“Whatever you’ve got left,” she told the buckskin, “we need it now!”
The horse stretched its legs and broke into a gallop.
At least the outlaws didn’t open fire on her. They must have known they were close to the ranch and didn’t want to alert anyone that trouble was coming. They would stand a better chance of winning the battle if they took the Sugarloaf’s defenders by surprise. The numbers would be about even, Denny knew, so the element of surprise might be enough to swing the victory to the owlhoot side.
She couldn’t allow that. As she leaned forward in the saddle and urged the buckskin on, she reached down and drew the holstered Colt. As soon as she came in sight of the ranch headquarters, she would start firing warning shots into the air.
Horse and rider swept around another bend. Up ahead, the ranch house and the other buildings lay dark and quiet in the moonlight. Denny sobbed in relief, pointed the revolver at the sky, and pulled the trigger. Boom after boom rolled out as she emptied the cylinder. The yellow glow of lamps being lit bloomed in the darkness. Denny sagged. The gun started to slip from her fingers, but she tightened her grip on it. That was her father’s Colt, and she wasn’t going to lose it.
Since those shots had blasted out, the outlaws had nothing to gain by being quiet. They opened fire, a sheet of muzzle flame spurting from their weapons. Denny rode low, feeling the smooth play of the buckskin’s muscles beneath her. Somehow, the horse had reached deep inside itself and found a core of strength that neither of them had known it possessed. The buckskin was running its heart out, running the race of its life.
Then it gave a final leap and collapsed.
Denny felt the horse going down and kicked free from the stirrups. She flew forward, momentum carrying her. While she was in the air, she caught a crazy glimpse of the ranch house. It seemed almost close enough for her to touch . . .
Then she crashed into the ground with stunning force and rolled over and over, the breath gone from her lungs, her muscles limp and useless, her brain stunned almost into insensibility. She came to a stop practically at the feet of a tall figure who quickly knelt beside her, took hold of her shoulders, and turned her onto her back.
Denny blinked dust out of her eyes and looked up into a familiar face. She recognized the lean planes of it, the fair hair, the neatly trimmed mustache sported by the middle-aged man. She whispered, “Uncle Matt . . . ?”
“Denise!”
Matt Jensen didn’t allow himself to be surprised by the sight of his niece for more than a split second. Not with a horde of gun-wolves bearing down on them. He slid his arms under Denny’s shoulders and knees and lifted her easily as he surged to his feet. Bullets kicked up dirt near his feet as he turned and ran toward the ranch house with her.
More figures appeared on the porch.
Matt recognized them as his nephews Ace and Chance Jensen, his brother Luke’s boys. “Cover us!” he shouted at them, then ducked his head and kept running as Ace and Chance opened fire from the porch.
Cal, Pearlie, and the rest of the hands were emerging from the bunkhouse, too, roused from sleep by the gunfire but always ready to fight at a second’s notice. More shots crashed out from them, and as the hail of lead ripped into the unknown attackers, the onslaught blunted their charge. The compact group broke up.
But they kept coming, and in the blink of an eye, the area between the ranch house and the bunkhouse and the barn was a wild melee of individual gunfights. Matt leaped onto the porch with Denny in his arms, touching only one step along the way, and lunged into the house with her.
Smoke and Sally were at the bottom of the stairs. Sally had hold of Smoke’s arm, but he shrugged free of her and stepped toward Matt, exclaiming, “My God! Is that—”
“It’s your daughter, I think,” Matt said.
“Denise!” Sally cried. “Is she all right?”
“Can’t tell for sure, but I believe so. She took a bad spill outside when her horse collapsed.”
“Put her on the sofa,” Sally said, directing Matt into the parlor.
Smoke followed. He looked at the gun Denny was holding. “That’s my Colt. I wondered where it had gone.”
“Pa . . .” Denny murmured as Matt lowered her onto the sofa. She blinked her eyes open. “Those men . . . outside . . . they’re the rustlers . . . who’ve been after you . . . The boss . . . is a man named . . . Creighton.”
