William W. Johnstone (6 page)

“I say we take him as a group, “Wills said. "Winner take it all.”

“Here and now?” Shorty asked, doubt in his voice. “Standin’ up and lookin’ at him?”

“Hell, no! We’ll ambush him. But we’re gonna wait. The ante is sure to go up as Jensen puts more and more punk gunslingers into the ground. We’ll just lay back and let them reputation-huntin’ gunhands get kilt. Then we’ll make our move.”

Smoke sat at a table by a window, eating his meal, and watched the bounty hunters ride out of town, heading west. The move was not unexpected and didn’t fool him one bit. He’d bet a sack of gold nuggets that Wills and his bunch would get a couple of miles out of town and then swing around and double back, try to get ahead of him and maybe set up an ambush. For sure they were going to head east where the trouble was, and the blood money was waiting for the man or men who killed Smoke Jensen.

Right then and there, over his apple pie and third cup of coffee—for Smoke was a coffee-drinking man—he made up his mind that he was in this fracus to stay, come Hell, Jud Vale, or that hot-eyed Doreen.

Smoke Jensen just did not like to be pushed.

Smoke left before dawn the following morning. He rode straight south out of town and did not turn east until he
came to a canyon very close to the Utah line. He built a hat-sized fire and cooked his supper, then mounted up and rode until dusk before finding a place to bed down for the night. The bounty hunters might find him, but Smoke was going to make it as difficult as possible for them.

He was back in the saddle again before dawn, and did not stop to boil coffee until the sun had bubbled its way up into the sky and he’d found a place that was easily defended.

He crossed the Wasatch Range and pointed Dagger’s nose north, keeping on the west side of Bear Lake. He was on home range by late afternoon.

“Any trouble?” Cheyenne asked in the barn.

“None. But I did run into four bounty hunters.”

“More than that drifted in the last couple of days. And Jud Vale is hirin’ moreguns. I think the no-count is gonna hit the herd and to hell with whether the boys gits hurt.”

Smoke smiled. At the wire office he had sent and received more than one telegraph. He handed a copy to Cheyenne. The man read it and his leathery face crinkled in a smile.

Received your wire stop Would be delighted to accompany the boys on a cattle drive stop Expect me at the ranch in three days stop.

It was signed by the editor of the Montpelier paper.

“Tomorrow morning, I’ll ride over to the trading post and tack this to the wall.” Smoke said. “Jud will have it in his hands within hours. Then we’ll see how he reacts to this news.”

“Son of a bitch!” Jud shouted. Then he tore the wire to small bits, flinging the paper to the floor and kicking at the shreds. “Damn that Smoke Jensen to Hell!”

“This shore changes the plans,” Jason said.

With a long sigh, Jud nodded his head. “Tell the boys to
relax. We can’t hit the herd with a damn newspaper man along. Public opinion would crucify me. The territorial governor would have this place swarming with U.S. Marshals if just one of those damn kids got hurt and it was reported.”

“But they might not have a ranch to come back to,” Jason said with a wicked smile.

“Yeah,” Jud said softly. “You damn right!”

“You boys take ’er easy,” Walt told the gathering in dawn’s first light. “Ten miles a day is fine with me.”

The editor of the newspaper had brought three men with him, a cub reporter from back East and two tough-looking men from his church. The men were heavily armed and ready for trouble.

Smoke knew there would be no trouble against the herd on this run. Jud was arrogant and perhaps crazy in the head, but he wasn’t stupid. Smoke expected the drive to make it through with only the normal mishaps that took place on any cattle drive.

But he was equally certain the ranch would be attacked.

They stood and watched as the men and boys began moving the cattle out, the cattle setting their own pace.

After the dust had settled, Smoke began his preparations for the attack he was sure was forthcoming.

Cheyenne would stay in and defend the bunkhouse. The old mountain man and gunfighter had loaded up several rifles and half a dozen pistols. He had plenty of food prepared by the ladies and a couple of barrels of water to use against fire should it come to that.

Before the drive began, Smoke had fortified the horses’ stalls with extra boards. The stalls were as safe from bullets as they could make them.

Both Alice and Doreen could handle a rifle or pistol as well, or better, than the average man. They would stay in
the house with Walt and Micky.

