The sheriff took a piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. Smoke took the yellow telegraph flimsy and unfolded it. He sat up sharply as he read the words printed on it in block letters.
Pearlie saw that reaction and said, “Trouble, Smoke?”
“You could say that,” Smoke replied as a grim cast came over his face. “Pearlie, you take everybody but Cal and go after that herd. If you don’t catch up to it by the time you get to Denver, you’ll have to bring the law in on the deal.”
“Sure, Smoke,” Pearlie said with a nod. Smoke had every confidence in his foreman. Pearlie would bring back the cattle and see that justice was done.
“What about me, Smoke?” Cal asked. “Am I goin’ with you, wherever it is you’re goin’?”
“No, you’re headed back to the Sugarloaf,” Smoke said. “Don’t think you’ve got an easy job, though. You’ll have to tell Sally it looks like I’m going to be gone longer than I thought I would be.”
“What is it, Smoke?” Monte Carson asked as Smoke stood up, folded the telegram, and stuck it in his shirt pocket.
“Preacher’s in trouble,” Smoke replied. “Looks like it might be the Indian Ring again.”
Nothing more needed to be said.
The look on Smoke Jensen’s face said it all.
BOOK THREE
Chapter 16
The two men on the box were wary as the stagecoach rocked along the road between Pine Knob and Buffalo Crossing, a couple of Wyoming settlements that served as stops on the line that ran from Laramie to Rock Springs. The jehu handling the lines had to watch the road and his team, of course, but even so his gaze darted frequently from side to side, on the lookout for trouble.
The shotgun guard beside him was even more watchful. The man sat stiff and straight, and his hands were clutched tightly around the Greener he carried. From time to time, he licked his lips nervously, tasting the dust that coated them.
These two men had good reason to be nervous. In the past six weeks, the stagecoach on this run had been held up three times. Another holdup attempt was due.
That wasn’t the worst of it, though. In the first robbery the driver, riding alone without a guard, had been killed when he tried to fight off the bandits. The coach had had a guard on it when the robbers struck the second time, and he was shot and killed from an ambush before they stopped the coach. On the most recent occasion, the driver and guard had put up a running fight, and both men had been shot off the box and left to die in the dusty road as the outlaws chased down the runaway team and stopped it.
So it was clear that working for this stage line, at least on this particular run through some pretty rugged country, was a dangerous proposition. Some of the employees had already quit, in fact.
No passengers had been killed yet or even injured, just cleaned out of their valuables after the outlaws emptied the coach’s strongbox and boot. But people were scared enough that the line’s business had fallen off considerably. Most people didn’t want to take a chance on what the road agents might do next.
The guard, a big, blond man who still looked young even though he was crowding middle age, turned his head constantly from side to side, watching the rough terrain on both sides of the road.
“I tell you I don’t like it, Wes,” he said. “There’s a hundred places for those varmints to hide out there. They could be drawin’ beads on us right now.”
The driver was a grizzled old-timer whose wizened expression said that he had seen it all. He grunted and told the guard, “You worry too much, Tobe. If there’s a bullet out there with your name on it, there ain’t a damned thing you can do to stop it.”
Despite Wes’s fatalistic words, he kept almost as close an eye on their surroundings as Tobe did. He didn’t want to die, either.
The coach started up a long incline. At the top was a pass between a couple of steep, rocky hills. On the other side of the pass, the road dropped down to a broad flat, and on the other side of the flat, about three miles away, lay the settlement of Buffalo Crossing. Once they made it that far, Wes and Tobe would turn the coach over to another driver and guard who would take it on to Rock Springs.
“We’re almost past the worst of it,” Tobe said as the coach rocked on its wide leather thoroughbraces. It was empty today, no passengers, which was becoming more and more common as news of the holdups spread. The box had a shipment of banknotes in it, though, bound for the bank in Buffalo Crossing, so the coach was still a tempting target for thieves, despite the lack of any passengers to rob.
“Dadgum it!” Wes burst out. “Ain’t you never heard of a jinx, you lop-eared hog walloper?” As he guided the coach into the pass, he continued angrily, “When you might have people gunnin’ for you, never say anything about being safe!”
“I never said anything about us bein’ safe,” Tobe replied. “I said we were almost past—”
The bullet came out of nowhere and smashed into his left shoulder, driving him back against the top of the stage. He cried out in pain and dropped the shotgun. The butt hit the floorboards hard enough to make one of the barrels discharge with a deafening roar. The load of buckshot went almost straight up into the air, narrowly missing Tobe and Wes.
Writhing from the pain of his wound, Tobe almost fell off the coach as Wes whipped up the team and shouted at them. The horses lunged forward, making the stagecoach lurch violently. Tobe was clutching instinctively at his injured shoulder, but he had to let go of it and grab hold of the seat to keep from tumbling off the side.
At the same time, a steadily growing rumble competed with the thundering hoofbeats of the team. A couple of boulders rolled down from each side of the road. They smashed down into the trail, partially blocking it. Wes had to haul back hard on the reins to keep the team from running into the rocks.
