Whiskey Woods

Book 1: Whiskey Woods

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

In a thrilling new series set during the explosive Texas Whiskey Wars, a proud family of distillers faces off with a ruthless rival who’s trading shots of liquor with hot lead. . . .

The small but lively town of Glen Rose, Texas, is famous for its home-brewed whiskey—thanks to the Stark family’s secret recipe. Over the years, Civil War veteran Jed Stark and his tough-as-nails mom Minnie have managed to turn their small family distillery into a highly successful business. But whiskey’s not the only thing that’s brewing in Glen Rose. There’s plenty of trouble, too—namely Merlin Sheldrake, a rival distiller who’s got the money, power, and connections to swallow the Starks’ operation in a single gulp. Sure, his rancid brand of rotgut whiskey is no match for their smooth Texas blend. But this is more than friendly competition. This is nasty, all-out war. . . .

 

First, Sheldrake sends a couple of goons to the Stark ranch to steal their family recipe—but they get a faceful of buckshot from Minnie instead. Then, he sets fire to the Stark distillery, burning everything to the ground. Thankfully, Jed has a stash of stills hidden in a cave and no intention of backing down. But then the whiskey wars take an even darker turn—when Minnie is kidnapped by Sheldrake’s hired guns. Now Jed has no choice but to fight this fight to the bitter end. Even if the blood flows faster than whiskey, Jed is prepared to teach these lowlifes a lesson: Don’t mess with Texas. Especially when there’s family, honor, and whiskey involved. . . .

 

JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. WHERE TEXANS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, HONOR—AND WHISKEY.

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

Jedediah Stark, a lean, whip-hard man in a faded blue sweat-stained shirt beneath worn leather braces, leaned back from raking a steel poker over a bed of hardwood coals.

He watched them for a moment as they pulsed and glowed beneath a wide steel pan. This, as very few folks knew, was one of the tricks the Stark family had used for generations of making whiskey, first back in Tennessee, then there at Whiskey Woods, the longtime family ranch outside of Glen Rose, Texas.

Stark stood up straight, stretching his back and letting out a long pent-up sigh, sounding like steam from a worn valve. He rubbed the small of his back and squinted, drops of sweat sliding down his forehead.

Jed, third-generation Stark to live most of his days and nights on this land, was a tall, broad-shouldered fellow with a gaze difficult to look away from if you were a lady and daring to meet eye to eye if you were a man.

He tugged free a rumpled red kerchief from a trouser pocket, mopped at his sweat-stippled brow, and thought about how fine a nice long, cool drink of water would taste then. Movement to his right, below the long eave of the open entrance to his still, caught his eye.

He shifted his gaze and squinted out into the hot, midafternoon sun cooking the dooryard. There lay his old droop-eared, long-boned red hound named Redeye. The dog was a solid, if lazy beast, but performed admirably the only real task asked of him—to lend a cold eye and a gruff bark of warning to strangers.

So far as Jed knew, Redeye was past the ten-year-old mark, but it didn’t really matter. The beast had been born old, as if he had had no youth nor prime middle years. For a whole long time, for as long as Jed had known him, which was most of the beast’s life, Redeye had acted as if each movement cost him an incredible amount of effort. It seemed only by the grace of good fortune was he able to perform the task of rising, walking slowly to his water bowl or his grub. Once sated and filled, it was all the hound could do to drop, as if clubbed on the head with a sledge, into another of his lengthy, snore-filled snooze sessions.

That it had turned out to be another hot day, especially for April, was not a surprise to Jed, but this hot this early in the season only meant more of the same in his experience, born of roving this spot all his days thus far.

All that was save for three years during the cursed war when he was called away and was nearly killed every moment of it, or so it had felt. And at the end of it, or at least of his time in it, never had a man been more relieved to return to his place of birth.

From then on, he vowed to never roam further than thirty or so miles from it again. Glen Rose was as good a town to live near as any other, and Whiskey Woods an ideal homeplace.

