Never Seen Deader

Book 2: Sawbones

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Suspense

Synopsis

From bestselling authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone, the epic tale of a Rebel doctor surviving in the lawless aftermath of the Civil War continues . . .

Johnstone Justice. What America Needs Now.
 
 A DEADLY CURE FOR JUSTICE
 
When the war ended, Dr. Samuel Knight went home to Texas—but the life he expected was in ruins, his wife married to a carpetbagger. Trying to defend what's left of his previous existence, the good doctor is branded an outlaw and driven from Texas. Now he's laying low in New Mexico, with his image on wanted posters everywhere. But when the town explodes in violence, Knight will risk his neck to save innocent lives.
 
After a cave-in injures a team of miners, Knight throws his cover aside to tend to their wounds. He catches the eye of Helena “Hellfire” Bonham, the mine's owner, who's wrapped up in a murderous dispute with her ex-husband over control of the land. She thinks he was responsible for the cave-in, and wants Knight to prove it. She's chosen well, because if Dr. Samuel Knight is quick with a scalpel, he's even faster with a gun.
 
Live Free. Read Hard.

Release date: December 1, 2020

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 275

Sample

Dr. Samuel Knight flopped on his belly and stared at the dusty, bleak New Mexico Territory back trail, hunting for any sign his pursuers were sneaking up on him. He lifted the spyglass he had found alongside the road a few days earlier and started to peer through the cracked lens, then stopped and lowered it again. He used a thumbnail to scrape dried blood off the eyepiece to get a clearer view. Who had dropped the spyglass remained a mystery since he hadn’t overtaken any rider on the lonely trail and none had passed him riding east.

He blinked twice, pressed his right eye into the lens, and slowly scanned the heat-distorted horizon. The burning desert sun caused his eye to water as he tried to penetrate the shimmering, silvery curtain of mirage. He pulled away, drew out the tube to its full length, and anxiously focused on a green spot south of the road. His study was so intense that he suddenly gasped, having held his breath without realizing it.

There were riders in the stand of cottonwoods.

Several riders.

Knight swallowed hard, rolled onto his back, and stared up at the cloudless sky so he could draw his revolver, hold it at arm’s length, and check the load in the Colt Navy’s cylinder. Every chamber was full.

Riding with the hammer resting on an empty chamber kept accidents from happening. Otherwise, the constant bouncing of a horse sometimes caused a round to discharge. But Knight preferred to take the risk so he had an extra bullet in a shoot-out.

Just in case.

That caution summed up his life ever since he’d been released from the Yankee prisoner of war camp at Elmira, New York. He had been captured after the Battle of the Wilderness and sent to a hellhole where one in five prisoners died from disease, abuse, and all too often, their own hand when life became unbearable. His skills as a doctor had been pushed to the limits of his endurance, but he had saved the lives of dozens of his fellow Johnny Rebs using nothing more than stolen spoons sharpened into crude surgical instruments and water boiled over fires better used for staying warm during the fierce northern winter.

His life had been a living hell—he was not the only one calling the Yankee prison camp Hellmira—but all that should have changed when General Lee surrendered and he and the others were released. On his own, on foot, with nothing but the clothes on his back, he had nearly frozen and starved to death as he made his way home to Pine Knob, Texas, and his loving wife Victoria.

If his life as a prisoner had been horrific, what he’d found in the town where he was born and raised proved worse. A lot worse. His wife had remarried without first divorcing him. Adding insult to injury, she hadn’t even picked one of the local boys. She had married a carpetbagger from Boston who had come to Pine Knob to rob the citizens and steal as much as he could, all in the name of Reconstruction. Why she had given Gerald Donnelly the time of day, much less her hand in marriage, still puzzled Knight, but she had. She had married the Yankee and had rejected Knight when he returned.

Knight smiled grimly. Gerald Donnelly had plenty of reason to send his hired gunmen after the rebel doctor after getting his Achilles tendon severed and his trigger finger shot off, both done with Knight’s surgical precision.

The Federal cavalry officer in command of the garrison in Pine Knob had reason to come after him, too. Stolen horses, dead soldiers, shouted insults—it was as personal with Captain Norwood as it was with Donnelly.

And it wasn’t just the trouble in Pine Knob that Knight fled.

