This Violent Land (25 page)

 

“Y
ou say this fella's name is Buck West?” Richards asked.

“That's what Cornett told me,” Potter said. “He's blinding fast with a gun, too.”

“As fast as Smoke Jensen, do you suppose?”

“Well, he drew on Luke Simmons, and they say Luke started his draw first, but this man West shot him before he could even get his hand wrapped around his pistol.”

“Damn. Simmons was fast. That's why we hired him. Luke swore he was faster than Smoke Jensen.”

Potter smiled. “Yeah, maybe he was. And that means this man, Buck West, is probably faster too.”

“I wonder how we can get in touch with West.”

“There's no need to. It's more than likely he'll get in touch with us. After he kills Smoke Jensen for us.”

“Yeah.” Richards nodded. “Yeah, that's right, isn't it? Potter, our problem may soon be over.”

“I've already got my campaign pitch that I'll make to the people of Idaho. I helped rid the West of the murderer and outlaw, Smoke Jensen.”

“You don't need to campaign to the people. Just to President Grant.”

Potter grinned. “I don't even need to do that. As long as I can buy off his brother-in-law.”

 

 

 

Smoke finished his supper and headed down to the saloon to have a beer.

He was standing there, slowly nursing his beer, when a man standing at the other end of the bar turned toward him and spoke. “Hey, saddle bum, are you plannin' on drinkin' that beer or are you just gonna stand there and look at it with your face hanging out?”

Smoke ignored him.

“Boy, don't you hear me talkin' to you?” the cowboy asked, his voice even more belligerent.

Smoke turned. “I'm sorry. Were you talking? I thought I just heard you fart, and I'm too much of a gentleman to have commented on it.”

The cowboy took a step backward, a puzzled look on his face.

Smoke knew the type. The cowboy was big and muscular, and probably used to getting his way. Smoke was sure he had been a bully all his life.

The cowboy's frown deepened. “What did you say, mister?”

“Don't you speak English?”

The barkeep leaned forward and whispered urgently, “That's Harry Carson, stranger.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?” Smoke asked, not bothering to keep his voice to a whisper.

“And his buddy is Wade Phillips,” the barkeep offered.

The deputy who had been with Marshal Dooley earlier that day slipped away from the bar and out of the line of possible gunfire, taking his beer with him.

“Carson, back off. Drink your drink and leave me be,” Smoke said.

Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Phillips stuck his ugly nose into it. “You've got a smart mouth, you know that, buddy?”

Smoke turned to face the two men, forcing a grin. “It would appear to me that, somehow, we've gotten off on the wrong foot. Why don't the two of you let me buy you a beer, and we just drop this now?”

“Oh yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you? But there ain't no way we're gonna drop this,” Carson said confidently. “You done smart mouthed me, and I don't intend to let that go.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Like I told you, I'm willing to drop this. I'm not looking for trouble, but if I'm pushed into it, so be it.”

“Oh, yeah. You're wearin' that fancy gun rig, but I bet you ain't got the sand to duke it out.”

Smoke's smile was faint. He knew that both men realized neither of them could beat him if it came to gunplay, so they would push him into a fight. And if he didn't fight them in their own game, he would be branded a coward.

Smoke took off his gun belt. Spotting the deputy, he handed the belt and the holstered gun to him. “Look after this, would you?”

“Be glad to, West. But watch these two boys. They fight dirty.”

Smoke finished his beer. “Yeah, well so do I.”

With a wide, confident smile spread across his face, Carson had watched and listened to the exchange between Smoke and the deputy. “All right, so—”

Smoke smashed the empty beer mug into Carson's face. The heavy mug shattered, breaking the man's nose on impact. He jabbed the broken edges into the man's cheek, sending the bully screaming and bleeding to the sawdust-covered floor.

Phillips came toward Smoke, shouting, “You son of a—”

Smoke hit him with a short, brutal punch, preventing him from finishing his profanity. Powerful in his own right, Smoke didn't like to fight with his fists, but sometimes it was the only option.

Phillips dropped to his knees and Smoke brought his knee up. The crunch of broken bones was loud and Phillips went down and out.

The fight was over in a handful of seconds. Carson lay squalling and bleeding on the floor beside the unconscious Phillips. Smoke turned around. Marshal Dooley was standing by his deputy.

“Any law against a fair fight, Marshal?” Smoke asked as he retrieved his gunbelt. “It was two against one.”

“And they were outnumbered at those odds,” Dooley said with a smile. “No, West, there is no law against it, but there is something about you that I can't quite put my finger on.”

