“Or I could just ask this varmint, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll answer.”
“Money, of course,” the outlaw volunteered quickly. “We got a tip that a fella named Reilly was having a payroll brought in by freight wagon, rather than on the train. He figured it’d be safer that way, since nobody would know the money was hidden in some sacks of flour.”
Monte frowned. “Jackson Reilly, the rancher? He’s sort of an oddball. That sounds like something he’d do. You know him, Smoke?”
“Met him once or twice,” Smoke said in his usual laconic fashion. “Wouldn’t say I know him all that well. He’s been in these parts less than a year.”
“I’ve heard him say he doesn’t trust banks. Appears he doesn’t trust the railroad, either.”
Now that the shooting was over, quite a few of the citizens who had scrambled for cover earlier were coming back out to gawk at the sprawled bodies of the outlaws and stare at Smoke, Monte, and the prisoner. A ripple of laughter suddenly went through them. The man walking toward them was covered in white powder that clung to his clothes, his hair, and his mustache.
Smoke recognized Angus Mullen, one of the clerks from the freight office. He smiled and said, “Angus, you look like you got caught in a snowstorm.”
“There’ll be snow soon enough,” Mullen said as he slapped at himself and raised a little floating cloud of white. “This is flour! Those scoundrels were cutting bags open and throwing them around the office.”
Smoke nodded. Now that he took a closer look, he could see that some of the bandits were dusted with flour as well, although not nearly to the extent that Mullen was.
“Who the hell had the bright idea of hiding money in flour sacks?” the clerk went on.
“You should check your manifests,” Smoke suggested. “I’ll bet those sacks were being held for Jackson Reilly.”
Mullen grimaced and scratched his jaw. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I reckon that’s right,” he admitted. “I’ll have to have a talk with Mr. Reilly. The freight company has rules about this sorta thing, you know!”
“You do that, Angus.” Monte jerked the shotgun’s barrels in a curt gesture to the prisoner. “You march on down to the jail now. Smoke, thanks like always for lending a hand. You sure keep the undertaker busy.”
“Not by choice,” Smoke said. “I’m a peaceable man.”
Monte just snorted and prodded the prisoner into marching toward the jail. Smoke returned to the errand that had brought him to Big Rock. He had come to meet the westbound train, which would soon be delivering his wife Sally to him.
He’d been early, so he had parked the buckboard at the station and walked back up to Longmont’s Saloon for a cup of coffee and a visit with his old friend Louis Longmont. As the time for the train to arrive had approached, Smoke had said his good-byes and started for the depot again.
He had spotted the outlaws and recognized trouble in the making right away. When he’d called out for them to hold it, a man across the street, who had probably been posted as a lookout, opened fire on him.
Smoke hadn’t wasted time asking any questions. Anybody shot at him, he regarded it as a declaration of war and proceeded accordingly.
And anybody not prepared to back it up hadn’t ought to slap leather in the first place, as far as Smoke Jensen was concerned.
A thin overcast hung in the sky, thickening into darker clouds over the mountains. Avery Mullen was right. There would be snow soon enough. But that was expected in the fall in the Colorado high country. Smoke had seen plenty of snow and never minded it. The brisk nip in the air felt pretty doggoned good, in fact.
The shoot-out with the would-be thieves had delayed him some, but the train still hadn’t rolled in. As he walked out onto the platform after crossing the station lobby, he heard the locomotive’s shrill whistle in the distance, heralding the train’s arrival.
A few people on the platform were waiting to board, others looked more like they were there to meet someone . . . like Smoke was. He smiled and nodded pleasantly to several he knew.
It was impossible not to notice a few folks whispering to each other behind their hands. Smoke wasn’t so full of himself that he assumed they were talking about him, but given the recent ruckus, it made sense if they were.
