Day of Independence (25 page)

Mickey Pauleen rode under a bronze sky toward the Perez hacienda. The setting sun tinted its white walls gold, a gleaming El Dorado beckoning the little gunman closer.

Pauleen had no idea how much treasure Perez had stashed, and a safe would present a problem, but he figured there would be jewels and money aplenty lying around for the taking, enough to keep him in grand style for years.

There were no guards at the gate and Pauleen grinned.
All right, so far, so good.

He swung out of the saddle and led his horse into the echoing courtyard, the clatter and clang of its shod hooves loud on the flagstones. The fountain sang as it played, each drop of water falling like a silver coin into the basin, and to Pauleen this was yet another good omen.

He let the reins drop and looked around. There was no one in sight, and the gunman felt a stab of panic.

Had the place already been looted?

Pauleen took the stairs two at a time and burst into Perez's living quarters.

The ornate room seemed undisturbed, the floor was swept clean, and the furnishings glowed from a recent polish.

Housework suggested the presence of women, and Pauleen decided to take one with him when he left, the prettiest of them.

His spurs ringing on the wood floor, he walked around the room hunting for a safe.

There was none. As he suspected, the damned Mex didn't have enough sense to lock away his valuables. But a massive walnut desk with heavy iron drawer pulls stood near a window and promised much.

Pauleen tried a drawer. Locked. They were all locked.

The gunman gauged the strength of his Barlow and decided its thin blade would not force open such massive drawers. But a bowie would.

When he first entered the room Pauleen noticed a broad-bladed, engraved bowie knife on a deer-antler stand on a top of a dresser. The blade was thick at the base and twelve inches long, ideal for forcing open locked desks.

“Are you looking for these,
señor
?”

Pauleen turned, surprised.

A young woman of considerable beauty, despite a thin knife scar on her left cheek, stood watching him. She had a set of keys in her hand.

The woman wore a peasant blouse, richly embroidered, and a dark red skirt clung to her hips and swept to the floor. Her hair was inky black, falling straight and long over her bare shoulders. A tiny cross on a silver chain hung between her breasts.

Pauleen grinned. Right here was the woman he'd take with him.

“
Gracias, señorita
,” he said.

“
Señora
,” the woman said. “My husband is dead.”

“Too bad,” Pauleen said. “Give me the keys.”

The woman did as she was told.

“Is this where Sancho kept his treasure?” Pauleen said.

“Some of it,” the woman said. “There are other hiding places.”

“You'll show them to me?”

“Of course.”

“And after that pack a bag,” Pauleen said, his eyes dwelling on the swell of the señora's breasts. “You're leaving here with me.”

“As you wish,” the woman said.

After trying several keys Pauleen unlocked the desk's top drawer. Inside was a short-barreled Colt and bundles of money bound by rubber bands, all of it American bills.

Pauleen laid the money on the desktop, ten thousand dollars he reckoned, maybe more.

The bottom drawer was the largest, twice as high as the others.

That's where most of the treasure lay. Had to be. Excited, he bent from the waist and tried a key. Then another.

A moment later he screamed.

 

 

Twelve inches of Sheffield steel driven into his back by a hating woman can put a major hurt on a man.

The hilt of the bowie sticking out between his shoulder blades, Pauleen turned, his rodent face twisted by pain, and stared into the flashing black eyes of the Mexican woman.

“My husband was murdered by Sancho Perez only because you needed a horse, remember?” she said.

Pauleen remembered. “Sandoval,” he said through the blood that filled his mouth.

“Yes, that was his name. God brought you here to me that I could avenge him.”

Pauleen reached for his gun, but it was so heavy he couldn't pull it from the holster. So heavy... like an anvil...

His eyes flew wide open and he screamed.
¹

Pauleen fell dead at the woman's feet, and she stepped around his body and put the money back in the drawer. She then locked it and left the room.

Jane Cannan sat knitting, stiff-backed and severe in a rattan chair, a ball of dark gray yarn slowly unwinding at her feet.

