A little shiver went through Sally. “You wouldn’t believe that if you’d seen him close up like I did, Smoke. Once you’d looked in his eyes, I don’t think you’d ever forget him. You can see the madness in him.”
“A fella’s got to be crazy if he thinks he can just waltz in and take over the Sugarloaf like that, not to mention Big Rock,” Pearlie said.
“That seems to be just what he’s done,” Smoke pointed out. “I don’t know why, don’t know what he intends to gain by it, but that doesn’t really matter. The important thing is figuring out how we’re going to stop him.”
“I don’t mind sayin’, I feel a whole heap better about things now that you’re back, Smoke,” Pearlie said. “But that don’t change the fact that there’s four of us and dang near a hundred o’ those hardcases.”
“Fewer than that now,” Cal said, “after the fight at the ranch and what happened here. I’ll bet we’ve done for at least a dozen of them, maybe more.”
Pearlie frowned. “All right. So the odds are only twenty to one, instead of twenty-five. That still don’t bode well for our chances, kid.”
“It’s not quite that bad,” Smoke said with a faint smile.
“You’re talking about Matt and Preacher and Luke, aren’t you?” Sally asked him.
“Luke didn’t come back with us, I wish he had. He wanted to get back to his bounty hunting, or so he claimed. I think mostly he’s just not real comfortable being around people he cares about. He’s not used to it.” Smoke paused. “But Matt and Preacher were with me when we ran into some of Trask’s men on the road the other side of Big Rock, and they’ve gone on into town to see if they can find out what’s behind all this. That’s why I brought Dog with me.”
Sally wore a worried frown as she said, “I’m sure Trask left plenty of men in Big Rock to keep things under control there. Matt and Preacher are liable to be riding right into trouble.”
“Maybe,” Smoke said. “Or maybe not. Those two are tricky enough I’m not sure trouble could find them unless they wanted it to.”
Chapter 39
Preacher’s instincts told him to grab the gun in his waistband and blaze away at the men charging toward him on horseback, but that wasn’t what a traveling tinker and peddler would do, so he suppressed the impulse.
At least, he would as long as the men didn’t open fire. If they commenced to burning powder, all bets were off.
They didn’t shoot, but they did surround the wagon, the mule team, and the three horses tied on behind the vehicle.
One of the riders leaned over, grasped the hair on a head that hung limp in death, and lifted it. “Damn!” he yelled. “It’s Dalby!”
“The other two are Harkness and Jenkins,” a second man reported. “They were on guard duty out along the road that follows the railroad tracks into town.”
“And that’s where I found ’em,” Preacher said, raising his voice so he could be heard clearly. “They’d been gunned down. I couldn’t just leave ’em alayin’ there in the road, so I rounded up their horses and loaded ’em up. Figured I’d turn ’em over to the sheriff in town.”
One of the men covering him grunted. “You can forget about that. There’s no law in Big Rock anymore except us.”
Preacher squinted and cocked his head to the side. “So it’s like that, is it? Well, that don’t make no never mind to me. If you fellas are friends of these boys and want to take ’em off my hands, that’s all I’m worried about. Just untie them reins and I’ll be amoseyin’ on my way—”
“You can forget about that, you old pelican,” snapped the man he’d been talking to. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Now, hold on just a cotton-pickin’ minute—”
“Who the hell are you, anyway?”
Preacher jerked a thumb at all the goods hanging from the wagon and said with a note of pride in his voice, “Can’t you tell? I’m a peddler . . . and a tinker, to boot. If you got anything needs fixin’, chances are I can fix it.”
One of the other men leaned forward in his saddle and sounded out the name painted on the wagon. “Isaac . . . Hersch . . . ko . . . witz. What kind of a name is that, Cully?”
“One that doesn’t look like it fits this old coot,” the spokesman said.
Preacher frowned. “I’m liable to take offense, you keep callin’ me old that way.”
Cully let out a harsh bark of laughter, then demanded, “What’s your name?”
“They call me Art,” Preacher said. “I bought this wagon from Ike Herschkowitz, as he’d be happy to tell you if he was here.”
“Art what?”
Preacher scratched his jaw. “You know, it’s been so long since I used my full handle, I sort of disremember. Just call me Art. That’ll do.”
“And you’re just a traveling peddler?”
“Yep.”
“We’re going to search this wagon, you know. If we find anything that tells us you’re lying, you’ll be sorry.”
Preacher waved a hand. “Search all you want. You won’t find nothin’ but the finest trade goods west o’ St. Louis.” He hoped that was true. He hadn’t thought to look in the back of the wagon.
One of the other men dismounted and opened the door at the back of the wagon compartment. Preacher felt the vehicle shift under the man’s weight as he climbed in. A couple tense minutes went by, then the man stepped down from the wagon. “Looks like a load of junk to me. I don’t reckon we have to worry about this old geezer, Cully.”
“There you go with that old business again,” Preacher complained.
“Shut up,” Cully said. “Did you see anybody else out there on the road where you found these bodies?”
“Do you want me to shut up or do you want me to answer your questions?”
Cully raised his gun, looped his thumb over the hammer, and eared it back.
