off once again. I don’t see nothing that suffered much damage.”

He paused in what he was doing to glance upward. “Except for the ceiling, that is. Doggone it, Firestick, does Moosejaw have to fire off a blast into the ceiling every time he shows up to tame down a spot of trouble? Lookit up there. That’s three times in the past six months, and last time it was with a doggone shotgun!”

“Moosejaw don’t like wastin’ words,” McQueen said.

“Well, he oughta try not liking to waste bullets for a change. He’s gonna have that ceiling peppered with so many doggone holes that the next time we get a frog-strangler of a rain, it’ll leak in here like one of those Swedish shower baths I’ve heard tell about.”

“Art,” McQueen said, “when’s the last time we had a frog-strangler of a rain around these parts?”

Farrelly frowned. “Well . . . I don’t know exactly.”

“You don’t know because you can’t remember. Nobody can remember. Because it never happens.”

“We get some doozies now and then,” Farrelly said stubbornly. “But that ain’t the point. The point is, if Moosejaw keeps shooting holes in the ceiling, it’s just a matter of time before it’ll start to leak from even only—”

“Okay, okay. I’ll talk to him about it.”

“I mean, it ain’t like he ain’t big enough to just march in and give a loud snort if he wants to—”

“You made your point. I said I’ll talk to him about it,” the marshal interrupted for a second time, his tone growing a mite testy.

While McQueen and Farrelly were talking, the stranger had quietly gathered up the cards and money scattered across the floor. He placed the deck of cards on top of the table Farrelly had pushed back into place, and alongside it a thin stack of bills—minus a thicker bundle, his winnings, that he kept for himself. Brandishing the latter, he announced, “Gentlemen. Since I was a participant—albeit a reluctant one—in the disturbance that disrupted everyone’s afternoon, I’d like to make amends by offering to step over to the bar and buy a round of drinks.”

One of the onlookers already at the bar responded by saying, “Heck, mister, that wasn’t no disturbance to us. It was a right entertainin’ show you put on.”

One of the other patrons leaning on the bar next to the speaker gave him a quick elbow to the ribs, then was equally quick to add, “But that don’t mean we won’t still accept your offer to stand a round of drinks.”

“Reckon I’d better get back in place to do some pouring, then,” said Farrelly as he headed once again for the bar.

The stranger pointed to the money he’d placed on the table and said to McQueen, “That rightfully belongs to those other players. I presume you’ll see that it’s returned to them?”

The marshal hesitated for a moment, making a sour face, before finally reaching for the bills. “I ain’t done bein’ mad at those boobs yet, so I hate to do anything in their favor,” he said. “But, yeah, I’ll see to it this gets back to ’em.”

The stranger smiled. “I trust also that you will be accepting my drink offer? Or are you not allowed to imbibe since you’re on duty?”

McQueen’s sour expression suddenly turned into a wide grin, accompanied by a hearty chuckle. “Mister, I wouldn’t have a job that didn’t allow for a little im-bibin’. Which ain’t to say I go around half-pickled or anything like that. But I do enjoy a few nips on occasion, and I reckon this measures up as one of those occasions. So lead on, I surely do accept your offer.”

By the time they took their places at the bar, Farrelly had already served the other men farther down the line. Moving back to stand before McQueen and the stranger, the first thing he did was place a couple of damp bar towels in front of them. “The laundry lady will likely raise hell with me about the bloodstains, but here, you fellas might want to take a swipe at some of your cuts and scrapes before you get down to drinking.”

The long mirror behind the bar was the pride of the otherwise rather austere establishment. The Silver Spur’s owner, Irish Dan Coswick, liked to boast how he’d had it shipped special all the way from New Orleans, and he took great offense at any mention of the few distortions and blurry spots to be found across its surface. It nevertheless did give the place a nice added touch and proved quite helpful at the moment for the marshal and the stranger to see their reflections in order to take some “swipes” at their wounds. The latter, upon closer examination, proved numerous though mostly superficial.

“I guess,” said the stranger as he dabbed at the raw, reddened swelling under one eye, “we can take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that those men your deputy took out of here looked considerably worse than us.”

Wiping his chin clean of the partially dried blood smeared across it, McQueen grinned. “Like the old joke that goes, ‘You oughta see the other fella, eh?” Then his grin stretched even wider. “Of course, when you take into account those ugly-assed Dunlaps and stack ’em up against a couple of handsome gents like us, you’d be quick to conclude they looked considerably worse even before we did any poundin’ on ’em.”

Now it was the stranger’s turn to chuckle. “If you say so.”

As he continued to utilize the mirror’s reflection to dab at the damage done his face, the stranger also used it to discreetly make a closer appraisal of the man standing next to him. He saw a solid six-footer in his middle fifties with a full head of gray-flecked hair, a broad face anchored by a strong jaw, ice-blue eyes separated by a blunt, moderately large nose. His attire was simple—homespun shirt and denim trousers, the latter tucked into a pair of high-topped buckskin boots with fringes around the top cuffs. He wore a walnut-handled Frontier Colt in a well-worn holster on his right hip, and moved like he knew how to use it. And although the stranger had seen the marshal’s wide grin and the laugh crinkles at the corners of his ice-blue eyes, he’d also noted those eyes narrowing and deepening to a much darker blue during flashes of anger. In summation, the stranger made McQueen for a self-assured, generally easygoing individual, but one with a dangerous edge that marked him as no one to be trifled with.

Setting aside his bar towel and raising the shot of red-eye Farrelly had placed before him, the marshal said, “I thank you for this, mister. Could thank you more properly if I knew your name, which, it occurs to me, I never got around to hearin’.”

The stranger raised his own glass. “It’s Lofton. Henry Lofton.”

“And I’m Elwood McQueen . . . Here’s to you.”

Both men tossed down their shots.

Returning his glass to the bar top, Lofton said, “Now you’ve got me curious. You say your name is McQueen. But your deputy—the big fellow you referred to as Moosejaw—kept calling you ‘Firestick.’ It may not be polite to probe too much since we’ve only just met, but I’m thinking there’s got to be an interesting story or two behind such colorful names. Care to enlighten me?”

Without waiting to be asked, Farrelly had already begun pouring refills. As he did so, one side of his mouth pulled into a wry smile. “Oh, there’s stories behind those names right enough,” he said. “Don’t keep the poor fella in suspense, Firestick. Go ahead and tell him.”

“Now, Art. Don’t go makin’ more of it than there is.”

“Aw, come on,” the barkeep protested. “I’ve heard you tell plenty of tales about your mountain-man days. No need to be shy about it now.”

“Mountain-man days?” echoed Lofton. “Now I’m really intrigued. You must tell me more.”

McQueen. . .