Hard Men to Kill
Available in:
- eBook
- Audiobook
- Series info
- Sample
- Media
- Author updates
- Lists
Synopsis
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
From Book 1:
In this action-packed new series, a rascally pair of prospectors run for their lives from a gun-toting posse—and discover a million ways to die in San Francisco’s criminal underworld . . .Charlie Dawson and his partner Clem don’t consider themselves bad guys. But they definitely made a bad error in judgment on a gold mine deal—turns out there was no gold—and ended up in a shootout with some very angry claim jumpers. Now a posse is in hot pursuit of Charlie and Clem. The unlucky pair hightail it to San Francisco, where they try to blend into the notorious red-light district known as Barbary Coast. Another bad decision on their part . . .
San Francisco is one wild place. Horses get stolen, folks get shanghaied, and Charlie and Clem get offers from some very shady characters with money to burn, so the boys can’t refuse. A big boss banker wants to hire them to find a crate that was lost in a train derailment. Inside is a priceless golden spike created for the opening ceremony of a new rail line. Sounds like easy money to Charlie and Clem. Problem is, they’re not the only ones looking for it. A vicious gang of outlaws, a cold-blooded gunman—and a scheming femme fatale—are on a direct collision course with the hard-to-kill duo . . .
And they’re all heading for one very dead end.
Live Free. Read Hard.
williamjohnstone.net
Release date: April 1, 2025
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Print pages: 320
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Reader buzz
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
Author updates
Close
Hard Men to Kill
William W. Johnstone
“Give us the money.” Clement leaned forward, square jaw jutting out belligerently. His gnarled hands curled into fists the size of ham hocks. The muscles in his forearms tensed, threatening to rip his soiled denim shirt. He gritted his teeth and then tossed his head like a fiery stallion getting ready to buck. Long blond hair flew back.
His hard gray eyes bored into the banker’s rheumy blue ones, but the portly man refused to flinch. He leaned forward and braced himself on his desk.
“You do not deserve a dime, Mister Clement. Not a single, solitary penny. As long as I am president, you shall not get it from this bank.”
“I can take it.” Clem’s voice rasped with menace.
“We have guards. In the lobby. They are watching you right now. Make a move to harm me and, I swear, they will fill you so full of holes there won’t be five pounds of your bellicose manner left to bury.” He cleared his throat. “I might add that your grave will be in the potter’s field since you can’t afford even a simple burial.”
“He’s an Elk,” Charlie Dawson said uneasily. He had listened to the men insult each other and now they moved on to outright threats of bodily harm. “The order will see that he gets a decent burial.”
“You, too, Mister Dawson? Will they bury you, as well?” The banker settled back and tented his fingers atop his bulging belly. “Leave. Both of you. My patience has worn out.”
“You can’t take what my partner says too seriously, Mister Norton. It’s just that Clem here’s all excited. We found the biggest, best vein of gold in the whole of California, and it’s just waiting to be dug out. We need supplies so we can get it pulled out of the Betty Sue. There’s enough blasting powder, but we can use supplies. To eat.”
“Food,” growled Clem, not budging an inch from his crouch of looming halfway across the banker’s desk.
“You should have left him buried in the mine,” Norton said. “You’re reasonable. Him,” he said, sniffing pompously as he looked down his bulbous nose at the two miners, “he needs to be taught manners.”
“Clem, go on and wait outside. I can handle this,” Charlie said. He felt a tad uneasy now. The banker had pushed too hard. Clem neared the end of his fuse and was about ready to explode like a keg of Giant Powder.
Clem reared up to his almost six-foot height and glared. He spun about, growled like an angry wolf, and stalked out. The two guards in the lobby watched him with some trepidation, hands resting on their holstered six-shooters. They breathed a sigh of relief when the trouble Clem promised left, slamming the door behind him.
“Now, Mister Norton, how about—?”
“You owe money all over town. The general store. Jones won’t give you another loan. Sam, over at the Blue Spruce Saloon, won’t even stand you a round of drinks. Not a drop of that panther piss he calls beer. No, Mister Dawson, you have drained this entire lake we so fondly call Potluck of money. There is not a drop to be had. None.” Norton pointed a stubby finger at the door. “Get out. Now.”
Charlie Dawson reared back and looked over his shoulder. Both guards looked more comfortable throwing him out than they had his partner. He was solid enough and his hands were powerful from swinging a pick all day. He was four inches shorter than Clem, but his shoulders were broader and his chest thicker. And they had no idea how fast he was with the Walker Colt tucked into his waistband.
He pushed his flat-brimmed hat back on his forehead enough to let a lock of brown hair pop out. If ever a man looked ready for a fight, it was him.
Charlie stood and glared at the banker.
“You’re making a big mistake. The Betty Sue Mine is going to produce the most gold California’s seen since the Rush of ’49. That’s twenty years, Mister Norton, twenty years. It’s time for the next big strike, and we’re it. The Betty Sue’s going to produce more gold than you will ever be able to lift with those fancy manicured hands of yours. This bank could have been part of it. Your stockholders will look back on this day and wonder what kind of banker you were to pass up this golden opportunity. I’ll say it again. Golden!”
“Leave. Now.” Norton jabbed his finger several times in the direction of the door.
Charlie left, giving the two guards a baleful look. He stepped out into the Northern California sun. His partner leaned against the brick building, smoking a cheroot. The puffs of smoke rose and disappeared in the gentle breeze blowing off the mountains where their mine stood waiting silently for them to become millionaires.
“No luck?”
“You know he turned us down,” Charlie said glumly. “We’re going to need a new pick. I broke our old one. And some food . . .”
“I can hunt. I’m a better shot ’n you.”
