This Violent Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “Are you boys that close with Felter and Canning?” Smoke yelled. “You sure you want to stay around for this? It’s gonna get pretty hot down there.”

  “You go to hell, Jensen!” The voice came from a shack.

  A dozen other voices shouted curses at Smoke.

  Two men sprang from behind the saloon tent, rifles in their hands. They raced into one of the small shacks. Smoke put half a dozen rounds into the shack, working the lever and firing as he swung the Henry from left to right. One man screamed and stumbled through the door, out into the street, dropping his rifle and dying in the dirt. The second man came out and Smoke aimed, but he held his fire. That man’s chest and belly were already crimson. He sat down in the street, remained that way for a moment, then toppled over to die.

  Smoke shifted positions once more, reloaded, and called out, “Any more of you boys want to give it a try?”

  Canning looked at Felter. They had left the saloon and were in the largest of the mining shacks, both crouched behind crates of machinery.

  “Come on, Felter. Let’s just kill Jensen and be done with it.”

  “Yeah, well, ain’t that just what we’re tryin’ to do?”

  “We ain’t tryin’ hard enough. There’s fourteen of us, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Felter shook his head . “Only eleven now. They’s three men lying out there, dead in the street. Or ain’t you noticed?”

  “All the more reason for us to kill him and get this over with.”

  Felter was thoughtful for a moment. The whole plan had been a disaster from the very beginning. Jensen was a pure devil, right out of hell. They had torn the cabin apart searching for gold, but it had been fruitless. Maybe there wasn’t any gold. For all Felter knew, Jensen’s pa might’ve spent it all on whiskey and women.

  One thing Felter was sure of, though. If he failed at the job, he could never set foot in the Idaho territory again. Richards, Stratton, and Potter would see to that.

  “All right. Maybe there’s only eleven of us now, but there’s still only one of him,” Canning said. “I say we rush him. We’ve got to kill Jensen, or he’s goin’ to kill us, sure as a gun is iron.”

  Felter was sorry he had ever gotten mixed up in it. For the first time in his evil life, he was really afraid of another man. He took a deep breath to screw up his courage. “You’re right, we’ve got him outnumbered. It would be foolish to let him just pick us off, one at a time. Let’s take the damn man.”

  He passed orders down the street, from shack to shack. The plan was for three men to advance on the right, three men on the left, and three men to circle around behind Jensen, coming in from the rear. Felter and Canning would remain behind to “offer help, where help was needed.”

  In truth, Felter hoped no help would be needed. It was his hope that Jensen would be killed before either he or Canning would have to encounter him.

  * * *

  Smoke walked into the empty saloon. From the lack of alarmed shouts in the camp, none of his enemies had seen him slip down the hillside and into the settlement. They were all too busy being scared and trying to figure out what to do next.

  He went behind the bar, drew himself a beer from the keg the saloonkeeper had left behind, then drank it casually as he looked through the window and saw men moving carefully along the street. He strolled over to the open-flap doorway, picked out the man he had wounded, aimed, and fired. Another of the hired killers went down, screaming, spasmed a couple of times, then lay still as death claimed him.

  “There are only ten of you left,” Smoke shouted. “Still time for the rest of you men to leave. I’ve got nothing against any of you. It’s Felter and Canning I want. You men don’t owe anything to them.”

  “Damn it, Felter!” one of the new outlaws shouted, running across the dusty street. “Jensen is in the saloon!”

  Smoke’s Henry thundered again, and the outlaw who had given the warning spun in the street, crying out as a bleeding bullet hole soaked the front of his shirt red with blood. Dropping his gun, he tumbled forward into the dirt and didn’t move again.

  One of the other outlaws, thinking he could get lucky, ran down the side of the street, darting in and out of doorways shooting at anything he thought he saw.

  Smoke went back to the bar, laid his rifle on the hardwood, and reached under it to pick up a double-barreled shotgun from the shelf. He checked to see that it was loaded and stuffed a handful of shells from a box sitting next to it into his pocket. He walked back to the entrance just as the panic-stricken outlaw approached.