The thousand-acre ranch had been established by his grandpappy, Hawcliffe Stark, long years before on reaching the region from Tennessee and deciding to sink roots.

Jed cast his gaze once more on ol’ Redeye, who had roused himself enough from his usual slumberous pose to raise his head from the dirt, droopy hound dog eyes taking in whatever it was he had first heard.

Normally, on a steaming day such as this, the old dog would slump, slow-walking, from shade spot to shade spot, only to collapse once more as if shot. It never failed to elicit a chuckle from Jed.

As the whiskey maker wiped sweat from his trim beard, he saw the dog not drop his head back to the earth but do the opposite and force himself to sit up. Must indeed be something out of the ordinary, thought Jed. He looked again, visoring his eyes against the day as he walked closer toward the sunlight from where he had been toiling before the fire at his still.

Jed looked up the long, winding lane that led from the plateau above the ranch toward the road that led to the town of Glen Rose. He had learned as a boy to always trust a beast’s attention, no matter a dog, a cat, a cow, or a horse. They sensed disturbances, differences, far sooner than humans could.

He continued to squint up the road, glancing back once at Redeye, whose flopping ears now showed slight boldness, as if they had sprouted a little dignity. He saw the first possibilities of telltale puffs of someone, or something, approaching the ranch along the dusty roadway. He adjusted the angle of his big visoring hand against his forehead.

“It’s likely Loud,” said Jed, not looking over again at his silent conversation pard, ol’ Redeye.

Loudon Paley was his newspaperman friend, a chubby Easterner who had made his way West some years before, seeking the woolly and the raw, grist for his story mill, revenge tales resulting in foolish gunplay and unnecessary mayhem.

What the man had found instead was a town, one Glen Rose, Texas, pretty enough, and sizable enough with 216 residents and another couple of hundred in the immediate surrounding area.

What he also found was that Glen Rose had need of a newspaper. In fact, it had never had one, and as the self-proclaimed “Whiskey Making Capital of Texas … and maybe the world,” Glen Rose seemed ripe and ready, at least to the residents and to the puffed-up mayor, Fendall Hawkins, to welcome the services of a back-East-educated journalist.

Much to Loudon Paley’s lasting regret, he had, in a fit of whiskey-fueled pique, agreed to be that man and to fulfill that role for Glen Rose. Regret because nothing much ever happened in Glen Rose.

And as Paley was a chatty type and not prone to sitting in the shadows and listening for news, he found himself knowing lots of people but not having all that many friends.

Somehow, Jed wasn’t quite certain how it came to be, he and Paley had become friends. For Jed’s part, being with Loud was simple enough. Jed was inclined toward quietness, and as Loud was, well, loud, they struck a perfect balance.

Many afternoons, practically year-round, Loud could be counted on to visit Whiskey Woods, on foot or more often to ride his old mule, Alice, out to the ranch for conversation and a sip of whiskey from the shop bottle.

But as Jed continued to watch the clouds of dust puff up and grow, closer and larger, he noticed that whoever it was, for it surely wasn’t Loud, was neither a single man afoot nor a rider on horseback—or muleback.

As Jed continued to watch and sip tepid water from a canning jar, he saw steady plumes of dust rise up, closer, ever closer on this hot day. It was someone in a buggy. A small, two-wheel buggy. And this was no person intent on doing anything but getting to the end of the long, winding lane quick.

It wouldn’t be his sweetheart, Lilly, because she would be busy at the diner. Besides, he’d seen her the night before and hoped to do so again this night.

Of course, Jed received visits from folks every few days, and sometimes with more frequency than that, but he knew well the schedules of all the saloon owners and others who made regular trips to Whiskey Woods to buy whiskey.

This was not one of those days and, from the approaching look of this buggy, it was not one of his regular visitors. But within another half a minute, Jed Stark knew who this visitor was. And despite his predilection for calmness, level thinking, and even acting in his life, Jed felt his guts tighten a smidgen. For he realized that this visitor was one Merlin Sheldrake.