“We’ll need ammunition. All I’ve got is in the cylinder.” He touched the Colt in his waistband.
“Not much better,” Clem said. He drew the Army Colt he carried at his right hip. “Maybe two more cylinders. No more.”
“Twenty rounds or so between us. You’ll have to make every shot count, and there won’t be any chance of bringing down a deer for some venison stew, not with a pistol shot. The Winchester’s out of ammo.”
Charlie hitched up his britches.
“All this means is that we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, and our bellies are going to rumble a mite.” Charlie wanted to say more but had nothing more to add to detailing their problems.
“Mine already thinks my throat’s been slit.” Clem finished his smoke and went to his swayback nag. He stepped up and waited silently for his partner.
“We’ll show everyone in Potluck. We’ll show Norton and Jonesy and Sam and every last one of them when we strike it big. We’ll buy the saloon and the general store and . . . and . . . the bank!”
Clem shrugged and turned his horse’s face toward the road leading from town. Charlie dug his heels into his scrawny horse’s flanks, wondering how horse stew tasted.
“Ready to blast,” Clem bellowed.
“Go on, then. I’m already halfway out of the mine.” Charlie Dawson stopped and waited. There was something Clem was holding back. “You need a lucifer? Use the flame on the candle.”
“Ran out of matches a couple days back.”
“So what is it? Spit it out.”
“This is the last of our blasting powder. We might try blasting somewhere else. This don’t look like we’re blasting into the mother lode. Looks like quartz but I’m not even seeing fool’s gold.”
“The rock’s fine,” Charlie protested. “All we need to do is clear it out to get to the mother lode.” He fell silent for a moment. “You’re saying there isn’t any gold?”
“Ain’t seen a single flake. This isn’t blue dirt. We’re wasting our powder.” He looked around. “Betty Sue’s sucking the life from us.”
“The mine’s got plenty of gold. I feel it.”
“The assay doesn’t say it.”
“You know the assayer wouldn’t give us the report. I feel it in my bones that the report was a good one.”
“He wouldn’t give us the report because we couldn’t pay for it.”
“Then you don’t know what it said. I’m beginning to think you’re turning into a chicken, Clem. We’ve been together going on two years, and this is the first time I’ve seen you so negative.”
Clem ran his callused finger around in the borehole tamped with blasting powder. He pulled it out and looked at the black grains clinging to his skin.
“It’ll be a waste. There’s no gold here.”
“Betty Sue’d never lie to us. You said so yourself!”
“That was six months ago.”
“Look. Look at this spot! It’s gleaming with quartz. There’s gold behind this patch and—”
The clatter of horses’ hooves caused Charlie to fall silent. Clem moved beside him and whispered, “You got your gun?”
“It’s in the cabin.”
“Mine, too.” Clem picked up a pry bar and started for the mouth of the mine. Charlie followed close behind carrying their single good pickax.
The day’s fading sunlight blinded him. Charlie squinted as he made out four riders. Three remained mounted. Their leader strutted over and stopped a few paces away, his hand resting on his holstered six-gun.
“Good,” he said. “You gents are already leaving.”
“What do you want, Jimmy Norton? Did your pa get tired of you stinking up the bank so he sent you into the countryside to air out?”
“You talk big, Dawson. Do your jawing somewhere else. I got papers.” He held his coat open. A sheaf of folded documents caused an inner pocket to bulge.
“What are they?” Clem tapped the pry bar against his left palm. Every time he dropped it caused a sound like a gunshot. Two of the mounted men flinched at the noise. The third went for his six-shooter.
“Whoa there, Fredricks,” Norton said, holding up his hand. “There’s no call to cut down these two. They’re just leaving. And shooting them’d be a waste of lead.”
“Get your mangy carcass off our land,” Charlie said. He stepped closer, readying the pick.
“You stay where you are. I got papers. This here mine’s changed hands. You got foreclosed on for not paying taxes. When I heard that, I put up the money outta my own pocket to buy the Betty Sue.” Norton spat. “That’s a lousy name. I’m calling this here claim the Gold King Mine.”
“Taxes?” Clem pushed past his partner. “We don’t have to pay taxes for another eight months.”
“It was an early assessment, and you missed the deadline. Not that you deadbeats coulda paid, even in a thousand years.” Norton drew his six-shooter when Clem took another menacing step forward. “You back off or I swear, I’ll gun you down.”
“You have to give us a notice,” Charlie said. “Nobody told us squat.”
“Consider yourselves served,” Norton said, yanking the sheaf of papers from his pocket. He thrust them at Charlie.
“We’ll get a lawyer to fight this,” Charlie said, glancing over the top page. A few sheets fluttered down. Clem picked them up and looked at them.
“You don’t have money to patch a leaky bucket. Get off the land right now.” He snatched the papers from Charlie. “Get off my land, you deadbeats.”
The metallic click as pistols cocked caused Charlie to reach out to restrain his partner. Clem had a way of flying off the handle. He never said much, but his fists often did. Matched against four armed and angry men was a sure way to get ventilated.
“Let us get our bedrolls from the cabin.”
“Go on,” Jimmy Norton said.
The mounted man called out a warning, but it was too late. Both Clem and Charlie used their weapons to whack at Norton and the other two. Their horses reared and fought them. The solitary mounted man tried to shoot, but his horse bucked.
The two miners raced for their cabin. Clem kicked in the door, not bothering to push it open. He dived for their pistols hanging on a peg by the door. Charlie fielded his and swung around, blazing away.
His first shot caught Jimmy Norton in the gut. The man staggered away, clutching his belly.
