One more punch would do it, Luke sensed. Eli tried to set himself and block it, but he was too slow. Luke’s fist crashed against his jaw, and he went down, hitting the floor hard. He didn’t get up but just lay there and groaned instead.
Luke stepped back and said in a voice loud enough to carry to everyone in the room, “I didn’t want to do that. I’m sorry it came to blows.”
“Eli’s a stubborn kid who’s too full of himself,” said one of the men. “But that doesn’t mean we want you around here, mister.”
“I know that. But what I said to him goes for the rest of you, as well. Surely you don’t want to protect a man like Hank Trafford. I promise you, he’s not worth it.”
Nothing but stony stares met those words.
Luke sighed. He still had some stew, but he had lost his appetite. He took a coin from his pocket and placed it on the counter.
“I’m sorry for the trouble,” he told Ruth. “At least none of the furniture got busted up.”
“You’d better leave, mister,” she said. “Not just the café. You’d better get out of Amity.”
“Not without what I came for.”
“Then I reckon whatever happens is on your head.”
Luke didn’t like the sound of that. He recalled what Eli and Ruth had said about Eli’s father. From the sound of it, the man was a wealthy rancher and quite possibly one of the local elders. He would have power and influence in this area, maybe a crew of tough cowboys he could send after the man who had whipped his son in a fight. Luke had run into problems like that before.
But he wasn’t going to let that stop him, or the stone wall of hostility the citizens of Amity had put up, either. He would root out Hank Trafford no matter what it took.
He stepped around Eli’s moaning, half-conscious figure and headed for the door. He wasn’t quite sure of his next move as he stepped outside.
The blast of a gunshot and the wind-rip of a bullet passing close by his ear gave him a pretty good idea, though.
He turned toward the sound of the shot, and as he did, he dropped into a crouch and his hands flashed to the twin .44 Remingtons he wore in a cross-draw rig. Another shot roared as he drew the revolvers. This bullet chewed splinters from a boardwalk post right beside him.
Luke saw that second muzzle flash. It came from behind a wagon parked about forty feet up the street. He leaped off the boardwalk and lunged into the street, trying to get an angle on the bushwhacker hidden behind the wagon.
The gunman wasn’t Eli, Luke knew that, because he had just left the young man mostly senseless in the café. He wasn’t sure who else in Amity might want him dead, but there were several possibilities.
None of which mattered a damn right now, because staying alive was more important than the identity of the man trying to kill him.
Luke caught a glimpse of legs as the man darted around the wagon to keep the sturdy canvas-covered vehicle between him and his intended target. Luke snapped a shot with the right-hand Remington, trying to blow one of the bushwhacker’s legs out from under him, but the slug kicked up dust between the man’s hurrying feet. More shots sounded as the man fired over the wagon bed, through the canvas cover, in Luke’s general direction. He heard the bullets whine past him and hoped they wouldn’t hit anybody on the other side of the street.
If the citizens of Amity had any sense, all of them had scrambled for cover by now. It sounded like a small war had broken out in the street.
Luke took more careful aim and fired the left-hand Remington. This time, blood flew as the bullet nicked the ambusher’s right calf. A pained shout came from the other side of the wagon. Luke heard boots thud on the boardwalk as the wounded gunman leaped up there.
Remingtons thrust out in front of him, ready to fire, Luke completed his circuit of the wagon in time to see the bushwhacker vanish through the front door of a general store, dragging his injured leg behind him. Frightened yells came from inside the building.
Luke ran to the boardwalk and pressed his back to the wall beside the door. He shouted, “Come on out of there, Trafford! You don’t want any innocent people getting hurt!”
Luke was assuming that the gunman was Hank Trafford, the killer outlaw he’d been pursuing. Trafford had been hiding out here in Amity, just as Luke suspected, and someone had tipped him off that a bounty hunter was in town, looking for him.