And Sheldrake, while he had only been to the ranch two previous times, had been there for the same reason each time. Jed didn’t think this time would be any different. The man would once again make him an offer that most other folks in the region, or perhaps the state, would be hard-pressed to refuse. Sheldrake wanted to buy Stark’s distillery, his whiskey, the recipe—everything about it.

For certain the land would never belong to anyone but a Stark, at least not while Jed lived. And with even more certainty, he knew that they would never sell the distillery and certainly not their family recipe for Whiskey Woods whiskey. Never ever ever, even if he was killed defending it. He would take it to his grave.

And if Jed was that certain about that point, then his mother, Minerva Florabelle Stark, known as Minnie, or by Jed as Mama, or to folks who knew the family well enough, Mother Stark, was doubly certain. For they were the only surviving Starks of their line in the world, and that coveted recipe was not written down anywhere. Never had been, no sir. It resided in his head and in his mother’s head, and that was it, that was all.

It would die with them. And then where would his so-called rivals be—the folks, such as Sheldrake and other whiskey makers, who thought they could make a golden liquid half as good as Whiskey Woods brew?

Jed sighed and rubbed a hand over his weary face. This was not something he had suspected was going to happen yet again, and it was certainly not an encounter he was looking forward to. For he would have two knob-headed folks to deal with. Sheldrake and Mama. The thought that they were similar in so many ways made Jed chuckle. And doubly so when Jed mused on Mama’s reaction should such a proclamation ever crawl out of Jed’s mouth.

Life in Glen Rose had been fine before Sheldrake came to town four years earlier. He recognized that this area of the country was growing as more folks moved in and settled.

With that fact in mind, he reasoned rightly that Glen Rose, famous for its whiskey-making traditions and culture, would be an ideal place to set up operations for the whiskey production and distribution arm of his business holdings, of which booze was the fastest growing and most lucrative.

Jed knew that the man had made much money as an industrialist and railroad man in the upper Midwest and had been slowly broadening his empire. The rangy whiskey maker sighed in silence and walked into the sunlight from the darkened, albeit hotter, interior of the whiskey shed. It was a largely open-sided affair with long, low overhangs of roof that in the infrequent wet times kept the rain from soaking him while he worked.

The cooler months were such that Jed was plenty warm even without the protection of much in the way of walls, as he spent much of his time tending the fire and receiving plenty of heat.

In fact, the winter months were about the only time when Jed felt about right, not too hot and not too cold. The ever-present urge to make successful, consistently Stark-tasting whiskey kept the man from caring all that much about his own comforts.

“What are you thinking, eh, dog?” said Jed, barely glancing at Redeye, who sat erect now and was working up a growl deep in his old chest. That didn’t bother Jed much. Redeye looked to be more of a menace than he was.

Despite Sheldrake having met the dog on two previous occasions, the rangy hound remained unimpressed with the rich fat man, an attitude of which Jed approved. It was an attitude, to Jed’s relief, that his dear surly Mama shared with the dog.

As if his very thoughts cued her, Mother Stark strode on down from beneath the shade porch of the house. She looked, as Jed knew she would, tight and hard and working up a case of mean. And she was toting Ol’ Shredder, a single-barrel shotgun that had been in the Stark family, according to Mama, “since Methuselah was in knee pants.”

The gun—so named because it had been known to make a ribboned mess out of whatever it was that it was aimed at and its trigger squeezed at—was now aimed and ready.

This was due in part to the fact that the shells Mama used were nasty things brimming with lead nuggets the size of a child’s fingertips. And when she gave that trigger a tug, Ol’ Shredder spoke like a dragon that had been kept shut up in a dark place for far too long. It would roar and growl and cough and belch flame and smoke, and it would spit those maiming nuggets as if for the pure enjoyment of it.

Jed also noted, with mild relief, that she had not yet cocked the vicious barking thing—which, with Mama as the wielder, didn’t mean all that much. The woman was adept at ratcheting back that hammer and sending a dose of “Mother Stark’s spicy mix!” at anything or anyone she deemed in need of her attention.

