“Vic’s dead!” the faint shout came to him as the piano playing and singing and drunken laughter gradually fell away, leaving the town silent.
Smoke watched the shadowy figures untie the body of Vic Young and lower it to the ground. He couldn’t hear what the men were saying, but he could make a good guess.
Every rowdy and punk and gun-handler in the town would have known that V ic was seeing Widow Feckles. And everyone would know that she was being forced into acts of passion with Vic. And since none of the sodbusters would have the nerve to face Vic—so the gunhandlers thought; whether that was true or not, only time would tell— it had to have been the Widow Feckles who did Vic in.
Smoke kneed Star forward, moving closer to the town.
“Let’s burn her out!” the shout reached Smoke’s ears.
“Yeah,” another man yelled. “I’ll get the kerosene.”
Smoke swung onto the main street of Hell’s Creek and reined up. Staying in the shadows, he shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot and eared back the hammer. He called, “Martha Feckles had nothing to do with killing Vic. I killed him.”
“Well, who the hell are you?” came the shouted question.
“Smoke Jensen.”
“Jensen! Let’s get him, boys.”
They came at a rush and it was like shooting clay ducks in a shooting gallery. Smoke leveled the Winchester and emptied it into the knot of men. A dozen of them fell to one side, hard hit and screaming. Smoke spun Star around and headed for the high country, leaving a trail a drunken city slicker could follow.
About five miles outside of town, Smoke found what he was looking for and reined up. He loosened the cinch strap and let the big horse blow. He took a drink of water from his canteen and filled up his hat, letting Star have a drink.
Smoke had reloaded his rifle on the run, and he took it and his saddlebags down to the rocks just below where he had tucked Star safely away in a narrow draw. He eared back the hammer when he heard the pounding of hooves. The men of Hell’s Creek rounded a curve in the trail and Smoke knocked the first man out of the saddle. Shifting the muzzle, he got lead in two more before the scum started making a mad dash for safety.
Smoke deliberately held his fire, watching the men cautiously edge toward his position under a starry sky and moon-bright night. With a grin, he opened his saddlebags and took out a stick of dynamite. He had a dozen sticks in the bag. He capped the stick of giant powder and set a very short fuse. Striking a match, he lit the fuse and let it fly, sputtering and sparking through the air.
The dynamite blew and shook the ground as it exploded. Smoke saw one man blown away from behind a rock, half of an arm missing. Another man staggered to his boots and Smoke drilled him through the brisket. A third man tried to crawl away, dragging a broken leg. Smoke put him out of his misery.
Smoke put away the dynamite. Taking it along had been Sally’s idea, and it had been a good one.
The trash below him cursed Smoke, calling him all sorts of names. But Smoke held his fire and eased away to a new position, which was some fifty feet higher than the old one. He now was able to see half-a-dozen men crouched behind whatever cover they could find in the night, some of that cover being mighty thin indeed.
Smoke dusted one man through and through. The man grunted once, then slowly rolled down the hill, dead. He shifted the muzzle and plugged another of Max’s men through the throat. The man made a lot of horrible noises before he had the good grace to expire. Smoke had been aiming for the chest, but downhill shooting is tricky enough; couple that with night, and it gets doubly difficult.
The men of Hell’s Creek decided they had had enough for this night. Smoke let them make their retreat, even though he could have easily dropped another two or three. He tightened the cinch strap, swung into the saddle, and headed south. He found a good place to camp and picketed Star. With his saddle for a pillow, he rolled into his blankets and went to sleep.
Two hours after dawn, he rode into the front yard of Martha Feckles. An idea had formed in his mind over coffee and bacon that morning, and he wanted to see how the widow received it.
“I think it’s a grand idea!” she said.
Barlow had another resident.
Big Max Huggins sat in his office and stared at the wall. His thoughts were dark and violent. At this very moment, that drunken old preacher—he was all that passed for religion in Hell’s Creek—was praying for the lost souls of three of those Jensen had shot in the main street of town last night. Those that had pursued him came back into town, dragging their butts in defeat. They had left six dead on the mountain. One of those had bled to death after the bomb Jensen had thrown tore off half of the man’s arm.
“Goddamn you, Jensen!” Max cursed.
He leaned back in his chair—specially made due to his height and weight. He hated Smoke Jensen, but had to respect him—grudgingly—for his cold nerve. It would take either a crazy person or one with nerves of steel to ride smack into the middle of the enemy. And Smoke Jensen was no crazy person.
What to do about him?
Big Max didn’t have the foggiest idea.
Smoke had put steel into the backbones of those in Barlow. A raid against the town now would be suicide. His men would be shot to pieces. There was no need to send for any outside gunfighters. He had some of the best guns in the West, either on his payroll or working out of the town on a percentage basis of their robberies.
Max’s earlier boast that he would just wait Smoke out was proving to be a hollow brag. Jensen was bringing the fight to him.
Of course, Max mused, he could just pick up and move on. He’d done it many times in the past when things had gotten too hot for him.
But just the thought of that irritated him. In the past, dozens of cops or sheriffs and their deputies had been on
