“He had a sawed-off shotgun and a knife,” Luke snapped. “And he used both of them to try to kill me.” A cold edge came into his voice. “You’re welcome to them, to settle his bar tab.”
“Mister,” one of the cowboys said, “Ol’ Tiger rode in a year ago on a burro even more ancient than he was, and it died two days later. Since then he ain’t had any kind of a horse or much of anything else, like Carmencita there said.”
“What about the horses tied outside?”
“Two of ’em are ours. The other two belonged to those hombres.”
“You know who they were?”
“I’m pretty sure they used to ride for Diego Ramirez.” The cowboy leaned his head toward the border. “One of those so-called revolutionaries south of the line who’s really just a bandit. Nobody around here’s gonna miss ’em or try to settle the score for ’em, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Luke said, “but I thought I might take one of the horses to carry Gillette.”
The cantina owner had been sputtering in fury, but he regained control of his emotions enough to say, “Take them both, just get out, gringo. You killed two bad men here today, and one good one.”
“He was trying to kill me,” Luke said, “and his act might have fooled you, but he wasn’t a good man. He was a very bad man, in fact, hiding out from the law.”
The second cowboy said, “For God’s sake, mister, don’t argue. Just take him and go.”
Irritated though he was, Luke knew that was good advice.
Five minutes later, he had Jefferson Gillette’s body lashed facedown over the saddle on one of the horses belonging to the bandidos. He would take both horses; they would fetch a decent price in Tucson. He rode away from the little border settlement without looking back.
* * *
The next day, in the sheriff’s office in Tucson, the lawman wrinkled his nose and said, “I hate the stink of a corpse that’s started to get too ripe. Takes a long time for me to stop smellin’ it.” He pushed the stack of greenbacks across the desk to Luke. “There you go, Jensen. You should’ve hauled in Ramirez’s boys, too. Might’ve been some dodgers out on them.”
“A couple of pissant bandidos like that, I didn’t figure the reward would be worth the trouble. Besides, I didn’t have an extra horse.”
“Well, there’s that to consider,” the sheriff admitted. “Mex bandits are a dime a dozen around these parts.” He frowned. “Jensen, right? Luke Jensen?”
“I told you my name, Sheriff,” Luke said. He was ready to go.
“Telegram came for you. They brought it over here, figurin’ if you showed up in Tucson, you’d likely come here.” The man added loftily, “Your reputation precedes you.”
The news surprised Luke. His brother Smoke and Smoke’s wife, Sally, knew he was down in this part of the country—he was headed for their place in Colorado next—but he wasn’t sure who else would.
The sheriff dug out the telegram from the litter of papers on his desk and handed it over. Luke read it, then folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket.
“Bad news?” the sheriff asked.
“No. Just a change of plans. I was going to Colorado, but now I’m headed for Reno.” It was none of the lawman’s business, but Luke added anyway, “Going to see my brothers and my boys for Christmas.”
CHAPTER 21
North of Laramie, Wyoming
Matt Jensen wasn’t Smoke’s brother by birth, but more than thirty years had passed since Smoke and the old mountain man Preacher took in a scared, orphaned youngster and turned him into a man. When Matt rode away to make his own way in the world, he had taken the name Jensen with him, and ever since, the bond between him and Smoke had been thicker than even blood could ever be.
Matt had had plenty of adventures of his own. He had worked as a lawman, scouted for the army, ridden shotgun on stagecoaches, been a troubleshooter for Wells Fargo, and roamed the West as a range detective, his current occupation. That only scratched the surface, because Matt had a wandering foot and never stayed any place for too long.
At the moment, he was in Wyoming, under a cold, leaden sky, lying on his belly at the crest of a ridge so he could keep an eye on a crudely built log cabin about two hundred yards away, on the other side of the creek at the bottom of the slope.
The man lying beside him asked quietly, “Are you sure they’re in there?”
