This Violent Land

by William W. Johnstone

  “Mr. Matthews, you don’t understand,” Smoke said. “There will no risk for your gold because it won’t actually be the bait. My friend and I will be.”

  Matthews frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “When do you plan to ship the gold?” Smoke asked instead of answering the question.

  “Thursday morning.”

  “What arrangements do you normally make when you have a shipment of gold? Who knows how much gold is being shipped? And when and how it is to be shipped?”

  “Well, we notify the board of directors for the mine, so they know. We notify the teamsters and guards who will actually be taking the gold, so they would know. And we send a telegram ahead to the bank in Denver, so someone there would know.”

  “Does the newspaper carry an announcement of the shipment?”

  “Oh. Yes, the announcements in the papers let the stockholders know how well the mine is doing. When it is a particularly large shipment, as this one is, those announcements sometimes bring in additional investments.”

  Smoke quickly formulated a plan. “All right. I want you to do everything just as you normally do it, but with one little change. I want you to tell all the same people you normally tell that you actually plan to send it out a day earlier, with only two private detectives guarding it. However, you should tell them that you don’t want anyone else to know that.”

  “Deputy, didn’t you just assure me that the gold wouldn’t be used as bait?” Matthews asked.

  “I did, and it won’t be used as bait. The gold won’t actually be in that wagon. It will still be here, safe, ready for you to ship the next day, just as planned.”

  Matthews smiled. “Oh. I think I see where you’re going with this. You think that someone is going to let the secret out, don’t you?”

  “I don’t just think it, I’m counting on it. When there is this much money involved, someone can be bribed.”

  “But what if that doesn’t happen? What if there is no attempt to rob the gold?” Matthews asked.

  “We’ll carry a letter from you to the president of the bank where the gold is being shipped. He will announce that the secret shipment of gold has arrived safely, then you can ship the gold later without anyone knowing about it.”

  Matthews contemplated the proposal for a moment or two, then nodded. “All right. I’ll go along with the plan. But what about you and your partner? Won’t you be putting yourselves in a great deal of danger?”

  “You let us worry about that.”

  Breckenridge

  Amon Thomas scurried into the sheriff’s office. The fussy little man was the railroad telegrapher.

  Sheriff Hector looked up. “Yes, Mr. Thomas, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean, you aren’t sure?”

  “I intercepted a telegram this morning which gave all the details about the gold shipment from Boreas to Denver, and I brought that to you.”

  “Yes, you did. And I paid you for it, as you recall.”

  Thomas nodded. “Yes, sir, but I just now intercepted another telegram between Boreas and Denver, and it has me confused.”

  Hector frowned. “Confused, how?”

  “You take a look at it and see what you think.” Thomas handed the telegram to the sheriff.

  TO FIRST BANK OF DENVER STOP

  PURSUANT FIRST TELEGRAM STOP

  OPERATION MOVED UP TWENTY FOUR

  HOURS STOP

  “Well, now,” Sheriff Hector said with a smile. “I do believe they’re trying to pull a fast one.”

  “Is this telegram worth something to you?” Thomas asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Thomas, it is.” Hector gave the telegrapher a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Thank you,” Thomas said, smiling broadly at his unexpected fortune.

  Boreas

  As the steel-rimmed wheels rolled away from the mine and across the hard-packed earth, they picked up dirt, causing a rooster tail of dust to stream out behind them. The wood of the wagon was bleached white. In the wagon bed were several boxes, covered by a tarpaulin. The boxes were empty, but covered they presented the illusion of actual cargo.

  Clell was driving. “You really think Hector is going to make a try at this?”

  Sitting to his right and wearing a sheepskin jacket against the cold, Smoke kept his eyes peeled. “Yeah, I do. After he returned to the jail and found you gone and me not dead, he had to know that he couldn’t stay there any longer. And with this much money at stake, he has to make a try for it. He has no choice but to leave.”

  They drove on for another half hour, then Smoke saw that two men on horseback were trailing them. They were riding just fast enough to overtake the wagon, but not so fast so as to arouse suspicion.

  “Clell, there are two men coming up behind us.”

  “Yeah, and there are two more ahead.”

  “This can’t be a coincidence. Be ready. You take the front two, I’ll take the ones in back,” Smoke said.

  As if validating Smoke’s declaration, the four riders broke into a gallop, closing in with guns drawn.

  “Now!” Smoke shouted. The time had come to put their plan into action.

  Clell stopped the wagon, then leaped down from it, darting to his left and taking cover in the ditch that paralleled the road. Smoke did the same thing on the right side.

  Gunfire started. The valley rang with the sound of shots, and gunsmoke roiled up from the ditches and over the road. None of the robbers dismounted. They were counting on superior numbers to carry the fight, and that was their fatal mistake.

  The shooting was all over in less than thirty seconds when four horses, their saddles empty, came galloping by. Two bodies lay in the road ahead of the wagon, and two more were in the road behind.

  “Ha!” Smoke shouted. He stood up. “Good shooting, Clell! We got ’em all!” With his Colt still in hand, he stepped into the middle of the road. “First, we’d better make sure they’re all dead. I’ll check the ones in the back, you check the ones in front.”

