Trail Of The Mountain Man//Revenge Of The Mountain Man

“Mister Luke tole me to tell you to come quick. Tilden Franklin’s men done took over Fontana and this time they done ’er good. Sheriff Carson is hard hit, and all his deputies is dead!”

“Where’s Johnny?”

“He took Ma over to a neighbor’s house, then said he would meet you at Big Rock.”

“I’m on my way, Bob.”

Smoke instructed some of the old gunfighters to stay at the ranch in case any TF riders might choose to attack either the ranch or Ralph’s new cabin, and told Ralph to keep his butt close by, and to carry his rifle wherever he went.

Smoke and the old gunslingers lit out for Big Rock.

“’Bout time,” Pistol Le Roux muttered. “I was beginnin’ to think we wasn’t never gonna see no action.”

In the town of Fontana, the bully-boys who made up Tilden Franklin’s army were having a fine ol’ time exercising their muscle on the citizens.

The Silver Dollar Kid and the punk who called himself Sundance were strutting up and down the boardwalk, shooting at signs and anything else they took a mind to fire at.

Big Mamma lay on the floor of her pleasure palace, her head split open from a rifle butt. A few of the TF riders were busying themselves with her stable of red-light girls. Free of charge.

At Beeker’s store, the shopkeeper and his wife had barricaded themselves in a sturdy storeroom. They huddled together, listening to the rampaging TF gunslicks loot their store.

Billy lay in the loft of the stable, watching it all, his .22 rifle at the ready, in case any of the TF riders tried to hurt him.

Louis Longmont sat in his gaming room, rifling a deck of cards. His Colts were belted around his lean waist. A rifle and double-barreled shotgun lay on a table. Mike sat across the room, armed with two pistols and a rifle. Louis was not worried about any TF riders attempting to storm his place. They knew better.

Colton and Mona Spalding and Haywood and Dana Arden sat in the newspaper office, listening to the occasional bursts of gunfire from the town.

All had made up their mind they were leaving Fontana at the first chance. Perhaps to Big Rock, perhaps clear out of the state.

And at his general store, Ed Jackson and his wife were being terrorized.

13

“How in the hell did they manage to tree the town?” Smoke asked.

“I reckon the townspeople—them that’s left—was in shock over the sheriff and his deputies bein’ gunned down the way they was,” Luke said. “And Tilden’s bunch just overpowered them that stood to fight.”

“How many men are we looking at?” Silver Jim asked.

“I’d say over a hundred,” Charlie replied. “But Beaconfield sent word in about two hours ago that Tilden left a good-sized bunch at the ranch. I’d say he’s got a good hundred and twenty-five to a hundred and fifty men under his command.”

“You got any ideas, Smoke?”

“Where is Monte?”

“At the Doc’s clinic. He’s hanging on, so I was told.”

“Judge Proctor?”

“Out of town. Denver, I think,” Luke said.

Smoke paced the street in front of the large general store of Big Rock. “It would be foolish for us to try to retake the town. If we leave here, Tilden would probably send his men from the ranch to take this place, burn it probably. And any ranch or farm up here he could find.”

“You’re right,” Hunt Brook said.

“Damn!” Charlie said. “I hate to just sit here and do nothing, but I don’t know what else we can do.”

“I just wish I knew what was going on down at Fontana,” Wilbur said.

Smoke grimaced. “I got a pretty good idea.”

Smoke was silent for a moment. “I hope Billy is all right. I should have got that kid out of there before this.”

The men fell silent, all looking in the direction of Fontana.

A group of TF riders had stripped Peg Jackson naked and were raping her, enjoying her screaming. Ed Jackson had been trussed up like a hog and tossed to the floor, forced to watch his wife being violated.

“You don’t understand,” Ed kept saying. “I like and respect Mister Franklin. We’re friends.”

One TF rider named Belton got tired of listening to Ed and kicked him in the mouth, then in the stomach. Ed lay on the floor, vomiting up blood and bits of teeth and the ham and eggs he’d had for breakfast.

Peg continued screaming as yet another TF gunhand took her.

In Louis’s gaming tent, the gambler looked at his bouncer. “Mike, go get our horses and bring them around to the back. And if you find that boy, Billy, bring him along. I’m thinking that at full dark, when those rowdies get enough booze in them, they’ll rush us. I’d like to get that boy out of this place.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Longmont,” Mike said, and was gone into the night.

Louis looked at the roulette wheels, the faro cue boxes, the card presses, the keno gooses…all the other paraphernalia of gambling.

“I shall not be needing any of it,” Louis muttered. “When I again gamble, it will be in the company of ladies and gentlemen…with champagne and manners and breeding.”

He rose from his chair, picked up his weapons, and walked into the back of the tent.

Mike returned in less than fifteen minutes, with saddled horses and Billy in tow.

“Any trouble?” Louis asked.

“One TF rowdy braced me,” the huge bouncer replied. “I broke his neck.”

The men and the boy mounted up. Andre said, “I will not miss this miserable place.”

“Nor will I, Andre,” Louis said. He pointed his horse’s nose toward the high lonesome. “Quiet now,” he cautioned. “Ride light until we’re clear of the town.”

“Boss?” Mike said. “Them thugs is rapin’ the shopkeeper’s woman. I could hear her screamin’.”

Louis’ face was tight as he said, “If she’s lucky, that’s all they’ll do.”

They cleared the town and then rode hard for the town of Big Rock.

“Grim,” was Louis’s one-word reply to Smoke’s asking about Fontana.

“Can’t we ride for the Army?” Hunt asked.

“Nearest Army post is four days away,” Smoke explained. “And the next stage isn’t due for twenty-four hours. If then.” He looked at the old gunfighter called Buttermilk. “Think you boys could handle those gunhawks left at the TF ranch?”

Buttermilk smiled his reply.

“All right. Leave Dad Weaver and three others at the Sugarloaf. One in the barn with a rifle and lots of shells. Let me have Crooked John and Bull, and the rest of you take off to the TF. Pin ’em down and wear ’em down with rifle fire, then cut ’em down when they get enough and try to pull out.”

Buttermilk nodded and turned to his compadres. “Let’s ride, boys!”

Louis smiled. “Those old boys will lay up on the ridges around the TF spread and put so much lead in that house those gunhawks will be crying to get out.”

“Those old men will allow their adversaries to surrender, won’t they?” Hunt asked.

Louis cut his eyes to the lawyer. “You just have to be joking!”

Crooked John and Bull rode with Louis, Smoke, and Johnny North. Pearlie stayed behind with Luke and Charlie. The men rode slowly, sparing their horses, and making plans as they rode.

“I think we should let them get good and drunk,” Louis remarked. “A full twenty-five percent of them will be passed out by night. That will make our work easier.”

“Good idea,” Johnny said. “And we need to get Monte outta there. Come night, I’ll slip in from the blind side, through all them shacks that was left behind, and get to the Doc’s place. We can hitch up the horses, put some hay in the back to keep Monte comfortable, and point the pilgrims on the way to Big Rock.”

Smoke nodded his approval. “All right. While you’re doing that, I’ll ease in and see about Ed and his wife. Johnny, let’s make it a mite easier for us. Bull, you and Crooked John create a diversion on this end of town. At full dark. You can leave your horses in that dry run behind the stable. Louis, how about you?”

Louis smiled. “I’ll be doing some head-hunting on my own.”

What they were going to do firmly implanted in their minds, the men urged their horses into a trot and began putting the miles behind them.

It was full dark when they pulled up, the lights of Fontana below them. They could hear an occasional gunshot and a faint, drunken whoop.

“I wonder where Tilden is,” Smoke said expressing his thought aloud. “If I could get lead in him, this would be over.”

“Well protected, wherever he is,” Louis said. “But what puzzles me is this: why is he letting his men do this?”

“He’s gone over the edge,” Smoke said. “He’s a crazy man, drunk with power. He’s made no telling how many thousand of dollars on gold shares with the miners and doesn’t care how much of it he spends. And he hates me,” Smoke added.

None of the men needed to add that Tilden Franklin also wanted Sally Jensen.

“Let’s go, boys,” Smoke said. “And good luck.”

The men separated, Smoke turning his horse’s head toward the right, Johnny moving out to the left. Bull and Crooked John headed straight in toward the lights of Fontana, and Louis Longmont moved out alone into the night.

Each man stashed his horse in the safest place he could find and slipped into the town to perform his assigned job.

The diversion that Crooked John and Bull made was a simple one. They set several buildings blazing, lighting up one end of the town.

Smoke slipped to the rear of Jackson’s general store and eased up onto the loading dock. His spurs were left hanging on his saddle horn and he made no noise as he pushed open the back door and entered the storeroom area of the building. Listening, he could hear the faint sobbing of Peg Jackson and the drunken grunting of men.

He wondered what had happened to Ed.

Smoke heard the excited shouting out in the street and wondered what kind of diversion the gunslingers had set. He glanced behind him, out the open back door of the store, and saw the reflection of the dancing, leaping flames reddening the night sky.

Grinning, he slipped closer to the cracked-open door that would lead into the store. He peeked through the crack and silently cursed under his breath.

He could see Ed, trussed up like a hog, on the floor of the store. The man’s face appeared to be badly swollen. There was blood and puke on his shirt front.

Lifting his eyes, searching, he saw Peg. The woman had been badly used and appeared to be just conscious enough to sob. A TF gunhawk, his pants down around his boots, his back to Smoke, was having his way with the woman. Several TF riders were sprawled on the floor and on the counters. They seemed to be dead drunk and out of it.

Two TF gunslicks were leaning against a counter, drinking whiskey straight out of the bottle, an amused look on their faces as they watched the rape of Peg Jackson.

Those men seemed to be the only ones still conscious enough to give Smoke any cause for worry.

The sounds of gunfire came hard through the night air. It was followed by a choking scream. The two TF men looked at each other.

“Let’s check that out,” one said.

The other man nodded and they both walked out onto the boardwalk in front of the general store.

Smoke slipped into the large area of the store. Looking down, he saw that Ed was awake and staring at him through wide and very frightened eyes. Smoke nodded his head at the man and put a finger to his lips, urging Ed to keep silent. Ed nodded his head.

Picking up an axe handle, Smoke slipped up behind the rapist, busy at his ugly work. Smoke hit him on the side of the head with the axe handle. The man’s skull popped under the impact and he fell to one side, dying as he was falling. Smoke glanced at him for a second. The man’s head was split open, his brains exposed.

Smoke jerked Peg to her unsteady feet and handed her a blanket. She looked at the blanket through dull and uncomprehending eyes. Glancing toward the open front door, Smoke could not see the two TF gunnies who had stepped outside. Walking swiftly to the counter, he picked up one half-empty bottle of whisky and returned to Peg. He tilted her head back and poured the raw booze down her throat. She coughed and gagged and gasped as her eyes cleared a bit.

She pulled the blanket over her nakedness and slowly nodded her head in understanding.

“Get to the back of the store,” Smoke whispered. “And wait there for us.”

She walked slowly, painfully, toward the rear of the store.

Smoke didn’t bother cutting Ed’s bonds. He just picked the man up and slung him over his shoulder. He walked swiftly out of the show and business area of the store, joining Peg on the loading dock. There, he dumped Ed on the dock and cut his bonds.

“Hitch up your team, Ed,” he spoke softly. “And do it very quietly and very quickly. Take the old road that circles the town and head for Big Rock. A couple of miles out of town, pull up and wait for Spalding and Arden.”

“My store!” the man protested.

Smoke almost hit the man. He controlled his temper at the last second and said, “Get your goddamned ass moving, Ed. Or I’ll turn you back over to those TF riders. How do you want it?”

Shocked at the cold threat in Smoke’s voice, Ed moved quickly to his barn, Peg walking slowly behind him, the blanket clutched tightly around her.

Smoke walked back into the store just as more gunfire erupted throughout the town. Smoke entered the store just as the two TF gunslicks walked back in through the front door.

They all saw each other and jerked iron at the same time. Smoke’s Colts roared and bucked in his hands. The TF men were thrown to the floor as the .44 slugs from Smoke’s guns hit big bones and vital organs. Smoke’s draw was so fast, his aim so true, the men were unable to get off a single shot before death took them into its cold arms.

Smoke quickly reloaded and holstered his .44s. He walked to the gun rack and took down a sawed-off shotgun, breaking it down and loading it with buckshot, then stuffing his pockets full of shells. He took two new .44 pistols from the arms showcase, checked the action, and loaded them full, tucking them behind his gunbelt. Shotgun in hand, Smoke stepped out onto the boardwalk and prepared to lessen the odds just a tad.

The passed-out gunslicks in the store snored on, probably saving their lives…for the time being.

A TF gunslick made the mistake of riding up just at that moment. Lifting the Greener, Smoke literally blew the man out of the saddle, dumping him, now a bloody mass, onto the dusty ground.

He looked around him, his eyes picking up the black-dressed figure of Louis Longmont, standing on the boardwalk across the street. Louis had a Colt in each hand, the hammers back.

“Where’s Johnny?” Smoke called.

“Right up there,” Louis said returning the call, pointing with a Colt.

Smoke looked through the smoky night air and spotted Johnny North, about a half a block away.

“I got the pilgrims on the way!” Johnny called. “Looks like Monte’s gonna make it if he can stand the trip.”

Reloading the Greener, Smoke called, “Let’s do some damage and then get the hell out of here!”

One of the duded-up dandies who had been strutting about picked that time to brace Johnny North. “Draw, North!” he called, standing in the dusty street.

Johnny put two holes in the punk before the would-be gunhand could blink. The dandy died on his back in the dirt, his guns still in leather.

Two gunhawks came running up the street, on Louis’s side. The gambler dropped them both, his guns roaring and belching gray smoke and fire.

Smoke heard a noise to his left and spun around, dropped to one knee and lifting the shotgun. As he dropped, lead whistled over his head. He pulled both triggers on the Greener, the buckshot spreading a TF rider all over a storefront and the boardwalk.

At the far end of town, Bull Flager was holding his own and then some, the old gunfighter Crooked John Simmons by his side, both gnarled hands full of Colts. Bull’s shotgun roared and Crooked John’s pistols belched death with each cocking and firing.

“Let’s go!” Smoke shouted, and began falling back. He stepped into Ed’s store just as one of the drunken TF riders reared up, a pistol in his hand.

Smoke shot him in the chest with the sawed-off and the gunnie died amid the corsets and the bloomers.

Running out the back, Smoke got his horse and swung into the saddle. He cut into an alley and came out just on the far edge of Fontana. With the reins in his teeth, both hands full of guns, Smoke galloped straight up the last few blocks of the boom town now going bust. Johnny North was right behind him and Louis Longmont just behind Johnny. Bull and Crooked John were waiting at the end of town, rifles in their hands, and their aim was deadly.

The five gunfighters took a fearful toll on Tilden Franklin’s gunhands those last few blocks.

Most of the gunnies were busy with a bucket-line, trying to keep the raging fires contained at one end of town. Smoke, Johnny, and Louis rode right through the bucket-brigade, guns sparking the fiery night, adding death and confusion to the already chaotic scene.

Louis, Johnny, and Smoke sent the gunhands-turned-firemen running and diving and sprawling for their lives. Most made it; a few did not.

Louis knocked a leg from under a TF gunnie and the man fell backward, into the raging inferno. His screams were hideous in the fiery, smoky, gunshot-filled night.

Tilden Franklin stood in the best suite of the hotel and watched it all, his hate-filled eyes as hot as the flames that threatened to consume the town. He turned to the small woman who had been the sole property of Big Mamma and, in his rage, broke the woman’s neck with his powerful hands.

He screamed his hate and rage and picked up the naked, ravaged woman and threw her body out the second floor window.

The young woman lay dead on the street.

Then, with slobber wetting his lips and chin, Tilden Franklin emptied his guns into the battered body.

“I’ll kill you, Jensen!” the man howled. “I’m gonna burn your goddamned town to the ground and have your woman…right in front of your eyes!”

14

The old gunfighters who had ridden to the TF ranch house lay on the ridges that surrounded the huge home and made life miserable for those TF gunhawks who had survived the initial attack.

The moon was full and golden in the starry night skies, the illumination highlighting the bodies of those gunnies who now lay sprawled in death on the grounds surrounding the bunkhouse and the main ranch house.

Those trapped in the bunkhouse and in the main house were not at all happy about their situation. Several had thought the night would cover them as they tried to escape. Those with that thought now lay dead.

“What are we gonna do?” a TF gunslick, who felt more sick than slick, asked.

“Hold out ’til the boss gets back,” was the reply. “There ain’t that many of ’em up there on the ridges.”

“Yeah, but I got me a peek at who they is,” another paid gunhand said. “That’s them old gunfighters. And I think I seen The Apache Kid ’mong ’em.”

Nobody said anything for a long time. Nobody had to. They were all thinking the same thing. Toot Tooner and Red Shingletown had already been spotted, briefly. Now the Apache Kid. They all knew what that meant: these hard ol’ boys didn’t take prisoners. Never had. They expected no quarter, and they gave none.

“I ain’t goin’ out there, boys,” a gunman said. “No way.”

“I wish to hell someone had told me this Jensen feller was raised up by Preacher. I’d have kept my butt up in Montana.”

“He ain’t so good,” another said.

Nobody paid any attention to him. The man was speaking without any knowledge of the subject. He was too young to have any real awareness of the legendary Mountain Man known as Preacher. If he had, he’d have kept his mouth shut.

“So we wait, is that it?” The question was thrown out of the darkened room.

“You got any better ideas?”

Silence, and more silence.

Even with only the sounds of their breathing to be heard, none of the TF gunhands could hear the moccasined feet of The Apache Kid as he slipped through the kitchen and into the large dining area. Sutter Cordova was right behind him. There had been a guard at the back door. He now lay on the porch, his throat cut, his blood staining the ground.

Both men had their hands full of pistols, the hammers jacked back.

“Something is wrong!” a TF gunslick suddenly said, his voice sharp in the darkened house.

“What?”

“I don’t know. But there ain’t a shot fired in more ’un fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Maybe they pulled out?”

“Sure they did, and a hog is gonna fly any day now.”

Apache and Sutter stepped into the room and started letting the lead fly. They were grateful to Smoke Jensen for giving them this opportunity to go out as gunfighters should. They had all outlived their time, and they all knew it. They had no one to live for, and no one to grieve for them when they died.

They were a part of the West’s rapidly vanishing past. So they would go out as they lived.

The room filled with gray smoke, the booming of Colts and Remingtons deafening.

The Apache Kid died with his back to a wall, his hands full of guns. But the old man had taken a dreadful toll while he had lived this night.

Sutter Cordova went into that long sleep with a faint smile on his lips. His guns empty, the gunfighter buried his knife into the chest of a TF gunhawk and rode him down to the floor.

When the booming of the gunfire had faded away into the night, the other aging gunfighters walked slowly down to the big house. They checked out the bunkhouse and found no life there.

Carefully, they went into the house and lighted a lamp. They found one TF rider alive, but not for long.

“You old…bastards played…hell!” he managed to gasp.

“You got a name, boy?” Dan Greentree asked, squatting down beside the young man.

“It…don’t matter.” He closed his eyes and died.

“Funny goddamn name,” Red Shingletown said.

“We’ll bury them in the morning,” Smoke said. “I’ll come back into town and bring the minister with me.”

“What’d y’all do with the dead TF gunnies?” Luke asked.

“Left ’em where they lay,” Red replied. “Let somebody else worry with them.”

“’Pache and Sutter both tole me they was a-goin’ out this run,” Luke Nations said. “’Pache had a bad ticker and Sutter was havin’ a hard time passin’ his water. It’s good they went out this way. I’m right happy for ’em.”

“You’re happy your friends died?” Hunt asked, his robe pulled tightly around him against the night chill.

“Shore. That’s the way they wanted it.”

The lawyer walked away, back to his cabin. He was thinking that he would never understand the Western way of doing things.

“Peg Jackson?” Louis asked.

“Physically, not hurt too badly,” Belle Colby said. “But like my Velvet, she’s not good in the head. She said they did terrible things to her.”

Belle walked back into the store where they had set up a hospital.

“Monte?” Bull asked.

“He’s in rough shape, but the Doc says he thinks he’s gonna pull through.”

