Absaroka Ambush

3

Smoke rode out to meet them, putting some distance between himself and the herd. If there was to be shooting, he didn’t want the herd stampeded. The riders pulled up and sat looking at Smoke. They were all pretty well set up, so they probably weren’t rustlers. But they all appeared sullen and Smoke didn’t take to them at all.

“We’re from the cattlemen’s association,” one finally said, after Smoke refused to be stared down. His tone indicated that was a big deal to him. Didn’t impress Smoke at all.

“Congratulations. Do you want applause?”

“Oh, we got us a real smart-mouth here, Walt,” another said.

Walt pointed a finger at Smoke. “You best button your lip, mister.”

“I wasn’t born with a button on it,” Smoke told him. “Now state your business and get out of my way. I’ve got cattle to drive.”

Nate and Shorty had left the herd, to ride up alongside the boss. While neither one was a gunslinger, they could both shuck a Colt or Remington out of leather mighty quick and they were crack shots.

“By God!” another member of the association said. “I’ll not stand for talk like that. We’re here to inspect your herd and you best just stand aside.”

“Inspect my herd for what?” Smoke asked, his right hand resting on his thigh, close to the butt of his .44.

“Been a lot of rustlin’ goin’ on,” Walt said. “You’re a stranger here, so we take a look at your cattle, whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t care if you inspect my herd. But you’ll do it while they’re moving. Now get out of the way.”

“Just who in the hell do you think you are, buddy?” another asked, belligerence in his tone.

“Smoke Jensen.”

Those among them with any sense at all made certain their hands were in plain sight and they made no quick moves. But there is always one….

“That don’t spell jack-crap to me,” a burly, unshaven man said. “I never believed nine-tenths of them stories ’bout you no way.”

“That is your option,” Smoke told him. He glanced at Shorty. “Get the herd moving. If these gentlemen want to inspect it, that’s fine with me. But they’ll do it on the move.”

“Right, boss.” Shorty wheeled his horse, took off his hat, and waved it in the air. “Head them out!” he shouted.

“You gonna sit there and let this two-bit fancy-dan gunhawk get away with this, Walt?” the loudmouth asked.

“Shut up, Baylis,” a man whispered hoarsely.

Smoke lifted the reins and walked his horse into the group, stopping by the side of Baylis. He smiled at the man. Baylis not only didn’t believe in shaving every day, he didn’t bathe much either. “What’s your problem?” Smoke asked him. “Other than having to smell your own stink, that is.”

“Baylis,” Walt said. “Close your mouth and keep it closed. I recognize the gentlemen now.”

“Jensen,” Baylis said, “I think I’ll just get off this horse and whup your butt.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Smoke pulled his hat brim lower and then sucker-punched the man. He busted Baylis smack in the mouth; the blow knocked the man out of the saddle. Baylis sprawled on the hoof-churned ground, his mouth a bloody mess.

Smoke backed his horse out of the group, stopping between Nate and Shorty. “If you gentlemen wish to ride along and inspect the herd, feel free to do so. We’ll be stopping for lunch in about an hour. You’re welcome to eat with us. And that includes the fool on the ground.”

Several of the men tried to hide their smiles.

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Jensen,” Walt said. “We’ll just ride along for a time and then take you up on your most generous offer of a meal.”

Smoke nodded and he and Shorty and Nate rejoined the herd. Walt looked down at Baylis, who was hanging on to a stirrup, trying to get up. “Baylis, I always suspicioned that your mamma raised at least one fool. Now I know I was right.”

Over lunch, which was the thick rich stew sometimes called Sonofabitch Stew, with sourdough bread to sop in it, dried apple pie for dessert, and all the coffee anybody could drink, Smoke asked Walt about Clint Black.

“I never met the man, Smoke. But I know about him. Runs the biggest spread in all of Montana Territory. The Circle 45. Has maybe…depending on the time of year…anywhere from fifty to a hundred men on the payroll. You’re not taking these cattle to him, are you?”

“No. To a man named Duggan. Runs the Double D spread.”

“I never heard of him.”

“I think he’s new out here. He bought my whole herd and about a thousand from neighboring ranches. Said he wanted to get into the cattle business fast. I’ve never met him. Everything was handled through lawyers.”

“Gettin’ to be a man can’t break wind without checking first with a lawyer,” Walt grumbled.

Smoke grinned at him. He shared the same opinion of most lawyers. “Speaking of sons of bitches, have some more stew, Walt.”

Walt laughed and a new friendship was bonded.

Baylis glared at Smoke and hatred was fanned.

Walt gave Smoke a handwritten note and with it said, “You’ll have no trouble in Wyoming. Just show anyone who stops you that note and they’ll wave you right on through and help you with the drive for a time.”

The men shook hands all the way around. All but Baylis. He rode out alone right after lunch. Nobody missed him until he couldn’t be found and a drover told them he saw him ridin’ out toward the northwest.