  “Over here,” Smoke called as he stepped out of the saloon. The man lurched to a terrified halt only a few yards away. He looked like he wanted to be somewhere—anywhere—else, but there was no time to get there.

  Smoke pulled both shotgun triggers. The blast lifted the man off his feet, almost cutting him in half.

  Smoke reloaded the shotgun as he ducked behind one of the shacks and then started up the alley. He came face-to-face with one of Richards’s hired bounty hunters. The bounty hunter fired, the lead creasing Smoke’s left arm, drawing blood. Smoke triggered both barrels of the shotgun again and blew the man’s head right off his shoulders.

  Smoke stepped into an open door just as a man ran toward him, firing at him with a pistol in each hand. The thunderous volley echoed back from the slopes around the camp. Splinters from the doorframe gouged painfully into Smoke’s cheek as he dropped the shotgun and pulled his pistol. He shot the man in the chest and the belly.

  The street erupted in black powder, whining lead, and wild cursing. Gray powder smoke billowed. Spooked horses broke from their hitch rails and charged down the street, clouding the air with dust, rearing and screaming in fear. A bullet from Canning’s gun punched into Smoke’s right leg, and he flung himself out of the doorway and behind the protection of a water trough.

  Canning hobbled painfully into the street, shouting, “I’ve got you now, Jensen. You are dead meat!” His pistols belched smoke and flame, and his eyes were wild with hate.

  One of Canning’s slugs hit Smoke in the left side, passing through a fleshy part and exiting out the back. The shock spun him around and knocked him down.

  “Ha!” Canning shouted. “That hurts, don’t it?”

  Smoke raised up on one elbow and leveled his pistol. He shot Canning in the right eye, taking off part of his face. Canning’s legs jerked out from under him and he fell on his back, dead.

  “Probably not as much as that,” Smoke mumbled as slowly, painfully, he stood up.

  Two men ran into the smoky, dusty street, and Smoke shot both of them just as one fired at him. The outlaw’s bullet ricocheted off a rock in the street, part of the lead hitting Smoke in the chest, bringing blood and a grunt of pain. He dragged himself into a doorway and quickly reloaded.

  Bleeding from wounds in his side, leg, face, and chest, he returned the fire of another outlaw shooting at him. The man doubled over, dying in the center of the street.

  Lead began whining down the alley, and Smoke, moving slowly and painfully, managed to find shelter behind a building, where he paused to reload.

  Deke left the shack and called out to Smoke, firing as he yelled. His round struck the handle of a spare pistol Smoke had stuck behind his belt. Pain doubled him over for a second, but he lifted his pistol and dropped the outlaw in his tracks. It was almost over. Smoke took a deep breath, feeling a twinge of pain from at least one broken rib, maybe two.

  Felter had not left the comparative safety of the machine crate in the mining shack. He’d watched the entire battle without taking part, counting the men Jensen had shot. He realized, with a real degree of shock and fear, that everyone—Canning, Deke, and all the others—had been killed. “No. No, that isn’t possible.”

  He had started the day with an advantage of fourteen to one, and he was the only one left. He knew that he couldn’t get away. Smoke Jensen was a man with a mission—to kill everyone who’d had anything to do with killing his wife and kid. E
xcept for Felter, Jensen had done just that.

  Felter lifted up the bottle of whiskey he’d brought with him when he left the saloon earlier and took several Adam’s-apple-bobbing swallows. Then, lowering the bottle, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shook his head. “You ain’t goin’ away, are you, Jensen? You know what? I believe I can take you now. You have to be running out of steam.” He said it to bolster his courage and his confidence.

  “Felter!” Smoke called. “Step out here and face me.”

  Felter stepped out into the street and was shocked at Smoke’s appearance. “Well, now, boy, you look like you’re hurtin’ real bad.” He smiled at the apparition in front of him. “Just about shot to pieces, ain’t you?”

  Smoke was bleeding from several wounds, which gave Felter a renewed courage. The two men advanced toward each other until they were separated by no more than twenty-five feet. Smoke’s advance was slow and halting, each movement bringing him pain.