“How about Ed?” somebody finally asked, although few if any among them really gave a damn how Ed was.

“He’s all right,” Haywood said, joining the group. “He’s bitching about losing his store. It’s just his way, gentlemen. And he’ll never change. He’s already talking of pulling out.”

“He don’t belong here,” Charlie Starr said, lighting a tightly rolled cigarette. “This country’s still got some rough and woolly years ahead of it. And it’s gonna take some tough-minded men and women to see it through.”

“What’s the plan, Smoke?” Louis asked. “I know you’ve got one. You’ve been thinking hard for about an hour now.”

“I’m gonna get a few hours sleep and then get the preacher. After the services, I’m riding into Fontana and get this matter settled, one way or the other. Anybody who wants to come along is welcome to ride.”

They left the graveyard at nine o’clock the next morning. They had said their goodbyes to The Apache Kid and Sutter Cordova, and then those that had family to worry about them said their goodbyes to womenfolk and kids and swung into the saddle.

They left behind them some heavily armed hands who worked for Beaconfield and Mike Garrett, but who were hands, not gunhands, and half a dozen teenagers who were excellent shots with a rifle. In addition, Hunt, Colton, and Haywood were armed with rifles and shotguns. All the Western women could shoot rifles and shotguns as well as, and sometimes better than, the men. Mike, the big bouncer, was there, as well as Wilbur Mason, Dad Weaver, and Billy. The general store had been turned into a fort in case of attack.

Twenty-eight men rode toward the town of Fontana. They had guns in leather, guns tucked behind gunbelts, guns stashed in their saddlebags, and rifles and shotguns in saddleboots.

Smoke had warned them all that even though the previous night’s raid into Fontana had taken some TF riders out, they were probably facing four- or five-to-one odds, and anyone who wanted out had damn well better speak up now.

His words had been met with a stony silence.

Smoke had nodded his head and pulled his hat brim down low, securing the chin strap, “Let’s ride.”

There had been no stopping Ralph Morrow. He had stuck out his chin, picked up his Henry rifle, and stuffed his pockets full of cartridges. “I’m going,” he had said. “And that’s final.”

The men trotted their horses for a time, and then walked them, alternating back and forth, eating up the miles.

Then they looked down on the town of Fontana…and stared at the long line of wagons that were pulling out.

Smoke looked at Silver Jim. “Find out about that, will you, Jim?”

Silver Jim rode down to the lead wagon, talked for a moment, then rode back to where Smoke sat his horse with the others.

“Big Mamma’s dead,” Silver Jim said. “She stormed into a saloon last night, after she learned that Tilden Franklin had raped and killed her…wife. Tilden ordered her hanged. They hung her slow. That feller I talked to said it took a long time for her to die. One of Big Mamma’s girls tried to run away last night. Tilden’s gunslicks caught her and…well, done some per-verted things to her, then they dragged her and set her on far. Tilden personal kilt Beeker at the store. Then his boys had they way with his wife. She set up such a squall, they shot her.”

“Dear Jesus Christ!” Ralph muttered.

“Them people down there,” Silver Jim said, pointing to the line of wagons, “is near-bouts all that’s left of any decent folks, and some of them would steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes. That’s how bad it’s got down in town.”

“So Tilden and his men are waiting for us?” Smoke asked.

“Dug in tight.”

“Proctor didn’t come back, did he?”

“They didn’t say and I didn’t think to ask.”

Smoke stepped down from the saddle and said, “Let’s talk about this some.”

Dismounted, the men sipped water from canteens and ate a few biscuits and some beef packed for them before they pulled out.

“If we go in there,” Smoke said, “we’re going to have to take the place building by building, and like Silver Jim said, they’re dug in and waiting. The cost, for us, will be too high.”

“What choice do we have?” Luke said.

“Well, let’s talk about that,” Mike Garrett said. “We could wait them out while someone rides for the Army.”

“No!” Ralph said, considerable heat in his voice.

“You want to explain that, Ralph?” Johnny said.

“Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a minister,” the man said. “There is violence and hate in my heart. Anyway, it is my belief that people like Tilden Franklin should not be allowed to live. Back East—and I know, that’s where I’m from—lawyers are already using the insanity pleas to get killers off scot free. And it’s going to get worse. Let’s not start a precedent out here.”

“A what?” Johnny asked.

“Let’s not let Tilden Franklin go free,” Ralph said.

All present loudly and profanely agreed with that.

“There is another way,” Smoke said.

“And that is?” Louis asked, knowing full well what was coming.

“I challenge Tilden Franklin. Best man with a gun wins.”

“No,” Louis said. “No. Tilden Franklin is a man totally without honor. Basically, he is a coward, a backshooter. He’d set you up, Smoke. No to your plan.”

And all agreed with Louis on that.

“Well,” Moody said. “We could burn the bastards out.”

“How many days since we’ve had rain?” Smoke asked. “Too long. That’s why Tilden ordered his men to put out the fire last night instead of concentrating on us. We can’t risk a grass fire. Feel this hot wind? It would spread faster than anyone could contain it.”

Charlie Starr grinned. “Besides, ol’ tight-fisted Ed Jackson would probably sue us all for destroying his goods.”

All the men enjoyed a tension-relieving laugh at that.

“Well, boys,” Pistol Le Roux said, “that don’t leave us with too gawddamned many options, do it?”

The men turned to tightening saddle cinches. They knew the discussion was over.

Hardrock swung into the saddle and looked at his friends. “You know what my momma wanted me to be?” he asked.

They stared at him.

“An apothecary, that’s what.”

Toot Tooner climbed into the saddle. “Shit, I wouldn’t let you fix up nuttin’ for me. You’d probably mix up something so’s I couldn’t get a boner up.”

Sunset laughed. “Hell, you ain’t had one in so long it’d probably scare you to death!”

The men swung their horses toward Fontana, lying hot under the sun and wind.

15

Hardrock, Moody, and Sunset were sent around to the far end of town, stationed there with rifles to pick off any TF gunhand who might try to slip out, either to run off or try and angle around behind Smoke and his party for a box-in.

The others split up into groups of twos and threes and rode hunched over, low in the saddle, to present a smaller target for the riflemen they had spotted lying in wait on the rooftops in Fontana. And they rode in a zigzagging fashion, making themselves or their horses even harder to hit. But even with that precaution, two men were hit before they reached the town limits. Beaconfield was knocked from the saddle by rifle fire. The onetime Tilden Franklin supporter wrapped a bandana around a bloody arm, climbed back in the saddle, and, cursing, continued onward. Hurt, but a hell of a long way from being out.

The old gunfighter Linch was hit just as he reached the town. A rifle bullet hit him in the stomach and slapped him out of the saddle. The aging gunhand, pistols in his hands, crawled to the edge of a building and began laying down a withering line of fire, directed at the rooftops. He managed to knock out three snipers before a second bullet ended his life.

Leo Wood, seeing his long-time buddy die, screamed his outrage and stepped into what had once been a dress shop, pulled out both Remington Frontier .44s, and let ’em bang.

Leo cleared the dress shop of all TF riders before a single shot from a Peacemaker .45 ended his long and violent life.

Pearlie settled down by the corner of a building and with his Winchester .44-40 began picking his shots. At ranges up to two hundred yards, the .44-40 could punch right through the walls of the deserted buildings of Fontana. Pearlie killed half a dozen TF gunhawks without even seeing his targets.

A few of Tilden’s hired guns, less hardy than they thought, tried to slip out the rear of the town. They went down under the rifle fire of Moody, Hardrock, and Sunset.

Bill Foley, throwing caution to the wind, like most of his friends having absolutely no desire to spend his twilight years in any old folks’ home, stepped into an alley where he knew half a dozen TF gunnies were waiting and opened fire. Laughing, the old gunfighter took his time and picked his shots while his body was soaking up lead from the badly shaken TF men. Foley’s old body had soaked up a lot of lead in its time, and he knew he could take three or four shots and still stay upright in his boots. Bill Foley, who had helped tame more towns than most people had ever been in, died with his boots on, his back to a wall, and his guns spitting out death. He killed all six of the TF gunslicks.

Toot Tooner, his hands full of Colts, calmly walked into what was left of the Blue Dog Saloon, through the back door, and said, “I declare this here game of poker open. Call or fold, boys.”

Then he opened fire.

His first shots ended the brief but bloody careers of two cattle rustlers from New Mexico who had signed on with the TF spread in search of what Tilden had promised would be easy money. They died without having the opportunity to fire a shot.

Toot took a .45 slug in the side and it spun him around. Lifting his pistol, he shot the man who had shot him between the eyes just as he felt a hammer-blow in his back, left side. The gunshot knocked him to his knees and he tasted blood in his mouth.

Toot dropped his empty Colts and pulled out two Remington .44s from behind his gunbelt. Hard hit, dying; Toot laughed at death and began cocking and firing as the light before his eyes began to fade.

“Somebody kill the old son of a bitch!” a TF gunhand shouted.

Toot laughed at the dim figure and swung his guns. A slug took him in the gut and set him back on his butt. But Toot’s last shots cleared the Blue Dog of hired guns. He died with a very faint smile on his face.

Louis Longmont met several TF gunhands in an alley. The gambler never stopped walking as his Colts spat and sang a death song. Reloading, he stepped over the sprawled bloody bodies and walked on up the alley. A bullet tugged at the sleeve of his coat and the gambler dropped to one knee, raised both guns, and shot the rifleman off the roof of the bank building. A bullet knocked Louis to one side and his left arm grew numb. Hooking the thumb of his left hand behind his gunbelt, the gambler rose and triggered off a round, sending another one of Tilden Franklin’s gunslicks to hell.

Louis then removed a white linen handkerchief from an inside breast pocket of his tailored jacket. He plugged the hole in his shoulder and continued on his hunt.

The Reverend Ralph Morrow stepped into what had been the saloon of Big Mamma and the bidding place of her soiled doves and began working the lever on his Henry .44. The boxer-turned-preacher-turned-farmer-turned-gunfighter muttered a short prayer for God to forgive him and began blasting the hell out of any TF gunhand he could find.

His Henry empty, Ralph jerked out a pair of .45s and began smoking. A lousy pistol shot, and that is being kind, Ralph succeeded in filling the beery air with a lot of hot lead. He didn’t hit a damn thing with the pistols, but he did manage to scare the hell out of those gunhands left standing after his good shooting with the rifle. They ran out the front of the saloon and directly into the guns of Pistol Le Roux and Dan Greentree.

Ralph reloaded his rifle and stepped to the front of the building. “Exhilarating!” he exclaimed. Then he hit the floor as a hard burst of gunfire from a rooftop across the street tore through the canvas and wood of the deserted whorehouse.

“Shithead!” Ralph muttered, lifting his rifle and sighting the gunman in. Ralph pulled the trigger and knocked the TF gunman off the roof.

Steve Matlock, Ray Johnson, Nolan, Mike Garrett, and Beaconfield were keeping a dozen or more TF gunslicks pinned down in Beeker’s general store.

Charlie Starr had cleared a small saloon of half a dozen hired guns and now sat at a table, having a bottle of sweetened soda water. He would have much preferred a glass of beer, but the sweet water beat nothing. Seeing a flash of movement across the street, Charlie put down the bottle and picked up a cocked .45 from the table. He sighted the TF gunhand in and pulled the trigger. The slug struck the man in the shoulder and spun him around. Charlie shot him again in the belly and that ended it.

“Now leave me alone and let me finish my sodie water,” Charlie muttered.

The Silver Dollar Kid came face to face with Silver Jim. The old gunfighter grinned at the punk. Both men had their guns in leather.

“All right, kid,” Silver Jim said. “You been lookin’ for a rep. Here’s your chance.”

The Silver Dollar Kid grabbed for his guns.

He never cleared leather. Silver Jim’s guns roared and bucked in his callused hands. The Kid felt twin hammer blows in his stomach. He sat down in the alley and began hollering for his mother.

Silver Jim stepped around the punk and continued his prowling. The Kid’s hollering faded as life ebbed from him.

Smoke met Luis Chamba behind the stable. The Mexican gunfighter grinned at him. “Now, Smoke, we see just how good you really are.”

Smoke lifted his sawed-off shotgun and almost blew the gunfighter in two. “I already know how good I am,” Smoke said. “I don’t give a damn how good you…were.”

Smoke reloaded the 10-gauge sawed-off and stepped into the stable. He heard a rustling above him and lifted the twin muzzles. Pulling the triggers, blowing a hole the size of a bucket in the boards, Smoke watched as a man, or what was left of a man, hurled out the loft door to come splatting onto the shit-littered ground.

Smoke let the shotgun fall to the straw as the gunfighter Valentine faced him.

“I’m better,” Valentine said, his hands over the butts of his guns.

“I doubt it,” Smoke said, then shot the famed gunfighter twice in the belly and chest.

With blood streaking his mouth, Valentine looked up from the floor at Smoke. “I…didn’t even clear leather.”

“You sure didn’t,” the young man said. “We all got to meet him, Valentine, and you just did.”

“I reckon.” Then he died.

Listening, Smoke cocked his head. Something was very wrong. Then it came to him. No gunfire.

Cautiously, Smoke stepped to the stable door and looked out. Gunsmoke lay over the town like a shroud. The dusty streets were littered with bodies, not all of them TF gunhands.

Smoke was conscious of his friends looking at him, standing silently.

Louis pointed with the muzzle of his pistol.

Smoke looked far up the street. He could make out the shape of Tilden Franklin. Smoke stepped out into the street and faced the man.

Tilden began walking toward him. As the man came closer, Smoke said, “It’s over, Tilden.”

“Not yet,” the big man said. “I gotta kill you, then it’s over.”

“Make your play,” Smoke said.

Tilden grabbed for his guns. Both men fired at almost the same time. Smoke felt a shock in his left side. He kept earing back the hammers and pulling the triggers. Dust flew from Tilden’s chest as the slugs slammed into his body. The big man took another step, staggered, and then slumped to his knees in the center of the street.

Blood leaking from his wounded side, Smoke walked up to the man who would be king.

“You had everything a man could ask for, Tilden. Why weren’t you satisfied?”

Tilden tried to reply. But blood filled his mouth. He looked at Smoke, and still the hate was in his eyes. He fell forward on his face, in the dust, his guns slipping from his dead fingers.

It was over.

Almost.

16

They all heard the single shot and whirled around. Luke Nations lay crumpled on the boardwalk, a large hole in the center of his back.

Lester Morgan, a.k.a. Sundance, stepped out of a building, a pistol in his hand. He looked up and grinned.

“I did it!” he hollered. “Me. Sundance. I kilt Luke Nations!”

“You goddamned backshootin’ punk!” Charlie Starr said, lifting his pistol.

“No!” Smoke’s voice stopped him. “Don’t, Charlie.” Smoke walked over to Lester, one hand holding his bleeding side. He backhanded the dandy, knocking him sprawling. Lester-Sundance landed on his butt in the street. His mouth was busted, blood leaking from one corner. He looked up at Smoke, raw fear in his wide eyes.

“You gonna kill me, ain’t you?” he hissed.

The smile on Smoke’s lips was not pleasant. “What’s your name, punk?”

“Les…Sundance. That’s me, Sundance!”

“Well, Sundance.” Smoke put enough dirt on the name to make it very ugly. “You wanna live, do you?”

“Yeah!”

“And you wanna be known as a top gunhand, right, Sundance?”

“Yeah!”

Smoke kicked Lester in the mouth. The punk rolled on the ground, moaning.

“What’s your last name, craphead?”

“M…Morgan!”

“All right Les Sundance Morgan. I’ll let you live. And Les, I’m going to have your name spread all over the West. Les Sundance Morgan. The man with one ear. He’s the man who killed the famed gunfighter Luke Nations.”

“I got both ears!”

Before his words could fade from sound, Smoke had drawn and fired, the bullet clipping off Lester’s left ear. The action forever branded the dandy.

Lester rolled on the dirt, screaming and hollering.

“Top gun, huh, punk?” Smoke said. “Right, that’s you, Sundance.” He looked toward Johnny North. “Get some whiskey and fix his ear, will you, Johnny?”

Lester really started hollering when the raw booze hit where his ear had been. He passed out from the pain. Ralph took that time to bandage the ugly wound.

Then Smoke kicked him awake. Lester lay on the blood- and whiskey-soaked ground, looking up at Smoke.

“What for you do this to me?” he croaked.

“So everybody, no matter where you go, can know who you are, punk. The man who killed Luke Nations. Now, you listen to me, you son of a bitch! You want to know how it feels to be top gun? Well, just look around you, ask anybody.”

Lester’s eyes found Charlie Starr. “You’re Charlie Starr. You’re more famouser than Luke Nations. But I’m gonna be famous too, ain’t I?”

Charlie rolled a cigarette and stuck it between Lester’s lips. He held the match while Lester puffed. Charlie straightened up and smiled sadly at Lester.

“How is it, punk? Oh, well, it’s a real grand time, punk. You can’t sit with your back to no empty space, always to a wall. Lots of backshooters out there. You don’t never make your fire, cook, and then sleep in the same spot. You always move before you bed down, ’cause somebody is always lookin’ to gun you down…for a reputation.

“You ain’t never gonna marry, punk. ’Cause if you do, it won’t last. You got to stay on the move, all the time. ’Cause you’re the man who kilt Luke Nations, punk. And there’s gonna be a thousand punks just like you lookin’ for you.

“You drift, boy. You drift all the time, and you might near always ride alone, lessen you can find a pard that you know you can trust not to shoot you when you’re in your blankets.

“And a lot of towns won’t want you, punk. The marshal and the townspeople will meet you with rifles and shotguns and point you the way out. ’Cause they don’t want no gunfighter in their town.

“And after a time, if you live, you’ll do damn near anything so’s people won’t know who you are. But they always seem to find out. Then you’ll change your name agin. And agin. Just lookin’ for a little peace and quiet.

“But you ain’t never gonna find it.

“You might git good enough to live for a long time, punk. I hope you do. I hope you ride ten thousand lonely miles, you backshootin’ bastard. Ten thousand miles of lookin’ over your back. Ten thousand towns that you’ll ride in and out of in the dead of night. Eatin’ your meals just at closin’ time…you can find a eatin’ place that’ll serve you.

“A million hours that you’ll wish you could somehow change your life…but you cain’t, punk. You cain’t change, ’cause they won’t let you.

“Only job you’ll be able to find is one with the gun, punk. ’Cause you’re the man who kilt Luke Nations. You got your rep, punk. You wanted it so damned bad, you got ’er.” He glanced at Johnny North.

Johnny said, “I had me a good woman one time. We married and I hung up my guns, sonny-boy. Some goddamned bounty-hunters shot into my cabin one night. Killed my wife. I’d never broke no law until then. But I tracked them so-called lawmen down and hung ’em, one by one. I was on the hoot-owl trail for years after that. I had both the law and the reputation-hunters after me. Sounds like a real fine life, don’t it, punk? I hope you enjoy it.”

Smoke kicked Lester Sundance Morgan to his boots. “Get your horse and ride, punk! ’Fore one of us here takes a notion to brace the man who killed Luke Nations.”

Crying, Lester stumbled from the street and found his horse, back of the building that once housed a gun shop.

“It ain’t like that!” the gunfighters, the gambler, the ranchers, and the minister heard Lester holler as he rode off. “It ain’t none at all like what you say it was. I’ll have wimmin a-throwin’ themselves at me. I’ll have money and I’ll have…”

His horse’s hooves drummed out the rest of what Lester Sundance Morgan thought his reputation would bring him.

“Poor, sad, silly son of a bitch,” Ralph Morrow said.

Charlie Starr looked at the minister. “I couldn’t have said ’er no better myself, preacher.”

The bodies of the gunfighters and Tilden Franklin were dragged to a lone building just at the edge of what was left of the boom town named Fontana. The building was doused with kerosene and torched just as a very gentle rain began falling.

“Lots of folks comin’, Smoke,” Charlie said, pointing toward the road leading to the high lonesome.

It was Sally and Belle and Bountiful and nearly all of those the men had left behind.

Sally embraced and kissed her man, getting blood all over her blouse as she did so. “How’d you folks know it was done with?” Smoke asked her.

“Hook Nose’s people set up relay points with runners,” she said. “They were watching from the hills over there.” She pointed.