Huge chunks of wooden wall began filling the air. The other three fired wildly. The flying splinters made Charlie and Clem duck low. They pressed against an overturned table that gave hardly more protection than the thin cabin walls.
“We’re in a world of trouble now,” Charlie said.
Clem held up the papers Norton had dropped and started to pass them to his partner. A new fusillade tore through, causing him to stuff the papers into his waistband. He spun and fired through the door. His lead caused some consternation. Another of their attackers yelped in pain.
“We don’t have much ammunition. I’m about out. What about you?”
Clem shook his head.
Then their troubles multiplied. A piece of roof fell in. Charlie looked up and saw flames spreading around the hole.
“They’re burning us out!”
The entire cabin exploded in a fireball.
“This way!” Clem rolled away from the table and kicked like a mule. A section of the back wall blasted outward, already on fire.
Charlie wasn’t going to argue. The roof was collapsing overhead, showering burning fragments all around. He rolled and rolled again, colliding with his partner. For a moment they lay in a pile, gasping. Smoke billowed out, filling their lungs. Both coughed. Eyes watering, they made their way from the cabin.
Charlie began swatting out embers that threatened to set fire to his clothes. Beside him, Clem rolled over and over in the dirt to accomplish the same end. They sat upright when bullets began kicking up tiny dust devils around them. The fire hadn’t ended the assault. Norton and his cronies had come around the cabin and spotted them.
Clem steadied his Army Colt against his upraised knee and fired.
A loud screech rewarded his marksmanship.
“He shot me!” Jimmy Norton cried. “Help me. Help me!”
Charlie couldn’t see Norton through the smoke gusting from the cabin, but he homed in on the voice. He emptied his Colt in that direction. New cries of anguish greeted him.
“Not Norton,” Clem said.
“At least one of his henchmen. Maybe two.” Charlie clicked the trigger a couple more times. “I’m out of bullets.”
“Me, too.”
The two got to their feet and staggered as their cabin roof collapsed fully, sending out more waves of flame and heat and smoke. Using this as a cover, they got to the shed used as a stable. They saddled their horses, tucked whatever lay around into their saddlebags, and mounted.
Just outside the shed, they saw two of Norton’s gang tending the other two. From where they sat astride their horses, they couldn’t make out who was shot or how badly.
“Let’s ride,” Charlie said. “There’s nothing we can do here.”
Clem led the way from the now smoldering ruins of the cabin. In minutes, the trail curled around the mountain and led down to a small river flowing along the floor of the valley that led to Potluck. They rode in silence until they reached the outskirts of town. It took the better part of three hours to reach their destination. For all the gunplay and arson at the Betty Sue Mine, the town stretched out all quiet, even peaceful.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Charlie asked. “Go to Marshal Thompson?”
“He’s banker Norton’s brother-in-law.”
“I don’t even know who the sheriff is, much less where he hangs his hat.”
“Whoever he is, he’s out serving process. That’s the only way he gets paid.” Clem shrugged. “It don’t matter. He wouldn’t cross the local marshal, no matter what.”
“We can’t let Jimmy Norton steal our mine.”
“He dropped this. Norton did.” Clem held out the two sheets he had picked up when Norton declared himself to be owner of the Betty Sue.
“There’s something wrong here, Clem. This is our assay report.”
“The one we couldn’t pay to see.”
“Norton got it and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It says the gold content of the ore we turned in for assay is . . .”
“Danged near zero,” Clem finished.
Charlie scowled. “So why’d Norton want to run us off if the mine’s not worth the powder it’d take to blow up?” He read down the first page. “There’s nothing in the rock. Not a speck of gold.”
“Not worth throwing the assay sample through Jones Mercantile’s plate glass window,” Clem said. He looked at the merchant’s store. The owner stood in the doorway, glaring at the two miners.
“There’s more on the second page.” Charlie started to read when a loud shout caused him to look up. The page got away from him, but Clem snatched it in midair. He tucked the pages away in his vest pocket. With his partner, he twisted around to face Marshal Thompson.
The lawman bustled down the street, his bowed legs working as fast as he could without falling over.
“You, two. Climb on down from them horses. I got a bone to pick with you.”
Clem and Charlie exchanged a glance. Without a word, they wheeled their horses around and galloped away. The law dog shouted after them. Then came an errant bullet that missed by a country mile. When they reached the town limits, they slowed to give their horses a breather.
“It doesn’t look as if we’re welcomed with open arms in Potluck.”
“Not any longer,” Clem said.
“What are we going to do? We owe ’bout everyone, and the marshal isn’t inclined to listen to us. Not if he takes a potshot at us just for coming to town.”
“Ride.” Clem sucked on his teeth for a minute, then said, “A long ways away.”
“Sacramento?”
“Too close,” Clem decided.
“San Francisco? We haven’t been there in a spell. It’s big enough a town to get lost in.”
“We need to get lost fast.” Clem jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“A posse! Marshal Thompson’s got a posse coming after us!”
“There’s no chance to outrun them, not on these nags.” Clem patted his horse’s neck. The mare turned a large brown eye in his direction as if taking offense at being called a plug.
“I’ve got an idea. Follow me.”
“Why not? You can’t get us into worse trouble than we’re in.”
Charlie Dawson grumbled at that as he guided his horse off the road and down a steep incline to the river that ran past Potluck. The horses splashed in the fetlock-deep water. He headed back up the stream rather than away. He hoped the posse would think he and Clem wanted to escape by going north away from town. The deep stream curled back and ran past Potluck, just a few yards from buildings in a few places.