If he’d had more time, he might have been able to steer around the boulders, he realized with sinking spirits. But he didn’t have time, because masked men popped up behind other rocks on the hillsides and opened fire on the coach with Winchesters.
Wes dropped the reins and reached down to grab Tobe’s shotgun that had fallen beside his feet. One barrel was still loaded. He brought the weapon to his shoulder and fired at the hillside to his right, where powder smoke puffed out from behind several boulders. He didn’t know whether it would do any good, but he was going to put up a fight, anyway.
Dropping the now empty Greener, Wes came up in a half-crouch and swept aside his duster to claw at the butt of the revolver in an old holster at his waist. He got the gun out and had started to lift it when he felt a smashing blow against his chest. The impact knocked him down onto the seat again. He made another effort to raise the gun in his hand, but his strength seemed to have deserted him. His muscles wouldn’t do what he asked them to.
The gun slipped out of his fingers as a black curtain fell over his eyes.
Beside him, Tobe struggled to draw his revolver, too. The pain from his wounded shoulder made his vision blur, and he couldn’t really see much as he looked from side to side at the hills. He made out a couple of shadowy, blank-faced figures, and his brain tried to comprehend why the men had no faces.
It was because their hat brims were pulled down low and they had masks over the lower halves of their faces, he realized a moment later. He summoned up enough strength and determination to draw his gun and point it at one of the figures. The revolver was a single-action, and it seemed to take him forever to pull back the hammer. Finally, the weapon was cocked, and he squeezed the trigger. The gun roared and bucked against his palm.
Tobe had no way of knowing if his shot hit anything, because just as he fired, two more slugs slammed into him. He twisted from the impact and toppled off the seat, dead before he struck the ground beside the front wheel.
Wes still sprawled on the driver’s seat, his head fallen lifelessly far to one side.
The outlaws stopped shooting. Echoes still bounced back and forth between the hills for several seconds before dying away.
Buffalo Crossing wasn’t a bad-looking little town, Matt Jensen thought as he rode into the settlement. Despite his young age, he had done a lot of drifting already and had seen dozens of towns about like this one, with its broad main street and its false-fronted businesses.
Some of the buildings were more substantial, though, including a hotel with two stories, several saloons, a big general mercantile, and an actual red-brick building that housed the bank. Unlike a lot of cowtowns that had an insubstantial look about them, as if they might have vanished completely if you rode back through the area six months later, Buffalo Crossing was beginning to develop a sense of permanence about it. He might stay here for a while, Matt mused.
But not for too long. Matt Jensen never stayed too long in any place.
He angled his horse toward the hitch rack in front of the fancily-named Hanrahan’s Drinking and Gaming Establishment. Which, of course, meant that it was a saloon, and the name was really the only thing fancy about it as far as Matt could see. He swung down from the saddle and looped the horse’s reins around the rack.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered young man in his twenties, wearing a black Stetson pushed back on his fair hair and a blue bib-front shirt. A Colt .44 double-action revolver rode easily in a holster on his right hip. On his left hip was a sheathed Bowie knife with a staghorn grip. Although both weapons had a bit of a polished, showy look about them, they weren’t just for display. Matt could use both of them very well indeed, and had done so many times since he’d set out to become a wandering adventurer.
He had stepped up onto the boardwalk and was about to push through the bat wings into Hanrahan’s place when a bit of fast motion seen from the corner of his eye caught his attention. Turning his head to look, he saw that a young woman had come out of the building next to the saloon and was pacing back and forth with an agitated attitude that said she was upset about something.
Matt liked to think he was in the habit of minding his own business, but both his adopted brother Smoke and their mentor Preacher would have snorted in disbelief if they’d heard him say that. He supposed he was sort of curious about things; that was one reason he had become a drifter. When he saw something interesting he had a tendency to investigate it, even when that led him into trouble.
The girl who was moving around in the street was definitely interesting.
Matt had thought she was just a kid at first glance, but a closer look revealed that while she might be small, she was a full-grown woman with a woman’s curves under the jeans and flannel shirt. Rich auburn hair fell in waves around her shoulders, and when she turned so that her face was toward him, he saw a light dusting of freckles across her cheeks. She paid no attention to the tall stranger standing in front of the saloon, but instead swung around and continued pacing.
Matt started to head on into the saloon, going so far as to rest his left hand on the bat wings to swing one side open. But then he stopped, giving in to an impulse, and went along the boardwalk.
The young woman turned again to come back toward him, and now that he was closer he could tell she had green eyes that went well with the freckles and red hair. She took more notice of him this time, frowning for a second before she turned away.
Matt read the lettering on the window of the building from which the redhead had emerged: LARAMIE STAGE LINE. In smaller letters under that was Buffalo Crossing Station. And in still smaller letters, E.A. Hanrahan, Station Manager.
He wondered if the Hanrahan who managed the stagecoach station also owned the saloon. It certainly seemed possible. If not, the two men were bound to be related.