Ranger Hank Cannan, looking more like a grouchy walrus than ever, contemplated the table beside his bed. It held no whiskey, no makings, just a bottle of prune juice and a spoon. His life, he decided, had taken a decidedly downward turn.

And he was no longer in his comfortable hotel room.

Jane had decided that the hotel was far too expensive and she'd procured a single room in what she'd described as “a respectable, God-fearing home, free of tobacco and strong drink.”

That the house had a homicidal cat named Precious who despised Cannan and ambushed him at every turn was neither here nor there to Jane.

Someone tapped on the door and Jane said, “Enter.”

Hat in hand, Mayor Curtis stepped inside.

“Good morning, Mayor,” Jane said. “And what can we do for you? I see most of the Mexicans have gone.”

“Indeed, ma'am,” Curtis said. “Word came from the rurales that there are heavy rains to the south and they've gone home.”

“Good news, Mayor. Did you provide adequate provisions?”

“Yes, ma'am. Enough water and food to see them through.”

A silence stretched, then Frank Curtis said, “I'm here to see Ranger Cannan.”

“His wounds hurt, but Dr. Krueger has supplied laudanum to ease the pain. Apart from that he's feeling as well as expected.”

“How long did the doc say you'd be laid up, Ranger Cannan?” Curtis said.

“The doctor says at least another month,” Jane said.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” Curtis said.

“And so is Mr. Cannan, I assure you.”

The mayor reached into his pocket and produced a sheet of paper. “Here are the names of our dead,” he said. “It's the decision of the town fathers that we set up a granite memorial on the riverbank to record the sacrifice of those who fought on July fourth for our independence from tyranny and fear.”

“Excellent, Mayor,” Jane said. “These names will go on the memorial?”

“Yes, ma'am, with Ranger Cannan's approval.”

“Then give the list to me, Mayor. I'll take care of it.”

“No, you won't!”

Jane and Curtis looked at Cannan in surprise.

“Well, Henry, really,” Jane said, her face shocked.

“This is my job, Jane. Leave it alone. Frank, give me the list.”

“But—”

“No buts, Jane,” Cannan said. “Now mind your own damned business.”

Jane dabbed a small lace handkerchief to her eyes. “This is all the thanks I get for my love and devotion,” she said, sobbing. “It's too much to bear.”

Cannan ignored his distraught wife and took the list from Curtis. After a glance, he said, “Come back later, Frank. I'll write down what I want on the memorial.”

“Just too much to bear...” Jane sobbed.

“Ranger Cannan, this town owes you its very existence,” Curtis said. “We'll inscribe the stone anyway you want.”

“Half an hour, Frank,” Cannan said.

After the mayor left, the Ranger said, “Jane, get me pen and paper.”

Her back as stiff as a poker, his wife flounced out of the room. But she returned a little later with pen, ink, and paper, and a small portable writing desk.

“For all the thanks I get...”

“Shh, Jane,” Cannan said. “Let me write.” And this was what Texas Ranger Hank Cannan wrote that day:

Hank Cannan laid down his pen and, for the first and only time in his life, allowed himself a tear.

William W. Johnstone was born in southern Missouri, the youngest of four children. He was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. Despite this, he quit school at age fifteen.

“I have the highest respect for education,” he says, “but such is the folly of youth, and wanting to see the world beyond the four walls and the blackboard.”

True to this vow, Bill attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion (“I saw Gary Cooper in
Beau Geste
when I was a kid and I thought the French Foreign Legion would be fun”) but was rejected, thankfully, for being underage. Instead, he joined a traveling carnival and did all kinds of odd jobs. It was listening to the veteran carny folk, some of whom had been on the circuit since the late 1800s, telling amazing tales about their experiences, that planted the storytelling seed in Bill's imagination.

“They were mostly honest people, despite the bad reputation traveling carny shows had back then,” Bill remembers. “Of course, there were exceptions. There was one guy named Picky, who got that name because he was a master pickpocket. He could steal a man's socks right off his feet without him knowing. Believe me, Picky got us chased out of more than a few towns.”

