The Man from Waco

Book 1: Man from Waco

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Meet John Bannack. Jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. Busted out of a Texas State Prison.  Running for freedom and gunning for justice. They call him . . .THE MAN FROM WACO.

As a young man, John Bannack worked hard on his brother’s farm—until times got tough and his brother grew desperate. Desperate enough to rob a bank. Unfortunately, John’s brother left a trail that led straight to the Bannack farm. When a posse showed up to make an arrest, John made a fateful decision: He confessed to his brother’s crime. Sacrificed his freedom for the sake of his brother’s family. And doomed himself to a hard, hellish life in a rat-hole state prison . . . 

A man’s got two choices in a place like that: Get tough or get killed. For John Bannack it means this will be a one-way trip to Hell. 

Bannack is on a work detail outside the prison. On the way back, Judge Wick Justice, who sentenced Bannack, tags along with the prison wagon, only to find he has involved himself in a planned prison break. When a gang ambushes the wagon and frees the prisoners, they bullet-blast the guards—and the judge takes a hunk of lead himself. But Bannack finds the judge alive and takes him to safety. In return, the judge releases him from prison and employs him as his bodyguard and avenger. 

Johnstone Country. A New Texas Legend.

Release date: April 23, 2024

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Kitty Bannack pushed the screen door open far enough to stick her hand out and ring her little silver bell to call the boys to supper. Tommy, six and Billy, four, ran from the barn where they had been playing, but there was no one else in sight. “Tommy, run down to the other end of the corn field and tell your papa and Uncle John that supper’s ready.” She knew the men were working down there, clearing some more of the land near the creek. They couldn’t hear her little bell that far away from the house. Warren complained that he couldn’t hear the tiny silver bell even when he was no farther away than the barn. He said she should use a cowbell if she was really serious about calling him. Kitty didn’t have many really nice things like that little bell, a wedding gift from her aunt Sophie, so she enjoyed an opportunity to use it. She held the screen door open to let Billy in. “Go to the pump and wash your hands,” she told him. He went over to the other side of the back porch where there was a bucket beside the pump. She remained at the door watching Tommy until he disappeared behind the corn. I declare, she thought, I just patched that boy’s trousers and he’s wearing through the patches already. She sighed and went back into the kitchen. “Let me see ’em,” she said to Billy and grabbed the back of his collar when he walked past her. “Go back to the pump and wash ’em like I taught you to.”

“I washed ’em, Mama,” Billy protested.

“You watch your papa and Uncle John when they come in for supper,” Kitty said. “That’s the way you need to wash your hands. Use that soap. I made it to take the dirt off your dirty little paws.” Still holding him by the back of his collar, she turned him around and gave him a little push back toward the pump.

After a few minutes, her husband and Tommy joined Billy at the pump. “You still washin’ your hands?” Tommy asked his brother.

“I done washed ’em once,” Billy complained. “Mama’s gonna wear the skin offa our hands.”

“Where’s John?” Kitty asked, concerned that the biscuits were going to get cold if they didn’t sit down and eat.

“He volunteered to put the horses away, so you wouldn’t give us a scoldin’ for being late for supper,” Warren said.

“I’ll give him a scoldin’, then,” she joked, well aware of John’s tendency to make sure he didn’t eat more than his share of the food they were able to raise. No one worked harder than her husband’s younger brother. Only eighteen years old, he was already as big a man as Warren. It was a shame, she thought, that all he knew was hard work with none of the pleasures of life that many men his age pursued.

Her thoughts were brought back to her husband then as she filled his cup with coffee. She was saddened when her eyes rested upon the recent appearance of gray streaks in his sideburns, far too soon for a man as young as he was. She knew the cause for his rapid aging was because of the poor performance of the crops he had planted. The farm was not providing a sufficient living for two families. And while John had no prospects for starting a family of his own in the immediate future, that had been the grand plan from the beginning. As the situation stood now, however, they needed more land to support another family. And there was no money for them to buy more land. That was the cause of Warren’s sleepless nights and the ever-increasing silent moods noticed by Kitty and John.

It was a pleasant spring morning in Waco when the unthinkable happened. Warren went into town alone, having been pushed to the desperate position of asking the bank to make him a loan with his farm as collateral. He stood outside the bank for a while trying to summon the willpower to go inside and ask for the loan, so reluctant was he to put a lien on his property. He only needed a few hundred dollars to get him by this slack period. And he hesitated to tie his land up for that small amount of money. Looking through the window, he could see both tellers taking their cash drawers to the back of the bank to fill them with money from the safe. It would be so easy to walk in right then with his gun drawn and demand that they dump their trays into a bag and he could be gone before they knew what hit them. No one in the town knew him, other than a couple of store clerks. He looked around him, the thought taking root in his desperation. The OPEN sign was on the door, but there were no customers as yet. All the signs were right. Just do it! He thought and in that insane moment, a normally honest man changed the pattern of his and his brother’s life forever.