  Felter lifted the whiskey bottle toward him. “Here’s to you, Jensen,” he said with a chuckle. “Damn if you didn’t kill thirteen men here, today. You got shot up pretty bad doin’ it, though, didn’t you? I’ve got to give you credit. You almost pulled it off.”

  “Not almost. Goin’ to.” Smoke’s voice was strained with pain. “I’ve only got one left.”

  “Ah, yes, only one left. But you see, kid, that one you got left is me. And you ain’t goin’ to get through me.”

  “I think I will. And after I take care of you, I’m going after your bosses.”

  Felter grinned. “That would be Potter, Stratton, and Richards, would it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’ve kilt how many men, now . . . eighteen? Just to get to Potter, Stratton, and Richards?”

  “Nineteen,” Smoke pointed out.

  Felter disagreed. “No, only eighteen. Your wife kilt Stoner.”

  “Nineteen, and I’m not counting Stoner. I’m counting you.”

  * * *

  Up on the hillside, the miners had watched the entire battle, listening not only to the pop of gunshots, but also the curses, the shouts of anger and fear and pain as, one by one, Smoke had killed those who were trying to kill him.

  “Damn,” one of the miners said. “Jensen looks half dead. There’s no way he can take Felter now.”

  “Don’t sell him short,” Jake said. “There ain’t very many men like Smoke Jensen . . . maybe nobody like ’im. But if you’re wantin’ to bet, my money’s on him, even now, hurt as bad as he is.”

  * * *

  Down below in the street, Felter chuckled again. “You know what, Jensen? I don’t think you could beat me even if you wasn’t all slowed down by them wounds. But I know damn well you can’t do it now.” He transferred the drink from his left hand to his right, then held it out toward Smoke. “Here, kid, take a drink. You look like you need it.”

  Suddenly, and without calling it, he dropped the whiskey and his hand streaked down to his pistol quick as a striking snake.

  Felter was fast, but Smoke was faster. By the time the last echo of the single shot reverberated back down from the hillside, Smoke was still standing, a ribbon of smoke drifting from the end of the barrel of the pistol he was holding in his hand.

  Felter lay dead in the street before him.

  Smoke pouched the iron, then walked over to the hitch rail and put his hand on it to keep himself erect.

  The miners, who had watched the whole battle in awe, came down from the hillside, pausing here and there to look at a body. A couple of the more courageous, moved hesitantly, cautiously, up to Smoke.

  “You hard hit, son,” one of the miners said.

  “Yeah,” Smoke said.

  “You goin’ to need some doctorin’.”

  “Yeah,” Smoke said again. “I’ll be gettin’ some doctorin’ done. Help me on my horse.”

  A couple miners helped him get mounted, then watched in awe as he rode away.

  “Folks will be readin’ about this day a hunnert years from now,” one of them said.

  “I hope whoever does the writin’, gets it right,” another replied.

  CHAPTER 24

  Preacher’s cabin

  Smoke had been thinking of Preacher when he’d said he would find a doctor to treat his wounds. Preacher, he knew, could do more for him than any doctor he had ever met or known, but he was nearly dead by the time he reached the cabin more than a week later. He had holed up for a while and done what he could to stop the bleeding, which was the only reason he had lived this long. But the damage was tremendous and needed more care than he could give himself.

  The smile on Preacher’s face faded quickly when he saw how badly hurt Smoke was. “Boy, what the hell happened to you?”

  “I got them, Preacher. The ones who killed Nicole and my boy. I got them, and I killed every last damn one of them.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m glad you did. But you look half dead yourself. How come you ain’t gone to see no doctor?”

  A small, pained smile spread across Smoke’s face. “I thought I just did.” He winced once. “And I don’t mind telling you, Preacher, I’m hurting pretty bad.”

  Smoke sagged in the saddle, and would have fallen, if Preacher had not stepped up quickly to grab him.

  “Come on in the house, boy. I’ll do what I can for you, but I don’t know as I’ve ever doctored anybody shot up as bad as you.”

