A Jensen Family Christmas

by William W. Johnstone

  “I don’t think so.”

  A match rasped into sudden life. Doc squinted and flinched against the glare and almost pulled the trigger, but he held off on the pressure. The shot likely would have gone wild, anyway.

  And what would be wrong with that? He didn’t have to shout for help, he realized. He could just fire a couple of shots, and that would bring people running. He was about to do so when Malkin held up the burning lucifer so that its light spread through the room and washed over his leering face, which was bleeding a little on one cheek, where the sight on Doc’s gun had opened a cut.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” the outlaw said. “You’re thinking you’ll shoot and get help that way. But that won’t do you any good, Doc. The night orderly will come in, and I’ll tell him you came to my room and pointed a gun at me and forced me to come in here. You were talking crazy about me being some sort of train robber and killer. The orderly won’t know what to make of it, so he’ll go get Dr. MacMurphy. And MacMurphy won’t believe you any more than the orderly will.”

  “But that’s a pack of lies,” Doc protested. “And when they search your room, they’ll find the gun and the letters with Bill Malkin’s name on them . . .”

  His voice trailed off as Malkin stood there, shaking his head confidently.

  “They won’t find anything,” Malkin said. “There won’t be anything to prove that I’m not Bill Williams, who used to own a hardware store in Hays City until my heart started giving me trouble. You’re the one who’ll be waving a gun around and spinning some wild yarn.”

  “The . . . the doctor can contact the authorities . . . The railroad will start an investigation . . .”

  Smiling in the match light, Malkin said, “All that takes time. And while you’re waiting, you think there won’t be a chance for me to get you alone again, Doc? Sometime when you don’t know that I’m around and won’t see me coming?”

  The flame had almost reached Malkin’s fingers. He let go of the match. It spiraled to the floor, going out as it fell. And the darkness that suddenly filled the room suddenly seemed darker than ever, which was just what Malkin intended, Doc realized.

  He heard the bedsprings squeak and knew that the killer was coming across the bed. Coming for him.

  He jerked the trigger.

  The pistol was a small caliber, and when it went off, the report wasn’t much louder than a hard handclap. The spurt of flame from the muzzle was small and quick and lit up the darkness in the room for only a split second.

  That was enough for Doc to see Bill Malkin leaping off the bed at him. He didn’t know if his shot had hit the outlaw or not, but if it had, it wasn’t slowing him down.

  Doc tried to twist aside and get out of the way of Malkin’s charge, but the man’s shoulder rammed into him and spun him back against the wall. He felt Malkin’s hands grabbing at him and jerked away. The outlaw was cursing bitterly and relentlessly under his breath. His rage at his will being thwarted had made him insane, at least temporarily.

  Doc thrust the pistol out in front of him, hoping to ram it into Malkin’s body and pull the trigger. The barrel didn’t encounter any resistance, but Doc fired, anyway. A second later, a blow swung wildly in the dark clipped him on the side of the head. The world spun crazily. He was about to pass out.

  If he did, he was a dead man. He wasn’t sure how Malkin would explain killing him. Probably, Malkin would claim self-defense and insist that Doc had attacked him. No one would be able to prove otherwise. And if Malkin had gotten rid of everything that could be used as evidence against him . . .

  Doc felt the wall at his back and sagged against it as he tried to steady himself. He heard Malkin’s curses and harsh breathing, but he couldn’t seem to tell where they were coming from. They filled the whole room, along with the thudding cacophony of Doc’s own heartbeat. He slid along the wall, not knowing where to shoot or even where he was anymore.

  Then the curtains over the window brushed against him, and he knew where he was. He caught hold of them with his free hand and held himself up, but only for a second before a heavy weight slammed into him and drove him backward. His head and shoulders struck the glass, and it shattered under the impact, flying outward. The window’s flimsy wooden frame splintered, as well. Doc felt the fiery sting of broken glass on his hands and face, and then he was outside, falling through the air toward the ground.

  He was lucky his room was on the sanitarium’s first floor.

