get the hell gone from town and don’t come back.” He looked at Smoke. “You’ll have to kill that man someday, Jensen. You know that, don’t you?”
“I hope not,” Smoke said, then ordered a mug of cool beer.
“You will,” the marshal stated flatly. “You humiliated him, and men like Jake can’t live with that. It eats on them like a cancer.”
Smoke drank half his beer. “He’ll have to come looking for me if he wants a killing. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over.”
Smoke drained his mug and walked back to the boarding house. He needed a hot bath.
The man and wife rode out of town before dawn the next morning and made camp at noon. Sally heated water for Smoke to soak his hands in to keep down the swelling.
They stayed in camp for two days, relaxing, fishing, and behaving like a couple of kids. They walked through the woods, went skinny-dipping in a creek, and loved every minute of it. The swelling went down in Smoke’s hands, and they packed up and pulled out, heading north toward Hell’s Creek, following the Swan.
Two days later they rode into a small town at the south end of a lake. They were a couple of hours ride away from Hell’s Creek. Their welcome in the town was slightly less than cordial. When they tried to check into the small hotel, they were told all the rooms were taken.
“Is there a boarding house?” Sally asked.
“It’s full, too,” the desk clerk at the hotel told them.
“Must be a convention in town,” Smoke said dryly, looking around him at the deserted hotel lobby. “Sure are a lot of people stirring about.”
Sally tugged at his sleeve. “Let’s go, honey. We can camp outside of town.”
“You don’t know how the game is played, Sally,” Smoke told her. “The word’s gone out on us from Big Max. These people here are scared to death of him. I’ve seen a few western towns buffaloed before, but this one takes the prize for being full of cowards.”
The desk clerk refused to meet Smoke’s eyes.
Smoke spun the register book around and inspected it. The hotel was nearly empty.
Smoke dipped the pen and signed them in. He tossed money on the counter. “That’s for your best room. Give me the damn key,” he told the clerk.
The clerk hesitated, then with a slow exhalation of breath, he handed Smoke the room key.
“Thanks,” Smoke told him. “Would you recommend the food in the dining room?”
“Yes, sir,” the clerk said wearily. “I would. Dinner is served from five to eight.”
“Thank you. You’re a nice fellow.”
Five minutes after checking in and finding their room, a knock came at the door. Two mean-eyed and unshaven men, both wearing deputy sheriff’s badges, stood in the hall.
“You don’t come into this town throwin’ your weight around, Jensen,” one told him. “You’re goin’ to jail.”
“On what charge?”
“We’ll think of something,” the second deputy said. “And we’ll see that your woman is taken care of, too.”
Smoke hit him with a sneaky left. The blow snapped the man’s head back and knocked him against the hall wall. Smoke backhanded the other deputy, spun, and knocked the second man down with a hard right to the mouth. He grabbed the stunned deputy he’d just slapped by the nape of the neck and the seat of his pants, propelled him down the hall, and threw him out the second-story window. The man landed on the awning, bounced once, and then rolled off, to land on the dusty street. He did not move. One leg was bent under him, broken.
Smoke ran back up the hall, jerked up the stunned and clearly frightened other so-called deputy sheriff, and gave him his exit-papers the same way. Smoke hurled him out the window, using all his strength, which was considerable. The man fell screaming, missing the awning and landing in the street on his belly, one arm bent under him. The sound of the arm breaking was nearly as loud as a pistol shot. Like his buddy, he did not move.
A crowd began gathering, looking at the two so-called lawmen and stealing glances up at Smoke, who was standing in the hall and glaring out the broken window.
“We do not wish to be disturbed,” Smoke called down to the crowd. “I’ll kill the next man who bothers us.” He turned and walked back to the room. He smiled at Sally. “That’s how you play the game, honey,” he told her.
“My, my,” she said with a grin. “The things I’m learning on this trip.”
“Your education is just starting. lt’ll really get interesting in Hell’s Creek. I’ll order up some hot water and you can take your bath. You tell me which one, and I’ll shake out and hang up your dress.”
Smoke loaded up the usually empty cylinder he kept under the hammer and walked downstairs to the clerk. The lobby was filled with people.
“Send a boy upstairs with hot water,” he told the room clerk. “Lots of it. My wife wishes to bathe. And she damn well better be left alone while she’s doing it.”
“Y ... y ... yes, sir,” the clerk stammered.
“Who was that trash I threw out the window?”
“Big Max Huggins men,” a portly man said, stepping up. “Duly appointed deputies. By me. I’m Judge Garrison. And you’re in a lot of trouble here, young man. We don’t like ruffians coming into our town stirring up trouble.”
Smoke slapped him. The blow knocked the man back, one side of his face reddening and blood leaking out of one corner of his mouth. The judge stumbled on a couch and fell down, landing heavily on his butt.
“So Max bought you, too, huh?” Smoke said, looking down at the scared judge, the sarcasm thick in the words.
