Absaroka Ambush

15

“They’re up in the high country, staying out of sight,” Harris said to Smoke the next afternoon. “Clint was actually civil to me yesterday. But he couldn’t keep from smiling. He feels pretty good about what he did.” He stared at Smoke for a moment. “You look like a man who just ate a sour apple. What’s your problem?”

“I feel responsible for that merchant getting killed the other day.”

“That’s nonsense. You didn’t start this war, my brother did. No one in this town blames you. Hell, if you did anything, you stuck some steel into a lot of backbones around here. No, Smoke. No. In one way, my life would be a lot simpler if you’d leave, but that would just make my brother even more cockier. I am glad you got those boys out of this mess.”

“I should have done it days ago. I don’t know why I waited so long.”

Boots sounded on the boardwalk and the door was flung open. “Sheriff!” a man shouted. “Come quick.”

Smoke and Harris stood on the boards and looked to the west. Plumes of dark smoke were spiraling into the sky.

“The Crawford farm,” Harris said. “Clint’s been trying to buy it for years. Good water and good graze. Crawford’s told me that Clint’s threatened him a time or two. Feel like taking a ride?”

“Let’s go.”

The farmer lay face down in his wife’s flower bed. He’d been shot twice in the head. The woman and three girls stood under a huge old tree, sobbing. The house and barn were gone, burned to the ground. The cows, pigs, and horses were dead, all of them shot.

“In broad open daylight,” Harris muttered.

“They were wearing hoods,” the woman said, tears still streaming down her face, reddening her eyes. “And their horses were wearing brands that I’d never seen before.”

Smoke dismounted and began inspecting the tracks left by the churning hooves. He found one horse with a nearly perfect Z somehow cut into the shoe. He waved Harris over and pointed it out.

“Let’s look at the dead horses over there, just to be sure,” Harris suggested.

The dead animals bore no such cut on any horseshoe.

Harris turned to his deputies. “Take off after them. But I’ve got a pretty good hunch where they’re going. They’ll probably get into the river and try to lose you that way. Then they’ll come out on the gravel and probably go back in the river where it curves. Stay with them. Provision at the Bell spread.”

“I’ll ride back to town for a wagon,” Smoke said. “Ma’am,” he turned to the woman, “do you want to stay on this farm and work it?”

“No,” she shook her head. “No. I want to leave this awful place.”

“All right. When you get to town, go to the new bank and tell them who you are. I’ll have everything set up. I’m buying your place. You just name your price.”

Harris stared open-mouthed at Smoke. This would really anger his brother. Jensen was pushing and pushing hard. He closed his mouth before a fly could find it.

Smoke swung into the saddle. “See you, Harris.” He headed into town.

“Was that Smoke Jensen, Sheriff?” the woman asked.

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t look at all like the stories depict him. What a nice young man.”

Harris cut his eyes to the woman. “Believe me when I say there are those who do not share that opinion, Mrs. Crawford.”

“Including your brother, Sheriff?”

“Especially my brother, Mrs. Crawford.”

Smoke tossed the deed to the Crawford farm to Denver. “It’s big enough to run a few head of cattle, some horses, and it has a whale of a garden there now. You said this run was going to be your last one. So happy retirement, Denver.”

Sally smiled. Nothing that Smoke did surprised her any longer. If he liked a person, that person had a loyal friend for life. If he disliked a person, that person had better leave town on the first available horse, stage, or train.

Denver turned his head so those gathered around would not see the quick tears. He brushed them away and said, “You’re a puzzlement, Smoke. I thank you.”

“Well, you can’t leave until we get this Clint Black situation put aside. You certainly don’t want to stay over there by yourself. You’d end up like Crawford. Besides, there is no house or barn. When the time is right, the First United Bank will loan you the money to get started.”

“Count on that,” Sally said with a smile

“They killed the man right in front of his family,” Toni said. “Horrible. Clint Black has certainly lost his mind! “

“Oh, he’s mad, all right,” Smoke said, after thanking the cook for the cup of coffee she handed him. “But not in the way you think. He’s crazy-killing angry because for years he was the top fish in a small pond around here. He yelled frog and everybody jumped. Now the pond is a big lake and nobody is paying any attention to him. He’s striking out at anybody he sees. He thinks everybody is his enemy, and he’s just about right on that.”

