Dear Readers,
Many years ago, when I was a kid, my father said to me, “Bill, it doesn’t really matter what you do in life. What’s important is to be the best William Johnstone you can be.”
I’ve never forgotten those words. And now, many years and almost 200 books later, I like to think that I am still trying to be the best William Johnstone I can be. Whether it’s Ben Raines in the Ashes series, or Frank Morgan, the last gunfighter, or Smoke Jensen, our intrepid mountain man, or John Barrone and his hard-working crew keeping America safe from terrorist lowlifes in the Code Name series, I want to make each new book better than the last and deliver powerful storytelling.
Equally important, I try to create the kinds of believable characters that we can all identify with, real people who face tough challenges. When one of my creations blasts an enemy into the middle of next week, you can be damn sure he had a good reason.
As a storyteller, my job is to entertain you, my readers, and to make sure that you get plenty of enjoyment from my books for your hard-earned money. This is not a job I take lightly. And I greatly appreciate your feedback—you are my gold, and your opinions do count. So please keep the letters and e-mails coming.
Respectfully yours,
WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
TRAIL OF THE
MOUNTAIN MAN
REVENGE OF THE
MOUNTAIN MAN
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
TRAIL OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Book Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
REVENGE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
TRAIL OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN
Dedicated to Caroline Gehman.
Have a nice day—or night—whatever.
BOOK ONE
This will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
—Elmer Davis
I seen my duty and I done it.
—Anonymous
1
As gold strikes go, this particular strike was nothing to really shout about. Oh, a lot of the precious metal was dug out, chipped free, and blasted from the earth and rock, but the mines would play out in just over a year. The town of Fontana would wither and fade from the Western scene a couple of years later.
But with the discovery of gold, a great many lives would be forever changed. Livelihoods and relationships were altered; fortunes were made and lost; lives were snuffed out and families split, with the only motive greed.
Thus Fontana was conceived only to die an unnatural death.
Dawn was breaking as the man stepped out of the cabin. He held a steaming cup of coffee in one large, callused hand. He was tall, with wide shoulders and the lean hips of the horseman. His hair was ash-blond, cropped short, and his eyes were a cold brown, rarely giving away any inner thought.
The cabin had been built well, of stone and logs. The floor was wood. The windows held real glass. The cabin had been built to last, with a hand pump in the kitchen to bring up the water. There were curtains on the windows. The table and chairs and benches were hand-made and carved; done with patience and love.
And all about the house, inside and out, were the signs of a woman’s touch.
Flowers and blooming shrubs were in colored profusion. The area around the house was trimmed and swept. Neat.
It was a high-up and lonely place, many miles from the nearest town. Below the cabin lay a valley, five miles wide and as many miles long. The land was filed on and claimed and legal with the Government. It belonged to the man and his wife.
They had lived here for three years, hacking a home out of the high, lonesome wilderness. Building a future. In another year they planned on building a family. If all stayed according to plan, that is.
The man and wife had a couple hundred head of cattle, a respectable herd of horses. They worked a large garden, canning much of what they raised for the hard winters that lashed the high country.
The man and woman stayed to themselves, socializing very little. When they did visit, it was not to the home of the kingpin who claimed to run the entire area, Tilden Franklin. Rather it was to the small farmers and ranchers who dotted the country that lay beneath the high lonesome where the man and woman lived.
There was a no-name town that was exclusively owned by Tilden Franklin. The town held a large general store, two saloons, a livery stable, and a gunsmith.
But all that was about to change.
Abruptly.
This was a land of towering mountains and lush, green valleys, sparsely populated, and it took a special breed of men and women to endure.
Many could not cope with the harshness, and they either moved on or went back to where they came from.
Those that stayed were the hardy breed.
Like Matt and Sally.
Matt was not his real name. He had not been called by his real name for so many years he never thought of it. There were those who could look at him and tell what he had once been; but this was the West, and what a man had once been did not matter. What mattered was what he was now. And all who knew Matt knew him to be a man you could ride the river with.
He had been a gunfighter. But now he rarely buckled on a short gun. Matt was not yet thirty years old and could not tell you how many men he had killed. Fifty, seventy-five, a hundred. He didn’t know. And neither did anyone else.
He had been a gunfighter, and yet had never hired out his gun. Had never killed for pleasure. His reputation had come to him as naturally as his snake-like swiftness with a short gun.
He had come West with his father, and they had teamed up with an old Mountain Man named Preacher. And the Mountain Man had taken the boy in tow and begun teaching him the way of the mountains: how to survive, how to be a man, how to live where others would die.
Preacher had been present when the boy killed his first man during an Indian attack. The old Mountain Man had seen to the boy after the boy’s dying father had left his son in his care. Preacher had seen to the boy’s last formative years. And the old Mountain Man had known that he rode with a natural gunslick.*
It was Preacher who gave the boy the name that would become legend throughout the West; the name that would be whispered around ten thousand campfires and spoken of in a thousand saloons; the name that would be spoken with the same awe as that of Bat Masterson, Ben Thompson, the Earp boys, Curly Bill.
Smoke.
Smoke’s first wife had been raped and murdered, their baby son killed. Smoke had killed them all, then ridden into the town owned by the men who had sent the outlaws out and killed those men and wiped the town from the face of Idaho history.*
Smoke Jensen then did two things, one of them voluntarily. He became the most feared man in all the West, and he dropped out of sight. And then, shortly after dropping out of sight, he married Sally.
But his disappearance did nothing to slow the rumors about him; indeed, if anything, the rumors built in flavor and fever.
Smoke had been seen in Northern California. Smoke had gunned down five outlaws in Oregon. Smoke had cleaned up a town in Nevada. Since his disappearance, Smoke, so the rumors went, had done this and that and the other thing.
In reality, Smoke had not fired a gun in anger in three years.
But all that was about to change.
A dark-haired, hazel-eyed, shapely woman stepped out of the cabin to stand by her man’s side. Something was troubling him, and she did not know what. But he would tell her in time.
This man and wife kept no secrets from each other. Their lives were shared in all things. No decisions were made by one without consulting the other.
“More coffee?” she asked.
“No, thank you. Trouble coming,” he said abruptly. “I feel it in my gut.”
A touch of panic washed over her. “Will we have to leave here?”
Smoke tossed the dregs of his coffee to the ground.
“When hell freezes over. This is our land, our home. We built it, and we’re staying.”
“How do the others feel?”
“Haven’t talked to them. Think I might do that today. You need anything from town?”
“No.”
“You want to come along?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I have so much to do around the house. You go.”
“It’ll be noon tomorrow before I can get back,” he reminded her.
“I’ll be all right.”
He was known as Matt in this part of Colorado, but at home Sally always called him Smoke. “I’ll pack you some food, Smoke.”
He nodded his head. “I’ll saddle up.”
He saddled an appaloosa, a tough mountain horse, sired by his old appaloosa, Seven, who now ran wild and free on the range in the valley Smoke and Sally claimed.
Back in the snug cabin, Smoke pulled a trunk out of a closet and opened the lid. He was conscious of Sally’s eyes on him as he removed his matched .44s and laid them to one side. He removed the rubbed and oiled gun belts and laid them beside the deadly colts.
“It’s come to that, Smoke?” she asked.
He sighed, squatting before the trunk. He removed several boxes of .44 ammo. “I don’t know.” His words were softly spoken. “But Franklin is throwing a big loop nowadays. And wants it bigger still. I was up on the Cimarron the other day—I didn’t tell you ’cause I didn’t want you to worry. I made sign with some Indians. Sally, it’s gold.”
She closed the trunk lid and sat down, facing her husband. “Here? In this area?”
“Yes. Hook Nose, the buck that spoke English, told me that many whites are coming. Like ants toward honey was his words. If it’s true, Sally, it’s trouble. You know Franklin claims more than a hundred and fifty thousand acres as his own. And he’s always wanted this valley of ours. It’s surprising to me that he hasn’t made a move to take it.”
Money did not impress Sally. She was a young, high-spirited woman with wealth of her own. Old money, from back in New Hampshire. In all probability, she could have bought out Tilden Franklin’s holdings and still had money.
“You knew about the gold all along, didn’t you, Smoke?”
“Yes,” he told her. “But I don’t think it’s a big vein. I found part of the broken vein first year we were here. I don’t want it.”
“We certainly don’t need the money,” she reminded him.
Smoke gave her one of his rare smiles, the smile softening his face and mellowing his eyes, taking years from the young man’s face. “That’s right. I keep forgetting I married me a rich lady.”
Together, they laughed.
Her laughter sobered as he began filling the cartridge loops with .44 rounds.
“Does part of it run through our land, Smoke?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll pack you extra food. I think you’re going to be gone longer than you think.”
“I think you’re probably right. Sally? You know you have nothing to fear from the Indians. They knew Preacher and know he helped raise me. It’s the white men you have to be careful of. It would take a very foolish man to bother a woman out here, but it’s happened. Stay close to the house. The horses will warn you if anyone’s coming. Go armed at all times. Hear me?”
“Yes, Smoke.”
He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “I taught you to shoot, and know you can. Don’t hesitate to do so. The pot is boiling, Sally. We’re going to have gold-hunters coming up against Franklin’s gunhands. When Franklin learns of the gold, he’s going to want it all. Our little no-name town is going to boom. For a time. Trouble is riding our way on a horse out of Hell. You’ve never seen a boom town, Sally. I have. They’re rough and mean and totally violent. They attract the good and the bad. Especially the bad. Gamblers and gunhawks and thieves and whores. We’re all going to be in for a rough time of it for a while.”
“We’ve been through some rough times before, Smoke,” she said quietly.
“Not like this.” He stood up, belted the familiar Colts around his lean waist, and began loading the .44s.
“Matt just died, didn’t he?” she asked.
“Yes. I’m afraid so. When Smoke steps out of the shadows, Sally—and it’s time, for I’m tired of being someone else—bounty hunters and kids with dreams of being the man who killed Smoke Jensen will be coming in with the rest of the trash and troublemakers. Sally, I’ve never been ashamed of what I was. I hunted down and destroyed those who ripped my life to shreds. I did what the law could not or would not do. I did what any real man would have done. I’m a Mountain Man, Sally. Perhaps the last of the breed. But that’s what I am.
“I’m not running anymore, Sally. I want to live in peace. But if I have to fight to attain that peace…so be it. And,” he said with a sigh, “I might as well level with you. Peyton told me last month that Franklin has made his boast about running us out of this valley.”
“His wife told me, Smoke.”
The young man with the hard eyes smiled. “I might have known.”
She drew herself up on tiptoes and kissed him. “See you in two or three days, Smoke.”
2
“Word is out, boss,” Tilden’s foreman said. “It’s gold, all right. And lots of it.”
Tilden leaned back in his chair and looked at his foreman. “Is it fact or rumor, Clint?”
“Fact, boss. The assay office says it’s rich. Real rich.”
“The Sugarloaf?”
Clint shrugged his heavy shoulders. “It’s a broken vein, boss. Juts out all over the place, so I was told. Spotty. But one thing’s for sure: all them piss-ant nesters and small spreads around the Sugarloaf is gonna have some gold on the land.”
The Sugarloaf was Smoke’s valley.
Tilden nodded his handsome head. “Send some of the crew into town, start stakin’ out lots. Folks gonna be foggin’ in here pretty quick.”
“What are you gonna call the town, boss?”
“I knew me a Mex gal years back, down along the Animas. Her last name was Fontana. I always did like that name. We’ll call ’er Fontana.”
Tilden Franklin sat alone in his office, making plans. Grand plans, for Tilden never thought small. A big bear of a man, Tilden stood well over six feet and weighed a good two hundred and forty pounds, little of it fat. He was forty years old and in the peak of health.
He had come into this part of Colorado when he was twenty-five years old. He had carved his empire out of the wilderness. He had fought Indians and outlaws and the elements…and won.
And he thought of himself as king.
He had fifty hands on his spread, many of them hired as much for their ability with a gun as with a rope. And he paid his men well, both in greenbacks and in a comfortable style of living. His men rode for the brand, doing anything that Tilden asked of them, or they got out. It was that simple.
His brand was the Circle TF.
Tilden rose from his chair and paced the study of his fine home—the finest in all the area. When that Matt What’s-His-Name had ridden into this part of the country—back three or four years ago—Tilden had taken an immediate dislike to the young man.
And he didn’t believe Matt was the man’s name. But Tilden didn’t hold that against anyone. Man had a right to change his own name.
Still, Tilden had always had the ability to bully and intimidate other men. He had always bulled and bullied his way through any situation. Men respected and feared him.
All but that damned Matt.
Tilden remembered the first day he’d come face to face with Matt. The young man had looked at him through the coldest eyes Tilden had ever seen—a rattler’s. And even though the young man had not been wearing a short gun, there had been no backup in him. None at all. He had looked right at Tilden, nodded his head, and walked on.
Tilden Franklin had had the uncomfortable and unaccustomed sensation that he had just been graded and found wanting. That, and the feeling that he had just been summarily dismissed.
By a goddamned saddle-bum, of all people!
No, Tilden corrected himself, not a saddle-bum. Matt might be many things, but he was no saddle-bum. He had to have access to money, for he had bought that whole damned valley free and clear. Bought most of it, filed on the rest of it.
And that woman of his, Sally. Just thinking of her caused Tilden to breathe short. He knew from the first day he’d seen her that he had to have her. One way or the other—and she was never far from his thoughts.
She was far and above any other woman in the area. She was a woman fit to be a king’s queen. And since Tilden thought of himself as a king, it was only natural he possess a woman with queen-like qualities.
And possess her he would. It was just a matter of time.
Whether she liked it, or not. He feelings were not important.
Three hours after leaving his cabin, Smoke rode up to the Colby spread. He halloed the house from the gate and Colby stepped out, giving him a friendly wave to come on in.
Colby’s spread was a combination cattle ranch and farm, something purists in the cattle business frowned on. Colby and his family were just more of them “goddamned nesters” as far as the bigger spreads in the area were concerned. Colby had moved into the area a couple of years before Smoke and Sally, with his wife Belle, and their three kids, a girl and two boys. From Missouri, Colby was a hardworking man in his early forties. A veteran of the War Between the States, he was no stranger to guns, but was not a gunhand.
“Matt,” he greeted the rider. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the twin Colts belted around Smoke’s waist and tied down. “First time I ever seen you wearin’ a pistol, much less two of them.”
“Times change, Colby. You heard the gold news?”
“Last week. People already movin’ in. You wanna come in and talk?”
“Let’s do it out here. You ever seen a boom town, Colby?”
“Can’t say as I have, Matt.” The man was having a difficult time keeping his eyes off the twin Colts. “Why do you ask?”
“There’s gold running through this area. Not much of it—a lot of it is iron and copper pyrites—but there’s enough gold to bring out the worst in men.”
“I ain’t no miner, Matt. What’s them pyrites you said?”
“Fool’s gold. But that isn’t the point, Colby. When Tilden Franklin learns of the gold—if he doesn’t already know—he’ll move against us.”
“You can’t know that for sure, Matt. ’Sides, this is our land. We filed on it right with the Government. He can’t just come in and run us off.”
The younger man looked at Colby through hard, wise eyes. “You want to risk your family’s lives on that statement, Colby?”
“Who are you, Matt?” Colby asked, evading the question.
“A man who wants to be left alone. A man who has been over the mountain and across the river. And I won’t be pushed off my land.”
“That don’t tell me what I asked, Matt. You really know how to use them guns?”
“What do you think?”
Colby’s wife and kids had joined them. The two boys were well into manhood. Fifteen and sixteen years old. The girl was thirteen, but mature for her age, built up right well. Sticking out in all the right places. Adam, Bob, Velvet.
The three young people stared at the Colts. Even a fool could see that the pistols were used but well taken care of.
“I don’t see no marks on them handles, Mister Matt,” Adam said. “That must mean you ain’t never killed no one.”
“Adam!” his mother said.
“Tinhorn trick, Adam,” Smoke said. “No one with any sand to them cuts their kills for everyone to see.”
“I bet you wouldn’t say that to none of Mister Franklin’s men,” Velvet said.
Smoke smiled at the girl. He lifted his eyes to Colby. “I’ve told you what I know, Colby. You know where to find me.” He swung into the saddle.
“I didn’t mean no offense, Matt,” the farmer-rancher said.
“None taken.” Smoke reined his horse around and headed west.
Colby watched Smoke until horse and rider had disappeared from view. “Thing is,” he said, as much to himself as to his family, “Matt’s right. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
Bob said, “Them guns look…well, right on Mister Matt, Dad. I wonder who he really is.”
“I don’t know. But I got me a hunch we’re all gonna find out sooner than we want to,” he said sourly.
“This is our land,” Belle said. “And no one has the right to take it from us.”
Colby put his arm around her waist. “Is it worth dyin’ for, Ma?”
“Yes,” she said quickly.
On his ride to Steve Matlock’s spread, Smoke cut the trail of dozens of riders and others on foot, all heading for Franklin’s town. He could tell from the hoofprints and footprints that horses and men were heavily loaded.
Gold-hunters.
Steve met him several miles from his modest cabin in the high-up country. “Matt,” the man said. “What’s going on around here?”
“Trouble, I’m thinking. I just left Colby’s place. I couldn’t get through to him.”
“He’s got to think on it a spell. But I don’t have to be convinced. I come from the store yesterday. Heard the rumors. Tilden wants our land, and most of all, he wants the Sugarloaf.”
“Among other things,” Smoke said, a dry note to the statement.
“I figured you knew he had his eyes on Sally. Risky to leave her alone, Matt. Or whatever your name is,” he added acknowledging the Colts in a roundabout manner.
“Tilden won’t try to take Sally by force this early in the game, Steve. He’ll have me out of the way first. There’s some gold on your land, by the way.”
“A little bit. Most of it’s fool’s gold. The big vein cuts north at Nolan’s place, then heads straight into the mountains. Take a lot of machinery to get it out, and there ain’t no way to get the equipment up there.”
“People aren’t going to think about that, Steve. All they’ll be thinking of is gold. And they’ll stomp on anyone who gets in their way.”
“I stocked up on ammo. Count on me, Matt.”
“I knew I could.”
Smoke rode on, slowly winding downward. On his way down to No-Name Town, he stopped and talked with Peyton and Nolan. Both of them ran small herds and farmed for extra money while their herds matured.
“Yeah,” Peyton said. “I heard about the gold. Goddamnit, that’s all we need.”
Nolan said, “Franklin has made his boast that if he can run you out, the rest of us will be easy.”
Smoke’s smile was not pleasant, and both the men came close to backing up. “I don’t run,” Smoke said.
“First time I ever seen you armed with a short gun,” Peyton said. “You look…well, don’t take this the wrong way, Matt…natural with them.”
“Matt,” Nolan said. “I’ve known you for three years and some months. I’ve never seen you upset. But today, you’ve got a burr under your blanket.”
“This vein of gold is narrow and shallow, boys,” Smoke said, even though both men were older than he. “Best thing could happen is if it was just left alone. But that’s not going to happen.” He told them about boom towns. “There’s going to be a war,” he added, “and those of us who only wanted to live in peace are going to be caught up in the middle of it. And there is something else. If we don’t band together, the only man who’ll come out on top will be Tilden Franklin.”
“He sure wants to tan your hide and tack it to his barn door, Matt,” Peyton said.
“I was raised by an old Mountain Man, boys. He used to say I was born with the bark on. I reckon he was right. The last twelve–fifteen years of my life, I’ve only had three peaceful years, and those were spent right in this area. And if I want to continue my peaceful way of life, it looks like I’m gonna have to fight for them. And fight I will, boys. Don’t make no bets against me doing that.”
Nolan looked uncomfortable. “I know it ain’t none of my business, Matt, and you can tell me to go to hell if you want to. But I gotta ask. Who are you?”
“My Christian name is Jensen. An old Mountain Man named Preacher hung a nickname on me years back. Smoke.”
Smoke wheeled his horse and trotted off without looking back.
Peyton grabbed his hat and flung it on the ground. “Holy Christ!” he yelled. “Smoke Jensen!”
Both men ran for their horses, to get home, tell their families that the most famous gun in the entire West had been their neighbor all this time. And more importantly, that Smoke Jensen was on their side.
