“We can’t get out of town, Miss Sally,” Rosa said. “The little boy, Ben, says Potter and Stratton gave orders to that nasty Rosten not to rent us wagons or horses. We’re stuck.”
Sally nodded. As Josh Richards had once explained to her, the Pink House was one of the best constructed buildings in town. The two-story structure was built of logs, with excellent craftsmanship in the construction, with carefully fitted corners. Instead of a mixture of clay and moss filling the chinks, solid mortar had been used. With a little rearranging of furniture, the house could easily withstand any stray bullets.
“All right, ladies,” Sally said. “Here’s what we’ll do…”
“What’s happening!” Deputy Rogers said. “I don’t understand none of it. It’s like…it’s like ever’thang was just fine one day, and the next day it’s all haywire!”
Sheriff Dan Reese knew what was happening, but he didn’t feel like explaining it to this big dummy standing before him. He’d seen boom towns go sour before. And he knew that sometimes a feller could skin the clabber off the top and salvage the milk. Not often, but sometimes.
But he had a sinking feeling it was too damn late for Bury.
“Shut up, Rogers,” he said. He looked at his other deputies, Weathers and Payton. “You men check them shotguns and rifles. Git over to the store and stock up on shells. I don’t know why, but something tells me everything that’s happenin’ is the fault of that Buck West. Damn his eyes!”
“So we is gonna do what?” Payton asked. Like Rogers, Payton was no mental giant.
“I think the bosses is gonna tell us to kill him.”
Potter turned from the second-floor window of the PSR offices to look at Stratton. “You feel it?” he asked.
“Yes,” Stratton said with a sigh. “Whatever
“I had the territorial governorship in the palm of my hand,” Potter said. “And suddenly, for no reason, I lose it. Why? A seemingly intelligent, reasonable young woman, a very capable school teacher, suddenly falls for a gunslick. Why? And now I discover that Buck West—or whatever his name is—is buddy-buddy with Sam, and Sam is sharing the blankets with a squatter. What’s happening around here?”
“Don’t forget the mountain men gathering up in the deep timber.”
“That’s right.”
The two men looked at each other and suddenly their brains began to click and hum in unison.
“Mountain men helped raise Kirby Jensen,” Stratton said.
“We’ve all heard the rumors that Preacher wasn’t killed,” Potter said.
“All our troubles started when Buck West arrived in town.”
The men sent a flunky for Sheriff Dan Reese.
“Anybody have any idee whatever happened to old Maurice Leduc?” Deadlead asked.
The mountain men were camped openly and brazenly about two miles outside of Bury. They knew their reputation had preceded them, and they likewise knew that none of the Big Three’s gunhands were about to attack the camp. For one thing, they held the vantage point—the crest of a low hill. For another, no twenty-five cowboys- turned-gunhands were about to attack a dozen old hardbitten mountain men; especially not the most notorious bunch of mountain men to ever prowl the high lonesome. No matter that none of the mountain men would ever see seventy years of age again. That had nothing to do with it. Even at seventy, most of them could still outshoot and outfight men half their age.
Lobo said, “Last I heard, ol’ Leduc come back up to near Bent’s fort and built hisself a cabin; him and a teenage Mex gal. Took up gardenin’.” That was said very contemptuously.
“Hale’s far!” Powder Pete said. “That was back in ’58.”
“Wal, what year is this here we’re in?” Dupre asked.
“Oh…about ’75, I reckon,” Tenneysee said.
“You don’t say,” Greybull said. “My, time does git away from a man, don’t it?”
“If that is the case,” Audie said. “And I will admit that I don’t even know what year it is, not really, I was born seventy-one years ago.”
“And got uglier every year,” Preacher said.
“You should talk. You’re so ugly you could pose for totem poles.”
“I ’member the furst time I seen one of the things,” Phew said. “Up in Washington Territory. Like to have plumb scared me out of my ’skins.”
“That’d probably been a good thing for all concerned,” Matt said. “Least you’da took a bath then. You ain’t been out of them skins in fifty year.”
“I wish Smoke would git things a-smokin’ down yonder,” Beartooth said. “I’m a-cravin’ a mite of action.”
“He’ll start stirrin’ it up in a day or three,” Preacher opined. “And then we’ll all have all the action we can handle. Bet on it.”
“Reckon whut he’s a-doin’ down there?” Lobo asked.
“Probably tryin’ to spark that schoolmarm,” Preacher said. “He’s shore stuck on her.”
“What do you mean, I can’t come in?” Buck said, standing on the front porch of the Pink House.
“Buck,” Sally’s voice came through the closed door. “You’d better get out of town. Little Ben just slipped up to the back door and told us Sheriff Reese and his deputies are looking for you. Word just drifted into town that you’re Smoke Jensen.”
