Charlie didn’t miss. He didn’t even flinch as the slug from Thumbs‘ gun tore bark from a nearby tree. He leveled his long-barreled .44 and shot Thumbs in the belly, knocking the man down, hard-hit and dying.
Bell struggled to his boots and lifted his left-hand gun. Charlie perforated the man’s belly, and Bell would never again have to worry about indigestion or how to keep his hat on his head with only one ear. Now all he had to worry about was facing God.
Charlie stepped back into the timber and was gone, leaving Bud and Taylor alive in the middle of carnage. He’d seen Curly Rogers hightail it out. Charlie knew Curly from way back. Knew him for the coward and the bully he was. Let him go; they would meet up again.
Charlie walked swiftly back to his horse, reloading as he went. He swung into the saddle, and was gone, a warrior’s smile on his lips.
“Oh, my God!” Taylor yelled, the pain in his legs fierce. “What are we gonna do, Bud?”
Bud couldn’t even stand up. His britches and his galluses were all tangled up around his boots.
“Oh, Lord, I don’t know!” Bud wailed. “I wish I’d never heard of Smoke Jensen. I wish I’d never left the farm.”
“I think I’m gonna die, Bud. My legs is swellin’ something awful.”
“Hell with your legs. My ass hurts,” Bud moaned.
Several of the groups had returned to base camp as night grew near. They all gathered around as Lee Slater listened to Curly’s babblings, a disgusted look on his ugly face. He finally had enough and waved Curly silent. “Goddamnit, boys!” he yelled. “Smoke’s jist one man. You’re lettin’ him buffalo you all.”
“What about Bud and Taylor?” Horton asked.
“What about them?” Lee demanded. “Hell, they know the way back to base. We’ve all been shot before and managed to stay on a horse. If they got so much baby in them they can’t ride through a little pain, we don’t need them.”
The young punks, Pecos, Miller, Hudson, Concho, Bull, and Jeff, all nodded their agreement and hitched at their gunbelts. None of them had ever been shot so they really didn’t know what they were agreeing to. It just seemed like it was the manly thing to do.
‘We put out guards this night,” Lee said. “They’ll be no more of Jensen slippin’ up on us.”
Miles away, Smoke had no intention of slipping up on anything that night, except sleep. Let the outlaws sweat it out and get tired and nervous. He would fix a good meal and rest.
Charlie had found him a nice comfortable little hidey-hole and was boiling his coffee and frying his bacon. He would get a good night’s sleep and start out before dawn the next morning.
Back in Rio, a half dozen more rowdies had ridden in, on their way to the Seven Slash Ranch. They reined up in front of the saloon and swung down from the saddle, trail weary from a long day’s ride. A whiskey would taste good.
“Keep movin’, boys,” the voice from behind them said.
They turned, and what they saw chilled them right down to their dirty socks. Louis Longmont, Cotton Pickens, Johnny North, and Earl Sutcliffe stood in the now quieted street, all of them with sawed-off shotguns in their hands. To a man they kept their hands very still.
“We just wanted to buy a drink of whiskey, Earl,” John Seale said.
“You won’t buy it here. None of you. Ride on to the Seven Slash if you want a drink.”
“How’d you know? . . .” Mason Wright cut that off in mid-sentence. But it was too late; he’d tipped his hand and he knew it.
The others gave him dirty looks.
“Pack it in, Louis,” Frankie Deevers said, looking at the millionaire gambler. “If you don’t, you’re gonna lose this pot. Believe me.”
Louis smiled. “And who says life is not a game of chance, eh, Frankie?”
“Put them Greeners down, and we’ll take you all right here and right now,” a gunny snarled at Louis.
“Now, now, Willis,” Louis said. “You know how talking strains your brain.”
Larry chose that time to step out of the saloon/hotel for a breath of fresh air. The beery, sweaty odor from those unwashed cretins in the bar had drifted up to his room and was making him nauseous. But Larry was wising up to the West and after giving the group in the street a quick look, he moved down the boardwalk, well out of the way.
“Longmont,” Willis said. “I ain’t never liked you. You got a smart damn mouth hooked to your face. I’ve always heard how bad you was, but I’m from Missouri, and I gotta be showed. So why don’t you just show me?”
Louis lowered the shotgun and leaned it against a water rough. He swept back his coat and said, “Anytime you’re ready, Willis.”
Johnny, Earl, and Cotton backed off, still holding the express guns up and pointed at the gunnies.
“You can take him, Willis,” Frankie said. “He’s all showboat; that’s all he is.”
“A hundred dollars says he can’t,” Louis smiled the words.
“You got a bet, gambler!”
Willis made his play. Louis shot him just as the man cleared leather, the slug knocking him back on the steps leading up to the boardwalk. Willis lifted his gun and Louis plugged him again. Bright crimson dotted his dirty white shirt.
“You dirty son!” Willis gasped, still trying to jack back the hammer of his .45.
His friends desperately wanted to get into the fray, but the muzzles of those sawed-offs were just too formidable to breech.
“I can still do it!” Willis said, his blood staining his lips. He cocked his .45 and lifted it.
Louis shot him a third time, this time placing his shot with care. A blue/black hole appeared in the center of Willis’ head. He died with his mouth and his eyes wide open.
“You owe me a hundred dollars,” Louis said, looking at Frankie.
“I’ll pay you,” Frankie spoke through tight lips.
A young gunny who had ridden in with the hardcases and had not been recognized by any of the lawmen asked, “Is Jensen faster than you?”
“Oh, yes,” Louis told him. “Smoke Jensen is the fastest man alive.”
The young gunny took off his gunbelt and looped it on the saddle horn. “If it’s all right with you boys, I’ll just have me one drink to cut the dust, a bite to eat at that cafe over yonder, and then I’ll ride out of town. Not in the direction of the Seven Slash.”
“You yellow pup!” Mason Wright told him. “I knowed you didn’t have no good sand bottom to you.”
“Shut up, Mason,” Earl said. “The boy is showing uncommonly good sense.” He looked at the young man. “Go have your drink and something to eat.”
“Thank you kindly, sir.” The rider walked up the steps and entered the barroom, the batwings slapping the air behind him.
Louis walked to Frankie. “A hundred dollars, Frankie. Greenbacks or gold.”
Frankie paid him. “Your day’s comin’, Louis. You just remember that.”
“If it comes from the likes of you, Frankie, it’ll come from the back.” Frankie flushed deeply. “Because you don’t have the courage to face me eye to eye, with knife or gun or even fists, for that matter.”
Louis was a highly skilled boxer, and Frankie knew it.
“We’ll see, Louis. We’ll see.”
“How about now, Frankie?” the gambler laid down the challenge. “You want to bet your life?”
“Let’s go, Frankie,” Mason urged him. “We can deal with this bunch later.”
Incredible! Larry thought. The man is a millionaire and is risking his life in a dirty street of a backwater town. I do not understand these men and their loyalty to someone of Smoke Jensen’s dubious character.
The gunhands rode out of town, leaving Willis’ body still sprawled on the steps of the saloon. Muckelmort and the undertaker came running over, squabbling at each other.
“Get a good night’s rest, Smoke,” Johnny North muttered, looking at the darkening shapes of the mountains all around the little town. “There’s gonna be hell to pay in the morning, I’m thinkin’.”