  PSR ranch house, parlor

  “All of them?” Richards asked, gasping the words out in disbelief. “Surely you aren’t telling me he killed all of them, the twelve new men we sent, as well as Felter and Canning.”

  “That’s what folks are saying,” Potter said. “They’re saying that when the shooting was over, that miners’ camp looked like the battlefield at Shiloh.”

  “What the hell kind of man is this?” Stratton exclaimed. “There ain’t no one man who can take on fourteen men, all by hisself, and kill ’em all! Is there?”

  “Yeah? Well, if what Wiley is sayin’ is true, this one can,” Richards argued.

  “Well, there is one more thing,” Potter pointed out.

  “What’s that?”

  Potter grinned. “The word is, he was so shot up his ownself that it’s more than likely he’s dead now.”

  “Good,” Stratton said emphatically.

  “What do you mean, good?” Richards asked. “Bein’ bad shot up ain’t the same thing as bein’ dead. Nobody has found his body yet, have they?”

  “No,” Potter said, shaking his head. “There ain’t nobody found his body.”

  “Then, far as I’m concerned, Jensen isn’t dead. And that’s the way we’re goin’ to treat it.”

  “What are we goin’ to do now?” Stratton asked.

  “We can hire some more people.” Potter smiled. “After all, that last bunch we hired didn’t cost us nothin’.”

  “And the first bunch only cost us half of what we said we was goin’ to give ’em,” Stratton added.

  Richards shook his head. “That hasn’t gotten us very far, has it?”

  “Well, we have to do something about him. I mean, he’s goin’ to find us sooner or later. I don’t know about you two, but I don’t want to face Jensen, not even with the odds three to one,” Potter said.

  Richards wasn’t giving up. “Let me think about it for a while. I’ll come up with something, and when I do, I’ll run it by the two of you to see what you think about it.”

  “Yeah, well, come up with it pretty quick,” Stratton said. “I don’t cotton to the idea of Jensen being out there, hangin’ around, waitin’ to strike.”

  The three men had just finished their conversation when Janey came into the parlor. “Good evening, gentlemen. Why, Josh, are your friends are sitting here without a drink in their hands? What kind of host are you? Mr. Potter, Mr. Stratton, would you like a drink?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, yes, I believe I would,” Potter replied with a smile.

  She smiled a
t him. “Bourbon and branch.”

  “You remember. I’m flattered.”

  She laughed. “That’s not hard to remember. All three of you have the same preference.”

  Janey came back into the parlor a few minutes later, carrying four drinks on a tray. “I hope you gentlemen don’t mind if I drink with you.”

  “Ha! Why should we mind? If we go to any saloon in town, we have to pay to have a drink with a pretty woman.”

  “Yeah, well, as long as you understand that this pretty woman belongs to me,” Richards griped.

  “That’s right, Josh, honey. I’m your woman.” Janey walked over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek.

  The four of them engaged in light talk for a few more minutes, then, as they finished their drinks, Potter and Stratton stood.

  “You will let us know when you come up with an idea, won’t you?” Potter asked.

  “You can count on it,” Richards replied.

  He waited until after his partners left before he turned to Janey. “All right,” he snapped. “What is it?”

  “What is it? Why, honey, what on earth do you mean?”

  “Most of the time when I’m with Potter or Stratton, you can’t leave fast enough. You’ve made it very clear to me that you don’t like them. But here, today, you were all sweetness and smiles. I know you want something, so, why don’t you come right out and tell me what it is?”

  “I want to go to Kansas City.”

  Richards frowned. “What do you mean? For good? Are you pulling out of here?”

  She returned his frown with a smile. “Now, honey, I’ve got a very good thing here with you. Why would I want to give that up? No, I don’t want to go to Kansas City for good. I just want to go for a visit. Of course I’m coming back.”

  “Oh,” Richards said.

  “Besides, I would be going for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I keep your books, remember? I know we’re getting a bit overstocked with cattle. I intend to visit the slaughterhouses while I’m in Kansas City to make arrangements to sell off some of the PSR cattle.”