Sally looked at the old men and smiled, starting toward them. The old man who had smiled at Martha shook his head minutely.
The three old mountain men stepped back into the crowd and vanished, walking out the rear of the store.
The reporter was struggling to get to his feet.
“Who was that old man, Sally?” Martha asked.
“I don’t know,” Sally lied. Then she turned to once more watch her man face what many believed he was born to face.
There was fifty feet between them when the outlaws dragged iron. The street erupted in fire and smoke and fast guns and death.
The Hog went down with three of York’s .44 slugs in his chest and belly. He struggled to rise and York ended it with a carefully aimed slug between the Hog’s piggy eyes.
Shorty managed to clear leather and that was just about all he managed to do before Louis’s guns roared and belched lead. Shorty fell forward on his face, his un-fired guns shining in the crisp fall air.
Smoke took out Red first, drawing and firing so fast the man was unable to drag his .45 out of leather. Then Smoke felt the sting of a bullet graze his left shoulder as he cocked and fired, the slug taking Jake directly in the center of his chest. Smoke kept walking and firing as Jake refused to go down. Finally, with five slugs in him, the outlaw dropped to the street, closed his eyes, and died.
“What an ugly sight!” Smoke heard a man say.
He turned to the man, blood running down his arm from the wound in his shoulder. “No uglier than when he was alive,” Smoke told him.
And the old man called Preacher chuckled and turned to his friends. “Let’s git gone, boys. It was worth the train ride just to see it!”
The reporter that Martha had busted on the jaw was leaning against another reporter, moral and physical support in his time of great stress. “I’ll sue you!” he hollered at the young woman.
Martha held up her fists. “You wanna fight instead?”
“Savage bitch!” the man yelled at her.
Lawyer John Reynolds stepped up and belted the reporter on the snoot with a hard straight right. The reporter landed on his butt, a sprawl of arms and legs, blood running down his face from his busted beak.
John smiled and said, “Damn, but that felt good!”
25
BANK ROBBERY ATTEMPT FOILED BY WESTERN GUNSLINGERS screamed one headline.
SAVAGES MEET SAVAGE END IN PEACEFUL NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN howled another front-page headline.
Smoke glanced at the headlines and then ignored the rest of the stories about him. He was getting antsy, restless; he was ready to get gone, back to the High Lonesome, back to the Sugarloaf.
“Is that reporter really going to sue you, Father?” Sally asked John.
The lawyer laughed. “He says he is.”
“You want me to take care of it, John?” Smoke asked with a straight face.
“Oh, no, Son!” John quickly spoke up. “No, I think it will all work out.”
Then Smoke smiled, and John realized his son-in-law was only having fun with him. John threw back his head and laughed.
“Son, you have made me realize what a stuffed shirt I had become. And I thank you for it.”
Smoke opened his mouth and John waved him silent. “No, let me finish this. I’ve had to reassess my original opinion of you, Son. I’ve had to reevaluate many of the beliefs I thought were set in stone. Oh, I still believe very strongly in law and order. And lawyers,” he added with a smile. “But I can understand you and men like you much better now.”
York was out sparking Miss Martha, and Louis was arranging a private railroad car to transport them all back to Colorado. His way of saying thank you for his namesake.
“I’d like nothing better than to see the day when I can hang up my guns, John,” Smoke said after a sip of strong cowboy coffee. “But out where I live, that’s still many years down the road, I’m thinking.”
“I’d like to visit your ranch someday.”
“You’ll be welcome anytime, sir.”
John leaned forward. “You’re leaving soon?”
“Probably day after tomorrow. Louis says he thinks he can have the car here then. About noon.”
“And this Rex Davidson and Dagget; the others who got away?”
“We’ll meet them down the road, I’m sure. But me and Sally, we’re used to watching our backtrail. Used to keeping a gun handy. Don’t worry, John, Abigal. If they try to take us on the Sugarloaf, that’s where we’ll bury them.”
“I say,” Jordan piped up. “Do you think your town could support another attorney? I’ve been thinking about it, and I think the West is in need of more good attorneys, don’t you, Father?”
His father probably saved his son’s life when he said, “Jordan, I need you here.”
“Oh! Very well, Father. Perhaps someday.”
