Never Let Them See You Bleed

Book 1: Tinhorn Western

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

From the bestselling masters of the Old West comes the first in a blazing new series about a young deputy sheriff’s coming of age—and trial by gunfire—in a small Texas town. This is the blistering saga of a hero in training, from first blood to final showdown…

Flint Moran was fourteen years old when the Civil War ended. He was fifteen when his family bought a plot of land near Tinhorn, Texas. He was barely nineteen when he caught a pair of rustlers stealing cattle—and singlehandedly brought them to justice. How did a teenaged boy track down and capture two hardcase thieves without any help? That’s what Tinhorn sheriff Buck Jackson wants to know. He can’t help but be impressed by Flint’s sharp eye and natural talent with a Henry rifle. So he offers to deputize the boy—tin badge, Colt Frontier Six-Shooter, and all—and Flint happily accepts. But there are things the young deputy doesn’t know. And what he doesn’t know could kill him. . . .

There’s a gunman coming to town. A showdown is brewing that could prove to be Flint’s first—and possibly last—test. But either way, there will be blood. . . .

Live Free. Read Hard.

Release date: February 20, 2024

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“Danged if I don’t believe we could take every one of ’em,” Ralph Cox commented. “It’s dang near supper time and ain’t nobody come to look after those cows.” They counted only twenty-two cows and one bull, a number easily handled by two drovers.

“I don’t know, Ralph,” Jed Tubbs replied, thinking of the extra trouble that might cause them.

They had a couple of regular buyers for their stolen beef, but these customers only wanted two cows at a time. It made it fairly easy to ride in and cut out a couple of cows, throw a lead rope on them, and ride away again. The owner of the cattle generally never knew he’d lost any cattle until sometime the next day. Even then, he couldn’t know for sure they had been stolen. Unlike a cattle rancher, the small farmer was generally raising only a few cattle primarily for food and not for sale. So most of his time was spent working the farm’s money crops, which in that part of Texas were cotton and corn.

“I know what you’re thinkin’,” Jed continued. “We could drive that whole bunch up outta that bottom. But we ain’t got no place to keep ’em while we’re waitin’ to sell ’em. I druther we just keep pickin’ off a few cows at a time.”

Ralph shrugged. “I reckon you’re right. You’re too blamed lazy to look after those cows, anyway. We’ll just let this ol’ sodbuster that’s workin’ this farm look after ’em for us till we’re ready to sell a couple more. Let’s get at it. There ain’t nobody comin’ to see if these cows are all right.” He got up from the bank of the river and climbed up into the saddle.

Jed followed suit and climbed up onto his horse. He took another look back toward the first of two farmhouses built close to the riverbank some three hundred yards away before he followed Ralph down to the cattle bunched at the water’s edge. As he rode, he fashioned a noose in one end of a rope he carried on his saddle.

Their form of cattle rustling was a far cry from the stampeding of a frightened herd, driven recklessly to escape the sounds of the pistol shots scattering them across a dark prairie. In contrast, the rustling of Tubbs and Cox was a casual affair. They rode their horses among the cows and selected two prime winners, dropped a noose over each one’s head, and gently led it away into the night.

“Did you make sure you got a good one?” Ralph asked. “Eli complained last time. Said one of ’em was skinny.”

“Hell, they was both skinny,” Jed said. “’Cause those two we sold him last time came from that family that just took up homesteadin’ that old deserted farm.” He pulled up then when he realized Ralph had suddenly stopped.

“I expect it woulda been a better idea if you had robbed that place again tonight, instead of comin’ here.”

Startled, Ralph jerked back on his reins, unable to see where the voice had come from. “Hold on, now!” he blurted. “This ain’t what it looks like.” He tried to back his horse up, but the cow he was leading was forced to back into Jed’s horse, jamming them all up against a pine thicket. “Let’s talk this over. This ain’t what it looks like.”

“Is that right?” the voice responded. “It looks like two cattle rustlers fixin’ to lead two of my cows up the river. What does it look like to you?” The next sound they heard was the cranking of a cartridge into the chamber of a rifle. “In case you’re wonderin’ about that,” the voice explained, “that was the sound of a Henry rifle gettin’ ready to go to work.”

“Now, hold on, feller!” Jed exclaimed. “You got us dead to rights, but there ain’t no sense in shootin’ anybody over a little misunderstandin’. Why don’t you come on outta them trees, so we can talk this thing over?” Like his partner, Jed was craning his neck, frantically searching for the source of the voice.

“There ain’t nothin’ to talk over. Cattle rustlin’ is a crime in this county.”

