Senor Jessie, how this hombre know your name and want to give you a message.”
“Jensen,” Jessie snarled, curling his lips when he said the name. “It had to be Jensen.” Rage welled in Jessie’s chest, and he gripped his saddle horn fiercely, trying to control an outburst of unreasoning anger. “That’s who got behind us. It was that bastard Smoke Jensen. I never laid eyes on the son of a bitch yet, but I’m swearin’ an oath I’m gonna kill him. He’s as good as dead. All I gotta do is find him…”Twenty-six
Smoke alerted the anxious men spread out across South Springs ranch before he crossed the fence in the dark, fearing a bullet might come flying his way from a nervous Chisum cowboy after a pitched battle like the one they’d just been through.
“It’s me, Smoke Jensen! Don’t anybody shoot! Looks like they cleared out!”
He heard Pearlie’s distinctive voice from a cowshed off to his right. “That’s Smoke all right, men. Lower them guns so you don’t shoot him accidental.”
Smoke went over the fence, his pistols bolstered, as Pearlie and Cal hurried up to him.
“How many was out there?” Pearlie asked. “Sounded like a whole damned army.”
“Twelve or fourteen,” Smoke replied, continuing on his way to Chisum’s house. “I scouted around after they left, just to make sure all of ’em hightailed it out of here.”
John Chisum met him at the porch steps. He gave Smoke a half grin. “Never heard so much lead flying in my life,” he said with obvious relief. “They had us surrounded. Must’ve been at least twenty riflemen out there…”
“More like a dozen or so,” Smoke replied. “A few more than that, maybe. I got six of ’em by circling around behind some of their positions. No sense goin’ after the bodies till daylight comes.”
“You killed six of them?” Chisum asked, relief turning to disbelief when he heard the number. “How in the hell did you do that without getting your ass shot to pieces?”
“They didn’t expect nobody to come at ’em from the rear, I reckon.”
“You’re an amazing man, Mr. Jensen, talking about knocking off half a dozen men like you’d been out picking peaches. Those boys were hired gunmen, not amateurs. Evans and Dolan have sent word all the way to Mexico that they’re hiring top shootists to fight on their side of this war.”
Smoke shrugged, climbing to the porch. “They didn’t appear to be all that experienced, not to me. Maybe I didn’t get the cream of the crop this time. But if they come back again, or if they try to stop me and my friends from drivin’ our herd up to Colorado, I’ll test the rest of ’em. I don’t pay much attention to what a man’s reputation is supposed to be. Just because some fool hires out to kill other men don’t make him good at it.”
Chisum wagged his head. “You sure as hell know your business. I wish you’d consider a proposition from me to stay on until this range war is over.”
Smoke discarded the notion with a wave of his hand. “I’m in the cattle business, Mr. Chisum. Like I told you before, my guns ain’t for hire at any price.”
The rancher rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But you can’t deny you know the profession, the gunman’s trade. I’ve seen you in action.”
“I’ve had a little experience with it.”
“What made you change? It must have been something of great importance to you.”
“A woman,” he replied. “My wife broke me of a lot of bad habits, and I don’t figure she’s done with it yet.”
Chisum laughed. “She is certainly an influential lady, even if I haven’t met her.”
Smoke found himself yearning for a shot of whiskey right at the moment, although he answered the statement. “It isn’t so much just influence. When she gets her mind set on doin’ things her way, it’s mighty hard to change it.” He glanced into the house through a broken windowpane. “If all your whiskey bottles didn’t get busted, I could use a swallow or two of that good stuff from Kentucky, before I go back to bed.”
“I’ll have one with you,” Chisum said, “and I’ll send a bottle out to the men. They’ve earned it.” He turned around and led Smoke inside, lighting a lantern that revealed shattered glass all over the floor. “We were lucky tonight,” Chisum added as he went to the cabinet for the whiskey.
“How’s that?” Smoke asked, not quite sure what seemed so all-fired lucky about being attacked from all sides.
“Lucky to have you here,” he replied. “Maybe this will serve to discourage Evans and Dolan from making any further attempts like this one.”
Smoke settled into a stuffed bull hide chair near the fireplace. “I wouldn’t count on it,” he said quietly, glancing out a window. “Men like those who visited us just now ain’t so easily discouraged. They’ll be looking for a payday. I’m not much of a gamblin’ man, but I’ll bet we see ’em again before too awful long. Could be as early as tomorrow.”
Chisum handed Smoke a shot glass brimming with golden whiskey as he said, “I sure as hell hope you’re wrong.”
Smoke tasted his drink, finding it delicious, even though it burned all the way down his throat. “I’m seldom ever wrong when it comes to men with bad intentions,” he told Chisum. “I’ve had more’n my share of experience with their breed.”
Riders for Chisum acted as herd-holders while Smoke and John Chisum rode through hundreds of two- and three-year-old longhorn heifers. When Smoke pointed to a good long-backed cow, Pearlie and Cal and Duke cut it away from the main herd to a lower meadow, where Smoke’s selections were being held in a bunch by Bob Williams and Cletus Walker, along with a pair of Chisum cowboys. These young cows were in good trail flesh, making it easier for them to be driven to Sugarloaf without long grazing delays to keep the longhorns from getting hungry.
“You’ve got a good eye for a mother cow,” Chisum told him as they rode through the herd. “You’re picking my choice from the bunch damn near every time.”
“We’ve got a long drive ahead of us,” Smoke replied, with a nod toward a brindle heifer which Cal immediately cut away from the others, “and I figure picking a longer back will make the crosses better suited for our type of
