“Dead? Are you sure?”
“Damn right, I’m sure. I seen both of ’em lyin’ out on the floor of the Red Horse Saloon back in American Falls. And they was both of ’em deader ’n a door nail.”
“How did that happen? There were three of you. Matt Jensen is only one man. How hard could it be for three of you to take care of one man?”
“Yeah, well, Madison had his own way of doing things, only it didn’t work out quite like he planned.”
“What happened?”
“Matt Jensen is what happened. You ever run into him, Poke? Or heard tale of him?”
“I’ve heard of him, I’ve never run into him,” Poke replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Well let me tell you somethin’ about him that maybe you don’t know. Matt Jensen is faster’n greased lightnin’ I believe he’s got to be about the fastest man with a gun there is—I mean the way he shot ’em both.”
“So, you did see it?” Kincaid asked. “By that, I mean you were a witness to it?”
“Yeah, I seen it. I had left the saloon a minute earlier but I come back and was standin’ just outside the door, watchin’ it when it happened, so yeah, I seen it all right.”
“What do you mean you were standing just outside the door watchin’? I sent all three of you over to take care of him. If you were there with them, and they are both dead, how is it that you are not?”
“I ain’t dead, ’cause I ain’t a fool, that’s why. You can’t blame me. Like I told you, it’s all Madison’s fault,” Logan said. “Madison, what he wanted to do, was brace Jensen head on. He figured, what with Jernigan up in the balcony and all, that he’d have an edge.”
“Why did Madison want to do such a fool thing as that?”
“Why? Because he wanted to become a big shot, that’s why,” Logan answered.
“Even so, that sounds like a pretty good plan, what with Jernigan bein’ up in the balcony and all. So, what happened?”
“Somehow or the other, and I don’t know how, Jensen figured out what was goin’ on. And once he figured it out Madison didn’t have the edge no more. Jensen shot Jernigan first, then after that, he still had time to shoot Madison before he could even get his gun out. The next thing you know, Jensen was standin’ there holdin’ a smokin’ gun, and Madison and Jernigan was both of ’em layin’ dead on the floor. It was all over before you could even blink your eyes.”
“Where were you during all this time?”
“Like I told you, I was standin’ just outside the door, watchin’.”
“Why didn’t you help?”
“I tell you true, Poke, if I had stuck my nose into it, I’d be dead too. Jensen is that fast. Besides, I didn’t figure you sent us over there for no duel.”
“I sent you over there to take care of Jensen, and I didn’t care how you did it.”
“Your complaint is with Madison, it ain’t with me.”
“Really,” Poke said sarcastically. “How am I going to complain to Madison if he is dead?”
“You can’t, I guess,” Logan admitted.
“That leaves only you.”
“But think about this. Iffen I had got myself kilt as well, then how else would you know that Jensen and Gilmore will be takin’ the train to Medbury this mornin’?”
“How do you know they will be taking this morning’s train?”
“What I actual know is just what I found out from the station agent. And that is, that Gilmore bought hisself two tickets for this mornin’s train. I’m just figurin’ that the other ticket is for Jensen.”
“I think you are right. Good job, Logan.”
“Thanks.”
“I just imagine that if you were on the train most of the night, then you probably haven’t eaten, have you?”
“No, I ain’t. I ain’t et nothin’ since lunch time yesterday.”
“Would you like breakfast?”
“Yeah, I believe I would.”
Poke spread some butter on his biscuit but as Logan reached for it, Poke took a bite of it himself. “Go over to the bar and grab yourself a pickled egg and pig’s foot,” he said. “Then after you eat, come back and see me. I’ve got another job I want you to do.”
“If it has to do with Matt Jensen, there ain’t no way I’m goin’ to do it by myself,” Logan said.
“You won’t have to be by yourself.”
Although the tracks of the Union Pacific generally follow the Snake River west across Idaho, when they reach a point twenty miles west of American Falls, the railroad is at the farthest distance from the river and the Snake can no longer be seen. On the north side of the tracks is a lava desert that is black and craggy, leading northward toward a barren and ugly escarpment that thrust upward as if in some way the land had formed waves, like the sea.
Matt sat next to the window, looking out at the barren land. He had read, somewhere, that this desert was