Both outlaws jumped at the sound that came from behind them, and Ralph automatically reached for his six-gun and swung his arm around to fire into the bushes behind him. His hand was smashed by a .44 slug from the Henry rifle before he could pull the trigger.

“Don’t shoot!” Jed yelled and stuck both hands in the air, looking frantically at the bank of bushes from which the shot had come. But he was surprised once again when the command came from the other side of them, as before.

“Take your left hand and pull that handgun outta your belt and drop it on the ground.”

Jed did as he was told, not certain now how many were surrounding them.

“Buster, if you’ll keep your rifle on the fellow I shot, I’ll tie his partner up.”

“What are you fixin’ to do?” Jed asked.

“That’s up to you,” Flint Moran answered. “We’re gonna shoot you down if you’d rather have it that way. But if you don’t give us any trouble, we’ll just take you into town and let the sheriff decide what to do with you. Either way, I want your hands behind your back. Keep your eye on his partner, Buster.” After tying their reins to a tree, he quickly took the rope from around the cow’s neck and used it to bind Jed’s hands together behind his back.

When he had him securely tied, he said, “This one’s all right, Buster, you can keep your eye on him now and I’ll see if I can give this other fellow some help.” He picked up his rifle and stepped over beside Ralph, who was holding his wounded hand by the wrist. “You got any rags or an extra shirt or something in your saddlebags?” Flint asked.

Ralph said he had nothing but his extra shirt.

“That’ll do.” Flint opened the saddlebag, found the shirt, and wrapped it around the bloody hand, then tied Ralph’s wrists together behind his back. He picked up the two handguns from the ground and whistled two sharp blasts. In a few seconds, a buckskin horse came trotting up from the riverbank and Flint climbed up into the saddle.

“Lemme guess,” Jed smirked, suspecting they had been tricked. “That’ll be Buster, right?”

“That’s right,” Flint answered, as both men realized then that they had been captured by one man, moving around in the dark like a jackrabbit. “We’ve got a six-mile ride into town, but at least it looks like it’s gonna be a nice night for a ride.”

Not much was going on in the tiny town of Tinhorn, Texas, when Flint Moran led his two captive cattle rustlers down the short main street. The few shops on the street had already closed for the evening. The only activity seemed to be in the saloon where two horses were tied out front. Flint rode past the saloon to a building a little farther up the street. The sheriff’s office and jail occupied the major portion of the building, with the sheriff’s private quarters built on one side.

Flint pulled his prisoners up before the sheriff’s office and helped them dismount. Since a light was on and the door unlocked, he marched them into the office and called out, “Sheriff Jackson.”

There was no answer.

Not at all surprised, Flint sat his prisoners down on a bench against one wall and walked over to look through the cell room door. No one was in there and the room was dark. He turned back when he heard someone come in the front door of the office, and a moment later, he recognized Roy Hawkins, an old man who did odd jobs for Sheriff Buck Jackson in exchange for a place to sleep and a little money now and then.

“Flint Moran, ain’t it?” Roy asked when he saw the rangy young man cradling the Henry rifle. “Whatcha got here?” He nodded toward the two men seated on the bench.

“That’s right, Roy,” Flint answered. “I got a couple of cattle rustlers I caught tryin’ to ride off with some of my cows. I thought about shootin’ ’em, which woulda been a whole lot less trouble, but I decided to turn ’em over to the sheriff and let him do whatever he does with cattle rustlers.” He paused while Roy took a closer look at the two prisoners, then asked, “Where is Sheriff Jackson?” He asked the question even though he could pretty well guess where Buck Jackson was.

It was a commonly known “secret” that the town’s once feared sheriff was fighting a losing battle with the bottle. It was a contest that began with the death of Buck’s wife some four years ago. But it was not until the last year and a half that it became obvious that the town’s law officer was no longer capable of maintaining law and order. The Tinhorn town council had met several times to discuss the termination of Buck Jackson’s services, since the evidence was clearly against the chance that he would ever give up the bottle completely.

Two things kept the council from ordering Buck to turn in his badge. Number one was the fact that he was the original sheriff since the town was born. And in the early years, it was the gun and the courage of Buck Jackson that kept the lawless out of the little town. In appreciation for that, the town was reluctant to fire him. Among the most loyal to Buck Jackson was Harvey Baxter, the president of the bank. It was Buck Jackson who’d squashed an attempted robbery of the bank by the Slocum brothers on its official opening day. Buck killed one of the brothers, Zack. The other one, Jesse, was wounded and sent to the Huntsville Unit of the Texas state prisons.