“What a story this will make,” Haywood Arden said, his eyes wide as he looked at the bullet-pocked buildings and empty shell-casings on the ground.

“Yeah,” Smoke said wearily. “You be sure and write it, Haywood. And be sure you spell one name right.”

“Who is that?” the newspaperman asked.

“Lester Morgan, known as Sundance.”

“What’d he do?” Haywood was writing on a tablet as fast as he could write.

Smoke described Lester, ending with, “And he ain’t got but one ear. That’ll make him easy to spot.”

“But what did this Lester Sundance Morgan do?”

“Why…he’s the gunfighter who killed Luke Nations.”

17

Ed Jackson and his wife went back East…anywhere east of the Mississippi River. They did not say goodbye to anybody, just loaded their wagon and pulled out early one morning.

Louis Longmont, Mike, and Andre left the town of Big Rock. Louis thought he’d retire for a time. But Smoke knew he would not…not for long. The raw and woolly West had not seen the last of Louis Longmont.

Word drifted back that Lester Sundance Morgan had been braced by a couple of young duded-up dandies looking for a reputation down in New Mexico Territory. Sundance had managed to drop them both and was now riding low, keeping out of sight. The report that Smoke received said that Lester was not a very happy young man.

Monte Carson recovered from his wounds and became the sheriff of Big Rock, Colorado. He married himself a grass widow and settled down.

The aging gunfighters pulled out of the area, riding out in small groups of twos and threes…or alone. Alone. As they had lived.

Charlie Starr shook hands with Smoke and swung into the saddle. With a smile and a small salute, he rode out of Big Rock and into the annals of Western history. Smoke would see the famed gunslinger again…but that’s another story.

The Fontana Sunburst became the Big Rock Guardian. And it would remain so until the town changed its name just before the turn of the century.

Colton Spalding remained the town’s doctor until his death in the 1920s.

Sally and Mona and Bountiful and Dana and Willow would live to “see the vote.” But, there again, that’s another story.

Judge Proctor returned and was named district judge. He lived in the area until his death in 1896.

The gold vein ran dry and all the miners left as peace finally settled over the High Lonesome.

The gold still lies in the ground on Smoke and Sally’s Sugarloaf. They never touched it.

The last store in Fontana closed its doors in 1880. The lonely winds hummed and sang their quiet Western songs throughout the empty buildings and ragged bits of tent canvas for many years; the songs sang of love and hate and violence and bloody gunfights until the last building collapsed in the 1940s. Now, nothing is left.

Danner and Signal Hill died out near the turn of the century, but the town that was once called Big Rock remains, and the descendants of Smoke and Sally Jensen, Johnny and Belle North, Pearlie, and all the others still live there…finally in peace.

But peace was a long time coming to that part of Colorado, for not all the gunslicks were killed that bloody day in Fontana. Those few that managed to escape swore they’d come back and have their revenge.

They would try.

It would be many more years before Smoke Jensen could hang up his guns for good. Many years before Smoke and Sally Jensen’s sons and daughters could live in peace. For Smoke Jensen was the West’s most famous gunfighter. And for years to come, there would be those who sought a reputation.

But before that, on a bright, sunny, warm, late-summer morning, Velvet Colby called out for her mother and for Johnny.

The newly wed man and woman ran to Velvet’s bedroom. Johnny North, one of the West’s most feared gunfighters, knelt and took the girl’s hands in his hard and calloused hands.

“Yes, baby?” he said, his voice gentle.

Velvet smiled. Her voice, husky from lack of use, was a lovely thing to hear. She had not spoken in months. “Can I go outside?” she asked. “It looks like such a beautiful day.”

And a gentle, peaceful breeze stirred the branches and the flowers and the tall lush grass of the High Lonesome…

…along the trail of the last Mountain Man.

REVENGE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN

This book is pure Western fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. To the best of my knowledge, there are no towns in Colorado named Big Rock or Dead River.

I am the wound and the knife!

I am the blow and the cheek!

I am the limbs and the wheel

—the victim and the executioner.

Baudelaire

1

They had struck as cowards usually do, in a pack and at night. And when the man of the house was not at home. They had come skulking like thieving foot-padders; but instead of robbery on their minds, their thoughts were of a much darker nature.

Murder.

And they had tried to kill Smoke Jensen’s wife, Sally. When Smoke and Sally had married, just after Smoke almost totally wiped out the small town of Bury, Idaho, Smoke had used another name; but later, during the valley war around Big Rock and Fontana, he had once more picked up his real name, and be damned to all who didn’t like the fact that he had once been a gunfighter.

It had never been a reputation that he had sought out; rather, it had seemed to seek him out. Left alone as a boy, raised by an old mountain man called Preacher, the young man had become one of the most feared and legended gunslingers in all the West. Some say he was the fastest gun alive. Some say that Smoke Jensen had killed fifty, one hundred, two hundred men.

No one really knew for certain.

All anyone really knew was that Smoke had never been an outlaw, never ridden the hoot-owl trail, had no warrants out on him, and was a quiet sort of man. Now married, for several years he had been a farmer/rancher/horse breeder. A peaceful man who got along well with his neighbors and wished only to be left alone.

The night riders had shattered all that.

Smoke had been a hundred miles away, buying cattle, just starting the drive back to his ranch, called the Sugarloaf, when he heard the news. He had cut two horses out of his remuda and tossed a saddle on one. He would ride one, change saddles, and ride the other. They were mountain horses, tough as leather, and they stood up to the hard test.

Smoke did not ruin his horses on the long lonely ride back to the Sugarloaf, did not destroy them as some men might. But he rode steadily. He was torn inside, but above it all Smoke remained a realist, as old Preacher had taught him to be. He knew he would either make it in time, or he would not.

When he saw the snug little cabin in the valley of the high lonesome, the vastness of the high mountains all around it, Smoke knew, somehow, he had made it in time.

Smoke was just swinging down from the saddle when Dr. Colton Spalding stepped out of the cabin, smiling broadly when he spied Smoke. The doctor stopped the gunfighter before Smoke could push open the cabin door.

“She’s going to make it, Smoke. But it was a close thing. If Bountiful had not awakened when she did and convinced Ralph that something was the matter…” The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Well, it would have been all over here.”

“I’m in their debt. But Sally is going to make it?”

“Yes. I have her sedated heavily with laudanum, to help her cope with the pain.”

“Is she awake?”

“No. Smoke, they shot her three times. Shoulder, chest, and side. They left her for dead. She was not raped.”

“Why did they do it? And who were they?”

“No one knows, except possibly Sally. And so far, the sheriff has not been able to question her about it.”

“Bounty hunters, maybe. But there is no bounty on my head. I’m not wanted anywhere that I’m aware of.”

“Nevertheless, Sheriff Carson believes it was bounty hunters. Someone paid to kill you. Or to draw you out, to come after them. The sheriff is with the posse now, trying to track the men.”

“I’ll just look in on her, Colton.”

The doctor nodded and pushed open the cabin door. Smoke stepped past him.

The doctor’s wife, Mona, a nurse, was sitting with several other women in the big main room of the cabin. They smiled at Smoke as he removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. He took off his gunbelt and hung it on another peg.

“Doc said it was all right for me to look in on her.”

Mona nodded her head.

Smoke pushed open the bedroom door and stepped quietly inside, his spurs jingling faintly with each step. A big man, with a massive barrel chest and arms and shoulders packed with muscle, he could move as silently as his nickname implied.

Smoke felt a dozen different emotions as he looked at the pale face of his wife. Her dark hair seemed to make her face look paler. In his mind, there was love and hate and fury and black-tinged thoughts of revenge, all intermingled with sorrow and compassion. Darker emotions filled the tall young man as he sat down in a chair beside the bed and gently placed one big rough hand on his wife’s smaller and softer hand.

Did she stir slightly under his touch? Smoke could not be sure. But he was sure that somehow, in her pain-filled mind, Sally knew that he was there, beside her.

Now, alone, Smoke could allow emotions to change his usually stoic expression. His eyes mirrored his emotions. He wished he could somehow take her pain and let it fill his own body. He took the damp cloth from her head, refreshed it with water, wrung it out, and softly replaced it on her brow.

All through the rest of that day and the long, lonely night that followed, the young man sat by his wife’s bed. Mona Spalding would enter hourly, sometimes shooing Smoke out of the room, tending to Sally’s needs. Doc Spalding slept in a chair, the two other women, Belle North and Bountiful Morrow, Smoke and Sally’s closest neighbors, slept in the spare bedroom.

Outside, the foreman, Pearlie, and the other hands had gathered, war talk on their lips and in the way they stood. Bothering a woman, good or bad, in this time in the West, was a hangin’ matter…or just an outright killin’.

Little Billy, Smoke and Sally’s adopted son, sat on a bench outside the house.

Just as the dawn was breaking golden over the high mountains around the Sugarloaf, Sally opened her eyes and smiled at her husband.

“You look tired,” she said. “Have you had anything to eat?”

“No.”

“Have you been here long?”

“Stop worrying about me. How do you feel?”

“Washed out.”

He smiled at her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” he said gently. “I go off for a time and you get into a gunfight. That isn’t very ladylike, you know? What would your folks back east think?”

She winked at him.

“Doc says you’re going to be all right, Sally, But you’re going to need lots of rest.”

“Three of them,” she whispered. “I heard them talking. I guess they thought I was dead. One was called Dagget…”

“Hush now.”

“No. Let me say it while I still remember it. I heard one call another Lapeer. He said that if this doesn’t bring you out, nothing will.”

She closed her eyes. Smoke waited while she gathered strength.

Doc Spalding had entered the room, standing in the doorway, listening.

He met Smoke’s eyes and inwardly cringed at the raw savagery he witnessed in the young man’s cold gaze. Spalding had seen firsthand the lightning speed of Smoke’s draw. Had witnessed the coldness of the man when angered. Fresh from the ordered world back east, the doctor was still somewhat appalled at the swiftness of frontier justice. But deep inside him, he would reluctantly agree that it was oftentimes better than the ponderousness of lawyers jabbering and arguing.

Sally said. “The third one was called Moore. Glen Moore. South Colorado, I think. I’m tired, honey.”

Spalding stepped forward. “That’s all, Smoke. Let her sleep. I want to show you something out in the living room.”

In the big room that served as kitchen, dining, and sitting area, the doctor dropped three slugs into Smoke’s callused palm.

He had dug enough lead out of men since his arrival to be able to tell one slug from another. “.44s, aren’t they?”

“Two of them,” Smoke said, fingering the off-slug. “This is a .44-40, I believe.”

“The one that isn’t mangled up?”

“Yes.”

“That’s the one I dug out of her chest. It came close to killing her, Smoke.” He opened his mouth to say something, sighed, and then obviously thought better of it.

“You got something else to say, Doc?”

He shook his head. “Later. Perhaps Sally will tell you herself; that would be better, I’m thinking. And no, she isn’t going to die. Smoke, you haven’t eaten and you need rest. Mona agrees. She’s fixing you something now. Please. You’ve got to eat.”

“You will eat, and then you will rest,” Belle said, a note of command in her voice. “Johnny is with the posse, Smoke. Velvet is looking after the kids. You’ll eat, and then sleep. So come sit down at the table, Smoke Jensen.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smoke said with a smile.

“I was waiting to be certain,” Sally told him the next morning. “Dr. Spalding confirmed it the day before those men came. I’m pregnant, Smoke.”

A smile creased his lips. He waited, knowing, sensing there was more to come.

Sally’s eyes were serious. “Colton is leaving it all up to me, isn’t he?”

“I reckon, Sally. I don’t know. I do know that your voice is much stronger.”

“I feel much better.”

Smoke waited.

“You’re not going to like what I have to say, Smoke. Not…in one way, that is.”

“No way of knowing that, Sally. Not until you say what’s on your mind.”

She sighed, and the movement hurt her; pain crossed her face. “I’m probably going to have to go back east, Smoke.”

Smoke’s expression did not change. “I think that might be best, Sally. For a time.”

She visibly relaxed. She did not ask why he had said that. She knew. He was going after the men who attacked her. She expected that of him. “You’re not even going to ask why I might have to go back east?”

“I would think it’s because the doctor told you to. But you won’t be going anywhere for weeks. You were hard hit.” He smiled. “I’ve been there, too.” He kissed her mouth. “Now, you rest.”

Mona and Belle stayed for three days; Bountiful lived just over the hill and could come and go with ease. On the morning of the fourth day, Sally was sitting up in bed, her color back. She was still in some pain and very weak, and would be for several more weeks.

Smoke finally brought up the subject. “The Doc is sure that you’re with child?”

“Both of us are,” she smiled with her reply. “I knew before the doctor.”

Discussion of women’s inner workings embarrassed Smoke. He dropped that part of it. “Now tell me why you think you might have to go back east.”

“I have several pieces of lead in me, Smoke. Colton could not get them all. And he does not have the expertise nor the facilities to perform the next operation. And also, I have a small pelvis; the birth might be a difficult one. There is a new—well, a more highly refined procedure that is being used back east. I won’t go into detail about that.”

“Thank you,” Smoke said dryly. “’Cause so far I don’t have much idea of what you’re talking about.”

She laughed softly at her husband. A loving laugh and a knowing laugh. Smoke knew perfectly well what she was saying. He was, for the most part, until they had married, a self-taught man. And over the past few years, she had been tutoring him. He was widely read, and to her delight and surprise, although few others knew it, Smoke was a very good actor, with a surprising range of voices and inflections. She was continually drawing out that side of him.

“Mona’s from back east, isn’t she?”

“I’m way ahead of you, Smoke. Yes, she is. And if I have to go—and I’m thinking it might be best, and you know why, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the baby or the operation—Mona will make all the arrangements and travel most of the way with me.”

“That’ll be good, Sally. Yes. I think you should plan on traveling east.” She knew the set of that chin. Her leaving was settled; her husband had things to do. “You haven’t seen your folks in almost five years. It’s time to visit. Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll come out for you when it’s time for you and the baby to return.”

This time her laugh was hearty, despite her injuries. “Smoke, do you know the furor your presence would arouse in Keene, New Hampshire?”

“If fu-ror means what I think it does, why should people get all in a sweat about me coming east?”

“For sure, bands would play, you would be a celebrity, and the police would be upset.”

“Why? I ain’t wanted back there, or anywhere else for that matter.”

She could but smile at him. If he knew, he had dismissed the fact that he was the most famous gunfighter in all of the West; that books—penny dreadfuls—had been and still were being written about his exploits—some of them fact, many of them fiction. That he had been written up in tabloids all over the world, and not just in the English-speaking countries. Her mother and father had sent Sally articles about her husband from all over the world. To say that they had been a little concerned about her safety—for a while—would be putting it mildly.

“People don’t really believe all that crap that’s been written about me, do they? Hell, Sally, I’ve been reported at fourteen different places at once, according to those stories.”

“If they just believed the real things you’ve done, Smoke, that is enough to make people very afraid of you.”

“That’s silly! I never hurt anybody who wasn’t trying to hurt me. People don’t have any reason to be afraid of me.”

“Well, I’m not afraid of you, Smoke. You’re sort of special to me.”

He smiled. “Oh, yeah? Well, I’d have to give it a lot of thought if someone was to offer to trade me a spotted pony for you, Sally.”

2

Smoke Jensen and Sally Reynolds, gunfighter and schoolteacher, had met several years back, in Idaho. Just before Smoke had very nearly wiped out a town and all the people in it for killing his first wife and their child, Nicole and Baby Arthur; the boy named after Smoke’s friend and mentor, the old mountain man, Preacher.

Smoke and Sally had married, living in peace for several years in the high lonesome, vast and beautiful mountains of Colorado. Then a man named Tilden Franklin had wanted to be king of the entire valley…and he had coveted Smoke’s wife, making it public news.

Gold had been discovered in the valley, and a bitter, bloody war had ensued.

And in the end, all Tilden Franklin got was a half-a-dozen slugs in the belly, from the guns of Smoke Jensen, and six feet of hard cold ground.

That had been almost two years back; two years of peace in the valley and in Smoke and Sally’s high-up ranch called the Sugarloaf.

Now that had been shattered.

On the morning of the first full week after the assault on Sally, Smoke sat on the bench outside the snug cabin and sipped his coffee.

Late spring in the mountains.

1880, and the West was slowly changing. There would be another full decade of lawlessness, of wild and woolly days and nights; but the law was making its mark felt all over the area. And Smoke, like so many other western men, knew that was both good and bad. For years, a commonsense type of justice had prevailed, for the most part, in the West, and usually—not always, but usually—it worked. Swiftly and oftentimes brutally, but it worked. Now, things were changing. Lawyers with big words and fancy tongues were twisting facts, hiding the guilt to win a case. And Smoke, like most thinking people, thought that to be wrong.

The coming of courts and laws and lawyers would prove to be both a blessing and a curse.

Smoke, like most western men, just figured that if someone tried to do you a harm or a meanness, just shoot the son of a bitch and have done with it. ’Cause odds were, the guilty party wasn’t worth a damn to begin with. And damn few were ever going to miss them.

Smoke, like so many western men, judged other men by what they gave to society as opposed to what they took away from it. If your neighbor’s house or barn burned down or was blown down in a storm, you helped him rebuild. If his crops were bad or his herd destroyed, you helped him out until next season or loaned him some cows and a few bulls. If he and his family were hungry through no fault of their own, you helped out with food and clothing.

And so on down the line of doing things right.

And if a man wouldn’t help out, chances were he was trash, and the sooner you got rid of him, the better.

Western justice and common sense.

And if people back east couldn’t see that—well, Smoke thought…Well, he really didn’t know what to think about people like that. He’d reserve judgment until he got to know a few of them.

He sipped his coffee and let his eyes drift over that part of his land that he could see from his front yard. And that was a lot of land, but just a small portion of all that he and Sally owned…free and clear.

There was a lot to do before Smoke put Sally on the steam trains and saw her off to the East—and before he started after those who had attacked her like rabid human beasts in the night.

And there was only one thing you could do with a rabid beast.

Kill it.

Billy stepped out of the house and took a seat on the bench beside his adopted father. The boy had been legally adopted by the Jensens; Judge Proctor had seen to that. Billy was pushing hard at his teen years, soon turning thirteen. Already he was a top hand and, even though Smoke discouraged it, a good hand with a gun. Uncommon quick. Smoke and Sally had adopted the boy shortly after the shoot-out in Fontana, and now Billy pulled his weight and then some around the Sugarloaf.

“You and Miss Sally both gonna go away?” Billy asked, his voice full of gloom.

“For a time, Billy. Sally thought about taking you back east with her, but you’re in school here, and doing well. So Reverend Ralph and Bountiful are going to look after you. You’ll stay here at the ranch with Pearlie and the hands. We might be gone for the better part of a year, Billy, so it’s going to be up to you to be the man around the place.”

Pearlie was leaning up against a hitch rail and Smoke winked at his friend and foreman.

“If I hadn’t a-been out with the hands the other night…” Billy said.

Smoke cut him off. “And if your aunt had wheels, she’d have been a tea cart, Billy. You and the hands were doing what I asked you to do—pushing cattle up to the high grass. Can’t any of you blame yourselves for what happened.”

“I don’t think my aunt had no wheels, Smoke,” Billy said solemnly. Then he realized that Smoke was funning with him and he smiled. “That would be a sight to see though, wouldn’t it?”

Pearlie walked up to the man and boy. “We’ll be all right here, Billy. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’re a top hand.”

Billy grinned at the high compliment.

When the foreman and the boy had walked away, Smoke stepped back into the house and fixed breakfast for Sally, taking it to her on a tray. He positioned pillows behind her shoulders and gently eased her to an upright position in the bed.

He sat by the bed and watched her eat; slowly she was regaining her strength and appetite. But she was still very weak and had to be handled with caution.

She would eat a few bites and then rest for a moment, gathering strength.

“I’m getting better, Smoke,” she told him with a smile. “And the food is beginning to taste good.”

“I can tell. At first I thought it was my cooking,” he kidded her. “Your color is almost back to normal. Feel like telling me more about what happened?”

She ate a few more bites and then pushed the tray from her. “It’s all come back to me. The doctor said it would. He said that sometimes severe traumas can produce temporary memory loss.”

Colton had told Smoke the same thing.

