“Would that it were so,” Colton muttered, getting into his buggy and clucking at the mare.
As the weather grew warmer and the days grew longer, Sally grew stronger…and was beginning to show her pregnancy. Several of the women who lived nearby would come over almost daily, to sew and talk and giggle about the damndest things.
Smoke left the scene when all that gabble commenced.
And he was still no closer to finding out anything about the men who attacked his wife.
Leaving Sally and the women, with two hands always on guard near the cabin, Smoke saddled the midnight- black horse with the cold, killer eyes, and he and Drifter went to town.
The town of Fontana, once called No Name, which had been Tilden Franklin’s town, was dying just as surely as Tilden had died under Smoke’s guns. Only a few stores remained open, and they did very little business.
It was to the town of Big Rock that Smoke rode, his .44s belted around his lean waist and tied down, the Henry rifle in his saddle boot.
Big Rock was growing as Fontana was dying. A couple of nice cafes, a small hotel, one saloon, with no games and no hurdy-gurdy girls. There was a lawyer, Hunt Brook, and his wife, Willow, and a newspaper, the
It was a nice quiet little town; but as some men who had tried to tree it found out, Big Rock was best left alone.
Johnny North, who had married the widow Belle Colby after her husband’s death, was—or had been—one of the West’s more feared and notorious gunfighters. A farmer/rancher now, Johnny would, if the situation called for it, strap on and tie down his guns and step back into his gunfighter’s boots. Sheriff Monte Carson, another ex- gunfighter, was yet another gunhawk to marry a grass widow and settle in Big Rock. Pearlie, Smoke’s foreman, had married and settled down; but Pearlie had also been, at one point in his young life, a much-feared and respected fast gun. The minister, Ralph Morrow, was an ex-prizefighter from back east, having entered the ministry after killing a man with his fists. Ralph preached on Sundays and farmed and ranched during the week. Ralph would also pick up a gun and fight, although most would rather he wouldn’t. Ralph couldn’t shoot a short gun worth a damn!
Big Rock and the area surrounding it was filled with men and women who would fight for their families, their homes, and their lands.
The dozen or so outlaws who rode into town with the thought of taking over and having their way with the women some months back soon found that they had made a horrible and deadly mistake. At least half of them died in their saddles, their guns in their hands. Two more were shot down in the street. Two died in the town’s small clinic. The rest were hanged.
The word soon went out along the hoot-owl trail: Stay away from Big Rock. The town is pure poison. Folks there will shoot you quicker than a cat can scat.
Smoke caught up with Johnny North, who was in town for supplies. The two of them found Sheriff Carson and went to the Big Rock saloon for a couple of beers and some conversation. The men sipped their beers in silence for a time. Finally, after their mugs had been refilled, Johnny broke the silence.
“I been thinkin’ on it some, Smoke. I knew I’d heard that name Dagget somewheres before, but I couldn’t drag it out of my head and catch no handle on it. It come to me last night. I come up on that name down near the Sangre de Cristo range a few years back. It might not be the same fellow, but I’m bettin’ it is. Sally’s description of him fits what I heard. If it is, he’s a bad one. Bounty hunter and bodyguard to somebody. I don’t know who. I ain’t never heard of the two other men with him.”
“I ain’t never heard of any of them,” Monte said sourly. “And I thought I knew every gunslick west of the Big Muddy. That was any good, that is.”
“Dagget don’t ride the rim much,” Johnny explained. “And he only takes jobs his boss wants him to take. If this is the same fellow, he’s from back east somewheres. Came out here about ten years ago. Supposed to be from a real good family back there. Got in trouble with the law and had to run. But his family seen to it that he had plenty of money. What he done, so I’m told, is link up with some other fellow and set them up an outlaw stronghold; sort of like the Hole-In-The-Wall. All this is just talk; I ain’t never been there.”
Smoke nodded his head. Something else had jumped into his mind; something the old mountain man, Preacher, had said one time. Something about the time he’d had to put lead into a fellow who lived down near the Sangre de Cristo range. But what was the man’s name? Was it Davidson? Yes. Rex Davidson.
“Rex Davidson,” Smoke said it aloud.
Both Monte and Johnny stiffened at the name, both men turning their heads to look at Smoke.
When Johnny spoke, his voice was soft. “What’d you say, Smoke?”
Smoke repeated the name.
Monte whistled softly. “I really hope he ain’t got nothing to do with the attack agin Sally.”
Smoke looked at him. “Why?”
Monte finished his beer and motioned the two men outside, to the boardwalk. He looked up and down the street and then sat down on the wooden bench in front of the saloon, off to the side from the batwing entrance. Johnny and Smoke joined him.
“That name you just mentioned, Smoke…what do you know about him?”
“Absolutely nothing. I heard Preacher mention it one time, and one time only. That was years back, when I was just a kid. The name is all I know except that Preacher told me he had to put lead into him one time.”
Monte nodded his head. “So that’s it. Well, that clears it up right smart. Finishes the tale I been hearin’ for years. I’ll just be damned, boys!”
The men waited until Monte had rolled and licked a cigarette into shape and lighted it.
“Must have been…oh, at least twenty years back, so the story goes. Rex Davidson was about twenty, I guess.
