Chapter summaries Burning Daylight William W. Johnstone & J.A. Johnstone

Chapter 37 Summary: Teaser Chapter — Cutthroats Preview

Spoiler Notice: This chapter is a teaser for the upcoming Western series Cutthroats. It contains no spoilers for Burning Daylight but sets up an entirely separate story. Read on for a breakdown of the preview material.

Summary

Chapter 37 of Burning Daylight serves as an extended advertisement for William W. and J. A. Johnstone’s new series Cutthroats. The teaser first outlines the backstory of aging outlaws Jimmy “Slash” Braddock and Melvin “Pecos Kid” Baker, who are betrayed by their old gang, forced into a final robbery, and captured. Marshal L. C. Bledsoe spares them from hanging only on the condition they hunt down and kill their former gang, the Snake River Marauders. The included first chapter then shifts to a tense mountain-cabin ambush: a band of thirteen bounty hunters, led by the cruel Jack Penny, surrounds a cabin where the two outlaws and a red-haired woman are trapped. When the woman briefly steps outside for firewood, Penny nearly shoots her but holds fire to first lure the men out. Laskey, Penny’s lieutenant, momentarily questions killing the woman, but Penny quashes any mercy. The excerpt ends with Penny refusing Laskey’s lecherous intent, making clear that everyone inside the cabin will die.

Key Events

  • Backstory outline: Slash and Pecos, betrayed by their gang, escape jail, bungle one last job, and are captured. Marshal Bledsoe offers death or a suicide mission against the Snake River Marauders.
  • Ambush setup: Thirteen bounty hunters, commanded by Jack Penny, take positions around a remote mountain cabin at dawn.
  • A near-death moment: The red-haired woman comes out for firewood, pauses as if sensing danger, but returns inside. Penny draws a bead on her but withholds fire to maintain the ambush for the male outlaws.
  • Darker intentions revealed: Laskey suggests the woman is too pretty to kill outright and hints at “other plans.” Penny firmly shuts him down, stating the woman will die along with the men — there is a reward for her too.
  • Foreshadowing: Penny’s “we ain’t here for none o’ that nonsense” rebuke and his detached cruelty establish the ruthless tone of the upcoming story.

Character Development

  • Jack Penny (primary POV in this excerpt): A cold-blooded bounty hunter with a wandering rheumy eye that Laskey finds sinister. He is wholly pragmatic, treating the woman merely as a target with a bounty. His patience and calculated cruelty set him up as a formidable antagonist for Slash and Pecos.
  • Ray Laskey: Penny’s subordinate and a classic morally compromised henchman. He chews wedding-cake tobacco and tows the line, but his fleeting queasiness about killing the woman suggests a sliver of conscience — though his later leer betrays baser instincts. He is physically described as shorter, with juice bleeding from his lips.
  • The red-haired woman: A nameless figure at this stage, clad in a man’s shirt and tight denim trousers. Her silent moment of awareness outside the cabin implies intelligence or intuition, but she remains oblivious to the surrounding threat. Her role — victim or eventual survivor — is left ambiguous.
  • Slash and Pecos (referenced): The ostensible protagonists of Cutthroats. From the description, they are aging robbers pushed into a lethal bargain. They are not physically present in the excerpt, but their reputation as “cutthroats” shapes the hunters’ mission.
  • Marshal L. C. Bledsoe: A wheelchair-bound “bucket of mean” who forces the outlaws into a bloody task, illustrating a morally gray lawman whose brand of justice is as brutal as the criminals’ own.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

  • Brutal Frontier Justice: The series teaser immediately establishes a world where lawmen like Bledsoe use pardons as weapons, and bounty hunters are executioners without trial. The ambush scenario makes vigilante violence the central engine.
  • The Morality of Bounty Hunting: Penny and his crew are not depicted as heroes; they are “wolves on the blood scent,” indifferent to the life of an unarmed woman if a price is on her head. This frames bounty hunting as a mercenary evil.
  • Ambush as Predation: The repeated animal imagery — wolves, a dark creature in a lake, the blood scent — comparing the hunters to predators lying in wait, dehumanizes them and reinforces the survival-of-the-fittest environment.
  • Gender and Power: The woman is objectified immediately — Laskey sees her as “purty,” and even her moments of awareness cannot save her. Penny’s refusal to spare her underscores the expendability of women in this merciless setting. At the same time, her survival into the series may subvert this dynamic.
  • Last Chances and Deadly Bargains: Slash and Pecos’s deal with Bledsoe — their final job leading to a life-or-death mission — is the classic Western motif of the aging outlaw trying to break free but being pulled back into violence.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 37 breaks the main narrative of Burning Daylight to promote Cutthroats, a marketing strategy common in series publishing. For readers, it offers a sample of the gritty, action-heavy style that defines the Johnstones’ work. The teaser introduces a self-contained tension-filled scene — the ambush — that immediately stakes its claim: this is a world of hard men making hard choices, where even the “heroes” are flawed outlaws and the antagonists are genuinely frightening. The excerpt serves to hook readers by posing urgent questions: Will Slash and Pecos survive the bounty hunters? What becomes of the woman? The cliffhanger-dense first chapter promises the kind of propulsive storytelling that keeps fans turning pages.

Study Questions and Answers

  1. Question: Why does Jack Penny resist shooting the red-haired woman when she first steps outside?
    Answer: Penny withholds his shot to maintain the ambush’s advantage. He reasons that killing her immediately might alert the two male outlaws inside and ruin the “dance.” He intends to kill her along with the men once all targets are visible, ensuring the best odds for his gang.

  2. Question: What personal conflict arises between Laskey and Penny regarding the woman, and what does it reveal about Penny’s character?
    Answer: Laskey objects to killing the woman outright, calling her “too purty” and suggesting other uses for her before death. Penny slaps down the suggestion instantly, declaring that the woman carries a reward and will die with the others. This exchange reveals Penny’s absolute, unsentimental professionalism as a killer — he tolerates no distraction and views every human as either a bounty or an obstacle. Laskey’s slight hesitation humanizes him by comparison but also highlights his own predatory nature.

  3. Question: What deal does Marshal Bledsoe offer Slash and Pecos, and how does it set up the premise of Cutthroats?
    Answer: Bledsoe snatches Slash and Pecos from the gallows and offers them their lives in exchange for hunting down and killing their old gang, the Snake River Marauders, “with extreme prejudice.” This deal transforms the outlaws into reluctant instruments of the law, forcing them into a bloody manhunt against their former allies. The opening chapter’s ambush demonstrates just how many enemies they have — bounty hunters and lawmen alike — ensuring that the mission will be a gauntlet of violence from start to finish.

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