The Jensen Brand

by William W. Johnstone

  As he slid the badge back into its hiding place, he said, “We were rolling around together in the creek.”

  “Don’t remind me. Anyway, we were both in the creek at the same time. That doesn’t mean we were together.” Denny turned toward the ridge and studied it for a second, found some handholds she liked the looks of, and started to climb. She had lifted herself only a few feet when she slipped a little.

  Without thinking, he raised a hand to brace her, but she caught herself before he could touch her. He realized the palm of his hand was positioned only a few inches away from the curve of her denim-clad bottom.

  “Don’t you dare,” she said coldly as she looked back over her shoulder and down at him.

  He backed off a step. “Wouldn’t think of it. You can fall down and bust your . . . whatever you land on.” With that, he moved over a few yards, found another spot to climb, and started up.

  Going up the ridge took a lot longer than coming down had, and despite the fact that the day wasn’t very warm, Rogers was sweaty when he pulled himself over the edge and rolled onto the pine needles. He had passed Denny on the way up—the route she had chosen proving to be more difficult—so he got to his feet, went over to kneel at the brink, and called to her, “I’ll give you a hand when you get close enough for me to reach.”

  “I don’t want a hand!” she said.

  “There’s no point in being stubborn about it.”

  “I’m not stubborn! I’m determined.”

  “All right. Suit yourself. Be careful, though. We both managed not to break any bones when we tumbled down, but there’s no point in pushing your luck.” He looked around and found his hat. Hers was lying nearby, too. He picked it up and dusted pine needles off of it.

  “That’s . . . mine,” she panted as she reached the top and saw him holding the hat.

  He held it out to her. “You’re welcome.”

  She snatched it away and crammed it on her head.

  As disheveled and bedraggled as she was, he had to admit that she still looked pretty good. He was sure she wouldn’t want to hear that, so he kept the opinion to himself and said, “You claimed you found some tracks left by the hombre who was watching you. How about showing them to me?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m a lawman. Sounds like this fella was a suspicious character. Sort of my job to check it out.”

  “What I found isn’t going to tell you much,” she said with a shrug, “but I reckon I can show you if you’re interested.”

  It took her a few minutes to locate the rough footprints she had seen before. He knelt next to them and studied them, but Denny was right. Other than proving that someone had been there, the tracks didn’t mean a thing.

  “His horse was tied back there,” she said, pointing through the trees. “I can show you the droppings if you want.”

  “I can find them.”

  “You’re really going to look?”

  He rubbed his chin. “I’m a halfway decent tracker. I might be able to follow and see where he came from.”

  “I was thinking about doing that myself. In fact, I was going to get my horse when I heard you rustling around in the brush and figured the varmint had come back.”

  “I didn’t think I made that much noise.”

  She snorted. “Enough for me to hear. And I’ve lived in England for years.”

  He wasn’t sure what she meant by that. “I’ll see what I can find out, and if it’s anything important, I’ll let you know.”

  “I could come with you . . .” He was about to veto that idea when she went on. “But my father’s probably wondering by now where I’ve gotten off to. I’d better go see if I can find him and let him know I’m all right.”

  “Maybe your clothes will be dry by then.”

  “You let me worry about that. Don’t worry, I won’t compromise your reputation. And . . . I won’t say anything about you being a deputy marshal.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I really think you’re wasting your time, though. After what happened a few nights ago, there’s probably not a rustler within a hundred miles of here.”

  * * *

  The sun had almost set and shadows were already thick when Muddy Malone rode up to the canyon mouth.

  One of the guards stepped out from behind the rocks, rifle leveled, then relaxed and lowered the weapon. “Oh, it’s just you.”

  “Just me?” Muddy said with a snort. “What do you mean by that, Wilkins?”

  “Means I don’t have to shoot you. Go on in, Malone. You got news for the boss?”

  “If I do, it’s him I’ll be tellin’ it to.”

