ASSAULT OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A LONE STAR CHRISTMAS
Copyright Page
Notes
PROLOGUE
Bill Dinkins was thirty-eight years old. Standing five feet ten inches tall with sandy hair and blue eyes, he was a man that women found handsome at first look. But there was something about him, an evil glint in his eye, the curl of a lip that, upon further examination, frightened women away. One fine fall day Dinkins, Loomis Caldwell, Gary Beeman, and Henry Kilpatrick rode into the town of Buffalo, Colorado, and went straight to the bank. While two of the four stayed mounted, Dinkins and Caldwell went inside and asked for five twenty-dollar gold pieces in exchange for a one hundred dollar note.
While in the bank the two men checked it out, noticing a back door they assumed opened onto the alley. Once they left the bank, the four men rode up and down Decker’s Road a couple times, checking out the lay of the town, then they rode up the alley to see where the bank door opened.
When the four men first rode into town Glen Davis, the town marshal, thought nothing of it. But when he saw them ride up and down the street twice, then go into one end of the alley and come out the other, he began to get suspicious. “Bobby, let’s you and me go outside,” he said to his deputy.
The four riders, still unaware that they had attracted attention, rode back into the alley and tied their horses to an empty freight wagon. They split up, with two going into the bank through the front door and two going in through the back door. Three customers and the bank teller were inside.
“Up against the wall!” Dinkins yelled to the customers. He handed the teller a cloth bag. “Fill the bag with money,” he ordered.
With shaking hands, the teller began to comply.
Outside, Marshal Davis and Deputy Mason were approaching the bank with their guns drawn.
“What’s going on, Marshal?” someone called.
“Get a gun,” the marshal replied. “I think the bank is being robbed.”
With that, at least four other townspeople armed themselves and came over to join Davis and Mason.
“Bill, hurry it up!” Caldwell shouted. “There is a lot of people comin’ toward us, and ever’one of ’em is got a gun!”
“Give me the bag,” Dinkins ordered.
“I haven’t finished filling it,” the teller replied.
“Give me the bag!” Dinkins ordered again. Reaching through the window, he made a grab for the bag, but the teller jerked it back. Angrily, Dinkins shot him. The slug hit the teller between the eyes, and he collapsed on the floor behind the teller’s cage, with the money bag still clutched in his hand, out of Dinkins’ reach.
“We got to get out of here now!” Beeman yelled.
Bells were ringing all over town. Dogs were barking and citizens were running, some for cover, and some to find a place from which to shoot.
“Everyone, out the back door!” Dinkins shouted, and the four men ran out the back door, then down the alley to their horses. Mounting their horses, they saw that wagons had been pushed across the alley at both ends, blocking them off. Their only exit was to ride up the narrow opening between the bank and the shoe store.
When they reached Decker’s Road, which was the main street, the angry citizens of the town were ready for them. The first person to take a shot at the would-be bank robbers was a clerk who had come outside to stand on the front porch of the general store. Armed with a double-barreled 12-gauge Greener, he let loose. Beeman, his chest opened up by the load of double aught buckshot, was knocked from his horse. Kilpatrick’s horse was killed by someone firing a Winchester rifle, and when Caldwell turned back for him everyone with a gun started shooting at the two men. Kilpatrick and Caldwell’s return fire was effective enough to drive several citizens off the street and provide cover for Dinkins.
“Bill, come here! Help me get Henry up on Beeman’s horse!”
Dinkins looked back at the two men, then at the armed citizens, and turned and galloped away.
“Dinkins! You cowardly son of a bitch!” Caldwell shouted angrily.
Dinkins didn’t look back, but continued to ride as the shooting was going on behind him. He rode hard, until he realized nobody was giving chase. He could hear the last gunshots being exchanged between the citizens of the town and Caldwell and Kilpatrick. Then the shooting fell silent, and he knew they were either captured or killed. Dinkins had gotten away with his life, but none of the bank’s money except for the five twenty-dollar gold pieces he had gotten in exchange for the one hundred dollar bill.
When Dinkins reached the town of Snyder, he dismounted, slapped his horse on the rump, and sent it on. He hoped if anyone was following him, they would follow the tracks of his horse.
He walked the rest of the way into town, then went to the depot to buy a ticket on the next train out. He was pretty sure nobody would be looking for a bank robber on a train. Bank robber. He scoffed at the term. Some bank robber he was. He had not gotten away with one red cent.
CHAPTER ONE
Washington, D. C.
Sally Jensen had been back East for almost six weeks, during which time she had visited her family in Vermont, friends and relatives in Boston and New York, and as the last part of her trip, she was in Washington, D.C. At the moment, she was sitting in the reception room just outside the Presidential Office in the White House. As she waited to meet with the president, she was reading the novel, A Study in Scarlet, written by the English author, Arthur Conan Doyle, in which he introduced a new character, Sherlock Holmes. Sally enjoyed the intellect and deductive reasoning of the Sherlock Holmes character. So engrossed was she in the book that she did not notice Colonel Lamont, the appointments secretary, approaching her.