Absaroka Ambush

12

Smoke took one look at Sheriff Black’s face and knew he had failed in his mission to convince his brother to pull in his horns. He said as much as he poured a cup of coffee.

“So I guess the next move is up to you, Smoke,” Harris said.

Smoke sugared his coffee and sat down in front of the desk. “I am sorry that you failed, Harris.”

“I believe that, Smoke. You could have killed those hands in the saloon. But you were content to hang a pretty fair country butt-whippin’ on them and let them go. That tells me a lot about you.” He stood up and warmed his own cup of coffee. “One of my men spotted a couple more gunslicks this morning. They avoided town and headed for the Circle 45. It looks like trouble is coming and there is nothing I can do about it.”

“I’m going to call your brother out, Harris,” Smoke said.

“Yeah. I figured you were. But you’re going to wait until he comes to town and make him take water. I told him last night that he couldn’t win this fight. That you would humiliate him. He didn’t believe me.”

“Will he fight?”

“No,” Harris said without hesitation. “He’s a vain, strutting rooster, but he’s not a fool. He’s not going to pull on you. It would surprise me if he even came to town wearing his gun. I know my brother, Smoke. I don’t think he brought—is bringing—those hired guns in here to kill you. I think he’s bringing them in to protect himself. From you. He’s going to try to wait you out.”

“He’s got a long wait.”

A deputy stuck his head into the office. “Here comes your brother, Harris. And he’s got a lot of men with him. Includin’ them new-hired gunhandlers.”

Harris cut his eyes to Smoke. He knew the man had ridden in alone. The expression on Smoke’s face had not changed. Harris didn’t think Jensen had one ounce of fear in him.

“They’re goin’ into the saloon,” the deputy reported.

Smoke sipped his coffee.

Harris stared at him for a moment. “Well, damnit, man! What are you going to do?”

Smoke set his coffee cup on the desk and rose from the chair. He smiled at the sheriff. “Why…go pay my respects to your brother, of course.” He turned and walked out of the office.

“Damn!” The word exploded out of the sheriff’s mouth. He rose quickly and took a sawed-off shotgun from the rack, calling for his deputies. “Everybody get a Greener and load it up. I’m not going to have trouble in this town.”

Smoke pushed open the batwings and stepped inside the beery-smelling saloon. As Harris had predicted, Clint was not wearing a gun. But those men surrounding him had plenty of six-guns belted around their waists. Smoke unbuckled and untied and hung his guns on a peg of the hatrack. Clint watched him, puzzlement in his eyes. The gunhands exchanged glances, not understanding what was going on.

“Is that a fresh pot of coffee I smell?” Smoke asked the barkeep.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Jensen. Just boiled it.”

“I’ll have a cup with a little sugar in it, please. Down there at the end of the bar.”

“Yes, sir.”

Smoke paused at Clint’s side. “Morning, Clint. Fine day, isn’t it?”

Clint grunted and turned his back to Smoke.

“What’s the matter, Clint?” Smoke asked. “Didn’t you sleep well last night?”

The owner of the Circle 45 turned to face Smoke. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Harris and his deputies had entered the bar, spreading out, all of them with sawed-off shotguns in their hands.

“Why…I’m just concerned about your health, that’s all,” Smoke told the man. “You seem a little out of sorts this morning. Maybe you need a good dose of salts.”

“Why don’t you just mind your own damn business?” Clint replied. “And don’t you worry about my health. It’s none of your business.”

“My, my. How touchy we are.” Smoke walked to the end of the bar and picked up his coffee cup and took a sip.

Clint and his hands all ordered either beer or whiskey.

“Alcohol this early in the morning is not good for a body,” Smoke chided them all. “I read that in a medical article.”

“Who the hell cares what you read?” Clint told him, anger in his words. “If I want a drink in the morning, I’ll have a drink in the morning.” He knocked back his shotglass of whiskey and shuddered as the booze hit his stomach.

“Oh, by all means, go ahead.” Smoke sat his coffee cup on the bar. “A man never knows when it might be his last one.”

Clint cut his eyes. “What the hell does that mean?”

Smoke shrugged. “Oh, you know how it is out here, Clint. A man’s horse might throw him, a snake might bite him, some Indian might leave the reservation looking for a scalp. Lots of things could happen. Have another drink.”

“I don’t want another drink!”

“Your option.” Smoke sipped his coffee. “Mighty good coffee, barkeep. Mighty good. Coffee, now, that’s good for a man. Sharpens the senses. Whiskey, now, it fills a man with false confidence. Makes him do foolish things. You’re wise not to have but one drink, Clint.”

“Gimme another damn drink!” Clint snarled at the nervous barkeep.

“Two whiskeys, now, that probably won’t hurt a thing,” Smoke said. “Man takes more than two, though, ’specially this early in the day, he’s asking for trouble.”

“Will you shut up?” Clint yelled.

“I’m not talking to you, Clint,” Smoke told him. “I was speaking to the barkeep.”

“Well, I’m tired of hearin’ your mouth rattle.”

“Free country. Of course, if you feel like you’re a big enough man to shut me up, come on.”

“That’s it!” Harris said, moving toward the men. “I’ll have no trouble in this town.”

“Damnit, Harris, I come in town for a drink and some conversation,” Clint said. “I don’t have to listen to someone pop off at the mouth.”

“Neither one of us is armed, Sheriff,” Smoke said. “What trouble could we cause?”

Dr. Garrett had quietly entered the saloon, taking a seat at a far table.

