“Not very often,” Matt agreed.
“So, what do you think? You going to take us up on the offer?”
“Let me think about it,” Matt said.
“You do that.”
Matt had no intention of taking the two men up on their offer, but he responded in such a way as to enable him to stall for time until he figured out how best to handle the situation. He picked up a stick about two feet long, put his hat on top of the stick, then raised it slightly above the rock.
A rifle boomed, and the hat flew off the end of the stick.
“Ha! You got ’im, Cruise!” Hayes shouted.
“Whoa, I guess you two boys weren’t really serious about giving me all that money, were you?” Matt called out.
“Son of a bitch, I missed!” Cruise said.
“Mister, you know what I said about givin’ you that money? Well you can forget about it. We ain’t goin’ to give you nothin’,” Hayes said. “Except maybe a bullet right between your eyes.” His shout was punctuated with another rifle shot hitting the top of the rock, then whining off into the valley.
After that there was silence.
The silence stretched into several long minutes.
“Hayes? Cruise? You still up there?” Matt called.
Another rifle shot hit the rock just to the right of him. The one with the rifle had improved his position. As Matt scooted around to put the rock between himself and the shooter, there was a second shot.
Matt saw the puff of smoke from the rifle, so he aimed at the spot and waited. Seconds later he was rewarded by seeing Cruise’s face raise up.
Matt pulled the trigger, and Cruise fell forward, sliding belly down until his face ended up in the stream. Matt watched for a moment longer to make certain Cruise was dead when suddenly he heard the sound of horse’s hooves. Looking around he saw that Hayes had used the opportunity to get mounted and was galloping toward him. Hayes had his pistol in his hand, firing at Matt as he rode.
Matt fired back. A puff of dust rose from Hayes’ vest, followed by a tiny spray of dust and blood. Hayes pitched backward out of his saddle but one foot hung up in the stirrup. His horse continued to run, raising a plume of water as the outlaw was dragged through the stream. When the horse reached the other side of the stream and started up the bank, Hayes’ foot disconnected from the stirrup and he lay motionless, half in the water and half out, not more than ten feet from where the body of his partner lay.
Matt ran over to them, his gun still drawn, but the gun wasn’t necessary. Both men were dead.
CHAPTER 3
Hayes and Cruise were not the first outlaws Matt had ever tracked down. He was neither a lawman nor someone who hunted other men for any reward the government paid, but he was always on the side of law and order. Sometimes, going after an outlaw just seemed to be the right thing to do.
He never sought trouble but, somehow, trouble had a way of finding him. As a result, Matt Jensen was one of a select company of men in the West whose very name evoked fear among the outlaws and evil doers.
Matt took the bag of bank money from Hayes’ saddle, and started back to Pueblo, but just after noon, his horse stepped into an unseen prairie dog hole. The horse broke a leg and Matt had to shoot him. It was a hard thing to do; Spirit was only the second horse he had ever owned. Indeed, that horse had carried with him the spirit of his first horse, who was also named, not coincidentally, Spirit. There was nothing Matt could do but take shanks mare, so, throwing his saddle, saddle bags, and the money bag over his shoulder, he began walking.
Matt Jensen dropped his saddle with a sigh of relief, then climbed up the berm to stand on the ballast between the railroad tracks. Before him the clear tracks of the Denver and New Orleans lay like twin black ribbons across the landscape, stretching north to south from horizon to horizon. For the moment they were as cold and empty as the barren sand, rocks, and mountains that surrounded him, but Matt knew a train would pass through there sometime before sundown.
Since putting his horse down, Matt had walked for two hours, carrying his saddle with him. At the moment, he was standing alongside the railroad tracks some thirty miles south of Pueblo. All that was left for him to do was catch the train, so, using his saddle as a pillow, he lay down beside the tracks to wait. As he waited, he thought of the horse he had just put down. In order to combat the grief that threatened to consume him, he turned his thoughts to his first horse named Spirit, and how he had come by him.
Right after the war, while still a boy named Matt Cavanaugh, the man known as Matt Jensen made the trip west from Missouri with his father, mother, and sister. On the trail west, their wagon was attacked by outlaws, and all were killed but Matt. He escaped, managing to kill one of the outlaws in the process. The incident left Matt an orphan and shortly thereafter he wound up in the Soda Springs Home for Wayward Boys and Girls. Rather than providing a refuge, the orphanage was so evilly run that eventually Matt escaped from the home.
A few days later Matt, nearly dead from hunger and the cold, was found in the mountains by the legendary Smoke Jensen. Smoke took the boy in and raised him to adulthood. Out of respect and appreciation, Matt Cavanaugh changed his name to Matt Jensen and though there was no blood relationship between the two men, they regarded each other as brothers. When it was time for Matt to go out on his own, Smoke had surprised him with an offer.
“My