“Pueblo,” Smoke said.

“What?”

“Marshal, can we go somewhere to have a little private conversation?”

“All right. I don't know what this is all about, but I have to confess that I'm damn curious. Let's go to my office.”

They left the saloon together and walked the few steps to the marshal's office.

“Coffee?” Marshal Dooley asked a few minutes later.

“Don't mind if I do,” Smoke replied.

Dooley stepped over to the stove and, using a pad, removed the blue steel coffee pot. He poured two cups and handed one of them to Smoke. “Now, what is this about Pueblo?”

“Two years ago a man named Keefer led a bunch of his men into town and announced they were taking over. You were one man against eight, so you asked Marshal Holloway to send you some help. He sent Cephus Prouty, Lee Tanner, and—”

“Smoke Jensen!” Dooley said, pointing at Buck. “You're Smoke Jensen.”

“Yes.”

“Damn! I thought I recognized you. And now you're a wanted man. What happened? Where did you go wrong?”

“The only people who want me are some men up in Bury. Evidently they have enough money, power, and influence to get the sheriff there to put paper out on me. As it turns out, I'm looking for them, too. I have something here I want you to see.”

Smoke pulled out the note that Marshal Holloway had written and showed it to Dooley.

The lawman read it, then looked up and said, “So, you're working undercover?”

“Yes. If you need to validate that, you can contact Marshal Holloway.”

“There's no need for that. You didn't have to tell me who you were.” Dooley handed the note back. “I'll keep your secret.”

“I appreciate that, Marshal.”

“But I have to warn you, the two men you ran into in the saloon? They aren't going to let this pass. Look out for them, Jensen.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

T
he marshal's warning was correct. Smoke had just stepped out into the street when he saw two men walking toward him, their hands near their pistols, ready to draw. Doors and windows facing the street banged shut as the townspeople scurried to get out of the line of fire from the bullets they believed were about to fly.

“You know, we can stop this now if you want to,” Smoke called out to them. “There's no reason either of you have to die today.”

“What makes you think we're the ones who'll die?” Phillips asked defiantly.

Smoke's smile had an unnerving effect on the two men. No more than fifty feet separated them from him. He was close enough to see the sweat on their faces. Phillips was licking his lips nervously, and there was a visible tic in Carson's jaw.

Smoke studied his two adversaries. He knew he could not afford to draw first. He had to let them make the initial move in order for it to be called self-defense.

“Have you thought you might be the one to die?” Carson asked, trying, by bravado, to ease his own fear.

“Well, we all have to die sometime,” Smoke acknowledged. “Whether or not it happens for you two today is up to you. There's no need for you to turn your backs on reason and good sense. Why don't you come into the saloon and have a beer with me? I made that offer before our little scuffle, but you turned it down.”

“You want to show some reason?” Carson said. “Beg, and we'll let you turn tail and run away.”

“No, I don't think I'd like to do that.” Smoke's face creased with an easy smile.

“Then die!” Phillips shouted as he clawed at his gun.

Smoke let him clear leather before he drew his own Colt. He fired twice, the first bullet hitting Phillips in the belly, the second one sending out a little spurt of blood as it plunged into the center of his chest.

Phillips fell backward, mortally wounded. Carson, obviously surprised by Phillips's draw, had not reached for his gun at the same time. He watched it all in shock.

His mouth and eyes open in fear, he looked toward Smoke still holding the smoking pistol in his hand.

“Back off, Carson,” Smoke said easily. He pouched the iron. “Just because your friend died today doesn't mean you have to.”

“I ain't agoin' to draw. I'm agoin', I'm agoin'!” Carson held his arms forward, palms facing Smoke as if pushing him away.

“You're smarter than I gave you credit for,” Smoke said.

Carson turned and started to walk away, and seeing that, Smoke also turned and started toward Marshal Dooley, who had watched everything from the porch in front of the jail.

With a look of triumph on his face, Carson pulled his gun.

“Look out!” Dooley suddenly shouted.

Smoke spun quickly, drawing his pistol and firing before Carson could pull the trigger.

The shock he felt was etched clearly on his face before he collapsed, twitched once, and then lay still.

“Damn. How did he do that?” someone asked. “Carson already had his gun out and was fixin' to shoot!”

Shortly after the echo of the last shot reverberated through the street, the townspeople came streaming back out to the street from where they'd taken cover. Like carrion to a recent kill, they gathered around the two men who lay dead in the street.

