Fort Buzzard

Book 6: Preacher & MacCallister Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Johnstone Country. Where Every Road Leads to Death.

Preacher and Jamie McCallister head for the hills to uncover the truth behind a gruesome mountain massacre—and find themselves trapped in a nest of merciless, sadistic killers. . . .

FORT BUZZARD

They were innocent men, slaughtered in the Rockies. A party of land surveyors who met their grisly fate at the hands of the Crow Indians—or so it seems. Some folks think the story is a lie. And now it’s up to U.S. Army Lieutenant Ron Stanton to figure out what really happened up there in those desolate, bloodsoaked mountains. As his guides, Preacher and Jamie McCallister agree to retrace the footsteps of the doomed party—come hell or high water—but first they’ll have to pass through a particularly nasty piece of purgatory known as Fort Buzzard . . .

Fort Buzzard—officially Gullickson’s Fort—earned its nefarious nickname because of the human vultures it attracts. Namely the brutes and brawlers hired by Gullickson to protect his interests. When a nearby trading post is suddenly attacked—and two young women carried off by Indians—Preacher and McCallister smell a rat. The Crows swear they’re not responsible for the attack, the abduction, or the mountain party massacre. Preacher and McCallister believe them—but proving it won’t be easy. This road to justice only leads to more dead ends—and the biggest, bloodiest showdown in Rocky Mountain history . . .

Live Free. Read Hard.

Release date: August 20, 2024

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 368

Sample

Preacher darted aside as the club swept down toward his head.

Instead of cracking his skull, as the attacker intended, it just brushed Preacher’s right shoulder. The mountain man turned his leap into a spin as he used his left hand to jerk the tomahawk from behind his belt.

He whipped the deadly weapon at the man who had jumped him from the mouth of the dark alley he was passing. Preacher had gone past plenty of dark alleys in his adventurous life and knew to be alert.

Once again, that instinctive caution probably had saved his life.

Quick reflexes saved the attacker’s life, at least for the moment. He yelped and threw himself backward so that Preacher’s tomahawk missed his face by bare inches.

That had to be a terrifying sensation, to have death whisper by so closely. The man recovered from his missed blow and flailed at Preacher again with the club.

Preacher blocked the blow with the tomahawk. The impact shivered up his arm as the two wooden shafts collided.

He wore two holstered Colt Dragoon revolvers and could have used his right hand to draw the one on that hip. At this range, a round from the heavy gun would blow a fist-sized, .44 caliber hole right through the varmint who’d tried to stove in his head.

But such an outcome, satisfying though it might be, wouldn’t tell Preacher whether the man just intended to murder and rob him or if he had something more nefarious in mind.

His swipe with the tomahawk had been an instinctive reaction, but now that he’d had a second to think about it, Preacher wanted to ask the attacker some questions. That meant capturing him alive.

He twisted the wrist of the hand that held the tomahawk, a move that caught the club in a bind and wrenched it right out of the other man’s hand. Preacher stepped closer and swung his right fist in a solid blow that landed on the assailant’s jaw and sounded like an ax splitting a chunk of wood.

The man’s head jerked to the side and his knees buckled. He started to pitch forward. Preacher caught him by the shirtfront, bunching his fingers in the linsey-woolsey, and jerked him upright again.

“Don’t pass out on me,” Preacher said as he held the man up and brandished the tomahawk in front of his bleary eyes. “If you can’t answer my questions, there won’t be no reason for me not to split your skull wide open.”

The man’s head lolled back and forth as Preacher shook him. He said, “D-don’t . . . don’t kill me . . . Please . . . I’m sorry . . . They paid me . . . paid me to . . .”

“Well, they sure wasted their money,” Preacher said as the man’s voice trailed off. He gave the fellow another shake. “Who paid you?”

“Blake . . . Blakemore. Seth . . . Blakemore.”

Preacher grunted. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. He must’ve got word that I was on his trail. Were you supposed to meet him after you ambushed me?”

“Y-yeah. At Dillard’s . . . Dillard’s Tavern.”

Preacher had heard of the place but had never been there since it hadn’t been in business the last time he’d visited Leavenworth, Kansas, just down the Missouri River from the military outpost of the same name.