“Mama,” said Jed in a low, even voice. “You don’t even know what he wants yet.”

She swung her gaze from the fast-approaching dust-clouded buggy and fixed her big son with a hard eye. “I know and you know what that thieving brute wants. And you know and I know he ain’t about to get it. But I do know what he’s going to get. Held my trigger finger at bay for far too long where that fat rascal’s concerned. No more, I say!”

Jed sighed. “Mama, don’t kill him. Stark or no, the local law, as you well know, is no friend of ours. Marshal Chiswick will lock you up on murder charges quick as a wink.”

“I’d like to see him try!” she said, cackling and squaring off.

Sheldrake’s buggy, driven by the man himself, slowed and turned so that all he had to do was stay seated and address them from there, as he had done on his two previous forays out to Whiskey Woods. But then Jed noted that Sheldrake set the brake and looped the lines. It looked as if the fat man in the fine but dusty suit was about to step down.

Yep, he was, and it was not a pretty sight.

“What in tarnation do you think you are doing, Sheldrake?” said Mother.

The man did not reply until he grunted himself down, half backward, out of the buggy.

In a none-too-quiet voice, Mama said to Jed, “That backside of his looks like two pigs fighting under a blanket!”

Red-faced, out of breath, and now facing them, Merlin Sheldrake once more stood on the firm earth of the Stark’s dooryard. “Well now, it is nice to see you both again, I’m sure.”

Redeye hadn’t yet moved, but Jed noticed the dog was tense all over, every muscle tight and set to hurtle his lean form into a lunge. The growling sound he’d made earlier had only increased in volume.

The hound’s floppy ears were angled back, as if he were already darting forward at tremendous speed—something that Jed had never considered would be possible for the beast. All it would take is one step from where Sheldrake stood and that dog would be on him like stink on dung, thought Jed.

And if it happened, he didn’t think he would work too hard to stop the beast. He would come to Sheldrake’s aid, but Jed didn’t think he would hurry himself at it. Time might tell, he thought, getting small pleasure from watching everybody work through their various stances.

He regarded the smile on the rich man’s fleshy face, pink and clean-shaven save for a thin fancy-man mustache that always looked to Jed to require more effort than it was worth, given its meager showing.

Sheldrake turned to Mama with what Jed had to assume was intended to be a winning, ingratiating smile. “Mother Stark, I must say it is lovely to see you. Why, you look younger with each week that passes, I do declare!”

As Jed watched, doing his best but not succeeding in suppressing a wincing smile, he was about to say something to help suppress the ruckus that he knew was on its way. He was too late.

“First off,” growled Mama from somewhere down deep in her throat, the sound she was making matching that steady menacing gurgle that Redeye had maintained all the while Sheldrake had been there, “You didn’t answer my question, curse you!”

Sheldrake’s smile began to slip but he yanked it back up again and began to splutter, but the old woman cut him off because she kept right on talking.

“You great, greasy-jowled, slop-bellied fool! What makes you think you can set foot on Stark land?” Even as she said this, she raised Ol’ Shredder from the near waist height she lugged the heavy thing at, taking her time and seeming to enjoy the fact that Sheldrake’s beady eyes were locked on the thing, the brows rising with the gun.

“Why, my dear lady,” he said, offering a slight bow, his derby shucked and clutched tight to his chest. His gleaming bald head was pink, and Jed saw the sweat bead there.

On anyone else he might think the man was sweating extra out of nervousness, but with Sheldrake, Jed didn’t think so, not given the bold, swaggering way Sheldrake normally carried himself in life.

The fat man held up his free hand, palm out, and wagged it as if he were waving bye-bye to them, which Jed wished he would do, and soon.

“My dear, dear Mother Stark!”

Jed winced again.

“And that’s another thing, you pathetic mess! What in the name of all that is kind and decent in the world gives you the right to address me as anything other than Mrs. Stark? Huh? I ain’t dear or sweet to you, and I certainly ain’t your mama, and for that I count myself among the luckiest of folks.”