“I hope he keeps on riding,” Walt said. “Baylis is a troublemaker. Runs a little rawhide spread not far from here. There is a mean streak in the man that I never could cotton to. Shame too, ’cause he came from good stock. I knew both his parents ’fore they died.”

“How’s he live?” Smoke asked. “That was a good horse and a fancy rig.”

“Lot of us have wondered that,” another association member told Smoke. “I ain’t sayin’ he’s crooked, but it wouldn’t surprise me to find out he was.”

“Maybe he’s headin’ back to Montana,” yet another suggested. “He worked up there for years. Say! I think he worked for the Circle 45, come to think of it.”

The herd pushed on and for a time they had nothing but beautiful weather. The boys were turning into good hands, and it surprised everybody to see how closely they watched the remuda and how well they took to accepting responsibility.

The days began to blend together as they pushed north. The herd was stopped several times by cattlemen association members, and by curious ranchers, but the letter Walt had given Smoke quickly brought smiles and offers of meals and a chance to take a real bath in a tub, something Sally jumped at.

“I’ve heard about you for years, Smoke,” a rancher said, over a fine meal of fried chicken and potatoes and gravy. “I figured you’d be a much older man.”

“I got started young,” Smoke said with a smile.

“Oh?”

“After my pa was killed, an old mountain man name of Preacher took me in…”

“Why, say! Preacher’s famous. He took the first wagon train over the Oregon Trail, didn’t he?”

“Something like that. Preacher was the first to do a lot of things out here. My teenage years were spent in the company of old mountain men. I got a pretty good education.”

The rancher’s kids, ranging in age from about twelve to twenty, sat at the long table, eyes bright with excitement. Smoke Jensen, the gunfighter who’d killed about a zillion bad hombres was really here and eating fried chicken just like everybody else.

“And you and Sally have been married…how long?” a teenage girl asked.

“Well,” Smoke said. “Ah…”

“You’d better get it right,” Sally warned and everybody laughed.

“We’ve been married, ah…ten years,” Smoke said.

“That’s close,” Sally said.

“Your first wife was…” The boy closed his mouth at a hard glance from his father.

“It’s all right,” Smoke said. “Her name was Nicole. We were married, sort of. Had a bent nail for a wedding ring. We had a son. Named him Arthur, that was Preacher’s name. Outlaws came one day while I was gone. They killed the baby and then raped and killed Nicole. I tracked them down and called them out in a mining town.”

“How many of them were there, Mr. Smoke?” a girl asked.

“Fourteen.”

“Jesus,” the rancher whispered.

“Did you get them all, Smoke?” the oldest boy asked.

“I got them all.”

“How old were you, Smoke?” the rancher’s wife asked in a soft voice.

“I think I was twenty-one. I’m not real sure how old I am,” ma’am.

The father put a stop to it. “No more questions.”

The young kids were off to bed; the women went to the parlor—much to Sally’s disgust—while the rancher, his oldest son, and Smoke, went into the den for whiskey and cigars. Smoke waved off the cigar and rolled a cigarette.

“What do you know about a man named Clint Black?” Smoke asked.

The rancher’s eyebrows lifted as he was lighting his cigar. When he had the tip glowing just right, he said, “He’s a bad one, Smoke. I’d say he’s probably in his mid-to-late forties. Ruthless and dangerous and powerful. He took country that was untamed and built an empire out of it. He’s big and strong as a bull. And there is no backup in him. It’s his way, or no way at all.”

“Nobody is right but him.”

“That’s it. Anybody gets in his way, he just rides right over them.”

“Would he hurt a boy? Those boys I have with me, for instance?”

“Oh…I wouldn’t think so. But with a man like that, hell, you never know. I know he’s run off nesters, but I never heard of him or his men ever harming a child. Hell, I ran off nesters, ’til I got tired of it and learned to live with them.”

“You know anything at all about T. J. Duggan and the Double D ranch?”

The rancher shook his head. “Can’t say as I’ve ever heard of him or his brand. T. J. Duggan. Don’t ring a bell with me.”

The herd slowly put the miles behind them. They crossed rivers, pulled cattle out of quicksand and fought the heat and ate the dust and endured the loneliness of the trail, with the older men remembering how it was years back, when there were no towns along the way. When there was nothing except an empty, seemingly never-ending vastness and then screaming Indians that came out of nowhere.

It was bad now, but it was worse back then.

About fifty miles after crossing the North Platte, they hit a vast grassland, and the cattle slowly ate their way across, regaining the few pounds lost on the way north.

Holding the herd outside of a small town in northern Wyoming, Smoke and several other riders accompanied the wagon in for supplies.