He didn’t even want to think about all the folks in Buffalo Springs who might want his scalp after the saloon got burned down to the ground, the town shot up, and bodies left all over. Then there was Amelia Parker...

Knight’s guilt about abandoning the lovely woman the way he had tore at him like ants chewing away his very soul. But there hadn’t been a choice, not after he had killed half an outlaw gang comprised of his old friends, some former inmates at Elmira who once upon a time had saved his life, and then shot up a band of Texas State Police Donnelly had sent to kill him.

His life swirled with death and double dealing, and it made him sick to his stomach.

He tried to push that feeling away as he pouched the iron and rolled over to study his back trail again. Nervous fingers slid back and forth along the slick brass tube of the spyglass as he tried to make sense of the blurred image from the stand of trees. Two miles behind him? Maybe less.

They had to be after him. When he thought he would go blind staring at the treetops swaying in the sluggish desert wind, not seeing another hint of movement, he realized he was fleeing ghosts. There hadn’t been anyone behind him for more than a week. He had left Buffalo Springs in the middle of the night and ridden until his horse threatened to collapse from exhaustion.

That forced him to rest, but he pressed on when he could, heading westward into New Mexico Territory. So many of the men from Buffalo Springs had come this way to find their fortunes in gold and silver strikes that he expected the road to be crowded. Instead, the vast desert had afforded lonely traveling for him and his tired horse. He’d appreciated that solitude more and more as he rode.

After he’d passed a range of mountains to the north of Paso del Norte, he had slowed his pace. Watering holes were scarce. From what he had heard in the past, the Apaches roaming these barren lands were the only ones who knew where to find water that was fit to drink. Even the river he had crossed had been mostly dry.

“The Rio Grande,” he had scoffed aloud. It had been misnamed, though the banks were wide, hinting that vast amounts of water sometimes raged between them. Not this year. Not so he could do more than find small holes in the sandy bottom filled with enough water for his horse and him.

He considered following the dry bed south until he reached Paso del Norte and then riding into Mexico. The only drawback he saw to that was the army detachment at Franklin on the Texas side of the border. They must have a telegraph. He didn’t doubt that Captain Norwood had sent warnings to every army post in the south and west warning about the horse-thieving criminal Rebel doctor.

“West.” He pushed to his feet, collapsed the spyglass, and squinted once more along the road he had traveled earlier that day. A small dust devil swirled around and danced across the trail. Nothing else moved out there, not even circling buzzards.

Knight trudged to where he had left his horse nibbling at a patch of grass. He stashed the spyglass in his saddlebags and put his foot into the stirrup to mount.

Distant gunfire made him freeze. Trailing the gunshots came the swift pounding of horses’ hooves. He pulled himself up and settled into the saddle before tugging down the broad, floppy brim of his hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. The stand of cottonwoods still looked like it had a few seconds earlier, but the commotion steadily grew louder. Slowly turning, Knight searched for the origin of those sounds of battle.

Directly south of him, loud whoops suddenly rang out. He edged his horse in that direction, alert for a trap. When he caught sight of the drama playing out across the desert, he almost wheeled around and rode off.

Two Indians rode with their heads down, firing arrows at a cowboy not twenty yards ahead of them. The cowboy swung from side to side, thrusting his revolver out and getting off wild shots that did nothing to slow the pursuit.

Knight knew that hitting anything while firing from horseback was difficult. Shooting over a shoulder as he galloped from two Apaches trying to turn him into a pincushion presented the cowboy an impossible task. He might get lucky and score with one of those wild shots . . . but from where Knight sat, the man being pursued so aggressively had chased off Lady Luck a lot earlier.

Knight drew his rifle from the saddle sheath, levered a round into the chamber, and snugged the weapon to his shoulder. He held his horse steady with his knees as he swung smoothly from behind the Indians and then past them in a slow arc. When he came even with the lead Indian, he squeezed the trigger but kept swinging to be sure he didn’t pull the shot.

His round missed the lead rider but hit the second, jolting him halfway around even though he didn’t fall from the racing pony. Knight shook his head. The cowboy was out of luck, but Knight’s was damned good at the moment. He had only winged the Apache, but that was enough to cause the warrior to veer away from the chase.

Although he’d evened the odds, leaving the cowboy only one adversary, Knight realized the luck still rested with him. The fleeing cowboy’s gun clicked on empty cylinders. The Apache still had a quiver filled with arrows. Judging by the smooth pluck, draw, and fire, the warrior had a good chance to skewer his quarry.

