poured him a tin cup of coffee.
“Kind of you, stranger. Kind. I’m called Big Foot.” He grinned and held up a booted foot. “Size fourteen. Been up in Montana lookin’ for some color. Got snowed in. Coldest damn place I ever been in my life.” He hooked a piece of bread and went to gnawing.
“I run a ranch south of here. The Sugarloaf. Name’s Jensen.”
Big Foot choked on his bread. When he finally got it swallowed, he took a drink of coffee.
“Yes.”
“Aunt Fanny’s drawers!”
Smoke smiled and slid the skillet back over the flames, dumping in some sliced potatoes and a few bits of some early wild onions for flavor. “Where’bouts in Montana?”
“All around the Little Belt Mountains. East of the Smith River.”
“Is that anywhere close to Gibson?”
“Durn shore is. And that’s a good place to fight shy of, Smoke. Big range war goin’ on. Gonna bust wide open any minute. ”
“Seems to me I heard about that. McCorkle and Hanks, right?”
“Right on the money. Dooley Hanks has done hired Lanny Ball, and McCorkle put Jason Bright on the payroll. I reckon you’ve heard of them two?”
“Killers. Two-bit punks who hire their guns.”
Big Foot shook his head. “You can get away with sayin’ that, but not me. Them two is poison fast, Smoke. They’s talk about that Mex gunhawk, Diego, comin’ in. He’s ’pposed to be bringing in half a dozen with him. Bad ones.”
“Probably Pablo Gomez is with him. They usually double-team a victim.”
“Say! You’re right. I heard that. They gonna be workin’ for Hanks.”
Smoke served up the fish and potatoes and bread and both men fell to it.
When the edges had been taken off their hunger, Smoke asked, “Town had to be named for somebody ... who’s Gibson?”
“Well, it really ain’t much of a town. Three, four stores, two saloons, a barber shop, and a smithy. I don’t know who Gibson is, or was, whatever. ”
“No school?”
“Well, sort of. Got a real prissy feller teachin’ there. Say! His name’s Jensen, too. Parnell Jensen. But he ain’t no kin to you, Smoke. Y‘all don’t favor atall. Parnell don’t look like nothin’!”
Parnell was his uncle’s middle name.
“But Parnell’s sister, now, brother, that is another story.”
Smoke dropped in more lard and more fish and potatoes. He sopped up the grease in his tin plate with a hunk of bread and waited for Big Foot to continue.
“Miss Fae would tackle a puma with a short switch. She ain’t no real comely lass, but that ain’t what’s keepin’ the beaux away. It’s that damn temper of her’n. Got her a tongue you could use for a skinnin’ knife. I seen and heared her lash out at that poor brother of her’n one time that was plumb pitiful. Made my old donkey draw all up. He teaches school and she runs the little ranch they got. Durnest mixed-up mess I ever did see. That woman rides astraddle! Plumb embarrassin‘!”
Big Foot ate up everything in sight, then picked up the skillet and sopped it out with a hunk of bread. He poured another cup of coffee and with a sigh of contentment, leaned back and rolled a smoke. “Mighty fine eats, Smoke. Feel human agin.”
“Where you heading. Big Foot?”
“Kansas. I’m givin’ er up. I been prowlin’ this countryside for twenty-five years, chasin’ color. Never found the mother lode. Barely findin’ enough color to keep body and soul alive. My brother s been pesterin’ me for years to come hep work his hog farm. So that’s where I’m headin’. Me and Lucy over yonder. Bes’ burro I ever had. I’m gonna retie her; just let ’er eat and get fat. You?”
“Heading up to Montana to check out some land. I don’t plan on staying long.”
“You fight shy of Gibson, now, Smoke. They’s something wrong with that town.”
“How do you mean that?”
“Cain’t hardly put it in words. It’s a feel in the air. And the people is crabby. Oh, most go to church and all that. But it’s ... well, they don’t like each other. Always bickerin’ about this and that and the other thing. The lid’s gonna blow off that whole county one of these days. It’s gonna be unpleasant when it do.”
“How about the sheriff?”
“He’s nearabouts a hundred miles away. I never put eyes on him or any of his deputies. Ain’t no town marshal. Just a whole bunch of gunslicks lookin’ hard at one another. When they start grabbin’ iron, it’s gonna be a sight to see.”
Big Foot drank his coffee and lay back with a grunt. “And I’ll tell you something else: that Fae Jensen woman, her spread is smack in the middle of it all. She’s got the water and the graze, and both sides wants it. Sharp tongue and men’s britches an’ all ... I feel sorry for her.”
“She have hands?”