Dillard’s Tavern had a bad reputation and was known to be where the brigands who preyed on the wagon trains heading west spent their time when they were in town.

Preacher wasn’t surprised at all to hear that Seth Blakemore intended to rendezvous there with his hired assassin. Blakemore was rumored to be the leader of one of those gangs. Preacher had been hired to track him down and find out if he was responsible for an attack that had left a dozen innocent immigrants dead. Some of the survivors had banded together and sought out the mountain man to ask for his help in avenging their slain loved ones.

Preacher probably would have taken on the task simply because he hated outlaws, but when the folks had offered to pay his expenses, he had agreed. That would make them feel as if they were contributing to the effort.

“Wha . . . what’re you gonna do . . . to me?” the man asked. “I . . . I’m sorry I came after you. I was just so scared of Blakemore, I didn’t think I could tell him no—”

“I ought to plant this tomahawk right in that rotten gourd you call a brain,” Preacher interrupted him. “But I reckon I won’t. Can’t have you scurryin’ back to Blakemore and warnin’ him I’m comin’, though—”

“I won’t do that, I swear I won’t! I won’t say anything if you’ll just let me go.”

“Can’t risk it,” Preacher said. He drew back the ’hawk so that he could slam the flat of it against the man’s head and knock him out for a spell. He would tie the man hand and foot and leave him in the alley.

Somebody else might come along, cut his throat for him, and rifle his pockets, but that wouldn’t weigh on Preacher’s conscience. He figured it would be just the bad luck of the draw—and that the varmint shouldn’t have tried to ambush him in the first place.

Before Preacher could strike, the man writhed in his grip with more strength than Preacher expected. Desperation turned his muscles into iron cables. He butted Preacher in the face and tore loose from the mountain man’s grasp.

Sensing as much as seeing the attacker’s movements, Preacher twisted away from a sudden thrust. The man had had a knife hidden somewhere.

The blade raked along Preacher’s side, missing the flesh but leaving a slash in the buckskin shirt. Preacher lifted his right elbow into the man’s jaw and knocked him back a couple of steps.

The man recovered almost instantly and lunged forward again. The knife in his hand swept back and forth in swift, deadly arcs, forcing Preacher to give ground for a second.

He was only going to put up with so much. This varmint had tried to bash his head in, and now he figured on spilling Preacher’s guts on the ground.

Preacher wasn’t in any mood to get cut, even if it didn’t turn out to be a serious wound, so he palmed the right-hand Dragoon from its holster, eared back the hammer as he raised the gun, and squeezed the trigger.

A tongue of orange flame nearly a foot long licked out from the revolver’s muzzle as the gun’s heavy boom sounded. At this range, Preacher couldn’t miss—not that Preacher ever missed any shot, except on very rare occasions.

The .44 caliber ball slammed into the assailant’s chest and threw him backward as if he’d been punched by a giant fist. His arms flew out to the sides. He lost his grip on the knife and it clattered away. He crashed down on his back, kicked a couple of times, and then lay still.

“Gun against knife ain’t exactly fair, I reckon,” Preacher said, even though no one there was alive to hear him. “But at my age, I ain’t worried overmuch about bein’ fair.”

Nobody else had been moving along this stretch of street when the man jumped Preacher from the alley, which made it a good place for an ambush. Now, as Preacher glanced in both directions, he still didn’t see anyone.

But that shot might draw unwanted attention, so before anybody could show up to ask what was going on and waste his time, he pouched the iron, tucked the tomahawk behind his belt, and left the carcass where it had fallen. He moved into the dark shadows of the alley, strode along it to the far end, and came out on another street.

Turning to his left, Preacher tried to orient himself and figure out in which direction his destination lay.

That destination was Dillard’s Tavern, where he hoped to find the outlaw Seth Blakemore waiting.

Blakemore would be waiting for word of Preacher’s death, though . . . not for the legendary mountain man himself.

Dillard’s Tavern was located on the outskirts of town under some cottonwood trees on a shallow bluff overlooking the Missouri River. It was a sprawling, one-story building of log and stone with twin chimneys, one at each end of the main structure.

