Absaroka Ambush

13

Clint called his foreman over for breakfast at the main house. All the hands knew something was up, for anytime Jud was asked to eat with Clint, something big was in the works.

“When I came in here, Jud,” Clint said, after shoveling food into his mouth, “I wasn’t no more than a kid. Not yet twenty years old. There wasn’t nothing in this part of the country exceptin’ Indians and outlaws. Few nesters. I run the nesters off, fought the Indians, and killed the outlaws. This part of the territory is mine. Has been for years, and I intend to see that it remains that way.”

The foreman ate slowly and said nothing. He listened.

“Tell the men they’re going to start earning their money today,” Clint told him. “I want Smoke Jensen dead.”

Jud nodded his head and continued eating. The cook came in with a fresh pot of coffee, set it on the table, and quickly left the room. For a fact, Jud thought, things had sure changed in only a few weeks. Used to be that when a Circle 45 rider came to town, folks stepped lively in serving them. A person could smell the fear in them. All that had changed since Jensen arrived. The townspeople and even the damned farmers around the area were not properly respectful like they should be.

“Jensen’s gone out of the cattle business for the most part,” Clint said. “He’s gonna raise horses. So he’s got time on his hands to hang around up here and meddle in everybody’s business. Well, I’m tired of him meddlin’ in mine. Can’t count on Harris anymore. But that don’t make any difference. He never really was included in any major plannin’. Next thing we know, he’ll have got religion and be goin’ to church. The new hands arrive?”

Jud nodded his head. “Eight of them. We still got empty bunks we could fill. Problem is, Clint, there ain’t nothin’ for them to do. They’re just hangin’ around the bunkhouse loafin’ and drawin’ their pay.”

“Weldon and Tex come in?”

“Late yesterday.”

“We start crowdin’ the Double D hands. Push ’em into a fight. But make sure our boys got lots of witnesses. Leave the women alone.”

“How about them snot-nosed kids Jensen brung up with him?”

“They’re drawin’ a man’s pay and sittin’ a saddle. If they get in the way, too bad. After breakfast, send the boys out in groups of five and six.” Clint raised his head and smiled at his foreman. “Tell them to get into trouble.”

Raul, the young Mexican who took care of the house and the lawn at the Double D, had taken the wagon into town for supplies early that morning. When he wasn’t back by mid-afternoon, the twins got worried.

“Raul does not drink,” Toni told Smoke. “And he is very dependable. He’s stood by us through the worst. I’m afraid something has happened to him.”

“I’ll ride in and check on him.”

Smoke found the wagon a few miles from the ranch. It was overturned and the supplies scattered. The harnesses had been cut and the horses were gone. A few minutes later he found Raul. The young man had been badly beaten and then dragged. He was alive, but just barely. Smoke emptied a pistol into the air, knowing that would bring the Double D hands at a gallop.

Waymore and Cletus were the first to arrive. “Get to the ranch and get a buckboard, Cletus. Waymore, you get Stony and Ted and start tracking the raiders. Ride with your rifles in hand.”

Smoke got his canteen and bathed the young man’s badly battered face. Raul opened his eyes. “Lie still, you’re bad hurt, Raul.”

“Fatso was in the bunch, Mr. Smoke,” Raul whispered. “So was Art Long. They beat me and dragged me.”

“Don’t talk anymore. We’ll get you into town to the doctor. You’ll be all right. Just lie still for now.”

Everybody came fogging down the road with the buckboard. The bed had been filled with hay and Raul was lifted as gently as possible and placed on the softness.

“Get him to town,” Smoke told Jeff, who was driving the wagon. He looked at the boys who’d come on the drive north. “You boys are now in charge of the house and the grounds, including the barn and corral. You are not to leave the grounds unless I say so. Is that clear?”

They nodded their heads.

“Get back up to the ranch and see to things. And stay in sight of the house. I’ll tan your butts if you disobey me. Get moving.”

The boys gone, Smoke looked at Denver. “Look after them, Denver.”

“Will do, boss.” The old cook swung into the saddle and headed back to the ranch.

“No riding, Sally,” Smoke told her. “You keep on teaching the twins how to shoot a rifle and stay close to the house and go armed at all times. Load up all the guns, especially the shotguns, and place them in every room and on the front and back porches. The war has started.”

Smoke waited on the boardwalk in front of Dr. Garrett’s office and small clinic. He turned as Sheriff Black quietly closed the door and stepped out.

