“I am not alone.” A lie and Yancy caught it.
He rose, cat-quick and closed in on Sally. One hand went to her waist, the other tilted up her chin. Lush, full lips waited for him, and he bent toward them. Sally jerked her face away. She felt the hot brush of his lips on her cheek and revulsion rose in her. She spun to the opposite side from his clutch and darted to the corner behind the door. She came up with the Marlin lever-action that always resided there.
Instantly, Yancy went cold. Nothing scared him more than a gun in the hands of a woman. She’d close her eyes and yank the trigger, like any other woman. More than likely she’d ventilate the roof and blow out a few windows before ever getting on target. But that made noise, and Yancy didn’t want that. Besides, he had something far more pleasant in mind.
“Put that down. I only want to give you what you want.”
“I want you out of this house,” Sally snapped.
“Yer hankerin’ for it, I can tell. I see it in yer eyes,” Yancy cooed.
“You have half a minute to clear that door and get in your saddle,” Sally’s cold words informed him.
Yancy advanced, his body under command of a surging stew of vital juices. “You won’t shoot me, honey. C’mon, admit it, you’ve got the hots for me,” Yancy purred as he closed in.
Sally adjusted the muzzle of the rifle. “I’ve got hot lead for you, if you want it.”
“That’s plumb foolish. Wimmin can’t use a gun proper,” Yancy insisted from five feet away.
Sally Jensen shot him in the left shoulder. Yancy yelped and stumbled backward, the report of the weapon ringing loudly in his ears. A cloud of smoke formed, hovered between them. Dimly he heard her recycle the action.
“The next one will be in your heart,” Sally informed him. The next round, she knew, was loaded with stacked shot. Three .33 caliber 00-Buckshot.
This unique load had been introduced to Smoke and Sally by Louis Longmont, the notorious gambler-gunfighter-bonvivant. “The celluloid cap lets it feed like a regular cartridge,” he had explained. “It’s ideal for house defense and well-suited for ladies to employ.” Although too polite to say it, and with Sally an obvious exception, Louis Longmont held much the same opinion of women and firearms as Yancy Riggs.
Riggs moaned now, suppressing a scream of agony, and found his inner demons rapidly cooling. He made a shambling run for the doorway, right hand clasped over the bleeding hole in his shoulder.
“You’ll be sorry,” he tried to save face. “You’da liked what I could do for you.”
“I guess I’ll never know,” Sally fired back.
“Crazy woman, that’s what you are.”
All the same, Yancy Riggs spared no time putting boots to stirrups and making speed out of the ranchyard. Gradually a certain peace descended on him. His composure regained in part, he abandoned any thoughts about revisiting that crazy woman. He wanted a quick getaway before she made him a more lasting peace.
Six
Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, sprawled in its mountain valley. Thin wisps of smoke climbed from backyard beehive ovens, placed outside the detached adobe kitchens of most houses. Chickens pecked in the yards and strayed into the street as Smoke Jensen and Bobby Harris rode down the long road from Raton. Half-naked children, with brown skins and big, black eyes, stared shyly at them from the corners of the houses. Bobby drew a deep breath and produced an expectant grin.
“I smell bread baking,” he chirped.
“And just naturally, you’re hungry,” Smoke suggested good-naturedly.
Smoke had made a decision on the way to Santa Fe. He had questioned Bobby closely about his education. Although spotty, he could do his sums, read and write, and tell time. Smoke mulled this over as they made their way to the central business square, the Plaza de Armas. A large adobe church dominated the west side. Along the north, the Governor’s Palace. The other two faces were given over to commerce. Saloons—called cantinas due to the Spanish influence of its Mexican residents—stores selling fresh meat, vegetables, bread and pastry, a plethora of tailors, boot makers, saddle shops and three gunsmiths lined the narrow, cobbled streets that defined the Plaza. Smoke reined up in front of a restaurant.
“Comidas Corridas,” an easel-like slats board declared in white chalk. Below it, the price in dollars and pesos. Smoke nodded at it. “I wonder what their full course dinner consists of?”
“That what that means?” Bobby asked.
“Yep. Too bad your education hasn’t included learning Spanish. It can be useful in this part of the country.”
Wide-eyed, Bobby queried Smoke. “Do you mean, you can read and write in Spanish?”
“Not exactly. Enough to get along, though. And speak it, of course.”
“Gee, Mr. Smoke, that makes you a right smart man.”
“Learning another language isn’t all that much, Bobby,” Smoke deprecated. “All you need is to have someone who grew up with it to teach you, or go live among people who only speak that tongue. That’s how babies learn.”
“They do? I always thought they were born to folks who spoke that language, and they naturally did, also.”
“That’s true, in part. Because the language babies hear spoken around them is the language they’ll learn. But if you take a baby, say a Chinese baby, and raise him in a Sioux camp, or in a white man’s town, he’ll grow up speaking the language of the people around him and never know a word of his native tongue.”
Bobby rolled his eyes and cut them to Smoke. “You mean if I’d growed up in some Indian camp, I’d talk like they do?”
“Yep. There’s even been cases of captives who were raised on their own language, then spent ten, fifteen years, since maybe your age, among the Indians, and they couldn’t remember anything but Sioux or Cheyenne, Comanche or Arapaho, whatever. Now, let’s fill that hollow belly of yours,” Smoke ended the lesson in languages.