Just past the office was a barn that no doubt also belonged to the stagecoach line. As Matt propped a shoulder against one of the posts holding up the awning over the boardwalk, a skinny old-timer in overalls and a battered hat limped out of the barn’s open double doors and said, “Now, Miss Emily, there ain’t no use in gettin’ yourself all worked up into a state just yet. We don’t know what your pa’s gonna find out there. We got to hope for the best.”
The redhead stopped and glared at the old man.
“We know good and well what he’s going to find,” she said. “The stage has been held up again.” Her voice trembled a little from strain as she added, “We can only pray that Wes and Tobe haven’t been killed.”
Matt didn’t like the sound of that. He straightened from his casual pose. The redhead’s eyes darted toward him.
“Well?” she challenged. “Are you just going to stand there, or do you have something to say?”
“Didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Matt said, “but I couldn’t help but hear about your trouble, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
“It’s miss, not ma’am,” she snapped. “Are you in the habit of going around offering condolences to strangers?” Before Matt could answer, she drew in a sharp breath and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just upset right now, that’s all.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a right to be,” Matt said as he hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. “I’ve ridden shotgun on stagecoaches before. There’s not much I hate more than road agents.”
His words sparked an obvious interest in her eyes.
“You’re a shotgun guard?” she said. “You wouldn’t be looking for work, would you?”
“I’m afraid not,” Matt told her. He still had enough money in his poke for supplies, and a little left over that he might be able to run into an even bigger stake in a poker game. Most of the time he didn’t hire on to work for wages unless he really needed to.
“I’m sorry again,” she said. “Clearly, you heard enough to know that we’ve been having problems with bandits. Several of our employees have been killed in gunfights with the outlaws. I had no right to ask you to risk your life like that when I don’t even know you.”
Matt took that as a cue. He took off his hat and said politely, “Matt Jensen, miss. It’s a pleasure. I just wish I was making your acquaintance under better circumstances.”
She cocked her head a little to the side as she looked at him for a second and then said, “Oh, you’re a charmer, aren’t you? I know your type.”
“I didn’t mean to—”
She stopped him with a wave of her hand.
“No need to apologize. I don’t suppose you can help it. I’m immune, though. By the way, I’m Emily Anne Hanrahan. And yes, I know it rhymes.”
“Emily Anne . . .” Matt repeated. He glanced at the window of the stagecoach station office. “As in ‘E. A. Hanrahan, Station Manager’?”
“That’s right. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Jensen?”
He figured she would take offense if he told her she was too young, too female, and too blasted cute to be running a stagecoach station, so he just shook his head and said, “No, ma’am . . . I mean, Miss Hanrahan.”
Besides, he told himself, judging by the intelligence and the fire he saw in her eyes, those were unfair judgments anyway. He could tell just by looking at her that she was perfectly capable of running a stage station.
In hopes of distracting her from her current troubles, at least for a moment, Matt inclined his head toward the saloon and went on, “I reckon you’re related to whoever owns Hanrahan’s Drinking and Gaming Establishment? Or do you run it, too?”
“It’s my father’s,” she said. “He owns this building and the barn, too, and has the contract with the stage line, but he’s given me free rein to run the station. Not that any of this is your business, Mr. Jensen.”
“No, it’s not,” Matt agreed. “I was just curious, that’s all.” He shrugged. “Some folks might say it’s one of my failings.”
Before Emily could respond to that, the old-timer who had come out of the barn said excitedly, “Here comes the stage!”
Matt and Emily both turned to look toward the easter
n end of town, where a big Concord stagecoach was rolling toward the station with a saddle horse tied to the back and trailing along behind it. The coach was painted red with yellow trim and brass fittings, although the thick layer of dust that coated it muted the colors and dulled the shine. A large, beefy man in a brown tweed suit was on the box, handling the team. He wasn’t wearing a hat, which revealed that he had thinning gray hair.
“Oh, no,” Emily said in a hollow voice. “I don’t see Wes and Tobe.”
“Now, that don’t have to mean nothin’,” the old hostler said. “Could be they’re ridin’ inside.”
“They wouldn’t be riding inside unless they were hurt,” Emily said. “And even if he was hurt, Wes wouldn’t let somebody else handle his team unless . . . unless . . .”
She couldn’t go on, but Matt knew what she meant.
The coach drew quite a bit of attention as it came along the street. Several people trotted after it on foot. Men called out questions to the driver, who just shook his head and didn’t reply. He guided the coach directly to the station and brought the team to a halt in front of the barn.
“Seamus?” Emily asked in a hesitant voice. “What about Wes and Tobe?”
The man jerked his head toward the passenger compartment. The old hostler sprang over to the coach’s door with an agility that belied the limp Matt had seen earlier and twisted the catch to open it.
When he did so, an arm fell out and dangled limply. Matt could see where blood had run down over the hand at the end of that arm and dried, leaving a grim trail.
“Tobe . . . ?” Emily whispered.
“Aye,” said the big man on the driver’s box. “And Wes is in there, too, lass. Both gone.”
For a second, Matt saw tears shine in Emily’s green eyes. But then she gave a determined shake of her head, and the tears were gone. Although her fair complexion was a bit paler than it had been a moment earlier, her face was composed and determined.
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