he did, I might be dead by now.”
“I’m glad he was able help you when he did. But I think he was wrong in getting you involved with this.”
“Not at all, not at all,” Matt replied. “I meant it when I said if there was ever anything I could do for him, I would do it.”
“Yes, well, the truth is, I really don’t know what you can do,” John said. “I mean, being just one man against a veritable army.”
“Denbigh has an army, does he?”
“For all intents and purposes he does,” John said. “Do you know about him?”
“Only what you said about him in your letter. And I did run into a couple of his men—Bleeker and Carver, I think they said their names were—on the road coming into town.”
“Bleeker and Carver, yes, a couple of his worst, though not the worst. I’m sorry about the toll. I’ll be glad to pay back the dollar it cost you.”
“It didn’t cost me a dollar,” Matt said.
“What? You mean they didn’t charge you a toll?”
“Now that you mention it, I believe they did say something about a toll,” Matt said. “But I convinced them to let me through, anyway.”
“You convinced them?” John looked confused for a moment. Then he understood what Matt was saying, and he laughed out loud. “Ha!” he said. “See there, Millie? This is exactly the kind of person we need around here.”
“John, don’t forget, you just said yourself that Mr. Jensen is just one man up against an army.”
“Yes, but from what I know of Matt Jensen, he’s not your ordinary one man. Yes, sir, I feel a lot better about the situation now.”
“From what you know of him? I thought you only met him that one time,” Millie said.
“True, but I’ve read a great deal about him since then. His name is often in the newspapers, and I am a man who follows the news, as you know.”
“I am glad you have come to help us, Mr. Jensen,” Millie said. “I just hope we haven’t gotten you involved in something that is going to be more than you bargained for in answering John’s letter.”
“I appreciate your concern,” Matt said.
“If you encountered Bleeker and Carver, you already have an idea of what we are up against,” John said.
“I also had lunch with a family not too far from here. The Fowlers. Do you know them?”
“E.B. and Millie Fowler, indeed I do know them,” John said. “And their son Green. They are as nice a family as you would ever want to meet.”
“They told me a little about Denbigh, I expect you will tell me more.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You said he has a veritable army working for him. How many men does he have, do you know?”
“I can’t quote an exact number for you, but when I said he had an army, I wasn’t just talking about the number of men. I mean it is literally an army. He has a lot of rough men, well armed, who don’t actually do ranch work. As far as I can determine, their only purpose is just to intimidate the folks in Fullerton, in the valley, and in the whole county. That’s why neither the sheriff nor Marshal Tipton will have anything to do with him.”
“Does Denbigh do much business with the town?”
“Oh, my, yes. In fact, most of the business the town does is with Denbigh. And because of that, many of the citizens of the town have been perfectly willing to overlook the thing about the toll, afraid they will lose his business. What they don’t realize is that because of the toll, he has squeezed out all the other customers, and he can dictate what he will pay for goods and services, which means he can conduct business on his own terms. I have talked to the people about that, but they are too frightened to do anything about it. So I took it upon myself.”
“That’s why you wrote the letter to me? You were smart to send it to Smoke, by the way. If I hadn’t just happened to drop by Sugarloaf when I did, there is no telling when, if ever, the letter would have reached me.”
“Yes, but I’m not just talking about the letter. I also put out an extra.”
“An extra?”
“Yes. My paper only comes out once a week, but I published a special edition last week so that the paper came out twice—the regular edition and an extra edition.”
“I told him not to do that,” Millie said. “I was afraid for him.”
“Millie, you knew when you married me that I was a journalist.”
“Yes, but I thought you would be writing about church socials, weddings, new businesses, that sort of thing. I didn’t think you would be declaring war on someone like Nigel Denbigh.”
“Be honest, Millie. Did you really think I would just turn my back on it?”
“No,” Millie admitted. “I knew that, eventually, you were going to take him up on it. I guess that courage is one of the things that attracted me to you.”
“Damn, really? And I thought it was my striking good looks,” John said, and all three laughed, somewhat easing the tension.
“I’ll show you that extra,” John said.
John walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a copy of the newspaper, then brought it back to show to
