“What are you two talking about?” Bountiful asked.
“A showdown,” Smoke told her, buttering a biscuit. He chewed slowly, then said, “Might as well brace him in the morning and get it over with.”
Ralph and Bountiful stopped eating and sat staring at the young gunfighter. Ralph said, “You’re discussing this with no more emotion than if you were talking about planting beets!”
“No point in gettin’ all worked up about it, Ralph. If I try to avoid it, it just prolongs the matter, and maybe some innocent person gets caught up in it and gets hurt. I told you and your friends a time back that we do things differently out here. And I’m not so sure that it isn’t the best way.”
“In the morning?”
“In the morning.”
“I’ll go in with you,” the minister-turned farmer said. His tone indicated the matter was not up for debate.
“All right, Ralph.”
Ralph was a surprisingly good horseman, and Smoke said as much.
“I was raised on a farm,” he said. “And I’m also a very good rifle shot.”
“I noticed you putting the Henry in the boot this morning.”
The morning was very clear and very bright as the two men rode toward Fontana. As they worked their way out of the mountains and toward the long valley where Fontana was located, the temperature grew warmer.
“Ever shot a man, Ralph?”
“No.”
“Could you?”
“Don’t ever doubt it.”
Smoke smiled faintly. He didn’t doubt it for a minute.
The town of Fontana seemed to both men to be a bit smaller. Ralph commented on that.
“The easy pickings have been found and taken out, Ralph. For however long this vein will last, it’s going to be hard work, dirty work, and dangerous work. Look yonder. One whole section of Fontana is gone. Half a dozen bars have pulled out.”
“Why…” Ralph’s eyes swept the visibly shrinking town that lay below them. “At this rate, there will be nothing left of Fontana by the end of summer.”
“If that long,” Smoke said, a note of satisfaction in his statement. “If we all can just settle the matter of Tilden Franklin, then we can all get on with the business of living.”
“And it will have to be settled by guns.” Ralph’s remark was not put in question form. The man was rapidly learning about the unwritten code of the West.
“Yes.”
Smoke reined up in front of Sheriff Monte Carson’s office. The men dismounted and walked toward the bullet- scarred stone building. As they entered, Monte smiled and greeted them.
His smile faded as he noted the hard look in Smoke’s eyes.
“I’ve had that same look a few times myself, Smoke,” Monte said. “Gonna be a shootin’?”
“Looks that way, Monte. I’d rather not have it in town if I can help it.”
“I’d appreciate that, Smoke. But sometimes it can’t be helped. I got to thinkin’ after talkin’ with that marshal. It’s Utah Slim, ain’t it?”
“Yeah.” Smoke poured a tin cup of coffee and sat down. “I got a strong hunch my sister hired him to gun me.”
“Your…
Smoke told him the story of Janey. Or at least as much as he knew about her life since she’d taken off from that hard-scrabble, rocky, worthless farm in the hills of Missouri. Back when Smoke was just a boy, after their ma had died, when their pa was off fighting in the War Between the States. And Smoke had had to shoulder the responsibilities of a boy forced into early manhood.
It was a story all too common among those who drifted West.
It sounded all too painfully familiar to Monte Carson, almost paralleling his own life.
“I seen Utah early this mornin’, sittin’ on the hotel porch.” He smiled. “The only hotel we got left here in Fontana, that is.”
“Won’t be long now,” Smoke told him. “How many businesses are you losing a day?”
“Half a dozen. As you know, up there in Big Rock, the stage is runnin’ twice a day now, carryin’ people out of here.”
“Seen some TF riders in town as we rode in,” Smoke said. “And didn’t see any of those flyers the Judge had printed up. What happened?”
“Some state man was on the stage three, four days ago, from the governor’s office. He looked at the charges I had agin Tilden and his men and told me to take them dodgers down. They wasn’t legal.” He shrugged. “I took ’em down.”
Smoke grinned. “It was fun while it lasted, though, wasn’t it?”