They splashed along until they passed the town and the stream turned into steeper going. He kept up the diversion until his horse began to stumble from the effort of fighting both the increasing elevation and the rapidly flowing water. Charlie cut away from the stream and worked his way into a stand of pines. Weaving about to confuse the trail, he rode deeper into the woods until he knew his horse had reached the end of its strength. He dropped to the ground and waited for his partner to catch up.
Clem had taken a different route to keep from creating a noticeable trail where they left the stream. He finally rode up from higher on the hillside. A quick kick to get his leg over the saddle and he jumped to the ground. His swayback horse was in better condition than Charlie’s, but not by much.
“We can’t hide out here forever,” Charlie said, “but we can rest and let the posse chase its tail around. Knowing the kind of men Marshal Thompson recruited, they’ll get real thirsty fast and head on back to a saloon to brag on how they chased down two desperadoes and run us plumb out of the county.”
Clem snorted in contempt.
“Why’d you think the marshal came after us so quick?”
“We rode in. Jimmy Norton didn’t. That’d mean we done the slimy snake in,” Clem said.
Charlie sank down, back to a sap-sticky tree trunk. He was too tired to care.
“What’ll we do in San Francisco? If you remember the last time we were there, it’s a goddanged expensive town. We don’t have a dime between us.”
“Not so. I’ve got two nickels.” Clem pulled them out of the watch pocket on his jeans and held them in the palm of his hand.
“So we can buy a beer apiece. I could use a brew right now.”
“You weren’t just flapping your gums. Things cost a lot more in San Francisco. Maybe we could split one.”
“I know you. You’d drink the mug danged near dry before you gave me a turn.”
“My money.”
“Our money. We’re partners.” Before Charlie went on with his notion of how partners shared everything, the sound of riders approaching through the forest brought him up short. Clem had already heard and reached for his gun. He relaxed when he remembered his six-gun was as empty as a banker’s promise.
Darkness hid them as two riders passed by not ten yards away.
“Ain’t got no reason to think they came this way. We’ll never get a share of the reward.”
“We won’t get shot at neither,” replied his companion. “Those are dangerous owlhoots.”
“They only shot up Jimmy Norton. He’s gonna live, the doc said.”
“He’s too cussed to die. Him and his old man. They’d steal pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
“It’d be more money ’n we’re likely to make from wanderin’ around blindly in this danged forest.”
The two riders drew rein. Cloaked in shadow, they were hidden. If Charlie and Clem hadn’t heard their approach, they wouldn’t have known the posse members were anywhere near.
Clem nudged his partner. He went to his horse and pulled off the lariat. He played it out into a loop and spun it expertly. With silent steps, he went to where the two deputized townsmen sat on their horses. Charlie grabbed his rope and followed. He wished they’d had a chance to discuss this. Clem had an impulsive streak that got them into trouble.
Ahead a lucifer flared. For a few seconds, he saw the eerie visage of the man lighting his cigarette. Then only the glowing coal showed in the twilight.
“We need to claim part of the reward when the marshal runs them two down. Do you know them?”
The other rider puffed on his cigarette. The pungent smoke drifted through the still forest.
“I think so. They have a mine up on the mountain above town. Never talked with either of them varmints. I think—”
He never finished his thought. Clem’s rope sailed through the air and neatly dropped around his target’s shoulders. A quick yank on the lariat sent the man flying through the air. He landed on the pine needle forest carpet with a dull thud. Charlie threw his loop. The rope missed and fell in front of the other rider.
The rope hadn’t secured his target, but it did spook the horse. It reared and threw the rider to the ground. He landed flat on his back. Charlie heard the air gust from the man’s lungs. He pulled in his rope and threw a quick hitch around the gasping man’s boots. When the man sat up, Charlie finished the job, a double loop around the shoulders, and then finished with the man’s hands.
He plucked a Smith & Wesson from the man’s holster, cocked the six-gun, and pointed it at his captive.
“I’ll shoot you if you make even a tiny peep.”
“Do that and you’ll have the rest of the posse on your neck!”
“Won’t matter to you. You’ll be dead.”
Charlie’s logic convinced his prisoner to stay quiet. Behind him, Clem spun another couple loops around the other downed posse member.
He held up the man’s pistol for his partner to see.
“We’ve got guns again,” he said.
“What do we do with them? I don’t want to waste ammo shooting them. We can string ’em up, I suppose.”
“Yup.”
“Wait, you can’t do that. We don’t even know you. We can tell the marshal we never caught a glimpse of you. Right, Flaco? Right?”
The man Clem had tied up grunted in agreement. Clem had taken the man’s bandanna and gagged him with it.
“It would be a waste of rope, too,” Charlie said, enjoying being in charge for a moment. He whipped off his captive’s bandanna and quickly gagged him with it. He dragged his prisoner to where Clem secured the other man to a tree. The two were bound and gagged side by side.
They bucked and strained but the ropes were tied too well.
Charlie stepped back and looked at their handiwork.
“Where’d you learn to throw a lariat like that?”
“Worked as a cowboy,” Clem said.
“You never said anything about that.” There wasn’t very much he knew of his partner’s life before they teamed up. “Around here?”
“Texas. He was easier to rope than a longhorn.” Clem prodded his captive with the toe of his boot.
“We’ve got two more horses, guns, and from the look of their saddlebags, enough to keep us on the trail for a week.”
He and Clem stared at each other. A slow smile came to Clem’s lips.
“It’ll be enough to let us ride to . . . San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed, seeing what his partner did. “It’ll get us to San Francisco. Do they have any money we can spend by the Golden Gate?”
He and Clem rifled the men’s pockets. They left watches but found almost two dollars in small change. They split it between them.
“It hardly seems fair,” Charlie said. “You’ve got ten cents more ’n me now.”