Preacher raised a hand. “All right. Take it easy. I didn’t see nobody. Didn’t hear no shootin’, neither, so the fracas that laid those fellas low musta happened a while ’fore I come along.”
One of the men who had been looking at the bodies rode forward. “Cully, Harkness’s horse is missing. I never saw that big ugly gray stallion before.”
Cully eased the hammer down on his gun and lowered the weapon. “One of the damn owlhoots who shot it out with them must’ve gotten unhorsed during the fight. Maybe he grabbed Harkness’s mount to ride off.” Cully looked at Preacher. “You happen to know anything about that?”
“Not a blessed thing,” Preacher declared with utter sincerity. It had been decades since he’d learned how to tell a convincing lie, and he hadn’t forgotten in all that time.
“You believe him?” a man asked Cully.
After a moment’s thought, Cully nodded. “Yeah, I think I do.”
Preacher lifted the reins a little. “I can go on about my business, then.”
“If anybody in this town wants to buy that junk of yours, that’s fine,” Cully said. “But you’re not going anywhere.”
“You mean I got to stay here?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Cully waved a hand at the other men, who holstered their guns and began to disperse, riding back down the street toward the saloon they had come from. “Just stay out of trouble and you won’t be hurt.”
“How long am I gonna be stuck here?” Preacher whined.
“Until we’re finished with the business that brought us to Big Rock.”
“What might that be?”
Cully glared. “Asking questions is a good way to get yourself killed.”
“Sorry,” Preacher muttered. “Didn’t mean no offense.”
“But I’ll say this,” Cully went on. “It all depends on a man named Smoke Jensen. Heard of him?”
“Seems like I have,” Preacher said. Just about everybody in that part of the country had heard of Smoke, no matter who they were, so it wouldn’t do to pretend ignorance.
“The sooner he cooperates with us, the sooner this is all over,” Cully s
aid. “And since our boss is holding his wife prisoner, Jensen better play along if he ever wants to see her again.”
It took an effort, but Preacher kept his face emotionless. The varmints had Sally! Smoke had been worried about that, and rightly so, it seemed.
But the outlaws had made the worst mistake of their life. Smoke would see to it that they got what they had coming, and Preacher and Matt would give him a hand.
That thought made the old mountain man glance along the street. He didn’t see any sign of Matt, which wasn’t all that surprising.
He wondered if the young fella had made it into town yet. Where was he?
Chapter 40
Lorena Morton picked up one of the pieces of broken desk and sighed.
“Let me clean that up for you,” Matt offered. “It’s kind of my fault it’s busted.”
“It’s not at all your fault. You were just trying to help me . . . Charles.”
He knew why she called him that. She was trying to get in the habit. Now that she had established the lie with the men who had taken over Big Rock, she had to keep up the pretense of being his sister.
In whispers, so he wouldn’t be overheard from outside, he had explained to her who he really was and what he was doing there. She had been stunned to hear that he was Smoke Jensen’s brother.
“That’s who they’re really after,” she had told him, keeping her voice down. “There’s a rumor going around town that their boss, a man named Trask, is holding Mrs. Jensen hostage out at Sugarloaf.”
That news made a jolt of anger go through Matt. He knew how deeply Smoke loved Sally, and he had visited in their home enough that he loved her, too. The thought of her being in the hands of a bunch of ruthless hardcases made him furious.
He knew he needed to keep his emotions under control if he was going to carry out the mission. He explained to Lorena how he and Smoke and Preacher had run into the guards a couple miles on the other side of town and then split up to find out what the situation was.
Matt already had a lot of the information he had come for, thanks to Lorena and her quick thinking. Her nimble wits had salvaged things after he’d come bulling in.
Of course, he had saved her from being molested, so they were sort of square on that score, he thought.
A faint note of warning sounded in the back of his mind as he spilled everything to her. He had no way of knowing that she wouldn’t run to Trask’s men and betray him. He didn’t consider that very likely, but he couldn’t rule it out.
Sometimes, though, a fella just had to put his faith in his instincts . . . and they’d told him he could trust Lorena Morton.
“Do you even have a brother?” he had asked her.
“No. All my family is dead. That’s why I . . . I left my home back in Missouri and came out here to teach school. This is my first year in Big Rock.”
Once everything was out in the open, he helped her clean up the damage from the fight and put the desks and benches back in order.
“You’re going to have to come home with me, you know. They’re liable to be watching, and I’ve already told them that you live with me.”
“Are you sure that’s all right?” Matt asked. “I don’t want to do anything to compromise a lady’s reputation.”
Lorena smiled. “There’s nothing improper about a brother and a sister sharing a house, is there?”
“No, I reckon not,” Matt said as he put his hat on.
Of course, the feelings that he had when he looked at Lorena weren’t exactly brotherly.... “I’ll have to come back here later, though.”
“Why?”
“I’m supposed to meet my friend Preacher here, once we’ve both had a chance to look around and see what’s going on.” Matt shrugged. “Then we’ll have to get out of town and find Smoke so we can tell him about it.”