Smoke would station himself in the loft of the barn. He had placed loaded rifles and shotguns at both ends of the building, and he had plenty of food and water to last out any siege.

Now all they had to do was wait, and sometimes that was harder than the actual battle.

The next move was up to Jud Vale and his men.

Probably forty or more men to wage war against an old rancher, his wife, a young woman, her eight-year-old son, three old men, a group of boys whose average age was twelve, and one gunfighter.

Smoke had to laugh and question the bravery of those who rode with Jud Vale.

Just before dark, Smoke did a once-around of the buildings, looking in first on those in the house.

“We’re set, Smoke,” the rancher told him. “We’ve got Micky in the basement, guardin’ the potatoes and the canned goods.”

Smoke grinned and nodded. “No bullet can reach him down there, for sure.” He noticed that both Alice and Doreen had changed into men’s britches, so they could get around faster. Doreen did things to those jeans that the manufacturer never dreamed of.

She noticed the direction his eyes were taking and smiled at him.

“I got to go,” Smoke muttered, and left the house.

In the bunkhouse, Cheyenne waved him toward the coffeepot. “I went over to the house about an hour ago,” the old mountain man said. “Both them wimmin was prancin’ around in men’s britches. I never seen the like. This goes on, wimmin’ll be votin’ ’fore long and that’ll be the ruination of the country.” He was reflective for a moment. "Not that I ever voted that much myself. Quit altogether about a year after I cast my vote for Millard Fillmore. But, hell, anybody can make a mistake. I was
gonna vote for that Abe Lincoln. But by the time I made up my mind and got to where I could vote, somebody had done up and shot him. Plumb disheartenin’. Damn shore mined Abe’s night out, too. You much on votin’. Smoke?”

“I wasn’t until I married Sally. Kind of hard to find a ballot box at Brown’s Hole.”

“For a fact. Fort Misery, we used to call it. But I ߣspect Preacher told you that.”

“Yes, he did.”

“OI Warhoss is still kickin’. He’s got to be eighty-five if he’s a day. But them Injuns is takin’ right good care of him. And I understand they’s some old gunslingers and mountain men got together and in the process of building a retirement home for us old coots.”

“That’s my understanding.”

“Won’t that be grand! I’ll have to go check that out—if I ever live to be old, that is.”

Smoke laughed at him and walked back to the barn.

It was full dark when he crawled into the loft and made himself comfortable at the east end of the barn. He figured that was the direction from which the attack would most likely come.

Before taking his position, he watched the lamps go out in both the house and the bunkhouse as the defenders made ready for war.

Smoke settled down and waited.

Arrogant! Smoke thought, as he heard the sounds of hooves drumming on the road. Jud is so sure of himself that he just rides right- up the road to the gate.

He heard the gates being torn down and then the wild screams of the hired guns as they galloped up the road toward the house.

Smoke quickly shifted positions and sighted a man under the hunter’s moon that illuminated the night sky. He took up slack on the trigger and the butt-plate slammed his shoulder. A saddle emptied just as gunfire from the house and bunkhouse roared, shattering the night and emptying half a dozen more saddles.

He heard Jud’s voice, hollering for his men to fall back to the ridges.

Smoke fired again, and saw a man jerk in the saddle. He managed to stay on his horse, but one arm was hanging useless and flopping by his side.

The attackers had been able to fire no more than half a dozen shots before they were beaten back.

One man struggled to his boots in the road and began staggering and lurching toward the gates. The defenders held their fire and let him go. Just before he reached the gates, he collapsed face down in the hard-packed dirt and
did not move.

That sight must have done it for the riders. Someone shouted, “Hell with this! The luck ain’t with us this night.”

The attackers rode off, heading back for the friendlier range of the Bar V. They left their dead and wounded behind them.

Smoke and the others waited a reasonable length of time, to see if it was a trick, and then slowly and cautiously gathered in the yard.

Smoke and Cheyenne roamed about, checking on the men sprawled on the ground.

They found several alive. “What do we do with those still alive?” Cheyenne questioned.

“Patch them up and get word to Jud to come and get them,” Smoke told him. “Maybe pile them in a wagon and send them back to Jud. We’ll see.” He was kneeling down beside a man who was alive, but not for long. He had been shot in the center of the chest.