She looked at him. “It was close, wasn’t it?”

“You almost died, honey.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, saying, “I remember the time. Nine o’clock. I was just getting ready for bed. I remember glancing at the clock. I was in my gown.” Her brow furrowed in painful remembrance, physically and mentally. “I heard a noise outside, or so I thought. But when it wasn’t repeated, I ignored it. I walked in here, to the bedroom, and then I heard the noise again. I remember feeling a bit frightened….”

“Why?” he interrupted. He was curious, for Sally was not the spooky or flighty kind. She had used a rifle and pistol several times since settling here, and had killed or wounded several outlaws.

“Because it was not a natural sound. It was raining, and I had asked Billy, when he came in to get lunch packets for the crew, to move the horses into the barn, to their stalls for the night. Bad move, I guess. If Seven or Drifter had been in the corral, they would have warned me.”

“I would have done the same thing, Sally. Stop blaming yourself. Too much of that going on around here. It was nobody’s fault. It happened, it’s over, and it’s not going to happen again. Believe me, I will see to that.”

And she knew he would.

“When the noise came again, it was much closer, like someone brushing up against the side of the house. I was just reaching for a pistol when the front door burst open. Three men; at least three men. I got the impression there was more, but I saw only three. I heard three names. I did tell you the names, didn’t I? That part is hazy.”

“Yes.”

“Dagget, Lapeer, and Moore. Yes. Now I remember telling you. The one called Dagget smiled at me. Then he said”—she struggled to remember—“‘Too bad we don’t have more time. I’d like to see what’s under that gown.’ Then he lifted his pistol and shot me. No warning. No time at all to do anything. He just lifted his gun and shot me. As I was falling, the other two shot me.”

Smoke waited, his face expressionless. But his inner thoughts were murderous.

Sally closed her eyes, resting for a moment before once more reliving the horrible night. “Just as I was falling into darkness, losing consciousness, I heard one say, ‘Now the son of a bitch has us all to deal with.’”

And I will deal with you, Smoke thought. One by one, on a very personal basis. I will be the judge, the jury, and the executioner.

Smoke started to roll and light one of his rare cigarettes, then thought better of it. The smoke might cause Sally to cough and he knew that would be harmful.

“Do you know any of the men I mentioned, Smoke?”

“No. I can’t say that I’ve even heard of them.” There was a deep and dangerous anger within him. But he kept his voice and his emotions well in check. He hated night riders, of any kind. He knew those types of people were, basically, cowards.

He kept his face bland. He did not want Sally to get alarmed, although he knew that she knew exactly what he was going to do once she was safely on the train heading east. He also knew that when she did mention it—probably only one time—she would not attempt to stop him.

That was not her way. She had known the kind of man he was when she married him.

He met her eyes, conscious of her staring at him, and smiled at her. She held out a hand and Smoke took it, holding it gently.

“It’s a mystery to me, honey,” she said. “I just don’t understand it. The valley has been so peaceful for so many months. Not a shot fired in anger. Now this.”

Smoke hushed her, taking the lap tray. He had never even heard of a lap tray until Sally had sent off for one from somewhere back east. “You rest now. Sleep. You want some more laudanum?”

She minutely shook her head. “No. Not now. The pain’s not too bad. That stuff makes my head feel funny.”

She was sleeping even before Smoke had closed the door.

He scraped the dishes and washed them in hot water taken from the stove, then pumped a pot full of fresh water and put that on the stove, checking the wood level that heated the back plate and checking the draft. He peeled potatoes for lunch and dropped them into cold water. Then he swept the floor and tidied up the main room, opening all the windows to let the house cool.

Then the most famous and feared gunfighter in all the west washed clothes, wrung them out, and hung them up to dry on the clothesline out back, the slight breeze and the warm sun freshening them naturally.

He walked around to the front of the cabin and sat beside the bedroom window, open just a crack, so he could hear Sally if she needed anything.

Lapeer, Moore, and Dagget. He rolled those names around in his mind as his fingers skillfully rolled a cigarette. He had never heard of any of them. But he knew one thing for certain.

They were damn sure going to hear from him.

3

Smoke did not leave the Sugarloaf range for weeks. If supplies were needed, one of the hands went into town for them. Smoke did not want to stray very far from Sally’s side.

The days passed slowly, each one bringing another hint of the summer that lay lazily before them. And Sally grew stronger. Two weeks after the shooting, she was able to walk outside, with help, and sit for a time, taking the sun, taking it easy, growing stronger each day.

Smoke had spoken with Sheriff Monte Carson several times since the posse’s return from a frustrating and fruitless pursuit. But Monte was just as baffled as Smoke as to the why of Sally’s attack and the identity of the attackers.

Judge Proctor had been queried, as well as most of the other people around the valley. No one had ever heard of the men.

It was baffling and irritating.

Not even the legended Smoke could fight an enemy he could not name and did not know and could not find.

Yet.

But he was going to find them, and when he did, he was going to make some sense out of this.

Then he would kill them.

It was midsummer before Dr. Colton Spalding finally gave Sally the okay to travel. During that time, he had wired the hospital in Boston several times, setting up Sally’s operation. The doctor would use a rather risky procedure called a caesarean to take the baby—if it came to that. But the Boston doctor wanted to examine Sally himself before he elected to use that drastic a procedure. And according to Dr. Spalding, the Boston doctor was convinced a caesarean was necessary.

“What’s this operation all about?” Smoke asked Dr. Spalding.

“It’s a surgical procedure used to take the baby if the mother can’t delivery normally.”

“I don’t understand, but I’ll take your word for it. Is it dangerous?”

Colton hesitated. With Smoke, it was hard to tell exactly what he knew about any given topic. When they had first met, the doctor thought the young man to be no more than an ignorant brute, a cold-blooded killer. It didn’t take Colton long to realize that while Smoke had little formal education, he was widely read and quite knowledgeable.

And Colton also knew that Smoke was one of those rare individuals one simply could not lie to. Smoke’s un-blinking eyes never left the face of the person who was speaking. Until you grew accustomed to it, it was quite unnerving.

Before Colton could speak, Smoke said, “Caesar’s mother died from this sort of thing, didn’t she?”

The doctor smiled, shaking his head. Many of the men of the West were fascinating with what they knew and how they had learned it. It never ceased to amaze the man to see some down-at-the-heels puncher, standing up in a barroom quoting Shakespeare or dissertating on some subject as outrageous as astrology.

And knowing what he was talking about!

“Yes, it is dangerous, Smoke. But not nearly so dangerous as when Caesar was born.”

“Let’s hope not. What happens if Sally decides not to have this operation?”

“One of two things, Smoke. You will decide whether you want Sally saved, or the baby.”

“I won’t be there, Doc. So I’m telling you now—save my wife. You pass the word along to this doctor friend of yours in Boston town. Save Sally at all costs. You’ll do that, right?”

“You know I will. I’ll wire him first thing in the morning.”

“Thank you.”

Colton watched as Smoke helped Sally back to bed. He had not fully leveled with the young man about the surgical procedure. Colton knew that sometimes the attending physician had very little choice as to who would be saved. And sometimes, mother and child both died.

He sighed. They had come so far in medicine, soaring as high as eagles in such a short time. But doctors still knew so very little…and were expected to perform miracles at all times.

“Would that it were so,” Colton muttered, getting into his buggy and clucking at the mare.

As the weather grew warmer and the days grew longer, Sally grew stronger…and was beginning to show her pregnancy. Several of the women who lived nearby would come over almost daily, to sew and talk and giggle about the damndest things.

Smoke left the scene when all that gabble commenced.

And he was still no closer to finding out anything about the men who attacked his wife.

Leaving Sally and the women, with two hands always on guard near the cabin, Smoke saddled the midnight-black horse with the cold, killer eyes, and he and Drifter went to town.

The town of Fontana, once called No Name, which had been Tilden Franklin’s town, was dying just as surely as Tilden had died under Smoke’s guns. Only a few stores remained open, and they did very little business.

It was to the town of Big Rock that Smoke rode, his .44s belted around his lean waist and tied down, the Henry rifle in his saddle boot.

Big Rock was growing as Fontana was dying. A couple of nice cafés, a small hotel, one saloon, with no games and no hurdy-gurdy girls. There was a lawyer, Hunt Brook, and his wife, Willow, and a newspaper, the Big Rock Guardian, run by Haywood and Dana Arden. Judge Proctor, the reformed wino, was the district judge and he made his home in Big Rock, taking his supper at the hotel every evening he was in town. Big Rock had a church and a schoolhouse.

It was a nice quiet little town; but as some men who had tried to tree it found out, Big Rock was best left alone.

Johnny North, who had married the widow Belle Colby after her husband’s death, was—or had been—one of the West’s more feared and notorious gunfighters. A farmer/rancher now, Johnny would, if the situation called for it, strap on and tie down his guns and step back into his gunfighter’s boots. Sheriff Monte Carson, another ex-gunfighter, was yet another gunhawk to marry a grass widow and settle in Big Rock. Pearlie, Smoke’s foreman, had married and settled down; but Pearlie had also been, at one point in his young life, a much-feared and respected fast gun. The minister, Ralph Morrow, was an ex-prizefighter from back east, having entered the ministry after killing a man with his fists. Ralph preached on Sundays and farmed and ranched during the week. Ralph would also pick up a gun and fight, although most would rather he wouldn’t. Ralph couldn’t shoot a short gun worth a damn!

Big Rock and the area surrounding it was filled with men and women who would fight for their families, their homes, and their lands.

The dozen or so outlaws who rode into town with the thought of taking over and having their way with the women some months back soon found that they had made a horrible and deadly mistake. At least half of them died in their saddles, their guns in their hands. Two more were shot down in the street. Two died in the town’s small clinic. The rest were hanged.

The word soon went out along the hoot-owl trail: Stay away from Big Rock. The town is pure poison. Folks there will shoot you quicker than a cat can scat.

Smoke caught up with Johnny North, who was in town for supplies. The two of them found Sheriff Carson and went to the Big Rock saloon for a couple of beers and some conversation. The men sipped their beers in silence for a time. Finally, after their mugs had been refilled, Johnny broke the silence.

“I been thinkin’ on it some, Smoke. I knew I’d heard that name Dagget somewheres before, but I couldn’t drag it out of my head and catch no handle on it. It come to me last night. I come up on that name down near the Sangre de Cristo range a few years back. It might not be the same fellow, but I’m bettin’ it is. Sally’s description of him fits what I heard. If it is, he’s a bad one. Bounty hunter and bodyguard to somebody. I don’t know who. I ain’t never heard of the two other men with him.”

“I ain’t never heard of any of them,” Monte said sourly. “And I thought I knew every gunslick west of the Big Muddy. That was any good, that is.”

“Dagget don’t ride the rim much,” Johnny explained. “And he only takes jobs his boss wants him to take. If this is the same fellow, he’s from back east somewheres. Came out here about ten years ago. Supposed to be from a real good family back there. Got in trouble with the law and had to run. But his family seen to it that he had plenty of money. What he done, so I’m told, is link up with some other fellow and set them up an outlaw stronghold; sort of like the Hole-In-The-Wall. All this is just talk; I ain’t never been there.”

Smoke nodded his head. Something else had jumped into his mind; something the old mountain man, Preacher, had said one time. Something about the time he’d had to put lead into a fellow who lived down near the Sangre de Cristo range. But what was the man’s name? Was it Davidson? Yes. Rex Davidson.

“Rex Davidson,” Smoke said it aloud.

Both Monte and Johnny stiffened at the name, both men turning their heads to look at Smoke.

When Johnny spoke, his voice was soft. “What’d you say, Smoke?”

Smoke repeated the name.

Monte whistled softly. “I really hope he ain’t got nothing to do with the attack agin Sally.”

Smoke looked at him. “Why?”

Monte finished his beer and motioned the two men outside, to the boardwalk. He looked up and down the street and then sat down on the wooden bench in front of the saloon, off to the side from the batwing entrance. Johnny and Smoke joined him.

“That name you just mentioned, Smoke…what do you know about him?”

“Absolutely nothing. I heard Preacher mention it one time, and one time only. That was years back, when I was just a kid. The name is all I know except that Preacher told me he had to put lead into him one time.”

Monte nodded his head. “So that’s it. Well, that clears it up right smart. Finishes the tale I been hearin’ for years. I’ll just be damned, boys!”

The men waited until Monte had rolled and licked a cigarette into shape and lighted it.

“Must have been…oh, at least twenty years back, so the story goes. Rex Davidson was about twenty, I guess. Might have been a year or two younger than that. I don’t know the whole story; just bits and pieces. But this Davidson had just come into the area from somewheres. California, I think it was. And he though he was castin’ a mighty big shadow wherever it was he walked. He was good with a gun, and a mighty handsome man, too. I seen him once, and he is a lady killer. What’s the word I’m lookin’ for? Vain, that’s it. Pretties himself up all the time.

“There was a tradin’ post down on the Purgatoire called Slim’s. Run by a Frenchman. It’s still there, and the same guy runs it. Only now it’s a general store. It sits east and some north of Trinidad, where the Francisco branches off from the Purgatoire.

“This Davidson was there, braggin’ about how he was gettin’ rich diggin’ gold and running cattle up between the Isabel and the Sangre de Cristos. Said he was gonna build hisself a town. Done it, too.”

Monte dragged on his cigarette and Johnny said, “Dead River.”

“You got it.”

“Damn good place to stay shut of.”

“Sure is,” Monte ground out his smoke under the heel of his boot. “Whole damn town is owned by this Davidson and maybe by this Dagget, too. Anyways, this was back…oh, ’bout ’60, I reckon, and this mountain man come into the tradin’ post with some pelts he’d taken up near the Apishapa and the Arkansas. Him and Slim was jawin’ over the price when this Rex Davidson decided he’d stick his nose into the affair. He made some crack about the mountain man’s weapons and the way he was talkin’. This mountain man wasn’t no big fellow; but size don’t amount to a hill of beans when you start gettin’ smart-lipped with them people—as you well know, Smoke.”

Smoke nodded his head. He knew all too well the truth in that statement. Mountain men, for the most part, stayed away from people and civilization, keeping mostly to themselves, but God have mercy on your soul if you started trouble with them.

Oh, yes, Smoke knew. He had been raised up during his formative years by the most legended of all mountain men—old Preacher.

“Well, that mountain man’s name was Preacher,” Monte continued. “Slim told me that Preacher didn’t say nothin’ to Davidson; just ignored him. And that made Davidson hot under the collar. He called out, “Hey, you greasy old bastard. I’m talking to you, old man!’”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Smoke said softly.

And in his mind’s eye, as Monte told his tale, Smoke could see what had happened. Smoke smiled as he visualized the long-ago day….

Preacher turned slowly, looking at the young man with the twin Colt Navy .36s belted around his waist and tied down low. The fast draw was new to the West, and some that thought they were fast weren’t. The mountain man, slim and lean-waisted, had a faint smile on his lips.

“What’d you want, Tadpole?”

“Davidson flushed red, hot and unreasonable anger flashing in his eyes.

The kid is crazy, Preacher guessed accurately. And he’s a killer.

“The name is Rex Davidson, old man.”

“Do tell? Is that ’pposed to mean something to me, Tadpole?”

“Yeah. I’m a gunfighter.”

“Is that right?” Preacher drawled. “Well, now, how come it is I ain’t never seen none of your graveyards, Tadpole?”

“Well, old man, maybe you just haven’t been in the right towns, standing in the right boot hill. I got ’em scattered around, here and there.”

“My, my! I ’spect I should be im-pressed.” He smiled. “But I ain’t,” he added softly.

“I thought you mountain men was supposed to be so damn tough!” Rex sneered. “You sound like you’re scared to visit a graveyard.”

“Oh…well, now, I tend to shy away from graveyards, Tadpole. They can be mighty spooky places. Some Injuns believe a man can lose his soul by wanderin’ around in a graveyard. Mayhaps that’s what happened to you, Tadpole.”

“What the hell are you babbling about, you old bastard? I think you’re silly!”

“Tadpole, I think you’ve prowled around so many old bone-yards, lookin’ up names on markers so’s you could lie about how bad you want people to think you is…why, hell, Tadpole, I think you lost your soul.”

“You calling me a liar, old man?” Rex fairly screamed the question, his hands dropping to his sides to hover over the butts of his Navy Colts.

“Could be, Tadpole,” Preacher spoke softly. “But if I was you, I wouldn’t take no of-fense. Not if you want to go on livin’ healthy.”

Slim Dugas got the hell out of the line of fire. He didn’t know this punk-faced kid from Adam’s Off Ox, but he sure as hell knew all about Preacher and that wild breed of men called mountain men. There just wasn’t no back-up in a mountain man. Not none at all.

“No man calls me a liar and lives, you greasy old fart!” Rex screamed.

“Well, now, Tadpole. It shore ’ppears like I done it, though, don’t it?”

“Damn your eyes! Draw!” Davidson shouted, his palms slapping the butts of his guns.

Preacher lifted his Sharps and pulled the trigger. He had cocked it while Davidson was running off at the mouth about how bad he was. The .52 slug struck the young man in the side, exactly where Preacher intended it to go; he didn’t want to kill the punk. But in later years he would realize that he should have. The force of the slug turned Davidson around and spun him like a top, knocking him against a wall and to the floor. He had not even cleared leather.

Monte chuckled and that brought Smoke back from years past in his mind.

“Slim told me that Preacher collected his money for his pelts, picked up his bacon and beans, and walked out the door; didn’t even look at Davidson. There was four or five others in the room, drinking rotgut, and they spread the story around about Davidson. Smoke, Davidson has hated Preacher and anyone connected with him for years. And one more thing: All them men in that room, they was all back-shot, one at a time over the years. Only one left alive was Slim.”

“That tells me that this Davidson is crazy as a bessie-bug.”

“Damn shore is,” Johnny agreed. “What kind of man would hate like that, and for so long? It ain’t as if Smoke was any actual kin of Preacher’s. Why wait this long to do something about it?”

“You askin’ me questions I ain’t got no answers for,” Monte replied.

Smoke stood up. “Well, you can all bet one thing. I’m damn sure going to find out!”

4

Smoke could tell that Sally was getting anxious to travel east and see her folks. She tried to hide her growing excitement, but finally she gave in and admitted she was ready to go.

Some men—perhaps many men—would have been reluctant to let their wives travel so far away from the hearth of home, especially when taking into consideration the often terrible hardships that the women of the West had to endure when compared with the lifestyle of women comfortably back east, with their orderly, structured society and policemen walking the beat.

Why, Sally had even told of indoor plumbing, complete with relief stations, not just bathing tubs. Smoke couldn’t even imagine how something like that might work. He reckoned it would take a hell of a lot of digging, but it sure would be smelly if the pipes were to clog.

“You real sure you’re up to this thing?” Smoke asked her.

“I feel fine, honey. And the doctor says I’m one hundred percent healed.”

He patted her swelling belly and grinned. “Getting a little chubby, though.”

She playfully slapped at his hand. “What are you going to do if it’s twins?”

He put a fake serious look on his face. “Well, I might just take off for the mountains!”

She put her arms around him. “Mona says all the travel arrangements are complete. She says we’ll be leaving the last part of next week.”

“She told me. The Doc and me will ride down to Denver with you and see you both off.”

“I’ll like that. And then, Smoke?…”

“You know what I have to do, Sally. And it isn’t a question of wanting to do it. It’s something I have to do.”

She lay her head on his chest. “I know. When will they ever leave us alone?”

“Maybe never, honey. Accept that. Not as long as there is some punk kid who fancies himself a gunslick and is looking to make a rep for himself. Not as long as there are bounty hunters who work for jackasses like this Rex Davidson and his kind. And not as long as there are Rex Davidsons in the world.”

“It’s all so simple for you, isn’t it, Smoke?”

He knew what she was talking about. “Yes. If we could get rid of the scum of the earth, it would be such a very nice place to live.”

With her arms still around him, feeling the awesome physical strength of the man, she said, “Didn’t you tell me that this Dagget person came from back east?”

“Yeah. That’s what Johnny told me and the sheriff. Came out here about ten years ago. Are you thinking that you know this fellow?”

“It might be the same person. Maybe. It was a long time ago, Smoke. And not an experience that I wanted to remember. I’ve tried very hard to put it out of my mind.”