“No customers yet,” James Feldon, the bank manager, said, “both of you fill your drawers.”

Robert Tice and Wilbur Davis followed him through the door to the back and the safe room, which Feldon had already unlocked. Both tellers were confused when Feldon turned to face them and appeared to be stunned. They were both startled then when they heard the voice behind them. “Just do like I tell you and nobody will get hurt,” Warren Bannack advised them. They turned to discover the bank robber, his hat pulled down low on his forehead, a bandanna tied around his face, and a Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand. Seeing a couple of canvas sacks lying on a table in the corner of the room, he said, “Take one of them sacks and fill it with money and be quick about it. The rest of my gang will be in here if I ain’t out pretty quick.”

Feldon sensed the desperation in the robber’s tone, so he made one attempt. “You’re making a big mistake, mister. You don’t wanna do this. If you’ll just turn around and walk out of the bank, we won’t press any charges.”

“If this is a mistake, it’s already been made,” Warren said. “And if you don’t hurry up and fill that sack with money, I ain’t got no choice but to shoot you down.” Davis and Tice took him for his word and started filling the sack. “That one sack’s enough,” Warren said. “I ain’t lookin’ to clean you out.” He would have liked to have more but figured he could only handle one sack and his gun, too. They filled the sack quickly, so he took it and told them to sit down on the floor. Then covering them with his pistol, he backed out of the safe room, closed the door, and locked it. Running back through the door to the lobby, he took the key out of that door, closed the door, and locked it from the lobby side of the door.

When he got to the front door, he was relieved to see there were still no customers. He holstered his pistol and ran to his horse with his bandanna still in place. Holding onto his sack full of money, he stepped up into the saddle and wheeled his horse away from the hitching rail, almost running over a man and his wife heading to the bank. Realizing at once what was happening, the man started yelling, “Hold up! He’s robbin’ the bank!” Other pedestrians picked up the outcry, loud enough to bring Sheriff Hank Bronson running out of his office in time to see Warren gallop past. With no time to raise a posse, Bronson ran for his horse and was soon in the saddle, racing out the south road after the robber.

In a panic now, Warren pushed his horse for everything the animal had. He had not counted on the sheriff giving chase this soon. He thought about dropping the sack of money and maybe the sheriff would stop to pick it up. But what if he didn’t? Or even if he did stop to pick it up, he would still be coming after him. “Oh, my Lord, my Lord,” he groaned. “What was I thinking? My wife, my children, I’ve got to get away from the sheriff!” With no other choice, he laid low on the dun’s neck and encouraged the willing horse and it responded. When he reached the narrow trace that led to his farm, he saw that he was out of sight of the man chasing him. So he turned the dun onto the trace that led to the river through a heavy patch of oak trees. He was sure the sheriff didn’t have him in sight when he veered onto the trace. It turned out that he was right. He was out of sight when he reached the trace, so the sheriff did not see him turn off the road. The sheriff didn’t go very far before realizing that the obvious trail he had been following was gone. So he turned around and backtracked until he found the narrow trace and the tracks of the galloping horse that he had missed before.

Alert now that he might be riding into a dangerous situation, Bronson reined his tired horse back to a walk, allowing for the possibility of riding into an ambush. It occurred to him that he might have been wiser to raise a posse, instead of chasing the thief all by himself. When he cleared the trees, however, he found the narrow trace led him to a clearing with a cabin and a barn in the center. One tired horse stood in front of the barn and standing in the open door of the barn were two men, seeming to be waiting for him. One of them held the sack of money from the bank. Neither man was holding a weapon, but there was a gun belt hanging from the saddle horn on the horse. Hank Bronson was not quite sure if he had ridden into a trap or not. He drew his rifle from his saddle scabbard and stepped down. “I know you,” he said, looking at Warren. “Your name’s Bannack, right? I reckon you know why you’re under arrest.”

He paused then when Kitty Bannack came out the back door of the cabin, followed by her two young sons. “Warren, what’s going on?” Kitty asked her husband. When he didn’t answer right away, she turned to Hank. “What is it, Sheriff Bronson. What’s going on?”