Smoke knew he was famous—or infamous, depending on how you looked at it—but it wasn’t anything he had ever set out to be. All those years ago, in the hardscrabble days right after the war, when he and his pa Emmett had left the farm in Missouri and headed west, all young Kirby Jensen had been interested in was getting by from day to day. That was before he’d met the old mountain man called Preacher, who had dubbed him Smoke because of his speed with a gun, and before he’d set out on the vengeance quest that had changed the course of his life forever.
Smoke preferred not to dwell on that.
Anyway, the train was pulling in, with smoke puffing from the diamond-shaped stack on the big Baldwin locomotive, and as it came to a stop he looked toward the passenger cars, eager to catch a glimpse of the woman he loved.
There she was! Sally stepped down from one of the cars, graceful as always. She looked up as Smoke came toward her, and a smile appeared on her face, making her more beautiful than ever.
Then she was in Smoke’s arms and his lips were on hers, and he wasn’t going to waste one bit of time or energy thinking about anything else for a while.
CHAPTER 2
“I’ve had an idea,” Sally said a few minutes later, turning in her seat as Smoke lifted her valise and carpetbag into the back of the buckboard.
Some men might feel uneasy when their wives said something like that, but not Smoke. Sally was as intelligent as she was lovely, and any idea she had was liable to be a good one.
He swung up beside her and reached for the reins hitched to the pair of horses. “What’s your idea?”
“Where are Matt and Luke these days?”
Smoke thought about the question. His brothers tended to travel around quite a bit. Luke was a bounty hunter, so his work took him all over. Matt was a drifter as well, holding a variety of jobs in as many places.
“Last I heard, Matt was in Nevada, working as a guard on shipments from a silver mine in the Comstock Lode. Luke was in northern California, on the trail of some outlaw, I suppose. Why? What did you have in mind?”
“Well, Christmas is coming up in a couple months . . .”
Smoke tried not to wince. Christmas had become sort of a sore spot with the Jensen clan. Every time it rolled around, so did all sorts of trouble. Gun trouble, usually, and often accompanied by some sort of natural disaster.
“You think we ought to ask them to come to the Sugarloaf again?” Smoke asked as he twitched the reins and got the team moving. “That didn’t work out too well last time.”
“On the contrary, we’re all still alive, and we did some good for those orphans. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about having them come to the ranch. To be honest, I’m not sure I’m up to throwing a big Christmas fandango again.”
“So what did you have in mind?”
“I thought maybe we could take a holiday trip and meet Matt and Luke somewhere. And Preacher, too, of course.”
“I have no idea where that old pelican is. You know Preacher. He’s not much for staying in touch. So he might be anywhere.” Smoke paused. “I suppose I could send letters to most of his old haunts, though. Saloons and trading posts and, uh, certain other places where he always stops in whenever he’s passing through the different areas.”
“Certain other places,” Sally repeated as a smile played around her mouth. “Houses of ill repute, you mean.”
“He says he enjoys the piano music most of ’em provide in their parlors. Or so I’ve heard tell.”
Sally laughed. “You don’t have to dance around the subject with me, Smoke. I know you had a life before you met me.”
Smoke sobered, and so did Sally. Their banter had led them into memories of a dark time in Smoke’s
life when he’d had a wife and a son, both murdered by brutal enemies.
Having left Big Rock behind, Smoke flicked the reins and got the team moving a little faster. The wind had picked up, and he wanted to get back to the ranch before it started to rain.
To lighten the mood, he turned the conversation back to the idea Sally had proposed. “Just where would this Christmas trip take us? Where would we meet Matt and Luke and Preacher, if we can get word to them in time?”
“What about somewhere in Arizona? If they’re in California and Nevada, and we’re in Colorado, that’s sort of a central meeting place, don’t you think?”
Smoke considered the suggestion and nodded. “Tucson, maybe. Been awhile since I’ve been there.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught in a blizzard or an avalanche.”
“See, you’re warming up to the idea.”
“Pearlie and Cal and the rest of the crew would be able to take care of things at the Sugarloaf.”
“Of course they would.”
“I kind of like it,” Smoke admitted. “I reckon I’ll sit down tonight after supper and write some letters, see if I can round up the boys in time.”