“He’ll never quit, Jensen,” the dying man gasped. “Vale’s a crazy man.”

“Why is he doing it?”

The man ignored that. “As long as he’s got a dime in his jeans he’ll hire fighting men.” “Why?” Smoke persisted.

“King. To be king. Wants to control everything from the state line to Preston. Everything and everybody.”

“Shut up, Slim!” another wounded man growled, mercenary and loyal to the gun right to the end.

“You go to hell, Lassiter!” Slim told him. He cut his eyes to Smoke. The light was slowly fading from them. “Vale’s got gunhands comin’ in on the train. This is shapin’ up to be the biggest range war in ... the state. He’ll overpower you just by ... numbers, Jensen. And he’s just about reached... the point where he don’t give a damn if the kids git hurt.”

Slim groaned and closed his eyes. He did not open them again.

Smoke rose to his boots and took the blanket that Doreen handed him, spreading it over the dead gun-fighter. Cheyenne had taken all the guns and ammo from the dead and wounded men. They would be added to the arsenal of the Box T. Smoke felt sure they would be needed before all this was over.

He knelt down beside Lassiter. The man had a bullet-burn on the side of his head and a slight shoulder wound. Painful but not serious. “I ought to call the U.S. Marshals in here and file charges against all of you, Lassiter...”

The gunfighter sneered at him.

“... But that would take weeks and we’d have to keep you prisoner and look at your ugly face every day. It just isn’t worth it.”

“You better kill me, Jensen,” Lassiter warned. "Davidson was a friend of mine."

“You should choose your friends more carefully, Lassiter. No, I’m not going to kill you. Not like this, anyway. Not at this time.”

“Then you’re a damn fool, Jensen!”

“Maybe. But I can sleep at night, and I don’t make war against kids and women and old people.”

“Who gives a damn what happens to a bunch of snot-nose brats!”

Smoke was a hard man in a harsh time and environment, and he had killed many, many men. But he had to shake his head at the cold-blooded callousness of Lassiter.

“Back away and let me finish him,” Cheyenne said, walking up. “We got it to do sooner or later.”

Doreen stood looking at it all through wide and scared eyes.

Smoke had no doubts about the old mountain man’s ability to do just what he suggested. And he knew the old man was right: they would have it to do sooner or later.
But he just couldn’t kill the wounded man that way.

He shook his head. “Get him patched up, Doreen. We’ll put him in a wagon.”

He walked over to where a young man lay, gut shot. The young gunfighter, no more than a couple of years out of boyhood, lay with both hands clutching his belly. The blood seeped darkly through his fingers, glistening wetly under the light of the hunter’s moon.

“You got a mamma you want me to write, boy?”

He shook his head, wincing with the painful movement. "They throwed me out of the house a long time ago. I wasn’t about to spend the rest of my life ... sloppin’ hogs and milkin’ cows.”

“Beats what you got now,” Smoke coldy and bluntly informed him.

The young man cussed him. Smoke watched as his right hand slipped toward his large belt buckle. Smoke reached down and pulled a derringer from behind the buckle before the gunhand could reach it. The young gunfighter cursed him even more.

“How much was Jud Vale paying you, boy?”

“A hundred a month and found!” He moaned the words as the pain reached higher levels in his bullet-shattered belly.

“Maybe you can buy something in Hell.”

“They’ll kill you, Jensen! This is one fight you ain’t gonna win. Your reputation ... ain’t gonna hep you none this time around. Jud Vale’s better than you. His real name is ... is ...”

“Shet your mouth, you bastard3” Lassiter shouted at the young man.

But the admonition fell on dead ears. The young gunny’s eyes rolled back in his head as his soul went winging to a fiery, smoky eternity. His boot heels and spurs drummed and jangled against the ground and then he was still.

Smoke walked over to Walt. “How long has Jud been in this area, Walt?”

“’Bout twenty-five years. He just appeared one day with that damn Jason fellow.”

“He doesn’t look that old to me.”

“He’s older than he looks. But he’s one hell of a man still. Don’t sell him short none. I’d peg him in his late forties. He might be fifty even. Hard to tell with a man like that.”

“No idea where he came from?” Smoke got the strong impression that Walt was lying. But why? “Not a clue.”