Matt glanced at Smoke, who shook his head. The name didn’t mean anything to him.
Matt straightened. “I need to go help Ace and Chance and the others.” He hurried out to get back into the fight.
Smoke and Sally dropped to a knee beside the sofa.
Sally ran her hands over Denny’s body. “I don’t see or feel any blood. I think she’s all right, Smoke. Thank God!”
Smoke rested a hand tenderly against Denny’s cheek. “You tracked them down, didn’t you? When you disappeared, I knew that’s what you’d gone to do.”
“I just wanted to . . . help.”
“You did. You brought them right to us.” Gently, he took the gun out of Denny’s hand. “Now it’s up to us to finish the chore.”
“Smoke—” Sally said as he stood.
“Take care of our little girl.” He reached down and slid a handful of cartridges from the loops on the shell belt strapped around Denny’s hips. His voice was flat and hard as he added, “I’ll see to this.”
“You haven’t recovered—”
“I’m well enough,” Smoke said, thumbing the fresh rounds into the Colt’s cylinder. He snapped it shut and headed for the door.
Creighton. That was the name Denny had said.
That was the man Smoke wanted.
* * *
When the shooting started, Rogers prodded his horse ahead. He’d been hanging back on purpose, so none of the outlaws would notice that he wasn’t who was supposed to be on the horse, but that didn’t matter anymore. It was time for action.
As he drew even with one of the men, he leaned over in the saddle and lashed out with the gun he had taken from the late Muddy Malone. The barrel ripped a gash on the outlaw’s head and toppled him from his horse. The man riding on the other side of him yelled, “Hey!” and tried to bring his gun to bear on Rogers, but the young lawman fired first. His bullet ripped through the man and drove him out of the saddle.
The shots didn’t attract any attention since gun-thunder already filled the air. Rogers shot another outlaw off his horse, then the attack faltered and the gang began to scatter. Rogers reined in as one of the mounted men plunged at him from the side.
“Williams!” Turk Sanford bellowed. “You dirty, double-crossin’—”
The gun in Turk’s hand ripped across Rogers’s ribs and twisted him in the saddle. He felt himself falling but triggered his gun as he went over and slammed into the ground. Turk’s head jerked back. The slug had bored a black hole in his forehead, a third eye that spouted blood as he fell, landing in a loose sprawl of death.
Pain from the wound in his side flooded through Rogers’s body, but he pushed himself to his feet and stumbled toward the ranch house. Denny was up there somewhere. He had to find her, had to make sure she was all right.
He was concentrating on that so much he almost didn’t hear the hoofbeats coming up behind him until the rider was practically on top of him. He turned and brought up his gun, gasped, “Creighton!” as he caught a glimpse of the man’s face, and tried to fire.
Before he could pull the trigger, flame filled his eyes and something slammed into his head with such terrible force that he was blasted backwards into a deep black oblivion, darker than anything he had ever experienced.
His last thought before that darkness claimed him was of Denny Jensen.
* * *
The shooting had just about stopped by the time Smoke stepped out onto the porch. Bodies of men and horses littered the ground. A gun blasted here and there as some of the surviving outlaws tried to put up a fight and were finished off.
Matt, Ace
, and Chance stood on the porch, watching a man on horseback about twenty yards from the house.
The man called, “Smoke Jensen!”
“He just rode up and started yelling for you, Smoke,” Matt said.
“We could have blasted him out of the saddle,” Ace said.
“Figured you might want him for yourself,” Chance added.
Smoke gave a curt nod, went down the steps, and called, “I’m Smoke Jensen. You’d be Creighton, I expect.”
The man slid down from the saddle and shooed the horse away. He walked closer, moving with a pronounced limp. “Nick Creighton. You’re the one who made me a damn gimp, Jensen. Shot me through the leg five years ago.”
Smoke shook his head slightly. “Sorry. I don’t recollect every snake I’ve shot. There are too many of them.”
“You killed my brother!” Creighton cried. “My brother Blue is dead because of you!”
“I reckon he must have been part of your rustling gang. I’d say that makes his death your fault, Creighton, not mine.”