3
When Smoke reached the main road, running east to west before being forced to cut due south at a place called Feather Falls, he ran into a rolling, riding, walking stream of humanity. Sitting astride his horse, whom he had named Horse, Smoke cursed softly. The line must have been five hundred strong. And he knew, in two weeks, there would probably be ten times that number converging on No-Name.
“Wonderful,” he muttered. Horse cocked his ears and looked back at Smoke. “Yeah, Horse. I don’t like it either.”
With a gentle touch of his spurs, Smoke and Horse moved out, riding at an easy trot for town.
Before he reached the crest of the hill overlooking the town, the sounds of hammering reached his ears. Reining up on the crest, Smoke sat and watched the men below, racing about, driving stakes all over the place, marking out building locations. Lines of wagons were in a row, the wagons loaded with lumber. Canvas tents were already in place, and the whiskey peddlers were dipping their homemade concoction out of barrels. Smoke knew there would be everything in that whiskey from horse-droppings to snakeheads.
He rode slowly down the hill and tied up at the railing in front of the general store. He stood on the boardwalk for a moment, looking at the organized madness taking place all around him.
Smoke recognized several men from out of the shouting, shoving, cursing crush.
There was Utah Slim, the gunhand from down Escalante way. The gambler Louis Longmont was busy setting up his big tent. Over there, by the big saloon tent, was Big Mamma O’Neil. Smoke knew her girls would not be far away. Big Mamma had a stable of whores and sold bad booze and ran crooked games. Smoke had seen other faces that he recognized but could not immediately put names to. They would come to him.
He turned and walked into the large general store. The owner, Beeker, was behind the counter, grinning like a cream-fed cat. No doubt he was doing a lot of business and no doubt he had jacked up his prices.
Beeker’s smile changed to a frown when he noticed the low-slung Colts on Smoke. “Something, Matt?”
“Ten boxes of .44s, Beeker. That’ll do for a start. I’ll just look around a bit.”
“I don’t know if I can spare that many, Matt,” Beeker said, his voice whiny.
“You can spare them.” Smoke walked around the store, picking up several other items, including several pairs of britches that looked like they’d fit Sally. In all likelihood, she was going to have to do some hard riding before all this was said and done, and while it wasn’t ladylike to wear men’s britches and ride astride, it was something she was going to have to do.
He moved swiftly past the glass-enclosed showcase filled with women’s underthings and completed his swing back to the main counter, laying his purchases on the counter. “That’ll do it, Beeker.”
The store owner added it up and Smoke paid the bill.
“Mighty fancy guns you wearin’, Matt. Never seen you wear a short gun before. Something the matter?”
“You might say that.”
“Don’t let none of Tilden’s boys see you with them things on. They might take ’em off you ’less you know how to use them.”
Beeker did not like Smoke, and the feeling was shared. Beeker kowtowed to Tilden; Smoke did not. Beeker thought Tilden was a mighty fine man; Smoke thought Tilden to be a very obnoxious SOB.
Smoke lifted his eyes and stared at Beeker. Beeker took a step backward, those emotionless, cold brown eyes chilling him, touching the coward’s heart that beat in his chest.
Smoke picked up his purchases and walked out into the spring sunlight. He stowed the gear in his saddlebags and walked across the street to the better of the two saloons. In a week there would be fifty saloons, all working twenty-four hours a day.
As he walked across the wide dirt street, his spurs jingling and his heels kicking up little dust pockets, Smoke was conscious of eyes on him. Unfriendly eyes. He stepped up onto the boardwalk and pushed through the swinging doors. Stepping to one side, giving his eyes time to adjust to the murky interior of the saloon, Smoke sized up the crowd.
The place was filled with ranchers and punchers. Some of those present were friends and friendly with Smoke. Others were sworn to the side of Tilden Franklin. Smoke walked to the end of the bar.
Smoke was dressed in black pants, red and white checkered shirt, and a low crowned hat. Behind his left-hand Colt, he carried a long-bladed Bowie knife. He laid a coin on the bar and ordered a beer.
The place had grown very quiet.
Normally not a drinking man, Smoke did occasionally enjoy a drink of whiskey or a beer. On this day, he simply wanted to check out the mood of the people.
He nodded at a couple of ranchers. They returned the silent greeting. Smoke sipped his beer.
Across the room, seated around a poker table, were half a dozen of Tilden’s men. They had ceased their game and now sat staring at Smoke. None of those present had ever seen the young man go armed before—other than carrying a rifle in his saddle boot.
The outside din was softened somewhat, but still managed to push through the walls of the saloon.
“Big doings around the area,” Smoke said to no one in particular.
One of Tilden’s men laughed.
Smoke looked at the man; he knew him only as Red. Red fancied himself a gunhand. Smoke knew the man had killed a drunken Mexican some years back, and had ridden the hoot-owl trail on more than one occasion. But Smoke doubted the man was as fast with a gun as he imagined.
“Private joke?” Smoke asked.
“Yeah,” Red said. “And the joke is standin’ at the bar, drinkin’ a beer.”
Smoke smiled and looked at a rancher. “Must be talking about you, Jackson.”
Jackson flushed and shook his head. A Tilden man all the way, Jackson did all he could to stay out of the way of Tilden’s ire.
“Oh?” Smoke said, lifting his beer mug with his left hand. “Well, then. Maybe Red’s talking about you, Beaconfield.”
Another Tilden man who shook in his boots at the mere mention of Tilden’s name.
Beaconfield shook his head.
“I’m talkin’ to you, Two-Gun!” Red shouted at Smoke.
Left and right of Smoke, the bar area quickly cleared of men.
“You’d better be real sure, Red,” Smoke said softly, his words carrying through the silent saloon. “And very good.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean, nester?” Red almost yelled the question.
“It means, Red, that I didn’t come in here hunting trouble. But if it comes my way, I’ll handle it.”
“You got a big mouth, nester.”
“Back off, Matt!” a friendly rancher said hoarsely. “He’ll kill you!”
Smoke’s only reply was a small smile. It did not touch his eyes.
Smoke had slipped the hammer thong off his right-hand Colt before stepping into the saloon. He placed his beer mug on the bar and slowly turned to face Red.
Red stood up.
Smoke slipped the hammer thong off his left-hand gun. So confident were Red’s friends that they did not move from the table.
“I’m saying it now,” Smoke said. “And those of you still left alive when the smoke clears can take it back to Tilden. The Sugarloaf belongs to me. I’ll kill any Circle TF rider I find on my land. Your boss has made his boast that he’ll run me off my land. He’s said he’ll take my wife. Those words alone give me justification to kill him. But he won’t face me alone. He’ll send his riders to do the job. So if any of you have a mind to open the dance, let’s strike up the band, boys.”
Red jerked out his pistol. Smoke let him clear leather before he drew his right-hand Colt. He drew, cocked, and fired in one blindingly fast motion. The .44 slug hit Red square between his eyes and blew out the back of his head, the force of the .44 slug slamming the TF rider backward to land in a sprawl of dead, cooling meat some distance away from the table.
The other TF riders sat very still at the table, being very careful not to move their hands.
Smoke holstered his .44 in a move almost as fast as his draw. “Anybody else want to dance?”
No one did.
“Then I’ll finish my beer, and I’d appreciate it if I could do so in peace.”
No one had moved in the saloon. The bartender was so scared he looked like he wanted to wet his long handles.
“Pass me that bowl of eggs down here, will you, Beaconfield?” Smoke asked.
The rancher scooted the bowl of hard-boiled eggs down the bar. Smoke looked at the bartender. “Crack it and peel it for me.”
The bartender dropped one egg and made a mess out of the second before he got the third one right.
“A little salt and pepper on it, please,” Smoke requested.
Gas escaped from Red’s cooling body.
Smoke ate his egg and finished his beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and deliberately turned his back to the table of TF riders. “Any backshooters in the bunch?” he asked.
“First man reaches for a gun, I drop them,” a rancher friendly to Smoke said.
“Thanks, Mike,” Smoke said.
He walked to the batwing doors, his spurs jingling. A TF rider named Singer spoke, his voice stopping Smoke. “You could have backed off, Matt.”
“Not much backup in me, Singer.” Smoke turned around to once more face the crowded saloon.
“I reckon not,” Singer acknowledged. “But you got to know what this means.”
“All it means is I killed a loud-mouthed tinhorn. Your boss wants to make something else out of it, that’s his concern.”
“Man ought to have it on his marker who killed him.” Singer didn’t let up. “Matt your first or last name?”
“Neither one. The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”
Singer’s jaw dropped so far down Smoke thought it might hit the card table. He turned around and pushed open the doors, walking across the street to his horse. As he swung into the saddle, he was thinking. Should get real interesting around No-Name…real quick.
4
As Smoke was riding out of the town, one of Tilden’s men, who had been in the bar around the card table, was fogging it toward the Circle TF, lathering a good horse to get the news to Tilden Franklin.
Tilden sat on his front porch and received the news of the gunfight, a look of pure disbelief on his face. “Matt killed Red? What’d he do, shoot him in the back?”
“Stand-up, face-to-face fight, boss,” the puncher said. “But Matt ain’t his real name. It’s Smoke Jensen.”
Tilden dropped his coffee cup, the cup shattering on the porch floor. “Smoke Jensen!” he finally managed to blurt out. “He’s got to be lyin’!”
The puncher shook his head. “You’d have to have been there, boss. Smoke is everything his rep says he is. I ain’t never seen nobody that fast in all my life.”
“Did he let Red clear leather before he drew?” Tilden’s voice was hoarse as he asked the question.
“Yessir.”
“Jensen,” Tilden whispered. “That’s one of his trademarks. Okay, Donnie. Thanks. You better cool down that horse of yours.”
The bowlegged cowboy swaggered off to see to his horse. Tilden leaned back in his porch chair, a sour sensation in his stomach and a bad taste in his mouth. Smoke Jensen…here! Crap!
What to do?
Tilden seemed to recall that there was a murder warrant out for Smoke Jensen, from years back. But that was way to hell and gone over to Walsenburg; and the men Smoke had killed had murdered his brother and stolen some Confederate gold back during the war.*
Anyway, Tilden suddenly remembered, that warrant had been dropped.
No doubt about it, Tilden mused, with Smoke Jensen owner of the Sugarloaf, it sure as hell changed things around some. Smoke Jensen was pure hell with a gun. Probably the best gun west of the Mississippi.
And that rankled Tilden too. For Tilden had always fancied himself a gunslick. He had never been bested in a gunfight. He wondered, as he sat on the porch. Was he better than Smoke Jensen?
Well, there was sure one way to find out.
Tilden rejected that idea almost as soon as it popped into his mind.
He did not reject it because of fear. The big man had no fear of Smoke. It was just that there were easier ways to accomplish what he had in mind. Tilden had never lost a fight. Never. Not a fistfight, not a gunfight. He didn’t believe any man could beat him with his fists, and damn few were better than Tilden with a short gun.
He called for his Mexican houseboy to come clean up the mess made by the broken cup and to bring him another cup of coffee.
The mess cleaned up, a fresh cup of steaming coffee at hand, Tilden looked out over just a part of his vast holdings. Some small voice, heretofore unheard or unnoticed, deep within him, told him that all this was enough. More than enough for one man. You’re a rich man it said. Stop while you’re ahead.
Tilden pushed that annoying and stupid thought from his mind. No way he would stop his advance. That was too foolish to even merit consideration.
No, there were other ways to deal with a gunhawk like Jensen. And a plan was forming in Tilden’s mind.
The news of the saloon shooting would soon be all over the area. And the small nester-ranchers like Nolan and Peyton and Matlock and Colby would throw in with Smoke Jensen. Maybe Ray and Mike as well. That was fine with Tilden.
He would just take them out one at a time, saving Jensen for last.
He smiled and sipped his coffee. A good plan, he thought. A very good plan. He had an idea that most of the gold lay beneath the Sugarloaf. And he’d have the Sugarloaf. And the mistress of Sugarloaf too.
Sally.
Sally had dressed in boys’ jeans and a work shirt. Her friends and family back in New Hampshire would be horrified to see her dressed in male clothing but there came a time when practicality must take precedence over fashion. And she felt that time was here.
She looked out the window. Late afternoon. She did not expect Smoke to return for another day—perhaps two more days. She was not afraid. Whenever Smoke rode in for supplies it was a two- or three-day trek—sometimes longer. But those prior trips had been in easier times. Now, one did not know what to expect.
Or from which direction.
As soon as Smoke had gone, she had saddled her pony, a gentle, sure-footed mare, and ridden out into the valley. She had driven two of Smoke’s stallions, Seven and Drifter, back to the house, putting them in the corral. The mountain horses were better than any watch-dog she had ever seen. If anyone even came close to the house, they would let her know. And, if turned loose, the stallion Drifter would kill an intruder.
He had done so before.
The midnight-black, yellow-eyed Drifter had a look of Hell about him, and was totally loyal to Smoke and Sally. Sally had belted a pistol around her waist, leaned a rifle against the wall, next to the door, and laid a double-barreled express gun on the table. She knew how to use all the weapons at hand, and would not hesitate to do so.
The horses and chickens fed, the cow milked, all the other chores done, Sally went back into the house and pulled the heavy shutters closed and secured them. The shutters had gun slits cut into them, which could be opened or closed. She stirred the stew bubbling in the blackened pot and checked her bread in the oven. She sat down on the couch, picked up a book, and began her lonely wait for her man.
Smoke put No-Name Town far behind him and began his long trip back to Sugarloaf. He would stop at the Ray ranch in the morning, talk to him. The fat was surely in the fire by now, and the grease would soon be flaming.
Some eight high-up and winding miles from the town, just as purple shadows were gathering in the mountain country, Smoke picked a spot for the night and began making his lonely camp. He did not have to picket Horse, for Horse would stay close, acting as watcher and guard.
Smoke built a small fire for coffee, and ate from what Sally had fixed for him. Some cold beef, some bread with a bit of homemade jam on it. He drank his coffee, put out the fire, and settled into his blankets, using his saddle for a pillow. In a very short time, he was deep in sleep.
In the still unnamed town, Utah Slim sat in a saloon and sipped a beer. Even though hours had passed since the shooting of Red, the saloon still hummed with conversation about Smoke Jensen. Utah Slim did not join in the conversations around the bar and the tables. So far, few knew who he was. And that was the way he liked it—for a time. When it was time for Utah Slim to announce his intentions, he’d do so.
He was under no illusions; he’d seen Smoke glance his way riding into town. Smoke recognized him. Now it was just a waiting game.
And waiting was something Utah was good at. Something any hired gun had better be good at, or he wouldn’t last long in this business.
Louis Longmont stepped out of his canvas bar and game room and glanced up and down the street. A lean, hawk-faced man, with strong, slender hands and long fingers, the nails carefully manicured, the hands clean, Louis had jet-black hair and a black pencil-thin mustache. He was dressed in a black suit, with white shirt and dark ascot—the ascot something he’d picked up on a trip to England some years back. He wore low-heeled boots. A pistol hung in tied-down leather on his right side; it was not for show alone. For Louis was snake quick with a short gun. A feared, deadly gunhand when pushed.
Louis was not an evil man. He had never hired his gun out for money. And while he could make a deck of cards do almost anything except stand up and sing “God Save the Queen,” Louis did not cheat at poker. He did not have to cheat. A man possessed of a phenomenal memory, Louis could tell you the odds of filling any type of poker hand; and he was also a card-counter. He did not consider that cheating, and most agreed with him that it was not.
Louis was just past forty years of age. He had come to the West as a mere slip of a boy, with his parents, arriving from Louisiana. His parents had died in a shanty-town fire, leaving the boy to cope the best he could.
Louis had coped quite well, thank you.
Louis had been in boom towns all over the West, seeing them come and go. He had a feeling in his guts that this town was going to be a raw bitch-kitty. He knew all about Tilden Franklin, and liked none of what he’d heard. The man was power-mad, and obviously lower class. White trash.
And now Smoke Jensen had made his presence known. Louis wondered why. Why this soon in the power-game? An unanswered question.
For a moment, Louis thought of packing up and pulling out. Just saying the hell with it! For he knew this was not going to be an ordinary gold-rush town. Powerful factions were at work here. Tilden Franklin wanted the entire region as his own. Smoke Jensen stood in his way.
Louis made up his mind. Should be a very interesting confrontation, he thought.
He’d stay.
Big Mamma O’Neil was an evil person. If one could find her heart, it would be as black as sin itself. Big Mamma stepped out in front of her gaming room and love-for-sale tent to look up and down the street. She nodded at Louis. He returned the nod and stepped back inside his tent.
Goddamned stuck-up card-slick! she fumed. Thought he was better than most everyone else. Dressed like a dandy. Talked like some highfalutin’ professor—not that Big Mamma had ever known any professor; she just imagined that was how one would sound.
Big Mamma swung her big head around, once more looking over the town. A massive woman, she was strong as an ox and had killed more than one man with her huge, hard fists. And had killed for money as well as pleasure; one served her interests as much as the other.
Big Mamma was a crack shot with rifle or pistol, having grown up in the raw, wild West, fighting Indians and hooligans and her brothers. She had killed her father with an axe, then taken his guns and his horse and left for Texas. She had never been back.
She had brothers and sisters, but had no idea what had ever become of any of them. She really didn’t care. The only thing she cared about was money and other women. She hated men.
She had seen Smoke Jensen ride in, looking like the arrogant bastard she had always thought he would be. So he had killed some puncher named Red—big deal! A nothing rider who fancied himself a gunhand. She’d heard all the stories about Jensen, and discounted most of them as pure road apples. The rumors were that he had been a Mountain Man. But he was far too young to have been a part of that wild breed.
As far as she was concerned, Smoke Jensen was just another overrated punk.
As the purple shadows melted into darkness over the no-name town that would soon become Fontana, Monte Carson stepped out of the best of the two permanent saloons and looked up and down the wide, dusty street. He hitched at the twin Colts belted around his waist and tied down low.
This town, he thought, was shaping up real nice for a hired gun. And that’s what Monte was. He had hired his guns out in Montana, in the cattle wars out in California, and had fought the sheep farmers and nesters up in Wyoming. And, as he’d fought, his reputation had grown. Monte felt that Tilden Franklin would soon be contacting him. He could wait.
On the now-well-traveled road beneath where Smoke slept peacefully, wagons continued to roll and rumble along, carrying their human cargo toward No-Name Town. The line of wagons and buggies and riders and walkers was now several miles long. Gamblers and would-be shop-owners and whores and gunfighters and snake-oil salesmen and pimps and troublemakers and murderers and good solid family people…all of them heading for No-Name with but one thought in their minds. Gold.
At the end of the line of gold-seekers, not a part of them but yet with the same destination if not sharing the same motives, rattled a half a dozen wagons. Ed Jackson was new to the raw West—a shopkeeper from Illinois with his wife Peg. They were both young and very idealistic, and had no working knowledge of the real West. They were looking for a place to settle. This no-name town sounded good to them. Ed’s brother Paul drove the heavily laden supply wagon, containing part of what they just knew would make them respected and secure citizens. Paul was as naive as his brother and sister-in-law concerning the West.
In the third wagon came Ralph Morrow and his wife Bountiful. They were missionaries, sent into the godless West by their Church, to save souls and soothe the sinful spirits of those who had not yet accepted Christ into their lives. They had been looking for a place to settle when they had hooked up with Ed and Peg and Paul. This was the first time Ralph and Bountiful had been west of Eastern Ohio. It was exciting. A challenge.
They thought.
In the fourth wagon rode another young couple, married only a few years, Hunt and Willow Brook. Hunt was a lawyer, looking for a place to practice all he’d just been taught back East. This new gold rush town seemed just the place to start.
In the fifth wagon rode Colton and Mona Spalding. A doctor and nurse, respectively. They had both graduated their schools only last year, mulled matters over, and decided to head West. They were young and handsome and pretty. And, like the others in their little caravan, they had absolutely no idea what they were riding into.
In the last wagon, a huge, solidly built vehicle with six mules pulling it, came Haywood and Dana Arden. Like the others, they were young and full of grand ideas. Haywood had inherited a failing newspaper from his father back in Pennsylvania and decided to pull out and head West to seek their fortunes.
“Oh Haywood!” Dana said, her eyes shining with excitement. “It’s all so wonderful.”
“Yes,” Haywood agreed, just as the right rear wheel of their wagon fell off.
