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     Table of Contents  Also by Title Page  Copyright Page CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21 CHAPTER 22 CHAPTER 23 CHAPTER 24 CHAPTER 25 CHAPTER 26 CHAPTER 27 CHAPTER 28 CHAPTER 29 CHAPTER 30 CHAPTER 31 CHAPTER 32 CHAPTER 33 CHAPTER 34 CHAPTER 35 CHAPTER 36 CHAPTER 37 CHAPTER 38 CHAPTER 39 CHAPTER 40 CHAPTER 41 CHAPTER 42 CHAPTER 43 CHAPTER 44 CHAPTER 45 CHAPTER 46 CHAPTER 47 CHAPTER 48 CHAPTER 49 CHAPTER 50 CHAPTER 51 CHAPTER 52 CHAPTER 53 CHAPTER 54 CHAPTER 55 CHAPTER 56 CHAPTER 57 CHAPTER 58 CHAPTER 59 CHAPTER 60 CHAPTER 61 HISTORICAL NOTE MRS. ZIMMERMANN’S PLUM DUFF Teaser chapter      Look for these exciting Western series from bestselling authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone    The Mountain Man   Luke Jensen: Bounty Hunter   Brannigan’s Land   The Jensen Brand   Preacher and MacCallister   The Red Ryan Westerns   Perley Gates   Have Brides, Will Travel   Guns of the Vigilantes   Shotgun Johnny   The Chuckwagon Trail   The Jackals   The Slash and Pecos Westerns   The Texas Moonshiners   Stoneface Finnegan Westerns   Ben Savage: Saloon Ranger   The Buck Trammel Westerns   The Death and Texas Westerns   The Hunter Buchanon Westerns   Tinhorn   Will Tanner: U.S. Deputy Marshal     William W. Johnstone is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over three hundred books, including the bestselling series Smoke Jensen: The Mountain Man, Preacher: The First Mountain Man, Flintlock, MacCallister, and Will Tanner: U.S. Deputy Marshal, and the stand-alone thrillers Black Friday, Tyranny, and Stand Your Ground.   Being the all-around assistant, typist, researcher, and fact-checker to one of the most popular Western authors of all time, J.A. Johnstone learned from the master, Uncle William W. Johnstone.   He began tutoring J.A. at an early age. After-school hours were often spent retyping manuscripts or researching his massive American Western history library as well as the more modern wars and conflicts. J.A. worked hard—and learned.   “Every day with Bill was an adventure story in itself. Bill taught me all he could about the art of storytelling.‘Keep the historical facts accurate,’ he would say. ‘Remember the readers, and as your grandfather once told me, I am telling you now: be the best J.A. Johnstone you can be.’”   Visit the website at www.williamjohnstone.net.  HISTORICAL NOTE  Fort Misery is loosely based on an 1865 log house built by the army in Prescott to provide quarters for Governor John N. Goodwin in the newly created Arizona Territory. Though never a fort, the house’s second occupant, Judge Howard, by all accounts a tyrant, delivered rough justice to felon and soldiers alike, and the place became such a punishment posting the troops gave it the name Fort Misery. Legend says the building was later converted into a boardinghouse and that the woman who ran the house, called the Virgin Mary because of her many charities, cooked barely edible meals for fifty men. If she ever existed, her real name was Mary Brown.    MRS. ZIMMERMANN’S PLUM DUFF  Plum Duff was a treat for the soldiers exiled to Fort Misery, but the steamed pudding’s quality varied depending on supplies dropped off at Devil’s Rock. There are no plums in the pudding, just raisins.  Her basic recipe was:   2 cups flour blended with 1 teaspoon of baking soda and a pinch of salt ¼ cup suet, chopped fine (you can substitute melted shortening) ¼ to 1 cup raisins ¼ to 1 cup sugar  Mix the ingredients and add a cup of cold water. The dough should be stiff.   To steam the pudding Mrs. Zimmermann would then place it on a floured cloth, wrap the cloth around the dough, and tie it at the top with a string, leaving a loop at the top. The duff expands when cooked.   Then she’d would fill a large pot with water about two-thirds full and bring it to a boil. She’d suspend the pudding in the pot by placing  CHAPTER 1  West of the Arizona Territory’s Tinajas Altas Mountains, west of Vopoki Ridge, west of anywhere, Fort Benjamin Grierson, better known to its sweating, suffering garrison as Fort Misery, sprawled like a suppurating sore on the arid edge of the Yuma Desert, a barren, scorching wilderness of sandy plains and dunes relieved here and there by outcroppings of creosote bush, bur oak, and sage . . . and white skeletons of the dead, both animal and human.  The dawning sun came up like a flaming Catherine wheel, adding its heat to the furnace of the morning and to the airless prison cell that masqueraded as Captain Peter Joseph Kellerman’s office. Already half drunk, he glanced at the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes until seven.  Twenty minutes before he’d mount the scaffold and hang a man.  A rap-rap-rap on the door.  “Come in,” Kellerman said.  Sergeant Major Saul Olinger slammed to attention and snapped off the palm forward salute of the old