“And the sheriff seems powerless to act,” Jeanne said.

“Harris is straight arrow, Jeanne,” Smoke told her. “He wants everything done legal-like. All the T’s crossed and the I’s dotted. He’d put him in jail in a heartbeat if he had some proof that would stand up in a court of law. But he doesn’t have it.”

“And not much chance of getting it,” Denver said. He was still in mild shock upon learning he was now a landowner.

“Sadly true,” Smoke agreed.

“So we’re right back where we started,” Toni said.

“Oh, no,” Smoke told her. “You and your sister have the herd on Double D range, the people in the community have risen up against Clint Black and his men, the sheriff now sees his brother for what he really is, and I doubt that Clint’s bank will last out the summer. A lot has been accomplished, I’d say.”

“I just feel responsible for what’s happened,” Jeanne said. “All the tragedy.”

“Don’t,” Smoke said. “Harris told me that before we came in, he’d heard rumblings of a citizens’ group forming to fight Clint and the Circle 45 hands. The good people of the community had decided to make their stand. The fuse was already lit when Clint ordered the raid against us. Harris said, very reluctantly, that our coming in might just have prevented a lot more spilled blood of innocent people than has occurred since we arrived. I like to think so.”

“What’s next?” Denver asked.

Smoke shrugged his shoulders. “That’s up to Clint, I reckon.”

Jud walked slowly toward the big ranch house. He had to speak his piece to Clint, and he was not looking forward to it. What he had to say would not be said out of any compassion for his fellow man, for Jud was just as sorry and miserable and low-down a person as Clint and all the other Circle 45 hands. But the situation had reached the point where a man had to step back and do some thinking. It was down to survival now. The whole country was lined up solidly against the Circle 45. Once they left Circle 45 range, none of them had a friend within a hundred-mile radius. It wouldn’t be long before the whole kit and caboodle of them would be barred from town. Jud had seen that happen before. Back when he was a young hellion riding the owlhoot trail.

His head down, deep in thought, he was surprised to see Clint sitting on the front porch.

“We got to talk, boss,” the foreman said, stepping up on the porch.

Clint waved the man to a chair. “You going to tell me to pull in my horns, Jud?”

“I’m sure gonna suggest it.”

Jud hollered for the cook to bring them a pot of coffee and be damn quick about it. The cook might not like being hollered at, but there was precious little he could do about it, since Jud knew he was wanted for murder back in Missouri. All in all, the Circle 45 riders, including Jud and Clint, made up just about the sorriest gathering of humanity anywhere west of the Mississippi.

Coffee poured, Clint sipped in silence for several minutes. He sat the mug down and said, “What else were you going to tell me?”

“George Miller just come in from town. He said he was walkin’ real light in there. It was some kind of scary. Everybody was carryin’ guns. And he also said that Smoke Jensen bought the Crawford farm.”

Clint hurled his coffee mug out into the yard and cussed. Then he yelled for the cook to bring him another cup. In a calmer voice, he said, “That five thousand dollar bounty on Jensen’s head still stands, Jud.”

“What good would it do, Clint? When an old elk turns to make his final stand against the wolves or a cougar or a fight for who’s boss, he’s made up his mind to stand or die. Same way with the people around here, now. The killin’ would never stop. Two more hands rode out this mornin’. Clint, there ain’t a real cowboy left on this place, ’ceptin’ maybe you and me. You got thousands and thousands of acres with no cattle to speak of.”

“You going to start attending church, Jud?” Clint asked sarcastically.

“Probably wouldn’t hurt neither of us, although it’s more ’un likely too late to do us any good. Clint, Smoke Jensen ain’t even broke a sweat yet in this fight. You and me, now, we know all about the man. He’s hell when he gets goin’. He’ll do anything. Guns, dynamite, fire…you name it and Jensen will use it. He’s a wild man when he gets riled up.”