Crudely built, tar-paper-roofed wings stuck out on the sides and the back. These were used mostly as cribs for the soiled doves who worked at Dillard’s. Small fires burned in pots along the trail leading to the tavern so customers could find their way to the place in the darkness.

Preacher paused on the bluff and looked north along the broad, slow-moving river that was the gateway to the frontier. Fort Leavenworth, the military post that had given the adjoining settlement its name, was located a few miles upstream, also on the west bank of the Missouri.

The town that had taken the fort’s name had been in existence for only a year or so, but it was a growing, bustling place already. Not only did many wagon trains full of immigrants pass through here, but the soldiers posted at the fort were frequent visitors as well.

Most of the local businesses were more than happy to take the soldiers’ money, but according to what Preacher had heard, they weren’t welcome at Dillard’s. It was the province of outlaws, gamblers, whores, cutthroats, and assorted thieves and highwaymen.

By venturing in there, he would be risking his life.

Luckily, this wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that, he thought wryly. Not by a long shot.

Because it was a warm evening, the tavern’s heavy wooden front door was propped open, held in place by a large chunk of firewood. Yellow light made murky by the thick tobacco smoke inside spilled out, along with loud talk, boisterous laughter, and assorted offensive smells.

Preacher, accustomed to the peaceful silences and clean air of the high country, made a disgusted face as he approached. Some taverns he didn’t mind—Red Mike’s in St. Louis was a longtime favorite watering hole of his—but he could tell this place was repulsive without even stepping foot inside it.

But the man he was after was in there, more than likely, so he tugged down the broad brim of his dark brown felt hat and moved through the doorway. All his senses and instincts were on high alert. His gaze darted from side to side, searching for potential threats.

No one appeared to pay much attention to him. They were all too caught up in their vices.

The bar, made of long, thick planks laid across whiskey and beer barrels, ran along the right side of the room. Men were packed along its length, some with buckets of beer lifted to their mouths, others drinking directly from whiskey bottles. Loud gurgling sounds came from them as they guzzled down the liquor that probably had been brewed right here, flavored with snake heads and spiced with gunpowder.

Rough-hewn tables were scattered around the puncheon floor. Some had chairs that were just as crudely constructed, while at others the patrons perched on kegs or crates.

At the back of the big room was an open space where men could dance with the slatterns who worked here whenever anybody had a fiddle and wanted to scrape out a few sprightly reels and flourishes.

Doorless exits on both sides of the room led to the wings where those slatterns plied their real trade. Several couples were headed that way as Preacher looked around the room. The women were dressed in plain cotton dresses that would be quick and easy to remove.

The men sported a much wider variety of garb ranging from fur trappers’ buckskins to the canvas trousers and homespun shirts of keelboat men, from the frock coats, beaver hats, and cravats of gamblers to the denim trousers and broad-brimmed hats of plains riders.

The squalid scene was lit by candles that guttered in brass holders attached to wagon wheels hung from the ceiling beams. The light was dim and inconstant to start with and was made even less illuminating by the thick clouds of bluish-gray smoke that hung in the air.

The smells of cheap tobacco, long unwashed flesh, spilled liquor, and human waste combined to form a pervasive stench that assaulted the nose.

Preacher hadn’t minded places like this when he was young, but he was old enough now to wonder what in blazes drew people to them. To be fair, though, the patrons of Dillard’s Tavern seemed to be enjoying themselves, judging by the hilarity going on around him.

Now, where was Seth Blakemore?

A particularly raucous burst of laughter drew Preacher’s attention. He looked across the room and saw half a dozen men sitting at a round table.

One of them had a girl on his lap, and whatever he was saying or doing to her—or both—had to be pretty bad if it made a serving wench in a place like this look as uncomfortable as she did.

That would have bothered Preacher to start with because he didn’t like seeing any woman mistreated, no matter who or what she was. But it was worse in this case because the man doing the mauling, much to the amusement of his friends, had long, curly blond hair under a black hat and a drooping mustache of the same shade.

That matched the description of Seth Blakemore that the people who hired Preacher had given him.

He hooked his thumbs in the gun belt around his hips and sauntered toward the table.

