“Sure. Why?”
“Tell him to dust off his boxes — he’s about to get some business.”
Crowell sat his horse and watched the pair until they were out of sight. He knew about Preacher, for Preacher was a living legend in Colorado when Crowell was still a boy. As much a legend as Carson, Purcell, Williams, or Charbonneau, son of Sacagawea. The young man with him — or was Preacher with the young man? — was rumored to be the fastest gun anywhere in the state.
A horse coming behind him broke the marshal’s thoughts. “Tom?” A man’s voice.
Crowell turned to look at the shopkeeper.
“You were deep in thought. Trouble?”
“Not for us, I hope.”
“Who were those men?”
“One was the old curly wolf, Preacher. The other was the young gun-hand, Smoke.”
“Here! Lord, Tom, who are they after?”
“He asked for Casey.”
“Lord! Casey owes me sixty-five dollars.”
Ten miles out of town, the pair met two hands riding easy, heading into town. Smoke and Preacher sat their saddles in the middle of the range and waited.
“You boys is on TC range,” one of the riders informed them, his voice holding none of the famed western hospitality. “So get the hell off. The boss don’t like strangers and neither do I.”
Smoke smiled. “You boys been ridin’ for the brand long?” he asked congenially.
“You deef?” the second rider asked. “We just told you to get!”
“You answer my question and then maybe we’ll leave.”
“Since ’66, when we pushed the cattle up here from Texas — if it’s any of your damned business. Now git!”
“Who owns the TC?”
“Ted Casey. Boy, are you crazy or just stupid?”
“My Pa knew a Ted Casey. Fought in the war with him, for the Gray.”
“Oh? What be your name?”
“Some people call me Smoke.” He smiled. “Jensen.”
Recognition flared in the eyes of the riders. They grabbed for their guns but they were far too slow. Smoke’s left-hand .36 belched flame and black smoke as Preacher fired his Henry one-handed. Horses reared and screamed and bucked at the noise, and the TC riders were dropped from their saddles, dead and dying.
The one TC rider alive pulled himself up on one elbow. Blood poured through two chest wounds, the blood pink and frothy, one .36 ball passing through both lungs, taking the rider as he turned in the saddle.
“Heard you was comin’,” he gasped. “You quick, no doubt ’bout that. Your brother was easy.” He smiled a bloody smile. “Potter shot him low in the back; took him a long time to die.” The rider closed his eyes and fell back to the ground.
“Let’s go clean out the rest of nest of snakes,” Smoke said.
“There may be men at the ranch didn’t have nothin’ to do with your Pa and your brother dyin’.”
“Yes. I have thought about that. I would say they have a small problem.”
“Figured you’d say that, too.”
“He that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas,” Smoke said with a smile.
“Huh?”
“It was in one of those books I read at the cabin on the Fork.”
“Shoulda burned them gawddamned things. I knowed it all along.”
Stopping in a stand of timber a couple of hundred yards from the ranch house, Preacher said, “There she is. Got any plans?”
“Start shooting.”
“The house and out-buildin’s?”
“Burn them to the ground.”
“You a hard youngun, Smoke.”
“I suppose I am.” He smiled at Preacher. “But I had a good teacher, didn’t I?”
“The best around,” the mountain man replied.
The house and bunkhouse were built of logs, with sod roofs. Burn easy, Smoke thought. He yelled, “Casey! Get out here.”
“Who are you?” a shout came from the house.
“Smoke Jensen.”
A rifle bullet wanged through the trees. High.