“I’m afraid I’ve got to arrest your husband for bank robbery, Miz Bannack. He just held up the First Bank of Waco.” He held his rifle on Warren, not sure himself what was going on, for Warren just stood there as if frozen, while his wife registered genuine shock upon hearing what he had done.

The one person who remained calm spoke then. “This ain’t what it looks like, Sheriff,” he said. “My name’s John Bannack. I robbed the bank. I just didn’t figure on you gettin’ on my tail right away. I did it because we needed the money, but when I gave it to Warren, he said he’s fixin’ to take it back to the bank. Said he’d rather starve than turn into a common thief. I told him I’d take it back, but I needed to rest my horse first. It was a bad idea. I’m sorry I did it, but I reckon I’m ready to pay the penalty for what I did.” Unable to believe the drama playing out before her eyes, Kitty ran to stand beside her husband. John looked at them and said, “I’m sorry. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Back to the sheriff then, he declared, “I won’t cause you no trouble, Sheriff. All the bank’s money is in there. It ain’t been opened since I left the bank with it.”

“John . . .” Warren started to protest, but his brother interrupted him.

“Enough said, Warren,” John declared. “I made a mistake. It’ll be tough workin’ the farm by yourself, but it’ll be easier not having to feed a big eater like me.” Back to the sheriff again, he said, “I wore my horse out, so I’ll take another one back to town. I won’t bother to switch my saddle. I’ll just ride him bareback. You ready to go?”

Hank snorted a laugh, still amazed by the weird circumstances of the arrest. “Yeah, I reckon I am,” he answered, although he was tempted to tell John to come into town whenever he was ready and he’d see him there.

John didn’t want to risk another minute. Kitty knew very well which one of the brothers went into town and which one stayed home, and she looked as if she might lose all control at any second. He counted on her knowing she couldn’t afford to have her husband away at prison. He was also aware that either one of her two sons could destroy his story if they thought to say something. “Come on, Sheriff, I’ll get another horse,” he said, picked up the sack of stolen money resting now beside his brother, dropped it beside the sheriff’s feet, and turned to go into the barn to get his horse.

“Just hold it right there,” Hank told him. “I don’t want to interfere with your arrest, since you seem to be doing such a fine job of it. But my horse is just as wore out as yours is, so I think we’ll just go back on the same horses we got here on. Most likely you can understand why I think that would be best.”

“Oh, right,” John replied. “I didn’t think about that. You don’t mind if I ride bareback do you? I’d like to leave Warren my saddle. It’s a lot better saddle than his.”

“Don’t mind a-tall,” Hank said. “Go ahead and take it off and just leave it right there but take that gun belt off the saddle horn and drop it on the ground first. And be real careful about it. Then we’ll get started back right away.” John took the saddle off and placed it at Warren’s feet. When Warren started to speak, John shook his head, turned around, and jumped up on the horse’s back. Already in the saddle, Hank said, “We’ll take a leisurely little ride back to town now.” He nodded to the still dumbstruck couple then. “Mr. Bannack, Ma’am, sorry to make your acquaintance under these circumstances.” They rode out of the clearing at a slow walk, and when they were out of sight of the couple still standing in front of the barn, Hank informed his prisoner, “Normally, I’d handcuff your hands behind your back, but since you’ve been so cooperative about surrendering, I’ll leave your hands free to help you hold on to your horse, since you ain’t settin’ a saddle. Besides, if you was to take a wild notion to take off without me, it’s easy enough to just shoot you in the back. And John, make no mistake, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it.”

“I understand,” John said. “You won’t have to.” Behind him, he could only imagine the hysterical conversation going on between his brother and his sister-in-law. For surely Kitty was as shocked by the desperate decision Warren had acted upon as he was. He hoped that she would be understanding and forgiving for his brother’s foolish mistake. They were all three in a state of despair for their poverty. But Kitty, like himself, was determined to survive until their lot improved, thinking that it surely would. Maybe it would have, but after Warren’s unthinkable act, John knew that he had been left with only one way to save his brother’s family. So he didn’t hesitate to confess to the crime. Now as he and Sheriff Hank Bronson walked the horses slowly back to town, he tried to think of anything that might cause a question about the truthfulness of his confession. The biggest problem would be the eyewitnesses in the bank. He and Warren were close to the same height and build. He was sure that Warren must have tied his bandanna around his face, an identical bandanna to the one he was wearing. As for their work clothes, they were not exactly alike, but they were similar. The only major difference in their clothing was that Warren wore a hat and he often did not. And at the moment, he was not wearing one. Thinking that a possible problem, he asked a question. “If I see my hat, is it all right if we stop and pick it up?”