“You son of a bitch,” Creighton panted as he limped closer. “I swore I’d kill you, and I will. I wanted to take everything away from you first, but I’ll settle for seeing you die here and now. That damn girl tried to ruin everything, but she didn’t succeed. I’ll still see you dead.”
“Creighton!”
The shout came from the porch. Smoke turned slightly, just enough to keep one eye on Creighton while the other saw Denny standing with Sally on one side of her and Louis on the other, holding her up.
“That damn girl is Smoke Jensen’s daughter!” Denny cried. “When you take on one Jensen, you take on all of them!”
“That’s right,” Matt said. He and Ace and Chance were at the foot of the steps.
Cal, Pearlie, and the rest of the crew drifted toward the house from the other direction.
Smoke smiled faintly. “The smart thing for you to do, Creighton, would be to drop those guns and surrender.”
Creighton’s face twisted with insane rage. He howled a curse and yanked up both revolvers.
Barely seeming to move, Smoke raised the Colt and shot him in the chest. The gun roared and flame gushed from the barrel and Creighton rocked back a step as his eyes widened with pain and shock. He had both guns almost level, but they sagged as he pulled the triggers, and the bullets slammed harmlessly into the ground. He reeled back another step, then dropped both guns and fell to his knees, staying there for a second. As blood dribbled from his mouth, he pitched forward on his face, not moving again.
The moon hadn’t set, but the sky was gray with orange streaks heralding the approach of dawn. The light was good enough to see better.
Denny’s gaze touched one of the sprawled figures. She broke away from her mother and brother and rushed down the steps, breaking into an unsteady run. “Brice!”
Smoke followed her. She dropped to her knees beside the man and pulled his bloody head into her lap. Smoke recognized him. He didn’t know what Rogers had been doing in the middle of this fight, but Denny seemed to. She was sobbing and clutching the young man fiercely to her.
Smoke put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Denny. Denny, listen to me.”
She looked up at him, tears streaking her face. “He’s dead.”
“No, he’s not,” Smoke said. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Look at his chest. He’s breathing. Looks like he got creased in a couple places, but he’s not dead.”
Denny’s eyes widened. She looked down at the young lawman, back up at Smoke, down at Rogers again. And then she started to sob even harder.
“Leave her alone,” Sally said softly as she came up and took Smoke’s arm. “She’ll be all right. And you, mister, need to get back to bed.”
“But the fight—”
“This fight is over,” Sally told him. “Lord knows there’ll probably be another one, sooner or later, but this fight ... is over.”
CHAPTER 40
Denny stepped out onto the porch. It was a clear, cool, beautiful day, and she was moved to take a deep breath of the fresh, invigorating air.
“Pretty as a picture,” Brice Rogers said from the rocking chair where he sat.
Denny jumped a little. “Don’t sneak up on a girl like that.”
“How could I sneak up on you? I was sitting right here. You just didn’t see me, that’s all.”
“Well, you’ll be fit enough to travel in a few more days, and then you can stop lurking around here.”
He still had a bandage around his head where Nick Creighton’s bullet had creased him, and his torso was wrapped up in bandages, too, a result of being shot by Turk Sanford. Neither of those outlaws would ever hurt anybody else. They were buried in cheap pine coffins in the potter’s field section of Big Rock’s cemetery, along with most of the other members of Creighton’s gang. The few who had survived were locked up in Monte Carson’s jail, awaiting trial.
“I reckon your father and uncle and cousins will all be glad to see me go, too,” Rogers said. “They seem to have the crazy notion that I’m interested in courting you.”
Denny snorted. “That’ll be the day. Even if you had a loco idea like that, it takes two for any courting to happen, you know.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Not going to happen.”
“Nope. I guess we did a pretty good job helping to bust up that gang of outlaws and killers, but that’s all it was.”
Rogers nodded. “I couldn’t agree more.”
“You got anything else to say?”
“Not a thing.”