“Doc says he’ll probably make it. But he’s busted up pretty good. I got his statement, for all the good it’ll do.” The Circle 45 hands will alibi for each other.” It was not put as a question.

“You know it. Raul is well-liked in town. He was polite and would do anything in the world for people. He came in with some sheepmen. My brother ran the sheep off, killed a lot of them, and probably had a hand in killing the sheepmen. Raul stayed around doing odd jobs. When the Duggan twins came in, he went to work for them…in direct defiance of Clint’s orders. I warned Raul to go armed. But he didn’t like guns. Goddamnit!” Harris summed up his feelings in one word.

Smoke said nothing.

Harris hitched at his gun belt. “I’m going out to my brother’s place. But don’t expect any arrests.”

“I know you’ll do all that you can, Harris. And I’m not being sarcastic. I mean that.”

The sheriff nodded his head and walked toward the stable. “Try to keep your guns in leather,” he said over his shoulder.

Smoke didn’t reply to that. He stood on the boardwalk until after the sheriff had ridden out, then crossed the street and took a chair in front of the hotel. He figured some of the Circle 45 rowdies would be riding into town shortly for a drink. He would be waiting.

It was not a long wait, and Smoke smiled when he saw the Wyoming man, Baylis, riding in with several of Clint’s men. One of the deputies, Benny, stood across the street, watching Smoke and the Circle 45 men. The rest of the deputies were out tracking the men who’d attacked Raul. The Circle 45 men went into the saloon. Smoke stood up and headed for the saloon.

As he passed by the deputy, he paused and said, “I just heard there was some trouble out at that farm about three miles west of here. Maybe you’d best go check on that.”

“Huh? I haven’t heard about any trouble.”

“I just told you.”

The deputy got the message and nodded his head. “That would be the Jeffersons’ place.”

“Probably.”

“It’ll take the rest of the afternoon for me to do that.”

“Pleasant ride, though. See you.”

“Ah…right, Mr. Jensen. See you.”

Smoke walked over to the saloon and pushed open the batwings. A dozen locals were sitting at tables. The Circle 45 hands were lined up at the bar, Baylis among them. Smoke stepped to one side, away from the batwings, and put his back to a wall.

“Any of you trash seen Fatso and Art Long today?” Smoke called.

Baylis froze in the lifting of his glass to his mouth. He cut his eyes to Smoke. “You callin’ me trash?”

“That’s right, Baylis. And worse. You’re the one who beat it up here from Wyoming to tell Clint about the herd. I can’t say that you were in on the night attack, but you’re just as guilty. You wanted to brace me back on the trail, Baylis. Still want to pull against me?”

Baylis lifted the shot glass and downed his drink. He thought for a moment, nodded his head, and turned, his hand by the butt of his gun. “Why not, Jensen? I think all that talk about you is bull anyway.” Then he grabbed for his Colt.

Smoke’s .44 roared and Baylis was leaning against the bar, his belly and chest leaking blood. The three Circle 45 hands jerked their guns and both of Smoke’s hands were filled with .44s as he went to one knee and began thumbing and firing in one long continuous roll of deadly thunder.

A round blew Smoke’s hat off his head and another slug came so close to his leg, he could feel the heat. But Clint Black was four hands short.

Baylis was sitting on the barroom floor, his hands by his side and his dead eyes staring at eternity. Two other Circle 45 riders were dead and the fourth was not long for this world. He had taken two .44 slugs in the chest. Smoke walked to him, reloading as he went, and kicked his gun away. The man stared up at him.

“You played hell, Jensen,” he gasped.

“I usually do, partner.”

“I guess I took a wrong turn in life and just never got back on the right road.”

“I reckon you did. But you can clean the slate some this day.”

“How’s that?”

“Did Clint Black order the attack on my herd?”

“Yeah. I won’t lie for him no more. He ordered us to hit your camp and kill everyone there. Told us to bring them good-looking twins back to him. He wanted to have some fun with the gals before he got rid of them.”

Dr. Garrett and Bigelow from the hotel had entered and were listening.

“Did you know about Raul being dragged and beaten today?”

“No. But Jud said Clint told him to have us start earnin’ the fightin’ wages we was gettin’. He put a bounty on your head, Jensen. Whichever one of us kills you gets five thousand dollars.”

“Anything else you want to tell me?”

“Gettin’ dark, Jensen. I think I’m goin’. Funny…but there ain’t no pain. Yeah. Clint’s done sent word all along the owlhoot trail for gunhands. I don’t know how many’s comin’ in, but they’ll be some, you can bet on that.”

