William Johnstone - Blood Bond - Deadly Road to Yuma

The man lifted a shaky hand. “I saw him…up there…in the cab…dressed like…a conductor.”

“He was one of Shade’s men, all right,” Thorpe said.

“He had…a fifty-thousand-dollar…price on his head,” the dying man gasped.

“Who would put a bounty that big on some owlhoot?” Matt wanted to know. “He wasn’t even the leader of the gang!”

“It was…his father.”

“His father!” The exclamation came from Matt, Sam, and Thorpe all at the same time.

“Yeah.” The bearded man grimaced. “Senator…Jeffries. Bastard got me and all my men…killed…don’t figure we owe him…any loyalty anymore.”

Thorpe leaned over the man and said urgently, “Don’t die, you son of a bitch! You’ve got some more explaining to do!”

But it was too late. Thorpe was talking to a dead man.

Two days later, at dawn, Joshua Shade was led out of his cell at Yuma Prison and taken under heavy guard to the courtyard where a gallows awaited him. Under an arched door at the edge of that courtyard stood Matt Bodine, Sam Two Wolves, and Marshal Asa Thorpe.

“As best we’ve been able to piece it together,” Thorpe said, “Senator Jeffries knew his son had turned outlaw and had been trying to find him. He got word that the boy was riding with Shade’s gang just about the same time the news reached Washington that Shade had been captured and was going to be put on trial. The senator figured that Shade’s gang would try to rescue him, so he hired that killer, LaFollette, to put together a group of gunmen and follow Shade’s gang.”

“So they could get Jeffries away from the gang?” Matt asked.

Thorpe shook his head. Out in the courtyard, Shade and his guards had almost reached the thirteen steps that led up to the gallows.

“No, that fella Winslow overheard enough while he was with LaFollette’s bunch to put it together with the other things we know and figure that they were supposed to kill Thomas Jeffries, Shade, the rest of the gang, and anybody who knew anything about Jeffries riding with them.”

“That explains the bounty,” Sam said. “My God, to think that a man would pay to have his own son assassinated just to spare himself some political trouble.”

“The senator didn’t want it known that his son was an owlhoot,” Thorpe agreed. “He was willing to go to any length to cover that up, including putting pressure on the Justice Department to set me up as a Judas goat.”

Matt shook his head in awe at the brutal plan. “So you weren’t ever supposed to get Shade here. The senator figured Shade’s gang would kill you and free Shade, and then LaFollette and the rest of those hired guns could wipe out the gang.”

“That’s about the size of it,” Thorpe agreed. “They had to wait until Shade was back with the gang before they made their move, though. Senator Jeffries couldn’t risk leaving Shade alive to maybe reveal the truth.”

“Did Shade even know that Jeffries was related to a senator?” Matt asked.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Thorpe said with disgust in his voice. “Shade won’t—or can’t—answer any questions. He’s completely lost his mind now.”

They heard the outlaw’s ranting as he was led struggling up the steps to the platform. It was a mixture of Scripture, obscenity, and pure gibberish.

“That hombre’s crazy as a hydrophobia skunk,” Matt said. “Something must be rottin’ his brain.”

“It won’t have a chance to rot much longer,” Thorpe said. “Or, in one way, I guess it will. It’ll rot along with the rest of him.”

The grim-faced hangman lowered a black shroud over Shade’s head, muffling the incoherent shouts.

“What about the Winslows?” Sam asked. “Will they be facing any charges for helping Shade’s gang try to rescue him?”

“The federal government’s not going to prosecute them.” Thorpe looked at Matt. “You want to press charges against the lady for trying to take a shot at you?”

“After what she went through? Hell, no.”

“What’s going to happen to the senator now?” Sam asked.

Thorpe gave a grunt of grim laughter. “I suppose they’ll bury him. According to a telegram I got just a little while ago, he put a bullet in his head last night when he realized the whole thing was coming out in the open.”

Sam shook his head. “All that killing over politics.”

“It wasn’t all about politics,” Matt said. “Some of it was because Shade and his men were a bunch of low-down skunks.”

“Well, yeah, that, too.”

They looked out into the courtyard. The hangman had the noose around Shade’s neck now. A preacher—a real preacher, not a loco outlaw—finished whatever he was saying and stepped back, closing the Bible in his hands.

“Do you really want to watch this?” Sam asked.

“You know,” Matt said, “I don’t reckon I do. So long, Marshal.”

“Where are you two headed?” Thorpe asked.

“Someplace a long way from here,” Matt said.

He and Sam turned and walked away along a passage that led to the prison’s front gate. They heard the clatter of the trapdoor dropping open in the courtyard, followed an instant later by the sharp snap of a broken neck, but neither of the blood brothers looked back.

They were thinking about how good it would be to leave this behind, to find someplace where the air was clean and eagles soared through blue skies high overhead.

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Copyright © 2009 William W. Johnstone

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.

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ISBN: 978-0-7860-2187-1