“Walt, when you get the signal from me, you take Alice and get gone from Jud’s place. I’ll wait about forty-five minutes before making my play. That’ll give you time to get Alice to the west side of the creek. You wait there.”
The rancher nodded his head in agreement.
“Jackson, you and Dolittle and Harrison will be stationed at the creek, our side of it, with rifles. Just as soon as we drop Doreen off, Alice and Doreen can take the buggy and hightail for the ranch. We’ll hold off the men Jud is sure to send after us.”
“Sounds good to me,” Dolittle said. “I been cravin’ some action.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Harrison agreed. “I may not be good for too much else, but I can damn sure still pull a trigger.”
“And you can bet that Jud will have everybody that can ride a horse after you,” Jackson warned. “He’ll be killin’ mad.”
“We’ll have a good fifteen to thirty minutes’ start on him though,” Smoke said. “After Doreen makes her little speech about being kidnapped, and me with a Colt stuck up Jud’s nose, the sheriff will have to make some noises about law and order and all that. Of course, once I turn Jud loose and he hoofs it back to the mansion, he’ll ignore anything the sheriff might have to say and come fogging after us.”
“We might get some more people on our side by doing this,” Walt mused aloud. “May be this will give some of the smaller ranchers and farmers the backbone to join us in fighting my brother.”
“If this don’t, nothing will,” Rusty added. He looked at Smoke. “You got another plan if this one don’t work?”
“No,” Smoke admitted. “But I’m thinking this will work because it’s so simple and it’s something that Jud won’t even suspect any of us trying. For a handful of us to kidnap the man right in front of all his men, at his very own engagement party is something that has to be unthinkable to him. At least that’s what I’m hoping.”
“I have to tell you, Smoke,” Walt said. “Matthew says he’s going to be a part of the action come the night of the party, whether we want him to be, or not.”
Smoke took that news without even so much as a blink. “It doesn’t surprise me, Walt. The boy has shed his youth and left it behind him. We’ve both seen it happen out here many times. It’s a hard time in a hard land that’s filled up with hard men. I was only about a year older than Matthew when I teamed up with Preacher. About two years older than him when I killed my first man, with a pistol that Jesse James gave me back on that hard-scrabble farm in Missouri. Matthew will make it, and I’d not be a bit leery of him standing alongside me in any gunfight.”
“I wanted you to know,” the rancher closed the subject.
Smoke nodded his head. “Stash fully loaded rifles and pistols in the buggy, Walt. Cover them with a blanket. We’re not going to have time for reloading once the fight gets to the creek.”
“We have enough weapons, for sure,” Walt said with a grin, his eyes twinkling. Then he sobered. “I’m going to lay the rules down to the boys. They are to remain on this ranch come the night of the party. Anyone who disobeys that order loses his job.”
“Good. I think they’ll stay put.” Smoke met the eyes of the men. “We’re only going to have one chance at pulling this off, people. So let’s do it right the first lime. That’s it.”
21
“My, my, what a grand place,” Rusty remarked, as the huge mansion of Jud Vale came into view. “Looks like a palace for sure.”
Smoke’s Colts were hanging from his saddle horn, as were Rusty’s guns. Both men felt naked without the weight of the pistols. The buggy was loaded with rifles and pistols, the arms covered with a blanket.
“Well, we’re certainly not the first to arrive,” Alice pointed out. “Even though it is early.”
Susie had stayed at the Box T to look after Mickey and the boys.
Smoke looked at Walt and saw that the old rancher’s eyes were sad.
“My brother had it all,” Walt said. “But he couldn’t stay away from crime. And now he’s as crazy as a loon, surrounded by men on his own payroll who plot to kill him. It’s tragic.”
Smoke disagreed with that summation, but then, it wasn’t his brother in question. He kneed Dagger forward, moving toward the mansion.
They were conscious of many eyes on them as they entered the ranch grounds. Hostile, murderous eyes— everyone thinking about that ten thousand dollars on the this event.
Smoke swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a hitch rail, with Rusty doing the same, and looked up at the sky. He read the sun at about half-past five. The invitation had read from six to ten. Smoke figured to start his own party at seven.
“Mr. Vale said that all hosses was to be put in the corral,” a surly puncher told Smoke.
Smoke turned and grinned at the man. “His name is Dagger. He killed the last man who tried to do anything with him. But you’re welcome to try.”
The Bar V hand eyeballed the walleyed stallion. Dagger showed the man his big teeth and the puncher made up his mind.
“Hell with that hoss.” He looked at Rusty. “What about yourn?”
“They’re brothers,” Rusty told him.
“Hell with him, too!” The puncher walked off.