After a few months of this grueling existence, Bill returned home and finished high school. Next came stints as a deputy sheriff in the Tallulah, Louisiana, Sheriff's Department, followed by a hitch in the U.S. Army. Then he began a career in radio broadcasting at KTLD in Tallulah, which would last sixteen years. It was there that he fine-tuned his storytelling skills. He turned to writing in 1970, but it wouldn't be until 1979 that his first novel,
The Devil's Kiss,
was published. Thus began the full-time writing career of William W. Johnstone. He wrote horror (
The Uninvited
), thrillers (
The Last of the Dog Team
), even a romance novel or two. Then, in February 1983,
Out of the Ashes
was published. Searching for his missing family in a postapocalyptic America, rebel mercenary and patriot Ben Raines is united with the civilians of the Resistance forces and moves to the forefront of a revolution for the nation's future.

Out of the Ashes
was a smash. The series would continue for the next twenty years, winning Bill three generations of fans all over the world. The series was often imitated but never duplicated. “We all tried to copy the Ashes series,” said one publishing executive, “but Bill's uncanny ability, both then and now, to predict in which direction the political winds were blowing brought a certain immediacy to the table no one else could capture.” The Ashes series would end its run with more than thirty-four books and twenty million copies in print, making it one of the most successful men's action series in American book publishing. (The Ashes series also, Bill notes with a touch of pride, got him on the FBI's Watch List for its less than flattering portrayal of spineless politicians and the growing power of big government over our lives, among other things. In that respect, I often find myself saying, “Bill was years ahead of his time.”)

Always steps ahead of the political curve, Bill's recent thrillers, written with myself, include
Vengeance Is Mine, Invasion USA, Border War, Jackknife, Remember the Alamo, Home Invasion, Phoenix Rising, The Blood of Patriots, The Bleeding Edge,
and the upcoming
Suicide Mission.

It is with the western, though, that Bill found his greatest success. His westerns propelled him onto both the
USA Today
and the
New York Times
bestseller lists.

Bill's western series include
The Mountain Man, Matt Jensen, the Last Mountain Man, Preacher, The Family Jensen, Luke Jensen, Bounty Hunter, Eagles, MacCallister
(an Eagles spin-off),
Sidewinders, The Brothers O'Brien, Sixkiller, Blood Bond, The Last Gunfighter,
and the upcoming new series
Flintlock
and
The Trail West.
May 2013 saw the hardcover western
Butch Cassidy, The Lost Years.

“The Western,” Bill says, “is one of the few true art forms that is one hundred percent American. I liken the Western as America's version of England's Arthurian legends, like the Knights of the Round Table, or Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Starting with the 1902 publication of
The Virginian
by Owen Wister, and followed by the greats like Zane Grey, Max Brand, Ernest Haycox, and of course Louis L'Amour, the Western has helped to shape the cultural landscape of America.

“I'm no goggle-eyed college academic, so when my fans ask me why the Western is as popular now as it was a century ago, I don't offer a 200-page thesis. Instead, I can only offer this: The Western is honest. In this great country, which is suffering under the yoke of political correctness, the Western harks back to an era when justice was sure and swift. Steal a man's horse, rustle his cattle, rob a bank, a stagecoach, or a train, you were hunted down and fitted with a hangman's noose. One size fit all.

“Sure, we westerners are prone to a little embellishment and exaggeration and, I admit it, occasionally play a little fast and loose with the facts. But we do so for a very good reason—to enhance the enjoyment of readers.

“It was Owen Wister, in
The Virginian
who first coined the phrase
‘When you call me that, smile.'
Legend has it that Wister actually heard those words spoken by a deputy sheriff in Medicine Bow, Wyoming, when another poker player called him a son of a bitch.

“Did it really happen, or is it one of those myths that have passed down from one generation to the next? I honestly don't know. But there's a line in one of my favorite Westerns of all time,
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,
where the newspaper editor tells the young reporter, ‘When the truth becomes legend, print the legend.'

“These are the words I live by.”