Clem fumbled in his jeans watch pocket and pulled out a nickel. He silently handed it over. Charlie hesitated, then took it.
“Partners,” he said.
“Partners.” Clem turned and mounted the nearest horse in their new remuda. With two horses each, they could make better time, riding until their mount tired, then switching to their own horses. It’d have to do to keep them ahead of the posse.
Charlie fetched their mounts, took his seat on the new horse, and said loudly, “Let’s head for San Francisco!”
They rode off. Toward San Francisco. They had given the two the idea when they mentioned the city to throw the posse off their trail. What better place to go than where Marshal Thompson was least likely to track them?
“Charlie Dawson looked over his shoulder every minute or two. He knew the quotation about wicked men fleeing when no one chased after them. But they had dodged tight knots of riders more than once in the week it took to reach San Francisco Bay. Those might have been posse. . .
His hard gray eyes bored into the banker’s rheumy blue ones, but the portly man refused to flinch. He leaned forward and braced himself on his desk.
“You do not deserve a dime, Mister Clement. Not a single, solitary penny. As long as I am president, you shall not get it from this bank.”
“I can take it.” Clem’s voice rasped with menace.
“We have guards. In the lobby. They are watching you right now. Make a move to harm me and, I swear, they will fill you so full of holes there won’t be five pounds of your bellicose manner left to bury.” He cleared his throat. “I might add that your grave will be in the potter’s field since you can’t afford even a simple burial.”
“He’s an Elk,” Charlie Dawson said uneasily. He had listened to the men insult each other and now they moved on to outright threats of bodily harm. “The order will see that he gets a decent burial.”
“You, too, Mister Dawson? Will they bury you, as well?” The banker settled back and tented his fingers atop his bulging belly. “Leave. Both of you. My patience has worn out.”
“You can’t take what my partner says too seriously, Mister Norton. It’s just that Clem here’s all excited. We found the biggest, best vein of gold in the whole of California, and it’s just waiting to be dug out. We need supplies so we can get it pulled out of the Betty Sue. There’s enough blasting powder, but we can use supplies. To eat.”
“Food,” growled Clem, not budging an inch from his crouch of looming halfway across the banker’s desk.
“You should have left him buried in the mine,” Norton said. “You’re reasonable. Him,” he said, sniffing pompously as he looked down his bulbous nose at the two miners, “he needs to be taught manners.”
“Clem, go on and wait outside. I can handle this,” Charlie said. He felt a tad uneasy now. The banker had pushed too hard. Clem neared the end of his fuse and was about ready to explode like a keg of Giant Powder.
Clem reared up to his almost six-foot height and glared. He spun about, growled like an angry wolf, and stalked out. The two guards in the lobby watched him with some trepidation, hands resting on their holstered six-shooters. They breathed a sigh of relief when the trouble Clem promised left, slamming the door behind him.
“Now, Mister Norton, how about—?”
“You owe money all over town. The general store. Jones won’t give you another loan. Sam, over at the Blue Spruce Saloon, won’t even stand you a round of drinks. Not a drop of that panther piss he calls beer. No, Mister Dawson, you have drained this entire lake we so fondly call Potluck of money. There is not a drop to be had. None.” Norton pointed a stubby finger at the door. “Get out. Now.”
Charlie Dawson reared back and looked over his shoulder. Both guards looked more comfortable throwing him out than they had his partner. He was solid enough and his hands were powerful from swinging a pick all day. He was four inches shorter than Clem, but his shoulders were broader and his chest thicker. And they had no idea how fast he was with the Walker Colt tucked into his waistband.
He pushed his flat-brimmed hat back on his forehead enough to let a lock of brown hair pop out. If ever a man looked ready for a fight, it was him.
Charlie stood and glared at the banker.
“You’re making a big mistake. The Betty Sue Mine is going to produce the most gold California’s seen since the Rush of ’49. That’s twenty years, Mister Norton, twenty years. It’s time for the next big strike, and we’re it. The Betty Sue’s going to produce more gold than you will ever be able to lift with those fancy manicured hands of yours. This bank could have been part of it. Your stockholders will look back on this day and wonder what kind of banker you were to pass up this golden opportunity. I’ll say it again. Golden!”
“Leave. Now.” Norton jabbed his finger several times in the direction of the door.
Charlie left, giving the two guards a baleful look. He stepped out into the Northern California sun. His partner leaned against the brick building, smoking a cheroot. The puffs of smoke rose and disappeared in the gentle breeze blowing off the mountains where their mine stood waiting silently for them to become millionaires.
“No luck?”
“You know he turned us down,” Charlie said glumly. “We’re going to need a new pick. I broke our old one. And some food . . .”
“I can hunt. I’m a better shot ’n you.”
“We’ll need ammunition. All I’ve got is in the cylinder.” He touched the Colt in his waistband.
“Not much better,” Clem said. He drew the Army Colt he carried at his right hip. “Maybe two more cylinders. No more.”
“Twenty rounds or so between us. You’ll have to make every shot count, and there won’t be any chance of bringing down a deer for some venison stew, not with a pistol shot. The Winchester’s out of ammo.”
Charlie hitched up his britches.
“All this means is that we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, and our bellies are going to rumble a mite.” Charlie wanted to say more but had nothing more to add to detailing their problems.
“Mine already thinks my throat’s been slit.” Clem finished his smoke and went to his swayback nag. He stepped up and waited silently for his partner.
“We’ll show everyone in Potluck. We’ll show Norton and Jonesy and Sam and every last one of them when we strike it big. We’ll buy the saloon and the general store and . . . and . . . the bank!”
Clem shrugged and turned his horse’s face toward the road leading from town. Charlie dug his heels into his scrawny horse’s flanks, wondering how horse stew tasted.