  “Don’t get a burr under your saddle just because I’m doin’ my job. Go on now.”

  Muddy snorted again but rode on through the entrance. He followed the narrow, twisting canyon past the other guard posts. Those men hailed him, too, but didn’t challenge him since they knew no intruder could have gotten that far without gunplay to alert them.

  Muddy reached the basin a few minutes later. Cook fires were already burning, and lamplight glowed from the windows of Nick Creighton’s cabin.

  Off to one side, invisible in the gloom, was the grave where Blue Creighton had been laid to rest. Several of the men, acting under Nick Creighton’s orders, had wrestled a big slab of rock from the canyon wall and rolled it into place to mark the grave. Nick claimed he was going to chisel Blue’s name into the stone, when he got around to it.

  Muddy rode over to the rope corral where the gang kept their mounts.

  Turk met him there and reached for the reins. “I’ll take care of your horse for you. Nick’s been waitin’ for you. You’d better go see him right away.”

  Muddy dismounted. “What sort of mood is he in?”

  Turk made a face. “It’s been less than forty-eight hours since his little brother died. What sort of mood do you think he’s in?”

  Muddy sighed. He didn’t have much to report. His steps were reluctant as he approached the cabin, but he knew he needed to get it over with. He knocked on the door, which had been repaired when the gang moved in. It no longer hung askew on its thick leather hinges. He waited, hoping that Nick wouldn’t be mad and take the anger out on him.

  After a moment, the door swung back and Molly stood there. “Come on in. He’s been waiting for you.”

  Respectfully, Muddy took off his battered old hat as he entered the cabin. Nick Creighton was sitting at the rough-hewn table, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His right elbow rested on the table, and he had a glass of whiskey in that hand. A half-full bottle sat on the table beside him. He scowled as he looked up at the newcomer. The look made Muddy’s gut tighten.

  “Muddy,” Creighton said. “What’s going on down at Jensen’s place?”

  “Not a lot, boss,” Muddy reported. “His hands are out ridin’ the range and doin’ their chores as usual. They’re all carryin’ rifles and packin’ irons on their hips, though. From the looks of it, Jensen’s told them not to let their guard down, so I reckon he ain’t convinced he’s in the clear yet.”

  Creighton tossed back the whiskey in the glass, then nodded slowly. “We’ll let him stew a while longer. We’ve done all right with the cattle we’ve lifted from there so far, so we’re not short of money. There’s no rush.”

  Muddy hesitated. Creighton had accepted what he had to say without losing his temper, so the smart thing to do would be to get out while the gettin’ was good. But he didn’t want to fail to report everything he had seen. That might come back to cause him trouble later. “There’s one more thing, Nick. I saw a girl.”

  Creighton frowned as he glanced up from pouring himself another drink. “A girl?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. A, uh, really pretty girl. Lots of curly blond hair. She was dressed like a man and she rode like a man, but she was a gal, all right, there was no mistakin’ that.”

  Molly laughed softly. “You sound a little smitten, Muddy.”

  “No, ma’am,�
� he said, shaking his head. “I just hadn’t seen her there before and figured Nick might want to know about her.”

  “Seems like I’ve heard that Jensen has a daughter,” Creighton mused. “Maybe that was her you saw.”

  “Could’ve been, Nick. She was ridin’ around like she owned the place, sure enough. I watched her for a while, but then I spied somebody else comin’ and lit a shuck. You told me not to get caught on the Sugarloaf, so I figured I’d better be careful.”

  “Was it Jensen?”

  “The fella who was comin’?” Muddy shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. Never got a good look at him. But I don’t think so. Even if it had been, I know you don’t want him bushwhacked.”

  Creighton took a sip of the liquor. “That’s right. When the time comes to kill Smoke Jensen, it’s going to be my finger that pulls the trigger while I look him in the eye and make sure he knows why he’s dying. That’s the only way Blue will be avenged. Although”—Creighton stroked his chin—“if that was Jensen’s daughter you saw, that makes me think of some other ways he could be made to suffer before I put him out of his miser y.”