Mama certainly was worked up today, thought the whiskey maker. Speaking of, he had things to do and this unexpected and annoying visit had best get to its inevitable end. Jed cleared his throat, and Sheldrake looked over at him, with what Jed thought was a begging look, as if Jed might rescue him from the hole he’d dug for himself.

Nothing doing, Jed thought. “See here, Sheldrake. I have things to do, and standing here listening to you jaw and seeing you sweat and stammer and not get to the point is nothing but annoying. Hop to the game, man, or get gone.”

“Right, yes, sir, Jed, eh, Mr. Stark.” Here Sheldrake glanced quickly at the old woman toting the shotgun before looking back to Jed. “The reason I am here,” he straightened and stiffened his back, seeming to remember that he was not a mewling, pathetic man but a wealthy, confrontational businessman who always gets what he wants. “I came here today with nothing but the best of intentions.”

The old woman snorted and spat at the dusty earth before her boots.

“Mama,” said Jed. “Let’s let the man speak his piece.”

She mumbled something but didn’t commit to a yes or no.

“Yes, yes,” said Sheldrake. “You see, I know my previous offers to purchase your fine whiskey recipe fell short of the mark you have in mind, and I respect that. I really do! That is why, on reflection and consideration of the fact that you have been an established presence here in the Glen Rose region for a good many years—”

“None longer!” howled Mama.

“Yes, well, I drove all the way out here on this stifling day to make you a third and final offer.” Here he had to once again hold up his hands because he saw on Mrs. Stark’s face what what was coming. “No, no, please, ma’am, please let me finish.”

He glanced at Jed, who nodded.

“Thank you, sir. Now my final offer effectively doubles,” here Sheldrake’s voice faltered as if the words were causing him no small amount of grief to utter. “I … I offer you double the amount of my last offer. I daresay you recall that figure, Mr. Stark?”

Jed eyed the man through squinted eyes, his arms folded over his chest. He didn’t really recall the specifics of that offer, aside from recalling that the amount was substantial even then, and double that was nothing but a foolish figure, to be sure. But it was no use, never would be. But how to convince the man of it? Sheldrake was a hard learner.

“Look here, Mr. Sheldrake, we both appreciate—”

“Ha! Curse your hide, Sheldrake!”

Jed sighed and glared at Mama, then back to the visitor. “We both appreciate your coming out here on this fine day, prettier than a picture if you ask me,” said Jed, digging a little at the fat man’s complaint about the day being sweltering, “but as we told you last time, and the time before that, the Stark whiskey recipe is not for sale. We like it here fine, and we like what we do, making whiskey. That’s it, that’s all, man. I’m sorry you wasted your time.”

Jed wasn’t really sorry. The man was a grown fellow—overgrown, more like. Sheldrake made his choice and so did Jed, a whole lot of them on this day alone.

“But I don’t think you understand me, Mr. Stark!”

Sheldrake’s tone, Jed sensed, had shifted, changing from soft and placating to something with a harder edge. Not much, but it was there. “What I am offering you is twice the amount of cash. And for that all I want is a piece of paper with the recipe written on it. Naturally, too, for that amount of money, I have to ask that you both not share that recipe with anyone else for a period of, say, a dozen years. But!”—here Sheldrake held up a thick, pink index finger, as if prodding the underbelly of the air itself—“since we are, shall we say, friends, and since we are both men of the world and seem to know one another’s mind, I am prepared to make certain, albeit limited, concessions.”

Sheldrake tapped his chin and pooched his lips a moment as if deciding between pie or cake at a diner. Finally, a smile broadened on his face, and he nodded. “Yes, here is what I am prepared to do: I will allow you both to retain ownership of this pretty homestead the Starks have carved for themselves here.

“You will not, of course, be allowed to make whiskey yourselves for another dozen years, it’s true, but with money such as that, only a fool would wish to continue working like a galley slave, eh?”

He chuckled and regarded them.