One of the revelers saw the tall, middle-aged, rugged-looking man approaching the table. Preacher wore a brown hat, a buckskin shirt, and denim trousers tucked in high-topped black boots. He packed two irons in holsters attached to the gun belt around his hips, as well as a tomahawk and a sheathed Bowie knife.

On a frontier full of dangerous men, an aura of exceptional menace hung around Preacher.

The man at the table must have realized that and read something in the mountain man’s expression and bearing to cause immediate alarm. He reached over, grabbed the arm of one of his companions, and gave it a shake.

The second man looked annoyed but listened to what the first one told him. He looked at Preacher and his eyes widened slightly. He leaned forward and said something across the table to the man Preacher took to be Blakemore.

Blakemore turned his head to look at Preacher. The big grin on his face disappeared. He gave the girl a shove so that she slid off his lap and sat down hard on the floor.

Even though that had to hurt, she looked a little relieved to be out of Blakemore’s clutches. She rolled onto hands and knees, scrambled to her feet, and hurried off into the crowd.

Blakemore rose, glared at Preacher as the mountain man came to a stop near the table, and demanded, “Are you lookin’ for me, mister?”

“Reckon that all depends on who you are,” Preacher said.

“My name’s Blakemore. Seth Blakemore. Who the hell are you?”

Instead of answering the question directly, Preacher nodded and said, “Yeah, I figured you might be him. I was told what you look like.”

“Oh? Who told you that?”

“Some folks who believe you did ’em wrong. You pretended to hire on to guide their wagon train, and they didn’t know you were workin’ with a bunch of no-good thieves and killers who were gonna ambush ’em. You led those poor pilgrims right into a trap, Blakemore . . . and the time’s come for you to settle up for what you done.”

As the two men faced each other across the table with obvious hostility, the racket in the tavern had trailed off gradually, until now an ominous silence hung in the air along with the smoke and the stench.

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” Blakemore said, his jaw taut with anger.

“Folks call me Preacher.”

The confrontation had caused the other five men at the table to tense and push their chairs back a little, so they could either leap to their feet or grab for a weapon, whatever was called for.

At Preacher’s declaration of his identity, though, the eyes of two of them widened and they leaned back in their chairs as if wanting to put some distance between themselves and what was happening.

“Seth, I’ve heard about this fella,” one of that pair said. “I don’t want no part of this.”

“It ain’t what I signed on for, neither,” the other man added.

Blakemore turned his head enough to glare at them. “You two yellow-bellied skunks were quick enough to claim your share of whatever loot came our way,” he said. “Now you want to run off with your tails tucked ’tween your legs. Well, go ahead, damn you. I’ll be seein’ you again one of these days.”

The threat in his words was clear enough for everyone to understand it.

That didn’t stop the two men from scraping their chairs back and standing up. They kept their hands in plain sight as they backed away just to make sure Preacher didn’t think they were trying any tricks. When they had put some distance between themselves and the table, they turned and hurried out of the tavern without looking back.

Blakemore turned his attention to Preacher again and went on. “Just because these two skulked away like cowardly dogs doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of other friends in here. You think you can gun me down and then walk out of here alive?”

“I didn’t say anything about gunnin’ you down,” Preacher replied. “I’d just as soon turn you over to the law and let somebody else deal with you. That’d get the stink of you outta my nose just as well.” He smiled. “Anyway, I don’t reckon too many in here are gonna risk their lives to back your play. They may be scared enough to walk careful around you, but that don’t mean they want to die for you.”

He hoped he was right about that. At this point, he didn’t dare take his eyes off Blakemore in order to gauge the mood in the room.

He might be fixing to get himself shot to doll rags. If that turned out to be the case, then so be it.

Somebody needed to settle the score with Seth Blakemore, and the job had fallen to him.

Blakemore carried two guns like Preacher, but instead of riding in holsters, they were tucked behind a broad sash he wore tied around his waist. More than likely, he could get the guns out and start them smoking pretty quickly.

But Preacher was fast on the draw himself. He had been packing revolvers for more than a decade, ever since he’d fallen in with Captain Jack Hays and the Texas Rangers for a spell, long enough to fight alongside them at the Battle of Bandera Pass.

The Rangers had gifted him with a brace of Colt Patersons, and he’d taken to carrying the Dragoons when they were introduced. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that he had a natural talent for drawing and firing the guns.