  “Maybe you’d better check them all, partner,” Clell said from the other side of the road. His voice sounded strained.

  “Clell?” Smoke holstered his gun and hurried over to him.

  The physician turned gunman was sitting up in the ditch but leaning back against the opposite bank. He was holding his hand over a wound in his right side.

  “You’re hit! I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that.”

  “Damn,” Clell said. “Looks like I’m not going to get to spend that reward money, after all.”

  “Come on. Let me help you. I’ll put you in the wagon and take you to a doctor.”

  “No. If you do that, I’ll be dead before you get me to the wagon. Just let me lie here for a moment or two, then it’ll be over.”

  “You don’t know that, for sure.”

  Clell forced a chuckle. “Yes, I’m afraid I do. I’m a doctor, remember? From the location of this wound, my guess would be that both the spleen and the liver are involved. That means the wound is fatal.”

  Although he had heard of Clell Dawson, Smoke had only recently met him, and he believed that a friendship might have developed between them. Now, that wasn’t to be.

  “I wonder,” Clell said.

  “You wonder what?”

  “If you hadn’t taken my gun from my holster back in the saloon that day, do you think you could have beaten me?”

  “I don’t know,” Smoke confessed. “That’s why I took your gun.”

  Clell smiled. “I thought . . . that might be . . . the case,” he said as he drew his last breath.

  CHAPTER 31

  From the Bury Bulletin: the

  SHERIFF KILLED IN THE LINE OF DUTY

  Didn’t Die Alone

  (Special from the Summit County Journal)

  Sheriff Jesse Hector of Summit County, Colorado, was killed on the 7th instant, while attempting to arrest the perpetrators of a string of deeds so foul as to defy description.


  Though the gallant sheriff was shot down, he didn’t fall until he had brought the most severe justice on his assassins. The four men who fell before his deadly shooting were Peter Kotter, Edward Spence, Merlin Morris, and Clell Dawson.

  Dawson, discerning readers will notice, had become known throughout the West as a “fast gun.” Said by witnesses to a few of his fights, to be “quick as thought.” Dawson, Kotter, Spence, and Morris are known to be the deadly gang which, over the last two years, have not hesitated to use dynamite in their deadly assaults against their innocent victims.

  PSR Ranch, office

  “Damn,” Richards said as he read the article.

  “What is it?” Potter asked.

  “That worthless sheriff got himself killed, and Jensen is still alive.”

  “How do you know he’s still alive?”

  “Hector had some kind of plan in mind that involved Clell Dawson, but Dawson and the sheriff are both dead, and there is no mention of Jensen.”

  “We’ve got to get rid of him, Josh,” Potter said. “He is going to be trouble, big trouble. We’ve got plans, I’ve got plans. I intend to be governor of this territory. I can’t have him causing trouble.”

  “We have twelve full-time hands working here at the ranch. The Bury city marshal and both his deputies are on our payroll. I think it’s time they begin to earn their pay. We’ll put the word out that Jensen is to be shot on sight.”

  Stratton had listened to the conversation between his partners without comment. Finally, he had something to say. “Yeah, well, there might be a problem with that.”

  “There’s no problem,” Richards said. “If they don’t want to kill him, then they’re fired.”

  “You said they are to kill him on sight. What does he look like?”

  Richards frowned. “What?”

  “Smoke Jensen. What does he look like? There ain’t a one of us that’s ever actual seen ’im. We’ve heard what he looks like, big man, broad shoulders, muscular, light hair, but there can’t none of us say that’s for sure.”

  “Muley is right,” Potter said. “There ain’t none of us that really knows what he looks like.”

  “I ain’t worried about that,” Richards bragged. “There’s enough folks that has seen ’im that we’ll get word when he comes around. And he will come around, you can damn well count on that. I intend to be ready for ’im when he comes.”

  Denver, early spring 1874

  Marshal Holloway knew Smoke had spent the winter months with Preacher and obviously hadn’t shaved or cut his hair in that time. His hair fell almost to his shoulders, and he wore a full beard. That changed his appearance quite a bit, but Holloway knew him right away despite that.

  The marshal was glad to see Smoke. After a heartfelt greeting, he looked at the wanted poster Smoke had given him.

  WANTED

  DEAD OR ALIVE

  The Outlaw and Murderer

  SMOKE JENSEN

  $10,000 REWARD

  Contact the Sheriff at Bury, Idaho Territory.

  “Don’t worry about it, Smoke. I’ll get these pulled,” Holloway said.

  “No, don’t pull them, Marshal. Leave them out there.”

  “What?” Marshal Holloway replied. “Why in heaven’s name would you want to do that?”

  “As you can see, the reward is being posted by the sheriff of Bury, Idaho. I’ve never been there, but that tells me where Potter, Stratton, and Richards are. I know they’re behind this, and they’ve either lied to the sheriff or they have him in their pocket. Either way, I want to play this out, so don’t do anything to stop it.”

  “Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, Smoke. You’ll have every bounty hunter in the West looking for you. This much money will bring out people who’ve never thought about bounty hunting before.”