“Ready to blast,” Clem bellowed.
“Go on, then. I’m already halfway out of the mine.” Charlie Dawson stopped and waited. There was something Clem was holding back. “You need a lucifer? Use the flame on the candle.”
“Ran out of matches a couple days back.”
“So what is it? Spit it out.”
“This is the last of our blasting powder. We might try blasting somewhere else. This don’t look like we’re blasting into the mother lode. Looks like quartz but I’m not even seeing fool’s gold.”
“The rock’s fine,” Charlie protested. “All we need to do is clear it out to get to the mother lode.” He fell silent for a moment. “You’re saying there isn’t any gold?”
“Ain’t seen a single flake. This isn’t blue dirt. We’re wasting our powder.” He looked around. “Betty Sue’s sucking the life from us.”
“The mine’s got plenty of gold. I feel it.”
“The assay doesn’t say it.”
“You know the assayer wouldn’t give us the report. I feel it in my bones that the report was a good one.”
“He wouldn’t give us the report because we couldn’t pay for it.”
“Then you don’t know what it said. I’m beginning to think you’re turning into a chicken, Clem. We’ve been together going on two years, and this is the first time I’ve seen you so negative.”
Clem ran his callused finger around in the borehole tamped with blasting powder. He pulled it out and looked at the black grains clinging to his skin.
“It’ll be a waste. There’s no gold here.”
“Betty Sue’d never lie to us. You said so yourself!”
“That was six months ago.”
“Look. Look at this spot! It’s gleaming with quartz. There’s gold behind this patch and—”
The clatter of horses’ hooves caused Charlie to fall silent. Clem moved beside him and whispered, “You got your gun?”
“It’s in the cabin.”
“Mine, too.” Clem picked up a pry bar and started for the mouth of the mine. Charlie followed close behind carrying their single good pickax.
The day’s fading sunlight blinded him. Charlie squinted as he made out four riders. Three remained mounted. Their leader strutted over and stopped a few paces away, his hand resting on his holstered six-gun.
“Good,” he said. “You gents are already leaving.”
“What do you want, Jimmy Norton? Did your pa get tired of you stinking up the bank so he sent you into the countryside to air out?”
“You talk big, Dawson. Do your jawing somewhere else. I got papers.” He held his coat open. A sheaf of folded documents caused an inner pocket to bulge.
“What are they?” Clem tapped the pry bar against his left palm. Every time he dropped it caused a sound like a gunshot. Two of the mounted men flinched at the noise. The third went for his six-shooter.
“Whoa there, Fredricks,” Norton said, holding up his hand. “There’s no call to cut down these two. They’re just leaving. And shooting them’d be a waste of lead.”
“Get your mangy carcass off our land,” Charlie said. He stepped closer, readying the pick.
“You stay where you are. I got papers. This here mine’s changed hands. You got foreclosed on for not paying taxes. When I heard that, I put up the money outta my own pocket to buy the Betty Sue.” Norton spat. “That’s a lousy name. I’m calling this here claim the Gold King Mine.”
“Taxes?” Clem pushed past his partner. “We don’t have to pay taxes for another eight months.”
“It was an early assessment, and you missed the deadline. Not that you deadbeats coulda paid, even in a thousand years.” Norton drew his six-shooter when Clem took another menacing step forward. “You back off or I swear, I’ll gun you down.”
“You have to give us a notice,” Charlie said. “Nobody told us squat.”
“Consider yourselves served,” Norton said, yanking the sheaf of papers from his pocket. He thrust them at Charlie.
“We’ll get a lawyer to fight this,” Charlie said, glancing over the top page. A few sheets fluttered down. Clem picked them up and looked at them.
“You don’t have money to patch a leaky bucket. Get off the land right now.” He snatched the papers from Charlie. “Get off my land, you deadbeats.”
The metallic click as pistols cocked caused Charlie to reach out to restrain his partner. Clem had a way of flying off the handle. He never said much, but his fists often did. Matched against four armed and angry men was a sure way to get ventilated.
“Let us get our bedrolls from the cabin.”
“Go on,” Jimmy Norton said.
The mounted man called out a warning, but it was too late. Both Clem and Charlie used their weapons to whack at Norton and the other two. Their horses reared and fought them. The solitary mounted man tried to shoot, but his horse bucked.
The two miners raced for their cabin. Clem kicked in the door, not bothering to push it open. He dived for their pistols hanging on a peg by the door. Charlie fielded his and swung around, blazing away.
His first shot caught Jimmy Norton in the gut. The man staggered away, clutching his belly.
Huge chunks of wooden wall began filling the air. The other three fired wildly. The flying splinters made Charlie and Clem duck low. They pressed against an overturned table that gave hardly more protection than the thin cabin walls.
“We’re in a world of trouble now,” Charlie said.
Clem held up the papers Norton had dropped and started to pass them to his partner. A new fusillade tore through, causing him to stuff the papers into his waistband. He spun and fired through the door. His lead caused some consternation. Another of their attackers yelped in pain.
“We don’t have much ammunition. I’m about out. What about you?”
Clem shook his head.
Then their troubles multiplied. A piece of roof fell in. Charlie looked up and saw flames spreading around the hole.
“They’re burning us out!”
The entire cabin exploded in a fireball.
“This way!” Clem rolled away from the table and kicked like a mule. A section of the back wall blasted outward, already on fire.
Charlie wasn’t going to argue. The roof was collapsing overhead, showering burning fragments all around. He rolled and rolled again, colliding with his partner. For a moment they lay in a pile, gasping. Smoke billowed out, filling their lungs. Both coughed. Eyes watering, they made their way from the cabin.