“Put what out of your mind?”

She pulled away from him and walked to the open window, the curtains ruffling with the slight breeze. “It was a long time ago. I was…oh, I guess nine or ten.” She paused for a time, Smoke waiting patiently. “I finally forced myself to remember something else Dagget said that night. He said that he…had wanted to see me naked for a long time. Then he grinned. Nasty. Evil. Per-verted. Then I recalled that…experience so long ago.”

She turned to face him.

“I was…molested as a child. I was not raped, but molested. By a man whom I believe to be this Dagget person. I screamed and it frightened him away. But before he left me, he slapped me and told me that if I ever told, he would kill my parents.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I never told anyone before this.”

“And you believe this Dagget is the same man?”

“I’m sure of it now. Shortly after my…incident, the man was forced to leave town; he killed a man in a lover’s quarrel.”

“All the more reason to kill the man.”

“I was not the only little girl he molested. Some were actually raped. It’s the same man,” she said flatly. “That is not something a woman ever forgets.”

“They still have warrants out for him in New Hampshire, you reckon?”

“I’m sure they do. Why do you ask?”

“Maybe I’ll bring his head back in a bag. Give it to the police.”

She shuddered. “Smoke, you don’t do things like that in New Hampshire.”

“Why? He’s worse than a rabid beast. What’s the matter with the people back east?”

“It’s called civilization, honey.”

“Is that right? Sounds to me like they got a yellow streak running up their backs.”

She shook her head and fought to hide a smile.

“If I take him alive, you want me to wrap him up in a fresh deer hide and stake him out in the sun?”

Sally sighed and looked at her man. “Smoke…no! How gruesome! What would that accomplish?”

“Pay back, Sally. Sun dries the hide around them; kills them slow. Helps to tie a fresh cut strip of green rawhide around their heads. That really lets them know they’ve done wrong; that someone is right displeased with them.”

She shuddered. “I think they would get that message, all right.”

“Almost always, Sally. Your folks back east, Sally, they’ve got this notion about treating bad men humanely. That’s what I’ve been reading. But the bad men don’t treat their victims humanely. Seems like to me, your folks got things all screwed up in their heads. You won’t have crime, Sally, if you don’t have criminals.”

She sighed, knowing there was really no argument against what he was saying. It was a hard land, this frontier, and it took a hard breed to survive. They were good to good people. Terribly brutal to those who sought the evil way.

And who was to say that the hard way was not the right way?

She smiled at her man. “I guess that’s why I love you so much, Smoke. You are so direct and straightforward in your thinking. I think you are going to be a most refreshing cool breeze to my family and friends back in New Hampshire.”

“Maybe.”

“Smoke, I am going to say this once, and I will not bring it up again. I married you, knowing full well what kind of man you are. And you are a good man, but hard. I have never tried to change you. I don’t believe that is what marriage is all about.”

“And I thank you for that, Sally.”

“I know you are going man-hunting, Smoke. And I know, like you, that it is something you have to do. I don’t always understand; but in this case, I do. My parents and brothers and sisters will not. Nor will my friends. But I do.”

“And you’re going to tell them what I’m doing?”

“Certainly. And you’ll probably be written up in the local newspaper.”

“Seems to me they ought to have more important things to write about than that.”

Sally laughed at his expression. How could she explain to him that the people back in Keene didn’t carry guns; that most had never seen a fast draw; that many of them didn’t believe high noon shoot-outs ever occurred?

He probably wouldn’t believe her. He’d have to see for himself.

“Smoke, I know that you take chances that many other men would not take. You’re a special breed. I learned early on why many people call you the last mountain man. Perhaps that is yet another of the many reasons I love you like I do. So do this for me: When you put me on that train and see me off, put me out of your mind. Concentrate solely on the job facing you. I know you have that quality about you; you do it. I will leave messages at the wire offices for you, telling you how I am and where I can be reached at all times. You try to do the same for me, whenever you can.”

“I will, Sally. And that’s a promise. But I’m going to be out-of-pocket for a couple of months, maybe longer.”

“I know. That’s all I ask, Smoke. We’ll say no more about it.” She came to him and pulled his head down, kissing him.

“I have an idea, Sally.”

“What?”

“All the hands are gone. The place is all ours. But it might hurt the baby.”

“I bet it won’t.” She smiled impishly at him.

She was right.

Smoke stood watching until the caboose was out of sight. Dr. Spalding had walked back into the station house. Spalding and his wife, Mona, along with Sally, had ridden the stage into Denver. Smoke had ridden Drifter. He had not brought a pack animal; he’d buy one in the city.

There were already laws in parts of Denver about carrying guns, so Smoke had left his twin Colts back in the hotel room. He carried a short-barreled Colt, tucked behind his belt, covered by his coat.

Smoke turned away from the now-silent twin ribbons of steel that linked the nation. “See you soon, Sally,” he muttered. He walked back into the station house.

“Are you going to stay in town for a time and see some of the shows?” Colton asked.

Smoke shook his head. “No. I’m going to gear up and pull out.” He held out his right hand and Colton shook it. “You’ll stay in touch with the doctors in Boston?”

“Yes. I’ll have progress reports for you whenever you wire Big Rock.”

“Check on Billy every now and then.”

Colton nodded. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine. You take care, Smoke.”

“I’ll be in touch.” Smoke turned and walked away.

He bought three hundred rounds of .44s. The ammo was interchangeable between rifle and pistols. He bought a tent and a ground sheet, a coffee pot and a skillet. Coffee and beans and flour and a small jug of lard. Bacon. He walked around the store, carefully selecting his articles, choosing ones he felt a back-east dandy come west might pick up to take on his first excursion into the wilds.

He bought lace-up boots and a cap, not a hat. He bought a shoulder holster for his short-barreled Colt. He bought a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun and several boxes of buckshot shells.

“Have this gear out back on the loading dock in two hours,” Smoke instructed the clerk. “That’s when I’ll be coming for it. And I’ll pay you then.”

“Yes, sir. That will be satisfactory. I shall see you in two hours.”

“Fine.”

Smoke inspected several packhorses and chose one that seemed to have a lot of bottom. Then he took a hansom to a fancy art-house and bought a dozen sketch pads and several boxes of charcoal pencils.

He had not shaved that morning at the hotel and did not plan on doing anything other than trimming his beard for a long time to come.

At a hardware store, he picked up a pair of scissors to keep his beard neat. An artist’s beard. He would cut off his beard when it came time to reveal his true identity.

When it came time for the killing.

Smoke had a natural talent for drawing, although he had never done much with it. Now, he thought with a smile, it was going to come in handy.

At the art store, the clerk was a dandy if Smoke had ever seen one, prissing around like a peacock, fussing about this and that and prancing up one aisle and down the other.

Smoke told him what he wanted and let the prissy little feller fill the bill.

Smoke studied the way the clerk walked. Wasn’t no damn way in hell he was gonna try to walk like that. Some bear might think he was in heat.

He went to a barbershop and told the barber he wanted his hair cut just like the dandies back east were wearing theirs. Just like he’d seen in a magazine. Parted down the middle and greased back. The barber looked at him like he thought Smoke had lost his mind, but other than to give him a queer look, he made no comment. Just commenced to whacking and shaping.

Smoke did feel rather like a fop when he left the barber chair, and he hoped that he would not run into anyone he knew until his beard grew out. But in a big city like Denver—must have been four or five thousand people in the city—that was unlikely.

Smoke checked out of the hotel and got Drifter and his packhorse from the stable, riding around to the rear of the store, picking up and lashing down his supplies. His guns were rolled up and stored in a spare blanket, along with the sawed-off express gun.

He was ready.

But he waited until he got outside of the city before he stuck that damn cap on his head.

He rode southeast out of Denver, taking his time, seeing the country—again. He and old Preacher had ridden these trails, back when Smoke was just a boy. There were mighty few trails and places in Colorado that Smoke had not been; but oddly enough, down south of Canon City, down between the Isabels and the Sangre de Cristo range, was one area where Preacher had not taken him.

And now Smoke knew why that was. The old man had been protecting him.

But why so much hate on the part of this Rex Davidson? And was Sally right? Was this Dagget the same man who had molested her as a child? And how were he and Davidson connected—and why?

He didn’t know.

But he was sure going to find out.

And then he would kill them.

Smoke spent a week camped along the West Bijou, letting his beard grow out and sketching various scenes, improving upon his natural talent. He still didn’t like the silly cap he was wearing, but he stuck with it, getting used to the damned thing. And each day he combed and brushed his hair, slicking it down with goop, retraining it.

Damned if he really wasn’t beginning to look like a dandy. Except for his eyes; those cold, expressionless, and emotionless eyes. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about that.

Or was there? he pondered, smiling.

Oh, yes, there was.

Allowing himself a chuckle, he swiftly broke camp and packed it all up, carefully dousing his fire and then scattering the ashes and dousing them again. He mounted up and swung Drifter’s head toward the south and slightly west. If he couldn’t find what he was looking for in Colorado City, he’d head on down to Jim Beckworth’s town of Pueblo—although some folks tended to spell it Beckwourth.

Smoke stopped in at the fanciest store in town and browsed some, feeling silly and foppish in his high-top lace-up boots and his city britches tucked into the tops like some of them explorer people he’d seen pictures of. But if he was gonna act and look like a sissy, he might as well learn the part—except for the walk—cause he damn sure was gonna look mighty funny if he could find him a pair of those tinted eyeglasses.

He found several pairs—one blue-tinted, one yellow-tinted, and one rose-tinted.

“Oh, what the hell,” he muttered.

He bought all three pairs and a little hard case to hold them in, to keep them from getting broken.

Smoke put on his red-tinted eyeglasses and walked outside, thinking that they sure gave a fellow a different outlook on things.

“Well, well,” a cowboy said, stepping back and eyeballing Smoke and his fancy getup. “If you jist ain’t the purtiest thing I ever did see.” Then he started laughing.

Smoke gritted his teeth and started to brush past the half-drunk puncher.

The puncher grabbed Smoke by the upper arm and spun him around, a startled look on his face as his fingers gripped the thick, powerful muscles of Smoke’s upper arm.

Smoke shook his arm loose. Remembering all the grammar lessons Sally had given him, and the lessons that the urbane and highly educated gambler, Louis Longmont, had taught him, Smoke said, “I say, my good fellow, unhand me, please!”

The cowboy wasn’t quite sure just exactly what he’d grabbed hold of. That arm felt like it was made of pure oak, but the speech sounded plumb goofy.

“What the hell is you, anyways?”

Smoke drew himself erect and looked down at the smaller man. “I, my good man, am an ar-tist!”

“Ar-tist? You paint pitchers?”

“I sketch pic-tures!” Smoke said haughtily.

“Do tell? How much you charge for one of them sketchies?”

“Of whom?”

“Huh?”

Smoke sighed. “Whom do you wish me to sketch?”

“Why, hell…me, o’ course!”

“I’m really in a hurry, my good fellow. Perhaps some other time.”

“I’ll give you twenty dollars.”

That brought Smoke up short. Twenty dollars was just about two thirds of what the average puncher made a month, and it was hard-earned wages. Smoke stepped back, taking a closer look at the man. This was no puncher. His boots were too fancy and too highly shined. His dress was too neat and too expensive. And his guns—two of them, worn low and tied down—marked him.

“Well…I might be persuaded to do a quick sketch. But not here in the middle of the street, for goodness sake!”

“Which way you headin’, pardner?”

Smoke gestured with his arm, taking in the entire expanse. “I am but a free spirit, a wanderer, traveling where the wind takes me, enjoying the blessing of this wild and magnificent land.”

Preacher, Smoke thought, wherever you are, you are probably rolling on the ground, cackling at this performance.

Smoke had no idea if Preacher were dead or alive; but he preferred to believe him alive, although he would be a very old man by now. But still?…

The gunfighter looked at Smoke, squinting his eyes. “You shore do talk funny. I’m camped on the edge of town. You kin sketch me there.”

“Certainly, my good man. Let us be off.”

Before leaving town, Smoke bought a jug of whiskey and gave it to the man, explaining, “Sometimes subjects tend to get a bit stiff and they appear unnatural on the paper. For the money, I want to do this right.”

The man was falling-down drunk by the time they got to his campsite.

Smoke helped him off his horse and propped him up against a tree. Then he began to sketch and chat as he worked.

“I am very interested in the range of mountains known as the Sangre de Cristos. Are you familiar with them?”

“Damn sure am. What you wanna know about them? You just ax me and I’ll tell you.”

“I am told there is a plethora of unsurpassed beauty in the range.”

“Huh?”

“Lots of pretty sights.”

“Oh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Damn shore is that.”

“My cousin came through here several years ago, on his way to California. Maurice DeBeers. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

“Cain’t say as I have, pardner.”

“He stopped by a quaint little place for a moment or two. In the Sangre de Cristos. He didn’t stay, but he said it was…well, odd.”

“A town?”

“That’s what he said.”

“There ain’t no towns in there.”

“Oh, but I beg to differ. My cousin wrote me about it. Oh…pity! What was the name? Dead something-or-the-other.”

The man looked at him, an odd shift to his eyes. “Dead River?”

“Yes! That’s it! Thank you!”

Drunk as he was, the man was quick in snaking out a pistol. He eased back the hammer and pointed the muzzle at Smoke’s belly.

5

Smoke dropped his sketch pad and threw his hands into the air. He started running around and around in a little circle. “Oh, my heavens!” he screamed, putting as much fright in his voice as he could. Then he started making little whimpering sounds.

The outlaw—and Smoke was now sure that he was—smiled and lowered his gun, easing down the hammer. “All right, all right! Calm down ’fore you have a heart attack, pilgrim. Hell, I ain’t gonna shoot you.”

Smoke kept his hands high in the air and forced his knees to shake. He felt like a total fool but knew his life depended on his making the act real. And so far, it was working.

“Take all my possessions! Take all my meager earnings! But please don’t shoot me, mister. Please. I simply abhor guns and violence.”

The outlaw blinked. “You does what to ’em?”

“I hate them!”

“Why didn’t you just say that? Well, hell, relax. Don’t pee your fancy britches, sissy-boy. I ain’t gonna shoot you. I just had to check you out, that’s all.”

“I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t understand. May I please lower my hands?”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t start beggin’. You really is who you say you is, ain’t you?” His brow furrowed in whiskey-soaked rumination. “Come to think of it, just who in the hell is you, anyways?”

“I am an artist.”

“Not that! What’s your name, sissy-britches?” He lifted the jug and took a long, deep pull, then opened his throat to swallow.

“Shirley DeBeers,” Smoke said.

The outlaw spat out the rotgut and coughed for several minutes. He pounded his chest and lifted red-rimmed eyes, disbelieving eyes to Smoke.

“Shirley! That there ain’t no real man’s name!”

Smoke managed to look offended. What he really wanted to do was take the jerk’s guns away from him and shove both of them down his throat. Or into another part of the outlaw’s anatomy.

“I will have you know, sir, that Shirley is really a very distinguished name.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Get to sketching, Shirley.”

“Oh, I simply couldn’t!” Smoke fanned his face with both hands. “I feel flushed. I’m so distraught!”

“Shore named you right,” the outlaw muttered. “All right, Shirley. If you ain’t gonna draw my pitcher, sit down and lets us palaver.”

Smoke sat down. “I’ve never played palaver; you’ll have to teach me.”

The outlaw put his forehead into a hand and muttered under his breath for a moment. “It means we’ll talk, Shirley.”

“Very well. What do you wish to talk about?”

“You. I can’t figure you. You big as a house and strong as a mule. But if you’re a pansy, you keep your hands to yourself, you understand that?”

“Unwashed boorish types have never appealed to me,” Smoke said stiffly.

“Whatever that means,” the gunhawk said. “My name’s Cahoon.”

“Pleased, I’m sure.”

“What’s your interest in Dead River, Shirley?”

“I really have no interest there, as I told you, other than to sketch the scenery, which I was told was simply breathtakingly lovely.”

Cahoon stared at him. “You got to be tellin’ the truth. You the goofiest-lookin’ and the silliest-talkin’ person I ever did see. What I can’t figure out is how you got this far west without somebody pluggin’ you full of holes.”

“Why should they do that? I hold no malice toward anyone who treats me with any respect at all.”

“You been lucky, boy, I shore tell you that. You been lucky. Now then, you over the vapors yet?”

“I am calmed somewhat, yes.”

“Git to sketchin’, Shirley.”

When Smoke tossed off his blankets the next morning, the outlaw, Cahoon, was gone. Smoke had pretended sleep during the night as the outlaw had swiftly gone through his pack, finding nothing that seemed to interest him. Cahoon had searched one side of the pack carefully, then only glanced at the other side, which held supplies. Had he searched a bit closer and longer, he would have found Smoke’s twin Colts and the shotgun.

Smoke felt he had passed inspection. At least for this time. But he was going to have to come up with some plan for stashing his weapons close to Dead River.

And so far, he hadn’t worked that out.

Cahoon had left the coffee pot on the blackened stones around the fire and Smoke poured a cup. He was careful in his movements, not knowing how far Cahoon might have gone; he might well be laying out a few hundred yards, watching to see what Smoke did next.

Smoke cut strips of bacon from the slab and peeled and cut up a large potato, dropping the slices into the bacon grease as it fried. He cut off several slices of bread from the thick loaf and then settled down to eat.

He cut his eyes to a large stone and saw his sketch pad, a double eagle on the top page, shining in the rays of the early morning sun.

Cahoon had printed him a note: YOU DO FARLY GOOD DRAWINS. I PASS THE WORD THAT YOU OK. MAYBE SEE YOU IN DEAD RIVER. KEEP THIS NOTE TO HEP YOU GIT IN. CAHOON.

Smoke smiled. Yes, he thought, he had indeed passed the first hurdle.

Smoke drifted south, taking his time and riding easy. He had stopped at a general store and bought a bonnet for Drifter and the packhorse. The packhorse didn’t seem to mind. Drifter didn’t like it worth a damn. The big yellow-eyed devil horse finally accepted the bonnet, but only after biting Smoke twice and kicking him once. Hard.

Smoke’s beard was now fully grown out, carefully trimmed into a fuller Vandyke but not as pointed. The beard had completely altered his appearance. And the news was spreading throughout the region about the goofy-talking and sissy-acting fellow who rode a horse with a bonnet and drew pictures. The rider, not the horse. The word was, so Smoke had overheard, that Shirley DeBeers was sorta silly, but harmless. And done right good drawin’s, too.

And Cahoon, so Smoke had learned by listening and mostly keeping his mouth shut, was an outlaw of the worst kind. He fronted a gang that would do anything, including murder for hire and kidnapping—mostly women, to sell to whoremongers.

And they lived in Dead River, paying a man called Rex Davidson for security and sanctuary. And he learned that a man named Danvers was the Sheriff of Dead River. Smoke had heard of Danvers, but their trails had never crossed. The title of Sheriff was a figurehead title, for outside of Dead River he had no authority and would have been arrested on the spot.

Or shot.

And if Smoke had his way, it was going to be the latter.

Smoke and Drifter went from town to town, community to community, always drifting south toward the southernmost bend of the Purgatoire.

Smoke continued to play his part as the city fop, getting it down so well it now was second nature for him to act the fool.

At a general store not far from Quarreling Creek—so named because a band of Cheyenne had quarreled violently over the election of a new chief—Smoke picked up a few dollars by sketching a man and his wife and child, also picking up yet more information about Dead River and its outlaw inhabitants.

“Outlaws hit the stage outside Walensburg last week,” he heard the rancher say to the clerk. “Beat it back past Old Tom’s place and then cut up into the Sangre de Cristos.”

The clerk looked up. There was no malice in his voice when he said, “And the posse stopped right there, hey?”

“Shore did. I reckon it’s gonna take the Army to clean out that den of outlaws at Dead River. The law just don’t wanna head up in there. Not that I blame them a bit for that,” he was quick to add.

“Nobody wants to die,” the clerk said, in a matter of agreeing.

“I have heard so much about this Dead River place,” Smoke said, handing the finished sketch to the woman, who looked at it and smiled.

“You do very nice work, young man,” she complimented him

“Thank you. And I have also heard that around Dead River is some of the most beautiful scenery to be found anywhere.”