Sally squeezed his arm and leaned against him. “I think we’ll have a fine time.”
“Any time I’m with you, darlin’, it’s always a fine time,” Smoke said as he slipped an arm around his wife’s shoulders and held her.
* * *
He was getting too old for this, Luke Jensen thought as he ducked lower behind the overturned table and listened to the bullets thudding into it.
Almost a quarter of a century had gone by since he had ridden off from the Missouri farm to join the army and send the Yankee invaders back where they came from. That hadn’t worked out too well, and ever since, violence had dogged his trail.
Of course, a lot of that was his own fault. Nobody had forced him to take up bounty hunting after the war. Some might say fate had led him to it, but he could have walked away from it if he’d wanted to badly enough. Turned his back on a life of gunplay and spilled blood—some of it his own.
There had been tranquil moments now and then. Some women he’d grown fond of, even though he couldn’t stay with them permanentlike. The reunion with his brother Smoke, whom he regretted avoiding for years. Getting to know their adopted brother Matt and that crusty old mountain man Preacher. Even those two young hellions Ace and Chance Jensen, who shared a last name with Luke, Smoke, and Matt but weren’t related as far as any of them knew. Luke had enjoyed his meetings with them.
But mostly his time had been spent with outlaws and killers who wanted to put bullet holes in his hide.
Quint Barclay, for example, who was behind the bar at the moment, shooting at the table Luke had kicked over and then dived behind.
The tabletop was nice and thick and had stopped all the slugs so far, but sooner or later one of those hunks of lead would punch through the wood and lodge itself in Luke’s body . . . unless he somehow stopped Barclay before then. Luke had hoped to get close enough to buffalo the son of a bitch before Barclay even knew he was there, but like a wild animal, the outlaw was too watchful for that. As soon as he’d caught a glimpse of Luke in the mirror, the outlaw had vaulted over the hardwood bar, knocking over a nearly full bottle of whiskey.
He was fast with a gun, too. Luke had gotten behind the table barely in time. As it was, he heard bullets whispering in his ears as they went past.
He risked a look, spotted a flash of muzzle flame, and felt the wind-rip of a slug an inch or so from his face. That located Barclay for him. Luke triggered three fast shots with the long-barreled Remington in his hand. The bullets whipped over the bar and smashed several bottles of whiskey sitting on a shelf, spraying glass and liquor over the area where Barclay crouched behind the bar.
The contents of the overturned whiskey bottle glugged out and formed a puddle on the hardwood. Luke looked above it to where an oil lamp hung from the ceiling. He drew a bead, fired again, and busted the chain holding up the lamp.
It fell and shattered, the flame igniting the spilled liquor. That set off the reservoir of oil in the lamp, and the ball of flame spread to the whiskey that had splattered behind the bar.
All of it combined in a whoosh! of fire that set Quint Barclay ablaze, too.
Screaming, Barclay jumped up and started swatting at the flames leaping around his torso and his hair. He forgot all about Luke, who rose up high enough to aim the Remington.
He didn’t hesitate as he slammed a bullet through Barclay’s head, killing him.
Barclay had murdered at least two men up in northern California, just to make it easier to rob them, and during his getaway from a bank holdup, he had gunned down a woman and a little girl just because they’d gotten in his way. Actually, a bullet in the head was more mercy than he deserved, the way Luke saw it.
Should’ve let him burn for a while. Would have been a nice foretaste of what he had coming to him in Hell.
But Luke wanted the carcass to be identifiable so he could collect the reward. He stood up, grabbed a bucket of sand that stood near the bar, and started throwing it on the flames. The bartender, who had crawled down to the end of the bar and hunkered there while the shooting was going on, hurried to join in the firefighting efforts. He slapped at the flames with a wet bar rag.
In a matter of minutes the fire was out, but the sickening smell of burned flesh and hair hung in the air. Nobody but Luke and the bartender were left in the place for the stink to bother, though. Everybody else had lit a shuck out of there as soon as the lead started to fly.