It wasn’t much of a town, even by Western standards. A large general store, a blacksmith, a saloon. The stage stopped twice a week. The town had sprung up out of nowhere, had lasted a few years, now was dying. Another couple of years and it would join the many other towns that failed in the West.

Not too many miles to the west, there was another settlement called Donkey Town, although some were trying to get its name changed to Rocky Pile.

While the supplies were being loaded, Smoke walked the short distance to the saloon. If there was any news worth hearing, he would learn of it at the saloon. There were half a dozen horses at the hitchrail and two wagons in the street. Smoke pushed open the batwings and the buzz of conversation slowed, then stopped as he ordered a beer and leaned against the bar.

He was used to that. Nearly everyone in the rural west carried a gun; few carried two guns; almost no one wore his guns the way Smoke wore his. It branded him. Smoke moved to the shadows at the far end of the bar. He hadn’t had time to lift the mug to his lips when the batwings flew open and two young men stomped in.

“Hell of a herd outside of town,” one said. “And, boy you ought to see the cook. She’s a looker, let me tell you.’

“Wears men’s britches,” the second one said. “Rob here like to have fell off his horse starin’.”

“Got a bunch of snot-nosed kids wranglin’,” Rob said. “Might be fun to go out there and hoo-rah ’em some. What’d you say, Carl?”

“Kids?” a man questioned. He sat at a table with three other men. “What kind of a damn fool outfit hires kids as drovers?”

The pair obviously had not seen any hands except the boys at the remuda. Smoke sipped his beer and waited and listened. Talk was one thing, but hoo-rahing the herd was quite another.

The batwings were shoved open and a young man rushed in, his face flushed. “You heard the news?” The words rushed out of his mouth. “That herd outside of town belongs to Smoke Jensen!”

“You’re crazy!” Carl told him. “Who told you that?”

“One of them kids at the remuda.”

“Aw, he’s just sayin’ that so’s no one will bother ’em. Smoke Jensen ain’t got no herd. I don’t even think there is such a person noways. I think all that’s made-up stuff.”

Rob hitched at his gun belt. “Oh, he’s a real person, all right. My brother seen him a couple of years ago. Backed him down, too, my brother did. Jensen ain’t much. I’d like to see Jensen in action. I think I’m faster.”

“Your brother’s got a fat mouth,” a cowboy spoke from a table. “Smoke Jensen ain’t never backed down from no one. And leave them boys out yonder alone. Nobody but a tin-horn would hoo-rah a herd.”

“If my brother was here, you’d not be sayin’ them words,” Rob yelled.

“Go get him,” the cowboy said. “I’ll say it to his face. As far as you bein’ better than Smoke Jensen…you’re a fool. You best take them pearl-handled six shooters off before somebody snatches ’em offen you and shoves ’em down your throat. Or shoves ’em up another part of your a-natomy.”

“You think you’re big enough to do it!” Rob screamed.

“Yeah,” the cowboy said. “I sure do.”

“How have you been, Al?” Smoke broke into the conversation.

The cowboy smiled. “Pretty good. I wondered if you recognized me.”

“Stay out of this!” Rob yelled at Smoke.

Smoke ignored him. “I heard you were working up this way. Heard you had your own spread.”

“Sure do. Got married and all that. How’s things down on the Sugarloaf?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Keep your mouth shut!” Rob yelled at the tall man in the shadows. “When I want you to butt into my affairs, I’ll let you know. You hear me?”

“Al Jacobs will eat your lunch, boy,” Smoke told him. “He’s a bad man to tangle with. Me and Al go way back. He used to work for me down in Colorado.”

“I don’t give a damn where he used to work and I don’t give a damn about you. Now why don’t you just shut up and mind your own business. That two-bit rawhider insulted my brother and insulted me. Stay out of things that don’t concern you ’fore I call you out too.”

Al laughed at that. “The kid’s sure got his dander up, don’t he?”

“Hey, don’t you call me no kid, you son of a bitch!” Rob yelled.

The saloon became very quiet. Call a cowboy a flea-bitten, no-count, worthless saddle bum, and he’ll probably laugh at you. Besmirch a cowboy’s mother’s name, and in all probability he’ll kill you.

Al slowly rose from his chair, his hand hovering over the butt of his .45.

“Back off, Rob,” Smoke said quietly. “Back off and apologize to Al. That remark was uncalled for.”

Carl decided it was time for him to stick his mouth into the tense situation. “Hey, mister! Who the hell asked you to butt in? You a friend of Al?”

“That’s right,” Smoke said, still standing in the shadows.

“Then you get your butt out here and face me.”

“Now boys,” the barkeep said. “I just mopped this floor.”

“Shut up!” Carl told him. He stared into the gloom where Smoke stood. “You! Get your butt out here.”

Sonny, one of the boys who had come into town for some licorice, stood at the batwings. “We’re all loaded and ready to go, Mr. Smoke,” he called.

The saloon became as quiet as a grave.