get out of bed. Rolling over quietly, Smoke pulled his pistol from the holster, then stepped over to the wall, backing up against it, right next to the door.
No sooner had he done that, than he heard the sound of a key being inserted in the lock of his door. The key was turned slowly, but he heard the click of the tumblers. The door opened, and in the ambient light cast through the window, dim as it was, Smoke saw the man walk over to the bed. He raised his hand over his head, and Smoke saw the soft gleam of moonlight on the blade of a knife.
“What the hell?” the man said, when he realized nobody was in the bed.
Smoke had stepped up behind him, no more than foot away. “Are you looking for me?”
“Ahh!!” the man cried, startled by the unexpected sound behind him. He turned quickly trying to bring his knife around in a slashing arc, but he was too late. Smoke took him down with a crushing hard right to the jaw.
Half an hour later they were in the marshal’s office. The deputy had awakened the marshal who was clearly agitated by being awakened in the middle of the night. “Stallings, you want to tell me why you were in Mr. Jensen’s room in the middle of the night with a knife?”
“I was trying to kill him.”
“Why?”
“Maybe you don’t know it, but there is a price on his head. The sheriff over in La Plata County has offered five thousand dollars, dead or alive, for Smoke Jensen.”
“And of course you were planning on taking him in dead, is that it?”
“Yeah. It don’t say he has to be alive.”
“You might be interested in this.” The marshal showed Stallings the telegram he had received from the sheriff of La Plata County.
Stallings read the telegram, then looked up at the marshal. “Does this mean there ain’t no reward?”
“That is exactly what it means.”
“So what you are saying is, Coltrane and Grange, they both got themselves kilt for nothing.”
“That’s right.”
“Stallings, where did you get that flyer?” Smoke asked.
“I don’t know. They’re all over. I think we got this one offen’ an old abandoned shack about ten miles east of here.”
“You said they are all over,” Smoke said. “What do you mean by all over?”
“I mean this ain’t the only one we seen. After we took this one, we seen at least five, maybe ten more, on trees, old buildings, an abandoned mine.”
“All of them east of here?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Smoke nodded. “Then that’s where they are.”
“That’s where who are?”
“Bill Dinkins and his men.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
At ten-thirty p.m. the eastbound train number 20 arrived at the Sapinero station. Harley and the two Slater brothers, Frank and Travis, were waiting in the darkness on the opposite side of the railroad tracks from the station. They had hidden their horses a mile out of town, and the plan was to get on the train and force it to stop where their horses were.
When the train stopped at the station, the three men climbed onto the platform just behind the tender. They remained there, unseen in the dark, as the train pulled out of the station. Travis climbed up over the tender and dropped down behind the engineer and fireman, both of whom were illuminated by the yellow cab lantern. They were staring straight ahead.
“Hello, boys!” Travis called.
Startled, the engine crew turned toward him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” the engineer asked.
“You might say I’ve taken over as the conductor,” Travis said. “I want you to get ready to stop where I tell you to stop.”
“The hell I will,” the engineer said angrily.
Travis shot the fireman in the leg, and he let out a yelp of pain, grabbing his leg where the bullet struck.
“My next shot will be to his head,” Travis said.
The engineer stuck both hands out in front of him. “All right, all right. Don’t shoot him again.”
“Brake this train, right now,” Travis said.
The engineer set the brakes, and the train squealed to a halt. Travis leaned out through the engineer’s window and looked ahead. He saw a bonfire with a man standing in silhouette in front of it. The man was carrying a rifle, and he held it up, then pointed it to the right.