“He’s just one man, Jud. Just one man. And I don’t agree with you about the people around here. They kowtowed for years. They’re yellow clear through. With Jensen out of the way, they’d slink back into their holes.”

“There is one more thing: what about your brother?” Jud asked softly.

“I have no brother,” Clint said. “He’s turned his back to me and shown me his true colors. As far as I’m concerned, he’s an enemy.”

“You’re going all the way with this, Clint?”

“Yes, I am. I don’t have any choice in the matter. Do you see a choice for me?”

Jud looked at his boss for a moment, wondering if the man was kidding? But Clint’s face was granite. Then he got it: Clint was talking honor. Honor! There wasn’t a shred of honor between the two men. Both of them had cold-bloodedly murdered and stolen land and cattle and horses and God alone knew what else, and Clint was talking about honor?

Jud stood up. “All right, Clint. You know I’ll stand with you all the way.”

“I appreciate that, old friend. We’ll whip Jensen. You just wait and see. We’ll whip him.”

When pigs fly, the foreman thought. But he kept that to himself.

On Stony’s word, Smoke hired two more hands for the Double D. Two young, easy-to-grin men who had been working over in the Dakota Territory and had drifted back home when they learned that someone was fighting Clint Black.

“This here’s Davy and Eli, Smoke,” Stony said. “They ain’t gunslingers, but they are good punchers. And they both hate Clint Black.”

Smoke shook hands with the men and could feel the calluses on their hands. “What did Clint ever do to you boys?”

“Put my daddy out of the ranchin’ business,” Davy said. “I was just a kid. Clint and his no-count hands stole our cattle just after we rounded ’em up. Killed my brother and when ma heard that, she just collapsed. Died a couple of days later. Doc said it was a heart attack. Pa, he went after Clint, but Jud Howes found him first and stomped him half to death. Pa died a few years after that. Lost the ranch and that stompin’ broke his spirit. I was thirteen when I hit the road and startin’ doin’ a man’s work. But I tell you this, Mr. Jensen…”

“Smoke. Just Smoke, Davy.”

Davy grinned. “Fine, Smoke. What I was gonna say is this: if I ever get Clint or Jud in gunsights, it’s my swore intention to kill ’em. I want you to know that up front.”

“Neither one of them are worth hanging over, Davy,” Smoke cautioned the young man. “Putting a rope around your own neck won’t bring your ma and pa back. Don’t worry, though, I feel sure you’ll get your shot at one or both of those men. How about you, Eli?”

“Clint raped my sister,” the young puncher said. “Took her like an animal, he did. This was years ago. I was no more than five or six years old. I seen him ridin’ off from where he done it. Sis made me swear never to tell ’cause she knew Pa would go after him and Clint or his hands would kill Pa. When she learned she was with child, she killed herself rather than face the disgrace. It broke Ma’s heart. Pa, he just was never the same. Clint, he come ridin’ over big as brass, grinnin’ like the cat who licked the cream, and told pa he was gonna buy him out. That day. Pa knew it was over. He took the money, piddlin’ sum that it was, and we pulled out. Injuns hit us down on the Ruby. I had gone off into the woods to play and they never knew I was about. Church people took me in. I run off when I was eleven and never looked back. But I intend to kill Clint Black.”

Smoke looked at the two young man. Clint Black had to be one of the sorriest excuses for a human being he had ever run up against. He had never met a man who didn’t have any redeeming qualities—until now. “You boys toss your kit in the bunkhouse and get ready for supper. My wife’s cooking tonight, so it’s gonna be good.”

“Mr. Jensen…ah, Smoke,” Eli said. “Did your wife really strap on a pistol and take up a rifle and ride with you to help you out of a jam some months back?”

Smoke chuckled in the fading light of day. “She sure did. She was born back east to a wealthy family, but that lady can ride and shoot as good as any man. Better than most. It isn’t wise to cross her. Bear that in mind.”

The young cowboys solemnly nodded their heads. Davy asking, “Can she cook as good as she shoots?”

Smoke patted him on the back. “Better, Davy.”

“Lord have mercy,” Davy said. “Eli, I think we done found us a home.”