The third man cleared his throat and asked, “You the law, mister?”
“I don’t need the law to take care of scummy punks like you three.”
The man flushed deeply. But he kept his mouth shut. There was something about this tall man that worried at him. He and most of Slater’s men were west coast outlaws, working from the Canadian border down to Mexico. He didn’t know a whole lot about Colorado and the men who lived there. This tall man with muscles bunching his shirt was just too damn confident. Too calm. He was clean-shaven and smelling like bath soap. Neatly dressed and his hair trimmed. But he was no dandy. The outlaw could sense that. Those guns of his’n had seen a lot of use.
“We ain’t with Lee Slater now,” the second man said.
“You were.”
“You said ‘next’ to the worst mistake,” the punk standing in front of him said. “So that means we made a worser one.”
“You certainly did.”
The three waited. The tall man stood by the bar, half turned, smiling coldly at them. The barkeep was poised, ready to hit the floor.
“Well, damnit!” the second man threw a greasy deck of cards to the table. “Are you going to tell us, or not?”
“One of the women you shot was my wife,” Smoke said.
The third man sighed.
“And who might you be, mister?” the punk facing Smoke asked, a nasty grin on his face.
“Smoke Jensen.” Smoke followed that with a hard left fist that smashed into the punk’s face. It sounded like someone swinging a nine-pound sledge against a side of freshly butchered beef. The punk’s nose exploded in a gush of blood, and the blow knocked him to the floor.
Smoke straightened up with his right hand full of .44 just as the pair at the table jumped to their feet, dragging iron. He shot the two, cocking and firing so fast the twin shots sounded like one report. One was hit in the center of the chest, dead before he hit the sawdusted floor. The second was struck in the throat, the .44 slug making a terrible mess.
The punk he’d punched on the beak was moaning and crawling to his knees when Smoke jerked him up and threw him against a wall, next to the batwings. The punk screamed as ribs popped from the impact. His eyes were filled with fear as they watched the big man walk toward him, those brown eyes filled with revenge.
The punk staggered out the batwings and fell off the boardwalk, landing in the street. “Help!” he squalled. “Somebody come help me!”
The dark street remained as quiet as the grave he would soon be in.
Smoke had holstered his .44. He stood on the boardwalk and stared at the gunslick. “You think you’re bad, boy.” The words were chipped ice flying from his mouth. “Then draw, you sorry piece of crap!”
“You ain’t no badge-toter!” the punk slobbered the words. “I got a right to a trial and all that. You can’t take the law into your own hands.”
Smoke stared at him, his eyes burning with a glow that the young man on the street had never seen coming from any man. It was eerie and unnatural. A dark stain appeared on the front of the young man’s dirty jeans.
“You gonna let me git up, Jensen?” he yelled.
“Get up.”
The punk tried to fake Smoke out, drawing as he was getting to his boots. Smoke drew and shot him in the belly. His second shot shattered the punk’s six-gun. Smoke turned and walked back into the saloon, leaving the outlaw in the dirt, hollerin’ and bellerin’ for his mother.
“You got an undertaker in this town?” he asked the barkeep.
“Ye . . . ye . . . yes, sir!” the barkeep stammered.
“Got us a right good one.”
“Get him.”
“Right now, Mr. Smoke. You bet. I’m gone.”
Smoke reloaded and finished his drink.
“Ain’t much to this bunch of trash,” the undertaker griped. “I’m gonna have to sell their gear to make any money.”
“You do that.”
“You know their names?”
“Nope.”
“Well, I got to have something to put on the markers.”
“You can carve on it, ‘they should have bathed more often.’ ”
Chapter Two
The marshal walked into the hotel’s dining room early the next morning and over to Sm0ke’s table. He pointed to a chair, and Smoke pushed it out with the toe of his boot.
The marshal ordered breakfast—the same thing Smoke and everybody else in the dining room was having: beef, fried potatoes, and fried eggs—and laid several sheets of paper on the table. “These may help you.”
They were flyers, wanted posters sent out by various law enforcement agencies west of the Mississippi River, and by the federal government. One was of Lee Slater.
Lee had to be the ugliest man Smoke had ever seen in his life. Ugly and mean-looking. “He sure isn’t much for looks, is he?”
The marshal chuckled. “He probably didn't win any pretty-baby contests, for sure. But he’s a bad one, Smoke. Vicious. He likes to hurt people. Kills for no reason. These others ride with him. Deke Carey and Curt Holt. They’re both wanted for rape and murder. Everyone in his gang is facing either long prison sentences or a rope.”
“So I heard. His gang was cut down by half a dozen when they hit Big Rock. But it’s still a big gang.”
“The biggest still operating in the West, Smoke. Fifty at least and some place it at closer to seventy-five. He’s always run big bunches. I’ll tell you what I know about him, and then I wish to God you’d leave our town before some punk huntin’ a reputation learns you’re here.”
Smoke did not take umbrage. “I’ll do my best, Marshal.”
“Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Not at all.”
“If you’d never seen him before, how’d you know it was Lee Slater who hit your town?”
“The sheriff recognized him. Monte Carson.”
The marshal smiled. “Ol’ Monte was a rounder in his day. But he was never a crook. just a bad man to fool with.”
“Marriage settled him right down.”
“It usually does. Ask you a few more questions?”
“Sure.”
“How old are you? Early thirties?”
“That’s close enough.”
“I heard what happened to your first wife and baby
boy. I’m sorry. I won’t dwell on that. Now you’ve married again—and a fine lady she is, too, so I’m told—but you’re still apt to go on the prod ever’ now and then. Why?”
Smoke shook his head. “Louis Longmont asked me that a couple of years ago and then answered his own question. Maybe I am the last mountain man, Marshal. There’s something in me that screams out for the high lonesome. Something in me that can’t tolerate punks and thugs and bullies and the like. Back in the hard scrabble hills of Missouri, while my daddy was off in the war, I kept body and soul together by eating turnips—when the garden carne up, that is—and berries and what game I could kill. Many’s the time I went to sleep with my belly growling. But I never stole. I never took what wasn’t mine. And I won’t tolerate them that do. Louis said that some people think I have a Robin Hood complex. But that’s not true. I just don’t like the way laws are changing, Marshal. They’re not getting better, they’re getting worse. I honest to God read in a Chicago newspaper a couple of months ago, that a man shot a burglar breaking into his home and the police put the homeowner in jail! Can you believe that? What in the hell is this world coming to?”
