“Draw!” Charlie yelled, and his right hand dipped down, the fingers closing around the butt of his pistol.
He felt something heavy and hard strike him in the chest. Charlie was on his back in the street, the sun- warmed dirt hot through his shirt. A shadow fell over him. Through the mist that had suddenly covered his eyes, he could see Smoke Jensen standing over him, a pistol in his hand, held by his side, the hammer back.
Charlie fumbled for his gun. He was astonished to find it was still in leather.
“I never seen anybody that fast,” John Steele said to his boss. “It was like the wind.”
“Yeah,” Red reluctantly agreed.
The rest of Malone’s bunch, all hard cases in their own right, sat their saddles quietly. They were all brave men, loyal to the brand, and all good with a gun. But they wanted no part of Smoke Jensen. Not face to face, anyway.
“You should have stayed in the bunkhouse today, Charlie,” Smoke told the dying man.
“You! ...” Charlie gasped the word. Then he closed his eyes and died.
Smoke holstered his .44 and walked over to Red Malone. “No trouble in this town, Malone. No racing your horses and kicking up dust. No discharging of firearms. No foul language outside the saloon. Any of your crew gets drunk, you take them home, or me or Jim will put them in jail and the judge will fine them. Is all that understood?”
Hate leaped out of Red Malone’s eyes. No one talked to him like that and got away with it.
He stepped out of the saddle without replying and turned his back to Smoke. A hard hand fell on his shoulder and spun him around, almost jerking him off his boots. Smoke Jensen stood staring at him, eyeball to eyeball.
“I asked you a question, Malone. I expect a reply.”
Red noticed that Smoke had slipped on leather gloves. “I’ll give you a reply, gunslinger,” Red said. “and here it is.”
Red swung a big fist. Had it connected, it would have knocked Smoke off his boots.
It didn’t connect.
Smoke sidestepped and planted one big fist in Red’s belly. The air whooshed out of the man as he stumbled back. Smoke stepped in and popped him on the jaw with a left, following that with a right. Red fell back against a hitchrail. He shook his big head and cussed Smoke.
“Anytime you’ve had enough, Red,” Smoke told him, “you just holler quit and that’s it.”
“I run this end of the county, Jensen,” he said, his lips peeled back in an animallike snarl.
Smoke answered him with a sneaky left that snapped Red’s head back and bloodied his mouth. Smoke stepped back and waited.
A thin middle-aged cowboy sat his saddle and cut his eyes to John Steele. He whispered, “The boss better uncle, Steele. Jensen’s givin‘him a chance. If he don’t, Jensen’ll beat him half to death.”
“I got twenty dollars that says you’re wrong, Sal,” John replied.
“You’re on.”
Red faked with a left and connected against Smoke’s jaw with a right. The punch hurt. Smoke stepped back and shook his head. Red pursued him out into the street, grinning through the blood on his mouth.
Smoke ducked a punch and hammered a right over Red’s kidney, following that with an uppercut to the man’s mouth. Blood leaked from Red’s lips.
Red backhanded Smoke in the face and charged, trying to grab him in a bear hug. Smoke danced to one side and hit Red twice in the face with a left and a right.
Red slipped a fist through and busted Smoke on the jaw, but the punch had lost a lot of steam. Smoke hit him with another combination, belly and jaw, then tripped the man, sending him sprawling to the dirt.
Red came up with a fistful of dirt and hurled it at Smoke, trying to momentarily blind the gunfighter. But Smoke had been raised by mountain men, and he knew all the tricks and then some. He ducked under the dust cloud and rammed Red in the belly with his head, both hands around the man’s hard waist. Smoke drove him into a hitchrail. The hitchrail broke under the impact and Smoke released the man just in time to see Red fall into a horse trough.
Smoke stood on the outside of the trough and hammered Red’s face into a bloody mask. Red lost consciousness and slipped down into the water, bubbling.
Smoke stepped back, found his hat, and put it on just as John Steele and several others were frantically pulling their boss out of the trough before he drowned.
“Drag him over to the jail and dump him in a cell,”Smoke ordered.
“I’ll be damned if I will!” Steele shouted at Smoke.
Jim walked up and laid his pistol across the back of the foreman’s head, and it was Steele’s turn to fall into the trough, face first.
“Drag both of them to jail,” Smoke ordered. This time, no objections were forthcoming. The Lightning brand crew dragged the boss and the foreman across the street and into the jail, depositing both of them in a cell.
John Steele opened his eyes and glared hate at everybody. Red Malone snored and bubbled on his bunk.
“Gimme my twenty dollars,” Sal said.
John dug in his damp pockets and threw a double eagle at the man. “Here’s your damn money. And here’s something else: You’re fired!”
