ground.
“It’s not as easy as the books make it out to be, is it, boys?” Smoke asked them. He expected no reply and got none.
Smoke reached down and jerked guns from leather, tossing them into the same trough.
“You can keep your rifles. Keep them and ride out. Go on back home and learn you a trade. Go to school; make something out of yourselves. But don’t ever brace me again. For if you do, I’ll kill you without hesitation. I’m giving you a chance. Take it.”
The young men slowly picked themselves up off the ground and mounted up. They rode out without looking back.
“Mighty fine thing you done there, Mister Smoke,” a man said. “Mighty fine. You could have killed them all.”
Smoke looked at the citizen. “I’m tired of killing. I know that I’ll have to kill again, but I’m not looking forward to it.”
“The wife is fixin’ a pot roast for supper. We’d be proud to have you sit at our table. She’s a good cook, my old woman is. And the kids would just be beside themselves if you was to come on over. Don’t a home-cooked meal sound good to you?”
A smile slowly creased Smoke’s lips. “It sure does.”
Smoke did not leave the Sugarloaf for a week. He got reacquainted with Sally every time she bumped into him... and she bumped into him a lot.
He rolled on the floor with the babies and acted a fool with them, making faces at them, letting them ride his back like a horse, and in general, settling back into the routine of being a husband, father, and rancher.
On the morning that he decided to ride into town, Sally’s voice stopped him in the door.
“Aren t you forgetting something, Smoke.”
He turned. She was holding his guns in her hands.
He stared at her.
“I know, honey,” she said. “I’ve known for a long time that you’re tired of the killing.”
“It just seems like a man ought to be able to ride into town without strapping on a gun.”
“I don’t know whether that day will ever come, honey. As long as you are Smoke Jensen, the last mountain man, there will be people riding to try you. And you know that.” She came to him and pressed against him. “And speaking very selfishly, I kind of like to have you around.”
Smoke smiled and took the gunbelt, hooking it on a peg.
She looked up at him, questions in her eyes.
He whispered in her ear.
She laughed and bumped into him again.
Table of Contents
DEADLY CHALLENGE
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Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