“What’s your name?” Smoke asked, kneeling down beside the dying puncher turned gunslick.

“Doug. Doug Randel.”

“I’ll have that put on your marker.”

“’Preciate it. Maybe we’ll get to ride down a better trail someday. I’d like that.”

“Me, too, Doug.”

Doug smiled, coughed up blood, and died.

Smoke looked around for his hat. He found it, stuck his finger through the bullet hole and shook his head. “Hat’s not ten days old.” He put it on and settled it. He looked at Dr. Garrett, who was inspecting the downed men for signs of life. He didn’t find any and stood up with a sigh.

“A dead man’s confession might hold up in court,” the doctor said. “But I doubt it.”

“We’ll all testify that we heard it,” one of the local men said. “If that’ll help.”

“Here comes Lucas,” another local said, looking out the window. “Looks like his horse come up lame. Little Billy Thompson is tellin’ him about the shootin’, I reckon. Here he comes.”

The deputy walked in, looked at the bodies by the bar, and cussed for a few seconds.

“Jensen didn’t pull first,” a local said. “But he shore laid him out neat, didn’t he?”

“The sheriff ain’t gonna like this,” Lucas said. “All right, somebody tell me what happened.”

Clint’s joy at hearing about Raul was short-lived when one of his hands told him about the shooting in town. The hand took one look at Clint’s face and immediately found an urge to be somewhere else…quickly.

“I put one of theirs out of action and Jensen kills four of mine,” Clint muttered darkly. “I won’t have any hands left at this rate.”

His brother had been to see him and Clint told him he didn’t know anything about Raul. Fatso and the others were working the range clear on the other side of his place and he’d swear to that in a court of law. And to get the hell off his property and stay off.

Clint had slammed the front door in his brother’s face.

Furious, Harris Black wired a judge for advice. When the judge in the territorial capital of Helena ruled that the deathbed confession of Doug Randel could not be used in a court of law, the people in the sparsely populated area around Blackstown braced themselves for war.

It was not long in coming. Less than twenty-four hours after the attack on Raul and the shooting in the saloon, a group of Circle 45 riders—after getting juiced up on whiskey—decided to have some fun and hoo-rah a local farmer. They rode their horses through the family’s vegetable garden, shot the milk cows and the pigs, and trampled the chickens. The farmer grabbed a rifle and blew one rider out of the saddle. The Circle 45 riders shot him to bloody rags and as they were riding away, accidentally ran down one of the man’s children, a six-year-old girl. She died in the back of the wagon long before the nearly hysterical mother could get her into town and to Doc Garrett’s office.

So angry he was nearly trembling with rage, Harris Black rode out to confront his brother.

“It was a damn accident,” Clint told him. “The punchers was just having some fun, that’s all. The nester opened fire on them. What the hell was they supposed to do?”

“Fun!” Harris yelled at him. “Fun? A man and a little girl are dead. All because you think you’re some sort of king around here and the law doesn’t apply to you. I want the men responsible for this and I by God want them now, Clint.”

“I paid them off and fired them.”

“You’re a damned liar, Clint.”

Clint sucker-punched his brother, knocking him off the porch. The two brothers fought for a moment before Jud and half a dozen other men could pull them apart.

With hands holding both men, Clint yelled, “Get off my land, Harris. Get off and stay off. If you ever call me a liar again, I’ll kill you!”

“I’ll see you hang, Clint,” Harris told him. “You’re my brother, but you’re no good. You’re trash. You better toe the line from now on, Clint. Fire these no-count gunhands and walk light.”

“Get him on his horse and out of my sight!” Clint screamed. “Right now.”

In the saddle, Harris Black looked down at his younger brother. “You don’t even realize what you’ve done, Clint. You’re filled with such hate, you don’t know that I could arrest you for attacking me.”

“You want to try it now?” Clint challenged, as more of his hands gathered around.

“I’m not a fool, brother. I might get lead in you and a couple of your men before I was shot out of the saddle, but it’s just not worth it. You’re not worth it.”

“Get out while you still can, Harris,” Clint warned him. “Before your big flappin’ mouth gets you in trouble. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do to me; I run this country. Not you. Don’t get in my way, you might get hurt.”

Harris lifted the reins. “Mother would want you buried proper, Clint. I’ll see to that.” Then he added, “You poor damn pitiful fool.” He turned his horse and headed back to town.