Read Online Forty Times a Killer by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online

“I’ll see what I can do.”
    Smalley almost choked as he suppressed a giggle.
    I remember sitting there in the chill of the night, the steel brace cold against the skin of my wasted leg, thinking that even the most naïve circuit preacher would have more sense than the two fools mocking John Wesley Hardin. The preacher would know all too well that it’s dangerous to tease the devil.
    As most of you will recall, winter came early that year of 1871, and by the time we reached the Sabine River we all shivered with cold.
    The lawmen, taking no chances, lashed Wes’s feet under his pony again and placed him in the middle of the procession as we prepared to cross the swollen waters.
    Wes, playing his role of terrified youngster to the hilt, rambled on about death and life everlasting, and when we were midway across he even launched loudly and tunelessly into a grand old hymn.
    â€œShall we gather at the river,
Where bright angel feet have trod,
With its crystal tide forever
Flowing by the throne of God?”
    â€œShut the hell up,” Smalley yelled. His horse had stumbled and plunged him underwater and he was soaked to the skin and mad as a rained-on rooster.
    â€œSorry, Mr. Smalley,” Wes said. “As I get nearer to judgment and death, I feel a need for the comfort of religion.”
    â€œWail that damn song again, and you’ll be a sight closer to death than you think,” Smalley said.
    Wes grinned but said nothing. Taking my cue from him, I also kept my mouth shut.
    By the time we reached the far bank of the Sabine we were all frozen and wet, but we rode for two more miles before Stakes called a halt and told us to dismount and prepare a camp.
    There was a ramshackle ranch house in the distance, but Stakes said he wouldn’t ask for shelter, since the rancher was likely to be kin of his prisoner. “Go ask him if we can borry an axe, and then chop up some kindling,” he told me. “Be quick. It’s damn cold and we need a fire.”
    I did as I was told, but when I reached the gate to the property I quickly drew rein.
    A sign on the gate, badly printed with a brush and tar, warned:
    SHARPS .50 RANGED ON GATE.
    And under that, in a neater hand was There’s a hell of a lot of shooting going on around here.
    Stakes’ fears were justified. I figured the rancher must be kin of Wes’s, right enough.
    I opened the gate, made sure to close it, and then rode at a walk toward the ranch house, expecting a bullet at any time.
    The wind was cold and bladed through my soggy rags like a razor. The sky was grim, gray as slate, and under that gloomy tyrant the surrounding pines rustled and bowed, as though paying quaking homage.
    I was yet ten yards from the house when the door threw open on its rawhide hinges and a one-legged man with a crutch under his armpit and a Sharps in his hands stepped outside.
    â€œStay right where you are.” He was a large, heavy man, his face a brown triangle almost hidden behind a beard and unkempt mane of black hair. His eyes were blue and hostile. “I got a possum in the pot, coffee on the bile, but none o’ that’s fer you, on account of how I only got enough for my ownself. So ride on. There’s no grub here.”
    Then, to make sure I got the point, he said, “This here rifle gun is both wife and child to me. Just so you know.”
    I was scared, but I told him that a party of well-armed and determined state police and likely a town constable were camped to the west of his spread and needed to borrow an axe to cut kindling. Then I dropped John Wesley’s name, but the rancher seemed unimpressed.
    After a moment’s thought, he said, “There’s an axe in the woodshed over yonder. When you bring it back, leave it at the gate.”
    He turned, stepped inside, and slammed the door shut on me.
    Now, I’m sure the man had lost his leg in the war fighting for the Noble Cause, so I didn’t