with.”
Dooley grunted. Man knew what he was talking about, all right. “You won’t get between me and McCorkle?”
“I don’t care what you two do to each other. The area would probably be better off if you’d kill each other.”
“Plain-spoken man, ain’t you?”
“I see no reason to dance around it, Dooley. What’d you say?”
Something evil moved behind Dooley Hanks’s eyes. And Smoke didn’t miss it. He did not trust this man; there was no honor to be found in Dooley Hanks.
“I didn’t rustle no Box T cattle, Jensen. We just scattered them all to hell and gone. You’re free to work my range. You find any Box T cattle, take them. You won’t be bothered, and neither will Miss Fae or any punchers she hires.” He grinned, and it was not a pleasant curving of the lips. He also had bad breath. “
“The feeling is quite mutual, Hanks.” Smoke mounted up and rode away.
“I don’t trust that hombre,” Beans said. “He’s got more twists and turns than a snake.”
“I got the same feeling. See if you can find some of Fae’s beef and start pushing them toward Box T graze. I’m going into Gibson.”
“You’re serious?”
“Oh, yes,” Smoke told him. “Thirty and found, and you’ll work just like any other cowboy.”
The man threw back his head and laughed; his teeth were very white against his deeply tanned face. He tossed his hat onto the table in Hans’s cafe.
“All right,” he said suddenly. “All right, Smoke, you have a deal. I was a vaquero before I turned to the gun. I will ride for the Box T.”
Smoke and Lujan shook hands. Smoke had always heard how unpredictable the man was, but once he gave his word, he would die keeping it.
Lujan packed up his gear and pulled out moments later, riding for the Box T. Smoke chatted with Hans and Olga and Hilda for a few moments—Hilda, as it turned out, was quite taken with Ring—and then he decided he’d like a beer. Smoke was not much of a drinker, but did enjoy a beer or a drink of whiskey every now and then.
Which saloon to enter? He stood in front of the cafe and pondered that for a moment. Both of the saloons were filled up with gunhands. “Foolish of me,” he muttered. But a cool beer sounded good. He slipped the leather thongs from the hammers of his guns and walked over to the Pussycat and pushed open the batwings, stepping into the semi-gloom of the beery-smelling saloon.
All conversation stopped.
Smoke walked to the bar and ordered a beer. The barkeep suddenly got very nervous. Smoke sipped his beer and it was good, hitting the spot.
“Jack Waters was a friend of mine,” a man spoke, the voice coming from the gloom of the far end of the saloon.
Smoke turned, his beer mug in his left hand.
His right thumb was hooked behind his big silver belt buckle, his fingers only a few inches from his cross-draw .44.
He stood saying nothing, sipping at his beer. He paid for the brew, damned if he wasn’t going to try to finish as much of it as possible before he had to deal with this loudmouth.
“Ever’body talks about how bad you are, Jensen,” the bigmouth cranked his tongue up again. “But I ain’t never seen none of your graveyards.”
“I have,” the voice came quietly from Smoke’s left. He did not know the voice and did not turn his head to put a face to it.
“Far as I’m concerned,” the bigmouth stuck it in gear again, “I think Smoke Jensen is about as bad as a dried- up cow pile.”
“You know my name,” Smoke’s words were softly offered. “What’s your name?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Wouldn’t be right to put a man in the ground without his name on his grave marker.”
The loudmouth cursed Smoke.
Smoke took a swallow of beer and waited. He watched as the man pushed his chair back and stood up. Men on both sides of him stood up and backed away, getting out of the line of fire.
“My name’s John Cheave, Jensen. I been lookin’ for you for nearabouts two years.”
“Why?” Smoke was almost to the bottom of his beer mug.
“My brother was killed at Fontana. By you.”
“Too bad. He should have picked better company to run with. But I don’t recall any Cheave. What was he, some two-bit thief who had to change his name?”
John Cheave again cursed Smoke.
Smoke finished his beer and set the mug down on the edge of the bar. He slipped his thumb from behind his belt buckle and let his right hand dangle by the butt of his .44.
John Cheave called Smoke a son of a bitch.
