Dakota Ambush

Chapter Eleven

As soon as Matt left the train, he walked down the street to the J.C. Jones Corral where he was met by a tall, very slender man with a large nose and a pockmarked face. The man was smoking a pipe, and he pulled it from his mouth as he greeted Matt.

“Yes, sir, what can I do for you?”

“Are you Mr. Jones?”

The man shook his head. “Jones died a couple of years ago and I bought the place from his widow. I kept the name ’cause folks knew it that way. I’m Keith Collins.”

“Mr. Collins, I’m looking to buy a horse,” Matt said.

“Are you now? Well, sir, you have come to the right place, I can tell you that.” He stuck his hand out. “And you are?”

“Jensen. Matt Jensen.”

“Matt Jensen, is it? I believe I just read about you, Mr. Jensen. Are you the same Matt Jensen who recovered the stolen bank money for the Bank of Pueblo?”

“Yes, I am. Unfortunately, I lost my horse while doing so.”

“That’s a shame. I know how much store a man can put in his horse. And I can see why you need a replacement right away. I tell you what, why don’t you come around back and take a look at the livestock? That’s where I keep the horses that I have for sale.”

There were about a dozen horses in the paddock, and Matt pointed to an Appaloosa. “How about that one?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, I can tell that you have an eye for horses,” Collins said. “He is the best one I have. Would you like to take him for a ride?

“If you don’t mind.”

“No, sir, I don’t mind at all,” Collins said. “Do you have your own saddle?”

“Yes, it’s back at the depot.”

“Well, you can go get it, or I can supply you with one.”

“I prefer to use my own,” Matt said.

“Can’t say as I blame you. If you’re buyin’ this horse for your use, might as well get him used to the saddle he’ll be wearin’ right away,” Collins said. “I’ll move him out front and have him waiting for you when you get back.”

“Thanks,” Matt said.

***

“Looks like he’s renting a horse,” Meacham said to Witherspoon. “I wonder where he’s goin’.”

“Only one road out of here and it goes toward Cleo,” Witherspoon said. He smiled. “And I know just where we can go to wait for him.”

Matt was about half an hour out of Salida when he decided to go back into town. He had twisted around in his saddle to look back when a rifle cracked, and he heard the deadly whine of a bullet frying the air right by his head. Luckily, he had just changed positions in his saddle at almost exactly the same moment the rifle was fired. Had he not done this, he would be dead.

Matt leaped out of the saddle, snaking his rifle out of the boot as he did so. He slapped the horse on the rump to get it out of the line of fire; then he ran, zigzagging, toward a little knoll. Another bullet hit the dirt just after he zigged, and it whined away into the desert. Matt dived for the top of the knoll, then rolled over to the other side. He turned around then, and inched back up to peek over the top.

He saw no one.

Matt slipped back down, then put his hat on the end of his rifle and poked it up over the edge of the knoll. He held it there for a long moment, hoping to draw fire, but nothing happened. Then, when he was absolutely certain that there was no one there, he moved cautiously to where the ambusher had been.

Whoever had been there was gone, but Matt found the remains of a cigarette, and the spent brass casing of a couple of .44-40 shells, jacked out of the rifle by the assailant after firing. He also found tracks, indicating that there had been two men involved in the ambush, though as both shell casings appeared to come from the same rifle, only one had fired at him.

Who was trying to kill him? And why?

Matt chuckled as he considered the question. With as many enemies as Matt had made over the years—a better question might be, who wasn’t after him?

Looking around, he saw the Appaloosa he had been riding, standing about a quarter of a mile away. Matt put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Such a whistle would have brought either of his previous horses trotting toward him, but this horse stood still.

“Well, at least you didn’t run away,” Matt said aloud, as he started toward the animal. It took him a couple of minutes to cover the distance between the horse and himself and, fortunately, the horse stayed in place for the entire time.

“You had a clear shot and you missed,” Meacham said as he and Witherspoon rode back into town.

“The son of a bitch moved just as I fired,” Witherspoon said.

“You missed,” Meacham said.

“I’ll get him next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll take care of him myself.”

Though he was very alert on the ride back, there were no other attempts on his life. Matt returned to the corral, dismounted, and was patting the horse on the neck as the owner came out to greet him, a wide, salesman’s smile spread across his face.