Matt hung on to his patience, which wasn’t always an easy task. He said, “There are four horses tied up in front of the cabin. We tracked four men here with those stolen thoroughbreds that are now in the pole corral next to the cabin. I reckon there’s not much doubt about this being the right place.”
“Then why don’t we go down and round them up now, instead of sittin’ out here in the cold?”
“Because your boss is paying me to find out who’s been buying the stock he’s lost. That’s what he really wants to know. Those men in the cabin are just common horse thieves.”
“I reckon,” Dab Newton said. “But it’s still cold.”
Newton was the foreman of Edison McKavett’s M2 ranch. Along with half a dozen more punchers from McKavett’s crew, he had accompanied Matt this morning on the trail of the thieves who had plundered McKavett’s horse herd yet again during the night.
Matt had been on the job for a week, scouting around the rugged Wyoming countryside in search of a likely spot for the gang of horse thieves to be holed up. He had found this isolated cabin the day before and decided it was a perfect place for the gang’s headquarters.
He had resolved to keep an eye on it, but before he could actually do that, the thieves had struck again, running off two dozen head of McKavett’s fine, blooded stock.
Matt had taken a calculated risk, heading directly for this spot with the makeshift posse McKavett had provided for him, but along the way he had picked up the trail, confirming his suspicions.
Now they were just waiting to see who showed up to take possession of the stolen horses. Back in the trees, the rest of the cowboys waited. They were restless, but they weren’t making too much noise . . . yet.
Matt hoped his quarry wouldn’t take too much longer, though. He felt the same impatience the other men did.
Movement off to the left caught Matt’s eye. He looked in that direction and saw four men riding along the creek toward the cabin. One was in front, with three horsebackers following him.
Matt nudged Newton and asked, “Do you recognize those fellas?”
The M2 foreman squinted at the riders for a long moment, then said, “Damn me if that ain’t Walker Dixon.”
“The one in front? That name’s familiar. He owns another spread hereabouts, doesn’t he?”
“He sure does. He’s got the Crosshatch spread, over east a ways. Thing of it is, him and Mr. McKavett are good friends.”
Matt grunted and said, “Maybe not as good as you or McKavett believe. Because he sure looks like he’s here to dicker with those horse thieves. You know the men with him?”
“Seen ’em around,” Newton said. “I reckon they must ride for the Crosshatch. Billy Hooper ain’t with ’em, though. He’s the ramrod over there. I’d sure hate to think ol’ Billy was thick with them thieves. Him and me rode for some o’ the same spreads down in Texas.”
The newcomers drew rein in front of the cabin. The leader, a thick-set man in nicer clothes and a cream-colored hat, dismounted and handed his reins to one of the other men. Those three remained mounted while the boss went into the cabin.
Newton sighed and said, “Well, I reckon that’s plain enough. Ain’t no other possible reason Dixon would be here. The boss is gonna be plumb mortified to find out his friend has been stealin’ from him right along.”
“That happens sometimes,” Matt said. “Nobody is a perfect judge of other people’s character.”
Except maybe Smoke and Preacher, he thought. He had never known those two to be wrong in their instincts.
“What do we
do now?” Newton asked. “Go back to headquarters and tell Mr. McKavett what we found out?”
Matt pondered that for a moment, then said, “That man you mentioned, Billy Hooper. He’s Dixon’s foreman?”
“Yep.”
“And he’s an honest man?”
“I’d stake my life on it.”
“Then those men with Dixon won’t drive the stolen horses back to the Crosshatch. There’s too much of a chance Hooper would see them and recognize them as M2 stock, and then Dixon’s operation would be ruined. No, they’ll take them somewhere else and dispose of them. They probably have a regular buyer lined up in Laramie or Cheyenne who doesn’t care where the horses come from. So if they leave here with the horses, there won’t be any proof. It would be just our word against Dixon’s.”
“You don’t reckon Mr. McKavett would believe us?”
“You know him better than I do,” Matt said. “What do you think?”