“What are you talking about?” Hank asked, alert to any tricks his prisoner might be thinking up. “What about your hat?”

“My hat,” John came back, “when you were chasing me from the bank, my hat flew off. It was somewhere right along here. If I see it, can I stop and pick it up?”

“I reckon,” Hank said, not remembering if John had been wearing one or not, “but only if we see it somewhere beside the road. We ain’t gonna stop to go lookin’ for it.”

“’Preciate it,” John said.

When they rode back into Waco, Hank paraded his prisoner down the middle of the main street to the cheers and comments of the spectators they passed. John speculated that his arrest had helped secure Hank’s job as sheriff, whether he improved Warren’s situation or not. When he got out of bed that morning, going to jail would have been the last thing he could have possibly considered he might be doing before dinnertime. Had he been given more time than the brief few minutes between the time when Warren rode into the barnyard with the sack of money and the sheriff galloping in right after him, maybe he could have thought of something else. But the sheriff was already placing his brother under arrest when it occurred to John that there was only one way to save him and his young family. Now that he had done it, he was glad that he had thought to take the blame. He could not imagine Kitty with those two sons and no husband and he was doubly sure he did not want to step in to take Warren’s place at home. So now he was resolved to cause as little trouble as possible and see what the law would decide to do with him. He would just bide his time for however long they decided to imprison him and maybe it wouldn’t be too long, since Warren hadn’t shot anybody and the bank got all the money back.

They pulled up in front of the sheriff’s office and Hank’s deputy, Tiny Sowell, stepped outside the office to meet them. “Hot damn, Hank, you got him!” Tiny whooped. “I was down at Springer’s gettin’ my hair cut when I heard ever’body hollerin’ that the bank was robbed. By the time I ran back here to the office, you was long gone. So I started seein’ about gettin’ a posse together, but everybody said you was on that feller like a rooster on a June bug. Looks like they was right. It didn’t take you long. The only way it’da been any shorter woulda been if he hadda just run from the bank, straight to the jailhouse.” The sheriff dismounted, so John threw a leg over and started to slide off his brother’s horse. “Ain’t nobody told you to get down!” Tiny snapped, drawing his six-gun as he spoke. John just managed to hang onto the horse.

“Take it easy, Tiny,” Hank told him. “He ain’t give me a bit of trouble. I didn’t even bother with the handcuffs. He confessed to the robbery and said he was sorry he done it, and he’s willin’ to take his punishment. You can go ahead and get down, John.” Tiny holstered his six-gun, and John dropped down from the horse. “Let’s take him inside and get him in a cell, then you can take his horse to the stable and on your way back you can tell Myra we need to feed a new prisoner. I expect while you’re doin’ that, I’d best take this sack of money back to the bank and set James Feldon’s mind at ease.”

They walked John into the cell room behind the sheriff’s office. He waited while the sheriff’s oversized deputy opened a cell door and held it for him to enter. “Welcome to your new home until your court date,” Tiny said. “You make it easy for us and we’ll make it easy for you. Ain’t that right, Sheriff?” Hank said that it was.

“That sounds fair to me,” John said and started to enter the cell, but Tiny stopped him.

“I almost forgot,” Tiny said. “We better have a look at what you’ve got in your pockets before I lock you up.” Since John had been doing nothing but chores at the farm all morning, he had nothing in his pockets but a pocketknife. “I’d better take that from you and put it in a drawer in the office. If you need it for anything, one of us’ll get it for you.” John handed him the knife, then went inside the cell. Tiny locked the cell door after him. “Don’t know how long you’ll be with us,” he said. “There ain’t nobody else in here right now who’s waitin’ to go to trial. I expect you’ll have some company before long, but they’ll most likely be drunks or rowdies that’ll just be here overnight. You’ll probably be here until we get another one who has to go to trial. It depends on the judge who tries you how long they’ll leave you here if they don’t get nobody pretty soon. When they think they’ve waited long enough, they’ll finally go ahead and schedule your court date. But don’t worry about it, if they leave you here a long time. It’ll still count against the days you get sentenced to serve.” He and Hank walked out of the cell room.

“We’ll bring you something to eat when we come back,” Hank called over his shoulder.

“Much obliged,” John answered. After they left, he looked around his temporary home to see what he had to live with. This was the first time he’d ever seen the inside of a jail cell. The first thing he checked was the cot. Not bad, he thought when he sat down on it. It would have to be pretty uncomfortable to be worse than the straw mattress he slept on at home. Under the cot he found a chamber pot, and there was one small stand with a pitcher and basin on it. Just like a first-class hotel, he japed to himself.