The rancher put a couple of dollars into Smoke’s hand and said, “You stay out of that place, mister. It just ain’t no place for any decent person. And you seem to be a nice sort of person.”

“Surely they wouldn’t harm an unarmed man?” Smoke asked, holding on to his act. He managed to look offended at the thought. “I am an artist, not a troublemaker.”

The clerk and the rancher exchanged knowing glances and smiles, the clerk saying, “Mister, them are bad apples in that place. They’d as soon shoot you as look at you. And that’s just if you’re lucky. I’d tell you more, but not in front of the woman and child.”

“Mabel” the rancher spoke to his wife. “You take Jenny and wait outside on the boardwalk. We got some man-talking to do.” He glanced at Smoke. “Well…some talking to do, at least.”

Smoke contained his smile. He could just imagine Sally’s reaction if he were to tell her to leave the room so the men could talk. A lady through and through, she would have nevertheless told Smoke where to put his suggestion.

Sideways.

The woman and child waiting on the boardwalk of the store, under the awning, the rancher looked at Smoke and shook his head in disbelief. Smoke was wearing a ruffle-front shirt, pink in color, tight-fitting lavender britches—he had paid a rancher’s wife to make him several pairs in various colors—tucked into the tops of his lace-up hiking boots, tinted eyeglasses, and that silly cap on his head.

Foppish was not the word.

“Mr. DeBeers,” the rancher said, “Dead River is the dumping grounds for all the scum and trash and bad hombres in the West. Some of the best and the bravest lawmen anywhere won’t go in there, no matter how big the posse. And for good reason. The town of Dead River sits in a valley between two of the biggest mountains in the range. Only one way in and one way out.”

The clerk said, “And the east pass—the only way in—is always guarded. Three men with rifles and plenty of ammunition could stand off any army forever.”

Smoke knew that one-way-in and one-way-out business was nonsense. If he could find some Indians, he’d discover a dozen ways in and out. When he got close to the range of mountains, he’d seek out some band and talk with them.

The rancher said, “There’ve been reports of them outlaws gettin’ all drunked up and draggin’ people to death just for the fun of doin’ it, up and down the main street. Some men from the Pinkerton agency, I think it was, got in there a couple of years ago, disguised as outlaws. When it was discovered what they really was, the outlaws stripped ’em nekkid and nailed ’em up on crosses, left the men there to die, and they died hard.”

“Sometimes,” the clerk added, “they’ll hang people up on meathooks and leave them to die slow. Takes ’em days. And it just ain’t fittin’ to speak aloud what they do to women they kidnap and haul in there. Makes me sick to just think about it.”

“Barbaric!” Smoke said.

“So you just stay out of that place, mister,” the rancher said.

“But Mr. Cahoon said I would be welcome,” Smoke dropped that in.

“You know Cahoon?” The clerk was bug-eyed.

“I sketched him once.”

“You must have done it right. Cause if you hadn’t, Cahoon would have sure killed you. He’s one of the worst. Likes to torture people—especially Indians and women; he ain’t got no use for neither of them.”

“Well, why doesn’t someone do something about it?” Smoke demanded. “They sound like perfectly horrid people to me.”

“It’d take the Army to get them out,” the rancher explained. “At least five hundred men—maybe more than that; probably more than that. But here’s the rub, mister: No one has ever come out of there to file no complaints. When a prisoner goes in there, he or she is dead. And dead people don’t file no legal complaints. So look, buddy…eh, fellow, whatever, the day’ll come when the Army goes in. But that day ain’t here yet. So you best keep your butt outta there.”

Smoke drifted on, and his reputation as a good artist went before him. He cut east, until he found a town with a telegraph office and sent a wire to Boston. He and Sally had worked out a code. He was S.B. and she was S.J. He waited in the town for a night and a day before receiving a reply.

Sally was fine. The doctors had removed the lead from her and her doctor in Boston did not think an operation would be necessary for child-birthing.

Smoke drifted on, crossing the Timpas and then following the Purgatoire down to Slim’s General Store. A little settlement had been built around the old trading post, but it was fast dying, with only a few ramshackle buildings remaining. Smoke stabled his horses and stepped into the old store.

An old man sat on a stool behind the article-littered counter. He lifted his eyes as Smoke walked in.

“I ain’t real sure just perxactly what you might be, son,” the old man said, taking in Smoke’s wild get-up. “But if you got any fresh news worth talkin’ ’bout, you shore welcome, whether you buy anything or not.”

Smoke looked around him. The store was empty of customers. Silent, except for what must have been years of memories, crouching in every corner. “Your name Slim?”

“Has been for nigh on seventy years. Kinda late to be changin’ it now. What can I do you out of, stranger?”

Smoke bought some supplies, chatting with Slim while he shopped. He then sat down at the offer of a cup of coffee.

“I am an artist,” he announced. “I have traveled all the way from New York City, wandering the West, recreating famous gunfights on paper. For posterity. I intend to become quite famous through my sketchings.”

Slim looked at the outfit that Smoke had selected for that morning. It was all the old man could do to keep a straight face. Purple britches and flame-red silk shirt and colored glasses.

“Is that right?” Slim asked.

“It certainly is. And I would just imagine that you are a veritable well of knowledge concerning famous gunfighters and mountain men, are you not?”

Slim nodded his head. “I ain’t real sure what it is you just said, partner. Are you askin’ me if I knowed any gunfighters or mountain men?”

“That is quite correct, Mr. Slim.”

“And your name be?…”

“Shirley DeBeers.”

“Lord have mercy. Well, Shirley, yeah, I’ve seen my share of gunfights. I personal planted six or eight right back yonder.” He pointed. “What is it you want to know about, pilgrim?”

Smoke got the impression that he wasn’t fooling this old man, not one little bit. And he was curious as to the why of that.

“I have come from New York,” he said. “In search of any information about the most famous mountain man of all time. And I was told in Denver that you, and you alone, could give me some information about him. Can you?”

Slim looked at Smoke, then his eyes began to twinkle. “Boy, I come out here in ’35, and I knowed ’em all. Little Kit Carson—you know he wasn’t much over five feet tall—Fremont, Smith, Big Jim, Caleb Greenwood, John Jacobs; hell, son, you just name some and I bet I knew ’em and traded with ’em.”

“But from what I have learned, you did not name the most famous of them all!”

Slim smiled. “Yeah, that’s right. I sure didn’t—Mr. Smoke Jensen.”

6

Over a lunch of beef and beans and canned peaches, Smoke and Slim sat and talked.

“How’d you know me, Slim? I’ve never laid eyes on you in my life.”

“Just a guess. I’d heard people describe you ’fore. And I knowed what went on up on the Sugarloaf, with them gunnies and your wife; I figured you’d be comin’ on along ’fore long. But what give you away was your accent. I’ve had folks from New York town in here ’fore. Your accent is all wrong.”

“Then I guess I’d better start working on that, right?”

“Wrong. What you’d better do is shift locations. You ain’t never gonna talk like them folks. You best say you’re from Pennsylvannie. From a little farm outside Pittsburgh on the river. That ought to do it. If you’re just bounded and swore to go off and get shot full of holes.”

Smoke let that last bit slide. “How’s Preacher?” He dropped that in without warning.

Slim studied him for a moment, then nodded his head. “Gettin’ on in years. But he’s all right, last I heard. He’s livin’ with some half-breed kids of hisn up in Wyoming. Up close to the Montanie line.”

“It’s good to know that he’s still alive. But I can’t figure why he won’t come live with me and Sally up on the Sugarloaf.”

“That ain’t his way, Smoke, and you know it. He’s happy, boy. That’s what’s important. Why, hell, Smoke!” he grinned, exposing nearly toothless gums. “They’s a whole passel of them ol’ boys up yonder. They’s Phew, Lobo, Audie, Nighthawk, Dupre, Greybull—two/three more. Couple of ’em has died since they hepped you out three/four years back.”

Smoke remembered them all and smiled with that remembrance.

“Yeah,” Slim said. “I’m thinkin’ hard on sellin’ out and headin’ up that way to join them. Gettin’ on in years myself. I’d like to have me a woman to rub my back ever now and then. But,” he sighed, “I prob’ly won’t do that. Stay right here until I keel over daid. But Preacher and them? They happy, boy. They got their memories and they got each other. And when it’s time for them to go, they’ll turn their faces to the sky and sing their death songs. Don’t worry none ’bout Preacher, Smoke. He raised you better than that.”

“You’re right, Slim.” Smoke grinned. “As much as I’d like to see him, I’m glad he can’t see me in this get-up today.”

Slim laughed and slapped his knee. “He’d prob’ly laugh so hard he’d have a heart attack, for sure. I got to tell you, Smoke, you do look…well…odd!”

“But it’s working.”

“So far, I reckon it is. Let’s talk about that. You got a plan, Smoke?”

“About getting into Dead River?” Slim nodded. “No. Not really. But for sure, I’m going in like this.”

Smoke did not hesitate about talking about his plans to Slim. He could be trusted. Preacher had told him that.

“Might work,” Slim said.

“The outlaws think they’ve got everybody convinced there is only one way in and one way out. I don’t believe that.”

“That’s a pile of buffalo chips! You get on with the Utes, don’t you?”

“Stayed with them many times.”

“White Wolf and a bunch of his people is camped over just west of Cordova Pass. The word is, from old-timers that I talked to, White Wolf’s braves make a game out of slippin’ in and out of Dead River. White Wolf ain’t got no use for none of them people in there. They been hard on Injuns. You talk to White Wolf. He’s an old friend and enemy of Preacher.”

Smoke knew what he meant. You might spend a summer with the Indians and the winter fighting them. That’s just the way it was. Nearly anyone could ride into an Indian camp and eat and spend the night and not be bothered. ’Course they might kill you when you tried to leave. But at least you’d die after a good night’s sleep and a full stomach.

Indians were notional folks.

“I did meet and sketch and convince some outlaw name of Cahoon.” He showed Slim the note.

The old man whistled. “He’s a bad one; ’bout half crazy. Hates Injuns and women; ain’t got but one use for a woman and you know what that is. Then he tortures them to death. How’d you meet him?”

Smoke told him, leaving nothing out. Slim laughed and wiped his eyes.

“Well, you can bet that Cahoon has told his buddies ’bout you plannin’ on comin’ in. And you can bet somebody is right now checkin’ on your back trail. And they’ll be here ’fore long. So you best draw me two or three of them pitchers of yourn and I’ll stick ’em up on the wall.”

Smoke spent several days at Slim’s, relaxing and learning all that the old man knew about Dead River, Rex Davidson, and the man who called himself Dagget.

And Slim knew plenty.

They were the scum of the earth, Slim said, reinforcing what Smoke had already guessed. There was nothing they would not do for money, or had not already done. Every man in Dead River had at least one murder warrant out on his head.

That was going to make Smoke’s job a lot easier.

“Smoke, if you do get inside that outlaw stronghold,” Slim warned him, “don’t you for one second ever drop that act of yourn. ’Cause ifn you do, sure as hell, someone’ll pick up on it and you’ll be a long time dyin’.

“Now, listen to me, boy: Don’t trust nobody in there. Not one solitary soul. You cain’t afford to do that.

“Now personal, Smoke, I think you’re a damn fool for tryin’ this. But I can see Preacher’s invisible hand writ all over you. He’d do the same thing.” He eyeballed Smoke’s foppish get-up and grinned. “Well, he’d go in there; let’s put it that way! I ain’t gonna try to turn you around. You a growed-up man.”

“But they have people being held as slaves in there, or so I’m told.”

“Yeah, that’s right. But some of them would just as soon turn you in as look at you, for favor’s sake. You know what I mean?”

Smoke knew. It sickened him, but he knew. “How many you figure are in there, Slim? Or do you have any way of knowing that?”

“Ain’t no way of really tellin’ ’til you git in there,” Slim said. “Them outlaws come and go so much. Might be as many as three hundred. Might be as low as fifty. But that’s just the real bad ones, Smoke. That ain’t countin’ the shop owners and clerks and whores and sich. Like the minister.”

“Minister! Wait a minute. We’ll get back to him. What about the clerks and shop owners and those types of people?”

“What about them? Oh, I get you. Don’t concern yourself with them. They’re just as bad, in their own way, as them that ride out, robbin’ and killin’. The clerks and shopkeepers are all on the run for crimes they done. There ain’t no decent people in that town. Let me tell you something, boy: When a baby is borned to them shady gals in there, they either kill it outright or tote it into the closest town and toss it in the street.”

Smoke grimaced in disgust. “I can’t understand why this town hasn’t attracted more attention.”

“It has, boy! But lak I done tole you, can’t no legal thing be done ’cause no decent person that goes in there ever comes out. Now, I hear tell there’s a federal marshal over to Trinidad that might be convinced to git a posse together if somebody would go in and clear a path for them. His name’s Wilde.”

Smoke made a mental note of that. “Tell me about this so-called minister in Dead River.”

“Name is Tustin. And he’s a real college-educated minister, too. Got him a church and all that goes with it.”

“But you said there wasn’t any decent people in the town!”

“There ain’t, boy. Tustin is on the run jist lak all the rest. Killed his wife and kids back east somewheres. He’s also a horse thief, a bank robber, and a whoremonger. But he still claims to be a Christian. Damndest thing I ever did hear of.”

“And he has a church and preaches?”

“Damn shore does. And don’t go to sleep durin’ his sermons, neither. If you do, he’ll shoot you!”

Smoke leaned back in his chair and stared at Slim. “You’re really serious!”

“You bet your boots I am. You git in that place, Smoke, and you’re gonna see sights like the which you ain’t never seen.”

“And you’ve never been in there?”

“Hell, no!”

Smoke rose from his chair to walk around the table a few times, stretching his legs. “It’s time to put an end to Dead River.”

“Way past time, boy.”

“You think my wife was attacked just because of a twenty-year-old hate this Davidson has for Preacher?”

“I’d bet on it. Davidson lay right over there in that corner,” he pointed, “and swore he’d get Preacher and anyone else who was a friend of hisn. That’s why them outlaws is so hard on Injuns. ’Specially the Utes. Preacher was adopted into the Ute tribe, you know.”

Smoke nodded. “Yeah. So was I.”

“All the more reason for him to hate you. Law and order is closin’ in on the West, Smoke. And,” he sighed, “I reckon, for the most part, that’s a good thing. Them lak that scum that’s over to Dead River don’t have that many more places to run to…and it’s time to wipe that rattler’s nest out. Sam Bass was killed ’bout two years ago. Billy the Kid’s ’bout run out his string, so I hear. John Wesley Hardin is in jail down in Texas. The law is hot on the trail of the James gang. Bill Longley was hanged a couple of years back. The list is just gettin’ longer and longer of so-called bad men that finally got they due. You know what I mean, Smoke?”

“Yes. And I can add some to the list you just named. You heard about Clay Allison?”

“Different stories about how he died. You know the truth of it?”

“Louis Longmont told me that Clay got drunk and fell out of his wagon back in ’77. A wheel ran over his head and killed him.”

Slim laughed and refilled their coffee cups. “I hear Curly Bill is goin’ ’round talkin’ bad about the Earp boys. He don’t close that mouth, he’s gonna join that list, too, and you can believe that.”

Smoke sipped his coffee. “Three hundred bad ones,” he said softly. “Looks like I just may have bitten off more than I can chew up and spit out.”

“That’s one of the few things you’ve said about this adventure of yourn that makes any sense, boy.”

Smoke smiled at the old man. “But don’t mean I’m gonna give it up, Slim.”

“I’s afeared you’d say that. Boy, I don’t lak that grin on your face. Now, what the hell have you got up that sleeve of yourn?”

“Where is the nearest wire office, Slim?”

“Trinidad. It’s a real big city. Near’bouts three thousand people in there. All jammed up lak apples in a crate. Gives me the willies.”

“That U.S. Marshal might be in town.”

“Could be. I know he comes and goes out of there a whole lot. What’s on your mind, boy?”

Smoke just grinned at him. “Can you get a message to Preacher?”

“Shore. Good God, boy! You ain’t figurin’ on dealing Preacher in on this, are you?”

“Oh, no. Just tell him I’m all right and I’m glad to hear that he’s doing okay.”

“I’ll do it. You keep in touch, boy.”

Smoke rose to leave. “See you around, Slim.”

“Luck to you, boy.”

After the U.S. Marshal got over his initial shock of seeing the red and lavender-clad Shirley DeBeers introduce himself, he looked at the young man as if he had taken leave of his senses.

He finally said, “Have you got a death wish, boy? Or are you as goofy as you look?”

“My name is not really Shirley DeBeers, Marshal.”

“That’s a relief. I think. What is your handle—Sue?”

“Smoke Jensen.”

The U.S. Marshal fell out of his chair.

7

“The reason I wanted us to talk out here,” Marshal Jim Wilde said, standing with Smoke in the livery stable, “is ’cause I don’t trust nobody when it comes to that lousy damn bunch of crud over at Dead River.”

Smoke nodded his agreement. “You don’t suspect the sheriff of this county of being in cahoots with them, do you?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. He’s a good man. We’ve been working together, trying to come up with a plan to clean out that mess for months. It’s just that you never really know who might be listening. Are you really Smoke Jensen?” He looked at Smoke’s outfit and shuddered.

Smoke assured him that he was, despite the way he was dressed.

“And you want to be a U.S. Marshal?”

“Yes. To protect myself legally.”

“That’s good thinkin’. But this plan of yours ain’t too bright, the way I see it. Let me get this straight. You’re goin’ to act as point man for a posse to clean up Dead River?”

“That is my intention. At my signal, the posse will come in.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You, of course, will lead the posse.”

“Uh-huh.” The marshal’s expression was hound-dog mournful. “I was just afraid you was gonna say something ’bout like that.”

U.S. Marshal Wilde checked his dodgers to see if there were any wanted flyers out on Smoke. There were not. Then he sent some wires out to get approval on Smoke’s federal commission. Smoke lounged around the town, waiting for the marshal’s reply wires.

Trinidad was built at the foot of Raton Pass, on a foothill chain of the Culebra Range. The streets of the town twisted and turned deviously, giving it a curiously foreign look. The Purgatoire River separated the residential area from the business district.

Trinidad was known as a tough place, full of rowdies, and due to its relative closeness to Dead River, Smoke kept a close eye on his back trail.

On his third day in town, sensing someone was following him, he picked up his pursuers. They were three rough-looking men. Inwardly, he sighed, wanting nothing so much as to shed his role as Shirley DeBeers, foppish artist, and strap on his guns.

But he knew he had to endure what he’d started for a while longer.

He had deliberately avoided any contact with any lawmen, especially Jim Wilde. He had spent his time sketching various buildings of the town and some of the more colorfully dressed Mexicans.

But the three hard-looking gunhawks who were always following him began to get on his nerves. He decided to bring it to a head, but to do it in such a way as to reinforce his sissy, foppish act.

With his sketch pad in hand, Smoke turned to face the three men, who were standing across a plaza from him. He began sketching them.

And he could tell very quickly that his actions were not being received good-naturedly. One of the men made that perfectly clear in a hurry.

The man, wearing his guns low and tied down, walked across the plaza and jerked the sketch pad out of Smoke’s hands, throwing it to the street.

“Jist what in the hell do you think you’re doin’, boy?”

Smoke put a frightened look on his face. “I was sketching you and your friends. I didn’t think you would mind. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

Smoke was conscious of the sheriff of the county and of Jim Wilde watching from across the plaza, standing under the awning of a cantina.

The outlaw—Smoke assumed he was an outlaw—pointed to the sketch pad on the ground and grinned at Smoke. “Well, you shored did o-fend me, sissy-pants. Now pick that there pitcher book up offen the ground and gimme that drawin’ you just done of us.”

Smoke drew himself up. “I most certainly will do no such thing…you ruffian.”

The man slapped him.

It was all Smoke could do to contain his wild urge to tear the man’s head off and hand it to him.

Smoke fought back his urge and put a hand to his reddened cheek. “You struck me!” he cried. “How dare you strike me, you—you animal!”

The man laughed as his friends walked across the plaza to join him. “What you got here, Jake?” one of them asked. “Looks to me like you done treed a girl dressed up in britches.”

“I don’t know what the hell it is, Red. But he shore talks funny.”

“Le’s see if he’ll fight, Shorty,” Jake said.

