shuck out of that area.
They ran right into Pearlie, coming at them at full gallop. With the reins in his teeth, his right hand full of Colt and his left hand full of Henry rifle, Pearlie emptied two saddles. The last TF rider left alive hunched low in the saddle and made it over a rise and out of range. He then headed for the ranch. They’d been told they were going up against Pearlie and one little lady. But it seemed that Pearlie was as hard to kill as a grizzly and that that little lady had turned into a bobcat.
Meanwhile, Pearlie reined up in a cloud of dust and jumped out of the saddle. “You folks all right?” he yelled.
“My God, Pearlie!” Sally rushed out of the house. “What happened to you?”
“They roped and drug me,” Pearlie said. “Then shot me. But they made a bad mistake, ma’am.”
She looked at him.
“They left me alive,” Pearlie said, his words flint hard.
Smoke darted into the darkness of the first stall just as the lead tore smoking holes where he’d first hit. Rolling to one side, Smoke lifted the sawed-off express gun and eared back both hammers and waited.
“Got the punk!” someone hissed.
“Maybe,” a calmer voice spoke from just above Smoke.
Smoke lifted the sawed-off and pulled both triggers. The express gun roared and bucked, and ball-bearing loads tore a great hole in the loft floor. The “maybe” man was flung out of the loft, both loads catching him directly in the crotch, almost tearing him in half. He lay on the stable floor, squalling as his blood stained the horse-shit-littered boards.
Smoke rolled to the wall of the stall, reloaded the express gun, and jumped over the stall divider, into the next stall. His ears were still ringing from the tremendous booming of the sawed-off.
Quietly, he removed his spurs and laid them to one side.
He heard someone cursing, then someone else said, “Jensen shot him where he lived. That ain’t right.”
The mangled man had ceased his howling, dying on the stable floor.
Smoke waited.
As he had expected, Sheriff Monte Carson was making no effort to interfere with the ambush.
So much for the new law and order in Fontana.
Smoke waited, motionless, his callused hands gripping the express gun. His mentor, Preacher, had taught Smoke well, teaching him, among other things, patience.
One of Tilden’s gunhands lost his patience and began tossing lead around where he suspected Smoke to be. He was way off target. But Smoke wasn’t.
Smoke blew the man out of the loft, the loads taking him in the belly, knocking him backward. He rolled and thrashed and screamed, the pain finally rolling him off the edge and dropping him to the ground floor.
Smoke heard one man jump from the loft and take off running. The others ran out the back and disappeared.
Smoke waited for a long ten-count, then slipped out the front door. He made sure all watching saw him reload the sawed-off shotgun. Then he walked straight up the dusty street to where Tilden and Monte were standing. Still in the street, Smoke wondered where Clint had gotten off to. No matter. Clint might ride for a sorry no-account, but the man was not a backshooter. Smoke knew that much about him.
Looking straight at Tilden, Smoke said, “Two of your men are on the stable floor. One is dead and I imagine the other won’t live long the way he’s shot. Your other hands lost their nerve and ran. Maybe you told them to ambush me, maybe you didn’t. I don’t know. So I won’t accuse you of it.”
Tilden stood still, smoking a thin cigar. But his eyes were filled with silent rage and hate.
Smoke looked at Monte. “You got anything you want to say to me, Sheriff?”
Monte wanted desperately to look at Tilden for some sign. But he was afraid to take his eyes off Smoke. He finally shook his head. “I reckon not.”
“Fine.” Smoke looked at Tilden. “See you ’round, Franklin.” He knew the man despised to be called by his last name.
Smoke turned and walked to Louis Longmont’s place. He handed Louis the shotgun and walked across the street to join the Easterners.
“Go get my horse, Billy. And stay out of the barn until someone cleans up the mess.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Is that…it?” Hunt asked.
“That’s it, Lawyer,” Smoke told him. “Out here, for the time being, justice is very swift and short.”
Smoke looked at Ed Jackson.
“I’d suggest you bear that in mind,” Smoke told him.
14
Tilden sat at a table in a saloon. By himself. The kingpin rancher was in a blue funk and everybody knew it. So they wisely left him alone.
Those six gunhands he’d sent to ambush Jensen were among the best he’d had on his payroll. And they’d failed. And to make matters worse, Jensen had made Tilden look like a fool…in front of Monte and countless others who were hiding nearby.
Intolerable.
