The town was cold and dark when Williams, Pardeen, and Corbett arrived at around one in the morning. Tying their horses off behind the saloon, the three men moved up the alley toward the office of the Indian agency.
They were startled by the screech of a cat that jumped down from a fence, then ran across the alley in front of them.
The yap of a dog caused them to stop, then move into the shadows. The dog continued to bark.
“Cody, hush up!” an irritated voice shouted.
The dog continued to bark.
“I said shut up!” the voice shouted again.
The dog barked one more time, but this time its bark was interrupted by a yelp of pain.
“Damnit, when I tell you to shut up, I mean shut up,” the voice said angrily.
A baby began crying.
The three men waited a moment longer; then when everything had calmed down, they resumed their cautious movement down the alley.
“He lives in a small shack behind the agency,” Williams said.
“What about the other man?” Pardeen asked. “The one who is the actual agent?”
“Don’t worry about him. He lives in Laramie.”
“I still don’t know how killin’ this man is going to get us any money.”
“It’s simple,” Williams said. “Kirby Jensen—”
“Smoke Jensen,” Pardeen said, interrupting.
“All right, Smoke Jensen,” Williams continued. “He’s bringing in three thousand head of cattle. He will turn the cattle over to Malone in return for a receipt, which he can then redeem for cash from Abernathy. Only, he isn’t going to turn the cattle over to Malone, he’s going to turn them over to me.”
“Because?” Pardeen asked.
“Because he is going to think that I am Cephus Malone.”
Reaching the little building behind the Indian agency, Williams tried the front door.
“I’ll be damned,” he whispered. “It isn’t locked.”
“Yeah, a lot of people don’t lock their doors in these little towns,” Pardeen replied, also in a whisper. “They figure they know everyone in town, so they figure they’re safe.”
Williams started in, then stopped and stepped back out onto the porch.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Don’t make any noise, and tell me when it’s done,” Williams said.
Pardeen chuckled, then disappeared into the darkened interior of the little house. Williams and Corbett waited outside.
“Who’s there? What is it?” a voice said from inside. “What are you doing in here?”
That was as far as the voice got until it turned into a muffled squealing sound.
A moment later, Pardeen came back outside. “It’s done,” he said.
“Are you sure he’s dead?” Williams asked.
“Oh, yeah, he’s dead,” Pardeen said. “I cut his throat from ear to ear.”
“Lock the door,” Williams said. “By the time anyone discovers him it will be too late.”
Smoke’s riders didn’t see the town until they reached the top of a long, sloping ridgeline. Jules was riding point, so he was the first to see Sorento, which was no more than a small group of buildings clustered around a railroad depot.
“Yahoo!” Jules shouted, taking off his hat and waving it over his head. Turning his horse, he galloped back to the others.
“We’re here!” he shouted happily. “It’s just over the hill! We’re here, we’re here, we’re here!”
It had been twenty-eight days since Smoke and his outfit had left Sugarloaf. Twenty-eight days of drought, stampede, blizzard, and attacks from Indians and cattle rustlers. They had come through, though not without its cost. Four good men lay dead on the trail behind them.
Because they would be spending this night in town, Sally had not gone ahead of them this morning as she normally did. On this, the last day of the drive, she kept the wagon alongside the herd.
Smoke stopped them when they reached the crest of the hill. They sat there for a moment, looking down at the little town below them.
“It sure don’t look like much,” Pearlie said. “Comin’ all this way only to see a town that ain’t even as big as Big Rock seems sort of…” He struggled for a word. “Sort of…”
“Anticlimactic,” Sally suggested.
“Yeah, that,” Pearlie said, though he had no idea what the word meant.
“Well, we didn’t come here to visit the town,” Smoke said. “We came here to sell our cattle. And if we can do