5
Smoke was up long before dawn spread her shimmering rays of light over the land. He slipped out of his blankets and put his hat on, then pulled on his boots and strapped on his guns. He checked to see how Horse was doing, then washed his face with water from his canteen. He built a small, hand-sized fire and boiled coffee. He munched on a thick piece of bread and sipped his coffee, sitting with his back to a tree, his eyes taking in the first silver streaks of a new day in the high-up country of Colorado.
He had spotted a fire far down below him, near the winding road. A very large fire. Much too large unless those who built it were roasting an entire deer—head, horns, and all. He finished the small, blackened pot of coffee, carefully doused his fire, and saddled Horse, stowing his gear in the saddle bags.
He swung into the saddle. “Steady now, Horse,” he said in a low voice. “Let’s see how quiet we can be backtracking.”
Horse and rider made their way slowly and quietly down from the high terrain toward the road miles away using the twisting, winding trails. Smoke uncased U.S. Army binoculars he’d picked up years back, while traveling with his mentor, the old Mountain Man Preacher, and studied the situation.
Five, no—six wagons. One of them down with a busted back wheel. Six men, five women. All young, in their early twenties, Smoke guessed. The women were all very pretty, the men all handsome and apparently—at least to Smoke, at least at this distance—helpless.
He used his knees to signal Horse, and the animal moved out, taking its head, picking the route. Stopping after a few hundred twisting yards, Smoke once more surveyed the situation. His binoculars picked up movement coming from the direction of No-Name. Four riders. He studied the men, watching them approach the wagons. Drifters, from the look of them. Probably spent the night in No-Name gambling and whoring and were heading out to stake a gold claim. They looked like trouble.
Staying in the deep and lush timber, Smoke edged closer still. Several hundred yards from the wagon, Smoke halted and held back, wanting to see how these pilgrims would handle the approach of the riders.
He could not hear all that was said, but he could get most of it from his hidden location.
He had pegged the riders accurately. They were trouble. They reined up and sat their horses, grinning at the men and women. Especially the women.
“You folks look like you got a mite of trouble,” one rider said.
“A bit,” a friendly-looking man responded. “We’re just getting ready to fulcrum the wagon.”
“You’re gonna do what to it?” another rider blurted.
“Raise it up,” a pilgrim said.
“Oh. You folks headin’ to Fontana?”
The wagon people looked at each other.
Fontana! Smoke thought. Where in the hell is Fontana?
“I’m sorry,” one of the women said. “We’re not familiar with that place.”
“That’s what they just named the town up yonder,” a rider said, jerking his thumb in the direction of No-Name. “Stuck up a big sign last night.”
So No-Name has a name, Smoke thought. Wonder whose idea that was.
But he thought he knew. Tilden Franklin.
Smoke looked at the women of the wagons. They were, to a woman, all very pretty and built-up nice. Very shapely. The men with them didn’t look like much to Smoke; but then, he thought. they were Easterners. Probably good men back there. But out here, they were out of their element.
And Smoke didn’t like the look in the eyes of the riders. One kept glancing up and down the road. As yet, no traffic had appeared. But Smoke knew the stream of gold-hunters would soon appear. If the drifters were going to start something—the women being what they wanted, he was sure—they would make their move pretty quick.
At some unspoken signal, the riders dismounted.
“Oh, say!” the weakest-jawed pilgrim said. “It’s good of you men to help.”
“Huh?” a rider said, then he grinned. “Oh, yeah. We’re regular do-gooders. You folks nesters?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Farmers.” He ended that and summed up his feelings concerning farmers by spitting a stream of brown tabacco juice onto the ground, just missing the pilgrim’s feet.
The pilgrim laughed and said, “Oh, no. My name is Ed Jackson, this is my wife Peg. We plan to open a store in the gold town.”
“Ain’t that nice,” the rider mumbled.
Smoke kneed Horse a bit closer.
“My name is Ralph Morrow,” another pilgrim said. “I’m a minister. This is my wife Bountiful. We plan to start a church in the gold town.”
The rider looked at Bountiful and licked his lips.
Ralph said, “And this is Paul Jackson, Ed’s brother. Over there is Hunt and Willow Brook. Hunt is a lawyer. That’s Colton and Mona Spalding. Colton is a physician. And last, but certainly not least, is Haywood and Dana Arden. Haywood is planning to start a newspaper in the town. Now you know us.”
“Not as much as I’d like to,” a rider said speaking for the first time. He was looking at Bountiful.
To complicate matters, Bountiful was looking square at the rider.
The woman is flirting with him, Smoke noticed. He silently cursed. This Bountiful might be a preacher’s wife, but what she really was was a hot handful of trouble. The preacher was not taking care of business at home.
Bountiful was blonde with hot blue eyes. She stared at the rider.
All the newcomers to the West began to sense something was not as it should be. But none knew what, and if they did, Smoke thought, they wouldn’t know how to handle it. For none of the men were armed.
One of the drifters, the one who had been staring at Bountiful, brushed past the preacher. He walked by Bountiful, his right arm brushing the woman’s jutting breasts. She did not back up. The rider stopped and grinned at her.
The newspaperman’s wife stepped in just in time, stepping between the rider and the woman. She glared at Bountiful. “Let’s you and I start breakfast, Bountiful,” she suggested. “While the men fix the wheel.”
“What you got in your wagon, shopkeeper?” a drifter asked. “Anything in there we might like?”
Ed narrowed his eyes. “I’ll set up shop very soon. Feel free to browse when we’re open for business.”
The rider laughed. “Talks real nice, don’t he, boys?”
His friends laughed.
The riders were big men, tough-looking and seemingly very capable. Smoke had no doubts but what they were all that and more. The more being troublemakers.
Always something, Smoke thought with a silent sigh. People wander into an unknown territory without first checking out all the ramifications. He edged Horse forward.
A rider jerked at a tie-rope over the bed of one wagon. “I don’t wanna wait to browse none. I wanna see what you got now.”
“Now see here!” Ed protested, stepping toward the man.
Ed’s head exploded in pain as the rider’s big fist hit the shopkeeper’s jaw. Ed’s butt hit the ground. Still, Smoke waited.
None of the drifters had drawn a gun. No law, written or otherwise, had as yet been broken. These pilgrims were in the process of learning a hard lesson of the West: you broke your own horses and killed your own snakes. And Smoke recalled a sentiment from some book he had slowly and laboriously studied. When you are in Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere.
He couldn’t remember who wrote it, but it was pretty fair advice.
The riders laughed at the ineptness of the newcomers to the West. One jerked Bountiful to him and began fondling her breasts.
Bountiful finally got it through her head that this was deadly serious, not a mild flirtation.
She began struggling just as the other pilgrims surged forward. Their butts hit the ground as quickly and as hard as Ed’s had.
Smoke put the spurs to Horse and the big horse broke out of the timber. Smoke was out of the saddle before Horse was still. He dropped the reins to the ground and faced the group.
“That’s it!” Smoke said quietly. He slipped the thongs from the hammers of his .44s.
Smoke glanced at Bountiful. Her bodice was torn, exposing the creamy skin of her breasts. “Cover yourself,” Smoke told her.
She pulled away from the rider and ran, sobbing, to Dana.
A rider said, “I don’t know who you are, boy. But I’m gonna teach you a hard lesson.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“To keep your goddamned nose out of other folk’s business.”
“If the woman had been willing,” Smoke said, “I would not have interfered. Even though it takes a low-life bastard to steal another man’s woman.”
“Why, you…pup!” the rider shouted. “You callin’ me a bastard?”
“Are you deaf?”
“I’ll kill you!”
“I doubt it.”
Bountiful was crying. Her husband was holding a handkerchief to a bloody nose, his eyes staring in disbelief at what was taking place.
Hunt Brook was sitting on the ground, his mouth bloody. Colton’s head was ringing and his ear hurt where he’d been struck. Haywood was wondering if his eye was going to turn black. Paul was holding a hurting stomach, the hurt caused by a hard fist. The preacher looked as if he wished his wife would cover herself.
One drifter shoved Dana and Bountiful out of the way, stepping over to join his friend, facing Smoke. The other two drifters hung back, being careful to keep their hands away from their guns. The two who hung back were older, and wiser to the ways of gunslicks. And they did not like the looks of this young man with the twin Colts. There was something very familiar about him. Something calm and cold and very deadly.
“Back off, Ford,” one finally spoke. “Let’s ride.”
“Hell with you!” the rider named Ford said, not taking his eyes from Smoke. “I’m gonna kill this punk!”
“Something tells me you ain’t neither,” his friend said.
“Better listen to him,” Smoke advised Ford.
“Now see here, gentlemen!” Hunt said.
“Shut your gawddamned mouth!” he was told.
Hunt closed his mouth. Heavens! he thought. This just simply was not done back in Boston.
“You gonna draw, punk?” Ford said.
“After you,” Smoke said quietly.
“Jesus, Ford!” the rider who hung back said. “I know who that is.”
“He’s dead, that’s who he is,” Ford said, and reached for his gun.
His friend drew at the same time.
Smoke let them clear leather before he began his lightning draw. His Colts belched fire and smoke, the slugs taking them in the chest, flinging them backward. They had not gotten off a shot.
“Smoke Jensen!” the drifter said.
“Right,” Smoke said. “Now ride!”
6
The two drifters who had wisely elected not to take part in facing Smoke leaped for their horses and were gone in a cloud of galloping dust. They had not given a second glance at their dead friends.
Smoke reloaded his Colts and holstered them. Then he looked at the wagon people. The Easterners were clearly in a mild state of shock. Bountiful still had not taken the few seconds needed to repair her torn bodice. Smoke summed her up quickly and needed only one word to do so: trouble.
“My word!” Colton Spaiding finally said. “You are very quick with those guns, sir.”
“I’m alive,” Smoke said.
“You killed those men!” Hunt Brook said, getting up off the ground and brushing the dust from the seat of his britches.
“What did you want me to do?” Smoke asked, knowing where this was leading. “Kiss them?”
Hunt wiped his bloody mouth with a handkerchief. “You shall certainly need representation at the hearing. Consider me as your attorney.”
Smoke looked at the man and smiled slowly. He shook his head in disbelief. “Lawyer, the nearest lawman is about three days ride from here. And I’m not even sure this area is in his jurisdiction. There won’t be any hearing, Mister. It’s all been settled and over and done with.”
Haywood Arden was looking at Smoke through cool eyes. Smoke met the man’s steady gaze.
This one will do, Smoke thought. This one doesn’t have his head in the clouds. “So you’re going to start up a newspaper, huh?” Smoke said.
“Yes. But how did you know that?”
“Me and Horse been sitting over there,” Smoke said, jerking his head in the direction of the timber. “Listening.”
“You move very quietly, sir,” Mona Spalding said.
“I learned to do that. Helps in staying alive.” Smoke wished Bountiful would cover up. It was mildly distracting.
“One of those ruffians called you Smoke, I believe,” Hunt said. “I don’t believe I ever met a man named Smoke.”
Ruffians, Smoke thought. He hid his smile. Interesting choice of words to describe the drifters. “I was halfway raised by an old Mountain Man named Preacher. He hung that name on me.”
The drifter called Ford broke wind in death. The shopkeeper’s wife, Peg, thought as though she might faint any second. “Could someone please do something about those poor dead men?” she asked.
Dawn had given way to a bright clear mountain day. A stream of humanity had begun riding and walking toward Fontana. A tough-looking pair of miners riding mules reined up. Their eyes dismissed the Easterners and settled on Smoke. “Trouble?” one asked.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” Smoke told him.
“’Pears that way,” the second miner said drily. “Ford Beechan was a good hand with a short gun.” He cut his eyes toward the sprawled body of Ford.
“He wasn’t as good as he thought,” Smoke replied.
“’Pears that’s the truth. We’ll plant ’em for four bits a piece.”
“Deal.”
“And their pockets,” the other miner spoke.
“Have at it,” Smoke told them. “The pilgrims will pay.”
“Now see here!” Ed said starting to protest.
“Shut up, Ed,” Haywood told him. He looked at the miners. “You gentlemen may proceed with the digging.”
“Talks funny,” one miner remarked, getting down and tying his mule. He got a shovel from his pack animal and his partner followed suit.
“You live and work in this area, Mister Smoke?” Mona asked.
One miner dropped his shovel and his partner froze still as stone. The miner who dropped his shovel picked it up and slowly turned to face Smoke. “Smoke Jensen?”
“Yes.”
“Lord God Almighty! Ford shore enuff bit off more than he could chew. Smoke Jensen. My brother was over to Uncompahgre, Smoke. Back when you cleaned it up. He said that shore was a sight to see.”*
Smoke nodded his head and the miners walked off a short distance to begin their digging. “How deep?” one called.
“Respectable,” Smoke told them.
They nodded and began spading the earth.
“Are you a gunfighter, Mister Smoke?” Willow asked. “I’m a rancher and farmer, Ma’am. But I once had the reputation of being a gunhawk, yes.”
“You seem so young,” she observed. “Yet you talk as if it was years ago. How old were you when you became a…gunhawk?”
“Fourteen. Or thereabouts. I disremember at times.” Smoke usually spoke acceptable English, thanks to Sally; but at times he reverted back to Preacher’s dialect.
“He’s kilt more’un a hundred men!” one of the miners called.
The wagon people fell silent at that news. They looked at Smoke with a mixture of horror, fascination, and revulsion in their eyes.
It was nothing new to Smoke. He had experienced that look many times in his young life. He kept his face as expressionless as his cold eyes.
Smoke cut his eyes to Bountiful. “Lady,” he said, exasperation in his voice, his tone hard. “Will you please cover your tits!”
Smoke had seen the remainder of the rancher-farmers in the mountain area and then headed for home. He almost never took the same trail back to his cabin. A habit he had picked up from Preacher. A habit that had saved his life on more than one occasion.
Even though he was less than five miles from his cabin when dark slipped into the mountains, he decided not to chance the ride in. He elected to make camp and head home at first light.
He caught several small fish from a mountain stream and broiled them over a small fire. That and the remainder of Sally’s bread was his supper.
Twice during the night Smoke came fully awake, certain he had heard gunshots. He knew they were far away, but he wondered about it. The last shot he heard before he drifted back to sleep came from the south, far away from Sally and the cabin.
He was up and moving out before full dawn broke. Relief filled him when he caught a glimpse of the cabin, Sally in the front yard. Smoke broke into a grin when he saw how she was dressed…in men’s britches. His eyes mirrored approval when he noted Seven and Drifter in the corral. As he rode closer, he saw the pistol belted around her waist, and the express gun leaning against the door frame, on the outside of the cabin.
Man and wife embraced, each loving the touch and feel of the other. With their mouths barely apart, she saw the darkness in his eyes and asked, “Trouble?”
“Some. A hell of a lot more coming, though. I’ll tell you about it. You?”
“Didn’t see a soul.”
They kissed their love and she pushed him away, mischief in her hazel eyes. “I missed you.”
“Oh? How much?”
“By the time you see to Horse and get in the house, I’ll be ready to show you how much.”
Fastest unsaddling and rub-down in the history of the West.
Passions cooled and sated, she lay with her head on Smoke’s muscular shoulder. She listened as he told her all that had happened since he had ridden from the ranch. He left nothing out.
“Sec anyone that you knew in town? Any newcomers, I mean?”
“Some. Utah Slim. I’m sure it was him.”
“I’ve heard you talk of him. He’s good?”
“One of the best.”
“Better than you?”
“No,” Smoke said softly.
“Anyone else?”
“Monte Carson. He’s a backshooter. Big Mamma O’Neil. Louis Longmont. Louis is all right. Just as long as no one pushes him.”
“And now we have Fontana.”
“For as long as it lasts, yes. The town will probably die out when the gold plays out. I hope it’s soon.”
“You’re holding just a little something back from me, Smoke.”
He hesitated. “Tilden Franklin wants you for his woman.”
“I’ve known that for a long time. Has he made his desires public?”
“Apparently so. From now on, you’re going to have to be very careful.”
She lay still for a moment, silent. “We could always leave, honey.”
He knew she did not wish to leave, but was only voicing their options. “I know. And we’d be running for the rest of our lives. Once you start, it’s hard to stop.”
In the corral, Seven nickered, the sound carrying to the house. Smoke was up and dressed in a moment, strapping on his guns and picking up a rifle. He and Sally could hear the sounds of hooves, coming hard.
“One horse,” Sally noted.
“Stay inside.”
Smoke stepped out the door, relaxing when he saw who it was. It was Colby’s oldest boy, and he was fogging up the trail, lathering his horse.
Bob slid his horse to stop amid the dust and leaped off. “Mister Smoke,” he panted. So the news had spread very fast as to Smoke’s real identity.
“Bob. What’s the problem?”
“Pa sent me. It’s started, Mister Smoke. Some of Tilden’s riders done burned out Wilbur Mason’s place, over on the western ridge. Burned him flat. There ain’t nothing left no where.”
“Anybody hurt over there?”
“No, sir. Not bad, leastways. Mister Wilbur got burned by a bullet, but it ain’t bad.”
“Where are they now?”
“Mister Matlock took the kids. Pa and Ma took in Mister Wilbur and his missus.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Pa sent him off to warn the others.”
“Go on in the house. Sally will fix you something to eat. I’ll see to your horse.”
Smoke looked toward the faraway Circle TF spread. “All right, Franklin,” he muttered. “If that’s how you want it, get ready for it.”
7
Leaving Bob Colby with Sally, Smoke saddled Drifter, the midnight-black, wolf-eyed stallion. Sally fixed him a poke of food and he stashed that in the saddlebags. He stuffed extra cartridges into a pocket of his saddlebags, and made sure his belt loops were filled. He checked his Henry repeating rifle and returned it to the saddle boot.
He kissed Sally and swung up into the saddle, thinking that it had certainly been a short homecoming. He looked at Bob, standing tall and very young beside Sally.
“You stay with Sally, Bob. Don’t leave her. I’ll square that with your Pa.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Smoke,” the boy replied.
“Can you shoot a short gun, Bob?”
“Yes, sir. But I’m better with a rifle.”
“Sally will loan you a spare pistol. Wear it at all times.”
“Yes, sir. What are you gonna do, Mister Smoke?”
“Try to organize the small farmers and ranchers, Bob. If we don’t band together, none of us will have a chance of coming out of this alive.”
Smoke wheeled Drifter and rode into the timber without looking back.
He headed across the country, taking the shortest route to Colby’s spread. During his ride, Smoke spotted men staking out claims on land that had been filed on by small farmers and ranchers.
Finally he had enough of that and reined up. He stared hard at a group of men. “You have permission to dig on this land?”
“This is open land,” a man challenged him.
“Wrong, mister. You’re on Colby land. Filed on legally and worked. Don’t be here when I get back.”
But the miners and would-be miners were not going to be that easy to run off. “They told us in Fontana that this here land was open and ready for the takin’.”
“Who told you that?”
“The man at Beeker’s store. Some others at a saloon. They said all you folks up here were squattin’ illegal-like, that if we wanted to dig, we could; and that’s what we’re all aimin’ to do.”
So that was Tilden’s plan. Or at least part of it, Smoke thought. He could not fault the men seeking gold. They were greedy, but not land-greedy. Dig the gold, and get out. And if a miner, usually unarmed, was hurt, shot in any attempt to run them off, marshals would probably be called in.
Or…Smoke pondered, gazing from Drifter to the miners, Tilden might try to name a marshal for Fontana, hold a mock election for a sheriff. Colorado had only been a state for a little over two years, and things were still a bit confused. This county had had a sheriff, Smoke recalled, but somebody had shot him and elections had not yet been held to replace the man. And even an illegally elected sheriff would still be the law until commissioners could be sent in and matters were straightened out.
Smoke felt that was the way Tilden was probably leaning. That’s the way he would play it if Smoke was as amoral as Tilden Franklin.
“You men have been warned,” he told the miners. “This is private property. And I don’t give a damn what you were told in town. And don’t think the men who own the land won’t fight to keep it, for you’ll be wrong if you do. You’ve been warned.”
“We got the law on our side!” a miner said, considerable heat in his voice.
“What law?”
“Hell, man!” another miner said. “They’s an election in town comin’ up tomorrow. Gonna be a sheriff for a brand-new town. You won’t talk so goddamned tough with the law lookin’ over your shoulder, I betcha.”
