CHAPTER 3
“Preacher!” Smoke exclaimed. “You sure know how to show up at the right time.”
“Always have,” Preacher said, still grinning. “Might should've showed up a few minutes earlier, though, since you only left one of the varmints for me to kill. Heard the shots as we was ridin' in. Sounded like a right smart fracas. How come you was killin' 'em?”
“They tried to rob the bank,” Smoke explained.
Preacher nodded. “Thought it might've been somethin' like that when I saw all them greenbacks scattered around.”
Preacher's companion galloped up, threw himself out of the saddle, bounded onto the boardwalk, and swung a fist that crashed into the jaw of the lone surviving outlaw, who had pulled himself up onto his knees and was trying to lift his gun with a trembling hand. The young owlhoot went over backward, knocked cold by the powerful blow.
“While you two were flapping your gums, that varmint was about to shoot Preacher in the back,” Matt Jensen said, looking exasperated.
“No, he wasn't,” Preacher replied. “I figured you'd take care of him, Matt.”
With a shake of his head, Matt asked, “What if I hadn't been paying attention?”
“I knew you would be,” Preacher said simply. “Smoke and me taught you well enough.”
“Well, I suppose that's true,” Matt said with a shrug.
He was the tallest of the three men, a fair-haired, handsome youngster in a black Stetson and a faded-blue bib-front shirt. Most women naturally took a liking to Matt Jensen, and he returned the feeling.
With troublemakers, it was different. Matt carried a holstered Colt .44 double-action revolver on his right hip, and a Bowie knife was sheathed on his left. He didn't hesitate to use the weapons when he needed to, and he was almost as fast and deadly with a gun as his adopted older brother Smoke.
As Smoke thumbed fresh cartridges into his Colt to replace the ones he had fired, he said, “We're much obliged to both of you for your help, aren't we, Monte?”
“We sure are,” Big Rock's sheriff agreed. He was reloading, too. As he snapped the cylinder of his gun closed, he went on, “I'd better check on the rest of those varmints and make sure they're all dead. Gonna be wounded in the bank who need tending to as well, I'll bet.”
“Why don't you go see about that?” Smoke suggested. “Preacher and Matt and I will take care of the chores out here.”
Monte nodded and said, “Thanks.” He hurried into the bank, which was ominously quiet.
Smoke and Matt went quickly from body to body, checking for signs of life. The young outlaw Matt had knocked out was the only one of the bank robbers still alive. He was wounded in the left leg and had lost quite a bit of blood, but Smoke thought he would probably live.
He rolled the unconscious outlaw onto his belly, pulled the man's arms behind his back, and used the outlaw's own belt to lash his wrists together for the time being. That way if he came to, he wouldn't be able to cause a problem.
Dr. Hiram Simpson, the local sawbones, came running from his office and joined several other townspeople in crowding into the bank to see what they could do to help. Monte Carson emerged from the building a few minutes later, his features pale and drawn.
“It's pretty bad in there,” he told Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “Jasper Davenport, who just took over running the bank, is dead. Didn't even make it in the job for a month before those blasted outlaws gunned him down. Mitchell Byrd's dead, too, and Elaine Harris is wounded. Got a dead outlaw in there with most of his face shot off. I reckon that's probably what started the battle. Appears that Mitch got his hands on a gun and shot the desperado.”
Smoke trusted Monte's assessment of the situation. He asked, “Does it look like Miz Harris will make it?”
“The doc didn't say,” Monte replied with a shake of his head.
Smoke pointed a thumb at the unconscious outlaw.
“Well, when he's through in there, this fella's going to need some attention. Matt and I can go ahead and haul him over to the jail for you if you want, though.”
Monte nodded and said, “That'd sure be giving me a hand. I'm obliged to you boys.”
“Get his feet, Matt,” Smoke said.
Smoke and Matt were both very strong, so they didn't have any trouble lifting the bank robber and toting him down the street to the sturdy building that housed Monte Carson's office and Big Rock's jail. All the cells were empty at the moment, so they carried the man into the one nearest the cell block door and placed him on the bunk. As soon as they had stepped out, Monte swung the barred door shut, closing it solidly.
Preacher had followed them into the sheriff's office.
“Beats me why you don't just let the rapscallion bleed to death,” he commented when Smoke, Matt, and Monte left the cell block. “Saves the bother and expense of a trial and a hangin'.”
“That's not the way the law works, Preacher,” Monte said. “It's mighty good to see you again, by the way. You, too, Matt.”
“It's good to be here,” Matt said. “It's been too long since the three of us have gotten together.”
Monte asked, “You fellas want some coffee?”
“I figure we'll go over to the café and have some lunch before we head out to Sugarloaf,” Smoke said. “So no thanks to the coffee, but we're obliged for the offer. Were you able to find out what happened inside the bank, Monte?”
The sheriff nodded.
“There were a couple of customers who didn't get hit when the bullets started flying, and the other teller, Fred Reeves, was all right, too. They all hit the dirt, or the floor, rather, when the shooting started. Seems the outlaw who was still inside the bank tried to molest Mrs. Harris. Mitch Byrd had a Colt Lightning on the shelf under his counter. He grabbed it and shot the owlhoot, but that set off the others. I reckon it's only pure luck that it wasn't an even bigger massacre in there.”
Smoke shook his head regretfully.
“It's too bad we weren't able to save more of the citizens,” he said. “But at least the gang didn't get away.”
