Savage Texas: The Stampeders by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone Page A

had appeared, so the unpleasant visage of the dead man’s damaged face stared out with bird-pecked eyes across the rough-edged patrons of the Dog Star, silently pleading to be given back his missing name, and perhaps to have his killer exposed and named as well. There appeared to be little prospect of that happening. After saloon patrons became accustomed to the unsightly portrait, it ceased to be noticed or discussed. It was simply there, like a curtain in a window or a knothole in the planks of the floor.
    Otto Perkins, meanwhile, had changed his usual nomadic pattern of doing business and set up a shop in a studio in Hangtree. He’d found and rented, for a three-month term, an empty shop building on the north end of town. He had moved his mobile darkroom off the wagon and into a back corner of the building, then advertised that he was available to take family portraits, wedding portraits, baby pictures, and images of corpses of the recently deceased. Over a few days he began to find work, discovering that isolated ranching families were keenly cognizant of their isolation and the fact that the lives they lived were prone to being forgotten. Portraits of families lined up before their unpainted ranch houses came into demand in Hangtree County. Newlywed couples showed up at the door of Perkins’s studio, ready to pose woodenly with the young wife in a curve-backed chair and her husband in a suit he’d probably not wear again until it was time to attend a family funeral, standing sentinel-like beside her with a rigid jaw and locked knees.
    The most promising development, from Perkins’s perspective, was when clusters of cowboys and ranch hands from the surrounding cattle country began showing up, bearing armaments enough for a small army and various props of their line of work, such as lariats and spurs and chaps, so that they could show the present-and-future world, via photographic record, what dashing hombres they were as young men, and how deeply they had woven themselves into the warp and woof of the American West. They typically spent more than they could afford, dipping even into their whoring and drinking funds, to make sure they could obtain sufficient tin copies for their families back East to display on walls and mantels. Perkins gladly took their money, but knew these initial fees were only the beginning of what he could make on these authentic cattle country images. Shops and parlors back in the eastern cities would pay dearly for these romantic icons of the nation’s frontier, especially if Perkins passed them off as pictures of outlaws, something he was quite willing to do. There was money to be made, immediately and later.
    He’d just finished photographing a group of three fresh-faced youthful ranch hands, complete with peach-fuzz whiskers they’d stained with acorn juice to make them show up better, when Julia Canton came to his door. With her was Johnny Cross.
    Perkins’s response to the vision that was Julia Pepperday Canton was the same as that of most timid men who saw her for the first time: he was stunned silent by her beauty and simply gazed at her. Being the humble physical specimen he was, he felt pathetic and meager as she advanced toward him. But he thrust out his chin and did his best to mask his timidity.
    “Good day, ma’am, sir,” he said, hating the piping tenor of his own voice. Julia stared, unspeaking, while Johnny Cross said hello to the photographer.
    “How may I help you?” Perkins asked.
    “Howdy, sir,” Johnny Cross said. “Name’s Cross. Johnny Cross. I came in here looking for somebody. Jimbo Hale, man who works down at the feed store. He ain’t there at the moment. You seen him?”
    “I wouldn’t likely know . . . I’m not familiar with the man.”
    As Perkins answered, an odd look shadowed across Julia’s lovely features, and she stepped slightly behind Johnny Cross, putting him between herself and Perkins and pretending to look around the room, keeping her