Newton considered that question. “I reckon he’d be more inclined to believe us if we came back with them stolen horses . . . and Dixon.”
Matt nodded and said, “That’s what I was thinking.”
“There’s eight hombres down there right now, and eight of us. Them’s even odds.”
“I’ll see if I can’t tip them in our favor,” Matt said. “Stay here for now, and if you see any gunplay, you’ll know to charge down this hill and take cards.”
“What’re you gonna—”
Before Newton could finish the question, Matt had already slid back along the ridge and gotten up to head into the trees where the horses were.
He emerged a moment later riding a big gray gelding and loped off along the ridge, out of sight of the cabin. He left Newton and the other punchers behind and followed the ridge for half a mile, to a spot where he could circle around and cross the creek without being spotted.
Then he headed back along the stream toward the cabin where the horse thieves were holed up.
He rode at a nice, easy pace, ambling along like a man out for a jaunt. He didn’t appear particularly threatening, just a tall, well-built man with sandy hair and a mustache, wearing a brown coat and trousers and a dark brown hat.
A gun belt was strapped around his waist, something that was less common these days but not really anything unusual.
The three men sitting their horses in front of the cabin couldn’t help but see him coming. Matt kept his pace deliberate as he rode up and reined in about twenty feet from them. He gave the men a friendly nod and said, “Howdy, boys.”
Now that he was closer, he could see that although these men might have jobs as cowboys on the Crosshatch spread, they weren’t typical ranch hands. They had a rougher, more dangerous look about them. Matt had seen enough hard cases in his life to recognize the breed when he came across them.
“This is private property, mister,” one of them said. “You’d best ride on now, and don’t waste any time about it.”
“I sure didn’t mean any offense,” Matt said.
A second hard case jerked his head and ordered, “Get movin’.”
“Well, I can’t right do that,” Matt said. “You see, I’ve got a dozen sharpshooting regulators up there on the ridge on the other side of the creek, and if you fellas make a move toward your guns, or if I raise a hand to my hat, they’ll blow you right out of your saddles.”
The three men had stiffened while he was talking. Hate burned in their eyes. But they didn’t reach for their guns.
“You’re just runnin’ a damn bluff,” one of the men said.
“It’d be easy enough for you to find out,” Matt told him.
Still, they didn’t move. Tension grew thick and heavy in the air.
“Mr. Dixon, you’d better come on out here!” Matt called.
Someone jerked the cabin door open. The well-dressed man Matt had seen earlier stomped out. His face was brick red with anger.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded. “Who in blazes are you?”
“Name’s Matt Jensen,” Matt drawled. “I’m the leader of a company of regulators who’ve got the drop on this place. Y’all might as well shuck your guns and surrender, because you’re not getting out of here.”
Dixon glared at his men and blustered, “What are you waiting for? Kill him!”
“He’s got sharpshooters up on the ridge, Mr. Dixon,” one of the hard cases said.
“No he doesn’t! It’s a damn bluff!”
Matt smiled and said, “I told my best shot to wait until you came outside, Dixon, and then put his sights right on you. He won’t take them off until I signal him. All it’ll take for him to put a bullet through you is a little more pressure on the trigger.”
Dixon glared at him. “You wouldn’t dare! My ranch is one of the biggest in this part of the country!”
“And you should have been satisfied with that, instead of stealing from your neighbors.” Matt shook his head. “Some men are just born greedy, I reckon. No matter how much they have, it’s never enough.”
From inside the cabin, a harsh voice said, “Get out of the way, Dixon. I’ll ventilate that son of a bitch!”
“I go down, all of you die,” Matt said coolly. “The four of you out here will be dead before I hit the ground. Then my men have enough ammunition to shoot that cabin to pieces. They’ll pour lead into it until it collapses, and there won’t be anything left alive inside it.”
The flush on Dixon’s face began to fade to a frightened pallor. “My God,” he said in a hollow voice. “You mean it, don’t you?”
