“Whatever pops your corn, Jackson.”
The gunfighter nodded, turned, and left the smoky barroom. Within ten seconds, the sounds of his horse’s hooves echoed down the short silent street.
Burt started hollering something awful.
“Ain’t he gonna die?” the barkeep asked. “I’d lak to have them boots of his.”
“Sooner or later. Is there any hard candy for sale in the store?”
“Hard candy!”
“Yeah. I got some kids working for me. They all probably have a sweet tooth.”
“Hell, I don’t know!”
Smoke shrugged and walked into the store area of the building. He was thinking that he’d better buy a couple boxes of .44’s. Way things were going he’d probably need them.
The news of the gunfight had reached the ranch before Smoke returned. Walt and Cheyenne met him in the barn.
“Did you run into some trouble, boy?” the old rancher asked.
“Couple of two-bit gunhands who thought they were better than they really were.” Smoke stripped the saddle off Dagger, hung up the reins, rubbed him down, and began forking hay into his stall.
Cheyenne and Walt were silent for a time. Walt broke it. “Swenson came by here, all flusterated. Said you cut them boys down faster than the blink of an eye.”
“Like I said, they weren’t as good as they thought they were.”
Cheyenne grunted and spat a brown stream onto the barn floor. “I knowed Burt Rolly’s dad. He wasn’t no good neither. Utes kilt him years ago. Died bad. They never sung no songs about him. What was that other hombre’s name?”
“Sam Teller.”
The old mountain man and gunfighter shook his head. 'Must not have been much to him. I never heared of him.”
Cheyenne limped off. He still carried a Sioux arrowhead in his hip. Slowed him down when the weather changed.
“Doreen finally got around to telling me that you two had a little run-in, Smoke.”
“Not much of one. I would just like to know why everyone is lying to me.”
The rancher was silent for a time. 'You want to explain that remark, Smoke? ’Cause if you don’t, old man or not, I’m goin’ in the house for my six-gun and call you out!”
Smoke chuckled. “Yeah ... you probably would, too, Walt. But I’m going to let my statement stand. None of you have leveled with me. I’ve seen the quick looks passed between you whenever I touch on certain subjects. What’s going on, Walt?”
“Doreen is a good girl, Smoke.”
“I never said she wasn’t.”
“She isn’t married to Clint Perkins.”
“I didn’t think she was. The boy is a wood’s colt, huh?”
“How’d you guess?”
“Just that, a guess. Is the boy’s father Clint Perkins?”
“Yes. They went together for a time—on the sly. Then he got her all puffed up and ran out on her. He kept tellin’ Doreen how they was gonna move to California and he was gonna change and ... lies and lies, that’s all they was. He’d climb a telegraph pole for a lie and leave the truth layin’ on the ground.”
“So Doreen figured that a make-believe outlaw husband was better than no husband at all?”
“That’s about it. Clint is a no-good, Smoke. He started out doin’ good, I’ll give him that much; he really did do good. Then he turned bad. The young man is not right in the head.”
“All that about him seeing his parents killed and running off into the timber ...?”
“Lies. You got to understand something, Smoke. I was the first white man to settle in this part of Idaho. Back in ’38. The first one. I built me a cabin and got settled in and then went back for Alice. When we got here, the Injuns had burned the cabin down. We built again and fought off Injuns until they got to where they’d leave us alone. I prospered. Found some color and panned it. Found some more color and mined that out. I got money, Smoke. Plenty of it. I got money in a half-dozen banks. Hell, I don’t need this ranch or the cattle. I kept on to it for my boy.”
The old man paused to light his pipe and Smoke waited.
“But he married into trash. Pure trash. That woman— damn her black heart wherever she is—wasn’t nothin’ but a whore. That’s all she was. Anyways, they had a son. Clint. His name ain’t Perkins, it’s Burden. But she run off with him and changed it.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! This is getting confusing. Back up. Where is your son?”
“Dead. Ten years back. He turned into a drunk after that woman run off and left him. Staggered around here drunk and crazy in the head and heart for years. He never hurt nobody. He was just a fool thereat the end. Jud Vale killed him. Shot him for sport one night over at the tradin’ post where you was this day. Made it last a long time. Shot his legs out from under him, then busted his hands and arms with .44’s. It was a awful thing for one human to do to another. Jud and that no-good foreman of his, Jason, just left my boy there in the mud to bleed to death. He