Knight reacted without thinking. He spurred his horse down the sandy slope and across the sunbaked desert in pursuit. Trying to fire his rifle while riding would only waste ammunition. Head down, riding like the wind, he closed the gap between him and the Indian. At some point the Apache realized he had a decision to make. He either kept chasing the defenseless cowboy and got shot in the back—or he whirled around and confronted his new attacker.

As he galloped closer, Knight saw this was no young buck on his first raid. He was facing a grizzled veteran of too many ambushes and battles. The Indian brought his horse to a dead halt, drew back on his bow, and let fly an arrow. It spun a little as it flew toward Knight.

That saved him. The fletching on one side was torn off and the unstable flight sent the arrow angling to the right, away from him.

Knight hauled back on the reins, his horse kicking up a cloud of dust as he duplicated the Indian’s ploy. On a stationary mount he had a better chance of making a killing shot. As he fired, the dust blew off to one side, giving him a distorted glimpse of the Apache.

For an instant he thought he had made a clean miss. Then he saw fortune still favored him. The rifle slug tore through the Apache’s head and knocked him clean off his horse.

Knight levered in another round as he heard a horse galloping for him. He lowered the rifle when he saw the frantic cowboy waving at him.

“Behind you! Damn, there’s the other one behind you!”

Knight jerked forward, bending at the waist as an arrow sailed past. His horse began crow-hopping, forcing him to fight to keep his seat. If he got thrown, the horse would race off and leave him stranded—and at the mercy of the Indian he had already wounded.

By the time he got his horse under control, the cowboy had flashed past, screaming like a madman at the top of his lungs and waving his empty pistol over his head. Knight brought up his rifle but couldn’t fire without hitting the cowboy.

The young man launched himself from his horse and crashed into the charging Apache. He brought his revolver down hard on the warrior’s shoulder. The crack sounded loud enough to convince Knight that the collarbone had broken under the blow. Cowboy and Indian crashed to the ground. Knight had trouble maneuvering his horse around to get a clear shot as the two men wrestled desperately with each other.

In spite of the broken bone and what had to be intense pain, the Apache fought like ten men. He kicked out and forced the cowboy away. A silver-bladed knife flashed in the sunlight. His grip weak in his right hand, the Apache dropped the knife, bent, and picked it up with his left just as the cowboy surged forward. He swung his gun again, aiming for the warrior’s skull.

He missed and lost his balance as the Indian twisted out of the way. The cowboy sprawled facedown to the ground. The Apache reared above him, the knife clumsy in his hand but still potentially lethal. In spite of the pain and weak grip, the man prepared to deliver a death blow.

Knight’s bullet reached him first. The Apache took a half step back, stunned by the impact. His right arm twitched. He tried to touch the red flower blossoming on his chest with his left hand. Unexpectedly, he threw back his head and unleashed an ululation that chilled Knight.

Then he toppled backwards like a felled tree, dead when he hit the ground. Stretched out on his back, he didn’t even give a small twitch or tremor.

The cowboy got shakily to his feet, still holding his revolver. He stared at the fallen warrior and shook his head. Then he looked up at Knight. “I got a lot to thank you for, mister. You saved my life.”

“You probably saved mine, too, from that one.” Knight pointed with the muzzle of his rifle to the sprawled Apache. “I never heard him coming up behind me.”

“You winged him when he was chasing me. See?” The cowboy nudged the body with the toe of his boot, lifting slightly to show where Knight’s first bullet had cut through the man’s rib cage. “Went in and bored clean through, came out the back. Didn’t even hardly slow this red bastard none.”

The cowboy began reloading his revolver.

“How’d you get them on your trail?” Knight slid his rifle back into the scabbard and then swung down from the saddle. He cared less about the cowboy’s story than getting on his way, but he felt he owed the young man something for coming to his aid the way he had. Hearing his story would take care of that obligation.

The cowboy was barely twenty, if that. He had a short, dark stubble on his lean jaw that might have taken a week or two for him to grow. He wore a green vest with two buttons popped off, a shirt that had been white at one time, and blue denim pants worn white in patches. A gun belt was strapped around his hips, but Knight doubted the boy was a gunslinger. He held his weapon with authority but not the arrogance of a killer. Though Knight couldn’t be sure, he thought the cowboy’s hands shook just a mite.