  Molly frowned. “You wouldn’t hurt a woman, would you, Nick?”

  Creighton’s hand tightened on the glass as he said, “I’d hurt anybody if it caused Smoke Jensen pain. He’s going to pay for happened to Blue . . . pay in blood!”

  CHAPTER 15

  “What in the world happened to you?” Smoke asked as Denny rode up and dismounted. She should have known he was too keen of eye not to notice the signs of her little misadventure. “That horse didn’t spook and throw you off into the creek, did it?”

  “Of course not,” Denny replied tartly. “I’m too good a rider for that.”

  “Well, you managed to get a dunking somehow. Your clothes are still damp, and your hair’s gonna take a while to dry.”

  She shrugged. “I fell in all on my own. I was getting a drink and my foot slipped on a rock.”

  “Oh. Well, that was careless of you.”

  “Yeah.” She wasn’t sure if her father believed the story, but he didn’t press her about it.

  They mounted up and headed back to the ranch house.

  After a while, he said, “Any time you want to go swimming, there’s a good swimmin’ hole farther up the creek. I can make sure none of the hands are around that part of the ranch.”

  “I can take care of myself. Anyway, none of the cowboys who work for you would dare spy on Smoke Jensen’s daughter, no matter how much it’s in their nature.”

  “You’re probably right about that,” Smoke said with a chuckle.

  That left the question of who had been spying on her, Denny thought, and she had no answer for it. Maybe Brice Rogers would be able to backtrack the lurker and find out. If he did, would he let her know? Maybe, she decided, if it suited his purposes. Otherwise he’d probably keep it to himself and shut her out. He wouldn’t want her interfering with the job that had brought him there.

  By the time they got back to the ranch house, Denny’s clothes were dry and she had straightened them up so the beating they had taken wasn’t as noticeable. She tucked her still-damp hair under her hat, the way it had been when she and her father had ridden out earlier.

  “You’re trying to make sure your mother doesn’t notice that you fell in the creek,” Smoke said as they dismounted.

  “Well, it’s sort of embarrassing,” Denny said. “You won’t say anything, will you?”

  “I reckon not. Like Sally keeps reminding me, you’re a grown woman now. We can’t keep track of where you are or what you’re doing every hour of the day, so there’s no point in trying.” Smoke paused. “We sort of missed that when you were growing up, because you weren’t here so much of the time. You were way off over there in England and France and all those other places you went. You spent your childhood away from us, for the most part. It had to be that way, for Louis’s sake and for the benefits you got out of it, too, but you can understand why we want to spend as much time around you now as we can.”

  “Sure, Pa,” Denny said as she rested a hand on his shoulder for a second. “Louis and I are just used to being on our own a lot.”

  “The two of you grew up pretty fast, I reckon,” Smoke said.

  “Not like you.”

  “Well, no, and thank goodness for that!”

  They turned their horses over to the wrangler who’d come out of the barn to take them, then, smiling, they went into the house. Denny didn’t see her mother, so she headed right upstairs to put on some clean clothes and brush out her hair while she had the chance, all the time wondering if Brice Rogers had found anything when he trailed the man who’d been skulking on the ridge.

  * * *

  If nothing else, Rogers thought as he rode through the rugged foothills, the job of tracking was giving him a better idea of the Sugarloaf’s layout. Back in Denver, he had studied the ranch’s boundaries on a map, but that wasn’t the same as actually laying eyes on the landscape.

  The trail was fairly easy to follow at first, as if the watcher didn’t know that Denny had spotted him and hadn’t been trying to conceal his sign. But as the tracks led more and more toward the mountains and the terrain got rougher, Rogers had a harder time following them. The ground was rocky for long stretches, and he had to cast back and forth quite a bit before he was able to pick up the tracks again. Several times he was convinced he had lost the trail, then he found it again.