Other than the fact that he was locked up twenty-four hours a day in a small room with iron bars, John Bannack could not complain. He was treated very well by both the sheriff and the sheriff’s deputy. They, in turn, appreciated the fact that he caused them a minimum of trouble, serving his time without complaints or conversation of any kind unless in answer to a question. There was only one other prisoner in one of the other cells on his second night in jail. A drunk, he was released the following morning. It was the third morning of his imprisonment when his brother Warren came to visit him, a visit that John had been hoping would not occur.

“Hey, John, you got a visitor,” Tiny announced when he led Warren into the cell room. “Sez he’s your brother. Is that a fact?”

“Yes,” John answered, “he’s my brother, Warren. Good mornin’, Warren. He’s the law-abidin’ one of the family,” he said to Tiny.

“I shoulda guessed he was your brother,” Tiny said. “You two look a lot alike.” He took no notice of the slight wince in Warren’s face when he made the remark. “Don’t get your hopes up ’cause I checked him over for weapons and he ain’t carryin’ any,” Tiny japed. “Ordinarily, with a prisoner waitin’ for trial for armed robbery, I’d set down in that chair over in the corner of the room just so I could keep my eye on you while you was visitin’. But I think I can give you two some privacy. Right, John?”

“That’s a fact, Tiny,” John answered, “nothin’ to worry about.”

Tiny left them alone to talk then but Warren could not seem to find the words to even begin a conversation. So John said, “Warren, you look like hell. What’s done is done. Your job now, your responsibility, is to carry on for your family. Don’t spend any more time worryin’ about me. I’ll be just fine. You and Kitty can make it now without me to feed and house.”

Warren looked as if he was not so sure. Finally, his words came. “I don’t know if God will ever forgive me for what I’ve done to you. I know I never will. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just standing there, seeing them through the window with no one else in the bank. The money was right there, and we needed it so badly. I don’t know what came over me. I thought I could get away with it.” He couldn’t say any more, so he hung his head and shook it back and forth in his misery.

“Like I said, it’s over and done now,” John told him. “You owe me nothing. Your responsibility is to Kitty and the boys. Is she standing by you?”

“She is,” Warren answered. “Lord knows, it musta broke her heart to know that I’d do such a thing. But she forgave me and I swore to her I’d never do nothin’ like that again. It’s just so bad what I done to your life can’t be fixed unless I tell the sheriff the right of it.”

“Don’t you even think about doin’ something like that,” John quickly reacted. “It would destroy your whole family if you were to go to prison. I’ve got nothin’ to lose. I’m still young enough to start over again when I get out. Just promise me you’ll take care of Kitty and those two boys and you won’t ever get any more wild notions like this again.”

“I promise,” Warren said. “Like I told you, I just worried myself to the point where I wasn’t thinkin’ straight. I’ll spend the rest of my life makin’ it up to you when you get out.” He went silent again for a few moments, then asked, “Have they told you when you will be goin’ to trial?”

“No, they ain’t set a court date. I do know the judge’s name, though,” John said. “His Honor, Judge Raymond Grant. I don’t know anything about him except they say he likes to try two or three prisoners on the same day, so I might be in jail here until he gets some more cases.”

“Maybe they’ll let you know when they do set a date and we can come in to hear your trial,” Warren speculated.

“I wish you wouldn’t even consider that, brother,” John told him. “Tiny said it’s a one-man show. There ain’t no jury, and there ain’t no defense. The sheriff caught me with the money, I gave it to him and confessed that I stole it. So the judge decides how many years that’s worth, and that’s all there is to it. So there ain’t no use in you trying to be there. Don’t worry about it. I’ll write you a letter from prison.” When it was time for Warren to go, and he was still in a state of despair, John told him to make up his mind to make peace with it because he already had. “Now go home and take care of your family.”

A day after Warren’s visit, a US deputy marshal brought in an odd little fellow with a bushy white beard and a black patch over one eye. He was arrested for cattle rustling. Tiny put him in the cell next to John’s and informed him that he would be getting a plate of supper in about an hour. Then he said, “John, brought you some company. This feller’s name is George Capp. He’s goin’ to court for stealin’ cattle. Maybe ol’ Judge Grant will go ahead and try the two of you.”

“Judge Grant?” Capp grunted. “Raymond Grant? Is that the judge who’s gonna sentence me? That ain’t hardly fair. He’s the crotchety ol’ buzzard that sent me to The Unit last time.”

“Well, it don’t look like it cured you of your habit,” Tiny responded with a chuckle. “How long did he senten. . .