“Every damn word of it,” Matt lied.
He could have left Newton and the others up there ready to bushwhack this bunch of horse thieves, but wholesale slaughter wasn’t his way, not when there might be some other option. He wanted to take as many of them alive as possible.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t ready for gunplay. He had already figured out the order in which he would kill the men on horseback, if it came to that. He would probably take some lead himself, but he was confident that he could down all three hard cases and then put a bullet in Walker Dixon.
Suddenly, one of the hard cases said, “Hell. Now I remember why that name sounded familiar. This is Smoke Jensen’s brother.”
Matt smiled faintly. “You’ve heard of Smoke, have you?”
“And you, too, you loco sumbitch! Mr. Dixon, a few years back this man walked into a saloon and shot it out with ten men. Killers, every one of ’em, but Jensen put them all in the ground.” The hard case stared at Matt. “Hell, I heard they shot you to doll rags!”
“Those stories always get blown out of proportion. I was laid up for a little spell.” It had been more like a month, and he had almost died, but they didn’t have to know that.
The hard case shook his head. “I don’t want no part of this. If we kill this Jensen, his brother will track us down. And he’s even worse!”
“Like I said, shuck your guns,” Matt told them quietly. “Nobody has to die here today.”
Dixon said, “If you men surrender, I’ll see to it that you never work again!”
“We’ll never work again if we’re dead, either.”
All three hard cases wore their guns on the right. Matt said, “Raise your right hands, then use your left to take your guns out and toss them on the ground.”
“This . . . this is insane!” Dixon sputtered. “The man hasn’t even drawn his gun!”
“Not this time. But he’s drawn it plenty of times in the past . . . and plenty of men have died.”
The man who had spoken lifted his right hand and reached across his body to his holster.
“Nice and easy,” Matt said. “Use just two fingers.”
The gunman did as he was told. So did the other two, although one of them cursed bitterly as he gingerly drew his Colt and tossed it on the ground.
“You men in the cabin,” Matt called. “Throw your guns out first, then come out of there with your hands in the air.”
Dixon watched, fla
bbergasted, as four revolvers sailed through the open doorway. Then their owners shuffled into view with their arms lifted and their hands held at shoulder level. They were the same sort of small-time owlhoots as the men Dixon had brought with him.
Only one of them still looked defiant, and something about him set off alarm bells in Matt’s head.
With no warning, that man leaped behind Dixon and looped his left arm around the portly rancher’s throat. At the same time, he reached to the small of his back with his other hand and yanked out a gun he had hidden there before coming out of the cabin.
Matt’s hand flashed to his Colt and drew it with blinding speed, but he couldn’t fire without hitting Dixon, who let out a screech of fear before the arm around his throat tightened and turned the sound into a pathetic gurgle.
Matt kicked his feet free of the stirrups and went out of the saddle in a dive as the horse thief’s gun cracked and sent a slug sizzling through the space where he had been a fraction of a heartbeat earlier.
Matt hit the ground and rolled. As he came up, he saw a lot of white around the pupils in Walker Dixon’s eyes. Dixon fainted, and the sudden dead weight dragged the man who held him off balance. The man couldn’t hold Dixon up.
That gave Matt a tiny opening, but it was all he needed. The gun in his hand roared. The bullet whipped past Dixon’s right ear and shattered the outlaw’s jaw, spraying blood and bone splinters onto the side of Dixon’s head. The man groaned, dropped his gun, and collapsed. Dixon went down with him.
One of the other men from the cabin thought about making a grab for the guns they had tossed out, but he froze as the barrel of Matt’s Colt swung swiftly toward him.
“Bad idea, mister,” Matt said as the echoes of his shot rolled along the creek.
The man raised his hands again and backed away quickly.
Matt heard hoofbeats pounding nearby and knew Dab Newton and the rest of the M2 hands were on their way. A moment later the cowboys splashed across the creek and surrounded all the prisoners. It was over, and only one man was wounded.
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