“Did you recognize any of the bank robbers, Monte?” Matt asked.
“A couple of them looked familiar to me,” the lawman said. “I must've seen their pictures on reward dodgers. I've got a big pile of those posters in the desk. I'll go through them later and see if I can match up any names with the faces. Could be you and Preacher have some rewards coming, Smoke.”
The old mountain man snorted disdainfully.
“I don't care about no dadblamed ree-ward,” he said. “I've had fortunes come an' go through my fingers so many times over the years, money don't mean nothin' to me as long as I've got enough for a meal and a snort o' whiskey now and then.”
“And Sugarloaf's doing just fine,” Smoke put in, “turning a profit every year, and I expect that to keep up as long as we don't have a bad drought. Maybe Matt should claim the rewards.”
“Me?” Matt exclaimed. “I didn't do anything except wallop one of them.”
“Those wanted posters all say dead or alive,” Monte pointed out. “You ought to at least get paid for the one you laid out, Matt. I'll look into it.”
“All right,” Matt said, “but I didn't do it for the money. I was just trying to save Preacher's scrawny old hide.”
“I told you, I knowed he was back thereâ”
Smoke cut in on the old-timer's protest.
“Come on, let's get something to eat, and then we'll head for the ranch.”
They were about to leave the sheriff's office when the door opened and Dr. Simpson came in.
Smoke paused long enough to ask, “How's Miz Harris doing, Doc?”
“I think there's a good chance she'll pull through,” Simpson replied. “She was wounded in the arm and the hip. The arm wound should heal cleanly. The injury to her hip may result in her having a permanent limp. It's too soon to say. She's been taken down to my house, and my nurse is looking after her.” The sawbones turned to Monte Carson. “I was told you have a wounded prisoner here, Sheriff.”
“Sure do,” Monte agreed. “I'll take you back to his cell.” He raised a hand in farewell to Smoke, Matt, and Preacher. “See you boys later.”
When they were on the boardwalk outside, Matt chuckled and said, “Sheriff Carson must be having trouble with his eyes if he called you a boy, Preacher.”
“I reckon so,” the old mountain man agreed, “since he didn't notice you was a snot-nosed, wet-behind-the-ears kid, neither.”
Smoke grinned and said, “Come on, you two. You can continue this squabble after we've had a surroundin'.”
They walked across the street to the café. A crowd was still gathered around the bank. Smoke supposed that the surviving teller was running things for now.
The café was doing a brisk business since it was the middle of the day, and most of the people in there were talking excitedly about the attempted bank robbery and the resulting shoot-out.
Smoke ignored the curious looks the townspeople cast at him and his companions. He had long since gotten used to being gawked at, especially when some trouble had broken out and he'd been in the middle of it.
The three of them sat at a table covered with a blue-checked cloth and ordered meals consisting of roast beef, potatoes, greens, biscuits, and deep dish apple pie.
“And keep the coffee comin',” Preacher told the smiling waitress, who promised to do so.
“How's Sally doing?” Matt asked while they were waiting for their food.
“She's fine,” Smoke said. “Anxious to see you fellas again, I expect.”
Preacher said, “How about them hands of your'n?”
“Cal and Pearlie?” Smoke grinned. “As quarrelsome as ever. They wouldn't know what to do if they weren't squabbling.”
In that respect, Smoke's foreman Pearlie and the young ranch hand Calvin Woods reminded him of a couple of other hombres, namely Preacher and Matt.
“We saw something interesting while we were riding up here,” Matt said. “Did you know there's a wagon train headed in this direction, Smoke?”
The grin on Smoke's face was replaced by a puzzled expression.
“This is the first I've heard of it,” he said.
“I saw dozens of wagon trains when I was a younger man,” Preacher said. “Maybe a hundred or more. Traveled with a few of'em, too. Them pilgrims wasn't always the smartest folks when it came to gettin' along on the frontier, but they was determined to build new lives for themselves, I'll give 'em that much. Shoot, I guess ever'body was a greenhorn once.”
Matt said, “I thought you didn't like all the immigrants who moved west. You said they civilized places too much and changed everything from the way it was back in the Shining Times.”
“Well, that's true,” Preacher said. “They did, and I ain't overfond of that so-called civilization they brung with 'em. But you can't stop things from changin'. It'll happen while you ain't even lookin'.”
Smoke asked, “You didn't talk to the people with the wagon train, did you?”
“Nope,” Preacher said. “We just waved at 'em and went on our way.”
Matt said, “Why do you ask, Smoke?”
With a shrug, Smoke replied, “I was just curious where they're bound, that's all. I'm not aware of any land around here being opened recently for settlement.”
Some of the Sugarloaf stock grazed on open range, but Smoke knew that concept was dying out in the West. More and more land was being claimed officially, instead of just being there for anybody who wanted to use it. The day was coming, he knew, when cattlemen would have to file claims for the range they were using and fence it in. He didn't like the thought of it, but like Preacher said, things changed whether a fella wanted them to or not.
“I wouldn't worry about that wagon train,” Matt said. “Chances are it's headed for somewhere north of here. Wyoming, maybe, or even Montana.”
“You're probably right,” Smoke said. He saw the waitress carrying a tray loaded down with food toward their table and put the subject out of his thoughts with the casual comment, “Anyway, those immigrants don't have anything to do with us.”