A Good Day to Die by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page B

Pardee in northwest Hangtree County were as much an occupation force to overawe the local inhabitants as they were a fighting force charged with suppressing hostile Comanches, Kiowas, and Lipan Apaches. The real pains of occupation had not yet even begun.
    A Yankee stranger in Hangtown, Sam Heller was little better than an outcast, a pariah. A dead shot and relentless foeman who kept coming until an opponent was beaten or dead, Sam had won grudging respect from sullen and resentful neighbors. A respect borne largely of fear, but no less real for that. He was known as a man not to be trifled with, best left alone.
    Sam was on good terms with Captain Ted Harrison, commanding officer at Fort Pardee. On several occasions, he had interceded with Army brass to mitigate some of the rigors of Hangtree’s status as occupied territory. It had won him few friends.
    On this fine Saturday morning in late June, he’d saddled his sure-footed steel-dust stallion at first light and rode out, following the long slanting slope into the highlands. Riding the hill country alone, he climbed to the summit of the Upland Plateau, topping the rim of the elevated landform covering much of north central Texas. Part of it cut diagonally southwest across Hangtree County, dividing it in two. North of the line was highlands, well-wooded hilly country. South lay vast, grassy plains.
    Most of the population of the county lived on the flat, the ranch lands of Long Valley, watered by the North and South Forks of the Liberty River. The twin forks joined east of Hangtown, flowing southeast across the state.
    The uplands were more sparsely settled. Some—not many—ranches and farms could be found there, most sited within ten miles or less of the plateau’s south rim. It was wild country, well-wooded timber broken up by hills and ravines.
    At midday, Sam trailed south, a fine, fresh-killed buck deer slung across the back of his horse. He’d had good hunting that morning.
    In his full adult prime, Sam was a rugged, raw-boned Titan, six feet two inches tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and long-limbed. He looked like a Viking on horseback, with a lion’s mane of shaggy yellow hair and dark blue gunsight eyes. He wore a battered slouch hat, a green and brown checked shirt, brown denims, and boots.
    An unusual sidearm hung in a custom-made holster at his right hip, a sawed-off Winchester Model 1866 rifle called a mule’s-leg. Even cut down at the barrel and stock, it was still as long as his thighbone.
    A pair of bandoliers loaded with spare cartridges was worn across his chest in an X. A Navy Colt .36 revolver was stuck in the top of his belt on his left side, worn butt out for a cross-belly draw. A Green River Bowie–type knife hung in a sheath at his left hip. Tied to the left-hand side of the saddle by rawhide thongs lashed to metal rings piercing the leather was a long, flat wooden box with a suitcase grip at one end. Its contents were a welcome equalizer to a man alone.
    Set at the edge of the no-man’s-land that was the Staked Plains, Hangtree County was a thoroughfare for outlaw gangs, renegades, hostile Indians, and even north-ranging Mexican bandidos.
    Sam was an outlander, but he had business in that part of Texas. Important business—government business. And he meant to see the job through.
    The hostility leveled at him by the townfolk was a bit wearing at times, and on such a day it was pure pleasure to ride off by himself into the hills and do some hunting. Deer, an animal more savory and less dangerous than Man.
    When the hunt was crowned with success well, that was a goodness. Gutted and wrapped in a canvas sheet, the carcass of a fat buck was slung head down behind the back of the saddle and tied in place by some lengths of rope.
    Dusty, the horse, didn’t mind. He was used to Sam’s ways and the scent of blood and death, animal or human, bothered him not at all. He was a warhorse.
    Sam headed