HELL HATH NO FURY (A Jess Williams western novel) (27 page)

             
Annie woke about an hour after daylight to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. She put on her gown and robe and walked into the kitchen to find Jess standing at the table with all his hardware strapped to his body. A pit suddenly grew in her stomach. She quickly turned around to look out of the front room windows and saw Gray and Sharps saddled up and waiting by the front door. She quickly turned back to Jess, who had a sorrowful look on his face. Jess swallowed some more coffee to try to keep down the lump that kept trying to form in his throat.

             
Annie walked over to him and put her hands on his chest, but he didn’t put down the coffee cup. “No Jess, no, you just can’t leave now. You have to stay a while, just for a week or two, please,” she begged him, tears welling up in her eyes.

             
Jess again tried to swallow, but he couldn’t. He put his coffee cup down and looked into her eyes. “I have to go, you know that. I want to stay here more than anything, but I just can’t. I have more work to do and more men to hunt down. It’s what I was born for. I didn’t know that when I first started out, but I’ve come to learn that this is what I was made for. If I stay here, I’ll just get you killed before long with all the men who are hunting me down so that they can claim the reputation as the one who killed Jess Williams and you know it. You saw it for yourself when we were out there hunting down those men who raped you.”

             
“I know, I know, but I don’t want you to leave me,” sobbed Annie.

             
“And I don’t really want to leave you either, but it’s the only right decision for both of us and if you think about it for a while, you’ll come to the same conclusion. I don’t mean to hurt you; instead I’m protecting you.”

             
“It still doesn’t feel any better knowing that,” sobbed Annie.

             
Jess started to leave and she grabbed him and gave him a big hug and a long kiss. She followed him outside and onto the porch and watched as he climbed up in the saddle, tipped his hat at her, and turned Gray around and slowly rode out of town. She watched him ride until he was almost out of sight, all the while wiping the tears from her face. She felt bad for herself, but she felt even worse for Jess. The life he had made for himself was such an empty and lonely one and yet, she did understand his way of thinking. She would remember the good times they had together and hoped that he would one day return again. Before Jess was out of sight, she noticed that he turned around for a moment, but what she couldn’t see were the tears on Jess’ face, for the first time is a long time, he cried.

The End

              I hope you continue reading the Jess Williams series of western novels. The seventh in the series titled—
THE RIVER RUNS RED
is now available. Here are the first few paragraphs from it…

THE RIVER RUNS RED

CHAPTER ONE

              The day before Jess left Annie back in Black Creek, Kansas, he stopped in at the sheriff’s office to see if Sheriff Fowler had any wanted posters on men with a bounty on their heads and the sheriff gave him one. The wanted poster was for a man by the name of Curly Jeeter and he was wanted for several murders. Over the last several weeks, Jess had tracked him through several towns in Texas and the latest lead took Jess to a town south of Abilene, Texas called Hollis. Hollis was a small town with several saloons, a few brothels and some other stores of a different nature. It also had one mean sheriff along with two deputies who were just as mean. Sheriff Brett Hatfield didn’t exactly follow the law in his dealings and he was as corrupt as any criminal and his two deputies were about as bad. Jess arrived in the late afternoon and went straight to the sheriff’s office to inquire about the man he was hunting. When he walked into the sheriff’s office, he could immediately sense that he wasn’t welcome there. The sheriff was sitting behind an old beat up desk reading a newspaper and both the deputies were playing cards. All three of them looked up at Jess and he did not like the feeling that he was getting. The sheriff put his newspaper down.

             
“Well, if it ain’t Jess Williams himself. Your ass ain’t welcome here, understand. I’d advise you to get right back on your horse and ride out of here. If you cause me one bit of trouble, I’ll shoot your ass myself or lock you up in one of my jail cells,” exclaimed the sheriff.

             
“Hold on, Sheriff, I ain’t looking to cause you any trouble. I’m looking for a man by the name of Curly Jeeter. He is wanted for several murders and has a bounty on his head. I just need to know if he’s been in town lately since this is the way he was headed the last I heard,” said Jess, trying to calm the sheriff down, but he noticed that it wasn’t working too well.