  But unlucky that the man who wanted to kill him had plunged through the broken window with him.

  They hit the ground hard but not together. Malkin didn’t land on him, which was another stroke of luck for Doc. Doc rolled and felt snow puff up around him in a fine white cloud. The stuff was falling thickly now. The flakes landed on his face like tiny kisses. He could see the ones that caught on his eyelashes. Oil lamps burned here and there on the outside of the sanitarium. When he looked at them, he saw the snow falling through the nimbus of light they cast.

  A few yards away, Malkin sounded like a bellows as he breathed. He was trying to get up. Doc pushed himself to a sitting position and scooted farther away. Malkin had made it to a knee but didn’t seem to be able to get any farther than that. He rested a hand on the snowy ground and glared at Doc in the faint light that filtered onto the sanitarium grounds from those lamps.

  Doc knew the look on the man’s face. One of Malkin’s spells had him in its grip. He couldn’t breathe, could only struggle to draw in air against the pain.

  But somehow Malkin managed to let out a broken laugh. He said, “You . . . you think I’m gonna die . . . don’t you, Doc? You think . . . that’ll solve your problem . . . for you. But I’m not. I’m gonna make it. And then . . . I’ll be coming for you . . . when you least expect it . . .”

  Doc knew it was true. The specter of death still hovered over him. No one would believe him, and if he went back in that building, he would die.

  With that thought clamoring through his brain, he scrambled onto all fours and then came up on his feet. He broke into a stumbling run toward the brick wall that surrounded the sanitarium grounds.

  “You . . . you bastard!” Malkin gasped behind him. “Come back here!”

  Go back to the man who wanted to kill him? Who would do that except a lunatic?

  And this wasn’t that kind of sanitarium.

  Or maybe it was, Doc thought a few minutes later, after he had pulled himself over the wall and dropped onto the road that ran toward the nearby town. He was fleeing through a cold, snowy night in only his pajamas, with nothing but the little gun he had managed to hang on to somehow. His feet were bare, and his toes were already starting to go numb, which was probably a good thing, because he couldn’t feel what the road was doing to his unprotected flesh. Looking at the situation logically and objectively, the only reasonable conclusion was that he had gone insane.

  But he kept moving, anyway, and soon the darkness swallowed him up.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Sugarloaf

  When Smoke walked into the kitchen of the big ranch house the next day after the encounter with Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar, Sally looked up from the piecrust she was forming into a pan and said, “You didn’t have any luck, did you?”

  “You can tell that just by looking at me?”

  “Considering that you look like you could bite a nail in two right now, yes. I think anyone could see that.”

  Smoke forced his angrily clenched jaw to relax and let out a chuckle. “I thought I might calm down on the ride back out here from town, but I reckon that wasn’t the case. The whole thing is still eating on me.”

  Early that morning, he had ridden into Big Rock to visit with Dan Norton, the local attorney who handled some of his legal matters, and Pete Perkins, who ran the land office. He had also sent off several wires to legal firms in Denver and San Francisco that represented him.

  Sally trimmed off the excess dough from the crust and set it aside. She would spread it out on a
pan and bake it later, too. Calvin Woods, the young cowboy who had started out as a regular ranch hand and worked himself up to a position of responsibility second only to that of Wes “Pearlie” Fontaine, Smoke’s foreman, loved to eat that extra crust, especially if he had some honey or jam to dip it into. Cal’s sweet tooth knew no limits.

  “What did Dan and Pete have to say?” Sally asked. She knew about the errands that had taken Smoke to town. There were very few secrets between the two of them.

  “Pete assured me that all the claims we made on rangeland here in the valley were filed properly. He’s going to get in touch with Don Pratt, the county clerk over in Red Cliff, and ask him to confirm that. And Dan says that Aguilar doesn’t have a leg to stand on, that no Colorado court is going to side with somebody claiming an old Spanish land grant.”

  “Then it sounds as if we don’t have anything to worry about.”