The second reason the council was content to retain Buck Jackson was because of the first. Tinhorn was now a peaceful little settlement with no real criminal element. The fact that Buck was no longer patrolling the streets of the town after dark seemed of little concern to the citizens of Tinhorn. It was peaceful on the main street of town at night. There no longer seemed a need for a steely-eyed fast gun to protect the citizens.

“Where’s the sheriff?” Flint repeated the question. “Is he next door in his house?”

Roy fidgeted for a few seconds before answering. “Well, yessir, he took to the bed a little while ago. His rheumatism’s been actin’ up a little bit, so he thought he’d best lay down for a while.”

“Right,” Flint responded. “There’s a lotta that goin’ around this time of year. I expect we’d better let him rest up. And we won’t bother him with the likes of these two thieves tonight. I reckon you and I can fix these fellows up with a bunk for the night.”

Roy looked surprised, as if expecting to simply let Ralph and Jed go free. “Well, I don’t know about that. I ain’t ever done that before. I just clean up and run errands for the sheriff. I ain’t got no authority to do anything else.”

“Ain’t nothin’ to worry about,” Flint assured him. “I have the authority to make a citizen’s arrest, so we’ll just help the sheriff out. Why don’t you start with lightin’ another lamp and put it in the cell room, so we can see what we’re doin’?”

“Hey,” Jed Tubbs called out, “that feller’s right. You ain’t got no authority to arrest us. You ain’t the sheriff.”

“I need a doctor,” Ralph piped up then. “You can’t leave me to bleed to death here.”

Their complaints caused Roy to hesitate.

Flint said, “Go ahead and get that other lamp, Roy. You let me worry about these two.” Back to them, he said, “As the injured party in your cattle rustlin’, I have the right to arrest you. I also have the right to shoot you down like the lowdown outlaws you are. So if you’d rather have it that way, you’ll save me and Roy, and the sheriff a lot of trouble. As far as that hand of yours, that’s the price you paid for thinkin’ about shootin’ me while you were in the process of stealin’ my cattle. The sheriff will get the doctor to look at it tomorrow, right, Roy?”

“I reckon,” Roy answered, not at all sure what the sheriff would do when he showed up in the office in the morning to find he had two prisoners in his jail. He was tempted to go next door and try to awaken Jackson, but he had seen how hard that was when the sheriff was in a drunken stupor like the one he was in tonight.

Roy lit the second lamp and took it in the cell room and set it on a table outside the cells. He looked around to see what needed to be done to get the cells ready for an occupant then went back to the office. “I need to fill the water bucket. The slop bucket ain’t been used, so it’s all right.”

“Good,” Flint replied. “Sounds like you know what to do. You probably didn’t need me a-tall.”

“Shoot!” Roy exclaimed and took the water bucket to the pump to fill it.

Flint sat on the corner of the desk, his rifle across his thighs, and watched his prisoners while Roy put the fresh water in one of the two cells in the cell room.

Roy picked the larger one, which had one wooden wall with a small vent window near the ceiling. “All right,” he called out when he came back in the office. “You can put ’em in the cell.”

“All right, gents. Your room is ready,” Flint announced. “Get on your feet.” He stood back to give them room, his rifle leveled at them. “Stop right there,” he ordered when Ralph approached the cell door. “Roy, untie his hands.”

Roy responded as quickly as he could, then stepped back when the ropes were off. Ralph entered the cell to sit down on one of the two cots and unwrapped his wounded hand.

“Okay, Roy, untie his partner’s hands. Stand right where you’re standin’ now. That way, I’ve got a clear shot right between his shoulder blades, if he decides he wants to show us some tricks.”

The message was not lost on Jed. He stood perfectly still until he felt the ropes fall away, then he waited until Flint told him to go into the cell.

When the prisoners were inside the cell, Roy commented, “Sheriff usually locks ’em in the cell first, then has ’em back up and stick their hands through the bars to untie ’em.”

Flint smiled and said, “That woulda been a lot easier, wouldn’t it?” He asked Roy where he could find the key to the cell.

Roy pointed to a single key on a large ring, hanging on a nail just inside the cell room door. Flint took the key and locked the cell door.

“You better hope they hang us,” Jed Tubbs snarled. “’ Cause if they don’t, your life ain’t worth a nickel.”

“’Preciate the warnin’,” Flint said. He took the key back into the office and closed the cell room door. “I’ll leave the key on the desk,” he said to Roy. “I don’t like the idea of it hangin’ on a nail where they can see it. Gives ’em too much to think about while nobody’s watchin’ ’em. Now, who locks the office for the night? You don’t leave it unlocked all night, do ya?”