Smoke walked back toward Marshal Dooley. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You know that beer you were going to buy them?” Dooley mentioned.

“Yeah?”

“How 'bout you buy one for me and my deputy, instead?”

Smoke chuckled. “I'd be glad to.”

Fifteen minutes later, Smoke, Dooley, and the marshal's deputy were sitting at a table in the back of the saloon.

“I want you to run me out of town,” Smoke said quietly.

Dooley frowned. “Why?”

“It wouldn't look all that good for you to be friendly with a wanted man, now would it? I wouldn't want it getting back to Richards and the others that we were pals.”

Dooley's frown changed to a small nod. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“Besides, it might look good for us in the next election if we ran out a fast gun like Buck West,” the deputy added.

Dooley smiled. “It might at that.”

“You have to do it in public, though,” Smoke said.

Dooley looked around the saloon. Twelve to fifteen other customers were in the saloon, in addition to the bartender and the working girls. Close to twenty in total.

“What about here?” Dooley asked. “Is this place public enough?”

Smoke looked around. “I'd say so.”

“You 'bout finished with your beer?” Dooley asked.

Smoke drained the last of it, set the mug down, then ran the back of his hand across his lips. “I am now.”

Marshal Dooley stood up, then looked down at Smoke, speaking loudly enough for everyone in the saloon to hear him. “All right, West, you asked me to let you stay long enough to have a beer, and you've had it. I'll not have my town filled up with would-be gunfighters lookin' for you so's they can make themselves a reputation. I want you to get your gear together and get out of town.”

“You're throwin' me out of town, Marshal?” Smoke replied.

Dooley crossed his arms. “I am doing just that.”

“What if I don't want to leave?” Smoke asked belligerently.

“You don't have that option, West.”

“This is a right friendly place you have here,” Smoke said with a sneer on his face.

“As a matter of fact, it is. But there is somethin' about you that just invites trouble, boy.” At Smoke's sputter, Dooley held up a hand. “I know, I know. You didn't start the fight that got Carson and Phillips killed. But you didn't avoid it, either, and if you hadn't ever come into this town, it wouldn't have happened in the first place.”

“All right, all right. I'm goin',” Smoke muttered. He stood up and strolled to the door.

“Damn, did you see that?” he heard someone in the saloon say. “Marshal Dooley just stood Buck West down.”

“I've always said the marshal has sand,” another replied.

Smoke kept a passive expression on his face until he stepped outside, then he smiled. His next stop would be Bury, but he wasn't in a hurry. He wanted the word about him to spread first.

* * *

One of the witnesses to the gunfight between Smoke and the two challengers was an old mountain man named Lobo. Nobody knew Lobo's real name, and some insisted he didn't know it himself. He came by the name because it was rumored that he'd once lived with a band of wolves, a story that he neither confirmed nor denied.

Leaving Bayhorse, he met up with a band of mountain men camping at the base of Gray Rock Mountain, about halfway between the Sawtooth Wilderness area and the town of Bayhorse. He told them about the gunfight he had witnessed. “Fastest thing I ever seed. Those two poor sumbitches din't have no idee what they was lettin' theyselves in for. Why, that boy snatched his gun out of the holster so fast it was a blur. I don't believe hummin'birds can beat their wings no faster than he got his gun out.”

“What was the boy's name?” Beartooth had not had a tooth in his head in over forty years.

“West, his name was. Buck West.”

“No, it warn't,” Preacher said. “His name is Smoke. Smoke Jensen.”

“Smoke Jensen. Ain't that your boy?” Greybull asked.

“Yeah.”

“Why is he callin' hisself Buck West?” Lobo asked.

“'Cause them three that kilt his pa has paid the sheriff up in Bury to put paper out on 'im. So he's took to callin' hisself Buck West. But he ain't runnin' from 'em, I can tell you that. He's headin' straight to Bury, and he plans to settle scores with Potter, Stratton, and Richards.”

“It don't bother him none that they's three of them to his one?” Beartooth asked.

“Four of 'em . . . no, five if you count the sheriff and his deputy. 'Cause I'm tellin' you right now them two is in the pocket of Potter, Stratton, and Richards, sure as a gun is iron,” Greybull pointed out.

“Hell, there's a lot more of 'em than that,” Lobo said. “They's all the cowboys that works out at the ranch for Richards, and then, I wouldn't be surprised if half the town wasn't on Stratton's payroll.”

Preacher nodded. “That's how come I been trackin' Smoke.”

