“And found,” Smoke reminded him.
“Food ain’t too tasty with a bellyful of lead,” the puncher said mournfully. But there was a definite twinkle in his eyes.
“You didn’t sign a contract,” Smoke reminded him. “Feel free to ride.”
“Naw! Hell, I’ll stick around. I ain’t never ridden with such highfalutin’ company before. Might be interestin’.”
“I’m not looking for trouble, Rusty. After we eat our meal, I plan on saddling up and riding out.”
“That must be why you walk around with them hammer thongs off your guns.”
Smoke grinned. “I just believe in being a very cautious man, that’s all.”
“Right. With your name, you damn well better be.”
The two men cleaned their plates, Rusty eating two plates of food without apology, then finished off another pot of coffee. Not as strong as they liked it, but it would do. Then they leaned back, rolled cigarettes, and lit up. The cafe was gradually filling with the lunch crowd, all of the diners giving the two men short and cautious looks as they took their seats.
Then the door opened and four hardcases stepped inside.
Bob Garner and Montana Slim were the only two that Smoke recognized. The other two were unknown to him. But Garner and Montana Slim were quite enough to face on a full stomach.
Or an empty belly for that matter.
Slim’s eyes widened as they settled on Smoke and recognition set in. Then he grinned, his hands close to the butts of his guns.
But the humor—if that’s what it was—did not reach his killer eyes.
“We done got the hotshot all bottled up, boys,” Slim announced, in a too-loud voice. “And some funny lookin’ pup with him.”
“This dog’s got teeth, partner,” Rusty told him. “An’ I ain’t been a pup in a long time.”
“Little puppy dog done got up on his hind legs, boys,” Garner said with a nasty grin. “I just might have to find me a slick and whup his tail back between his legs. What’d you boys think about that?”
“I wouldn’t try it,” the redhead warned. His quietly spoken words had steel behind them. “You just might find that stick stickin’ out of a part of you that you didn’t figure on.”
Several of the men in the cafe laughed at that.
Several more men in the cafe softly pushed back their chairs and took their leave before the lead they knew was coming started flying.
And a stray bullet doesn’t give a damn who it hits.
“You got a fat mouth, red on the head,” Slim told Rusty.
“You wearin’ a gun, ugly face?” Rusty popped right back at him.
Slim’s face turned as red as Rusty’s hair. “In here or outside?” He challenged the soft-voiced but hard-talking puncher.
“It don’t make a damn to me.”
The counterman came up with a sawed-off shotgun, pointed right at Slim’s belly. “You hardcases ain’t gonna shoot up this place,” he informed them, earing back both hammers. “So this is my way of tellin’ you to take your guns and your big mouths and your quarrel out into the street. And I mean lak raht now!”
Slim nodded then looked at Smoke and Rusty. “We’ll meet you boys at the south edge of town. That is, if you’ve got the belly for it.”
“We’ll be there,” Smoke told him, finishing his cigarette and stubbing it out. “Watching our backs all the way.”
Bob Garner spun around, red from the neck up and his ugly face turning even uglier. “What the hell does that mean, Jensen?”
“It means, Garner, that I think you’re all a bunch of back-shooting cowards!”
“Git outta here!” the counterman hollered. “Afore I turn loose both of these barrels!”
The four hired guns and bounty hunters stomped out of the cafe. Smoke poured another cup of coffee and Rusty did the same. They sugared and stirred and sipped.
“How do we handle this?” Rusty asked, his voice low so that only Smoke could hear. “And what’s this about them bein’ back-shooters?”
“They’re not back-shooters. I just said that to make sure they wouldn’t try it. It’s a matter of pride for them now. Some of their own kind would shoot them if they tried to set up an ambush.”
They both looked up as the waitress set two thick slices of apple pie on the table before them.
“On the house, boys,” the counterman said. “I ain’t never had nobody as famous as Smoke Jensen come in my place afore.”
The men nodded their thanks and fell to eating the pie, chasing it down with gulps of coffee. Around them, men were beginning to place wagers on the outcome of the impending gunfight. Most of the bets went to Smoke and the red-headed cowboy with him.
Their pie and coffee finished, Smoke and Rusty pushed back their chairs, settled their hats on their heads, and