So he was more than content to match his speed and accuracy against Blakemore if it came to that, and he’d deal with the outlaw boss’s companions, too. He had ten rounds in the Dragoons, five in each weapon. He was confident he could stay on his feet and kill every one of Blakemore’s bunch, even if he was shot to pieces.

Chairs scraped behind him. Feet shuffled on the rough wooden floor. A thin smile tugged at Preacher’s lips under his salt-and-pepper mustache.

“Folks are clearin’ out, ain’t they?” he guessed. “Getting outta the line of fire because they don’t want nothin’ to do with you and your fight, Blakemore. It’s just me and you and any of your boys who want to take cards in this game.”

“The odds are still four to one,” Blakemore said.

“Yeah, and I know that don’t hardly seem fair.” Preacher shrugged. “But I reckon you and your pards will just have to make do and hope for the best.”

Blakemore’s rugged face contorted with fury. “Why, you son of a—”

The rest of the epithet was lost in the scrape of chairs as the other members of his gang leaped to their feet and clawed at their guns. Hands moving almost too fast to be seen, Blakemore plucked the revolvers from behind the sash at his waist and jerked them up as flame gushed from their muzzles.

But Preacher’s Dragoons were already in his fists and roaring before Blakemore’s guns erupted. His first two rounds sizzled through the air above the table and slammed into Blakemore’s chest.

No matter what else happened, Preacher wanted to make sure the outlaw leader paid in blood for his crimes.

The first two shots Blakemore got off bracketed Preacher, whipping past on either side of the mountain man.

Blakemore fired again, but by this time he had rocked back under the impact of Preacher’s lead and his arms had sagged. Both rounds struck the table and sent a shower of splinters spraying into the air.

Preacher was already moving, turning toward the other bandits. He shot one of them at fairly close range with the right-hand Dragoon. The ball struck the man in the forehead, bored through his brain, and burst out the back of his skull in a grisly rain of blood, gray matter, and bone shards. The fellow went down in an ungainly sprawl.

The left-hand Dragoon boomed and bucked twice against the mountain man’s palm. The rock-hard muscles of his arm absorbed the recoil and kept the gun from rising much. One of the rounds he fired struck a man in the right shoulder, shattering it. The second tore through his throat and severed his spine. Blood fountained from the wound for a second before he dropped like a rag doll.

A bullet clipped the fringe on the right sleeve of Preacher’s buckskin shirt as he pivoted again. The man who had fired that round might have scored a hit if he hadn’t rushed his shot.

He didn’t get a second chance. The Colt in Preacher’s right hand blasted and the man went down with a hole in his chest bubbling crimson.

That just left one enemy on his feet, and he frantically threw his gun down and screamed, “Don’t shoot! Don’t kill me!” as he shoved his hands high in the air.

Knowing that the man probably had murdered innocent immigrants, or at least assisted in slaughtering them, Preacher was sorely tempted to blow his brains out anyway. But he held off on the triggers, and said, “Keep them hands where I can see ’em, if you know what’s good for you.”

At that moment, he saw something from the corner of his eye that told him he had made a mistake. He hadn’t made sure that Seth Blakemore was dead.

Blakemore had fallen backward with two of Preacher’s pistol balls in his chest, but he had landed on the chair he’d been using instead of falling all the way to the floor. He dropped one of his guns, and as he sat there he somehow found the strength to wrap both hands around the other revolver and raise it for a last shot at Preacher.

The realization that Blakemore was still a threat took only a fraction of a second to crystallize in Preacher’s brain, but that delay would be long enough to allow the outlaw to get a shot off.

Another report boomed, a deafening sound in the low-ceilinged room, but it didn’t come from Blakemore’s gun—or from Preacher’s, either. Blakemore’s head snapped back and his shoulders followed. That overbalanced him in the chair and it tipped backward, dumping him on the floor.

Not before Preacher saw the hole that had appeared just above Blakemore’s right eye, though.

This time there was no question that the outlaw was dead.

Preacher kept the surviving member of the gang covered as he turned his head to look over his left shoulder. A huge, broad-shouldered figure loomed o. . .