The three of them began pushing Smoke back and forth between them, roughing him up but doing no real physical damage; just bruising his dignity some. A crowd had gathered around, most of the men drinking, and they were getting a big laugh out of the sissy being shoved back and forth.

“Now, you all stop this immediately!” Smoke protested, putting a high note of fear into his voice. “I want you to stop this now…you hooligans!”

“Oh, my!” the outlaw called Red said, prancing around, one hand on his hip. “We hooligans, boys!”

Shorty reached out and, with a hard jerk, sent Smoke’s trousers down around his ankles. Red shoved Smoke, who hit the ground hard and stayed there.

“I guess Cahoon was right, Shorty,” Red said. “He ain’t got a bit of sand in him.” Then he turned and gave Smoke a vicious kick in the side, bringing a grunt of pain from him.

Forcing himself to do it, Smoke rolled himself up in a ball and hid his face in his hands. “Oh, don’t hurt me anymore. I can’t stand pain.”

The crowd laughed. “Hell, Jake,” Red said. “We wastin’ our time. Sissy-boy ain’t gonna fight.”

Not yet, Smoke thought.

“Le’s make him eat some horseshit!” Shorty suggested.

“Naw, I got a better idee. ’Sides, there ain’t fresh piles around. We done found out what we come to find out: He’s yeller.”

“That shore was funny the time we made that drummer eat a pile of it, though!”

Shorty then unbuttoned his pants and urinated on Smoke’s legs. The crowd fell silent; only Jake and Red thought that was funny.

Smoke’s thoughts were savage.

The three hardcases then left and the crowd broke up, with no one offering to help Smoke to his feet.

Smoke hauled up his britches, found his sketch pad, and brushed himself off, then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he walked across the plaza. As he passed by the sheriff and the U.S. Marshal, Smoke whispered, “I think I’m in.”

He stopped to brush dirt off his shirt.

“Picked a hard way to do it,” the sheriff said. “I’d a never been able to lay there and take that.”

“Let’s just say it’s going to be interesting when I come out of this costume,” Smoke whispered.

“We’ll be there,” Wilde whispered. “There is a packet for you in your room. Good luck.”

The packet contained a U.S. Marshal’s badge, his written federal commission, and a letter.

On the night of Smoke’s seventh day in Trinidad, two hours after dusk, unless Smoke could get a signal out to tell them differently, the U.S. Marshals, and various sheriffs and deputies from a four-county area, beefed up with volunteers from throughout the area, would strike at Dead River. They would begin getting into position just at dusk. It would be up to Smoke to take out the guards at the pass. Do it any way he saw fit.

And to Smoke’s surprise, the marshal had a plant inside Dead River, one that had been there for about six months.

A woman. Hope Farris.

It would be up to Smoke to contact her. The marshal had no way of knowing whether she was dead or alive; they had received no word from her in several months.

They feared she might have been taken prisoner. Or worse.

Good luck.

“Yeah,” Smoke muttered, burning the note in the cutoff tin can that served as an ashtray. “I am sure going to need that.”

He pulled out of Trinidad before dawn the next morning, after resupplying the night before. He headed west, avoiding the tiny settlements for the most part. But a threatening storm forced him to pull up and seek shelter in the small town of Stonewall.

And Stonewall was not a place Smoke cared to linger long. The town and the area around it was torn in a bitter war between cattlemen and the lumber industry on one side and the homesteaders on the other side, over grazing and lumber interests.

Smoke knew he would have to be very careful which saloon he entered that night, if any, for each side would have their own watering holes in this war. Finally he said to hell with having a drink and sketching anyone. He got him a room and stayed put.

He pulled out before daylight, before the café even opened, and made his way to Lost Lake. There he caught some trout for breakfast, broiling them. Looking around, far above the timberline, Smoke could see the tough and hardy alpine vegetation: kinnikinnick, creeping phlox, and stunted grass.

After a tasty breakfast and several cups of strong hot coffee, Smoke bathed quickly—very quickly—in the cold blue waters of Lost Lake.

Shivering, even though it was the middle of summer, he dressed and had one more cup of coffee. He was still a good three days hard ride from the outlaw town, but he wanted to sort out all his options, and considering where he was going, they were damn few.

And once again, the question entered his mind: Was he being a fool for doing this?

And the answer was still the same: yes, he was. But if he didn’t settle it now, it would just happen again and again, and with a child coming, Smoke did not want to run the risk of losing another family.

So it had to be settled now; there was no question about that.

And, if the truth be told—and Smoke was a truthful man—there was yet another reason for his challenging the seemingly impossible. He wanted to do it.

He followed an old Indian trail that cut between Cordova Pass to the east and Cucharas Pass to the west. He found what he hoped was White Wolf’s Ute camp and approached it cautiously. They seemed curious about this big strong-looking white man who dressed and behaved like a fool.

Smoke asked them if they would like to share his food in return for his spending the night. They agreed, and over the meal, he explained where he was going but not why.

The Ute chief, White Wolf, told him he was a silly man to even consider going into the outlaw town.

And Smoke could not understand the twinkle in the chief’s eyes.

He asked them what they could tell him about the town called Dead River.

Smoke was stunned when White Wolf said, “What does the adopted son of my brother Preacher wish to know about that evil place?”

When he again found his voice, Smoke said, “For one thing, how did you know I was not who I claimed to be, White Wolf?”

Dark eyes twinkling, the chief of the small band of Utes said, “Many things give you away, to us, but probably not to the white man. The white man looks at many things but sees little. Your hands are as hard as stones. And while you draw well, that is not what you are.”

Smoke did not offer to sketch the Indians, for many tribes believe it is not good medicine to have their pictures taken or their images recreated.

Smoke told them of his true plans.

They told him he was a very brave man, like Preacher.

“Few are as brave and noble as Preacher.”

“That is true,” White Wolf agreed. “And is my brother well?”

“Slim Dugas just told me that Preacher and a few other mountain men are well and living up near Montana.”

“Thank you. That is also truth. Preacher is living with the children of my sister, Woman-Who-Speaks-With-Soft-Voice. Because she married Preacher, the children are recognized as pure and are not called Apples.”

Red on the outside, white on the inside. Indians practiced their own form of discrimination.

“It is good to know they are true Human Beings.”

“As you are, Smoke Jensen.”

“Thank you. I have a joke for you.”

“A good laugh makes a good meal even better.”

“I was told that most people believe there is but one way in and one way out of Dead River.”

The Indians, including the squaws, all found that richly amusing. After the laughter, White Wolf said, “There are many ways in and out of that evil place. There are ways in and out that the white man have not now and never will know, not in our lifetime.”

Smoke agreed and finished his meal, belching loudly and patting his full belly. The Indians all belched loudly and smiled, the sign of a good meal. And the squaws were very pleased.

Smoke passed around several tobacco sacks, and the Indians packed small clay pipes and smoked in contentment. Smoke rolled a cigarette and joined them.

“You still have not told me how you knew I was the adopted son of Preacher, White Wolf.”

The chief thought on that for a moment. “If I told you that, Smoke, then you would know as much as I know, and I think that would not be a good thing for one as young as you.”

“It is true that too much knowledge, learned before one is ready, is not a good thing.”

White Wolf smiled and agreed.

Smoke waited. The chief would get to the matter of Dead River when he was damn good and ready.

White Wolf smoked his pipe down to coals and carefully tapped out the ashes, then handed the pipe to his woman. “It has been a fine game for us to slip up on the outlaw town and watch them. All without their knowing, of course,” he added proudly.

“Of course,” Smoke agreed. “Anyone who does not know the Ute is as brave as the bear, cunning as the wolf, and sharp-eyed as the eagle is ignorant.”

The braves all nodded their heads in agreement. This white man was no fool. But they all wished he would do something about his manner of dress.

“A plan has come to me, White Wolf. But it is a very dangerous plan, if you and your braves agree to it.”

“I am listening, Smoke.”

“I met with a man in Trinidad. I believe he can be trusted. He is a government man. His name is Jim Wilde.”

“I know this man Wilde,” White Wolf said. “He carries Indian blood in his veins. Co-manche from Texas place. He is to be trusted.”

“I think so, too. Could you get a message to him?”

“Does the wind sigh?”

Smoke smiled. Getting his sketch pad, he sketched the campfire scene, leaving the faces of the Utes blank but drawing himself whole. On the bottom of the sketch, he wrote a note to Wilde.

“If you agree to my plan, have this delivered to Wilde, White Wolf.”

“If we agree, it will be done. What is this thing that you have planned?”

“Times have not been good for you and your people.”

“They have been both good and bad.”

“Winter is not that far away.”

“It is closer tonight than it was last night, but not as close as it will be in the morning.”

“There are guns and much food and clothing and warm blankets in the outlaw town.”

“But not as many as in the town of Trinidad.”

“But the people of Trinidad are better than the people in Dead River.”

“A matter of opinion. But I see your point. I think that I also see what you have in mind.”

“If you agree, some of your people will surely die, White Wolf.”

“Far better to die fighting like a man than to grovel and beg for scraps of food from a nonperson.”

Only the Indians felt they were real people. Most whites had no soul. That is the best way they could find to explain it.

“I know some of how you feel. I do not think you want the buildings of the town.”

White Wolf made an obscene gesture. “I spit on the buildings of the outlaw town.”

“When the battle is over, you may do with them as you see fit.”

“Wait by the fire,” Smoke was told. “I will talk this over with my people.”

Smoke sat alone for more than an hour. Then White Wolf returned with his braves and they took their places.

“We have agreed to your plan, Smoke.”

They shook hands solemnly.

“Now it depends on the government man, Jim Wilde.”

“I will send a brave to see him at first light. Once he has agreed, then we will make our final plans.”

“Agreed.”

They once more stuffed their pipes and smoked, with no one talking.

White Wolf finally said, “There is a young squaw, Rising Star. She does not have a man. She is very hard to please. I have thought of beating her for her stubbornness. Do you want her to share your robes this night?”

“I am honored, White Wolf, but I have a woman and I am faithful to her only.”

“That is good. You are an honorable man.”

“I’ll pull out at first light. I’ll be camped at the head of Sangre de Cristo creek, waiting to hear from you.”

White Wolf smiled. “It will be interesting to see if the white men at the outlaw town die well.”

“I think they will not.”

“I think you are right,” White Wolf agreed.

8

Smoke angled down the slopes and onto the flats, then cut northwest, reaching his campsite by late afternoon. He made his camp and waited.

And waited.

It was three full days before a brave from White Wolf’s band made an appearance.

He handed Smoke a note, on U.S. Marshal’s stationery. Jim Wilde had agreed to the plan and complimented Smoke on enlisting the Utes.

He told the brave what the scratchings on the paper meant.

“Yes,” the brave said. “The Co-manche lawman told me the same thing. All the rest of your plan is to remain the same. Now I must return and tell him when you plan to enter the outlaw town.”

Smoke had calculated the distance; about a day and a half of riding over rough country. “Tell Wilde I will enter the town day after tomorrow, at late afternoon. Do you know a place near the town where you could hide some guns for me?”

The brave thought for a moment, and then smiled. “Yes. Behind the saloon with an ugly picture of a bucket on the front of it. The bucket is filled with what I think is supposed to be blood.”

“The bloody bucket?” Smoke guessed.

“Yes! Behind the little building where the men go to relieve themselves there is a rotting pile of lumber. I will put them under the lumber.”

“Good. What is your name?”

“Lone Eagle.”

“Be very careful, Lone Eagle. If you’re caught, you will die hard.”

The Ute nodded. “I know. The Co-manche lawman says that two hours after dark, on the seventh day of your entering the outlaw place, we shall attack. And White Wolf says that you need not worry about the guards. Concern yourself only with the town. It might take the main body of men an hour to fight their way to your location.”

“Tell White Wolf thank you. It will be a good coup for you all.”

The brave nodded. “The outlaws in the town have not been kind to my people. They have seized and raped some of our young girls. Twice, they have taken young braves and have been cruel beyond any reason. One they cut off his feet and left him to die, slowly. They called it sport. On the night of the seventh day, we shall have our sport with the outlaws.”

Smoke nodded, repeating what he had said to the chief, “They shall not die well, I am thinking.”

The Ute smiled, very unpleasantly. “We are counting on that.”

Then he was gone, back to his pony hidden in the deep timber.

The outlaws of Dead River had had their way for years, torturing, raping, robbing and looting, enslaving the innocent and ravaging the unsuspecting for several hundred miles, or more, in any direction. Now they were about to have the tables turned on them. And Smoke knew the more fortunate ones would die under his guns or the guns of the posse.

It would be very unpleasant for those taken alive by the Utes.

For the Utes knew ways of torture that would make the Spanish Inquisitioners green with envy. Dying well was an honor for the Indians, and if a prisoner died well, enduring hours and sometimes days of torture, they would sing songs about that person for years, praising his courage. That person who died well would not be forgotten.

The Indians had nothing but contempt for a man who begged and cried and died in dishonor.

They had their own code of honor and justice, and the whites had theirs. There were those who said the red man was nothing but a barbaric savage. But he had learned to scalp from the European white man. The Indians were different; but they would not steal from within their own tribe. The white man could not say that. War was a game to the Indians—until the white man entered the picture and began killing in war. For the Indians, for centuries, counting coup by striking with a club or stick was preferable to killing.

So it is very questionable who was the savage and who was the instructor in barbarism.

Smoke had lived with the Indians and, in many ways, preferred their lifestyle to the white ways. Smoke, as did nearly anyone who learned their ways, found the Indians to be honest, extremely gentle, and patient with their children or any captured children, of any color. The Indians lived a hard life in a hard land, so it was foolish to think their ways to be barbaric. They were, Smoke felt, just different.

Smoke felt nothing for the outlaws in the town. He knew the truth in the statement that whatever befalls a man, that man usually brought the bad onto himself. Every person comes, eventually, to a fork in the road. The direction that person takes comes from within, not from without, as many uninformed choose to believe when slavering pity on some criminal. The outlaw trail is one that a person can leave at any time; they are not chained to it.

An outlaw is, in many ways, like an ignorant person, who knows he is ignorant and is proud of it, enjoying wallowing in blind unenlightenment, knowing that he is is wrong but too lazy to climb the ladder of knowledge. Too inwardly slovenly to make the effort of reaching out and working to better himself.

To hell with them!

“It’s a different world for me,” Sally said, sitting in her parents’ fine home in New Hampshire. “And a world, I fear, that I no longer belong in.”

“What an odd thing to say, dear,” her mother said, looking up from her knitting.

Sally smiled, glancing at her. She shifted her gaze to her brothers and sisters and father, all of them seated in the elegant sitting room of the mansion. And all of them, including her father, not quite sure they believed anything Sally had told them about her husband, this seemingly wild man called Smoke.

“Odd, Mother? Oh, I think not. It’s just what a person wants; what that person becomes accustomed to, that’s all. You would consider our life hard; we just consider it living free.”

“Dear,” her father spoke, “I am sure you find it quite amusing to entertain us with your wild stories about the West and this…person you married. But really now, Sally, don’t you think it a bit much to ask us to believe all these wild yarns?”

“Wild yarns, Father?”

Jordan, Sally’s oldest brother, and a bore and stuffed shirt if there ever were one, took some snuff gentlemanly and said, “All that dribble-drabble about the wild West is just a bunch of flapdoodle as far as I’m concerned.”

Sally laughed at him. She had not, as yet, shown her family the many newspapers she had brought back to New Hampshire with her; but that time was not far off.

“Oh, Jordan! You’ll never change. And don’t ever come west to where I live. You wouldn’t last fifteen minutes before someone would slap you flat on your backside.”

Jordan scowled at her but kept his mouth closed.

For a change.

Sally said, “You’re all so safe and secure and comfortable here in Keene, in all your nice homes. If you had trouble, you’d shout for a constable to handle it. There must be more than a dozen police officers here in this town alone. Where I live in Colorado, there aren’t a dozen deputies within a two-thousand-square-mile radius.”

“I will accept that, Sally,” her father, John, said. “I have heard the horror stories about law and order in the West. But what amazes me is how you handle the business of law and order.”

“We handle it, Father, usually ourselves.”

“I don’t understand, Sally,” her sister Penny said. “Do you mean that where you live women are allowed to sit on juries?”

Sally laughed merrily. “No, you silly goose!” She kidded her sister. “Most of the time there isn’t even any trial.”

Her mother, Abigal, put her knitting aside and looked at her daughter. “Dear, now I’m confused. All civilized places have due process. Don’t you have due process where you live?”

“We damn sure do!” Sally shocked them all into silence with the cuss word.

Her mother began fanning herself vigorously. Her sisters momentarily swooned. Her brothers looked shocked, as did her brothers-in-law, Chris and Robert. Her father frowned.

“Whatever in the world do you mean, dear?” Abigal asked.

“Most of the time it’s from a Henry,” Sally attempted to explain, but only added to the confusion.

“Ah-hah!” John exclaimed. “Now we’re getting to it. This Henry person—he’s a judge, I gather.”

“No, a Henry is a rifle. Why, last year, when those TF riders roped and dragged Pearlie and then attacked the house, I knocked two of them out of the saddle from the front window of the house.”

“You struck two men?” Betsy asked, shocked. “While they were stealing your pearls?”

Sally sighed. “Pearlie is our foreman at the ranch. Some TF riders slung a loop on him and tried to drag him to death. And, hell, no, I didn’t strike them. When they attacked the house, I shot them!”

“Good Lord,” Chris blurted. “Where was your husband while this tragedy was unfolding?”

Sally thought about that. “Well, I think he was in Fontana, in the middle of a gunfight. I believe that’s where he was.”

They all looked at her as if she had suddenly grown horns and a tail.

Smiling, Sally reached into her bag and brought out a newspaper, a copy of Haywood’s paper, which detailed the incident at the Sugarloaf, where she and young Bob Colby had fought off the attackers.

“Incredible!” her father muttered. “My own daughter in a gunfight. And at the trial, dear, you were, of course, acquitted, were you not?”

Sally laughed and shook her head. They still did not understand. “Father, there was no trial.”

“An inquest, then?” John asked hopefully, leaning forward in his chair.

Sally shook her head. “No, we just hauled off the bodies and buried them on the range.”

John blinked. He was speechless. And for an attorney, as he and his sons were, that was tantamount to a phenomenon.

“Hauled off the…bodies,” Robert spoke slowly. “How utterly grotesque.”

“What would you have us do?” Sally asked him. “Leave them in the front yard? They would have attracted coyotes and wolves and buzzards. And smelled bad, too.” Might as well have a little fun with them, she concluded.

Robert turned an ill-looking shade of green.

And Sally was shocked to find herself thinking: what a lily-livered bunch of pansies.

Abigal covered her mouth with a handkerchief.

“Did the sheriff even come out to the house?” Walter inquired.

“No. If he had, we’d have shot him. At that time, he was in Tilden Franklin’s pocket.”

John sighed with a parent’s patience.

Penny was reading another copy of Haywood’s newspaper. “My God!” she suddenly shrieked in horror. “According to this account, there were ten people shot down in the streets of Fontana in one week.”

“Yes, Sister. Fontana was rather a rowdy place until Smoke and the gunfighters cleaned it up. You’ve heard of Louis Longmont, Father?”

He nodded numbly, not trusting his voice to speak. He wondered if, twenty-odd years ago, the doctor had handed him the wrong baby. Sally had always been a bit…well, free-spirited.

“Louis was there, his hands full of Colts.”

Sally’s nieces and nephews were standing in the arch-way, listening, their mouths open in fascination. This was stuff you only read about in the dime novels. But Aunt Sally—and this was the first time most of them could remember seeing her—had actually lived it! This was exciting stuff.

Sally grinned, knowing she had a captive audience. “There was Charlie Starr, Luke Nations, Dan Greentree, Leo Wood, Cary Webb, Pistol LeRoux, Bill Foley, Sunset Hatfield, Toot Tooner, Sutter Cordova, Red Shingletown, Bill Flagler, Ol’ Buttermilk, Jay Church, The Apache Kid, Silver Jim, Dad Weaver, Hardrock, Linch—they all stayed at our ranch, the Sugarloaf. They were really very nice gentlemen. Courtly in manner.”