“Does the boy know you been followin' him?” Pugh asked.

“Damn, Pugh, you want to stand downwind a mite? When the hell's the last time you took a bath?” Lobo had little room to talk, since he hadn't taken a bath in three months.

“Why are you so damn persnickety? Hell, I took me a bath back in seventy, it was. Or maybe it was seventy-one. I don't rightly recollect exactly when it was.”

“Four years? How come you ain't molded?” Beartooth asked.

“Prob'ly 'cause even the mold can't stand to be close to him,” Greybull said.

“Yeah, well, that still don't answer the question I asked Preacher,” Pugh said. “Does the boy know you been followin' him?”

“No, he don't know. He'd run me off if he knowed that I was followin' him. More'n likely he'd be worried maybe I might get hurt or somethin'. I was shot up pretty bad some time back, and Smoke, bein' the good boy he is, was some troubled by it.”

“Yeah, well, if it was just you, I could see how, maybe, he might be a mite worried. But they's five of us now,” Greybull declared.

Preacher was surprised. “You men don't have to take a hand in this. I mean, it ain't your fight.”

“That's a hell of a thing for you to say to friends. We been together in these mountains for damn near fifty years,” Beartooth said.

“Yeah,” Greybull said. “Well, not actual together, seein' as we'd go most a year without seein' one another 'ceptin' at the rendezvous and such. But Beartooth is right. Iffen it's your fight, then by damn, it's our fight, too.”

“All right,” Preacher agreed. “If you boys feel that way, I'd be downright proud to have you come along.”

“Good.” Greybull voiced it as the others nodded in agreement.

“Now that that's settled, why don't we just amble on over to Bury? If I know Smoke, and I reckon I know 'im better'n about anyone in the world, seein' as I raised 'im, why he'll take his time gettin' there. More'n likely, he'll lay back in the timber for a day or so and give the situation a good lookin' over.”

“What do you figure we should do, Preacher?” Lobo asked.

“I figure we'll cross the Lost River Range, head for the flats and turn north, then make camp in the narrows just south of Bury.”

“I got me an idee,” Pugh said.

“What is it?”

“Once we get there, whyn't I get Deadlead and Powder Pete to join up with us?” Pugh suggested. “I know where at they're camped right now.”

“Sounds like a pretty good idee to me,” Lobo said. “What do you think, Beartooth?”

“I like the idea, but it's up to Preacher. This here is his range.”

Preacher nodded his agreement. “Yeah, Pugh, go ahead and do it.”

“We need to get started,” Greybull said. “As old as we are, hell, if we wait around here much longer some of us is liable to die of old age afore we get there.”

* * *

The group of mountain men made their camp in the timber of the Lemhi Range about ten miles south of Bury.

“So, Pugh, are you goin' to go find Deadlead and Powder Pete?” Beartooth asked as soon as they set up.

“Yeah, but I thought maybe I'd take me a bath first, seein' as you folks is so put off by my smell and all.”

“You ain't takin' a bath here, are you? 'Cause I'm afraid if you done that, you'd more than likely kill the fish for five miles downstream.” Beartooth grinned a toothless grin.

“You just a barrel of laughs, ain't you?” Pugh said as he took off his clothes, then waddled down to the stream.

“I reckon I'll ride on into Bury to buy some bacon, beans, coffee, flour, and salt,” Lobo said. “And while I'm there, I'll also have me a look around the place, keep my ears open for talk of anything that might be of some use to us.”

“They's a tribe of Flathead Indians some east of here,” Preacher said. “I think I'll ride over there for a bit.”

“What you going there for?” Beartooth asked.

“Just to visit some. I might have me a daughter there, or else mayhaps a granddaughter, or even a great grandkid. Injuns gets started whelping pretty early, so it can build up real quick.”

Lobo put his hands on his hips and frowned at Preacher. “Well, do you or don't you?”

“Do I or don't I what?”

“Have any Injun kids or grandkids there?”

Preacher gave a very small smile. “Don't know for sure, but it's more 'n likely that I do.”

Pugh came back from the water, dripping wet, but considerably cleaner.

“Damn, there really was a man under all that dirt,” Lobo said.

“Yeah? Well, has it crossed anyone's mind that I'm the cleanest one here?” Pugh asked. “Don't none of you get too close to me. I wouldn't want to get none of your dirt or stink on me.”

“So, you're good for another four years now, right, Pugh?” Lobo asked with a laugh.

“If I live that long,” Pugh said, giving a serious answer to a joking question.