Jed wanted to ask the man if he was funning them, but he knew the answer. He was surprised that his mother hadn’t jumped down the fat man’s throat almost at once. He glanced at the old woman and saw a rare sight, indeed.

Mama Stark was staring at the fat stranger, her shotgun halfway poised to deliver, the hammer uncocked. But it was her mouth that surprised Jed. It was sagged open and her eyebrows were raised high. He knew about what she was feeling. He himself could hardly believe what he’d heard.

Jed cleared his throat. “Sheldrake, you have to be joshing me.” He advanced a half step on the man, Redeye tight to his right knee, advancing with him with steady dog half steps.

“As long as Starks are on this land, we will make whiskey. With our recipe. And we will sell our whiskey. That will never change, and we aren’t going anywhere,” said Jed, advancing. He paused when he was within a foot and a half of the redfaced, sweating man.

He’d only come this close because he was not a little worried that after all that insulting blather, Mama was about to twitch on that trigger and turn the richest man in these parts into a slopped, oozing, bloodied heap of dying fat man.

A sheen of oil, likely grease oozing from Sheldrake’s pores, slicked the fellow’s features, a look that made even the normally placid Jed want to punch the man. It smacked of laziness and overindulgence and craven cowardice in the face of life’s everyday challenges. None of these were something Jedediah Stark tolerated in himself, and barely so in others.

He made exceptions, of course, for folks who were good at heart, such as his chubby pal, the newsman Loudon Paley. Loud liked his pie, perhaps a pinch too much, but he was intelligent, challenging, and worried about the plight of the less fortunate in life. And Loud woke up each day, Jed was convinced, with an earnest desire to help other folks. A good man.

On the other hand, given what Jed knew of Merlin Sheldrake, he had to say that there was very little kindness or good-hearted intention to the man. He was a loud-mouthed, brazen braggart with one urge and one urge only—to own everything he desired.

The closer he drew to Sheldrake the more Jed realized the fat man also had an awful stink wafting off him, like a ditch critter gone bloated in the sun. Time to get him gone.

“Look here, Sheldrake, I’m not your friend, I don’t know your mind—a freakish thought at best—so I will tell you now, for the last time, we don’t want to sell our whiskey recipe. The only thing we sell is the whiskey itself, to folks we know and folks we like. Now we didn’t ask you to come here once, let alone three times, each time with the same unwanted offer. Stop it and go. Now.”

As Jed spoke, he straightened and knew his face was growing redder with the heat of the moment. His right arm assumed a long, straight point to it that whiskered by the fat man’s head and aimed at one thing—the fool’s silly little buggy.

For one, two, three gulps, all Sheldrake could do was work his thick wet lips like a banked fish, his eyes round and wide.

He was about to speak when Jed, in a lowered tone, said, “If you don’t do as I say, and do it right now, Mr. Sheldrake, I will have no choice but to turn Mother Stark loose on you.”

As if to slam the point in place, like a well-smacked nail, from slightly behind and off to Jed’s right rose up the deadly, oiled, throaty cold clicking of a shotgun hammer knocking back all the way to the deadliest position of all.

“And I ain’t never, not once, failed to hit my target, mister. Keep that in mind, you great sloppy oaf. Now do as my son says and get gone!”

Standing less than an arm’s length from Jed—who was a head taller and a good deal fitter, leaner, and more muscled than Sheldrake—the rich man looked up at him, then over at Mother Stark, his newly narrowed eyes locked on her sneering face. And he did something that once more surprised the two Starks.

Sheldrake spoke, this time in a low, cold, grating voice that rivaled the steely ratcheting of the shotgun’s hammer in menace. “And I have never, not once, failed to get what I want in life, woman.” The words curled from his mouth like smoke on the slightest of breezes. “I will have your recipe. Or I will see you both barking in the netherworld, begging for my forgiveness. Keep that in mind.”

He turned and walked to his buggy and climbed up into it with a smoothness and speed that Jed thought impossible for the fat fellow, considering his bumbling entrance and descent from the same buggy not . . .