“Sorry about the damage,” Luke told the bartender as they stood and surveyed the grim scene, including the charred corpse. “I would have preferred to take him without anyone being hurt.”
Luke was a tall man pushing middle age, with a face too craggy to be called handsome. Dark hair and mustache and black clothing did nothing to relieve his generally stern appearance. He was a well-spoken man, though, self-educated but highly intelligent and quiet for the most part.
The bartender said, “You two fellas, uh, had a grudge against each other?”
“Not personally, no. But I’ve been chasing him all the way from up near the Oregon border down here to Bakersfield, and he knew it. We’ve traded a few shots before, at long distances. When he saw me this close, he knew it would be a fight to the finish.”
“You’re a lawman?”
“Of sorts,” Luke said with a faint smile.
“Oh. Bounty hunter.”
One of Luke’s shoulders rose and fell in a semblance of a shrug. No point in putting face paint on a pig. He was what he was.
“Good Lord in Heaven, what happened here, Clanton?” a voice asked from the saloon’s entrance.
With the Remington still in his hand, Luke looked around to see a man in a brown suit and tall white hat coming in with a rifle in his hands. A star was pinned to his vest under the suit coat. He swung the rifle so it pointed in Luke’s general direction.
“I’m going to holster this gun, Sheriff,” Luke said. “I’m telling you so your trigger finger doesn’t get itchy when you see me move my hand.”
“All right, but do it slow and easylike,” the lawman warned.
Luke pouched the iron in the cross-draw rig where it usually rode. He didn’t like leaving it with empty chambers. He was in the habit of reloading a gun as soon as he was done using it . . . but it was probably more important to settle things down. “My name is Luke Jensen.”
“He’s a bounty hunter,” the bartender added helpfully.
“The dead man lying behind the bar is Quint Barclay. He’s wanted on multiple counts of murder, robbery, and assault. I suspect you have posters on him in your files, Sheriff.”
The lawman used the rifle to motion Luke back, then came over and peered behind the bar. “Good Lord,” he muttered again. “Did you have to set him on fire before you shot him?”
“It just sort of worked out that way,” Luke said.
“Well, he’s dead, all right. No doubt about that. You say there’s a bounty on him?”
“Eight hundred dollars, at least. The reward may have gone up while I’ve been chasing him the past couple weeks. He killed a woman and a child during a bank robbery.”
The sheriff grunted. “That so? Reckon he had some burning coming to him, then.”
“The same thought crossed my mind.”
The sheriff finally lowered the rifle. “All right. I’ll have the undertaker deal with this, and I’ll check on your story. You can be sure of that, Jensen.”
“Of course,” Luke said.
“I reckon there’s no chance of you leaving town before you collect that bounty, so I don’t have to worry about that. If you’re telling the truth about all of this, though, I’ll expect you to be on your way as soon as you’ve got that blood money in your hand.”
“That was my plan. Since I’m this close, I thought I might ride on down to Los Angeles. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the city of angels.”
“They can have you.” The lawman added grudgingly, “No offense.”
“None taken,” Luke said. After all the years of killing, what would be the point?
CHAPTER 3
Matt Jensen had to hang on to the wagon seat with one hand and shoot with the other. It wasn’t easy to start with, and the way the wagon jolted and swayed as it careened down the steep mountainside trail made accuracy even more difficult.
Even so, he was pretty sure he had winged at least one of the bastards shooting at them from the rocks on the slope above the trail. “Can’t you get that team going any faster?” he yelled to the driver, Buckshot Taylor.
The old-timer didn’t take his eyes off the trail as he shouted, “We start goin’ any faster and them mules’ll sprout wings and fly right offen this mountain!” He knew what he was talking about. He’d been driving ore wagons up and down those Nevada mountains for a long time. He was a short, squat, mostly bald man with two tufts of white hair sticking out from under his pounded-down slouch hat. Thickly muscled forearms pistoned back and forth as he worked the reins attached to the mule team.
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