He was sure of that tremor when the cowboy pulled his battered hat up from behind where it hung by a chin strap around his neck. Likely, the youngster was no more than a down-on-his-luck wrangler caught on the range by a pair of Apaches who mistook him for easy prey.

“Just more bad luck,” he said in answer to Knight’s question as he reloaded his pistol. ”I lost a spare horse and gear coming up from Big Bend, following the river. Down south there’s plenty of water. Not so much up here.“ The cowboy looked around and snorted in disgust. ”The Journey of Death they call this stretch all the way up to Socorro or maybe Albuquerque. El Jornado del Muerto. Not hardly anybody calls it the King’s Highway, not even the Mexicans that named it.“

“El Camino Real,” Knight said, exhausting his Spanish and knowledge of the region. If he knew so little about this territory, that meant Gerald Donnelly knew nothing at all.

“That’s what they called it, too. The Spanish came through, naming everything that didn’t move and some of the things that did. The Organ Mountains back there look like organ pipes. I doubt they named that, not having an organ to play on. But to the west of us are the Peloncillo Mountains.” He pointed.

Knight shrugged. He had no idea about the terrain ahead. All he knew was that he could never go back to the piney woods of east Texas.

“That means little baldy since them mountains are as naked as a jaybird. Nothing grows on them that doesn’t have thorns or is poisonous. I reckon the Spaniards that explored the region weren’t so far wrong. Journey of Death. Bald Mountains.” The cowboy slid his revolver back into its holster, made a point of fastening the leather thong around the hammer, and came over to thrust out his hand. “I apologize for my bad manners. The name’s Dave Wilcox.”

Knight shook. He had developed a set of calluses from riding, but his surgeon’s hands were soft compared to the rough hands of the young man. If there had been any doubt about whether or not Wilcox was a gunman, that grip dispelled it. No gunslick had calluses from roping and wrangling like the ones Wilcox had.

Knight caught himself before he introduced himself as Dr. Samuel Knight. He had no call to claim that profession anymore, not after all the dead bodies he had left in his wake. Worst of all, he had felt good about slapping leather, drawing and killing when his victim was a gunman bought and paid for to kill him . . . or even a man who had been a friend before turning to a life of bank robbery and murder.

“Sam Knight,” he said simply.

“Well, Mr. Knight, we make a pretty durn good pair, I’d say.” Wilcox looked to the west. “I was heading toward Ralston City. That’s a mining town just north of the Peloncillos. A silver strike there’s got everyone all worked up and champing at the bit to get rich.”

“You’re going to try your hand at prospecting?”

“Not me, sir. Nope, not me. I know better ’n that. I’ve heard the stories of prospectors all my life. Better to work in a mine already discovered.”

“Mining’s a backbreaking job.”

“But in a successful mine, it pays real good. I’ve never been afraid of a bit of work. The only thing that I’m not sure about is being underground like that.”

“Are you afraid of the dark?” Knight asked.

“Not that as much as being all squeezed into a tight space. It must be a little like getting buried alive, the rock walls all around. But I can find out if that’s for me by trying it.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then I’ll look for something else. I’m what you call versatile. You know what that means?”

“I do.”

Wilcox studied him for a moment, then said, “You talk like an educated man. Me, I finished the sixth grade. I can read and cipher. My writing’s not great, but folks can make it out if they try, especially if I don’t rush at it. Hell, I might even get a job with a newspaper. Most of the men in a mining camp can’t even write their own name.” Wilcox grinned. “In comparison to them, I reckon I’m an educated fellow.”

Knight had to smile at the young man’s optimism and determination. He had listened to Wilcox’s story and was ready to move on. He put a foot in the stirrup and swung onto the back of his horse.

Instantly, Knight had to struggle to control the suddenly skittish mount. “There, there, settle down,” he said as he patted the horse’s neck, but as the gelding turned and danced, Knight caught sight of something in the distance that sent a shiver up his spine. He asked Wilcox, “How many Apaches were on your trail?”

“Well, now, sir, I ran afoul of them two days back, a lot farther south. I’m no expert, but they might be Chiricahua Apaches.”

“I don’t care about the tribe. How many chased you?”

“Those two were all I saw. Why do you ask?”

