• Find out when your favorite authors will be visiting a city near you
• Search for and order backlist books from our online catalog
• Check out author bios and background information
• Send e-mail to your favorite authors
• Meet the Kensington staff online
• Join us in weekly chats with authors, readers and other guests
• Get writing guidelines
• AND MUCH MORE!
Visit our website at
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 850 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 1990 by William W Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
All Kensington Titles, Imprints, and Distributed Lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational or institutional use. Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington special sales manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, attn: Special Sales Department, Phone: 1-800-221-2647.
Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13
Printed in the United States of America
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is entirely coincidental.
What man was ever content with one crime?
I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
1
“I don’t like the idea of the kids on the ocean,” Smoke said. “By God, I just don’t.”
Sally faced him from across the table in the house in the high-up country of Colorado. “Smoke, there is a new treatment available in France, and Louis Arthur has got to have it. We’ve been to the finest doctors on this continent. They all say the same thing.”
“Sally, I’m not arguing that. I want what is best for Baby Arthur. But why do all the children have to go? My God, they’ll be gone for more than a year.”
She smiled at him. Smoke Jensen and Sally never had the hard, deadly quarrels that so many couples suffered. They were both reasonable people of high intelligence, and each loved the other. “The exposure to a more genteel climate—and I’m not talking about the weather—will be good for the older children. They need to broaden their horizons.”
Smoke laughed as he picked up his coffee mug, holding it in one big, flat-knuckled hand. The laughter was full of good humor and did not contain a bit of anger or scorn. He stuck out his little finger. “They gonna learn how to hold a coffee cup dainty-like, with their little pinkies all poked out to one side?”
Sally laughed at him. “Yes. You heathen.”
Smoke chuckled and rose from the table, picking up Sally’s cup as well as his own. He walked to the stove, a big man, well over six feet, with broad shoulders, huge, heavily muscled arms, and a lean waist. He walked like a cat. His presence in a room, any room, usually brought the crowd to silence. His eyes were brown and could turn as cold as the Arctic. He was a ruggedly handsome man, turning the heads of ladies wherever he traveled.
He was Smoke Jensen. The man some called the last mountain man.
Smoke was the hero in dozens of dime novels. Plays had been written and were still being performed about his exploits. Smoke, himself, had never seen one. He was, without dispute, the fastest gun in the West. He had never wanted the title of gunfighter; but he had it.
There was no accurate count of how many would-be toughs, punks, thugs, thieves, and killers had fallen under the .44’s of Smoke Jensen. Some say fifty; others said it was closer to two hundred. Smoke didn’t know. As a young man, scarcely out of his teens, he had ridden into a mining camp taken over by the men who had killed his wife and baby son and had wiped it out to the last man.
His reputation had then been carved in solid granite. Smoke had become a living legend.
He had met Sally, who was working as a schoolteacher, and they had fallen in love. Together, working side by side—even though she was enormously wealthy, something Smoke didn’t find out until well after they were married—they carved out a ranch in Colorado and named it the Sugarloaf.
For three years Smoke dropped out of sight, living a normal, peaceful life. Then he had to surface and once more strap on his guns in a fight for survival. He stayed surfaced. He would not hunt out a fight, but God help those who came to him trouble-hunting. As the western saying goes: Smoke could point out dozens of his graveyards.
Their coffee mugs refilled, Smoke sat back down at the table and they both sugared and stirred. Sally laid her hand on his. “Roundup is all over and the cattle sold, right, honey?”
“Yes. And it was a good one. We made money. Now we’re rebuilding the herds, introducing a stronger breed, mixing in some Herefords. What’d you have on your mind, Sally?”
“I’d like to go with the children....” She put a finger on his lips to stop his protests before they got started. “But I’m not. I know what the doctors said. And I’m never going to set foot on a ship again. But if we stay here, rattling