Smoke gazed at the men. “You’re all greedy fools,” he said softly. “And a lot of you are going to get hurt if you continue with this trespassing. Like I said, you’ve been warned.”
Smoke rode on, putting his back to the men, showing them his contempt.
An hour later, he was in Colby’s front yard. Wilbur Mason had joined Colby by the corral at the sound of Drifter’s hooves. A bloody bandage was tied around Wilbur’s left arm, high up, close to the shoulder. But Smoke could tell by looking at the man that Wilbur was far from giving up. The man was angry and it showed.
“Boys,” Smoke said. “You save anything, Wilbur?”
“Nothing, Matt…Smoke. You really the gunfighter?”
“Yes.” He swung down and dropped Drifter’s reins on the ground. “Do any of you know anything about an election coming up tomorrow in town?”
“No,” they said together. Colby added. “What kind of election, Smoke?”
“Sheriff’s election. Tilden may be a greedy bastard, but he’s no fool. At the most, there is maybe twenty-five of us out here in the high country. There is probably two or three thousand men in Fontana by now. Our votes would be meaningless. And for sure, there will be Tilden men everywhere, ready to prod some of you into a fight if you show up by yourselves in town. So stay out until we can ride in in groups.”
“Who’s runnin’ for sheriff?” Wilbur asked.
“I don’t know. A TF man for sure, though. I’ll check it out. Bob is staying with Sally, Colby. That all right with you?”
“Sure. He’s a good boy, Smoke. And he’ll stand fast facin’ trouble. He’s young, but he’s solid.”
“I know that. He said Adam was riding out to check the others…what’s the word so far?”
“They’re stayin’, Smoke. Boy’s asleep in the house now. He’s wore out.”
“I can imagine.” His eyes caught movement near the house. Velvet. “Keep the women close by, Colby. This situation is shaping up to be a bad one.”
“Velvet’s just a kid, Smoke!” her father protested. “You don’t think…” He refused to even speak the terrible words.
“She looks older than her years, Colby. And a lot of very rough people are moving into this area. Tilden Franklin will, I’m thinking, do anything to prod us all into something rash. He’s made his intentions toward my wife public. So he’s pulling out all the stops now.”
Both Colby and Wilbur cursed Tilden Franklin.
Smoke waited until the men wound down. “How’s your ammo situation?”
“Enough for a war,” Colby said.
“Watch your backs.” Smoke swung into the saddle and looked at the men. “A war? Well, that’s what we’ve got, boys. And it’s going to be a bad one. Some of us are not going to make it. I don’t know about you boys, but I’m not running.”
“We’ll all stand,” Wilbur said.
Smoke nodded. “The Indians have a saying.” His eyes swept the land. “It’s a good place to die.”
8
Smoke touched base with as many small ranchers and farmers as he could that day, then slowly turned Drifter’s head toward the town of Fontana. There was no bravado in what he was about to do, no sense of being a martyr. The area had to be checked out, and Smoke was the most likely candidate to do that.
But even he was not prepared for the sight that greeted him.
Long before he topped the crest overlooking the town of Fontana, he could see the lights. Long before the rip-roaring town came into view he could hear the noise. Smoke topped the crest and sat, looking with amazement at the sight that lay beneath and before him.
Fontana had burst at the seams, growing in all directions within three days. From where he sat, Smoke could count fifty new saloons, most no more than hurriedly erected wooden frames covered with canvas. The town had spread a half mile out in any direction, and the streets were packed with shoulder-to-shoulder humanity.
Smoke spoke to Drifter softly and the big, mean-eyed stallion moved out. Smoke stabled Drifter in the oldest of the corrals—a dozen had suddenly burst forth around the area—and filled the trough with corn.
“Stay away from him,” he warned the stable boy. “If anyone but me goes into that stall, he’ll kill them.”
“Yes, sir,” the boy said. He gazed at Smoke with adoration-filled eyes. “You really the gunfighter Smoke Jensen?”
“Yes.”
“I’m on your side, Mister Smoke. Name’s Billy.”
Smoke extended his hand and the boy gravely shook it. Smoke studied the boy in the dim lantern-light of the stable. Ragged clothes, shoes with the soles tied so that they would not flop.
“How old are you, Billy?”
“Eleven, sir.”
“Where are your folks?”
“Dead for more years than I can remember.”
“I don’t recall seeing you before. You been here long?”
“No, sir. I come in a couple weeks ago. I been stayin’ down south of here, workin’ in a stable. But the man who owned it married him a grass widow and her kids took over my job. I drifted. Ol’ grump that owns this place gimme a job. I sleep here.”
Smoke grinned at the “ol’ grump” bit. He handed the boy a double eagle. “Come light, you get yourself some clothes and shoes.”
Billy looked at the twenty-dollar gold piece. “Wow!” he said.
Smoke led the boy to Drifter’s stall and opened the gate, stepping inside. He motioned the boy in after him. “Pet him, Billy.”
Billy cautiously petted the midnight-black stallion. Drifter stopped eating for a moment and swung his big head, looking at him through those yellow, killer-cold, wolf-like eyes. Then he resumed munching at the corn.
“He likes you,” Smoke told the boy. “You’ll be all right with him. Anyone comes in here and tries to hurt you, just get in the stall with Drifter. You won’t be harmed.”
The boy nodded and stepped back out with Smoke. “You be careful, Mister Smoke,” he warned. “I don’t say much to people, but I listen real good. I hear things.”
They walked to the wide doors at the front of the stable. “What do you hear, Billy?”
Several gunshots split the torch- and lantern-lit night air of Fontana. A woman’s shrill and artificial-sounding laughter drifted to man and boy. A dozen pianos, all playing different tunes, created a confusing, discordant cacophony in the soft air of summer in the high-up country.
“Some guy name of Monte Carson is gonna be elected the sheriff. Ain’t no one runnin’ agin him”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s a good hand with a gun.”
“Better than you?” There was doubt in Billy’s voice at that.
“No,” Smoke said.
“The boss of this area, that Mister Tilden Franklin, is supposed to have a bunch of gunhands comin’ to be deputies.”
“Who are they?”
“I ain’t heard.”
“What have you heard about me?”
“I heard two punchers talkin’ yesterday afternoon, over by a tent saloon. Circle TF punchers. But I think they’re more than just cowboys. They wore their guns low and tied down.”
Very observant boy, Smoke thought.
“If they can angle you in for a backshoot, they’d do it. Talk is, though, this Mister Franklin is gonna let the law handle you. Legal-like, you know?”
“Yeah.” Smoke patted the boy’s shoulder. “You take good care of Drifter, Billy. And keep your ears clean and open. I’ll check you later.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Smoke.”
Smoke stepped out of the stable and turned to his left. His right hand slipped the thong off the Colt’s hammer. Smoke was dressed in black whipcord trousers, black shirt, and dark hat. His spurs jingled as he walked, his boots kicking up little pockets of dust as he headed for the short boardwalk that ran in front of Beeker’s General Store, a saloon, and the gunsmith’s shop. Smoke’s eyes were in constant motion, noting and retaining everything he spotted. Night seemed to color into day as he approached the boom-town area.
A drunk lurched out from between two tents, almost colliding with Smoke.
“Watch where you’re goin,’ boy,” the miner mush-mouthed at him.
Smoke ignored him and walked on.
“A good time comes reasonable,” a heavily rouged and slightly overweight woman said, offering her charms to Smoke.
“I’m sure,” Smoke told her. “But I’m married.”
“Ain’t you the lucky one?” she said, and stepped back into the shadows of her darkened tent.
He grinned and walked on.
Smoke walked past Beeker’s store and glanced in. The man had hired more help and was doing a land office business, a fixed smile on his greedy, weasel face. His hatchet-faced wife was in constant motion, moving around the brightly lighted store, her sharp eyes darting left and right, looking for thieving hands.
Other than her own, Smoke mentally noted.
He walked on, coming to the swinging doors of the saloon. Wild laughter and hammering piano music greeted his ears. It was not an altogether offensive sound. The miners, as a whole, were not bad people. They were here to dig and chip and blast and hammer the rock, looking for gold. In their free time, most would drink and gamble and whore the night away.
Smoke almost stepped inside the saloon, changing his mind just at the very last moment. He stepped back away from the doors and walked on.
He crossed the street and stepped into Louis Longmont’s place. The faro and monte and draw and stud poker tables were filled; dice clicked and wheels spun, while those with money in their hands stared and waited for Lady Luck to smile on them.
Most of the time she did not.
Smoke walked to the bar, shoved his way through, and ordered a beer.
He took his beer and crossed the room, dodging drunks as they staggered past. He leaned against a bracing and watched the action.
“Smoke.” The voice came from his left.
Smoke turned and looked into the face of Louis Longmont. “Louis,” he acknowledged. “Another year, another boom town, hey?”
“They never change. I don’t know why I stay with it. I certainly don’t need the money.”
Smoke knew that was no exaggeration on the gambler’s part. The gambler owned a large ranch up in Wyoming Territory. He owed several businesses in San Francisco, and he owned a hefty chunk of a railroad. It was a mystery to many why Louis stayed with the hard life he had chosen.
“Then get out of it, Louis,” Smoke suggested.
“But of course,” Louis responded with a smile. His eyes drifted to Smoke’s twin Colts. “Just as you got out of gunfighting.”
Smoke smiled. “I put them away for several years, Louis. Had gold not been found, or had I chosen a different part of the country to settle, I probably would never have picked them up again.”
“Lying to others is bad enough, my young friend, But lying to one’s self is unconscionable. Can you look at me and tell me you never, during those stale years, missed the dry-mouthed moment before the draw? The challenge of facing and besting those miscreants who would kill you or others who seek a better and more peaceful way? The so-called loneliness of the hoot-owl trail? I think not, Mister Jensen. I think not.”
There was nothing for Smoke to say, for Louis was right. He had missed those death-close moments. And Sally knew it too. Smoke had often caught her watching him, silently looking at him as he would stand and gaze toward the mountains, or as his eyes would follow the high flight of an eagle.
“Your silence tells all, my friend,” Louis said. “I know only too well.”
“Yeah,” Smoke said, looking down into his beer mug. “I guess I’d better finish my beer and ride. I don’t want to be the cause of any trouble in your place, Louis.”
“Trouble, my friend, is soniething I have never shied away from. You’re safer here than in any other place in this woebegotten town. If I can help it, you will not be backshot in my place.”
And again, Smoke knew the gambler was telling the truth. Smoke and Louis had crossed trails a dozen times over the years. The man had taken a liking to the boy when Smoke was riding with the Mountain Man Preacher. In the quieter moments of his profession, Louis had shown Smoke the tricks of his gambler’s trade. Louis had realized that Smoke possessed a keen intelligence, and Louis liked those people who tried to better themselves, as Smoke had always done.
They had become friends.
Hard hoofbeats sounded on the dirt street outside the gambling tent. Smoke looked at Louis.
“About a dozen riders,” Smoke said.
“Probably the ‘deputies’ Tilden Franklin called in from down Durango way. They’ll be hardcases, Smoke.”
“Is this election legal?”
“Of course not. But it will be months before the state can send anyone in to verify it or void it. By then, Franklin will have gotten his way. Initial reports show the gold, what there is of it, assays high. But the lode is a narrow one. I suspect you already knew that.”
“I’ve know about the vein for a long time, Louis. I never wanted gold.”
A quick flash of irritation crossed Louis’s face. “It is well and good to shun wealth while one is young, Smoke. But one had best not grow old without some wealth.”
“One can have wealth without riches, Louis,” Smoke countered.
The gambler smiled. “I believe Preacher’s influence was strong on you, young man.”
“There could have been no finer teacher in all the world, Louis.”
“Is he alive, Smoke?”
“I don’t know. If so, he’d be in his eighties. I like to think he’s still alive. But I just don’t know.”
Louis knew, but he elected to remain silent on the subject. At least for the time being.
Boots and jangling spurs sounded on the raw boards in front of Louis’s place. And both Louis and Smoke knew the time for idle conversation had passed.
They knew before either man sighted the wearers of those boots and spurs.
The first rider burst into the large tent.
“I don’t know him,” Louis said. “You?”
“Unfortunately. He’s one of Tilden’s gunhands. Calls himself Tay. I ran into him when I was riding with Preacher. Back then he was known as Carter. I heard he was wanted for murder back in Arkansas.”
“Sounds like a delightful fellow,” Louis said drily.
“He’s a bully. But don’t sell him short. He’s hell with a short gun.”
Louis smiled. “Better than you, Smoke?” he asked, a touch of humor in the question.
“No one is better than me, Louis,” Smoke said, in one of his rare moments of what some would call arrogance; others would call it merely stating a proven fact.
Louis’s chuckle held no mirth. “I believe I am better, my friend.”
“I hope we never have to test that out of anger, Louis.”
“We won’t,” Louis replied. “But let’s do set up some cans and make a small wager someday.”
“You’re on.”
The gunfighter Tay turned slowly, his eyes drifting first to Louis, then to Smoke.
“Hello, punk!” Tay said, his voice silencing the piano player and hushing the hubbub of voices in the gaming tent.
“Are you speaking to me, you unshaven lout?” Louis asked.
“Naw,” Tay said. The leather thongs that secured his guns were off, left and right. “Pretty boy there.”
“You’re a fool,” Smoke said softly, his voice carrying to Tay, overheard by all in the gaming room.
“I’m gonna kill you for that!” Tay said.
Those men and women seated between Tay and Smoke cleared out, moving left and right.
“I hope you have enough in your pockets to bury you,” Smoke said.
Tay’s face flushed, both hands hovering over the butt of his guns.
He snarled at Smoke.
Smoke laughed at him.
“A hundred dollars on the Circle TF rider,” a man seated at a table said.
“You’re on,” Louis said taking the wager. “Gentlemen,” he said to Smoke and Tay. “Bets are down.”
Tay’s eyes were shiny, but his hands were steady over his guns.
Smoke held his beer mug in his left hand.
“Draw, goddamn you!” Tay shouted.
“After you,” Smoke replied. “I always give a sucker a break whenever possible.”
Tay grabbed for his guns.
9
“Your behavior the other day was disgusting!” Ralph Morrow would not let up on his wife. “Those men are dead because of you. You do realize that, don’t you?”
Bountiful tossed her head, her blond curls bouncing around her beautiful face. Her lips were set in a pout. “I did nothing,” she said defending her actions.
“My god, I married an animal!” Ralph said, disgust in his voice. “Can’t you see you’re a minister’s wife?”
“I’m beginning to see a lot of things, Ralph. One of which is I made a mistake.”
“In coming out West? Did we have a choice, Bountiful? After your disgraceful behavior in Ohio, I’m very lucky the Church even gave me another chance.”
She waved that off. “No, Ralph, not that. In my marrying such a pompous wee-wee!”
Ralph flushed and balled his fists. “You take that back!” he yelled at her.
“You take that back!” she repeated mimicking him scornfully. “My God, Ralph! You’re such a flummox!”
Man and wife were several miles from the town of Fontana. They were on the banks of a small creek. Ralph sat down on the bank and refused to look at her. A short distance away at their camp, the others tried without much success not to listen to their friends quarrel.
“They certainly are engaged in a plethora of flapdoodle,” Haywood observed.
“I feel sorry for him,” Dana said.
“I don’t,” Ed said. “It’s his own fault he’s such a sissy-pants.”
All present looked at Ed in the dancing flames of the fire. If there was a wimp among them, it was Ed. Ed had found a June bug in his blankets on the way West and, from his behavior one might have thought he’d discovered a nest of rattlers. It had taken his wife a full fifteen minutes to calm him down.
Haywood sat on a log and puffed his Meerschaum. Of them all, Haywood was the only person who knew the true story about Ralph Morrow. And if the others wanted to think him a sissy-pants…well, that was their mistake. But Haywood had to admit that, from all indications, when Ralph had fully accepted Christ into his life, he had gone a tad overboard.
If anyone had taken the time to just look at Ralph, they would have noticed the rippling boxer’s muscles; the broad, hard, flat-knuckled fists; the slightly crooked nose. It had always amazed Haywood how so many people could look at something, but never see it.
Haywood suppressed a giggle. Come to think of it, he mused, Ralph did sort of act a big milquetoast.
But it should be interesting when Ralph finally got a belly full of it.
Smoke cleared leather before Tay got his pistols free of their holsters. Smoke drew with such blinding speed, drawing, cocking, firing, not one human eye in the huge tent could follow the motion.
The single slug struck Tay in the center of the chest and knocked him backward. He struggled up on one elbow and looked at Smoke through eyes that were already glazing over. He tried to lift his free empty hand; the hand was so heavy he thought his gun was in it. He began squeezing his trigger finger. He was curious about the lack of noise and recoil.
Then he fell back onto the raw. rough-hewn board floor and was curious no more.
“Maybe we won’t set up those tin cans,” Louis muttered, just loud enough for Smoke to hear it.
“Tie him across a saddle and take him back to Tilden Franklin,” Smoke said, his voice husky due to the low-hanging cigarette and cigar smoke in the crowded gaming tent. “Unless some of you boys want to pick up where Tay left off.”
The riders appeared to be in a mild state of shock. They were all, to a man, used to violence; that was their chosen way of life. They had all, to a man, been either witnesses to or participants in stand-up gunfights, back-shoots, and ambushes. And they had all heard of the young gunslick Smoke Jensen. But since none had ever seen the man in action, they had tended to dismiss much of what they had heard as so much pumped-up hoopla.
Until this early evening in the boom town of Fontana, in Louis Longmont’s gaming tent.
“Yes, sir, Mister Jensen,” one young TF rider said. “I mean,” he quickly corrected himself, “I’ll sure tie him across his saddle.”
Until this evening, the young TF rider had fancied himself a gunhawk. Now he just wanted to get on his pony and ride clear out of the area. But he was afraid the others would laugh at him if he did that.
Smoke eased the hammer down with his thumb. A very audible sigh went up inside the tent with that action. There was visible relaxing of stomach muscles when Smoke holstered the deadly Colt.
Smoke looked at the young puncher who had spoken. “Come here,” he said.
The young man, perhaps twenty at the most, quickly crossed the room to face Smoke. He was scared, and looked it.
“What’s your name?” Smoke asked.
“Pearlie.”
“You’re on the wrong side, Pearlie. You know that?”
“Mister Smoke,” Pearlie said in a low tone, so only Smoke and Louis could hear. “The TF brand can throw two hundred or more men at you. And I ain’t kiddin’. Now, you’re tough as hell and snake-quick, but even you can’t fight that many men.”
“You want to bet your life, Pearlie?” Louis asked him. The man’s voice was low-pitched and his lips appeared not to move at all.
Pearlie cut his eyes at the gambler. “I ain’t got no choice, Mister Longmont.”
“Yes, you do,” Smoke said.
“I’m listenin’.”
“I need a hand I can trust. I think that’s you, Pearlie.”
The young man’s jaw dropped open. “But I been ridin’ for the TF brand!”
“How much is he paying you?”
“Sixty a month.”
“I’ll give you thirty and found.”
Pearlie smiled. “You’re serious!”
“Yes, I am. Have you the sand in you to make a turnaround in your life?”
“Give me a chance, Mister Smoke.”
“You’ve got it. Are you quick with that Colt?”
“Yes, sir. But I ain’t nearabouts as quick as you.”
“Have you ever used it before?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would you stand by me and my wife and friends, Pearlie?”
“’Til I soak up so much lead I can’t stand, Mister Smoke.”
Smoke cut his eyes at Louis. The man smiled and nodded his head slightly.
“You’re hired, Pearlie.”
“Pearlie did what?” Tilden screamed.
Clint repeated his statement, standing firm in front of the boss. Clint was no gunhawk. He was as good as or better with a short gun than most men, but had never fancied himself a gunfighter. He knew horses, he knew cattle, and he could work and manage men. There was no backup in Clint. He had fought Indians, outlaws, nesters, and other ranchers during his years with Tilden Franklin, and while he didn’t always approve of everything Tilden did, Clint rode for the brand. And that was that.
“Goddamned, no-good little pup!” Tilden spat out the words. He lifted his eyes and stared into his foreman’s eyes. “This can’t be tolerated, Clint.”
Clint felt a slight sick feeling in his stomach. He knew what was coming next. “No, sir. You’re right.”