“But those men you just named!” Jordan said, his voice filled with shock and indignation. “I’ve read about them all. They’re killers!”

“No, Jordan,” Sally tried to patiently explain, all the while knowing that he, and the rest of her family, would never truly understand. “They’re gunfighters. Like my Smoke. A gunfighter. They have killed, yes; but always because they were pushed into it, or they killed for right and reason and law and order.”

“Killed for right and reason,” John muttered. His attorney’s mind was having a most difficult time comprehending that last bit.

Abigal looked like she might, at any moment, fall over from a case of the vapors. “And…your husband, this Smoke person, he’s killed men?”

“Oh, yes. About a hundred or so. That’s not counting Indians on the warpath. But not very many of them. You see, Smoke was raised by the mountain man, Preacher. And we get along well with the Indians.”

“Preacher,” John murmured. “The most famous, or infamous, mountain man of the West.”

“That’s him!” Sally said cheerfully. “And,” she pulled an old wanted poster out of her bag and passed it over to her father, “that’s my Smoke. Handsome, isn’t he?”

Under the drawing of Smoke’s likeness, was the lettering:

WANTED

DEAD OR ALIVE

THE OUTLAW AND MURDERER

SMOKE JENSEN

$10,000.00 REWARD

“Ye, Gods!” her father yelled, “the man is wanted by the authorities!”

Sally laughed at his expression. “No, Father, That was a put-up job. Smoke is not wanted by the law. He never has been on the dodge.”

“Thank God for small favors.” John wiped his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

Walter said, “And your husband has killed a hundred men, you say?”

“Well, thereabouts, yes. But they were all fair fights.”

The kids slipped away into the foyer and silently opened the front door, stepping out onto the large porch. Then they were racing away to tell all their friends that their uncle, Smoke Jensen, the most famous gunfighter in all the world, was coming to Keene for a visit.

Really!

Sally passed around the newspapers she had saved over the months, from both Fontana and Big Rock. The family read them, disbelief in their eyes.

“Monte Carson is your sheriff?” John questioned. “But I have seen legal papers that stated he was a notorious gunfighter.”

“He was. But he wasn’t an outlaw. And Johnny North is now a farmer/rancher and one of our neighbors and close friends.”

They had all heard of Johnny North. He was almost as famous as Smoke Jensen.

“Louis Longmont is a man of great wealth,” Jordan muttered, reading a paper. “His holdings are quite vast. Newspaper, hotels, a casino in Europe, and a major stockholder in a railroad.”

“He’s also a famous gunfighter and gambler,” Sally informed them all. “And a highly educated man and quite the gentleman.”

Shaking his head, John laid the paper aside. “When is your husband coming out for a visit, Sally?”

“As soon as he finishes with his work.”

“His work being with his guns.” It was not put as a question.

“That is correct. Why do you ask, Father?”

“I’m just wondering if I should alert the governor so he can call out the militia!”

9

On the morning he set out for Dead River, Smoke dressed in his most outlandish clothing. He even found a long hawk feather and stuck that in his silly cap. He knew he would probably be searched once inside, or maybe outside the outlaw town, and what to do with his short-barreled .44 worried him. He finally decided to roll it up in some dirty longhandles and stick it in his dirty clothes bag, storing it in his pack. He was reasonably sure it would go undetected there. It was the best idea he could come up with.

He adjusted the bonnets on Drifter and his packhorse, with Drifter giving him a look that promised trouble if this crap went on much longer. Smoke swung into the saddle, pointing Drifter’s nose north. A few more miles and he would cut west, into the Sangre de Cristo range and into the unknown.

About two hours later, he sensed unfriendly eyes watching him as he rode. He made no effort to search out his watchers, for a foppish gent from back east would not have developed that sixth sense. But White Wolf had told him that there were guards all along the trail, long before one ever reached the road that would take him to Dead River.

Smoke rode on, singing at the top of his lungs, stopping occasionally to admire the beautiful scenery and to make a quick sketch. To ooh and aah at some spectacular wonder of nature. He was just about oohed and aahed out, and Drifter looked like he was about ready to throw Smoke and stomp on him, when he came to a road. He had no idea what to expect, but this startled him with its openness.

A sign with an arrow pointing west, and under the arrow: DEAD RIVER. Under that: IF YOU DON’T HAVE BUSINESS IN DEAD RIVER, STAY OUT!

Smoke dismounted and looked around him. There was no sign of life. Raising his voice, he called, “I say! Yoo, hoo! Oh, yoo hoo! Is anyone there who might possibly assist me?”

Drifter swung his big bonneted head around and looked at Smoke through those cold yellow eyes. Eyes that seemed to say: Have you lost your damn mind!

“Just bear with me, boy,” Smoke muttered. “It won’t be long now. I promise you.”

Drifter tried to step on his foot.

Smoke mounted up and rode on. He had huge mountains on either side of him. To the north, one reared up over fourteen thousand feet. To the south, the towering peaks rammed into the sky more than thirteen thousand feet, snow-capped year-round.

The road he was on twisted and climbed and narrowed dramatically.

The road was just wide enough for a wagon and maybe a horse to meet it, coming from the other direction. Another wagon, and somebody would have to give. But where? Then Smoke began to notice yellow flags every few hundred yards. A signal for wagon masters, he supposed, but whether they meant stop or go, he had no idea.

He had ridden a couple of miles, always west and always climbing, when a voice stopped him.

“Just hold it right there, fancy-pants. And keep your hands where I can see them. You get itchy, and I’ll blow your butt out of the saddle.”

Smoke reined up. Putting fear into his voice, he called, “I mean you no harm. I am Shirley DeBeers, the artist.”

“What you gonna be is dead if you don’t shut that goddamn mouth.”

Smoke shut up.

The faint sounds of mumbling voices reached him, but he could not make out the words.

“All right, fancy-britches,” the same voice called out. “Git off that horse and stand still.”

Smoke dismounted and stood in the roadway. Then he heard the sounds of bootsteps all around him: There was Hart, the backshooter; Gridley, who murdered his best friend and partner, and then raped and killed the man’s wife; Nappy, a killer for hire. There were others, but Smoke did not immediately recognize them, except for the fact that they were hardcases.

“Take off that coat,” he was ordered, “and toss it to me. Frisk ’im, Nappy.”

Smoke was searched and searched professionally; even his boots were removed and inspected. His pack ropes were untied and his belongings dumped in the middle of the road.

“Oh, I say now! Is that necessary, gentlemen?”

“Shut up!”

Smoke shut up.

His belongings were inspected, but his bag of dirty underwear was tossed to one side after only a glance. Luckily the bag landed on a pile of clean clothes and the weight of the .44 did not make a sound.

So far, so good, Smoke thought.

Finally, the search was over and the men stared at him for a moment. One said, “I reckon Cahoon and them others was right. He ain’t got nothing but a pocket knife. And it’s dull.”

“Is my good friend Cahoon in town? Oh, I hope so. He’s such a nice man.”

“Shut your mouth!”

“What about it, Hart?”

“I reckon some of us can take silly-boy on in.”

“I say,” Smoke looked around him at the mess in the road. “Are some of you good fellows going to help me gather up and repack my possessions?”

The outlaws thought that was very funny. They told him in very blunt language that they were not. And to make their point better understood, one of them kicked Smoke in the butt. Smoke yelled and fell to the ground. Drifter swung his head and his yellow eyes were killer-cold. Smoke quickly crawled to the horse and grabbed a stirrup, using that to help pull himself up, all the while murmuring to Drifter, calming him.

Rubbing his butt, Smoke faced the outlaws. “You don’t have to be so rough!”

“Oh, my goodness!” Gridley cried, prancing about to the laughter of the others. “We hurt his feelin’s, boys. We got to stop bein’ so rough!”

And right then and there, Smoke began to wonder if he would be able to last a week.

He calmed himself and waved his hand at his pile of belongings. “I say, as you men can see from your trashing of my possessions, I am low on supplies. Might I be allowed to continue on to Dead River and resupply?” He had left most of his supplies at the head of the Sangre de Cristo creek.

“Cahoon was supposed to have given you a note,” a man said. A hardcase Smoke did not know. “Lemme see the note, sissy-pants.”

“I am not a sissy! I am merely a man of great sensibilities.”

“Gimme the goddamn note!”

The note was handed over and passed around.

“That’s Cahoon’s writin’ all right. What about it, Hart, it’s up to you?”

“Yeah, let him go on in. He can draw us all, and then we’ll have some fun with him.”

Smoke caught the wink.

“Yeah. That’s a good idee. And I know just the person to give him to.”

“Who?” Nappy asked.

“Brute!”

That drew quite a laugh and narrowed Smoke’s eyes. He had heard of Brute Pitman. A huge man, three hundred pounds or more of savage perversions. He was wanted all over the eastern half of the nation for the most disgusting crimes against humanity. But oddly enough, Smoke had never heard of a warrant against him west of the Mississippi River. Bounty hunters had tried to take him, but Brute was hard to kill.

It was rumored that Brute had preyed on the miners in the gold camps for years, stashing away a fortune. And he had lived in Dead River for a long time, keeping mostly to himself.

But, Smoke thought, if these cruds think Brute is going to have his way with me, I’ll start this dance with or without the rest of the band.

Smoke looked from outlaw to outlaw. “This Brute fellow sounds absolutely fascinating!”

The outlaws laughed.

“Oh, he is, sweetie,” Hart told him. “You two gonna get along just fine, I’m thinkin’.”

Uh-huh, Smoke thought. We’ll get along until I stick a .44 down his throat and doctor his innards with lead.

“Oh, I’m so excited!” Smoke cried. “May we proceed onward?”

“Son of a bitch shore talks funny!” Gridley grumbled.

Smoke had killed his first man back on the plains, back when he was fifteen or sixteen; he wasn’t quite sure. And he had killed many times since then. But as accustomed as he was to the sights of brutality, he had to struggle to keep his lunch down when they passed by a line of poles and platforms and wooden crosses sunk into the ground. Men and women in various stages of death and dying were nailed to the crosses; some were hung from chains by their ankles and left to rot; some had been horse-whipped until their flesh hung in strips, and they had been left to slowly die under the sun.

Smoke had never seen anything like it in his life. He did not have to force the gasp of horror that escaped from his lips. He turned his face away from the sight.

The outlaws thought it was funny, Hart saying, “That’s what happens to people who try to cross the boss, Shirley. Or to people who come in here pretendin’ to be something they ain’t.”

Gridley pointed to a woman, blackened in rotting death, hanging by chains. “She was a slave who tried to escape. Keep that in mind, sissy-boy.”

“How hideous!” Smoke found his voice. “What kind of place is this?”

“He really don’t know,” Nappy said with a laugh. “The silly sod really don’t know. Boy, are we gonna have some fun with this dude.”

“I don’t wish to stay here!” Smoke said, putting fear and panic in his voice. “This place is disgusting!” He tried to turn Drifter.

The outlaws escorting him boxed him in, none of them noticing the firm grip Smoke held on Drifter’s reins, steadying the killer horse, preventing him from rearing up and crushing a skull or breaking a back with his steel-shod hooves.

The bonnet had worked in disguising Drifter for what he really was. Worked, so far.

“You just hold on, fancy-pants,” Hart told him. “You wanted to come in here, remember?”

“But now I want to leave! I want to leave right this instant!”

“Sorry, sweets. You’re here to stay.”

Jim Wilde looked at the late afternoon sunlight outside his office window. He sighed and returned to his chair. “He ought to be in there by now. God have mercy on his soul; I guess I got to say it.”

“Yeah,” Sheriff Mike Larsen agreed. “He’s got more guts than I got, and I’ll stand out in the middle of the damn street and admit that.”

Jim sipped his coffee. “You told your boys not a word about this to anybody, right?”

“Damn well bet I did. I told ’em if they even thought hard on it, I’d catch the vibrations and lock ’em up.”

And the marshal knew the sheriff would do just that. Mike ran a good solid straight office in a tough town.

“You got the final tally sheet of all that’s goin’ in, Mike?”

“Yep. The boys is gearin’ up now. Quietly. Three sheriffs, including myself. Twenty regular deputies. Twenty volunteers—all of them top riders and good with short gun and rifle—and you and ten marshals.”

“The other marshals will be comin’ in by train two at a time, staring tomorrow at noon. They’re goin’ to stay low. I just wish we had some way of findin’ out how many hardcases we’re gonna be up against.”

“I think that’s impossible, Jim. But if I had to make a guess on it…I’d say two hundred at the low end. We all gonna tie a white handkerchief on our left arm so’s the Injuns won’t mistake us for outlaws…that is still the plan, ain’t it?”

“Yeah. Best I can come up with. I’ve already contracted for horses to be stashed along the way. So when we start ridin’, we ain’t gonna stop until it’s over and done with. One way or the other,” he added grimly.

Mike Larsen chose not to elaborate on that last bit. He would tell his wife only at the last moment, just before he stepped into the saddle. It was not a job he looked forward to doing, but he knew it was a job that had to be done. “Where you got the horses?”

“We’ll switch to fresh at Spanish Peaks, then again at La Veta Pass. The last stop will be at Red Davis’s place. I ain’t gonna kill no good horse on that final run. Most of that is gonna be uphill.”

Both men knew the fastest way to tire a horse was riding uphill.

“Red is givin’ us the best of his line and wanted to go in with us. I thanked him but told him no. Told him he was doin’ enough by loanin’ us fresh horses.”

“He’s a tough old man. But you was right in refusin’ him. You think he took offense?”

“No. He understands. White Wolf says he’ll have at least thirty braves around that town when Jensen opens the dance. And Jensen is goin’ to start the music as soon as White Wolf signals him that we’ve left the trail and entered the pass. White Wolf says the guards along the road will be taken care of. Them Utes ain’t got no use for anybody in Dead River. And I told the boys that volunteered that the reward money will be split up amongst ’em.”

“That’s good, but I don’t like Smoke openin’ the show by hisself.” Larsen frowned. “We’re gonna be a good forty-five minutes of hard ridin’ away from the town when he starts draggin’ iron and lettin’ it bang.”

“I know it. But he was by hisself when he met them ol’ boys up there on the Uncompahgre. And he killed ever’ damn one of them.”

“Yep,” the sheriff agreed. “He damn shore did that, didn’t he?”

“Unhand me, you beast!” Smoke shrilled his protest, struggling against the hands that held him in front of the saloon.

“My, my.” A man stepped out of the Bloody Bucket and onto the boardwalk. “What manner of creature do we have here, boys?”*

“It’s that sissy-boy that draws them pitchers, Mr. Davidson. The one that Cahoon told us about.”

“Where is my friend, Cahoon?” Smoke asked.

No one from the gathering crowd of thugs and hardcases replied.

“Well, well,” Davidson said with a smile, his eyes taking in Smoke’s outlandish dress. “So it is. And how do you like our little town, Mr. DeBeers?”

“I think it is appalling and disgusting and most offensive. And I do not like being manhandled by thugs. Tell your henchmen to unhand me this instant!”

Rex Davidson stepped from the boardwalk, faced Smoke and then backhanded him viciously across the face. He slapped him again. Smoke allowed his knees to buckle and he slumped to the ground, whimpering.

“You, silly boy,” Rex said, standing over Smoke, “do not give me orders. Around here, I give the orders, and you obey. I say who lives and dies, and who comes and goes. Do you understand that, Shirley?”

“Yes, sir,” Smoke gasped. The blows from Davidson had hurt. The man was no lightweight; he was big and muscled. Smoke decided to remain on the ground, on his hands and knees, until ordered to rise.

“Here, silly-boy,” Rex continued, “I am king. You are nothing. However, if I decide you may live—and that is a big if—I might elect to make you my court jester. Would you like that, silly-boy?”

“Yes, sir.” Until I shed this costume and put lead in you, you overbearing jackass!

King Rex kicked Smoke in the belly, knocking him flat on the ground. “When you address me, silly-boy, you will address me as Your Majesty. Now, say it, you foppish-looking fool!”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” and Smoke knew it was going to take a miracle for him to last out the entire seven days. Maybe two or three miracles.

“That’s better, Jester. Some of you men get this fool on his feet and drag him inside the saloon. I wish to talk with him about doing my portrait.”

Smoke started to tell him that he didn’t do portraits, then decided it would be best if he’d just keep his mouth shut for the moment. He let the hardcases drag him to his feet and shove him up the steps, onto the boardwalk, and through the batwings. And it was all done with a lot of unnecessary roughness and very crude language.

What the hell did you expect, Jensen? Smoke silently questioned. A tea party?

The saloon—and from what Smoke had been able to glean, the only one in town—was a huge affair, capable of seating several hundred people. There was a large stage on one end of the building. The stage had red velvet curtains. Smoke wondered who did the acting and singing.

He was shoved roughly into a chair and then, looking up, got his first good look at Rex Davidson.

The man was a handsome rascal, no doubt about that. And a big man, in his mid-forties, Smoke guessed, solid, with heavily muscled arms and shoulders, thick wrists. Big hands. His eyes were cruel but not tinged with any sign of madness that Smoke could readily detect.

Rex leaned against the polished bar and smiled at Smoke; but the smile did not reach the man’s eyes. “Talk to me, Jester.”

“About what, Your Majesty?” Smoke promptly responded as instructed.

“Good, good!” Rex shouted to the hardcases gathered in the saloon. “You all see how quickly he learns? I think this one will do just fine. Oh, my, yes. Where are you from, Jester?”

“I am originally from Pennsylvania, Your Majesty.”

“What city?”

“I am not from a city, Your Majesty.”

“Oh? You certainly don’t speak like a hick.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” You royal pain in the ass! “I was born on a small farm. Both my mother and father were highly educated people. They taught us at home.” And I’m going to teach you a thing or two, King Jackass! “There were no schools nearby.”

“Thank you, Jester. And where did you learn to draw, Jester?”

“I suppose I was born with the talent, Your Majesty.” Just like I was born good with a gun, which you shall certainly get the chance to see…briefly. “My brother, Maurice, has the ability to write quite eloquently.”

“Ah, yes, Maurice. Did you tell Cahoon that this Maurice person had stopped by here?”

“That is what he wrote and told me. But I have no way of knowing if he did stop or not. Maurice, ah, tends to story a bit.”

“I see. In other words, he’s nothing more than a goddamned liar?”

“Ah, yes, Your Majesty.”

“Where is he now, Jester?”

“I have no idea, Your Majesty.”

“I see. Does he look like you, Jester?”

“No, Your Majesty. Maurice was adopted, you see. While my hair is—”

Rex waved him silent as a man carrying a tray of drinks stumbled and went crashing to the floor. The glasses shattered and the smell of raw whiskey and beer filled the huge room.

“Incompetent fool!” Rex yelled at the fallen man.

“I’m sorry, sir. It was an accident.”

“Your services will no longer be needed here, idiot.”

The man tried to crawl to his feet just as Rex pulled out a .44. “I cannot tolerate clumsiness.” He eased back the hammer and shot the man in the chest, knocking him back to the floor. The man began screaming in pain. Rex calmly shot him in the head. The screaming stopped.

Smoke watched it all, then remembered to put a shocked look on his face. Just in time, for Rex had cut his eyes and was watching Smoke carefully.

“Oh, my goodness!” Smoke gasped, putting a hand over his mouth. “That poor fellow.”

“Drag him out of here and sprinkle some sawdust over the blood spots,” Rex ordered. He punched out the empty brass in the cylinder and replaced the spent cartridges, then cut his eyes to Smoke. “Life is the cheapest commodity on the market around here, Jester. Bear that in mind at all times. Now then, how long were you planning on staying in my town?”

“My original plans were to spend about a week, sketching the scenery, which I was told was lovely. Then I was going to resupply and move on.”

“A week, hey?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Give me all your money.”

“Sir?”

King Rex slapped Smoke out of the chair. And as he hit the floor, Smoke was really beginning to question his own sanity for getting himself into this snakepit. And wondering if he were going to get out of it alive.

Smoke was jerked up from the floor and slammed into his chair. The side of his face ached and he tasted blood in his mouth. And if Rex, king of Dead River, could just read Smoke’s thoughts…

“Never, never question me, Jester,” Rex told him. “You will obey instantly, or you will die. Very slowly and very painfully. Do you understand me, Jester?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Just don’t hurt me. I can’t stand pain. It makes me ill.”