“All right, then,” Denny said. “Go ahead and sit there and heal up.” She went down the steps and walked toward the corral next to the barn. The buckskin saw her coming and tossed his head in welcome. Finding the horse lying on the ground after the battle had been a repeat of what had happened with Rogers. Denny had thought the buckskin was dead, but that turned out not to be the case. She didn’t know if he would ever be fit to ride again, but either way, he would live out his days on the Sugarloaf as an honored friend of the Jensen family.
She reached through the fence and stroked the horse’s sleek shoulder. He put his nose against her hand and nuzzled it. Denny laughed, content at that moment as she hadn’t been for quite awhile.
Several days had passed since the bloody, predawn showdown. Since then, Smoke had continued to recuperate. He was strong enough to have ridden up to the outlaws’ hideout with Matt, Ace, Chance, Sheriff Monte Carson, and a couple deputies. They had found the hidden basin deserted. Molly was gone, and there was no way of knowing where. When Creighton and the others hadn’t returned, she obviously decided they were all dead and had moved on. Likely, they would never see the woman again. That would be fine. Denny was grateful to Molly for keeping her secret, but the way things had worked out, it hadn’t mattered much.
They hadn’t found any remains of Muddy Malone among the rocks that had been scattered by the explosion, but that was no surprise, either. He had been too close to the blast to survive.
With things settled down on the Sugarloaf, Denny’s uncle and cousins would be moving on. Even though Matt, Ace, and Chance were middle-aged, well into the time of their lives when most men settled down, Denny didn’t expect that to happen any time soon. They were too fiddle-footed for that. Smoke Jensen, the fastest gun of them all, the daring adventurer of the frontier, was the only one of the bunch who had put down roots and surrounded himself with family and friends. There was a certain irony in that, Denny mused, but she was grateful things had worked out that way.
The clip-clop of hoofbeats made her look around. A lone rider was approaching the ranch headquarters, and after a moment she recognized Monte Carson and hoped it wasn’t more trouble bringing the sheriff out there.
She gave the buckskin a final pat and then walked over to meet the lawman. “Hello, Sheriff,” she said with a smile. “What brings you out here today?”
Monte nodded toward the porch. “I’ve got a telegram for your
friend over yonder.”
“My friend?” Denny said. “Oh, you mean Deputy Marshal Rogers.”
“Yeah.” Monte dismounted and led his horse toward the house as Denny walked with him.
Rogers gave him a friendly greeting as well. “How’s everything in town?”
“Quiet . . . for now. I know better than to expect it’ll stay that way for too long, though.” Monte took the folded piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. “Got a wire for you. Fella at the telegraph office had it sent over to me, and I figured I’d better bring it out to you.”
Frowning, Rogers took the telegram and unfolded it. He glanced at the signature and said, “It’s from the chief marshal.” He read for a moment, then looked up and went on. “Do you know what this says, Sheriff ?”
“I didn’t read it, but I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Monte said. “I got one from Marshal Horton, too. Sort of a professional courtesy, I reckon. He didn’t have to ask my permission to assign you to this area permanently.”
“What?” Denny said. “You’re going to be staying in Big Rock?”
“I suppose I’ll make that my headquarters,” Rogers said, “but my job could take me anywhere in these parts.”
“So you’re not going back to Denver?”
“Not for the time being, anyway.” He smiled. “Reckon you can put up with me?”
“It doesn’t look like I’ll have any choice in the matter,” Denny said, glaring. “But it doesn’t really matter to me one way or the other. I’m going to be too busy to pay attention to whether you’re around or not.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Learning how to run this ranch.”
“You’re going to replace Smoke Jensen?”
“Nobody could ever replace Smoke Jensen,” she said. “There’s only one of him and only one ever will be.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“But there’s only one Denny Jensen, too, and I’m just getting started! Which means that you’d better just stay out of my way, mister.”
“Happy to . . . as long as you stay out of the way of me doing my job!”
Neither of them noticed that Monte Carson had chuckled and gone on into the house. Nor did they see the two people watching them through the parlor window, Sally with a slightly concerned expression on her face, Smoke grinning so big with pride he looked like he was fit to bust.
The Jensen Brand Page 27