“Drag him!” Tilden spat the horrible words.
“Yes, sir.” Clint turned away and walked out of the room. He stood on the porch for a long moment, breathing deeply. He appeared to be deep in thought.
Louis shut the gaming room down early that evening. And with Louis Longmont, no one uttered any words of protest. They simply got up and left. And neither did anyone take any undue umbrage, for all knew Louis’s games were straight-arrow honest.
He closed the wooden door to his gaming-room tent, extinguished most of the front lights, and set a bottle of fine scotch on the table.
“I know you’re not normally a hard-drinking man, my young friend,” Louis said, as he poured two tumblers full of the liquid. “But savor the taste of the Glenlivet. It’s the finest made.”
Smoke picked up the bottle and read the label. “Was this stuff made in 1824?”
Louis smiled. “Oh, no. That’s when the distillery was founded. Old George Smith knew his business, all right.”
“Knew?”
“Yes. He died six—no, seven years ago. He was on the Continent at the time.”
Smoke sipped the light scotch. It was delicate, yet mellow. It had a lightness that was quite pleasing.
“I had been to a rather obscure place called Monte Carlo.” Louis sniffed his tumbler before sipping.
“I never heard of that place.”
“I own part of the casino,” Louis said softly.
“Make lots of money?”
Louis’s reply was a smile.
It silently spoke volumes.
“Prior to that, I was enjoying the theater in Warsaw. It was there I was introduced to Madame Modjeska. It was quite the honor. She is one of the truly fine actresses in the world today.”
“You’re talking over my head, Louis.”
“Madame Mudrzejeweski.”
“Did you just swallow a bug, Louis?”
Louis laughed. “No. She shortened her name to Modjeska. She is here in America now. Performing Shakespeare in New York, I believe. She also tours.”
Smoke sipped his scotch and kept his mouth shut.
“When I finally retire, I believe I shall move to New York City. It’s quite a place, Smoke. Do you have any desires at all to see it?”
“No,” Smoke said gently.
“Pity,” the gambler said. “It is really a fascinating place. Smoke?”
The young rancher-farmer-gunfighter lifted his eyes to meet Louis’s.
“You should travel, Smoke. Educate yourself. Your wife is, I believe, an educated woman. Is she not?”
“School teacher.”
“Ah…yes. I thought your grammar, most of the time, had improved since last we spoke. Smoke…get out while you have the time and opportunity to do so.”
“No.”
“Pearlie was right, Smoke. There are too many against you.”
Smoke took a small sip of his scotch. “I am not alone in this, Louis. There are others.”
“Many of whom will not stand beside you when it gets bad. But I think you know that.”
“But some of them will, Louis. And bear this in mind: we control the high country.”
“Yes, there is that. Tell me, your wife has money, correct?”
“Yes. I think she’s wealthy.”
“You think?”
“I told you, Louis, I’m not that interested in great wealth. My father is lying atop thousands and thousands of dollars of gold.”
Louis smiled. “And there are those who would desecrate his grave for a tenth of it,” he reminded the young man.
“I’m not one of them.”
Louis sighed and drained his tumbler, refilling it from the bottle of scotch. “Smoke, it’s 1878. The West is changing. “The day of the gunfighter, men like you and me, is coming to a close. There is still a great rowdy element moving westward, but by and large, the people who are now coming here are demanding peace. Soon there will he no place for men like us.”
“And? So?”
“What are you going to do then?”
“I’ll be right out there on the Sugarloaf, Louis, ranching and farming and raising horses. And,” he said with a smile, “probably raising a family of my own.”
“Not if you’re dead, Smoke.” The gambler’s words were softly offered.
Smoke drained his tumbler and stood up, tall and straight and heavily muscled. “The Sugarloaf is my home, Louis. Sally’s and mine. And here is where we’ll stay. Peacefully working the land, or buried in it.”
He walked out the door.
10
Smoke made his Spartan camp some five miles outside of Fontana. With Drifter acting as guard, Smoke slept soundly. He had sent Pearlie to his ranch earlier that night, carrying a hand-written note introducing him to Sally. One of the older ranchers in the area, a man who was aligned on neither side, had told Smoke that Pearlie was a good boy who had just fallen in with the wrong crowd, that Pearlie had spoken with him a couple of times about leaving the Circle TF.
Smoke did not worry about Pearlie making any un-gentlemanly advances toward Sally, for she would shoot him stone dead if he tried.
Across the yard from the cabin, Smoke and Sally had built a small bunkhouse, thinking of the day when they would need extra hands. Pearlie would sleep there.
Smoke bathed—very quickly—in a small, rushing creek and changed clothes: a gray shirt, dark trousers. He drank the last of his pot of coffee, extinguished the small fire, and saddled Drifter.
He turned Drifter’s head toward Fontana, but angling slightly north of the town, planning on coming in from a different direction.
It would give those people he knew would be watching him something to think about.
About half a mile from Fontana, Smoke came up on a small series of just-begun buildings; tents lay behind the construction site. He sat his horse and looked at Preacher Morrow swinging an axe. The preacher had removed his shirt and was clad only in his short-sleeve undershirt. Smoke’s eyes took in the man’s heavy musculature and the fluid way he handled the axe.
A lot more to him than meets the eyes, Smoke thought. A whole lot more.
Then Smoke’s eyes began to inspect the building site. Not bad, he thought. Jackson’s big store across the road, and the offices of the others in one long building on the opposite side of the road. The cabins would be behind the offices, while Jackson and his wife and brother would live in quarters behind but connected to the store.
Smoke’s eyes caught movement to his left.
“Everything meet with your approval, Mister Jensen?”
Smoke turned Drifter toward the voice. Ed Jackson. “Looks good. The preacher’s a pretty good hand with an axe, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh…him? ’Bout the only thing he’s good at. He’s a sissy.”
Smoke smiled, thinking: Shopkeeper, I hope you never push that preacher too hard, ’cause he’ll damn sure break you like a match stick.
Hunt, Colton, Haywood, and their wives walked out to where Smoke sat Drifter. He greeted the men and took his hat off to the ladies. Bountiful was not with the group and Smoke was grateful for that. The woman was trouble.
Then he wondered where the shopkeeper’s brother was. He wondered if Bountiful and Paul might be…
He sighed and put his hat back on, pushing those thoughts from him. He dismounted and ground-reined Drifter.
“Going into town to vote, Mister Jensen?” Hunt asked.
“No point in it. One-sided race from what I hear.”
“Oh, no!” Colton told him. “We have several running for mayor, half a dozen running for sheriff, and two running for city judge.”
“Tilden Franklin’s men will win, believe me.”
“Mister Franklin seems like a very nice person to me,” Ed said, adding, “not that I’ve ever met the gentleman, of course. Just from what I’ve heard about him.”
“Yeah, he’s a real prince of a fellow,” Smoke said, with enough sarcasm in his voice to cover hotcakes thicker than molasses. “Why just a few days ago he was nice enough to send his boys up into the high country to burn out a small rancher-farmer named Wilbur Mason. Shot Wilbur and scattered his wife and kids. He’s made his boast that he’ll either run me out or kill me, and then he’ll have my wife. Yeah, Tilden is a sweet fellow, all right.”
“I don’t believe that!” Ed said, puffing up.
Smoke’s eyes narrowed and his face hardened. Haywood looked at the young man and both saw and felt danger emanating from him. He instinctively put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her to him.
Smoke said, his eyes boring into Ed’s eyes, “Shopkeeper, I’ll let that slide this one time. But let me give you a friendly piece of advice.” He cut his eyes, taking in, one at a time, all the newcomers to the West. “You folks came here from the East. You do things differently back East. I didn’t say better, just different. Out here, you call a man a liar, you’d better be ready to do one of two things: either stand and slug it out with him or go strap on iron.
“Now you all think about that, and you’ll see both the right and wrong in it. I live here. Me and my wife been here for better than three years. We hacked a home out of the wilderness and made it nice. We fought the hard winters, Indians a few times, and we know the folks in this area. You people, on the other hand, just come in here. You don’t know nobody, yet you’re going to call me a liar. See what I mean, Shopkeeper?
“Now the wrong of it is this: there are bullies who take advantage of the code, so to speak. Those types of trash will prod a fellow into a fight, just because they think that to fight is manly, or some such crap as that. Excuse my language, ladies. But the point is, you got to watch your mouth out here. The graveyards are full of people ignorant of the ways of the West.”
Ed Jackson blustered and sweated, but he did not offer to apologize.
He won’t make it, Smoke thought. Someone will either run him out or kill him. And mankind will have lost nothing by his passing.
“Why is Franklin doing these things, Mister Jensen?” Haywood asked.
“Smoke. Call me Smoke. Why? Because he wants to be king. Perhaps he’s a bit mad. I don’t know. I do know he hates farmers and small ranchers. As for me, well, I have the Sugarloaf and he wants its.”
“The Sugarloaf?” Hunt asked.
“My valley. Part of it, that is.”
“Are you suggesting the election is rigged?” Haywood inquired.
“No. I’m just saying that Tilden’s people will win, that’s all.”
“Has Mister Franklin offered to buy any of the farmers’ or ranchers’ holdings?” Hunt asked.
Smoke laughed. “Buy? Lawyer, men like Tilden don’t offer to buy. They just run people out. Did cruel kings offer to buy lands they desired? No, they just took it, by force.”
Preacher Morrow had ceased his work with the axe and had joined the group. His eyes searched for his wife and, not finding her present, glowered at Ed Jackson.
Maybe I was right, Smoke thought.
“Are you a Christian, Mister Jensen?” he asked, finally taking his eyes from the shopkeeper.
Bad blood between those two, Smoke thought. “I been to church a few times over the years. Sally and me was married in a proper church.”
“Have you been baptized, sir?”
“In a little crick back in Missouri, yes, sir, I was.”
“Ah, wonderful! Perhaps you and your wife will attend services just as soon as I get my church completed?”
“I knew a lay preacher back in Missouri preached on a stump, Preacher Morrow. Look around you, sir. You ever in all your life seen a more beautiful cathedral? Look at them mountains yonder. Got snow on ’em year-round. See them flowers scattered around, those blue and purple ones? Those are columbines. Some folks call them Dove Flowers. See the trees? Pine and fir and aspen and spruce and red cedar. What’s wrong with preaching right in the middle of what God created?”
“You’re right, of course, sir. I’m humbled. You’re a strange man, Mister Jensen. And I don’t mean that in any ugly way.”
“I didn’t take it in such a way. I know what you mean. The West is a melting pot of people, Preacher. Right there in that town of Fontana, there’s a man named Louis Longmont. He’s got degrees from places over in Europe, I think. He owns ranches, pieces of railroads, and lots of other businesses. But he follows the boom towns as a gambler. He’s been decorated by kings and queens. But he’s a gambler, and a gunfighter. My wife lives in a cabin up in the mountains. But she’s worth as much money as Tilden Franklin, probably more. She’s got two or three degrees from fancy colleges back East, and she’s traveled in Europe and other places. Yet she married me.
“I know scouts for the Army who used to be college professors. I know cowboys who work for thirty and found who can stand and quote William Shakespeare for hours. And them that listen, most of them, can’t even read or write. I know Negroes who fought for the North and white men who wore the Gray who now work side by side and who would die for each other. Believe it.”
“And you, Smoke?” Hunt asked. “What about you?”
“What about me? I raise cattle and horses and farm. I mind my own business, if people will let me. And I’ll harm no man who isn’t set on hurting me or mine. We need people like you folks out here. We need some stability. Me and Sally are gonna have kids one day, and I’d like for them to grow up around folks like you.” He cut his eyes to Ed Jackson. “Most of you, that is.” The store-owner caught the verbal cut broadside and flushed. “But for a while yet, it’s gonna be rough and rowdy out here.” Smoke pointed. “Ya’ll see that hill yonder? That’s Boot Hill. The graveyard. See that fancy black wagon with them people walking along behind it, going up that hill? That wagon is totin’ a gunhawk name of Tay. He braced me last night in Louis’s place. He was a mite slow.”
“You killed yet another man?” Ed blurted out.
“I’ve killed about a hundred men,” Smoke said. “Not counting Indians. I killed twenty, I think, one day up on the Uncompahgre. That was back in ’74, I think. A year later I put lead into another twenty or so over in Idaho, town name of Bury. Bury don’t exist no more. I burned it down.*
“People, listen to me. Don’t leave this area. We got to have some people like you to put down roots, to stay when the gold plays out. And it will, a lot sooner than most folks realize. And,” Smoke said with a sigh, “we’re gonna need a doctor and nurse and preacher around here…the preacher for them that the doc can’t patch up.”
The newcomers were looking at Smoke, a mixture of emotions in their eyes. They all wanted for him to speak again.
“Now I’m heading into town, people,” Smoke said. “And I’m not going in looking for trouble. But I assure you all, it will come to me. If you doubt that, come with me for an hour. Put aside your axes and saws and ride in with me. See for yourself.”
“I’ll go with you,” Preacher Morrow said. “Just let me bathe in the creek first.”
All the men agreed to go.
Should be interesting, Smoke thought. For he planned to take Preacher Morrow into Louis’s place. Not that Smoke thought the man would see anything he hadn’t already seen…several times before, in his past.
11
Ralph Morrow was the first one back to where Smoke stood beside Drifter. “Where is your wife, Preacher?”
The man cut his eyes at Smoke. Smoke could see the faded scars above the man’s eyes.
A boxer, Smoke thought. He’s fought many times in the ring.
“Walking along the creek over there,” he said, pointing. “I suppose she’s safe. From hostiles,” he added, a touch of bitterness in his voice.
“I’d think so. This close to town. Preacher? Anytime you want to talk, I’m available.”
The man looked away, stubbornness setting his chin.
Smoke said no more. The others soon joined them and they made their way into Fontana. The newspaper man carried a note pad and had a breastpocket full of pencils. Smoke stabled Drifter with Billy and smiled at the boy. Billy was dressed in new britches and shirt, boots on his feet. “Give him some corn, Billy.”
“Yes, sir. I heard that was some show last night over to Longmont’s place.”
Smoke nodded. “He was a tad slow.”
Billy grinned and led Drifter into his stall, the big outlaw stallion allowing the boy to lead him docilely.
“What a magnificent animal,” Colton remarked, looking at Drifter.
“Killed the last man who owned him,” Smoke said.
The doctor muttered something under his breath that Smoke could not quite make out. But he had a pretty good idea what it was. He grinned.
The town was jammed with people, bursting at its newly sewn seams. American flags were hung and draped all over the place. Notices that Tilden Franklin was going to speak were stuck up, it seemed, almost everywhere one looked.
“Your fine man is going to make a speech, Jackson,” Smoke said to the shopkeeper, keeping his face bland. “You sure won’t want to miss that.”
“I shall make every attempt to attend that event,” Ed announced, a bit stiffly.
Several of the miners who had been in Louis’s place when Tay was shot walked past Smoke, greeting him with a smile. Smoke acknowledged the greetings.
“You seem to have made yourself well known in a short time, Smoke,” Hunt said.
“I imagine them that spoke was some that made money betting on the outcome of the shooting,” the lawyer was informed.
“Barbaric!”
“Not much else to do out here, Lawyer. Besides, you should see the crowds that gather for a hanging. Folks will come from fifty miles out for that. Bring picnic lunches and make a real pleasurable day out of it.”
The lawyer refused to respond to that. He simply shook his head and looked away.
The town was growing by the hour. Where once no more than fifty people lived, there now roamed some five thousand. Tents of all sizes and descriptions were going up every few minutes.
Smoke looked at Ed Jackson. “I’m not trying to pry into your business, Shopkeeper, so don’t take it that way. But do you have any spare money for workmen?”
“I might. Why do you ask?”
“You could get your store up and running in a few days if you were to hire some people to help you. A lot of those men out there would do for a grubstake.”
“A what?”
“A grubstake. You give them equipment and food, and they’ll help you put up your building and offer you a percentage of what they take out of the ground. I’d think about it—all of you.”
“I thought you didn’t care for me, Mister Jensen,” the shopkeeper said.
“I don’t, very much. But maybe it’s just because we got off on the wrong foot. I’m willing to start over.”
Ed did not reply. He pursed his perch-mouthed lips in silence. “I thank you for your suggestion,” he said, a moment later. “I shall…give you a discount on your first purchases in my store for it.”
“Why, thank you very much,” Smoke replied, a smile on his lips. “That’s right generous of you, Ed.”
“Yes,” Ed said smugly. “It is, isn’t it?”
The other men turned their heads to hide their smiles.
“How do I go about doing that?” Ed questioned.
“Just ask somebody,” Smoke told him. “Find a man who is afoot rather than riding. Find one carrying everything on his back or pushing a cart. You’ll probably get some refusals, but eventually you’ll find your people.”
Ed, Colton, Hunt, and Haywood walked off into the pushing, shoving hubbub of humanity, leaving Smoke and Preacher Morrow standing alone.
“You have no spare money, Preacher?” Smoke asked.
Ralph’s smile was genuine. “Find me one who does have spare money. But that isn’t it. I want to build as much of my church as possible myself. It’s…a personal thing.”
“I understand. I’m a pretty good hand with an axe myself. I’ll give you a hand later on.”
Ralph looked at the gunfighter. “I do not understand you, Mister Jensen.”
Before Smoke could reply, the hard sounds of drumming hooves filled the air. “Tilden Franklin,” Smoke said. “The king has arrived.”
“Pearlie!” Sally called. “Come take a break and have some coffee. And I made doughnuts.”
“Bearsign!” the young puncher shouted. “Yes, ma’am. I’m on my way.”
Sally smiled at that. She had learned that cowboys would ride a hundred miles for home-cooked doughnuts…something they called bearsign. It had taken Sally a time to learn why they were called bearsign. When she finally learned the why of it, she thought it positively disgusting.
“You mean!…” she had puffed to Smoke. “These people are equating my doughnuts to…that’s disgusting!”
“Bear tracks, Sally,” Smoke had told her. “Not what you’re thinking.”
She had refused to believe him.
And Smoke never would fully explain.
More fun letting her make up her own mind.
“My husband must have thought a lot of you, Pearlie,” she said, watching the puncher eat, a doughnut in each hand. “He’s not normally a trusting person.”
“He’s a fine man, Miss Sally,” Pearlie said around a mouthful of bearsign. “And got more cold nerve than any man I ever seen.”
“Can we win this fight, Pearlie?”
The cowboy pushed his battered hat back on his head. He took a slug of coffee and said, “You want a straight-out honest answer, ma’am?”
“That’s the only way, Pearlie.”
Pearlie hesitated. “It’ll be tough. Right off, I’d say the odds are slim to none. But there’s always a chance. All depends on how many of them nester friends of yourn will stand and fight when it gets down to the hardrock.”
“A few of them will.”
“Yes’um. That’s what I mean.” He stuffed his mouth full of more bearsign.
“Matlock will, and so will Wilbur. I’m pretty sure Colby will stand firm. I don’t know about the others.”
“You see, ma’am, the problem is this: them folks you just named ain’t gunhands. Mister Tilden can mount up to two hundred riders. The sheriff is gonna be on his side, and all them gun-slingin’ deputies he’ll name. Your husband is pure hell with a gun—pardon my language—but one man just can’t do ’er all.”
Sally smiled at that. She alone, of all those involved, knew what her husband was capable of doing. But, she thought with a silent sigh, Pearlie was probably right…it would be unreasonable to expect one man to do it all.
Even such a man as Smoke.
“What does Mister Franklin want, Pearlie…and why?”
“I ain’t sure of the why of it all, ma’am. As for me, I’d be satisfied with a little bitty part of what he has. He’s got so much holdin’s I’d bet he really don’t know all that he has. What does he want?” The cowboy paused, thinking. “He wants everything, ma’am. Everything he sees. I’ve overheard some of his older punchers talk about what they done to get them things for Tilden Franklin. I wouldn’t want to say them things in front of you, ma’am. I’ll just say I’m glad I didn’t have no part in them. And I’m real glad Mister Smoke gimme a job with ya’ll ’fore it got too late for me.”
“You haven’t been with the Circle TF long, then, Pearlie?”
