The Stampeders

Book 3: Savage Texas

by William W. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns; Historical Thrillers

Synopsis

A veteran and a gun-for-hire team up to take down a dangerous beauty in this Western by the authors of the New York Times bestselling Smoke Jensen series.

Angel of Death

When a lovely lady steps off a dusty stagecoach in Hangtree, the hardest heart skips a beat—and Sam Heller falls hard for her. What Hangtree doesn't know, however, is that Julia Pepperday isn't who she pretends to be. She is the daughter of the late Black Ear Skinner, a notorious outlaw who wanted his only child to have all the advantages in life and sent her back east.

Black Ear Skinner's apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, though. Julia has turned her back on the fancy boarding school and set her sights on Hangtree, because that's where Sam Heller has built a hard-earned fortune. Backed by her late father's gang, Julia is out to separate Sam from his money and destroy Hangtree in the process. But while Sam and Hangtree have lost their heads, Johnny Cross has kept his—and he's getting ready for war . . .

Release date: November 1, 2013

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 305

Sample

The preacher named Fulton had presented more sermons than he could count, and long ago lost any fear of speaking before crowds. Second nature for years now. Words flowed from him with the comfortable ease of an autumn breeze through an open window. Strong words, powerful. He’d seen grown men wipe tears under the influence of his sermons, and a time or two, when the Texas summer was at its peak and his oratory brimstone its hottest, watched weaker parishioners faint and drop right off their pews onto the well-worn floor of the Hangtree Church, overwhelmed. When that had happened he’d kept right on preaching while others tended to the overcome ones. Nothing deterred Fulton when he was going full-steam at what he was called to do.

So what, he wondered, was wrong today? Why was he stammering and stuttering so uncharacteristically through his sermon, mind adrift, thoughts roaming off in unwanted directions?

This never happened. He wondered if perhaps he were about to suffer an apoplectic attack of the sort that had killed his grandfather many years before, dropping him like a chopped weed. That grim rumination made it even harder to focus his thoughts.

Embarrassed by his poor performance, Fulton had kept his head lowered through much of the sermon so far, looking at the pages of his open pulpit Bible rather than the faces of his congregation. When he did glance up at them, they looked puzzled. Fulton was glad his wife was home nursing a cold this Sunday; her presence would have heightened his embarrassment.

Fulton actually knew exactly what was wrong with him. The source of his distraction was seated near the rear of the little sanctuary, clad in a dainty gingham dress that brought out the rich blue of her large eyes and enhanced the chestnut color of her thick, piled-up hair. From the moment the young, innocent-looking female stranger had slipped quietly into the church, her mere presence had overcome him. She was a beauty surpassing all others Pastor Fulton had seen in this dusty Texas backwater on the cusp of the Llano Estacado tableland. As a man devoted to righteousness, he habitually made a habit of eschewing anything that might provoke improper thoughts . . . but this young woman, a newcomer to Hangtree, was not making it easy for him. How could he avoid looking at someone seated in his congregation, directly in his line of sight? Each time his eyes swept across her, his thoughts fired off in directions he did not choose. He suspected he was not the only man fighting this particular battle: he’d seen the general reaction of the congregation when she had swept into the church-house and seated herself near the back during the congregational singing of “When I Can Read My Title Clear.” Old Deacon Walker, leading the singing, had broken into a coughing fit worthy of a man choking in smoke, but his unblinking seventy-year-old eyes followed the lovely visitor all the way to her pew, his thoughts becoming those of a virile and not particularly devout twenty-year-old man.

Fulton paused, having forgotten his place again. He raised his eyes from the Bible and knew it was hopeless, going on this way. He sighed loudly, leaned forward with forearms resting on the sloped top of the pulpit, and smiled wryly at his humble gathering of saints in a town dominated by sinners.

“I see no point in disputing the obvious: I am ill-prepared for today’s service, and am doing a poor job of it. You’ve noticed it too; I can see it in your faces. I can give you no excuse except to say I have had much on my mind these past days, and it has made me distracted and negligent. I’m sorry, friends. You deserve better, and in the future you shall have it.” He closed the Bible and smiled again.

“Are you sick, Preacher?” asked one of the elders in the front row of pews.

“No, Brother Ned. No. Just a lot on my mind lately.” He paused, then decided that, since he was lying to God’s people right here in God’s house, he might as well make the lie a good one. “Family concerns, from back home. My oldest uncle, a man like a father to me, near a century of age now, and finally succumbing to the years. I received the letter this week, and since then have wondered if he is even still among the living. I should not have let it keep me from doing my work as well as you have right to expect.”

“We’ll stop and pray for the old man right now, if you want, Preacher,” said the elder.

“I appreciate that, Ned,” Fulton replied. “We’ll have that prayer before we leave here today.” Fulton gave a tight smile and swept his eyes over the small crowd. They came to rest on the pretty young woman. “We have a guest today. That makes me particularly regret my poor execution of God’s work. I’m sorry, miss. Accept my apologies.”

She smiled, the image of grace and perfect femininity. Fulton felt his throat tighten and coughed to clear it.

