Max felt the cold touch of fear grip his heart.
“Someday,” Smoke added.
Max struggled with all his might to contain the emotion of relief that flooded him. He was not accustomed to the sensation of fear. It angered him that just by looking at Smoke Jensen such an emotion could be unleashed within him.
Big Max Huggins knew this, too: Smoke Jensen had to die. And soon.
“But for right now?” Max asked.
“I don’t know,” Smoke admitted. “But I wouldn’t press it if I were you.”
“I can’t buy you off, can I?”
“No.”
“Women?”
“I’m married to a beautiful woman. I have never been unfaithful to her and never will be.”
“You’re everything I am not, is that it?”
Smoke smiled. “Oh, we’re somewhat alike, Max. We just took different paths, that’s all.”
And damned intelligent, too, Max thought. I’m not confronting some ignoramus. “What is it, specifically, that I do that offends you so?”
Smoke laughed softly. He turned his swivel chair and pecked on the window, pointing. “You missed a spot,” he told the red-faced gunhand on the boardwalk with a wet rag in his hand. He turned his attention back to Max. “Everything about you, your type, offends me, Max. You’re an intelligent man; could have been a success at anything you tried to do. But you chose to be an outlaw. You’ve probably been a bully and a thief all your life. You like to humiliate people. You like to grind them down under your boot heel. I’m going to play a game with you, Max. You like games?”
“I’m a gambler, you know that.”
“But in my game, Max, if you cheat, you die.”
Sweat broke out on Max’s face. Goddamn this man! He’s sitting there as cool as an icehouse and talking about my death. He glanced out the window. The body of Butch had been removed and another gunhand was sprinkling dirt over the blood-soaked spot on the street. He cut his eyes back to Smoke.
“You see, Max, I don’t have to work. My ranch practically runs itself. My wife is very rich. And I have a lot of money personally. Do you have any idea how many thousands and thousands of dollars in reward money I’ve collected over the years just by shooting wanted men?”
Max personally knew of several dozen wanted men who had gone facedown in the dirt under Smoke’s guns. And there were probably a hundred more that he didn’t know about. “I know you’re a wealthy man, Jensen,” he said grudgingly. “What kind of game do you have in mind?”
“You’re going to be a solid citizen, Max. You’re going to run all the trash out of your town, build a new school, a new church, a new town hall, and be a credit to this territory.”
“Are you out of your damned mind!” Max almost yelled the question. “If I ran all the scum out of Hell’s Creek, there wouldn’t be fifty people left.”
“That is a fact,” Smoke acknowledged.
“You’re not going to shoot me now, are you, Jensen?”
“Not unless you push me to it.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not.” The words were bitter on the big man’s tongue. He had never kowtowed to anyone in his life. Until this moment. And he didn’t like it one bit.
“You want to play the game or not, Max?”
“No.” Max’s courage was returning after standing on the edge of death. He stood up slowly. “If you shoot me, Jensen, you’re going to have to shoot me in the back. And I don’t think you’ll do that. I’m going to walk outside, gunfighter. I’m going to sit on the bench just outside this office and smoke me a cigar. I’m not going to bother a soul. When my men have finished mopping and scrubbing this crappy little town, we’re going to ride out.We won’t bother this town again. I’ll give my people orders to stay clear. But if you ever come to Hell’s Creek, I can’t guarantee your safety. Badge or not. That’s my deal.” He walked out the door and sat down, pulling a cigar out of a breast pocket of his suitcoat and lighting up.
Smoke stood up and stepped outside just as Tom Johnson and several others came walking up, carrying sacks of guns taken from the outlaws.
“Put the weapons in a cell and lock it,” Smoke told them.
When that had been done, Smoke locked the front door to his office and walked up the boardwalk, leaving Big Max Huggins sitting quietly and smoking his stogie.
Smoke stopped to inspect the work of Larry Gayle, the New Mexico gunslinger. Gayle turned mean eyes to him.
“I guess I’ll have to kill you before long, Larry,” Smoke told him.
“You’ll try,” Larry growled the words at him.
Smoke chuckled and walked on a few yards, stopping at the side of a gunny he didn’t know.
“You ain’t gonna kill me, Smoke,” the man said. “‘Cause just as soon as I get done with this spit-polishin’, I’m gone like the wind.”
Smoke patted him on the shoulder. “Good man. Find a job and settle down somewhere. Be a good citizen.”