“It would have been a year this fall, ma’am. I drifted down here from the Bitterroot. I…kinda had a cloud hangin’ over me, I guess you’d say.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Ain’t that much to say, ma’am. I always been mighty quick with a short gun. Not nearabouts as quick as your man, now, but tolerable quick. I was fifteen and workin’ a full man’s job down in Texas. That was six year ago. Or seven. I disremember exact. I rode into town with the rest of the boys for a Saturday night spree. There was some punchers from another spread there. One of ’em braced me, called me names. Next thing I recall, that puncher was layin’ on his back with a bullet hole in his chest. From my gun. Like I said, I’ve always been mighty quick. Well, the sheriff he told me to light a shuck. I got my back up at that, ’cause that other puncher slapped leather first. I tole the sheriff I wasn’t goin’ nowheres. I didn’t mean to back that sheriff into no corner, but I reckon that’s what I done. That sheriff was a bad one, now. He had him a rep that was solid bad. He tole me I had two choices in the matter: ride out or die.
“Well, ma’am, I tole him I didn’t backpaddle for no man, not when I was in the right. He drew on me. I kilt him.”
Pearlie paused and took a sip of coffee. Sally refilled his cup and gave him another doughnut.
“Whole place was quiet as midnight in a graveyard,” Pearlie continued. It seemed to Sally that he was relieved to be talking about it, as if he had never spoken fully of the events. “I holstered my gun and stepped out onto the boardwalk. Then it hit me what I’d done. I was fifteen years old and in one whale of a pickle. I’d just killed two men in less than ten minutes. One of them a lawman. I was on the hoot-owl trail sure as you’re born.
“I got my horse and rode out. Never once looked back. Over in New Mexico two bounty hunters braced me outside a cantina one night. I reckon someone buried both of them next day. I don’t rightly know, seein’ as how I didn’t stick around for the services. Then I was up in Utah when this kid braced me. He was lookin’ for a rep, I guess. He didn’t make it,” Pearlie added softly. “Then the kid’s brothers come a-foggin’ after me. I put lead in both of them. One died, so I heard later on.
“I drifted on over into Nevada. By this time, I had bounty hunters really lookin’ for me. I avoided them, much as I could. Changed my name to Pearlie. I headed north, into the Bitterroot Range. Some lawmen came a-knockin’ on my cabin door one night. Said they was lawmen, what they was was bounty hunters. That was a pretty good fight. I reckon. Good for me, bad for them. Then I drifted down into Colorado and you know the rest.”
“Family?”
Pearlie shook his head. “None that I really remember. Ma and Pa died with the fevers when I was eight or nine. I got a sister somewheres, but I don’t rightly know where. What all I got is what you see, ma’am. I got my guns, a good saddle, and good horse. And that just about says it all, I reckon.”
“No, Pearlie, you’re wrong,” Sally told him.
The cowboy looked at her, puzzlement in his eyes.
“You have a home with us, as long as you want to ride for the brand.”
“Much obliged, ma’am,” he said, his voice thick. He did not trust himself to say much more. He stood up. “I better get back on the Sugarloaf East, ma’am. Things to do.”
Sally watched him mount up and ride off. She smiled, knowing she and Smoke had made yet another friend.
12
Surprisingly, Smoke noted, the election went smoothly. There was one central voting place, where names were taken and written down in a ledger. There was no point in anyone voting more than once, and few did, for Tilden Franklin’s men were lopsidedly out in front in the election count, according to the blackboard tally.
By noon, it was clear that Tilden’s people were so far ahead they would not be caught.
Hunt, Haywood, Colton, and Ed had voted and vanished into the surging crowds. Preacher Morrow stayed with Smoke.
“You’re not voting, Preacher?” Smoke asked.
“What’s the point?” Ralph summed it up.
“You’re a quick learner.”
“It’s not Christian of me, Smoke. But I took one look at that Tilden Franklin and immediately formed an acute dislike for the man.”
“Like I said, a quick learner.”
“The man is cruel and vicious.”
“Yes, he is. All of that and more. Insane, I believe.”
“That is becoming a catch-all phrase for those who have no feelings for other men’s rights, Smoke.”
Smoke was beginning to like the preacher more and more as time went by. He wondered about the man’s past, but would not ask, that question being impolite. There were scars on the preacher’s knuckles, and Smoke knew they didn’t get there from thumping a Bible.
Then the call went up: the other candidates had withdrawn. Tilden Franklin’s men had won. Within minutes, Monte Carson was walking the streets, a big badge pinned to his shirt.
Smoke deliberately stayed away from the man. He knew trouble would be heading his way soon enough; no point in pushing it.
He felt someone standing close to him and turned, looking down. Billy.
“What’s up, Billy?”
“Trouble for you, Smoke,” the boy said gravely.
Preacher Morrow stepped closer, to hear better. Haywood and Hunt were walking toward the trio. Smoke waved them over.
“Listen to what the boy has to say,” Smoke said.
Billy looked up at the adults standing about him. “Some of the Circle TF riders is gonna prod you, Smoke. Push you into a gunfight and then claim you started it. They’re gonna kill you, Smoke.”
“They’re going to try,” Smoke said softly correcting him.
“Where did you hear this, boy?” Hunt asked.
“I was up in the loft getting ready to fork hay down to the horses when the men came inside the barn. I hunkered down in the loft and listened to them talk. They’s five of them, Smoke. Valentine, Suggs, Bolton, Harris, and Wright.”
“I’ve heard of Valentine,” Smoke said. “He’s a gunhawk. Draws fighting wages from Franklin.”
“His name was mentioned too,” the boy continued. “They said Mister Franklin told them to nip this matter in the bud and end it. If you was to die, they said, the other nests would crumble like a house of cards. They said the new law was on their side and Mister Franklin told them they didn’t have nothin’ to worry about from that end.”
“I suggest we go see the new sheriff immediately,” Hunt said. “Let him handle this matter.”
Billy shook his head. “I don’t know who you are, mister. But you don’t understand the way things are. Monte Carson is Franklin’s man. Franklin says frog, Carson jumps. Judge Proctor is an old wine-head from over the Delores way. Franklin brung him in here to stick him in as judge. It’s all cut and dried. All made up agin Smoke.”
“Incredible!” Haywood said. “Oh, I believe you, son.” He looked at Billy. “Activities of this sort are not confined solely to the West.”
Billy blinked and looked at Smoke. “What’d he say?”
“Happens in other places too.”
“Oh.”
“If that is the case, Smoke,” Hunt said, “then you must run for your life.”
Smoke’s eyes turned icy. He looked at the lawyer. “I don’t run, Lawyer.”
“Then what are you going to do?” Haywood asked. “You’ve all three heard Billy’s statement. A newspaper man, a lawyer, a minister.” Smoke smiled with a grim wolf’s baring of his teeth. “Take Billy’s story down. I see a way to make Tilden Franklin eat crow on this matter and backpaddle.”
“What are you going to do, Smoke?” Preacher Morrow inquired.
“Fight,” Smoke said.
“But there’s five of them!” Hunt protested. “Five against one of you.”
“I’ve faced tougher odds, Lawyer.” He looked at Billy. “Where is it going down, Billy?”
“They’re gonna brace you in the stable.”
Smoke nodded his head. “After these gentlemen take your story on paper, Billy, you get the horses out of there. I don’t want to see a good horse die on account of trash like Tilden’s men.”
“Yes, sir!”
Smoke looked at the three men. “I’ll be heading down that way in about an hour, boys. I would suggest you all hunt a hole.”
Sally looked toward the eastern slopes of the Sugarloaf. Pearlie was not in sight. Bob Colby was working inside the barn, cleaning it out. She called for him.
“Yes’um?” He stuck his head out of the loft.
“Bob, look and see if you can spot Pearlie. He should be over there.” She pointed.
Bob searched the eastern slopes of the Sugarloaf. “Nothing, ma’am,” he called. “I can’t spot him.”
“All right, Bob. Thanks. He’s behind a hill, I guess.” She put Pearlie out of her mind and thought about what to fix for dinner—supper, as they called it out here, although she had never gotten used to that.
“Now what, boys?” Pearlie asked the half-dozen Circle TF riders facing him.
“I guess you know what, Pearlie,” a puncher said. He shook out a loop in his rope.
“You boys is wrong,” Pearlie said. “A man’s gotta right to ride for the brand he chooses.”
“You a turncoat, Pearlie. You should have knowed that no one shows his ass-end to Mister Franklin.”
“He ain’t God, Lefty.”
“He is around here,” Lefty responded.
“Then let him bring you back to life,” Pearlie said. He jerked iron and blew Lefty out of the saddle, the slug taking the TF rider in the right shoulder, knocking him to the ground.
Pearlie spun his cutting horse and tried to make a run for it. He was just a tad slow. He felt the loop settle around him, and then another circled him and jerked him out of the saddle. He hit the ground hard, the breath knocked out of him.
Pearlie struggled to free himself of the stiff ropes, but he knew he was fighting a losing fight. He lifted his six-gun and thumbed the hammer back. He hated to do it, but he had to leave some proof of who had done this to him.
He shot a TF horse. The animal dropped almost immediately as the slug entered behind its left shoulder and shattered the heart. The rider cursed and jumped free, kicking the six-gun out of Pearlie’s hand.
“Drag the son of a bitch!” the horseless rider yelled.
Pearlie was jerked along the ground. Mercifully, his head struck a rock and he was dropped into the darkness of unconsciousness.
“Did you hear a shot?” Sally called.
“Yes’um!” Bob called back. “Probably Pearlie shootin’ a rattler, is all.”
“Maybe,” Sally muttered. She went back into the house and strapped on a pistol. She picked up a rifle and levered a round into the chamber of the Henry. Back outside, she called, “Bob! Are you armed?”
“Yes’um. Got a short gun on and my rifle is right down there.” He pointed.
“Get your rifle and stay in the loft. Keep a look-out for riders. I think we’re in for some trouble.”
“Yes’um!”
“While you’re getting your rifle, close and bar all the barn doors. I’ll bring Seven inside and put him in a stall.”
“Yes’um, Miss Sally.”
Sally hurriedly fixed containers of water and a basket of food for the boy. She put in several boxes of ammunition and carried it to him in the barn. “We might be in for a long day, Bob,” she told him. “And you might have to stay out here by yourself tonight.”
“I ain’t skirred, Miss Sally. I can knock the eye out of a squirrel at a hundred yards with a rifle. If anybody comes to fight, we’ll stand ’em off.”
“Good boy. I’ll be in the house. Let them come close, we’ll catch them in a crossfire.”
Bob grinned. “Yes, ma’am!”
It was as if some invisible messenger had passed the word. The town of Fontana grew quiet, then hushed almost entirely. Smoke walked across the street and stepped into the tent of Louis Longmont. Louis waved him to the bar.
“A pall has fallen over us, my young friend,” Louis said. “I’m sure it concerns you. Am I correct?”
“Uh-huh. Some of Franklin’s men are setting me up for a killing.”
“And naturally, you’re going to leave town in a cloud of dust, right?”
“Sure, Louis. You know that.”
“How many?”
“Five.” Smoke named them.
“Valentine is a bad one. I know him. He’s a top gun from down near the Tex-Mex border. Watch him. He’s got a border roll that’s fast as lightning.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard he’s good. How good?”
“Very good,” the gambler said softly. “He beat Johnny North.”
A smile passed Smoke’s lips. “But Johnny North is still alive.”
“Precisely.”
So Valentine was cat-quick, hut couldn’t shoot worth a damn. Many quick-draw gunhands were blindingly fast, but usually missed their first shots.
Smoke almost never missed.
“I’ll back you up if you ask, Smoke,” Louis offered.
“It’ll come to that, Louis. But not yet. Speaking of Johnny North, where is he?”
“A question I’ve asked myself a few times since coming here. He’ll be here. But he’s a strange one, Smoke. He hates Monte Carson.”
“So I hear. I’ve never heard of him teaming up with anyone.”
“Lone wolf all the way. Johnny must be…oh, about my age, I suppose. But age has not slowed him a bit. When do you meet these gentlemen, and where?”
Smoke opened his watch. “In about fifteen minutes. Down at the stables.”
“Anything you need?”
“A shotgun and a pocketful of shells.”
Louis reached over the bar and pulled out a sawed-off twelve-gauge express gun. He handed Smoke a sack of shells.
“I loaded these myself,” the gambler said. “Full of ball bearings.”
Smoke loaded the express gun. “Got a taste of that scotch handy?”
Louis walked behind the long, deserted bar and poured two fingers of scotch for each of them. He lifted his glass. “To your unerring marksmanship.”
“And hope I shoot straight too,” Smoke said needling the man.
13
Pearlie opened his eyes. He could have sworn he opened his eyes. But he couldn’t see a thing. Slowly, painfully, he lifted one hand and wiped his eyes. There. He could see…a little bit, at least.
He hurt all over. He wriggled his toes. Something was wrong. His boots were gone. He could feel the cool earth against his skin. His jeans were ripped and his shirt was gone. He carefully poked at himself. He was bruised and cut and torn from head to toes, but he didn’t feel any broken bones sticking out. Lucky. Damn lucky.
Pearlie turned his head and felt something flop down over one ear. He carefully inspected his fingertips. A flap of skin was torn loose. He pressed it back against his head and took his bandana from around his neck, tying it around his head. Hurt like hell.
Only then did he think of the danger he might still be in. What if the TF riders were still hanging around?
He looked around him.
Nothing and nobody in sight.
He slowly drew himself up to his knees and looked around. He could clearly see where he had been dragged. He looked down where he had lain. A hole in the hard ground, blood beside it. He stuck a finger into the hole and pulled out the dirt. His fingers touched something hard. Pearlie dug it out and looked at it. A battered and mangled .44 slug. The bastards had shot him. They thought they’d killed him with a gunshot to the head. That would account for the flap of skin hanging down.
“Boy, you was lucky,” he croaked, pushing the words out of a dry throat.
He looked back along the torn path he’d been dragged on. It ran for a ways back toward the cabin. He could see one boot standing all alone in the mangled path. He rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered back toward the boot, one solid mass of aches and pains and misery.
And mad.
Goddamn, was he mad!
He picked up the boot and wandered off in search of his other boot. Pearlie fell down more times than he cared to recall. He banged and bruised and battered his knees and hands each time he fell, but each time he hit the ground, his anger increased. He began cursing Tilden Franklin and all the TF riders who had dragged him and then left him for dead.
The verbal barrage seemed to help.
He found his other boot and sat down to rest, slipping on both his boots. Now he felt better. He could see, just barely, the fallen horse of the TF man. He walked and staggered and stumbled toward it. The animal had fallen on its left side; no way Pearlie could get to the rifle in the saddle boot. But he could salvage the canteen full of water. He sat on the rump of the dead horse and drank his fill. His eyes swept the immediate area. He spotted his six-gun and walked to it, picking it up. He brushed off the dirt, checked the action and the loads, and holstered the weapon. Now he felt better than ever. He dug in the saddlebags of the fallen horse and found a box of .44s, distributing them in his pockets.
Now, by God, just let me find some TF punchers! he thought. He managed to pull the other saddlebag from under the dead horse and rummage through it. Some cold biscuits and beef. As tired and as much as he hurt, he knew he had to have something to eat. Them bearsign was good eatin’, but they didn’t stay with a man.
He ate the beef and biscuits and washed them down with water. He looked toward the direction of the ranch. A good four or five miles off. With an explosive oath, Pearlie stood up and began walking. Miss Sally and the boy was probably in for a rough time of it. And by God, Pearlie was gonna be there to help out.
He put one boot in front of the other and walked and staggered on.
Drops of blood marked his back trail.
Smoke didn’t know where all the people had gone, but the streets of Fontana were empty and silent as he walked along, keeping to the near side of the long street, advancing toward the stable.
But he could feel many eyes on him as he walked.
He slipped the thongs from his Colts as he walked, shifting the sawed-off express from right hand to left hand. He looked up as the batwing doors of a saloon swung open. Tilden Franklin and his foreman, Clint, stepped out to stare at Smoke. The new sheriff, Monte Carson, stood beside them, his large, new, shiny badge catching the late-morning rays of the sun.
“We don’t like troublemakers in this town, Smoke,” Monte said.
Smoke stopped and turned to face the men. With his eyes on Monte, he said, “What trouble have I caused, Sheriff?”
That took Monte aback. He stared at Smoke. Finally, he said, “Man walks around carrying a shotgun like that one there you got must be lookin’ for trouble.”
Smoke grinned. “Why, Sheriff, I’m just going down to the stables to see about my horse. Any law against that?”
Monte shook his head.
“Thanks. If there is nothing else, I’ll just be on my way.”
Tilden grinned at Smoke. His mean eyes shone with evil and power.
Smoke met the man’s eyes. “How about you, Franklin? You got anything to say?”
“You talk mighty big standing there with that express gun in your hands,” Tilden replied.
“Insurance, Franklin,” Smoke said. “Since you’re afraid to move without your trained dogs with you.”
That stung Clint. His eyes narrowed and his hands balled into fists. But he knew better than to prod Smoke; the gunfighter’s rep was that his temper was volatile, and that express gun would turn all three of them into chopped meat at this distance.
“That’s right, Clint,” Smoke said, a nasty tone to his words. “I forgot. You’d rather make war against farmers and women and kids, wouldn’t you?”
“Stand easy, Clint,” Tilden quietly warned his foreman.
Smoke laughed and turned, continuing his walk down the street.
Billy darted from the corral and pressed against the side of a newly erected building. “They’re all over the place, Smoke,” he called in a stage whisper. “Two of ’em up in the loft.”
Smoke nodded his thanks and said, “Get out of here, Billy. Hunt a hole.”
Billy took off as if the devil was howling and smoking at his heels.
Smoke looked toward the corral. Horse was watching him, his ears perked up.
Smoke walked to the huge open doors and paused. He knew he would be blind for a few seconds upon entering the darkened stable. Out of habit, he rechecked the loads in the express gun and took a deep breath.
He slipped the thongs back on the hammers of his Colts and jumped inside the stable, rolling to his right, into an open stall.
Gunfire blasted the semi-darkness where Smoke had first hit the floor.
“Riders comin’, Miss Sally!” Bob called from the barn loft.
“How far off, Bob?” she called from the house.
“’Bout a mile, ma’am. I can’t make out no brand yet.”
“If they’re Circle TF, Bob,” she called, “we’ll blow them out of the saddle.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Woman and boy waited, gripping their rifles.
Pearlie found Lefty’s horse and gently approached the still-spooked animal. The horse shied away. Pearlie sat down on a large rock and waited, knowing that the horse would eventually come to him, desiring human company. In less than five minutes, while Pearlie hummed a low tune, the animal came to him and shoved at the puncher with its nose. Pearlie petted the animal, got the reins, and swung into the saddle. Lefty’s rifle was in the boot and Pearlie checked it. Full. Pearlie pointed the animal’s nose toward the ranch.
“Let’s go boy,” Pearlie said, just as the sounds of gunfire reached him. “I wanna get in a shot or two myself.”
Sally’s opening shot knocked a TF rider out of the saddle. Bob squeezed off a round, the slug hitting a TF gunhawk in the center of his chest. The puncher was dead before he hit the ground. With only three gunslicks left out of the original half a dozen, those three spun their horses and lit a shuck out of that area.
They ran right into Pearlie, coming at them at full gallop. With the reins in his teeth, his right hand full of Colt and his left hand full of Henry rifle, Pearlie emptied two saddles. The last TF rider left alive hunched low in the saddle and made it over a rise and out of range. He then headed for the ranch. They’d been told they were going up against Pearlie and one little lady. But it seemed that Pearlie was as hard to kill as a grizzly and that that little lady had turned into a bobcat.
Meanwhile, Pearlie reined up in a cloud of dust and jumped out of the saddle. “You folks all right?” he yelled.
“My God, Pearlie!” Sally rushed out of the house. “What happened to you?”
“They roped and drug me,” Pearlie said. “Then shot me. But they made a bad mistake, ma’am.”
She looked at him.
“They left me alive,” Pearlie said, his words flint hard.
Smoke darted into the darkness of the first stall just as the lead tore smoking holes where he’d first hit. Rolling to one side, Smoke lifted the sawed-off express gun and eared back both hammers and waited.
“Got the punk!” someone hissed.
“Maybe,” a calmer voice spoke from just above Smoke.
