The bartender nodded. “I reckoned that might be who it was, him being an outlaw and wanted and all.”
“Have you ever seen him?” Smoke asked.
“He’s been through here a time or two,” Abe said. “He don’t never stay long though. You after the reward, are you?”
“Yeah,” Smoke replied without being more specific.
“Funny. I know’d you was on the right side of the law, but I never know’d you to be a bounty hunter, though.”
“We do what we have to do,” Smoke said. “Do you think the sheriff might have any information on Dodd?”
“He might,” Abe replied.
“Where will I find him?”
“His office and the jail are at the far end of the street on the other side. You can’t miss it—there are about six tents, then one brick building and that’s the jail.”
“Thanks, I believe I’ll step down and pay him a visit.”
“Bartender!” someone called. “A little service if you don’t mind.”
“Hold your horses,” Abe said. “I’ll be right there.”
Smoke waited until the bartender moved down to answer the call. Then he spoke to Bobby Lee, speaking so quietly that only Bobby Lee could hear him.
“I’m going over to the sheriff’s office to see if he has anything about your escape yet. That’ll let us know how careful we have to be while we are in town. You stay here.”
“Smoke, uh, I was in jail,” Bobby Lee said. “So I don’t have any, uh …”
Smoke chuckled. “I got it,” he said. He took a twenty-dollar gold double eagle from his pocket and gave it to Bobby Lee. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he teased.
“Thanks,” Bobby Lee said.
4
Chapter Twenty-one
As soon as Boomer Watkins left the saloon, he looked up his brother Clint, who was at the moment in Tsun Woo’s opium den, waiting for his time on the couch.
“Clint, guess who’s in town!” Boomer said.
“I don’t care who is in town. Can’t you see I’m waitin’ my turn here?”
“You’ll care when I tell you,” Boomer said.
“All right, who is in town?”
“Smoke Jensen, that’s who.”
The name got Clint’s attention. “Smoke Jensen? Are you sure?”
“Hell, yeah, I’m sure. I recognized him. Besides which, he admitted it to me.”
“Maybe it was just someone showin’ off, someone who wanted you to think he was Smoke Jensen.”
“No, it was him all right. He know’d exactly what Jerry looked like. I mean, he described him just right. Besides which he—I, uh …”
“What?”
“Well, I tried to draw on him, and he beat me. I ain’t never seen no one as fast.”
“If he beat you, how come you ain’t dead?”
“I don’t know. ‘Cause he made a mistake, I guess. But I plan on it bein’ the last mistake he ever makes. That is, if I can get you away from the Chinaman here. ‘Cause if you don’t, I’ll just do it myself. ”
“Do what?”
“Wait for the son of a bitch to come out of the saloon, then kill him,” Boomer said.
“Nah, you don’t have to do it by yourself. Hell, it’s liable to be another hour before I get my time on the couch. I reckon that’s enough time to kill Jensen.”
As Smoke stepped off of the boardwalk in front of the saloon, a bullet suddenly fried the air just beside his ear, then hit the dirt beside him before it skipped off with a high-pitched whine down the street. The sound of the rifle shot reached him at about the same time, and Smoke dived behind the water trough, his gun already in his hand. Crawling on his belly to the edge of the trough, he saw Boomer Watkins standing up on the roof of the Midas Mercantile just behind the false front and the sign that read GOODS FOR ALL MANKIND.
Boomer was holding a Henry rifle, and he operated the lever to jack in another shot. Before he could get off a second shot, Smoke fired, and he saw a little spray of blood from the hole that suddenly appeared in Boomer’s forehead. The rifle fell from Boomer’s hand as he pitched forward, turning a half-flip in the air to land flat on his back in a pile of horse manure.
Thinking that was his only threat, Smoke stood up, and had started across the street toward Boomer when another gunman suddenly appeared in the street, firing at Smoke. The would-be assailant’s shot missed, and with lightning-quick reflexes, Smoke dropped to the ground, then rolled quickly to his left, just as the second shot hit the ground so close beside him that it kicked dirt into his face.