Marshal Ed Rowan? Luke couldn’t rule that out. Whoever had warned Trafford, it hadn’t been difficult for him to spot the man who was after him. Nobody was going to mistake Luke for anybody else in this town.
“Trafford!” Luke called again. “Give yourself up! I’ll take you in alive!”
“Go to hell!” came the response. “You want me, come in and get me!”
This much shooting would have rousted out most local lawmen by now. Rowan had to know what was going on, but there was no sign of him. He wasn’t going to take a hand in this, Luke knew. It would probably be just fine with him if Trafford killed the bounty hunter. That would make things simpler.
Luke suddenly wheeled away from the wall and started to dash past the big window in the front of the store. Trafford must have been waiting for that. Bullets from inside shattered the glass and sprayed a million shards over Luke and the boardwalk. Luke’s head was tilted down and to the side, so his hat brim protected his face. He kept going, unhit by any of the slugs, and when he reached the end of the boardwalk, he leaped from it into the mouth of the alley that ran alongside the general store.
That was where he stopped, just around the corner of the building. It was a tricky thing, putting yourself in the mind of the man you were trying to capture, but over the years, Luke had learned to do it. Many times, his life had depended on that ability.
He knew Trafford had seen him cross in front of the window. It made sense for the outlaw to believe that Luke was trying to reach the back of the store and get behind him. In that case, Trafford’s best option was to reverse course and escape out the front of the store while Luke was going around the back. Trafford’s horse was probably tied at one of the nearby hitchracks.
Once again, boots thudded heavily on the boardwalk. Luke wheeled around the corner, guns up, and saw the man limping across the planks. His hat had come off, revealing thin fair hair. A mustache of the same shade drooped over his mouth. Even in profile, Luke recognized the face from the wanted poster in his saddlebags.
“Trafford!” he called.
The outlaw jerked to a stop and tried to turn. The gun in his hand rose as he did so.
“Drop it!” Luke shouted, giving Trafford one last chance to surrender.
Trafford didn’t take it. He squeezed the trigger but rushed the shot before his gun had come level. The bullet plowed into the boardwalk in front of the broken store window.
Luke didn’t give him a chance to try again. He squeezed the triggers of both Remingtons. The .44 rounds sizzled through the air and punched into Trafford’s chest only a few inches apart. The double impact knocked Trafford back. His feet got tangled with each other, and he fell. The gun slipped from his fingers and skittered away from him as he landed on his back.
Luke stepped up onto the boardwalk again and cautiously approached the fallen man, keeping him covered as he did so. Trafford’s bloody chest rose and fell several times in a ragged pattern, then stopped just after he had pulled in a rasping breath.
That air went out of him in a long sigh as his chest slowly deflated. After that, it didn’t move again.
As Luke came closer, he saw that Trafford’s staring eyes were glassy and lifeless. The outlaw was dead, no doubt about it.
The street and both boardwalks were deserted. Anyone who had been out in the open had scurried for cover when the shooting started, just as Luke had hoped. He didn’t see any other bodies lying anywhere and was grateful for that.
A few faces began to peek out doors and windows now that the gunfire seemed to have stopped. A couple of the more daring townspeople ventured out. Across the street, the door of the marshal’s
office opened. Ed Rowan strode out of the building with a shotgun in his hands.
Luke didn’t holster his guns. He still suspected that Rowan was the one who’d warned Trafford. Lawman or not, if Rowan looked like he was about to cut loose with that Greener, Luke intended to stop him. That might lead to him having to shoot his way out of town, but he wasn’t going to just stand there and let anybody fill him with buckshot.
Rowan kept the shotgun pointed at the ground in front of him, though. He stopped about twenty feet away and said, “Killed him, did you?”
“He didn’t give me any choice,” Luke said. “I would have been willing to take him in alive, but he wasn’t having any of it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Rowan said, shaking his bald head. “He was always stubborn as a mule, and hotheaded, to boot. That’s a bad combination.”
“You’ve known him for a while, then?”
“Ever since he was a kid. We’re second cousins.”
Luke’s eyes narrowed. He watched the shotgun, but even more he paid attention to Rowan’s eyes. Those were usually the most reliable giveaway when a man was about to make a move.
“I know what you’re thinkin’,” Rowan went on. “I’m not gunnin’ for you, Jensen. Yeah, I sent word to Hank that he needed to get out of town—you probably figured that out already—but that’s as far as I’d go. He made up his own mind to break the law. He’s got to pay the consequences for it.”
“I’m sorry it had to happen in your town, Marshal.”
Rowan shrugged and said, “At least this way we can see to it that he’s buried proper. I’ll sign any sort of affidavit you want so you can collect the bounty. You don’t have to have the body, do you?”
Luke shook his head. “No, the affidavit will do, I suppose,” he said. “I appreciate that, Marshal.”
Rowan tucked the shotgun under his left arm, and Luke figured it was finally safe to pouch his irons. The marshal frowned and used his right hand to rub his chin.
“There’s just one thing,” he said. “Well, three things, when you get down to it. Bodie, Hannah, and Teddy.”
Luke frowned and shook his head, then said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Not what, who. Those are Hank Trafford’s kids. And since you just killed their pa, I reckon they’re your responsibility now, Mr. Bounty Hunter.”
CHAPTER 10
Big Rock
Smoke stared across the table in Longmont’s at Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar.
A couple of seconds went by in silence after Aguilar’s shocking declaration. Then Smoke said, “Are you trying to tell me that you think you own my ranch?”
“I am not trying to tell you anything, Señor Jensen. I am telling you that I do own your ranch. There is no question about the matter.”
“Well, I’m sure as hell questioning it,” Smoke said.
“I have a copy of the original land grant from the king of Spain,” Aguilar said. “If you insist, I will allow you to examine it. You will see that it lays out the grant’s boundaries in great detail.”
Smoke shook his head and said, “I don’t care about some paper drawn up by a Spaniard who’s been dead for a hundred years.”
“Your state authorities will feel differently. My attorneys are in Denver even as we speak, presenting my evidence to the officials there.”
Smoke’s eyes narrowed.
“Then you haven’t actually gotten anybody to agree to this loco notion yet.”
“It is only a matter of time,” Aguilar said confidently.
“Well, I have attorneys, too,” Smoke said, “and I plan on getting a wire off to them mighty damn quick like.” He glanced at Travis Hinton. “Unless somebody plans to try to stop me.”
“Take it easy, Jensen,” Hinton responded with a cool smile. “Nobody’s trying to start gun trouble here. My boys and I rode along with Don Sebastian just to make sure he didn’t run into any unexpected problems. You know, like outlaws or redskins or some such. Like he said, he has lawyers to handle all the other things.”
Smoke didn’t believe that for a second. Hinton and the other gun-wolves hadn’t signed with Aguilar simply to act as bodyguards. That job wouldn’t pay enough for men such as that. They worked for fighting wages, and they didn’t take jobs that didn’t hold out a pretty good promise of gunplay—and a big payoff for those who survived.
Hired guns knew and accepted that they would probably die suddenly and unexpectedly . . . but until that day came, they would be well paid!
Louis leaned forward in his chair and said, “Gentlemen, I believe it might be best if you leave.”
“Now?” Aguilar said, arching an eyebrow. “We have not finished our coffee.”
“Nevertheless, this is my establishment . . . and I am particular about who I serve.”
Hinton sat up a little straighter and said, “I’m not used to being kicked out of places, Longmont.”
“You may have to become accustomed to it if you remain in Big Rock for very long. Smoke has many friends here.”
“The don’s just here on business, but if you want to make it personal . . .” Hinton nodded toward the door, where several of the men who had ridden into town with him and Aguilar were just now coming into Longmont’s. “We can play it that way, too.”
Smoke appreciated Louis coming to his defense, but a gun battle wouldn’t solve anything, at least not right here and now. Aguilar had stated that he was fighting this by legal means, and Smoke figured he could do the same . . . for the time being, anyway.
But no matter what it took, he wasn’t going to allow Aguilar—or anybody else—to take the Sugarloaf away from him. Not even if it did come down to gunplay.
“That’s all right, Louis,” he said. “You don’t have to boot these two out on my account.” He shoved back his chair. “I think I’m going to go see if Sally is finished with her shopping. I’d just as soon get home.”
At the mention of the word home, Aguilar just smirked. Smoke resisted the temptation to knock the arrogant expression off the man’s face, but it wasn’t easy.
Instead, he stood up, nodded to Louis, and strode out of the place without looking back.
* * *
Sally had not failed to notice the tension between her husband and Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar. And because she’d been married to Smoke all these years, she had seen enough gunmen to recognize that breed in Travis Hinton and the other men.
Still, she couldn’t blame Señor Aguilar for hiring competent men to accompany him and his wife in their travels. The West, while not as wild as it had been only a few years earlier, was still not exactly what anybody would call tame.
As she and Mariana browsed in Mr. Goldstein’s store, Sally indulged her curiosity and asked the younger woman, “Where is this new home you mentioned, Doña Mariana?”
“I could not say, precisely. Sebastian says that I need not trouble myself with such details. He knows our destination, and he has the paper that tells where it is, besides. You know, the land grant from the king.”
“The king of Spain?” Sally said.
“Sí. It gave the land to Sebastian’s great-grandfather.”
Sally thought about that and said slowly, “So that’s why he was talking about the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.”
“I know only a little about that, as well.”
Sally knew, though. She was well educated, having believed that if she was going to be a teacher—her profession when she and Smoke first met—she should know as much as possible about everything she might be called on to teach to the children in her classes. She had studied quite a bit about the country’s history and knew that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had ended the war between the United States and Mexico and ceded a great deal of territory in the Southwest to the Americans.
Mariana just batted her eyelashes and smiled a pretty but empty smile. Sally ventured a guess and, hoping the younger woman wouldn’t think the question was rude, said, “You’re not the don’
s first wife, are you, Doña Mariana?”
The blunt query didn’t seem to bother Mariana. She said, “No, Sebastian was married before, to a woman named Theresa Inez. She passed away several years ago, may she rest in peace.”
“Amen,” Sally murmured.
“Sebastian was lonely after that, so he got in touch with one of his friends in Mexico City . . . my father . . . and arranged for me to visit him with my duenna. Shortly after that, my father told me that Sebastian had asked for my hand in marriage.”
“I see,” Sally said. “Did you want to marry him?”
“My father told me it would be a good match. I am a respectful daughter and would not argue with my father.”
So Mariana’s father had, for all practical purposes, sold her to Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar, thought Sally. That really went against the grain for her. She never would have accepted such an arrangement.
Mariana, on the other hand, seemed to be all right with it. And she had spoken to Aguilar as if she genuinely cared for him, Sally recalled. She supposed that such things were possible, even though it never would have worked with her.
“I am glad that we came here,” Mariana said abruptly. “I feel that I have made a friend already.”
Sally couldn’t help but return the younger woman’s smile. She reached out and clasped both of Mariana’s hands with hers.
“Welcome to Big Rock,” she said. “I hope you’re very happy here.”
Just as she voiced that, the store’s front door opened and Smoke swept inside, along with the chilly wind. Sally glanced in his direction, then looked again. All it took was one glimpse of her husband’s face for her to know that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She let go of Mariana’s hands and turned to him.
“Smoke, what is it?”
Instead of answering right away, Smoke nodded to Mariana and pinched the brim of his hat as he said, “Señora Aguilar.”
“Señor Jensen,” she responded. “Did you and my husband conclude your business?”
“Not really, but the matter’s settled as far as I’m concerned,” Smoke said tersely. Sally could tell that he was angry and that he was trying really hard not to let that overcome his natural politeness.
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