“Near four-thirty,” Smoke said, refilling his coffee cup. He was almost forced to break Rusty’s hand as he reached for the last bear sign. “No point in going back to bed.”
Rusty looked frantically around for another platter of doughnuts.
He found a fresh chocolate cake and his smile almost added new light to the room as he whacked off a hunk that would choke a bull.
“Growin’ boy still,” Cheyenne said with a grin. “Cut me a piece of that, too, Rusty.”
“Smoke?”
“I’ll pass, Rusty, thanks. I’m fixing to rustle me up some bacon and eggs before long.”
“Fix some for me, too,” the young puncher spoke i around a mouthful of cake.
“Yeah. Me, too,” Cheyenne said.
Smoke grined and shook his head at the two characters. Then he sobered when he thought of what Jud Vale might do in retaliation. And another matter had been nagging at him off and on for a week or so.
“What you ruminatin’ about?” Cheyenne asked.
“Jud Vale, for one thing.”
“Just ride over and call him out and kill him. Me and Rusty and Walt will go with you.”
“The odd thing is, Cheyenne, I don’t want to kill him. He’s not right in the head, and therefore he isn’t responsible for what he’s doing. It might come to a killing, but I hope it isn’t me who has to do it.”
Cheyenne thought about that for a moment. “And the other thing?”
Smoke sighed and finished his coffee. He nodded his head toward the outside. Rusty cut the lamps low and followed them. They walked over to the corral and Smoke pulled out the makings and built himself a cigarette.
“Walt has confided in me that he is a wealthy man,” Smoke said. “Why doesn’t he hire guns and let them bang it out with Jud’s men?”
“I’ve pondered over that my very own self,” Cheyenne admitted. “I can’t come up with no firm answer.”
Rusty looked startled for a moment. Then he shook his head in disbelief. He threw down his own cigarette and stomped it out, his spurs jingling with the movement. “I can’t believe you two guys!” he finally blurted.
“What do you mean, you red-headed pup?” Cheyenne looked at him.
Rusty just laughed at him.
“I’ll bust you up side your punkin head,” Cheyenne told him, balling a hand into a fist and drawing it back.
“Whoa!” Rusty stepped back.
“You better explain yourself, Rusty. If you know something we need to know, spit it out.”
“I didn’t mean to laugh at neither of you. I just figured that you both knew.”
“Knew what, you knothead?” Cheyenne growled at him.
Rusty looked at Smoke. “Soon as you told me I was workin’ for the Box T, I figured the fire had done reached the grease. But it never dawned on me that Mr. Walt hadn’t leveled with you. Hell . . .” He paused. “Well, maybe the old bunch has died out and the new bunch of folks in this area don’t know. Jud Vale is Walt’s kid brother!”
14
After recovering from his shock, Cheyenne said, “I been in and out of here for the last fifty years, Rusty. I ain’t never heard that story.”
“Rancher up in Montana told me some five or six years ago. Sorry, boys, I just figured you knew.”
“So Clint is really Walt’s nephew,” Smoke spoke the words softly. “I wonder what surprises Doreen has in store for us?”
Rusty blushed.
“Not those surprises,. Rusty! I wonder if she’s kin to Walt and Alice?”
“Beats me. I done told you all I know.”
“You shore this rancher wasn’t just pullin’ your leg?” Cheyenne questioned.
“I don’t think so. We was sittin’ around the fire one night during roundup, passin’ a bottle around. Lemmie see if I can remember all, or most, of what was said.” He rolled another cigarette, deep in thought while he was shaping and licking and lighting the tube. “Mr. Randolph—that was the rancher I was workin’ for at the time—he said that Walt come out to this part of Idaho ’way back. The first white man to settle in this part of the territory.”
“That much jibes with what Walt told me,” Smoke confirmed.
“Mr. Randolph said that Walt had left a baby brother behind. I believe he said Ill-o-noise or O-hi-o or some of them faraway places like that. Said that Walt never really knew the kid all that good. He was in diapers when Walt left. The kid started gettin’ into trouble right off the mark. Then as the kid got older, the trouble got worser. He’s supposed to have raped and kilt a woman when he was ’bout fourteen or fifteen and had to flee, two steps ahead of the law.”
“And Walt didn’t know what was going on back home?”
“No way he could have. A thousand miles away like he was. Sure wasn’t no letters bein’ posted to this part of the territory. Mr. Randolph said that the kid turned to a life of crime—bad stuff. Robbin’ and murderin’ folks and