             
“You listen to me; I don’t give two shits about what you want. As for Jeeter, he left town two days ago, after paying me a fifty-dollar fine just for pissing me off. Now, as I suggested earlier, you’d best leave town before you get into any trouble,” insisted Sheriff Hatfield.

             
Jess knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with Sheriff Hatfield so he simply walked out of his office and headed for a saloon across the street. As soon as he walked in, he noticed a man sitting at a table in a corner and he noticed he was nicely dressed. He was dressed in black pants, a black shirt and a white bowtie and a white hat. What Jess really noticed though, is that the man was wearing a fancy pistol and holster all done up with silver studs. The man smiled at Jess and watched as he continued up to the bar and ordered a whiskey. The barkeep brought Jess a glass and a cheap bottle of whiskey.

             
“What’s your name, barkeep?” asked Jess.

             
“Barkeep,” replied the man, with a sneer.

             
“Well, barkeep, do you have any good whiskey in back?”

             
“Nope, this is all we serve in this place.”

             
“Well, do you have any coffee in back?” asked Jess, not wanting to drink the rotgut whiskey since it always gave him a headache.

             
“Yep, I got coffee in the back,” replied the barkeep.

             
“Can I get a cup from you?”

             
“Nope.”

             
Jess was getting pretty frustrated at this point, but he tried to keep a calm demeanor. “Well, if you have coffee in the back, why can’t I get a cup of it?”

             
“Because we have coffee in the back, but we ain’t serving it out here. Now do you want this rotgut or not?”

             
“No thanks. This is one town I’ll be happy to leave,” replied Jess, as he walked toward the swinging doors and out into the street to where his two horses Gray and Sharps were. The man in the corner stood up and followed Jess outside, which didn’t go unnoticed by Jess. Jess was getting ready to climb up in the saddle when the man dressed in black walked out onto the wooden boardwalk.

             
“So, you’re Jess Williams?” asked the man. Jess looked over across the street and Sheriff Hatfield and his two deputies were now out on the boardwalk in front of the sheriff’s office. They were watching Jess and each of them carried a double-barreled shotgun. Jess had a bad feeling, but he was trapped at this point. He turned to face the man, who was smiling and acting very polite.

             
“Yeah, I’m Jess Williams, but I’ve never met you before,” replied Jess.

             
“My name is Wesley Hommes and I’m being paid a lot of money from a man by the name of Henry Stidham to kill you.”

             
“Well, I have bad news for you, Mr. Hommes. That ten thousand dollars in blood bounty was cancelled a while ago due to the death of Henry Stidham, in case you haven’t heard,” replied Jess.

             
“Oh, I already know all about that. You see, I met with Henry a few weeks before his death and he had me sign a contract with him,” replied Hommes.

             
“I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

             
“It has everything to do with you, Mr. Williams. The contract I signed states that whenever I can bring proof that you are dead by my hands, I’m to be paid twenty five thousand dollars that’s been put into a trust in Henry’s bank in New York. I even have my own photographer who travels with me to take a photo to prove that you are dead by my hands,” replied Hommes, pointing to a man who was setting up his equipment on the boardwalk.

             
Jess looked around and there were several men starting to gather around for the show, but what really concerned him were Sheriff Hatfield and his two deputies, who looked like a pack of hungry coyotes waiting for their share of the kill. Jess was in a real predicament and he wasn’t quite sure how he was going to get out of it yet.

             
“Mr. Hommes, I have no beef with you, but if you force my hand, I’ll kill you for certain. You can’t beat me and you should know that,” said Jess, loud enough for the sheriff to hear, hoping he could keep the sheriff and his deputies from making good on their threats.

             
Wesley Hommes walked down and into the street and about ten feet from where Jess was standing. He looked Jess over for a moment as his photographer finished up with his equipment. “Well,” replied Hommes, “I guess we’ll just have to see about that now won’t we?”

Read all the books in the Jess Williams Series…

The Reckoning

Brother’s Keeper

Sins of the Father

The Burning

The Dodge City Massacre

Hell Hath no Fury

The River Runs Red

Death Dance

Blood Trail

Badge of Honor

Long Guns

Wanted

Tin Man

Retribution

Hired Gun

Hunted

Resurrection

In Cold Blood