“No,” Roy answered. “I lock up most nights.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“On that bench where they was settin’.”

“Damn,” Flint exclaimed. “That’s kind of a hard bed, ain’t it?”

“I usually take the mattress off one of the cots in the cells when I sleep out here on the bench. Most of the time, there ain’t nobody in the cells, so I sleep in there.”

“I see,” Flint said. “Reckon you’d best go back in there and get you a mattress. When you come out, shut the lamp off and tell ’em good night.” He waited while Roy did that, and when he came back, he asked, “You all set till mornin’ now?”

“I reckon,” Roy answered. “I ain’t ever done it like this before. I don’t know what the sheriff is gonna say when he comes in to get his coffee in the mornin’.”

“Well, I suppose he’ll just take over, won’t he? He’s sure as hell been sheriff long enough to know what to do. I mean, like fix ’em up with some breakfast, things like that.”

“Oh, sure,” Roy replied. “He’ll take care of all that. I just don’t know what he’ll think when he finds out somebody has arrested some rustlers and put ’em in a cell without him even knowin’ about it.”

“You just tell him that I’ll ride back into town tomorrow as soon as I finish my mornin’ chores, and I’ll explain the whole thing and give him all the details. All right?”

“I reckon,” Roy replied. He walked to the door with Flint.

When Flint stepped outside, he hesitated when he saw the three horses tied at the hitching rail. “I swear I forgot about their horses. We can’t leave them tied at the rail all night. You reckon Lon Blake has locked up the stable for the night?”

“I expect that he has,” Roy replied.

“Well, that ain’t no problem,” Flint decided. “I’ll just take ’em back home with me, and I’ll bring ’em back tomorrow. We can put ’em in the stable then.” In an effort to relieve Roy’s obvious bewilderment, Flint remarked, “Tell the sheriff I won’t even charge him for waterin’ and feedin’ the prisoners’ horses.” When that failed to ease some of the tenseness in Roy’s face, Flint asked, “You’re gonna lock up as soon as I leave, right?”

Roy nodded.

“Good, you oughta be all right then, and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Flint climbed aboard Buster, took the reins of the other two horses, and started for home.

Katie Moran went into the kitchen when she heard someone come in the back door. She had a pretty good idea who it might be. “There’s a plate of supper that might still be warm in the oven, but there ain’t no coffee left.” With hands on hips, she stood watching her youngest son as he hurried to the stove to get the plate she saved for him.

“Thanks, Ma,” Flint said. “I knew you wouldn’t let me starve to death.”

“Where were you,” she asked, “if it ain’t anywhere you’re ashamed to say?” She took particular delight in teasing him because she trusted his judgment completely.

He took a big bite of a biscuit before he answered. “If I told you where I was, you might not believe me.”

“Try me,” his father said as he walked in from the hallway. “I saw you go into the barn leadin’ two saddled horses.”

Flint was surprised. It was his father’s common practice to retire to the front porch to smoke his pipe after supper when the weather was mild. But he didn’t sit out there this late.

“Those two horses are just here for the night,” Flint explained. “I’ll be takin’ ’em into town in the mornin’.”

“What happened to the two fannies that were settin’ on those saddles?” Jim Moran asked, concerned about just where his son had been for most of the evening.

“I arrested ’em,” Flint said, and went on to tell his father what had taken place on the riverbank not three hundred yards north of the house, while neither he, nor Flint’s two older brothers, Nate and Joe, were even aware of it. This, in spite of the fact that a single rifle shot was heard while the family was seated at the supper table. Only one remark was made at the time when Nate’s thirteen-year-old son, Jack, had speculated that they might be eating venison tomorrow night, since the shot sounded like one from a Henry rifle.

“There was one shot,” Jim Moran said, remembering. “How bad?”

“Nothin’ a-tall,” Flint said, aware of the look of concern on his mother’s face. “One of ’em took a notion to go for his gun, so I put a round in his hand. There wasn’t any more trouble after that.” He looked at his mother and apologized. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you I wouldn’t be here for supper.”

“And tomorrow, you’re gonna go into town to tell Buck Jackson about his prisoners he got while he was dead drunk.” Jim said. “Why bother? Roy can tell him what happened.”

“I reckon,” Flint allowed, “but I’ve gotta return two horses. I don’t want Sheriff Jackson to come after me for horse stealin’. And he can still do his job pretty well as long as it’s daylight.”

Jim shook his head impatiently. “Yeah, I reckon.” He looked at Katie and said, “He can’t help it. He’s got too much of that Bradshaw blood in him from your side of the family.”

