That set Luttie off again, jumping around and hollering.
“I think he needs a good dose of salts,” a hardcase suggested. “Maybe his plumbin’s all plugged up?”
“For a man that don’t believe in going to the extreme with law and order,” Smoke said, “you sure can jump right in there and help stick the needle to suspects.”
“Oh, I think a bit of agitation is good for the soul. The man is unbalanced. You realize that?”
“Uh-huh. And now I hope you’re not going to tell me that because he’s about half nuts he shouldn’t be shot if he drags iron on someone.”
“There is some debate on that, I will admit. But a dangerous person is dangerous whether he’s normal or insane. Besides, there are degrees of insanity. Luttie Charles is not a drooling idiot confined to a rocking chair. He simply lost control back there for a moment. He’s a very cunning man.” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t you lose control if someone grabbed you by the ankle and jerked you out of a sound sleep, then knocked you down and threw you down the stairs?”
Smoke smiled. “I might at that.” He shook his head. “That was sure some sight.”
Laughing, the men put their horses into an easy canter and headed back to town. Smoke noticed that Mills had stopped bobbing up and down like a cork in the water and was riding more and more like a Westerner.
The next several days were long and boring. Providing Jake had been telling the truth back at the ranch house, Jesse had left the country.
“If that’s the case,” Mills observed, “it’s probably for fear that Luttie would shoot him because he and that other wretch failed to kill you.”
Later on that day, shortly after the stage had run, Mills came to the marshal’s office. “This is it,” he said, smiling and waving a piece of paper. He sat down. “It seems that Lee Slater—and Slater is his Christian name—was born in Oklahoma. He left their farm when he was about fifteen, after raping and killing a neighbor girl. He had a younger brother that disappeared shortly after robbing a stagecoach and making off with a strongbox filled with thousands of dollars. The boys were named Lee and Luther.” Mills smiled again. “Luther’s middle name was Charles.”
“It’s good enough for me, but I doubt a jury would convict on it.”
“Nor do I. My superiors have given me orders to stay out here until Lee Slater and his band of thugs are contained.” He sighed. “At the rate I’m going, I may as well move my belongings out here and transfer my bank account.”
“Oh,” Smoke said, pouring them both coffee. “It’s not that bad. I tell you what I’ll bet you: you stay out here a few more months, Mills, and this country will grab you. Then you won’t want to leave.”
“I’m afraid you may be right. Do you have any sort of plan, Smoke? I seem to be fresh out.”
The gunfighter shook his head. “No, I don’t, Mills. It seems to me—and I’m no professional lawman—that all we can do is wait for something to break, then jump on it like a hound on a bone.”
Mills had noticed that Smoke had adopted a small cur dog he’d found wandering the town, eating scraps and having mean little boys throw rocks at it. After a lecture from Smoke Jensen about being cruel to animals, Mills was of the opinion the boys might well grow up to be vegetarians. Smoke had been rather stern.
Smoke had bathed the little dog and fixed it a bed in the office. The dog now lay in Smoke’s lap, contented as Smoke gently petted it.
“You’re a strange man, Smoke,” Mills had to say.
“You don’t appear to care one whit about the life of a person gone wrong, yet you love animals.”
“Animals can’t help being what they are, Mills,” Smoke said with a gentle smile. “We humans can. We have the ability to think and reason. I don’t believe animals do; at least not to any degree. We don’t have to rob and steal and lie and cheat and murder. That’s why God gave us a brain. And I don’t have any use for people who refuse to use that brain and instead turn to a life of crime. You read the Bible, Mills?”
“Certainly. But what has the Bible got to do with animals?”
“A lot. I think animals go to Heaven.'
“Oh, come now!” Mills gently scoffed.
“Sure. And our Bible is not the only Good Book that talks of that. Our Bible says in Ecclesiates: ‘For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity.’ Paul preached about it, too. And my wife, who is a lot more religious than me, says that John Wesley came right out and outlined what he thought animals would experience in Heaven. John Calvin also admitted that he thought animals were to be renewed.”
Mills shook his head. “You never cease to baffle me, Smoke. You’re a . . . walking contradiction. You mentioned some other Good Book. What are you talking about?”
“The Koran. ‘You haven’t read it?”
“Good God, no! And you have?”
“Yes. Sally ordered a copy for me. I found it very interesting.”
Mills studied the man for a moment. Before him was the West’s most notorious gunfighter—no Jensen wasn’t notorious; “famous” was a better word—and the man was calmly discussing the world’s religions. And sounding as if he did indeed know what he was talking about.
“You think you’ll go to Heaven, Smoke?” Mills asked gently.
“I don’t know. God loved His warriors. I do know that. But I like to think that maybe there is a middle ground for men like me.”
“Like Valhalla?”
“Yes.”
“Another personal question, Smoke?”
“Sure.”
“How many men have you killed?”
“I honestly don’t know, Mills. Over a hundred, surely, and possibly two hundred. I’ve got a lot of blood on my hands, I won’t deny that. Jesse James gave me my first pistol, way back during the war, when I was just a kid in Missouri. A Navy .36, it was. I carried that old pistol for a long time. And put some men in the ground with it.”
“What happened to it?”
“I think it’s in a trunk up at the ranch house.”
“You have children, Smoke?”
“Oh, yes. They’re in France with their grandparents, traveling and getting an education. Baby Arthur had to go for medical treatment. Their mother couldn’t go because she gets deadly ill on ship.”
“Outlaws killed your first wife, didn’t they?”
“Yes. And smothered my baby son in the cradle while they were raping Nicole.”
Mills knew the story. It was legend. At first he thought it was all a big lie. Now he knew it was all true. How a young Smoke Jensen tracked them down and killed them all. Castrated one of them and cauterized the terrible wound with a white hot running iron.
Frontier justice, Mills concluded, doesn’t leave any room for gray areas. It’s all black and white and very final.
“I found Sally about a year later,” Smoke said.
“We married and have been together and very happy since then. You married, Mills?”
The U.S. Marshal shook his head. “No. I haven’t found the right woman yet, I suppose.” He smiled, rather sadly, Smoke thought. “But I‘m still looking.'
“I hope you find you a good woman, Mills. There’s one out there. Just keep looking.”
One of Mills’ men, Winston, stuck his head in the office door. “About half a dozen men riding in, Mills. They look like thugs to me.”
Smoke smiled. Probably half the men in the West look like thugs. He put the little dog in its bed and walked to the window. Winston had been correct in his assessment of the riders.
Deke Carey and Dirty Jackson were among the six men. He’d seen pictures of Deke, and Smoke had had a run-in with Dirty some years back, when both had been much younger.
“You know them?” Mills asked.
“I know them.”
Mills watched as Smoke slipped the leather thongs off the hammers of his .44s. “It’s come to that?”
“It’s come to that.” Smoke stepped out on the boardwalk.