Smoke lifted the sawed-off and pulled both triggers. The express gun roared and bucked, and ball-bearing loads tore a great hole in the loft floor. The “maybe” man was flung out of the loft, both loads catching him directly in the crotch, almost tearing him in half. He lay on the stable floor, squalling as his blood stained the horse-shit-littered boards.
Smoke rolled to the wall of the stall, reloaded the express gun, and jumped over the stall divider, into the next stall. His ears were still ringing from the tremendous booming of the sawed-off.
Quietly, he removed his spurs and laid them to one side.
He heard someone cursing, then someone else said, “Jensen shot him where he lived. That ain’t right.”
The mangled man had ceased his howling, dying on the stable floor.
Smoke waited.
As he had expected, Sheriff Monte Carson was making no effort to interfere with the ambush.
So much for the new law and order in Fontana.
Smoke waited, motionless, his callused hands gripping the express gun. His mentor, Preacher, had taught Smoke well, teaching him, among other things, patience.
One of Tilden’s gunhands lost his patience and began tossing lead around where he suspected Smoke to be. He was way off target. But Smoke wasn’t.
Smoke blew the man out of the loft, the loads taking him in the belly, knocking him backward. He rolled and thrashed and screamed, the pain finally rolling him off the edge and dropping him to the ground floor.
Smoke heard one man jump from the loft and take off running. The others ran out the back and disappeared.
Smoke waited for a long ten-count, then slipped out the front door. He made sure all watching saw him reload the sawed-off shotgun. Then he walked straight up the dusty street to where Tilden and Monte were standing. Still in the street, Smoke wondered where Clint had gotten off to. No matter. Clint might ride for a sorry no-account, but the man was not a backshooter. Smoke knew that much about him.
Looking straight at Tilden, Smoke said, “Two of your men are on the stable floor. One is dead and I imagine the other won’t live long the way he’s shot. Your other hands lost their nerve and ran. Maybe you told them to ambush me, maybe you didn’t. I don’t know. So I won’t accuse you of it.”
Tilden stood still, smoking a thin cigar. But his eyes were filled with silent rage and hate.
Smoke looked at Monte. “You got anything you want to say to me, Sheriff?”
Monte wanted desperately to look at Tilden for some sign. But he was afraid to take his eyes off Smoke. He finally shook his head. “I reckon not.”
“Fine.” Smoke looked at Tilden. “See you ’round, Franklin.” He knew the man despised to be called by his last name.
Smoke turned and walked to Louis Longmont’s place. He handed Louis the shotgun and walked across the street to join the Easterners.
“Go get my horse, Billy. And stay out of the barn until someone cleans up the mess.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Is that…it?” Hunt asked.
“That’s it, Lawyer,” Smoke told him. “Out here, for the time being, justice is very swift and short.”
Smoke looked at Ed Jackson.
“I’d suggest you bear that in mind,” Smoke told him.
14
Tilden sat at a table in a saloon. By himself. The kingpin rancher was in a blue funk and everybody knew it. So they wisely left him alone.
Those six gunhands he’d sent to ambush Jensen were among the best he’d had on his payroll. And they’d failed. And to make matters worse, Jensen had made Tilden look like a fool…in front of Monte and countless others who were hiding nearby.
Intolerable.
Tilden emptied his shot glass and refilled it from the bottle. Lifting the shot glass filled with the amber liquid to his lips, Tilden glanced down at the bottle. More than half empty. That too was intolerable. Tilden was not a heavy-drinking man, not a man who liked his thoughts muddled.
He set the shot glass on the table and pushed it from him. He looked up as one of his punchers—he couldn’t remember the man’s name and that irritated him further—entered the saloon and walked quickly up to Clint, whispering in the foreman’s ear.
The foreman stiffened and gave the man a dark look, then cut his eyes to Tilden.
Tilden Franklin rose from the table and walked to Clint and the cowboy. “Outside,” he said.
In the shade offered by the awning, the men stood on the boardwalk. “Say it,” Tilden ordered the cowboy-gunhand.
“Lefty and five others went over to the Sugarloaf to drag Pearlie. Only one come back and he was shot up pretty bad. He said they drug Pearlie a pretty fair distance and then shot him in the head. But he ain’t dead, boss. And they was two people at Jensen’s spread. Both of them trigger-pullers.”
“Son of a bitch!” Tilden cursed low.
“And that ain’t all, boss. Billy was over to our western range drivin’ the beeves back to the lower slopes. He seen a campfire, smelled beans cookin’. Billy took off over there to run whoever it was off the range. When he got there, he changed his mind. It was Charlie Starr.”
Tilden thought about that for a few seconds. He didn’t believe it. Last word he’d had of Charlie Starr was five, six years back, and that news had been that Starr had been killed in a gunfight up in Montana.
He said as much.
The puncher shook his head. “Billy seen Charlie over in Nevada, at Mormon Station, seven, eight years ago. That’s when Charlie kilt them four gunslicks. Billy bought Charlie a drink after that, and they talked for nearabouts an hour. You’ve heard Billy brag about that, boss. It ain’t likely he’d forget Charlie Starr.”
Tilden nodded his head in agreement. It was not very likely. Charlie Starr. Mean as a snake and just as notional as a grizzly bear. Wore two guns, tied down low, and was just as good with one as the other. Charlie had been a number of things: stagecoach guard, deputy, marshal, gambler, outlaw, gunfighter, bounty hunter, miner…and a lot of other things.
Charlie was…had to be close to fifty years old. But Tilden doubted that age would have slowed him down much. If any.
And Charlie Starr hated Tilden Franklin.
As if reading his thoughts, Clint said, “You don’t think…”
“I don’t know, Clint.” He dismissed the cowboy and told him to get a drink. When the batwings had swallowed the cowboy, Tilden said, “That was more than fifteen years ago, Clint. Seventeen years to be exact. I was twenty-three years old and full of piss and vinegar. I didn’t know that woman belonged to Charlie. Damnit, she didn’t tell me she did. Rubbing all over me, tickling my ear. I had just ramrodded a herd up from Texas and was hard-drinkin’ back then.” He sighed. “I got drunk, Clint. I’ve told you that much before. What I haven’t told you was that I got a little rough with the woman later on. She died. I thought she liked it rough. Lots of women do, you know. Anyway, I got the word that Charlie Starr was gunning for me. I ordered my boys to rope him and drag the meanness out of him. They got a little carried away with the fun and hurt him bad. He was, so I’m told, a long time recovering from it. Better part of a year. Word got back to me over the years that Charlie had made his brag he was going to brace me and kill me.”
“I seen him up on the Roaring Fork nine, ten years ago,” Clint said. “Luis Chamba and that Medicine Bow gunslick braced him. Chamba took a lot of lead, but he lived. The other one didn’t.”
“Where is Chamba?”
“Utah, last I heard.”
“Send a rider. Get him.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was full dark when Smoke saw the lights shining from the windows of the cabin. He had pushed Horse hard, and the big stallion was tired, but game. Smoke rubbed him down, gave him an extra ration of corn, and turned him loose to roll.
When he opened the door to the cabin and saw Pearlie’s battered and torn face, his own face tightened.
“He’ll tell you over dinner,” Sally said. “Wash up and I’ll fix you a plate.”
Over a heaping plate of beef and potatoes and gravy and beans flavored with honey, with bearsign for dessert, Pearlie told his story while Smoke ate.
“If there was any law worth a damn in this country I could have Tilden arrested,” Smoke said, chewing thoughtfully.
“I don’t even know where the county lines are,” Pearlie said. He would have liked another doughnut, but he’d already eaten twenty that day and was ashamed to ask for another.
With a smile, Sally pushed the plate of bearsign toward him.
“Well,” Pearlie said. “Maybe just one more.”
“What county does our land lie in, Smoke?” Sally asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. It might be split in half. And that’s something to think about. But…I don’t know. You can bet that when it comes to little farmers and little ranchers up against kingpins like Tilden, the law is going to side with the big boys. Might be wiser just to keep the law out of this altogether.”
“I thought you folks had bought most of your land and filed on the rest?” Pearlie said.
“We have,” Smoke told him. “And it’s been checked and it’s all legal. But they surveyed again a couple of years ago and drew up new lines. I never heard anymore about it.”
“Mister Smoke?” Bob asked, from a chair away from the adults.
“Yes, Bob?”
“Who is Charlie Starr?”
Smoke sopped up the last of his gravy with a thick hunk of bread and chewed for a moment. “He’s a gunfighter, Bob. He’s been a lot of things, but mostly he’s a good man. But a strange one. I met him while I was riding with an old Mountain Man called Preacher. Why do you ask?”
“I heard them Jones boys talkin’ last week. When we was all gathered over to the Matlocks’ for Sunday services. That feller who sometimes works for Mister Matlock said Charlie Starr’s been camped out around this country for a month or so.”
“I can’t believe Charlie is here to hire his gun out to Tilden. He never has hired his guns out against a little man. He’s done a lot of things, but he kinda backed into his rep as a gunslick. Maybe that fellow was mistaken?”
“Maybe, Mister Smoke.”
Charlie Starr shifted his blankets away from his fire and settled in for the night. He smiled in the darkness, the sounds of his horse cropping grass a somehow comforting sound in the night. Since that puncher had come up on him, he’d moved his location—out of, he thought, the TF range. High up in the mountains, where snow was still capping the crests, above some place called the Sugarloaf. Nice-sounding name, Charlie thought.
Louis Longmont sat at a table playing stud, winning, as usual. Winning even though his thoughts were not entirely on the game. He’d just that evening heard the rumors that Charlie Starr was in the area, and heard too that Tilden Franklin had sent a rider to Utah to get Luis Chamba, the Sonora gunslick. And he’d heard that Tilden was building up his own forces by half a hundred riders.
Louis pulled in his winnings and excused himself from the game. His mind wasn’t on it and he needed a breath of air. He walked outside, into the rambunctious, boom-town night air. The town was growing by hundreds each day. Most of the men were miners or would-be miners, but there was a lot of trash mixed in as well.
With this many people working the area, the town might last, Louis thought, six months—maybe less. There was a strong urge within the man to just fold his tent and pull out. Louis felt there would be a bloodbath before everything was said and done.
But Louis couldn’t do that. He’d given his word to Preacher he’d look in on Smoke from time to time. Not that Smoke needed any looking after, Louis thought with a grin. But a man’s word was his bond. So Louis would see it through. He tossed his cigar into the street and walked back into his gaming tent.
Tilden Franklin sat alone in his huge house, his thoughts as savage as much of the land that lay around him. His thoughts would have made a grizzly flinch. Tilden had never seen a woman that he desired more than Sally Jensen. Educated, aloof, beautiful. Tilden wondered how she’d look with her dress on the floor.
He shook that thought from him.
Then, with a faint smile curving his lips, he thought about the nester Colby. More specifically, Colby’s daughter. Velvet.
Tilden laughed. He thought he knew how to get rid of that nester, and let his boys have some fun in the process.
Yeah. He’d give it some extra thought in the morning. But it seemed like a pretty good idea.
Billy lay on the hay in the loft, in his longjohns, his new clothing carefully folded and stored on a little ledge. His thoughts were of Smoke. Billy wondered how it would be to have a pa like Smoke. Probably real nice. There was a streak of gentleness in the gunfighter that few adults could see. But a kid could see it right off. Smoke for a pa. Well, it was something to dream about. One thing for sure, nobody would mess with you, leastways.
Ed Jackson lay by his wife’s side and mentally counted all the money he was going to make. He’d hired some rough-looking men that day, promising them a grubstake if they’d build his store for him. They had accepted. Ed Jackson dreamed of great wealth. Ed Jackson dreamed of becoming a very important person. Maybe even someone like Tilden Franklin.
Now there was a really important man.
Paul Jackson lay in his blankets under a wagon. He was restless, sleep was elusive. He kept thinking about the way Bountiful had looked at him. Something was building between them, he just knew it. And Paul also knew that he wasn’t going to hang around here with his stupid, greedy brother any longer than necessary. If he could find gold, that would really make Bountiful sit up and take notice of him.
He grinned.
Or lay down and take notice of him.
Dana lay by her husband, listening to him breathe as he slept. She wondered if they’d made a mistake in coming out West. Haywood didn’t think so, but she’d wondered often about it, especially during the last few days. These men out here, they took violent death so…so calmly. It frightened her.
Colton closed up his tent and put his money, some of it in gold dust, into a lockbox and carefully stowed it away in the hidden compartment under the wagon. He was tired, but he’d made more money in just two days than most physicians back East made in a month—maybe two months. If this kept up, he’d have enough to travel on to California and set up a practice in real style. In a place that had some class, with a theater and opera and all the rest that civilized people craved. At this rate, he’d have far more than enough in a year’s time.
He washed his hands and made ready for bed.
Hunt was wide awake, his thoughts many and most of them confused. True, he’d been busy all day handling gold claims, but no one had come to him for any legal advice concerning the many fights and stabbings and occasional shootings that occurred within the town of Fontana. He simply could not understand that. Didn’t these people understand due process? All those fistfights and gunfights. It was positively barbaric. And so needless. All people had to do was come see him; then they could handle it in a proper court of law.
If, Hunt thought with a grimace, they could find the judge when he was sober.
15
Leaving Pearlie with Sally, Smoke escorted Bob back to his home. For the first time since arriving in the area, Smoke saw both Wilbur Mason and Colby armed with short guns and rifles. Dismounting, Smoke ground-reined Drifter and faced the farmer-ranchers.
“Seen any of the others?” Smoke asked.
“Nolan rode by yesterday evenin’,” Colby said. “He’s scared and admitted it.”
“Ray and Betty sent word that they’re with us all the way,” Mason said.
“How about Peyton?”
Both men shrugged.
“I think he’ll stand,” Smoke said. “Way he talked to me the other day, he’ll stick. How’s your food supply?”
“Plenty. The old woman canned enough last summer to last us for a good long time. Potato bin’s half full. What’s your plans, Smoke?”
Smoke brought them both up to date. Then he said, “I’m staying close to home. Shifting my cattle to a different graze. But if I need something in the way of supplies, nothing or nobody will keep me out of Fontana.”
“When you decide to go in,” Colby said, “I’ll take my wagon and go in with you. The two of us can get supplies for everybody.”
“Sounds good. We don’t want to leave the whole area without menfolk. I’m going to talk with the others today. Get a better idea of where they stand. I’ll see you both later on.”
Velvet came out of the house and walked to the well. Smoke’s eyes followed her. She was a young girl, but built up like a grown woman. And that worried Smoke. Tilden was ruthless, might do anything. And some of the gunslicks riding for the TF brand were nothing more than pure white trash. They’d do anything Tilden ordered. While most Western men would not bother a good woman, there were always exceptions.
Colby had followed Smoke’s eyes. “I still think you’re wrong, Smoke. She’s just a child.”
“Tilden Franklin is a sorry son of a bitch,” Smoke told the men. “Don’t put anything past him.” He swung into the saddle. “See you boys later.”
Smoke rode hard that day, stopping in to see all the small outfits he thought might throw in with him and the others. And he had been correct in his thinking. Steve and Mike and Nolan and Ray all agreed to toss in, forming an alliance among all the small spreads. If one got hit, the others would respond.
Their lives and money were sunk deep into this land, and with many, some of their blood as well. They were not going to run.
“What’s this talk about Charlie Starr, Smoke?” Nolan asked.
“So far as I know, just that—talk.” He told the man what he knew about Starr. “I think, if he is in this area, he’s here to kill Tilden Franklin. Lots of bad blood between those two. Goes back years, so the story goes. I’m going to try to pin the rumor down. When I do, I’ll get back with you. Stay loose, Nolan, and keep an eye on your womenfolk. I have no way of knowing exactly what Tilden has in mind, but whatever it is, it’s bad news for us, that’s for sure.”
“I’m not going to put up with these miners tearing up my land, Smoke,” the rancher said. “If I have to shoot two or three of them, I will.”
“Check your land title, Nolan. You might not have mineral rights. Ever think about that?”
The farmer-rancher cursed. “I never thought about that. Could someone buy those rights without my permission?”
“I think so. The law is still kind of raw out here, you know that. I checked on my title last night. I own the mineral rights to my land.”
“I just didn’t think about it. I’ll do just that. See you, Smoke.”
Smoke spent a week staying close to home. He received no news about what might be happening in Fontana. Then, on a fine, clear, late spring day, Smoke decided to ride his valley. He found several miners’ camps high up, and told the men to clear out—right then.
“And if we don’t?” one bearded man challenged him.
“I’ll kill you,” Smoke told him, ice in the words.
“You talk big, mister,” another miner said. “But I’m wonderin’ if you got the sand to back up your words.”
“My name is Smoke Jensen.”
The miners cleared out within the hour.
With the sun directly over his head, Smoke decided to stop in a stand of timber and eat the lunch that Sally had prepared for him. He was just stepping down from the saddle when the smell of wood smoke reached him.
He swung back into the saddle and followed the invisible trail. It took him the better part of an hour to find the well-concealed camp, and when he found it, he knew he had come face to face with one of the most feared men in all the West.
Charlie Starr.
“Mind some company?” Smoke asked, raising his voice to be heard over the hundred yards or so that separated the men.
“Is this your land?” the man called.
“Sure is.”
“Light and sit then. You welcome to share what I got.”
“Thanks,” Smoke said, riding in and dismounting. “My wife fixed me a bait of food.”
Charlie Starr looked hard at Smoke, “Ain’t I seen you afores?”
“Yes,” Smoke told him, unwrapping the waxed paper Sally had used to secure his lunch. “Long time ago, up in Wyoming. I was with a Mountain Man called Preacher.”
“Well, I’ll just be damned if that ain’t the truth! You’ve growed a mite, boy”
There was a twinkle in his eyes as he said it. And Smoke knew that Charlie Starr knew all about him.
Charlie’s eyes flicked to Smoke’s guns. “No notches. That’s good. Only a tinhorn cuts his kills, and half of them are lies.”
Smoke thought of Colby’s boy, Adam. “I told that to a boy just the other day. I don’t think he believed me.”
“He might not live to be a man, thinking like that.” Charlie’s eyes lit up as he spotted the bearsign in Smoke’s sack. “Say, now!”
Smoke halved his doughnuts and Charlie put them aside for dessert. “Much obliged, Smoke. Have some coffee.”
Smoke filled his battered tin cup and settled back to enjoy his lunch among the mountain’s flowers and trees and cool but pleasant breezes.
“You wonderin’ why I’m squatted on your range?” Charlie asked.
“Stay as long as you’re friendly, Charlie.” Smoke spoke around a mouthful of beef and bread.
Charlie laughed. “And you’d brace me too, wouldn’t you, young man?”
Younger eyes met older eyes. Both sets were flint hard and knowing.
“I’d try you, Charlie.”
Charlie chuckled and said, “I killed my first man ’fore you was even a glint in your daddy’s eyes, Smoke. Way before. How old do you think I am, Smoke?”
“You ain’t no young rooster.”
Again, the gunfighter laughed. “You shore right about that. I’m fifty-eight years old. I killed my first man when I was fourteen, I think it was. That’s be, uh, back in ’36, I reckon.”
“I was fourteen when I killed an Indian. I think we were in Kansas.”
“You don’t say? I’m be damned. Some folks would say that an Injun don’t count, but I ain’t one of them folks. Injuns is just like us…but different.”
Smoke stopped chewing and thought about that. He had to smile. “You don’t look your age, Charlie.”
“Thank you. But on cold mornin’s I shore feel it. Seen me a bunch of boomers headin’ this way. They made it to No-Name yet?”
“No-Name is now Fontana. Oh, yeah, the boomers made it and are still coming in.”
“Fontana,” Charlie said softly. “Right pretty name.” His voice had changed, becoming low-pitched and deadly. “Fontana. Now what do you think about that.”
Smoke said nothing. Preacher had told him the story about Charlie’s girl, Rosa Fontana, and about Tilden Franklin killing the girl and dragging Charlie.
The men ate in silence for a time, silently enjoying each other’s company. While they ate, they eyeballed each other when one thought the other wasn’t looking.
Smoke took in Charlie’s lean frame. The man’s waist was so thin he looked like he’d have to eat a dozen bearsign just to hold his britches up. Like most cowboys, his main strength lay in his shoulders and arms. The man’s wrists were thick, the hands big and scarred and callused. His face was tanned and rugged-looking. Charlie Starr looked like a man who would be hard to handle in any kind of fight.