The elder named Ned Randall stood. “Preacher, I feel led to share a verse of scripture that is a favorite of mine. Maybe others here will have verses of their own preference that could stand us in lieu of regular preaching today.” Randall straightened his shoulders and spoke his verse. “‘I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment, that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasuries.’”

Movement in the right rear corner of the sanctuary pulled Pastor Fulton’s eyes away from the beautiful visitor. At first glance it looked like some random heap of old clothing left for the local poor had been dumped on the end of the last pew and was shifting of its own weight, about to fall. A second look revealed the heap to be a man, clad in very tattered clothing and topped with a weathered derby. His garb was too heavy and abundant to be justified by the weather; this was evidently a man of the road who carried his entire wardrobe on his body. Fulton, as distracted all morning, had not previously observed the ragged stranger.

The man stood and lifted his unshaven face. “Hello, Preacher!” he said in a growling, murky voice. “Didn’t even know I was here, did you? My greetings to you and the good saints here on this fine Sabbath morning!” He doffed the derby, revealing a shaggy head of graying brown hair, and grinned at the people nearest him, most of whom shifted a few inches farther away. A woman on the far end of his pew rose, crossed the aisle, and took a seat on the other side of the sanctuary.

The ragged man lifted his shaggy chin and said loudly: “Proverbs 8:20 and 21.”

Fulton said, “Uh, are you asking me to look those verses up, sir?”

The ragged man shook his head. “No, sir . . . I’m just ’dentifying that them’s the verses quoted by our good brother on the front pew.”

“Is he right, Brother Ned?” asked Fulton.

“He’s right,” said the elder. “Always been favorite verses of mine. I just forgot to cite the reference when I gave them.”

Fulton looked back at the tattered fellow. “You know your Bible, sir, seemingly better than I do. May I ask your name?”

“Got a name right out of the Bible, I do. My mama, God rest her, opened her Bible up and stabbed a finger in and told the Lord to guide it to whatever name she was supposed to give me.”

“What was it?”

“Well, it wasn’t the best one she could have hit. I think she pointed before the Lord had a good enough hold on her finger.”

“So . . .” Fulton was beginning to be glad for this strange interruption; it was, at least, more interesting and less humiliating than stammering witlessly through a disjointed sermon while thinking sinful thoughts about a woman half his age . . . a woman come to worship in his own church, no less. He had a lot of repenting to do when he and the Lord found a private moment. “So what is your name?”

The man hung his head. “Judas, sir. Judas Aristocrat.”

“I . . . uh, I think you may mean Iscariot.”

“That’s right! Durn . . . all these years and I always say it wrong. ’Cause that’s how my mama said it. She wasn’t much for reading, Mama wasn’t. Couldn’t make out very good on any word with more than four letters.”

Fulton looked more closely at the man. “Sir, is that a gunbelt I see?”

“Yes, Preacher. Call me Jude. Folks take to ‘Jude’ better, y’see.”

“Very understandable, Jude. We . . . we ask that guns not be brought into the church-house during worship. It doesn’t seem fitting, you know.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I am. Preacher . . . you folks take up an offering on Sundays?”

“We do. Why do you ask?”

“I want to give something.”

“Thank you, sir. We’ll do that right now. Ushers?”

Four men rose and moved forward to the altar table in front of the pulpit, and there picked up four heavy wooden, deep-sided plates. They divided to the various sides of the two blocks of pews and began passing the plates. Most of the offerings placed in them were meager, though a couple of successful ranchers and a local banker gave more generously.

“I have a question, Preacher,” Jude said.

“Very well.”

“You told that pretty lady over there you were sorry the service wasn’t going good with her being a visitor. Well, me, I’m a visitor too, and you ain’t said no such a thing to me.”

“I failed to notice you before, sir. I am sorry.”

The collection plate reached Jude. “Just a moment,” he said, and reached into a pocket. Producing a few pennies, he dropped them in the plate. The usher moved to pull the plate back, but Jude grabbed his wrist. “Wait. Changed my mind.” He reached into the plate and scooped up what he’d dropped in, along with all the other money.

“What the . . . you can’t do that!” the usher bellowed. “Once it’s in the plate that money belongs to the church.”

Jude sighed, rolled his eyes, and drew out the pistol he’d brought into the church-house. Clicking the hammer back, he pointed it at the usher’s chest. “I’ll have what’s in all them plates, friend, and no more lip about it. And the rest of you, start cleaning out your pockets. I’ll take coin, bank notes, jewelry, even good folding knives and watches, if you got such.”

It took several moments for the congregation as a whole, and Preacher Fulton, to take in what was going on. They were being robbed. Robbed in church. Fulton, who had ceased to keep a loaded pistol hidden in the pulpit once the church elders had come up with the no-guns-in-church rule, felt helpless, along with the rest of his congregation.

Except one. One of the offering plates had just reached the beautiful chestnut-haired visitor. With it clutched in her hands, she watched the drama being played out on the other side of the aisle. For once she was not the center of attention, so nobody noticed the peculiar intensity with which she stared at the tattered man with the gun. Quietly she moved out of her pew and across the back of the church toward Jude, who was eyeing the door, planning his flight. He found himself face-to-face with the lady.