  Smoke grimaced slightly and said, “Yeah, but the thing is, Dan had to admit he doesn’t really have any experience in international law, and that’s what this boils down to. He may believe there’s no chance a court ruling would go against us, but he can’t guarantee that it won’t.”

  “When it comes to the courts, can anything ever be guaranteed?” Sally wanted to know. “The law still relies on human beings to interpret it and enforce it.”

  “And human beings are unpredictable critters.” Smoke nodded. “I can’t argue with that. Anyway, I sent wires off to our other lawyers, too, and got them started looking into the problem. It’ll probably be several days before they have any answers, though.”

  Sally smiled and said, “So in the meantime, we might as well not worry about it, right? We have a holiday to get ready for.”

  “That reminds me,” Smoke said. “While I was in town, I picked up the mail, and there was a letter from Matt. He won’t be able to make it this year.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame!” Sally responded with a disappointed look. “Did he say why?”

  “He’s down in South Texas, mixed up in something. He didn’t go into any details, but I got the feeling it was some sort of trouble he felt obliged to help out with.”

  “A Jensen getting mixed up in some sort of trouble?” Sally imitated a flighty Southern belle as she went on, “Why, I never heard of such a thing!”

  That got a laugh from Smoke. He said, “Yeah, we’re all such peaceable sorts.”

  Sally was brisk and businesslike again as she went on, “All right, I need a tree to put up in the parlor and decorate, so why don’t you and Pearlie and Cal go find one for me? You might as well be spending your time doing something useful.”

  “Running the ranch isn’t useful?”

  “You know good and well you have everything set up so efficiently that the ranch practically runs itself, especially at this time of year.”

  She had a point there. All the stock had been moved to winter grazing a couple of months earlier. The snow they’d had so far wasn’t enough to be a problem. It wouldn’t be unless there was a blizzard or a hard freeze.

  Either of which was possible at this time of year, but neither seemed to be looming. Pearlie claimed that his joints could predict the weather better than the almanac, and according to them, nothing major was going to happen until later in the winter.

  “All right, I reckon I can go look for a tree,” Smoke said, “but Pearlie can’t come with me. He left early this morning to take some supplies up to Bob Bellem at the Calder Peak line shack. Cal should be around somewhere, though, and he and I can handle the tree-finding chore.”

  “Do you think you’ll be back by lunchtime?”

  “Reckon you’d better fix us up some sandwiches out of that leftover roast beef,” Smoke said with a smile, “and put in some bear sign, or else Cal might refuse to go.”

  Sally laughed and said, “As if Cal would ever refuse to do anything you asked him to do, Smoke. But I’ll put in the bear sign, anyway.”

  She was right about Cal. During his time on the Sugarloaf, he had grown from a wild youngster, on the verge of a life filled with trouble, into a fine young man who would probably be a successful rancher himself someday. There was no one in the world he looked up to more than Smoke.

  Smoke found Cal in the barn, mending a harness. He said, “You want to come with me and help me find and cut down a Christmas tree for Sally to decorate? She’s putting up a lunch for us to take along.”

  A hopeful look appeared on the young cowboy’s face. Smoke didn’t even let him ask the question.

  “Yeah, she’s putting in some bear sign, along with roast beef sandwiches. We’ll eat good.”

  “Then count me in!” Cal said as he put aside the harness he’d been working on and stood up.

  “Get a couple of good axes from the toolshed. I’ll fetch the lunch.”

  By the time Smoke got back to the barn, carrying a wicker basket, Cal had saddled a horse for himself and had lashed a couple of axes behind the saddle. He was putting a rig on another mount for Smoke.

  “Didn’t figure you’d want to take the same horse you rode into town this morning,” Cal commented.

  “No, I didn’t. That was good thinking.”

  When Smoke’s mount was ready to ride, he tied the lunch basket behind the saddle and swung up. Cal was already on his horse.

  “Where did you plan on looking for a tree?” Cal asked as they rode out of the barn.

  “I figure we can probably find a good one up on Catamount Ridge.”

  They headed north from the ranch headquarters, into the higher country on that side of the valley.