Then Smoke had an idea; an idea that, if Charlie was agreeable, would send Tilden Franklin right through the roof of his mansion in fits of rage.
“You always sit around a far grinnin’, boy?” Charlie asked.
“No.” Smoke had not realized he was grinning. “But I just had me an idea.”
“Must have been a good’un.”
“You lookin’ for work, Charlie?”
“Not so’s you’d notice, I ain’t.”
“My wife is one of the best cooks in the state.”
“Keep talkin’.” He picked up a doughnut and nibbled at it. Then he stuffed the whole thing in his mouth.
“Wouldn’t be a whole lot to do. I got one hand. Name’s Pearlie.”
“Rat good with a gun, is he?”
“He’ll do to ride the river with. Some of Tilden’s boys hung a rope on him last week and dragged him a piece.” Smoke kept his voice bland, not wanting Charlie to know that he knew about the bad blood between Starr and Franklin. Or why. “Then they shot him in the head. Pearlie managed to live and get lead in two of them. He’s back working a full day now.”
Charlie grunted. “Sounds like he’ll do, all rat. What is he, half ’gator?”
“He’s tough. I’ll pay you thirty and found.”
“Don’t need no job. But…”
Smoke waited.
“Your wife make these here bearsign now and then, does she?”
“Once a week.”
“I come and go as I please long as my work’s caught up?”
“Sure. But I have to warn you…they’ll probably be some shooting involved, and…well, with you getting along in years and all, I wouldn’t blame you if you turned it down.”
Charlie fixed him with a look that would have withered a cactus. Needles and all.
“Boy, are you out of your gawddamned mind or just born slow?”
“Well, no, Charlie…but they’re gonna be broncs to bust, and with your age and all, I was just…”
Charlie threw his battered hat on the ground. “Gawddamn, boy, I ain’t ready for no old folks’ home just yet!”
“Now, don’t get worked up, Charlie. You’re liable to have a heart attack, and I don’t know nothing about treating heart attacks.”
Charlie turned blue around the mouth and his eyes bugged out. Then he began to relax and chuckle. He wiped his eyes and said, “Shore tell Preacher had a hand in your up-bringin’, Smoke.” He stuck a hard, rough hand across the hat-sized fire. “You got you a man that’ll ride the river with you, Smoke Jensen.”
Smoke took the hand and a new friendship was born.
16
On the slow ride back to the ranch, Smoke discovered that Charlie and Preacher shared one common bond. They both liked to bitch.
And like Preacher’s had been, Charlie’s complaints were numerous…and mostly made up.
“I stayed in a hospital a week one time,” Charlie informed him. “Them doctors found more wrong with me than a human body ought to have to suffer. I swear, if I’d stayed in there another week, I’d have probably died. They told me that no human bein’ could be shot twenty-two times and still live. I told them I wasn’t shot no twenty-two times, it was twenty-five times, but three of them holes was in a place they wasn’t about to look at.
“Boy, was I wrong!”
Smoke was laughing so hard he had to wipe his eyes with a bandana.
“Nurse come in that first day. That was the homeliest-lookin’ female I ever did see. Looked like a buffalo. Told me to hike up that gown they had me in. I told her that her and no two others like her was big enough to make me do that.
“I was wrong agin.
“I want to warn you now, Smoke. Don’t never get around me with no rubber tubin’. Don’t do it. I’m liable to go plumb bee-serk. Them hospitals, boy, they got a thing about flushin’ out a man’s system. Stay away from hospitals, boy, they’ll kill you!”
Pearlie was clearly in awe. Not only was he working for Smoke Jensen, but now Smoke had done gone and hired Charlie Starr.
“Shut your mouth, boy,” Charlie told him. “Afore you swaller a bug.”
Pearlie closed his mouth.
Charlie was clearly taken aback when Sally came out of the cabin to meet him…dressed in men’s jeans. With a pistol belted around her tiny waist.
Wimmin just didn’t have no business a-runnin’ around in men’s pants. They’d be smokin’ cigarettes ’fore long.
But he forgot all about that when she said, “Fresh apple pie for dessert, Mister Starr.”
“Charlie, ma’am. Just Charlie.”
The sun was just settling over the Sugarloaf when Sally called them in for dinner. Steaks, beans, potatoes, fresh-baked bread, and apple pie.
Smoke and Sally both noted that, for such a spare fellow, Charlie could certainly eat.
After Charlie had sampled his plate and pleased his palate, he said, “Bring me up to date, Smoke.”
Smoke told him what he knew, and then what he guessed. Including Tilden’s desires for Sally.
“That’s his way, all right,” Charlie said. Then he leveled with them, speaking slowly, telling them about Rosa. “Way I hear it, Tilden fancied that she was comin’ up on him. But that was her job, hostess at a saloon. Rosa had part of the action, owned about twenty-five percent of it. When I come to in the hospital, after Tilden’s boys drug me, Louis told me what really happened.”
Smoke glanced at the man. “Louis!”
Charlie grinned grimly. “Louis Longmont. It was one of his places. And you know Louis don’t tolerate no pleasure ladies workin’ for him. That’s more Big Mamma O’Neil’s style. Louis was considerable younger then, and so was I. Louis said one of his bouncers saw it all…well, most of it. Tilden was so drunk he got it all wrong. And when Rosa tried to break a-loose from him, he started slappin’ her around. Bad. The bouncers come runnin’, but Tilden’s hands held them at bay whilst he took Rosa in the back room and…” He paused, looking at Sally. “…had his way with her. Then he killed her. Broke her neck with his bare hands. You see, one of them doctors in that damnable hospital told me, once I got to trust the feller, that Tilden ain’t quite right in the head. He’s got the ability to twist things all around, and make the bad look good and so forth. He shapes things the way he wants them to be in his mind. I disremember the exact word the doc used. That buffler-faced nurse come by ’bout that time with some rubber tubin’ in her hands and things kinda went hazy on me.”
“What nurse?” Sally asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” Smoke said.
Charlie said, “Me and Rosa was gonna get married in the spring. I was unconscious for several days; didn’t even get to go to her buryin’.” He sighed deeply. “Course, by the time I got on my feet, Tilden and his bunch was long gone. I lost track of him for a time, but by then the fires inside me had burned low. I still hated the man, but I had to make a livin’ and didn’t have no idea where he might be. I been knowin’ he was in this area for some years. I’ve drifted in and out half a dozen times, stayin’ low, watching that low-life build his little kingdom. Then I had me an idea. I’d wait until he got real big, real powerful, real sure of himself. And then I’d kill him…slow.”
Charlie laid down his knife and fork, pushed his empty plate from him, and stood up. “Bes’ grub I’ve had in many a moon, ma’am. I thank you. Reckon I’ll turn in now. Tomorrow I wanna start roamin’ the range for a couple of days, learn all the twists and turns and ways in and out. I seen me a cookstove in the bunkhouse. I’ll fix me a poke before I pull out in the mornin’. Night, folks.”
After the door had closed softly and the sounds of Charlie’s jingling spurs had faded, Pearlie said, “I think Tilden Franklin’s string has just about run out.”
“That hombre who just walked out the door,” Smoke said, “I believe means every word he said.
“Story goes that Charlie’s folks was kilt by Injuns when he was just a little boy. He was raised by the Cheyenne. If Charlie says he’s gonna kill Tilden Franklin slow, that is exactly what he means.”
For two days, Charlie prowled the Sugarloaf, getting his bearings and inspecting the cattle and horses that Smoke and Sally were raising.
“You want it known that you’re working for me?” Smoke asked him upon his return to the ranch house.
“Don’t make no difference to me, Smoke,” the gunfighter said. “My bein’ here ain’t gonna make Tilden backpaddle none. Man sets out to be king, only thing that’s gonna stop him is dyin’.”
Smoke nodded his agreement. “I’ll be gone for several days, Charlie. You and Pearlie stay close to the house, all right?”
“Will do.”
Smoke pulled out early the next morning, riding Drifter. It was not like Tilden to wait, once his intentions became known; Smoke wanted to find out what the kingpin had up his sleeve.
As he rode, the sounds of drilling and hammers against rocks and occasional blasting came to him. The miners were in full swing. And they were paying no attention to the No Trespassing signs the farmer-ranchers had posted around their property. Bad trouble was building; the smell of it was in the air.
Smoke figured he’d better check in with Lawyer Brook as soon as he hit town.
“Smoke,” the lawyer informed him, “there is nothing your friends can do, not legally.”
“But it’s their land!”
“But they don’t hold the mineral rights to it. The holder of those rights has given the miners permission to mine. The miners get fifty percent, the holder of the rights gets fifty percent.”
Smoke leaned back in his chair and built one of his rare cigarettes from the cloth pouch he carried in his vest pocket. He licked the tube and smoothed it, lighting and inhaling before speaking.
“Let me guess,” Smoke said. “Tilden Franklin bought all the mineral rights.”
“Well…if you don’t hear it from me, you’ll hear it from somebody else. Yes, that is correct.”
“It’s legal stealing, Hunt.”
“I wouldn’t phrase it quite like that,” the lawyer said stiffly.
“I just did,” Smoke told him. He walked out of the lawyer’s new offices.
The long building containing the offices of the lawyer, the doctor, and the newspaper had been put up in a hurry, but it was well built nonetheless. Across the street, the big store of Ed Jackson was in business and doing quite well, Smoke observed, eyeballing the many heavily loaded wagons lined up behind it, waiting to be unloaded. And, surprisingly enough, Ralph Morrow’s church was up—nearly completed. He walked across the small field to the church and located the minister.
“You do all this yourself, Ralph?” Smoke asked.
“Oh, no! Mister Franklin donated the money for the church and paid the workmen to build it. He’s really a very fine man, Smoke. I think you’re wrong about him.”
Slick, Smoke thought. Very slick on Tilden’s part. “Well, I’m happy about your church, Ralph. I wish you a great deal of success.”
“Thank you, Smoke.” The minister beamed.
Smoke rode to the stable and located Billy. “Take care of him, Billy. Lots of corn and rub him down.”
“Yes, sir!”
Smoke walked over to Louis’s place and stepped inside. The gambler was sitting at a table, having breakfast. He waved Smoke over.
“Saw you ride in just as I was getting up. Care for a late breakfast?”
“Sounds good.”
The gambler called for his cook and ordered breakfast for Smoke. Looking at Smoke, he asked, “Have you spoken to the minister yet?”
Smoke’s smile gave him his silent reply.
“Nice move on Franklin’s part, don’t you think?”
“Very Christian of the man.”
Louis enjoyed a laugh at the sarcasm in Smoke’s voice. “Slick on his part about the mineral rights.”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Lawyer Brook—it’s nothing but legal stealing.”
“Oh, I agree with you, Smoke. But it is legal. Were I you, I’d advise the others to walk lightly and don’t start any shooting.”
“It’s their land, Louis. They have a right to protect their herds.”
Louis chewed for a moment, a thoughtful look on his face. “Yes, they do,” he finally spoke. He took a sip of coffee out of one of the fanciest cups Smoke had ever seen. One thing about Louis Longmont. When he traveled, he went first class all the way, carrying a cook, a valet, and a huge bodyguard with him at all times. The bodyguard usually acted as bouncer in Louis’s place, and was rarely seen—except when there was trouble. And then he was seen by the troublemaker only very briefly…seconds before the troublemaker died in Mike’s bare hands. Providing Louis didn’t shoot the troublemaker outright.
Louis buttered a piece of toasted bread and then spread preserves on top of that. The preserves, Smoke was sure, were imported. “Smoke, you know, or I hope you do, that I will back you to the hilt…in whatever you do. Regardless of whether I think you are right or wrong. Preacher saved my life a number of times, and besides that, you are a very good young man. But whether our newly elected law is worth a tinker’s damn or not, in this mineral rights matter Tilden Franklin is legal. And the law is on his side. Smoke, the land can be repaired. Another hole in the ground is not worth a shooting or a hanging. Your herds? Well, that is quite another matter.” He glanced at Smoke, a twinkle in his hard eyes. “There is no law out here that says a man can’t hang or shoot a rustler or a horse thief—if you get my drift.”
Smoke got it. And he would pass the word to the other small farmer-ranchers. Then they would ride out and advise the miners that there would be no trouble, providing the herds of cattle and horses were left alone. But trample over someone’s garden, stampede one herd, cut out one beeve, or steal one horse, and someone was going to die.
And then, if any or all those things happened, they would have to have the raw nerve to carry the threat through.
The French chef placed a plate before Smoke. Smoke looked at the food on the plate. Damned if he knew what it was. He said as much.
Then the chef reached down with a lighted match, set fire to the stuff, and Smoke jumped out of his chair.
Louis had a good laugh out of that. “Sit down, Smoke. Enjoy your breakfast.”
“Hell, I can’t eat fire!”
The flames abated and the chef departed, chuckling. Louis smiled. “Those are crepes suzette, my young friend. This dish.” He tapped another plate with a knife blade. “Is an au jambon.”
“Do tell?”
“An omelette, with bits of ham,” Louis explained. “Now eat and enjoy.”
Them crap susies was a tad too sweet for Smoke’s taste, but the omelette was tasty. He made a mental note to tell Sally about what he had had for a late breakfast. Maybe she’d heard of them; damned if he ever had.
“Either way,” Smoke said, “I think we’re all looking at a lot of trouble just up the road.”
“I share your feelings, Smoke. But why not postpone it as long as possible. You know this strike is not going to last. In six months it will have seen its heyday.”
“I can’t figure you, Louis. I never…” He bit off the words just at the last possible second.
The gambler-gunfighter did not take umbrage at what he suspected Smoke had been about to say. Instead, he smiled and finished it for him. “Never knew me to back off from trouble, Smoke?”
“I apologize for thinking it, Louis.”
Louis smiled and shook his head. “No need for any of that—not between friends.” He sighed. “But you’re right, Smoke. I am trying to avoid trouble. Not for my sake,” he was quick to add. “But for yours.”
Smoke laid down his fork. “My sake?”
“Listen to me, my young friend. How many guns do you have? A dozen? Maybe fifteen at the most? Tilden has seventy-five hardcases right now and can pull in two hundred more anytime he wishes, and will. Talk is that Luis Chamba is on his way here. And where Luis goes, Sanderson and Kane go with him. Think about it.”
Smoke thought about it, and the more he thought about it the madder he got. Louis saw his expression change and tried to calm the young man down.
“No, Louis. No. Don’t you see what Tilden is trying to pull?”
“Of course I do, boy! But give it time. In six months this area of the country will be right back where it was a month ago. Farm and ranch country. This town will dry up with only a few of the businesses remaining. I’m betting Tilden won’t want to be king of nothing.”
“He won’t be king of nothing, Louis. For if we don’t fight, he’ll kill us all one by one. He’ll make some grand gesture of buying out the widows or the kids—through some goddamned lawyer—and then he’ll own this entire section of the state of Colorado. Everything!”
Louis nodded his head. “Maybe you’re right, Smoke. Maybe you’re right. If that’s the case, then you’ve got to start hiring guns of your own. You and your wife have the means to do so; if you don’t, let me advance you the money.”
Suddenly, Smoke thought of something. In a way it was a cruel thought, but it was also a way for a lot of broke, aging men to gather in one final blaze of glory. The more he thought about it, the better he liked it, and his mood began to lighten. But he’d have to bounce it off Charlie first.
“Why are you smiling, Smoke?” Louis asked.
“Louis, you’re one of the best gamblers around, aren’t you?”
“Some say I am one of the best in the world, Smoke. I should think my numerous bank accounts would back up that claim. Why do you ask?”
“Suppose you suddenly learned you were dying, or suppose some…well, call it fate…started dealing you bad hands and you ended up broke and old—anything along that line—and then someone offered you the chance to once more live in glory. Your kind of glory. Would you take it, Louis, or would you think the offer to be cruel?”
“What an interesting thought! Say now…cruel? Oh, no. Not at all. I would jump at the opportunity. But…what are you thinking of, Smoke? I’m not following this line of questioning at all.”
“You will, Louis.” Smoke stood up and smiled. His smile seemed to Louis to be rather mysterious “You will. And I think you’ll find it to your liking. I really believe you will.”
Long after Smoke had plopped his hat on his head, left the gaming room, and ridden out of town, Louis Longmont had sat at the table and thought about what his young friend had said.
Then he began smiling. Soon the smile had turned to chuckling and the chuckling to hard laughter.
“Oh…” he managed to say over the pealing laughter. “I love it!”
17
Smoke sat with Sally, Pearlie, and Charlie. Charlie listened to what Smoke had on his mind and then leaned back in his chair, a broad smile on his face. He laughed and slapped his knee.
“Smoke, that’s the bes’ idee I’ve heard of in a long, long time. Cruel? No, sir. It ain’t cruel. What you’re talkin’ about is what they do bes’. You give me the wherewithal and I’ll have an even dozen here in a week, soon as I can get to a telegraph and get hold of them and get some money to them.”
“Name them, Charlie.”
“Oh…well, there’s Luke Nations, Pistol Le Roux, Bill Foley, Dan Greentree, Leo Wood, Cary Webb, Sunset Hatfield, Crooked John Simmons, Bull Flagler, Toot Tooner, Sutter Cordova, Red Shingletown…give me time and I’ll name some more.”
Pearlie said, “But all them old boys is dead!”
“No, they ain’t neither,” Charlie corrected. “They just retared is all.”
“Well…” Pearlie thought a moment. “Then they mus’ be a hundred years old!”
“Naw!” Charlie scoffed at that. “You jus’ a kid, is all. They all in their sixties.”
“I’ve met some of them. Charlie, I don’t want to be responsible for any of them going to their deaths.”
“Smoke…it’s the way they’d want it. If they all died, they’d go out thankin’ you for the opportunity to show the world they still had it in them. Let them go out in a blaze of glory, Smoke.”
Smoke thought about it. That was the way Preacher would have wanted to go. And those old Mountain Men three years back, that’s how they had wanted it. “All right, Charlie. We’ll give you the money and you can pull out at first light. Me and Pearlie will start adding on to the bunkhouse. How many do you think will be here?”
“When the word gets out, I’d look for about twenty-five or so.” Charlie said it with a smile. “You gonna have to hire you a cook to help Miss Sally. Or you’ll work her to a frazzle, Smoke.”
“All right. Do you know an old camp cook?”
“Shore do. Dad Weaver. He can cook and he can still pull a trigger too. One about as good as the other.”
“Hire him. Oh, ’fore I forget.” He looked at Sally. “I had a late breakfast with Louis Longmont. His chef fed me crap susies.”
“Fed you what?” Sally said.
“The chef set it on fire before he served me. I thought he’d lost his mind.”
“You didn’t eat it, did you?” Pearlie asked.
“Oh, yeah! It was pretty good. Real sweet.”
“Crepes suzette,” Sally said.
“That’s it,” Smoke said. “Say it again.”
“You pronounce it…krehp sue-zeht. You all try to say it.”
They all tried. It sounded like three monkeys trying to master French.
“I feel like a plumb idiot!” Charlie said.
“What’re those damned nesters up to?” Tilden Franklin asked his foreman.
“I can’t figure it,” Clint said. “They’ve all rode out and told the miners there wouldn’t be no trouble as long as the miners don’t spook their herds or trample their crops. They was firm, but in a nice way.”
“Damn!” Tilden said. “I thought Jensen would go in shooting.”
“So did I. You want us to maybe do a little night-ridin’?”
“No. I want this to be all the nesters’ doing. Wait a minute. Yeah, I do want some night-riding. Send some of the boys out to Peyton’s place. Rustle a couple head and leave thc butchered carcasses close to some miners’ camps. Peyton is hot-headed; he’ll go busting up in there and shoot or hang some of them. While we stand clear.”
Clint smiled. “Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Sheriff Monte Carson and his so-called deputies kept only a loose hand on the rowdy doings in Fontana. They broke up fistfights whenever they could get to them in time, but rarely interfered in a stand-up, face-to-face shoot-out. Mostly they saw to it that all the businesses—with the exception of Louis Longmont, Ed Jackson, and Lawyer Hunt Brook—paid into the Tilden kitty…ten percent of the gross. And don’t hold none back. The deputies didn’t bother Doctor Colton Spalding either. They’d wisely decided that some of them just might need the Doc’s services sooner or later…probably sooner.
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