“It behooves us to get on the road and ride like we mean it.” Knight stared at the horizon to the southeast and the dust cloud building there. It could have been another dust devil; the spinning tornados of dirt reaching hundreds of feet into the air were common in the desert. It could have been . . . but Knight believed it was a third Apache making tracks.

The Apache might have been running away, but Knight felt his luck evaporating.

More than likely, the third Apache was riding hell-for-leather to bring back a full war party.

“They might be Mescalero,” Dave Wilcox said as they rode past the second of the fallen Apaches. “I ought to study up on identifying them. Know your enemy.” The cowboy rubbed his left arm vigorously, making Knight wonder if he had been injured.

“You catch one of those arrows?” He indicated the way Wilcox acted by mimicking the movement.

“What, this? No, they didn’t put a scratch on me. I fell off my horse earlier on and banged up my arm. Wrenched it some more when I grabbed the reins to climb back up. The horse reared and damned near kicked me.”

Knight shot a quick look behind as he had been doing since he had left Texas. If he spotted riders coming after him, they would really be there and not just figments of a guilty imagination. “Does it matter if the Indians are Mescalero or Chiricahua?”

“Might be Warm Sands, too, but I doubt it,” Wilcox said. “One of these days, they’ll all be tucked away on reservations where they can’t hurt anybody. General Carleton tried that with the Navajo, but that didn’t work so well since he put ’em with the Mescaleros over at Bosque Redondo. The Mescaleros stole all the Navajos’ horses and snuck out to go raiding. That made life hell for the cavalry because they’d sneak back onto their reservation and claim it was the Navajos doing the thieving. To the army, one Injun looks like another. That caused a passel of trouble for everybody.”

“You know just about everything about the Indians in these parts. How’s that?”

“My pa was an Indian agent for a while. He would spin yarns constantly at the supper table, though he dealt with the Lipan and none of the New Mexico Territory Apaches.”

Knight nodded. “I’ve had some dealings with the Lipan over in East Texas. They and the Comanche never got along too well.”

“All the tribes spent their time fighting each other until the white man came. Then it was easier for them to fight us.” Wilcox slapped his holstered gun to emphasize what he meant. “Comancheros sold guns and firewater to any tribe that stole enough money or cattle to satisfy their greed. We got to keep an eye out not only for armed Indians but double-dealing white men, too. They’re all our enemies.”

Knight glanced back and caught sight of a larger dust cloud. He hadn’t wanted to mention it to Wilcox, but now he had to. “There was a third Apache. We got rid of two while the third rode away. I hoped he was going to hightail it and make himself scarce. It looks like he found some friends to avenge what we did to his partners.”

Wilcox turned in the saddle and half stood, then twisted back. “”Damn me, you’re right. I don’t have much ammunition. Enough to reload three or four times. How about you?”

“I’d rather not fight anyone who can fire an arrow, then come pick it up and fire it at me again.” Knight had left Buffalo Springs with scant supplies. Along the way into New Mexico Territory he had lived off the land, having become a crack shot. One rabbit, one shot. He had started his escape with a box of cartridges for the Winchester and enough caps, slugs, and powder for fifty shots from the Colt Navy. Facing one or two more Apaches was possible. If an entire hunting party—or a war party—came after them, he needed five times that much ammunition.

“I’d rather not fight them at all. They carry a grudge something fierce. If they’ve slipped off a reservation, they won’t want us reporting to the cavalry. That would give them a one-way ticket back.”

The way Wilcox winced as he gestured wildly worried Knight. He almost offered to check the cowboy’s arm to be sure the injury was as minor as he claimed, but Knight wanted to distance himself from his prior life as much as possible. Not practicing medicine went a ways toward cleaning the slate and letting him start over.

He touched the gun at his side. He was more than passably good with it, but turning into a gunfighter, no matter how fast he was, didn’t appeal to him. Sitting at a table covered with green felt and gambling suited him better. Most cowboys lacked even passing acquaintance with odds and how to bet and when to fold. Back in Buffalo Springs he had found gambling more lucrative than tending to sick and injured patients.

Mining towns were lush pickings for a determined, knowledgeable gambler.

“Is there anywhere we can lay low so they’ll pass us by?”

“This is new country for me. I glanced at a map back in El Paso, but I didn’t do anythin. . .