“So, what do you think, Mr. Jensen? Is this a fine horse, or what?”

“He’s a good horse,” Matt said.

Collins’s smile broadened, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“So, I guess we need to talk price now,” he said.

Matt patted the horse again, then began to remove his saddle.

“Oh, there’s no need for you to remove your saddle,” Collins said. “As soon as we close the deal, you can ride him away from here. Yes, sir, you are getting yourself one fine animal.”

Matt looked at the horse, and thought of him standing there, even though he had whistled for him. It hadn’t been that important today, but suppose it had been a matter of life or death. What, then, if he had a horse who could not respond to his whistle? And, he realized, it wasn’t a matter of training. He had never trained either one of the Spirits—they had both possessed an innate understanding, a quality that, obviously, this horse did not have.

“I don’t think I want him,” Matt said.

The proprietor’s smile was replaced by an expression of disappointment and surprise.

“What are you talking about? He is the best horse I’ve got, and you said yourself he was a good horse.”

“He is a good horse,” Matt said. “He just isn’t the right horse.”

“He’s not? What is the right horse? Tell me, and I’ll make sure you get one that is right.”

Matt held the saddle draped over his shoulder.

“How are you going to do that?” Matt asked. “You just told me this was the best horse you had.”

“Well, I—” The proprietor started to say, then changing his thought in mid-sentence, went on. “I’ll tell you right now, you ain’t goin’ to find yourself no better horse in Salida. No, sir, nor none better in Fremont County, I’m a’ thinkin’.”

“I think you may be right,” Matt said.

The proprietor, thinking he had won Matt over, smiled again. “Well, then, you need a horse and I’ve got a horse, so let’s do a little business.”

“Thank you, no, I believe I’ll go somewhere else.”

“Where? You just now agreed with me that there ain’t no better horse in the whole county.”

“I did, didn’t I? I suppose that’s why I’m going up to Eagle County.”

“Eagle County? What’s up there?” the perplexed proprietor asked.

“Sugarloaf Ranch,” Matt replied.

Leaving the livery stable, Matt returned to the depot, where he bought a ticket for Big Rock. Then, with three hours to kill before the train was due to leave, he crossed the street to the saloon.

“Son of a bitch, that’s him!” Meacham said when he saw Matt come into the saloon. He and Witherspoon were sitting at a table on the opposite side of the stove from the bar.

Witherspoon turned in his chair and saw Jensen order a beer.

“Will he recognize you if he sees you?”

“He saw me on the train coming up from Pueblo,” Meacham said. “But I don’t think he knows I’m the one that’s been trying to kill him.”

“Been trying? You mean there was another time before we tried out on the road?”

“Yeah, back in Pueblo,” Meacham said. He told of trying to shoot Matt in his bed in the hotel, only to get the two men who were with him killed.

“I planned to kill him on the train,” Meacham said, “but I never got the chance.”

“You know your problem?” Weatherspoon asked.

“What?”

“You’ve been sending boys to do a man’s job.” Meacham stood up.

“What are you going to do?” Meacham asked.

“I’m goin’ to kill Matt Jensen, and make myself five hunnert dollars,” Witherspoon said.

“Not in here, you ain’t.”

“You want him dead, don’t you?”

“Yes, but this ain’t the place to do it.”

“Dead is dead, and one place is as good as another,” Witherspoon said as he slipped a knife from a sheath on his belt.

Meacham shook his head. “No, I don’t have a stake in this,” he said. “Not in here.”

“Oh you’ll have a stake in it, all right,” Witherspoon said menacingly. “In fact, you have a five-hundred-dollar stake in it.”

Witherspoon moved to the middle of the saloon floor, then stopped about twenty feet behind Matt.

Matt had just taken a drink of his beer when suddenly a knife flashed by in front of him. The blade buried itself about half an inch into the bar with a thocking sound. After that, the handle vibrated back and forth.

Instantly, Matt dropped his beer and, turning toward the direction from which the knife had come, drew his pistol even before the beer mug hit the floor. There was only one man standing behind him, and even if he wasn’t reaching for his own pistol, Matt would have known that he was the one who threw the knife.

When the man saw how quickly Matt had drawn his gun, he let his pistol fall back into his holster and held his hands up in the air.