  “Including Buck West,” Smoke said.

  “Who?”

  Smoke smiled. “Buck West. That’s who I’m going to be calling myself for a while. I’m going to Bury to join the hunt for Smoke Jensen.”

  “Smoke, you’re crazy as a loon. Did anyone ever tell you that?” Marshal Holloway asked with a little laugh.

  Smoke chucked. “Some have told me a few times. Preacher has told me that more times than I can count.”

  “You should listen to that old coot more often. All right. If that’s the way you want it, I won’t do anything to call them in.”

  Holloway took a sheet of paper from his desk, wrote something on it, then gave it to Smoke. “But if you get picked up by a legitimate officer of the law, show him this.”

  To whom it may concern. Kirby “Smoke” Jensen is a deputy U.S. marshal working undercover on a case for me. If you have questions, contact by telegraph Uriah Holloway, United States Marshal, Denver, Colorado Territory.

  Somewhere between the Big Lost River and the Craters of the Moon, Idaho Territory

  The bearded, long-haired man who called himself Buck West had left the train with his horse at Idaho Falls and had been riding for a few days since then, acting like a drifting bounty hunter would. When he came upon a trading post, he dismounted, tied his horse, and went inside.

  He almost wished that he hadn’t stopped. The place was dark, filthy, and filled with the stench of sour beer and rotgut whiskey. Smoke bought bacon, beans, and coffee from an ugly clerk who smelled as bad as his store.

  He saw some wanted posters on the wall, including one for him. “Thirty thousand dollars for Smoke Jensen? Last one I saw was for ten thousand.”

  “I reckon they want him pretty bad,” the clerk said.

  “They who?” Smoke asked.

  “The sheriff up in Bury.”

  “Still, thirty thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money for a county sheriff to be puttin’ up, don’t you think?”

  “Word I’ve heard is that there’s some wealthy businessmen up in Bury that’s actually the ones that’s puttin’ up the money.”

  “Why would they do that, do you think?”

  “Damned if I know. I reckon they’re just good citizens, is all.”

  “A man could sure do a lot with thirty thousand dollars,” Smoke mused.

  He thanked the clerk, moved to the bar, and ordered a glass of whiskey—not because he particularly wanted it, but because he wanted information and bartenders seldom talked to anyone who wasn’t drinking.

  “The good stuff,” he told the bartender.

  The man replaced one bottle and reached under the counter for another. “This here is the best we got.” When Smoke nodded, he poured.

  Smoke paid for the drink, then lifted the glass. It smelled like bear piss. Keeping a bland expression on his face, he took a sip, and decided that it tasted even worse.

  “Come from the East, did you?” the bartender asked.

  “What makes you think I came from the East?”

  “That’s the way you rode in.”

  Another voice asked, “Did you see four men riding together?” The question came from one of the cardplayers behind Smoke.

  Smoke turned around, taking in the measure of the man. “As a matter of fact I did. And so did the Blackfeet.”

  “Blackfeet? Damn. You reckon the Injuns got them four?”

  “I expect they did. I didn’t hang around to see.”

  The man was astonished. “You mean you just rode off without so much as lending a hand?”

  “I was just one more man. Nothin’ I could’ve done to help.”

  “Then I reckon that makes you a coward, don’t it?” the cardplayer said accusingly. The man stood up.

  Smoke put the shot glass of bear piss on the rough bar slowly and deliberately. Obviously, his antagonist knew his way around guns. He was wearing two. One was low and tied down.

  “I suppose you could say that,” Smoke replied. “You could also say I was just being careful.”

  “Nah, you weren’t careful. You was scared. You know what I think, slick? I think it makes you yellow.” The man’s dirty hands hovered over his guns.
“I think I’ll just kill you for that.”

  Smoke shook his head. “No, you won’t. You might try to kill me, but you won’t get the job done. Fact is, if you do try, you’re goin’ to wind up dead, yourself. Is that really what you want?”

  Without another word, Smoke’s challenger made a lightning-fast dip toward his gun, but Smoke’s draw was faster than lightning. His pistol roared. The bullet plunged into the gunman’s heart, and he was dead even before he collapsed over the table in front of him, scattering cards along with the greenbacks and coins in the pot.

  The other men in the game didn’t move as Smoke holstered his gun.

  After a long moment, they began gathering up the money. One of them took hold of the dead man’s coat and hauled him off the table and onto the floor.

  The game went on.

  CHAPTER 32

  “A ny of you other boys have an argument with me?” Smoke asked as the men at the table resumed playing.

  No one responded to his offer.

  “This man have a name?”

  “Luke,” one of the men said without looking up from the cards in his hand.

  Smoke frowned. “Just Luke?”

  “That’s the only name any of us ever heard.”

  “Damn. It’ll be hard collectin’ a bounty on him if nobody knows his last name.”

  Finally, the speaker looked up at Smoke. “What makes you think he’s got a price on his head?”

  “His kind always do.”

  Curious, the cardplayer asked, “What’s your name?”

  “West. Buck West.”

  “You a bounty hunter, West?”

  Smoke grinned a crooked grin. “Now just what gave me away,” he asked sarcastically.