“Good God a’mighty!” Judas said. “You! ”

“Preacher,” she shouted toward the front of the church, “I have a verse to share, too! Book of First Pepperday, third chapter, fifth verse: ‘And lo, he who desecrated the house of the Lord verily beshat his own teeth on the following morn! ’” Then, with a sudden full swing, she pounded the rim of the heavy wooden collection plate very hard against the mouth of the thief, knocking out teeth and ragged pieces of gum, and driving most of the pink-and-crimson mess back into his throat. Jude reflexively swallowed teeth, flesh, and blood as he collapsed to the floor. His pistol fell from a hand gone as limp as the rest of him. Some of the men of the church, once past the shock of the sudden violence from so unexpected a source as a lovely young woman, surrounded the fallen man and commandeered his dropped pistol.

Behind his podium, Preacher Fulton lifted his hands and said, “Brethren, I’ve seen much in my days as a sinner, and even more in my days as a follower of the Lord, but I have never, never seen the like of that! We stand dismissed. And for God’s sake, somebody go fetch the law and let’s get this scoundrel out of here. Oh, a doctor, too . . . or dentist. Whichever you can find first. Amen and God bless us all.”

The pretty woman who had demolished one worship service and one human mouth stood over the crumpled outlaw, from whom blood flowed like a river. “Oh my,” she said. “Look what a mess I’ve made! Oh my!”

Johnny Cross had chanced to be across the street from the stagecoach stop the day Julia Pepperday Canton had arrived in Hangtree. That had been four days before she and her offering plate punished the intruder at the church service. Cross had been one of about a dozen men lucky enough to witness her emergence from the coach. The vision of an angel placing a delicate foot into a town that had far more in common with hell than heaven had literally stopped him in his tracks and taken his mind off the raw, burning whiskey he’d been on his way to imbibe down at the Dog Star Saloon at that time. The moment he’d seen her he’d removed his hat and tucked his long dark hair more neatly behind his ears, a habit when he spotted lovely women. He wanted to look his best in case she glanced his way. She did, just as he replaced his hat and noticed he’d planted his left boot in a steaming heap left by a passing horse. So much for appearing dignified and dashing before the prettiest visitor ever to grace Hangtree, Texas.

Cross had watched her make her way from the stage stop to the hotel, her luggage carried by a couple of youths she’d recruited with a few bats of her perfectly lashed eyes. Johnny vowed to himself that he’d find his chance to get to know this young woman. He’d make sure it happened.

As it turned out, the chance to meet Julia Canton found him with no effort on his part.

She sat before him now in the small back room at the Hangtree Church where Preacher Fuller had set up a humble library and study for himself. Church offices for preachers were a rarity in frontier outposts such as Hangtree—the notion of a clergyman keeping an office just like a banker or a mayor seemed overly uppity and citified—but Fulton found it easier to prepare his sermons within the walls of a consecrated building, and the privacy of the room made it good for talking with those who came for counsel. He’d been glad to let Cross borrow his study to interview Julia Canton in representation of the meager law enforcement personnel, formal and informal, of Hangtree.

“First off, miss, let me assure you that you are in no trouble,” Cross said to the doe-eyed beauty. “What you did in the church Sunday morning, as I understand it, was no assault on your part. It was a defensive act. That bastard . . . pardon me . . . that scoundrel was in the midst of robbing the church and its congregation. Blatant crime. And he was armed and a danger to everyone around him, especially since the elders there decided not to allow guns into the church-house anymore. You were the only person there to have the presence of mind to use something right at hand to stop what the son of a bi . . . uh, gun was doing. I commend you for it.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said. Her voice made Johnny think of fresh cream. “Where is the man now?”

“Once the doc got his bleeding stopped and stitched up his gums, they locked him up. Yesterday the sheriff hauled him off to the custody of the U.S. Marshal. Winds up he was lying about who he is, all that Judas nonsense. He’s a man named Josiah Enoch, known criminal wanted in just about every place a man can be wanted. All kinds of crimes, ranging from murder through bank robbery, highwayman crimes, attempted murder . . . and some I couldn’t decently talk about to a lady.”

She closed her eyes and gave a little shudder. “To think I was so close to such a bad man!”

“Not the sort you’re used to, huh?”

“Oh no. I grew up around good people, and in a good family.”

“That’s a blessing not to be took for granted, miss.”

“Please, call me Julia.”

“Call me Johnny.” With a fat stub of pencil pulled from a vest pocket, he scrawled her name down on a small paper tablet. She watched him closely. “Why are you taking down notes, Johnny? You said I am not in trouble.”

“I’m just trying to go by the book, Julia. Good records make for good law. Got a middle name?”

“Pepperday. My mother’s maiden name. She and Papa used to call me Pepper when I was small. I grew up some and decided I liked my first name better. I’ve gone by Julia ever since.”

“Where’d you grow up, Julia?”

“Georgia. Southern to the core. My papa taught me to follow his ways and be true to the South. I have been, all along.”

“I carried arms for the South back in the late conflict.” He skipped over telling her that the arms he’d c. . .