Lorena nodded. “I see. Well, you do whatever it is you need to do, and I’ll help you any way I can.”
“I’m obliged to you.”
“Not at all. Whatever those terrible men are planning, they have to be stopped. Just . . . be careful, Charles. I . . . I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
He thought he detected a husky quality in her voice that didn’t exactly sound sisterly.
Chapter 41
Although Albert Pike rode out to Sugarloaf every day to check in with Trask, his job was to see that the settlement remained firmly under the control of him and his men. He had established his headquarters in the Big Rock town hall and sat at one of the tables, going over the guard and patrol schedules he had drawn up.
He had never forgotten the first time he’d laid eyes on Jonas Trask. He never would. It had been in a hospital tent, late in the war, with the sound of artillery and rifle fire not far off as Union and Confederate troops clashed in the savage battle of the Wilderness.
He rubbed his eyes, remembering that time.
A major in a Union regiment, he was commanding his troops in the midst of the carnage when a Rebel minié ball tore through the muscles of his left thigh. The wound was bad enough that he was thrown on a stretcher and carried off the field of battle to the hospital tent.
He had no illusions about what was going to happen to him. Some bloody-handed butcher of a so-called surgeon was about to cut off his leg and throw it on a pile with hundreds of other maimed, discarded limbs. Pike would either die right then and there from the shock of the amputation or he would die an even more miserable death from blood poisoning in four or five days.
But one way or another, he would die. He would never go home to his family.
Lying on a table with trenches cut in it so the blood could run off and add to the pools already soaking into the ground, he saw a man lean over him and smile.
“You’re going to be all right, Major. I’ll see to that,” the man said.
“My . . . my leg.” Pike gasped. “You’ll take it—”
“Only as a last resort,” the man assured him. He was pale, and drops of splattered blood stood out on his face like freckles. His hands and the sleeves of his white coat were red to the elbows. His deep-set eyes burned with a fire unlike any Pike had ever seen before. “The bullet appears to have missed the bone, so I think I can save it. I’ll do my best, Major. I’m Dr. Jonas Trask.”
Pike smiled. He had been devoted to the man ever since.
Despite all the odds, Trask had saved Pike’s leg. It was still stiff from the injury and always would be, giving him a slight limp, but his leg was there and he could use it. And he hadn’t died screaming in that hellhole. He owed his survival to Trask, who had come to see him in a hospital in Washington, D.C., months later, after the war was over.
“You’ll be released from here soon, Major,” Trask had said, “and then you’ll be mustered out of the army. How would you like to come and work for me?”
“I don’t know what you’ve got in mind, Doctor,” Pike had said as he lifted his hand from where it lay on the sheet beside him, “but whatever it is, I’m in.”
They’d shaken hands, sealing the partnership, and had been together ever since.
Although Pike had been surprised when he found out that Trask planned to put together a gang of criminals, he hadn’t objected. He owed his life to the doctor, so whatever Trask wanted was all right with him.
Anyway, he soon came to see that the petty rules of normal men didn’t apply to Trask. The doctor was a genius, well beyond such things as laws. Over the past decade and a half, the crimes carried out by Pike and the gang he had put together had paid for Trask’s research. Pike didn’t know exactly what that research was all about, but it didn’t matter. He was sure that eventually Trask’s brilliance would pay off and transform the world for the better.
That was why, even though it bothered Pike a little whenever innocent folks had to die, he never lost faith in the doctor. As Trask sometimes said, no progress ever came without a price.
Cully Martin came into the room. Since most of the men hadn’t served in the army, the
major had never insisted on military discipline among the gang, but Cully held himself almost like he was standing at attention. “Something’s happened, Major. An old peddler just drove his wagon into town.”
Pike looked up with a frown. “He came in alone? None of the guards brought him in?”
“He brought the guards. He had the bodies of Harkness, Dalby, and Jenkins with him.”
Pike shot to his feet in anger. “What the hell happened?” he demanded.
“According to the old man, he found the bodies on the road a couple miles outside of town. He said he didn’t hear any shots, so the fight must have taken place a while earlier. He put the bodies on their horses and brought them in.” Cully grunted in grim amusement. “He said he figured on turning them over to the sheriff. He didn’t know Carson’s locked up in his own jail.”
“You’re sure of that?” Pike asked sharply. “You believe this peddler’s story?”
“He seems like a harmless old man,” Cully said with a shrug. “There’s no way in hell he could’ve downed three tough hombres like Harkness, Dalby, and Jenkins. Anyway, if he had anything to do with their deaths, he wouldn’t have brought their bodies into town as bold as brass like that, would he?”
“You wouldn’t think so,” Pike said, frowning. “Unless he’s a lot trickier than you’re giving him credit for.”
Cully shook his head. “Not that old pelican, Major. I’d bet a hat that he’s harmless.”
“You’d better be right. Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. Probably in one of the saloons soaking up some beer. I told him he couldn’t leave town, and he promised he wouldn’t cause any trouble.”
Pike just grunted.
Cully thumbed his hat back and went on. “One thing was a little strange. One of the horses he used to bring in the bodies doesn’t belong, and Harkness’s horse is gone.”
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