Charlie began swatting out embers that threatened to set fire to his clothes. Beside him, Clem rolled over and over in the dirt to accomplish the same end. They sat upright when bullets began kicking up tiny dust devils around them. The fire hadn’t ended the assault. Norton and his cronies had come around the cabin and spotted them.
Clem steadied his Army Colt against his upraised knee and fired.
A loud screech rewarded his marksmanship.
“He shot me!” Jimmy Norton cried. “Help me. Help me!”
Charlie couldn’t see Norton through the smoke gusting from the cabin, but he homed in on the voice. He emptied his Colt in that direction. New cries of anguish greeted him.
“Not Norton,” Clem said.
“At least one of his henchmen. Maybe two.” Charlie clicked the trigger a couple more times. “I’m out of bullets.”
“Me, too.”
The two got to their feet and staggered as their cabin roof collapsed fully, sending out more waves of flame and heat and smoke. Using this as a cover, they got to the shed used as a stable. They saddled their horses, tucked whatever lay around into their saddlebags, and mounted.
Just outside the shed, they saw two of Norton’s gang tending the other two. From where they sat astride their horses, they couldn’t make out who was shot or how badly.
“Let’s ride,” Charlie said. “There’s nothing we can do here.”
Clem led the way from the now smoldering ruins of the cabin. In minutes, the trail curled around the mountain and led down to a small river flowing along the floor of the valley that led to Potluck. They rode in silence until they reached the outskirts of town. It took the better part of three hours to reach their destination. For all the gunplay and arson at the Betty Sue Mine, the town stretched out all quiet, even peaceful.
“What do you think we ought to do?” Charlie asked. “Go to Marshal Thompson?”
“He’s banker Norton’s brother-in-law.”
“I don’t even know who the sheriff is, much less where he hangs his hat.”
“Whoever he is, he’s out serving process. That’s the only way he gets paid.” Clem shrugged. “It don’t matter. He wouldn’t cross the local marshal, no matter what.”
“We can’t let Jimmy Norton steal our mine.”
“He dropped this. Norton did.” Clem held out the two sheets he had picked up when Norton declared himself to be owner of the Betty Sue.
“There’s something wrong here, Clem. This is our assay report.”
“The one we couldn’t pay to see.”
“Norton got it and it doesn’t make a lick of sense. It says the gold content of the ore we turned in for assay is . . .”
“Danged near zero,” Clem finished.
Charlie scowled. “So why’d Norton want to run us off if the mine’s not worth the powder it’d take to blow up?” He read down the first page. “There’s nothing in the rock. Not a speck of gold.”
“Not worth throwing the assay sample through Jones Mercantile’s plate glass window,” Clem said. He looked at the merchant’s store. The owner stood in the doorway, glaring at the two miners.
“There’s more on the second page.” Charlie started to read when a loud shout caused him to look up. The page got away from him, but Clem snatched it in midair. He tucked the pages away in his vest pocket. With his partner, he twisted around to face Marshal Thompson.
The lawman bustled down the street, his bowed legs working as fast as he could without falling over.
“You, two. Climb on down from them horses. I got a bone to pick with you.”
Clem and Charlie exchanged a glance. Without a word, they wheeled their horses around and galloped away. The law dog shouted after them. Then came an errant bullet that missed by a country mile. When they reached the town limits, they slowed to give their horses a breather.
“It doesn’t look as if we’re welcomed with open arms in Potluck.”
“Not any longer,” Clem said.
“What are we going to do? We owe ’bout everyone, and the marshal isn’t inclined to listen to us. Not if he takes a potshot at us just for coming to town.”
“Ride.” Clem sucked on his teeth for a minute, then said, “A long ways away.”
“Sacramento?”
“Too close,” Clem decided.
“San Francisco? We haven’t been there in a spell. It’s big enough a town to get lost in.”
“We need to get lost fast.” Clem jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
“A posse! Marshal Thompson’s got a posse coming after us!”
“There’s no chance to outrun them, not on these nags.” Clem patted his horse’s neck. The mare turned a large brown eye in his direction as if taking offense at being called a plug.
“I’ve got an idea. Follow me.”
“Why not? You can’t get us into worse trouble than we’re in.”
Charlie Dawson grumbled at that as he guided his horse off the road and down a steep incline to the river that ran past Potluck. The horses splashed in the fetlock-deep water. He headed back up the stream rather than away. He hoped the posse would think he and Clem wanted to escape by going north away from town. The deep stream curled back and ran past Potluck, just a few yards from buildings in a few places.
They splashed along until they passed the town and the stream turned into steeper going. He kept up the diversion until his horse began to stumble from the effort of fighting both the increasing elevation and the rapidly flowing water. Charlie cut away from the stream and worked his way into a stand of pines. Weaving about to confuse the trail, he rode deeper into the woods until he knew his horse had reached the end of its strength. He dropped to the ground and waited for his partner to catch up.
Clem had taken a different route to keep from creating a noticeable trail where they left the stream. He finally rode up from higher on the hillside. A quick kick to get his leg over the saddle and he jumped to the ground. His swayback horse was in better condition than Charlie’s, but not by much.
“We can’t hide out here forever,” Charlie said, “but we can rest and let the posse chase its tail around. Knowing the kind of men Marshal Thompson recruited, they’ll get real thirsty fast and head on back to a saloon to brag on how they chased down two desperadoes and run us plumb out of the county.”
Clem snorted in contempt.
“Why’d you think the marshal came after us so quick?”
“We rode in. Jimmy Norton didn’t. That’d mean we done the slimy snake in,” Clem said.
