The cop was Irish through and through. “No,” Smoke said. “But neither have we bothered anyone here.” He looked at the mass of cops and smiled. “Kinda reminds me of that time I took on ’bout twenty-five guns at that silver camp.”
“You fought twenty-five desperados all by yourself?” the captain asked.
“Yep.”
“How did it turn out?”
“I killed them all.”
“You…killed them all!”
“Yep.”
Several news reporters and one photographer had gathered around, for real cowboys and western gunslingers were rare in Cleveland.
“Might I ask your name, sir?” the captain inquired.
“Smoke Jensen.”
Pandemonium set in.
Smoke, Louis, and York were given the keys to the city. All three answered an almost endless barrage of questions and endured dozens of cameras popping and clicking at them. A hasty parade was called, and the men rode up and down the city’s streets in an open carriage.
“Goddamnedest thing I ever heard of,” York muttered. “What the hell have we done to deserve something this grand?”
“You’re an Arizona Ranger, York,” Louis leaned over and told him. “And a gunfighter, just like Smoke and myself.”
“If you say so,” York told him. “Seems like a whole bunch to do about nothin’ if you ask me.”
“Shakespeare felt the same way,” the gambler told him, smiling.
“No kiddin’? Seems to me I heard of him. Ain’t he from down around El Paso?”
They chugged east the next morning, Smoke and York glad to be out of the hustle and bustle of it all. Louis waved good-bye to a dark-haired young woman who smiled and blushed as the train moved out of the station.
Louis settled back in his seat. “Ah, boys, the freshness and vitality of youth never ceases to amaze me.”
Smoke grinned. “I noticed you left the party very early last night, Louis. She certainly is lovely.”
But Louis would only smile in reply to questions.
They rolled on through the day and night, across Pennsylvania and into New York. In New York’s massive and confusing station, they were met by a large contingent of New York’s finest and personally escorted to the train heading to Springfield, with numerous stops along the way.
“It ain’t that we don’t respect fellow officers, boys,” the commander of the police unit said. “It’s just that your reputations precede you.” He looked at Smoke. “Especially yours, son.”
“Yes,” a fresh-fashed cop said. “Were it up to me, I would insist you remove those guns.”
Smoke stopped, halting the parade. He turned to face the helmeted cop. “And if refused?…”
The young cop was not in the least intimidated. “Then I would surely have to use force, laddy.”
Louis and York joined Smoke in a knowing smile. Smoke said, “You have a pencil in your pocket, officer. I can see it. Would you jerk it out as quickly as you can?”
The older and more wiser of the cops—and that was just about all of them—backed up, with many of them holding their hands out from their sides, smiles on their faces. A half-dozen reporters had gathered around and were scribbling furiously. Photographers were taking pictures.
“So we’re going to play games, eh, gunfighter?” the young cop asked.
“No. I’m going to show you how easy it is for a loud-mouth to get killed where I come from.”
The young officer flushed, and placed his thumb and forefinger on the end of the pencil, and jerked it out.
Smoke swept back his beaded buckskin jacket, exposing his guns. He slipped the hammer-thong of his right hand .44. “Want to try it again?”
The young officer got exactly half of the pencil out of his pocket before he was looking down the muzzle of Smoke’s .44.
“Do you get my point, officer?”
“Ah…’deed, I do, sir! As one fellow officer to another, might I say, sir, that you are awfully quick with that weapon.”
Smoke holstered. It was unlike him to play games with weapons, but he felt he might have saved the young man’s life with an object lesson. He held out his hand, and the cop smiled and shook it.
The rest of the walk to their car was an easy one, with chatter among men who found they all had something in common after all.
It was growing late when they finally detrained in Springfield. They stabled their horses and found a small hotel for the night.
The weeks on the road had honed away any city fat that might have built up on Louis and had burned his already dark complexion to that of a gypsy. They were big men, all over six feet, with a natural heavy musculature; they were the kind of men that bring out the hostility in a certain type of man, usually the bully.
And with the knowledge that Sally and the babies—twins, Smoke had discovered when he wired during a train refueling stop—were now in danger, none of the men were in any mood for taking any lip from some loudmouth.