  His search would be easier if he wasn’t distracted by thoughts of Denny Jensen, he told himself. Sure, she was pretty, but she was also reckless, headstrong, and even a little arrogant. He supposed that was understandable in a girl who had grown up rich and beautiful.

  His thoughts turned to memories of his childhood. He’d certainly never had the same sort of advantages.

  * * *

  He grew up on a hardscrabble ranch in West Texas, pressed into service helping his father run the place almost as soon as he was old enough to stay in a saddle. By that time, the threat from Comanches and Apaches was over for all practical purposes, although bands of bronco Apaches were rumored to still be hiding in the mountains across the border in Mexico. It was said that from time to time they crossed the Rio Grande to raid isolated ranches, but no renegades ever bothered the Rogers family.

  They had enough to handle without any bloodthirsty savages showing up. The elements were brutal—drought in the summer, blizzards in the winter, never enough water or grass to sustain a herd. Throw in rattlesnakes and scorpions and all the other things that could kill you, and life was hard, with little or no promise of a reward somewhere in the future.

  He was fifteen when a fever had claimed both his parents. The oldest of four children, he figured he would keep the ranch running, but folks from the church in the nearest settlement, thirty miles away, had showed up to take his little brothers and sister away. They would find new homes for the youngsters, they said. People were willing to take him in, too. At fifteen, he didn’t argue. The church folks had a sheriff’s deputy with them.

  He told them all to go to hell and rode off on his own, leaving the ranch behind for good. He had done nothing his whole life except work hard and take orders, and he was damned if he was going to live with some new family and take orders from them.

  * * *

  He mused about his past with one part of his mind while the other concentrated on following the tracks.

  * * *

  Making his way in the world alone wasn’t easy. Eventually, he found a job sweeping out a jail up in the Panhandle, and that led to pinning on a deputy’s star. Law work seemed to suit him and he did that for a few years, working in various settlements. He met a deputy U.S. marshal who suggested that he try to get a job with Chief Marshal Horton in Denver. He followed the suggestion and succeeded in becoming a deputy U.S. marshal, working hard as always.

  * * *

  The tracks had disappeared again. Rogers stopped his musing and focused all his attention on the search
, thinking about his assignment to clean up the rustling around Big Rock. For more than an hour, he continued to ride through the foothills, his eyes intent for any sign of his quarry, until he was finally forced to admit it was no use. He’d lost the trail.

  He hated to give up, but at least there was one good thing about the situation. Denny Jensen wasn’t there to witness his failure. The next time he ran into her, whether it was in Big Rock or on the Sugarloaf, he was willing to bet she would ask him what he had found, and he wasn’t looking forward to having to tell her.

  Even though it might be nice to see her again . . .

  * * *

  Things were calm on the Sugarloaf for the next week. Some branding needed to be done, and Denny insisted on being right in the middle of it, working with the men amid the dust and the smoke from the branding fire and the stink of burned hair when the iron sizzled its mark into hide. Smoke turned her loose to do what she wanted, but discreetly he asked Cal to keep an eye on her.

  “I’ll try,” the foreman promised, “but if she thinks I’m givin’ her any special privileges, she’s liable to light into me. I’m not sure I want that.”

  Smoke laughed and slapped his old friend on the shoulder. “Just do the best you can, Cal.”

  During that week, Smoke spent quite a bit of time with Louis. The young man wanted to learn all he could about the business end of running the ranch.

  They were in the office going over the tally books and ledgers.

  “I may not be able to bulldog steers or use a branding iron like Denny, but I assume there’s more than that to what goes on around here,” Louis said.

  “There sure is,” Smoke agreed. “And there’s getting to be more of this part all the time. Your mother’s helped me out with some of it, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind giving up that chore if you’re interested in taking it on.”

  “Well . . . I intend to practice law at some point, but I don’t see why I can’t do that and help with the ranch’s business affairs at the same time.”