Smoke’s face tightened. He felt rage well up inside him. He mentally calmed himself. Only his eyes showed what was boiling inside him.
“You hear me, you ...” Vic spewed profanity, the filth rolling from his mouth like sewerage.
Smoke opened the door and stepped out onto the small porch. Vic crouched like a rabid animal when he spotted him.
“No more, Vic,” Smoke told him. “You won’t terrorize this good woman anymore.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“The name is Jensen. Smoke Jensen.”
Vic spat on the ground. “You rode a long ways to die, Jensen.”
“You’re trash, Vic. Pure crud. Just like the man you work for.”
“No man calls me that and lives!”
“I just did, Vic. And I’m still living.”
“Where’s Martha and Aggie?”
“Safe. And I intend to see they remain safe.”
“You got no call to come meddlin’ in a man’s personal business.”
“I do when the man is trash like you.”
“I’m tarred of all this jibber-jabber, Jensen. You tell me where my woman is at and then you hit the trail.”
“You got any kin you want me to notify, Vic?”
“Notify about what?”
“Your death.”
“Huh!” Vic looked puzzled for a moment. Then he laughed. “You may be a big shot where you come from, Jensen, but you don’t spell horse crap to me.”
“Then make your move, punk.”
Vic was suddenly unsure of himself. He looked around him. “You alone, Jensen?”
“I don’t need any help in dealing with scum like you, Vic.”
“I’m warnin’ you, Jensen, don’t call me that no more.”
“Or you’ll do what, Vic? I’ll tell you what you’ll do. Nothing. You woman beaters are all alike. Cowards. Punks. Come on, Vic. Make your play.”
All the bluster and brag left the man. His eyes began to jerk and the right side of his face developed a nervous tic. “I’ll just ride on, Jensen.”
“No, Vic. I won’t allow that. You’d just find some other poor woman to terrorize. Some child to molest. It’s over, Vic. You’ll kill no more women.”
“They had it comin’ to them!” Vic shouted as the night began closing in. “All I wanted from them was what a woman was put on earth to give to a man.”
Smoke waited.
Vic began cursing, working his courage back up to a fever. “Drag iron, Jensen!” he screamed.
“After you, punk.”
Vic’s hand dropped to his gun. Smoke drew, cocked, and fired as fast as a striking rattler, shooting him in the belly, the slug striking the child molester and rapist two inches above his belt buckle. Vic stumbled and went down on one knee. He managed to drag his pistol from leather and cock it. Smoke shot him again, the slug taking him in the side and blowing out the other side. Vic Young fell backward, cursing as life left him.
Smoke stood over him. Vic said, “You’re dead, Jensen. Max has put money on your head. Big money. He ...”
Vic jerked on the cooling ground and died staring at whatever faced him beyond the dark river.
Smoke took the man’s gunbelt and tossed leather and pistol onto the porch. He fanned the man’s pockets, finding a very respectable wad of greenbacks and about a hundred dollars in gold coins. Martha would put the money to good use. He put the money on the kitchen table, along with Vic’s gun and gunbelt and the rifle taken from the saddle boot.
Smoke wrote a short note and left it on the table: HE WILL BOTHER YOU NO MORE.
He signed it Smoke.
He saddled up Star and rode around to the front of the house. Smoke tied Vic across the saddle of his suddenly skittish horse and locked up the house.
Leading the horse with its dead cargo, Smoke headed north, toward Big Max Huggins’s town of Hell’s Creek.
It was late when he arrived on the hill overlooking the bawdy town. Lights were blazing in nearly every building, wild laughter ripped the night, and rowdy songs could be heard coming from drunken throats.
Smoke slipped the lead rope and slapped the horse on the rump, sending it galloping into the town.
He sat his saddle and waited.
He didn’t have to wait long.