“No, no,” he said. “Don’t shoot, Jensen. Don’t shoot!”

“Why the hell not?” Matt replied coldly. “If you were a little better with that knife, it would be sticking out of my back right now.”

“I was just—I was just tryin’ to get your attention,” Witherspoon said weakly.

“Yeah, well, you got my attention, all right.”

“I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. It was just a bet, is all.”

“Nobody is foolish enough to do something like that for a bet,” Matt said.

When Witherspoon didn’t answer, Matt asked, “You the one that’s been dogging me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone took a couple of shots at me out on the road today.”

“What makes you think it was me?”

“Because whoever it was wasn’t much better with a rifle than you are with a knife.”

“It wasn’t me,” Witherspoon lied.

“All right, it wasn’t you. But this was. Why did you try to kill me? And don’t tell me again that it was a bet. That will just get me riled enough to shoot you where you stand.”

“All right, I was after you,” Witherspoon said.

“Why?”

“You may not know this, Jensen, but you’ve got a price on your head.”

Matt shook his head. “No, I don’t,” he said. “There is no paper out on me anywhere. I’m not wanted by the law.”

Witherspoon smiled. “I didn’t say nothin’ about the law. I just said you got a price on your head. Someone wants you dead.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know. If you don’t know, how do you expect to collect your money?”

“I won’t be collectin’ any money,” Witherspoon said. “I’m through with it now.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I’ll give you my pistol,” Witherspoon said. “That will prove to you that I’m out of it.”

Holding his left hand out, palm facing Matt as if pleading with him to hold back, Witherspoon reached for his pistol with his right hand, moving very slowly.

“I’m just going to pull my gun out real slow now,” Witherspoon said. “Don’t go getting all excited or anything.”

Matt watched as his adversary pulled his pistol from the holster. Then he turned the pistol around so that the butt was pointing toward Matt.

“See what I mean?” he said. “I ain’t puttin’ up no fight now, and this here saloon is full of witnesses who’ll swear I was handin’ you my gun. You can’t shoot me now. If you do, you’ll hang, sure.”

“Who the hell are you?” Matt asked.

“The name is Witherspoon. Angus Witherspoon.”

“Witherspoon? Yeah, I’ve heard of you.”

Witherspoon smiled. “You have heard of me? Well, now, I’m just real flattered. I must be doin’ pretty good for the great Matt Jensen to have heard of me.”

“All right, Weatherspoon, hand me your pistol,” Matt said, holding out his left hand.

In a totally unexpected maneuver, Weather-spoon executed a border roll, as fast as if he were drawing the pistol from his holster. Matt suddenly found himself looking down the business end of a Colt .44.

Matt had relaxed his own position to the point where he let the hammer down on his pistol, and had even lowered his gun. Now he had to bring his pistol to bear, while at the same time drawing back the hammer. And the fact that Weatherspoon had already started his own action, put Matt at a distinct disadvantage.

The quiet room was suddenly shattered with the roar of two pistols and the saloon patrons yelled and dived, or scrambled for cover. White gun smoke billowed out in a cloud that filled the center of the room, momentarily obscuring everything.

From his position at the far side of the room, Meacham was as surprised as everyone else. He hadn’t been surprised by Weatherspoon throwing his knife; Weatherspoon had all but told him he was going to do that. But he was surprised by the way things had developed. Now, like everyone else in the saloon, Meacham stared at the cloud of smoke, waiting for it to clear enough for him to see what happened.

Finally, the smoke drifted away, and Meacham saw Weatherspoon standing there, a broad smile on his face.

Damn! Meacham thought. He did it! The son of a bitch did it!

Weatherspoon opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound he made was a gagging rattle, way back in his throat. The smile left his face, his eyes glazed over, and he pitched forward, his gun clattering to the floor.

Matt looked down at Weatherspoon for a moment, then holstered his pistol.

After that, bedlam broke out in the saloon as everyone hurried over to congratulate Matt, to shake his hand and to build a memory they could share with their grandchildren many years from now.

Conspicuously absent from the crowd of well-wishers was Lucas Meacham. And though Matt didn’t know Meacham’s name, he was quite familiar with him by now and he watched as Meacham hurried away from the saloon. He couldn’t help but wonder if Meacham wasn’t somehow involved in all this.