this very day, and seeing the brutal, calculating madness in Tilden’s eyes, the preacher realized that Tilden would stop at nothing to attain his goals.
Even the rape of a child.
Hunt sat in his office, looking at the bloody dime novel. Like the gambler, Louis Longmont, Hunt felt he knew why the money had been left by the raped child. And, if his hunch was correct, it was a horrible, barbaric thing for the men to do.
But, his lawyer’s mind pondered, did Tilden Franklin have anything to do with it?
“Shit!” he said, quite unlike him.
Of course he did.
Colton dozed on his office couch. Even in his fitful sleep he was keeping one ear out for any noise Velvet might make. But he didn’t expect her to make any. He felt the child’s mind was destroyed.
He suddenly came wide awake, his mind busy. Supplies! He was going to have to order many more supplies. He would post the letter tomorrow—today—and get it out on the morning stage.
There was going to be a war in this area of the state—a very bad war. And as the only doctor within seventy- five miles, Colton felt he was going to be very busy.
Ed Jackson slept deeply and well. He had heard the news of the raped girl and promptly dismissed it. Tilden Franklin was a fine man; he would have nothing to do with anything of that nature. Those hard-scrabble farmers and small ranchers were all trash. That’s what Mister Franklin had told him, and he believed him.
There had been no rape, Ed had thought, before falling asleep. None at all. The money scattered around the wretched girl proved that, and if he was chosen to sit on the jury, that’s the way he would see it.
Sleep was elusive for Smoke. And not just for Smoke. In the room next to his, he could hear Charlie Starr’s restless pacing. The legendary gunfighter was having a hard time of it too. Mistreatment of a grown woman was bad enough, but to do what had been done to a child…that was hard to take.
War. That word kept bouncing around in Smoke’s head. Dirty, ugly range war.
Smoke finally drifted off to sleep…but his dreams were bloody and savage.
Not one miner worked the next day…or so it seemed at least. The bars and cafes and hotels and streets and boardwalks of Fontana were filled to overflowing with men and women, all awaiting the return of Judge Proctor and Sheriff Monte Carson from the sprawling TF spread.
Luke Nations had stayed at the Sugarloaf with Sally and most of the other gunslicks. Early that morning, however. Pistol Le Roux, Dan Greentree, Bull Flagler, Hardrock, Red Shingletown, and Leo Wood had ridden in.
And the town had taken notice of them very quickly. The aging gunhawks made Monte’s deputies very nervous. And, to the deputies’ way of thinking, what made it all even worse was that Louis Longmont was solidly on the side of Smoke Jensen. And now it appeared that Johnny North had thrown in with Smoke too. And nobody knew how many more of them damned old gunfighters Smoke had brought in. Just thinkin’ ’bout them damned old war-hosses made a feller nervous.
Just outside of town, Monte sat his saddle and looked down at Judge Proctor, sitting in a buckboard. “I ain’t real happy about bringin’ this news back to Fontana, Judge.”
“Nor I, Sheriff. But I really, honestly feel we did our best in this matter.”
Monte shuddered. “You know what this news is gonna do, don’t you, Judge?”
“Unfortunately. But what would you have done differently, Monte?”
Monte shook his head. He could not think of a thing that could have been done differently. But, for the first time in his life, Monte was beginning to see matters from the
“Nothin’, Judge. Not a thing.”
Judge Proctor clucked to his team and rolled on.
Standing beside Smoke on the boardwalk, Lawyer Hunt Brook said, “Here they come Smoke. Two went out, two are returning.”
“That’s about the way I flgurcd it would be.”
Judge Proctor halted his team in front of Hunt and Smoke. “Since you are handling this case for Miss Colby, Mister Brook,” the judge said, “I’ll see you in your offices in thirty minutes. I should like to wash up first.”
“Certainly, your honor,” Hunt said.
Smoke walked with the lawyer down the long, tightly packed street to his law office. Hunt went on into his personal office and Smoke sat out in the pine-fresh outer office, reading a month-old edition of a New York City newspaper. He looked up as Colby entered.
“It ain’t good, is it, Smoke?” the father asked.
“It doesn’t look good from where I sit. You sure you want to be here, listen to all this crap?”
“Yeah,” the man said softly. “I shore do want to hear it. I left Belle with Velvet. This is hard on my woman, Smoke. She’s talkin’ hard about pullin’ out.”
“And you?”
“I told her if she went, she’d have to go by herself. I was stayin.’”
“She won’t leave you, Colby.”
“Naw. I don’t think she will neither. It’s just…whatever the outcome today, Smoke, we gotta get back, get Adam into the ground. You reckon that new minister, that Ralph Morrow, would come up to the high country and say a few words over my boy?”
The man was very close to crying.
“I’m sure he would, Colby. Soon as this is over, I’ll go talk to him.”