“Of course now,” Smoke took it further, “I see all these gunslingers are totin’ two guns, at least. Yukon there, I know he carries a .41 derringer in his boot. Slim King’s got a knife hung down his back. And a man doesn’t ever want to turn his back to Red Hyde, he’s a back-shooter…”

“By God,” Red stepped away from the bar. “You can’t call me no back-shooter, Jensen. Git a gun.”

“I said no trouble!” Harris said. “You, Red, get out of town.”

“Me!” Red hollered. “I ain’t done nothin’.”

A deputy lifted his sawed off, those cavernous muzzles pointed right at Red’s stomach.

“All right, all right!” Red said, sweat suddenly beading up on his face. “I’m goin’. But you, Jensen…you and me will meet up sometime, and we’ll settle this.”

“We can settle it now,” Smoke said. “With fists. But you won’t do that, will you, Red? No. You won’t. You’re yellow without those guns of yours.”

“Smoke…” Harris warned.

“That’s you, Red. A damn coward.”

“You dirty…” Red cussed him.

Smoke laughed at him. “Come on, Red. Show everybody how bad you are without those guns. You’re afraid to take them off, aren’t you, Red. Because you know when you do, the whole roomful of people will see you for what you are: a dirty back-shooting coward!”

Red grabbed for his guns. Deputy Harry Simpson’s Greener roared, the buckshot taking Red in the side and almost cutting the man in two. The force of the impacting buckshot lifted Red off his boots and slung him against the bar, splattering bits of Red all over the front of the long bar.

Sheriff Black looked at Smoke while some of the gunhands coughed and struggled to keep down their breakfast at the sight of what was left of Red. “Very neatly done, Smoke,” the sheriff complimented him. “Very neat, indeed.”

Smoke lifted his cup in a mock salute and finished the coffee.

“What are you talking about?” Clint said.

“How about you, Clint?” Smoke asked from the end of the bar. “Do you have the guts to fight me?”

“That’s all for this day, Smoke,” Harris warned. “No more of this. I’m ordering you from this town, and you’d better heed that order.”

“Fine,” Smoke said. “I’m a law-abiding man, Sheriff.” He paused by Clint and whispered, “You’re about six feet, three inches tall, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. What of it?”

“I just didn’t know that crap would stack that high, that’s all.”

Jud grabbed his boss and spun him around before he could take a swing. “Don’t do it, Clint. That’s what he wants. Can’t you see that?”

Smoke stood smiling at Clint. Then he arrogantly tipped his hat at the man and walked out of the saloon, lifting his gunbelt from the peg on his way out.

“Somebody pick up Red and tote him to the undertakers,” Jud ordered.

“What are we gonna use?” Fatso Ross asked. “A shovel?”

Clint Black sat in his study, in a leather chair by the fireplace, drinking shot after shot of whiskey. Drinking it neat and chasing it with water. He had thanked Jud for stopping him that morning back in the saloon. Clint was under no illusions about who would have been the victor in that fight. Smoke Jensen would have killed him with his fists, or at least crippled him. He could see it in Smoke’s eyes. A cold, killing fury.

He poured another glass of whiskey. It was one of those times when the alcohol had no effect on him. He reached for a cigar then pulled his hand back. He didn’t want another cigar and really didn’t want the whiskey he’d just poured. He threw glass and contents into the fireplace. The small fire to chase away the evening’s chill exploded harmlessly when the whiskey hit the flames.

He thought about Red and the supper he’d eaten turned sour in his stomach. Once he had gotten over his anger, he realized what his brother had meant that morning when he spoke to Smoke and said it was neatly done. Jensen had set that killing up as coldly as a striking rattler.

Clint sighed and rose to his feet. He walked to the window and looked out at the lamplit windows of the twin bunkhouses, set off to the side and slightly in front of the big house, a respectable distance away. He had more than fifty men at his command, hard men, good men with a gun, ruthless men who would kill man, woman, or child…and most had killed all three, at one time or another. He had more money than he could ever spend and vast holdings of land. And yet Clint felt a helpless sensation sweep over him. He didn’t know what to do about Jensen. The man made him feel…well, inadequate.

Clint had expected Jensen to come charging in days ago, waging war. Instead, he was laying back and biding his time…but for what reason? What was his plan? The man had to have one. Clint just couldn’t figure out what it might be.

Smoke and Sally were staying in one of the bedrooms of the ranch house on the Double D spread. It was a sturdy home, with half a dozen big, comfortable rooms. The man who built it, or had it built, had looked to the future in his planning…but for him, it hadn’t panned out well here.

Smoke was going to see to it that it did work out for the Duggan twins.

Lying in bed, with Smoke snuggled close to her, she asked, “What is your plan, honey?”

“My plan? I don’t really have one. I almost made Clint mad enough to fight me this morning, but the foreman apparently has more sense than his boss and grabbed him. I don’t think Clint’s not wearing a gun will last long, though. But I can’t see him pulling on me. No matter what I might say. But I will see him dead, Sally. Either by my hand or at the end of a rope. One way or the other.”

“Do you trust Sheriff Black?”

“Up to a point. But that point is broadening. I think after he failed to convince his brother to back off and live in peace with his neighbors, Harris began to see him in a much different light. I get the impression that Harris is very disappointed in his brother.”

“Disappointed enough to shoot him if it came to that?” Sally asked.

“I don’t know, honey. I just don’t know about that. I’ve known brother to shoot brother, and father to shoot son and the other way around. But I think for all his past, Harris Black is a good, decent man at the core. Could he kill his brother? I don’t know. One thing I wish I did know: I wish I knew what Clint’s next move was going to be.”