Charlie sank down, back to a sap-sticky tree trunk. He was too tired to care.
“What’ll we do in San Francisco? If you remember the last time we were there, it’s a goddanged expensive town. We don’t have a dime between us.”
“Not so. I’ve got two nickels.” Clem pulled them out of the watch pocket on his jeans and held them in the palm of his hand.
“So we can buy a beer apiece. I could use a brew right now.”
“You weren’t just flapping your gums. Things cost a lot more in San Francisco. Maybe we could split one.”
“I know you. You’d drink the mug danged near dry before you gave me a turn.”
“My money.”
“Our money. We’re partners.” Before Charlie went on with his notion of how partners shared everything, the sound of riders approaching through the forest brought him up short. Clem had already heard and reached for his gun. He relaxed when he remembered his six-gun was as empty as a banker’s promise.
Darkness hid them as two riders passed by not ten yards away.
“Ain’t got no reason to think they came this way. We’ll never get a share of the reward.”
“We won’t get shot at neither,” replied his companion. “Those are dangerous owlhoots.”
“They only shot up Jimmy Norton. He’s gonna live, the doc said.”
“He’s too cussed to die. Him and his old man. They’d steal pennies off a dead man’s eyes.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
“It’d be more money ’n we’re likely to make from wanderin’ around blindly in this danged forest.”
The two riders drew rein. Cloaked in shadow, they were hidden. If Charlie and Clem hadn’t heard their approach, they wouldn’t have known the posse members were anywhere near.
Clem nudged his partner. He went to his horse and pulled off the lariat. He played it out into a loop and spun it expertly. With silent steps, he went to where the two deputized townsmen sat on their horses. Charlie grabbed his rope and followed. He wished they’d had a chance to discuss this. Clem had an impulsive streak that got them into trouble.
Ahead a lucifer flared. For a few seconds, he saw the eerie visage of the man lighting his cigarette. Then only the glowing coal showed in the twilight.
“We need to claim part of the reward when the marshal runs them two down. Do you know them?”
The other rider puffed on his cigarette. The pungent smoke drifted through the still forest.
“I think so. They have a mine up on the mountain above town. Never talked with either of them varmints. I think—”
He never finished his thought. Clem’s rope sailed through the air and neatly dropped around his target’s shoulders. A quick yank on the lariat sent the man flying through the air. He landed on the pine needle forest carpet with a dull thud. Charlie threw his loop. The rope missed and fell in front of the other rider.
The rope hadn’t secured his target, but it did spook the horse. It reared and threw the rider to the ground. He landed flat on his back. Charlie heard the air gust from the man’s lungs. He pulled in his rope and threw a quick hitch around the gasping man’s boots. When the man sat up, Charlie finished the job, a double loop around the shoulders, and then finished with the man’s hands.
He plucked a Smith & Wesson from the man’s holster, cocked the six-gun, and pointed it at his captive.
“I’ll shoot you if you make even a tiny peep.”
“Do that and you’ll have the rest of the posse on your neck!”
“Won’t matter to you. You’ll be dead.”
Charlie’s logic convinced his prisoner to stay quiet. Behind him, Clem spun another couple loops around the other downed posse member.
He held up the man’s pistol for his partner to see.
“We’ve got guns again,” he said.
“What do we do with them? I don’t want to waste ammo shooting them. We can string ’em up, I suppose.”
“Yup.”
“Wait, you can’t do that. We don’t even know you. We can tell the marshal we never caught a glimpse of you. Right, Flaco? Right?”
The man Clem had tied up grunted in agreement. Clem had taken the man’s bandanna and gagged him with it.
“It would be a waste of rope, too,” Charlie said, enjoying being in charge for a moment. He whipped off his captive’s bandanna and quickly gagged him with it. He dragged his prisoner to where Clem secured the other man to a tree. The two were bound and gagged side by side.
They bucked and strained but the ropes were tied too well.
Charlie stepped back and looked at their handiwork.
“Where’d you learn to throw a lariat like that?”
“Worked as a cowboy,” Clem said.
“You never said anything about that.” There wasn’t very much he knew of his partner’s life before they teamed up. “Around here?”
“Texas. He was easier to rope than a longhorn.” Clem prodded his captive with the toe of his boot.
“We’ve got two more horses, guns, and from the look of their saddlebags, enough to keep us on the trail for a week.”
He and Clem stared at each other. A slow smile came to Clem’s lips.
“It’ll be enough to let us ride to . . . San Francisco.”
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed, seeing what his partner did. “It’ll get us to San Francisco. Do they have any money we can spend by the Golden Gate?”
He and Clem rifled the men’s pockets. They left watches but found almost two dollars in small change. They split it between them.
“It hardly seems fair,” Charlie said. “You’ve got ten cents more ’n me now.”
Clem fumbled in his jeans watch pocket and pulled out a nickel. He silently handed it over. Charlie hesitated, then took it.
“Partners,” he said.
“Partners.” Clem turned and mounted the nearest horse in their new remuda. With two horses each, they could make better time, riding until their mount tired, then switching to their own horses. It’d have to do to keep them ahead of the posse.
Charlie fetched their mounts, took his seat on the new horse, and said loudly, “Let’s head for San Francisco!”
They rode off. Toward San Francisco. They had given the two the idea when they mentioned the city to throw the posse off their trail. What better place to go than where Marshal Thompson was least likely to track them?
“Charlie Dawson looked over his shoulder every minute or two. He knew the quotation about wicked men fleeing when no one chased after them. But they had dodged tight knots of riders more than once in the week it took to reach San Francisco Bay. Those might have been posse. . .
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Hard Men to Kill
William W. Johnstone
Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved
