The Family Jensen # 1

by William W. Johnstone

  “Of course,” Sandy replied. “I’ll fetch my horse.”

  He came back a few minutes later leading the animal. Smoke asked, “Did you bring any supplies with you?”

  Sandy hesitated before saying, “Well…no. I left the settlement in such a hurry after slipping out of Dr. Neal’s house, I didn’t think about it.”

  “How’d you get out, anyway?” Calhoun wanted to know. “I saw the doc give you somethin’ to put you to sleep.”

  Sandy shook his head. “The powder he mixed up in water didn’t work. It must have been old and lost some of its potency. It made me a little drowsy for a while, then wore off. When he stepped out of the room, I left through the window.” He put his hand to his bandaged head. “I have quite a headache, but that’s all. And that doesn’t matter a bit, compared to Robin’s safety.”

  “All right, we’ve got some jerky you can have,” Smoke said. “That’ll have to do, because I’m not lighting a fire again. Too much chance the varmints we’re after might spot it.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  Smoke grunted. “No thanks necessary. You’ll carry your weight when the time comes.”

  “I hope so.”

  “So do I,” Smoke said, “because if you don’t, we may all die.”

  Sandy hadn’t brought a bedroll with him, either. It wasn’t too cold at that time of year, but in the mountains the night air always held a chill. Smoke loaned the young man an extra blanket. Sandy rolled up in it and soon went to sleep. Calhoun turned in again, too.

  The rest of Smoke’s watch was uneventful. When he judged by the stars that the night was a little more than half over, he nudged Calhoun’s shoulder with the rifle barrel.

  “Wake up, Marshal,” he said. “Your turn to stand guard.”

  Calhoun grumbled and sat up, shaking his head in an effort to get rid of the cobwebs of sleep. “I’m awake,” he said. He threw his blankets aside and climbed to his feet, awkwardly because of his wounded arm. He sat down on the rock where Smoke had been leaning earlier.

  “If you hear anything, don’t hesitate to wake me,” Smoke told him.

  “Sure, sure.”

  Smoke slipped into his bedroll and placed the Henry on the ground close beside him. Using his saddle for a pillow, he lay there with his eyes slitted for a while, watching Calhoun. He didn’t know the lawman well enough to trust that he would stay awake.

  But Smoke wasn’t relying totally on Calhoun. If anyone came lurking around, Seven would notice and make a racket. The Appaloosa was a good sentry.

  Half an hour later Calhoun was still alert, looking around and standing up from time to time to roll his shoulders and shake his head. Smoke had to have some rest, so he chanced closing his eyes.

  He fell into a light sleep. During his time with Preacher he had mastered the ability to come awake instantly, fully aware of his surroundings, ready to move fast, if anything disturbed him. He owed the old mountain man a debt greater than he could ever repay, even if Preacher had lived. Smoke knew he wouldn’t be there if not for Preacher’s help and teachings.

  The sound of a soft nicker and a stomped hoof from Seven brought Smoke out of his slumber sometime later. A glance at the eastern sky showed him the black night had faded to gray. He heard deep, regular breathing and looked toward the rock. Calhoun had slid down it and sat on the ground. Slumped against it, he was sound asleep. Smoke reached for his rifle.

  The ominous sound of a gun hammer ratcheting back stopped him.

  “Go ahead,” said a voice he recognized as Mitch Thorn’s. “I’d like nothing better than to blow you all to hell and gone.”

  Without turning his head, Smoke cut his eyes toward the voice. In the dim, pre-dawn light, he saw Thorn’s booted feet about five feet away. Smoke’s gaze traveled up Thorn’s legs to the man’s body. Thorn had his wounded right arm under the twin barrels of a shotgun, bracing it while he gripped the stock with his left hand. The Greener’s barrels and part of the stock had been sawed off, making the weapon short enough that Thorn could handle it mostly one-handed. The recoil would be hard on his left wrist, but if he touched off both barrels, the blast would be so tremendous it would wipe out anybody in front of him for ten yards or more. He wouldn’t need to reload and fire again.

  At the range he was from Smoke, the double charge of buckshot wouldn’t leave enough to recognize as human.

  Seven whinnied again as more men moved in from the chilly gloom. A couple covered Sandy, while one man reached down and plucked the revolver from the crossdraw rig worn by Marshal Calhoun. The lawman came awake then, sputtering and cursing. He lunged up, but one of the intruders planted a boot in his chest and shoved him back against the rock.

  “Stay put, mister,” the man ordered. “Nobody’ll get hurt as long as all of you cooperate.”

  The voices woke Sandy. The young man started to sit up, then reacted with shock as he saw the men pointing their guns at him. He exclaimed something in his gypsy mother’s language. At least Smoke assumed that was what it was. The words certainly weren’t in English or Crow.

  Thorn sauntered forward, still covering Smoke with the sawed-off shotgun. “Now that we got you boys’ attention, listen up,” he said. “This is how it’s gonna be. We’re gonna take your horses, your guns, and all your supplies.”

  “And then leave us out here?” Calhoun asked. “Hell! We’ll never make it.”

  “Well, then, maybe we should just go ahead and kill you right now,” Thorn said with a smirk.

  Smoke said, “Take it easy. You’ve got the upper hand, Thorn, so keep talking.”

  Thorn shrugged. “There’s not much more to say. I’ve told you the deal.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Smoke replied with a shake of his head. “Who are these other hombres? How’d you come to meet up with them? And how did you find us?”

  Thorn considered for a moment, then shrugged again. “Might as well indulge your curiosity, I suppose. That last question is the easiest. I figured you were stubborn enough to come after us, West, so we sent a man circling around to keep an eye on our back trail. He spotted you, and when he knew where you’d camped, he came and told us. Then it was just a matter of waiting for that lump of lard who calls himself a marshal to fall asleep. I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay awake.”

  “You got no call to be talkin’ about me like that,” Calhoun complained. “I covered up for you and Harley and Ballew a whole heap of times, Thorn, and kept you out of trouble when most star packers would’ve thrown you behind bars!”

  Thorn sneered at him. “And you were well paid for it, too. You were never a real lawman. You were just Garrard’s lapdog.”

  “Same thing’s true of you,” Calhoun said.

  “Not hardly. I always had my own plans. Garrard just didn’t know about them. That’s why I sent for these fellas and had them wait up here in the hills for me until the time was right.”

  Smoke guessed, “You were going to double-cross Garrard, raid the town, and loot it.”

  “No, you’re wrong, West. I could only do something like that once. But Garrard’s making money hand over fist, and it’s been piling up in the safe in his office. He plans to ship it back to the bank in Casper before much longer because there isn’t a bank in Buffalo Flat yet.”

  “Your gang was going to hit the stagecoach when Garrard’s money was on it,” Smoke said as he began to understand.

  “That’s right. They’d make it look good, too, before I drove them away and saved the money. Garrard would have been so grateful to me for saving his money that he’d convince Robin to marry me.”

  Sandy burst out, “She would never marry you, you…you…” More curses in the gypsy tongue came from the young man.

  “Shut up that jabbering, redskin,” Thorn said. “She wouldn’t have had much choice in the matter. After all, I’d be the man who saved her father from being ruined.”

  Smoke put the rest of the plan together in his head. “Then once you were married to
her, Garrard would’ve had some sort of fatal accident…leaving you in charge of the whole town.”

  “That’s right,” Thorn said. “We’d have bled it dry, too, and left there as rich men.” His face contorted with anger and hate. “But you and this filthy Indian ruined all that, West. Now it’ll never happen.”

  “You mean you ruined it for yourself when you lost your head yesterday morning,” Smoke said.

  “Well, what the hell would you do if you walked in and found the woman you loved bein’ pawed by a dirty ’breed?” Thorn demanded.

  Smoke smiled grimly. “You didn’t count on fallin’ in love with her, did you, Thorn? She was just supposed to be part of the plan, a means to an end. Now you’ve risked everything because you fell in love with her.”

  “Shut up!” Thorn lifted the sawed-off greener. “Just shut up, West. I’ve changed my mind. We’re not going to let you bastards live. The only way we can salvage anything is by looting the town, the way you said, and I’d just as soon not have you behind me somewhere while I’m doin’ that.”

  “So you’re going to kill us?”

  Thorn smiled. “That’s the new plan.”

  “Where’s Robin?”

  “Don’t worry about her. She’s close by. I’ve got a man keeping an eye on her.”

  “You’ll have to kill her, too, you know.”

  “No!” Sandy cried.

  Thorn shook his head. “No, she’ll come with us. She’ll understand that’s the only thing she can do. Might take her a while, but she’ll come around.”

  “Why don’t you bring her in?” Smoke suggested. “At least let her say good-bye to Sandy here?”

  “Why the hell would I want to do that? Let this redskin slobber on her some more? I don’t think so.”

  The sun wasn’t quite up, but it was high enough so that reddish-gold light flooded the sky. Smoke looked around, his eyes searching intently over the hills that surrounded the campsite. He smiled again.

  “It’s a beautiful morning,” he said. “A good day to die.”

  Thorn’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a savage grin. “That’s one way for you to look at it,” he said.

  “Nope, not me,” Smoke said. “You’re the one who’s going to die, Thorn.”

  The grin became a snarl. “We’ll just see about that!” Thorn said as he swung the shotgun up, his finger tightening on the trigger.

  Chapter 20

  Before Thorn could fire, one of the men covering Sandy suddenly gave a choked scream, staggered to the side, and dropped his gun so he could use both hands to paw at the shaft of the arrow that seemed to have sprouted like magic from his throat. The man with him whirled around, and as he did so, another arrow drove deep into his side.

  Thorn’s head jerked in their direction, and as it did, Smoke rolled the other way as fast as he could. He could have drawn his Colts with blinding swiftness and plugged Thorn, but the man might have been able to jerk the Greener’s triggers, even as he was dying. At such close range, it would prove fatal to Smoke.

  At the same time, Calhoun threw himself in a diving tackle at the legs of the man guarding him. The man’s gun roared as Calhoun knocked him down, but the shot went wild into the trees.

  Smoke came up on his feet and leaped out of the way as Thorn jerked the sawed-off’s triggers. The explosion was like a huge clap of thunder. Smoke felt a fiery sting on his leg and knew one of the pellets had creased him, but the rest of the buckshot missed.

  His guns—in his hands without him even having to think about it—bucked against his palms as he fired at Thorn who had ducked away and was running for his life.

  He might have gotten away if he hadn’t strayed too close to Sandy. The young man lunged forward as Thorn passed him. His arms went around the outlaw’s legs and brought him down. The empty scattergun flew out of Thorn’s hand as he crashed to the ground.

  “You son of a bitch!” The yell came from Smoke’s left.

  He whirled in that direction, but not in time to avoid Gus Harley’s rush. Harley’s weight barreled into Smoke and knocked him backward. Smoke landed on the rock where Calhoun had been sitting earlier. The rough stone dug painfully into his back, and as Harley bent him over it, Smoke felt like his spine was about to crack.

  Before he could wallop Harley with a Colt, the man’s weight suddenly vanished. Harley let out a startled yell. Smoke looked on in amazement as the biggest Indian he had ever seen in his life lifted Harley into the air. Harley was no lightweight, but with one hand clamped around his neck and the other around a thigh, the Indian handled him like a child’s doll.

  Smoke knew he was looking at the legendary Crazy Bear, Sandy’s father, chief of the Crow…and the man Smoke had spotted sneaking up on the camp a few moments earlier, prompting his comment to Thorn about it being a good day to die.

  With the sound of numerous bones breaking, Crazy Bear hurled Harley to the ground with incredible force. Harley didn’t even moan. He just lay there, limp.

  Smoke straightened, whipped up his left-hand gun, and fired. The outlaw standing behind Crazy Bear and drawing a bead on the Crow chief doubled over as Smoke’s lead punched into his gut. Crazy Bear glanced over his shoulder, then nodded at Smoke in gratitude.

  Calhoun had gotten the upper hand over the man he was wrestling with. The marshal was on top of his opponent, hammering his left fist into the man’s face again and again. That fight seemed to be well under control, Smoke saw.

  When he looked toward the spot where Sandy and Thorn had been struggling, he realized that Thorn was gone. Sandy lay curled up on the ground, gasping.

  “He…he got away from me,” Sandy said as Smoke leaped to his side. “He’ll go after…Robin!”

  Smoke glanced around. There was one other outlaw unaccounted for, as well as the man Thorn had left guarding Robin. That made three of the enemy still on the loose.

  “Don’t worry,” he told Sandy. “I’ll find her and bring her back.”

  A huge hand closed on Smoke’s shoulder, and a voice like an avalanche said, “My son…he is all right?”

  Smoke didn’t see any blood on the bandage around Sandy’s head. “Yeah, he’s not hurt any worse than he was before. He was just too weak to stop Thorn from getting away.”

  “Then come. You and I will follow those men.”

  Smoke glanced around and saw that Calhoun had knocked his man out and staggered to his feet. “Marshal! Keep an eye on Sandy!”

  “Yeah,” Calhoun said. “Go get Thorn!”

  Crazy Bear pointed. “This way.”

  They ran up the wooded slope. Smoke figured the man guarding Robin had the horses with him. If Thorn and the others got away with her, Smoke would have to chase them down again. He didn’t want that.

  He wanted to end it, on that beautiful crisp morning.

  As he had told Thorn, it was indeed a good day to die.

  Smoke had to hurry to keep up with Crazy Bear’s swift, long-legged strides. He heard crashing in the brush up ahead and knew they were closing in on their quarry.

  Suddenly, a gun roared. Smoke heard the wind-rip of the bullet as it sizzled through the air past his ear. Instinctively, he fired back, blasting out shots from both .44s. The man who had fled with Thorn reeled from the bushes where he had hidden to ambush them and collapsed as blood welled from the bullet holes in his chest. The outlaw had hurried his first shot…and with Smoke Jensen facing him, he’d never gotten a second one.

  Crazy Bear bounded ahead, his great bulk clearing a path through the brush. He didn’t seem to feel the briars and branches clawing at him.

  Smoke couldn’t keep up. He ran past the man he’d killed and hurried along as best he could. Through a gap in the growth that the massive warrior had left behind him, Smoke caught a glimpse of horses moving around in a clearing and knew they had reached the spot where Thorn had left Robin.

  Another gun boomed, but Crazy Bear never slowed down. Smoke ran into the clearing in time to see him lift the outlaw guarding Ro
bin into the air by his neck. Crazy Bear shook the guard like a dog shaking a rat. The man’s arms and legs flopped around like a rag doll’s limbs. Smoke knew that his neck was surely broken—he was probably already dead.

  Robin screamed, and Smoke twisted to see Thorn standing over her aiming the sawed-off shotgun one-handed at Crazy Bear’s back. Instantly, Smoke thumbed off two rounds, one from each Colt. The slugs drove into Thorn’s chest and knocked him back a step. The scattergun drooped in his hand.

  Then he steeled himself with a visible effort and swung the barrels toward Robin. From the expression of pure evil on the man’s face, Smoke knew that Thorn realized he was done for. He was going to kill Robin before he died. With his finger already on the trigger, Smoke couldn’t stop him.

  A figure rushed out of the brush, and lunged forward to grab Thorn’s wrist. The white bandage around the man’s head told Smoke that Sandy had caught his breath and come after them. The young man might not have been able to stop Thorn earlier, but now, seeing the woman he loved being threatened, he summoned up from somewhere deep inside, the speed and strength needed to twist the barrels of the Greener up, just as Thorn’s finger closed spasmodically on both triggers.

  Again the thunderclap sounded. The double charge of buckshot caught Thorn in the chest and face and under the chin, and the devastating impact flipped him over backward and literally blew his head off. When his body thudded to the ground among the spooked horses, there was nothing left above his shoulders but a bloody stump of neck.

  Sandy bent and grabbed hold of Robin, lifting her from the ground and pulling her into a desperately tight embrace. “Robin, Robin!” he panted. “Are you all right?”

  “I-I’m fine,” she told him. “Sandy! You’re alive! That’s impossible! I-I saw Harley shoot you!”

  “He just grazed me.” Sandy kissed her, hard, then said, “We’re alive, Robin! We’re both alive!”

  Calhoun came up behind Smoke, breathless. “Couldn’t…keep the kid from chasin’ after you,” he said. “Looks like…it’s all over.”