  “What did you find out in town this morning?” Cal asked as they moved along at a comfortable pace. Smoke hadn’t told the whole crew about what had happened in Big Rock the day before, but since Pearlie and Cal were his most trusted confidants among the hands, he had filled them in on the situation.

  “Nothing that really made my mind rest any easier,” he said. “Dan Norton and Pete Perkins don’t seem to think I have anything to worry about, but I’m not convinced of that.”

  Cal nodded and said, “Seems like some of those big-city lawyers who work for you would be better to ask about something like this.”

  “Yeah, I thought so, too, and that’s why I sent off wires to them. Eddie at the Western Union office said he’d ride out here right away when the replies come in.”

  A couple of minutes of companionable silence went by, and then Cal asked, “What if the lawyers say this Señor Aguilar hombre is in the right?”

  “He can’t be,” Smoke answered vehemently, without any hesitation. “The Sugarloaf is mine, legal and aboveboard. I don’t intend to let anybody take it away from me.”

  “It’s yours according to American law. Mexican law’s a heap different, from what I’ve heard.”

  “And this isn’t Mexico, so that doesn’t matter,” Smoke said, with conviction filling his voice.

  “I hope you’re right, Smoke. But if things get messed up somehow and it comes down to a fight . . . I reckon you know you can count on me and Pearlie and all the other fellas to back your play, whatever it is.”

  “No doubt of that ever even crossed my mind.”

  They rode for about an hour, with the terrain getting rougher most of that time, before coming out atop a long, wide ridge with stretches of pine, juniper, spruce, and fir growing along it. The thickly wooded ridge, with clumps of snow nestled in the evergreen branches and the backdrop of spectacular mountain scenery, was beautiful.

  Cal pointed at a young juniper and said, “I think that’d make a good Yule tree, Smoke. It’s got a good shape to it for decorating, and it’s not too big for us to get it in the house. A lot of these other trees would never fit.”

  “That’s just what I was thinking,” Smoke said. He and Cal rode over to the juniper and dismounted. They took off their coats and hung them over the saddles. Even though the temperature wasn’t much above freezing, once they started chopping down the tree, they would get overheated fairly quickly if
they wore their coats. Their flannel shirts would keep them warm enough while they were working.

  Soon the ringing sounds of ax blades biting into wood filled the air. In this thin high-country atmosphere, such sounds carried a long way. Anybody who heard them would know that somebody was chopping down a tree.

  Other sounds traveled, too, and during a brief pause when Smoke rested the head of his ax on the ground to catch his breath, he heard something that made him stand up straighter. Cal was still swinging his ax. Smoke held up a hand to stop him.

  “Wait a minute, Cal,” he said. “Listen.”

  Both of them listened, and the hoofbeats coming from somewhere nearby were even clearer. There was no mistaking them now.

  “Horses,” Cal said. “Somebody’s coming.”

  Right on the heels of his words, half a dozen men on horseback appeared, emerging from a thick stand of pine about a hundred yards away. They rode toward Smoke and Cal, not getting in any hurry about it.

  “You know them, Smoke?” Cal asked.

  “Not right offhand, no,” Smoke answered. “But judging by the outfits they’re wearing, including those sombreros, I can make a pretty good guess who they are.”

  It looked like some of Don Juan Sebastian Aguilar’s vaqueros had ventured onto the Sugarloaf . . . where they had no business being!

  CHAPTER 17

  Smoke’s keen eyes searched among the approaching riders. He didn’t see Aguilar or Travis Hinton, the Texas gun-wolf.

  But as they came closer, he did recognize one of the horsemen: The gunman with the scarred chin and the thin mustache who had been the first one to confront him on Big Rock’s main street the day before—and who had gotten dumped roughly off his horse for his trouble. His jaw carried a bruise where Smoke had knocked him down after the man pulled a knife. His name was Pedro, Smoke recalled.

  Pedro was the only one of the half dozen who appeared to be a hired gun, though. The others had the look of regular vaqueros, men who normally handled livestock instead of shooting irons. One of them pushed out ahead of the others, taking the lead.