“Guilty,” Flint sang out, having heard the accusation many times. “Me and Ma are the wild ones in this family. Ain’t that right, Ma?”

“That’s right,” she responded at once, knowing that her youngest son was nothing at all like his older brothers, who seemed to have come from the womb looking for land to farm. But unlike his brothers, Flint showed no interest in finding a mother for his future children, then watching them grow up to till the soil. To complicate the future of the Moran farm, Jim’s holdings amounted to little more than three hundred and fifty acres. And the family was growing rapidly. Soon it would be too little land to support the families. Flint had talked the problem over many times with Nate and Joe. They knew it would be easier on them all if Flint didn’t find that special woman and bring her home. Flint appreciated the fact that his brothers hadn’t come out with a suggestion that he should explore different parts of the country, but he knew it was time for him to move on.

It had become the custom for all of the family to eat breakfast together in the Big House. That was the name they called the original house Jim Moran built on the farm. When Nathaniel, whom everybody called Nate, got married, there was plenty of room for him and Margie to move in with his parents. When Joe married Peggy, however, it was obvious that there would soon be a shortage of space. Consequently, the Moran men built Joe and Peggy their own home. The big family breakfasts were continued because it served to set the work schedule for the day ahead of them. The three Moran women, Katie, Margie, and Peggy, all pitched in to prepare the big breakfast, with help from Margie’s eleven-year-old, Mary, and Peggy’s ten-year-old, Janie.

On this morning, there were many questions and much discussion about Uncle Flint’s arrest of two cattle rustlers. Thirteen-year-old, Jack, and Joe’s twelve-year-old, Jody, volunteered to do some of Flint’s usual chores for him, so he could go into town early. Flint didn’t comment on it, but it further emphasized the fact that they could do his chores in addition to their own with very little bother.

When breakfast was over, Flint left them to return the two horses that belonged to the outlaws.

As was usually the case, the little settlement of Tinhorn was quiet, even though it was Saturday. Flint expected there would be wagons in from the farms later to trade at Harper’s Feed and Supply and maybe make a visit to Jake’s Place for a drink of whiskey. He led the two horses to the jail but found the office door was locked with a padlock on the outside. He considered leaving the horses at the hitching rail but decided it best to take them to the stable and led the horses to the end of the street and Lon Blake’s stable.

“Mornin’, Flint,” Lon greeted him when he rode up in front of the barn. “Whatcha got there?”

“Mornin’,” Flint returned. “I’ve got a couple of horses that belong to some guests in Sheriff Jackson’s jailhouse. I woulda left ’em here last night, but it was late and you were already locked up. Did the sheriff say anything to you about ’em?”

“I ain’t seen Buck this mornin’,” Lon answered. “But if they belong to somebody he’s got in jail, he’ll be by to tell me about ’em, so I’ll take care of ’em for you. How’d you happen to end up with the horses, anyway?”

Flint told him about his arrest of the two cattle rustlers and expressed his desire to give his story to Jackson as soon as possible. “I just came from the jail and it was locked up. I didn’t even see Roy.”

Lon reacted with half a chuckle. “Did you look in the saloon?”

Flint said that he didn’t, assuming it was a little early for that possibility.

“Buck most always goes there to get a little breakfast,” Lon went on. “Jake’s wife, Rena, will fry him up some bacon and eggs.”

Flint shook his head, amazed. “Why doesn’t he go to Clara’s Kitchen where he could get a good breakfast at a fair price?”

“’ Cause he can’t get any of the hair of the dog that bit him at Clara’s,” Lon said. “Roy’s most likely there with him. He says Buck never has more than one shot. Says he just needs it to get his brain right-side-up in the mornin’.”

“You think he’d still be there?” Flint asked, thinking it was late in the morning to be eating breakfast.

“Probably so,” Lon replied. “That’s another reason he goes to Jake’s Place. It don’t matter how late it is, Rena will cook him up something. You go along, if you want to. I’ll take care of the horses and work it out with Buck when I see him.”

“Much obliged,” Flint said and turned Buster back toward the saloon.

“Yonder he is now,” Roy Hawkins said, alerting Sheriff Buck Jackson that the man he had been telling him about had just walked in the door. “He said he’d be back this mornin’ and here he is.”

“Flint Moran, huh?” Buck reacted. He knew of the three sons of Jim Moran, but there had never been an occasion to come into contact with any of them. He made it a point to take a good look at the young man who had paused inside the door to look for him. Since the saloon was almost empty, it didn’t take but a second. Buck took note of the expression of purpose on the young man’s face as he headed straight for the table. He walked with no hint of a swagger or the heavy foot of . . .