Inside, the menu listed such exotic delights as Bistek Ranchero, Chuletas de Puerco, and Carne Asada. It also had roasted pork and meatloaf. Bobby chose the meatloaf and Smoke, after inquiring as to the ingredients, settled for the rancher-style steak. It came, cut in strips and stewed with tomatoes, onions, garlic and chili peppers.
Hot enough to blister the lips of a brass monkey, Smoke managed it with alternate bites of beans and rice, washed down with cool tamarind water. He would soon learn that in New Mexico they cooked a much hotter style than in Old Mexico. It was the Indian influence, he was told.
“Lucky you picked the meatloaf,” Smoke observed as they pushed away their plates.
“Might not be so lucky in the morning,” Bobby assured him with a shy, knowing wink. “Who ever heard of hot meatloaf?”
Smoke fished a folded brochure from a shirt pocket. “Know what this is?” he asked, handing it to Bobby.
The boy studied it a moment, then said brightly, “Sure. It’s a stagecoach schedule.”
“Good. I picked it up next door before we came in. You can read it and know what it says?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Think you could make out a train schedule?”
“Mostly like this, isn’t it?”
“That it is.”
“Why you checkin’ on my reading?” Bobby asked, suspicious.
“Suppose you tell me what those numbers in the column mean?” Smoke evaded.
Bobby read again and produced a shallow frown on his high, smooth forehead. “That’s the times when the stage, or the train in the case of the other, gets to each stop. Also tells the day it runs.”
“Good boy. Now, I’ve decided what we can do to make sure you have a right proper place to live.”
Wet and pink, Bobby’s pout revealed how he felt about that. Smoke ignored it and ordered pie for the both of them. Bobby only toyed at his. Smoke sighed and consumed the confection before adding to his mysterious explanation.
“I’m sure that if I leave you anywhere along the trail, you’ll find some reason to take off and catch up to me again. So
, you have to have a good home, one where you’ll want to stay. To have that, what I’m going to do is buy you a ticket on the next stage north to the end of track. From there you’ll take the train.”
“Where to?” Bobby asked, fearing the answer.
“Let’s pay up and go get the ticket,” Smoke suggested.
Outside, the plaza thronged with shoppers and travelers. Smoke and Bobby entered the stage office. A man with sleeve garters, long, black cuff protectors and a green eyeshade held sway over the grill-fronted ticket window. A buxom woman and two small children turned away as Smoke approached.
“What’ll it be?”
“One way to, ah, end-of-tracks for the D & RG.”
“That’d be to Trinidad, Colorado. Twenty-three dollars,” the clerk snapped.
“For a child?”
“Nope. He goin’ alone?”
“Yes.”
“Hummm. Says half price if accompanied by a parent.”
Smoke’s eyes narrowed. “It don’t cost any more to haul him if he goes by himself,” he said with a hidden menace.
“Someone’s got to be responsible for him,” came the prissy answer.
“What say he’s responsible for himself?” Smoke suggested tightly.
Stretching, the clerk peered over his half-glasses and the lip of the ticket window at Bobby. “Him? That little carpet rat?”
“I ain’t so little,” Bobby challenged.
“Mind your mouth, boy,” the clerk admonished righteously.
Smoke had had enough of this dumpling in men’s clothing. “Mind yours. Half price for kids his age, then half price it will be.”
“You cheap or somethin’, mister?” the clerk sneered.
“Nope. Not near as cheap as you are impudent. Would you care to discuss this outside?”
“That’s tellin’ him, Smoke,” Bobby enthused.
“Smoke? Smoke Jensen?” the clerk bleated. Instantly he paled, and a tremor came to his long, white fingers. “No reason to get riled, Mr. Jensen. None at all. Why, we’d be proud to have the son of Smoke Jensen ridin’ one of our coaches. Be an honor, yessir, quite an honor.”
“He’s not my son,” Smoke denied to the clerk. Then added, “At least, not yet.” He felt embarrassed at the adoration that shone in Bobby’s eyes at this.
“Half price? Yessir, that’ll be just fine. Eleven dollars, fifty cents. Cash money.”
Smoke paid. “When does the next coach depart?”
Consulting the octagonal Regulator clock on the wall, the clerk provided the answer. “Two hours, twenty minutes. Right on time, mind you.”
“We’ll be there.”
On the street again, Smoke turned toward the far corner, closest to the church. A sign there proclaimed a bank. “Let’s go get some gold changed into smaller coin. You’ll need money for eating, then the train ticket.”
“Where—where am I going?” Bobby asked for the first time.
“For now, back to Trinidad. There you’ll take the Denver and Rio Grande express train to Denver, then the local to Big Rock, Colorado. There you’ll be met by Sheriff Monte Carson …” Bobby scowled at this. “… and Sally Jensen, my wife. You’re going to have a home in the High Lonesome, Bobby. A home at Sugarloaf.”
Bobby Harris’s chest swelled, and his cobalt eyes grew misty. He slipped the restraints he had kept on himself so far and hugged Smoke Jensen around the waist. “Oh, Mr. Smoke, that’s wonderful. I’m plumb bowled over. You mean it? At your ranch?”
“You sure will. For so long as you need a home. You’ll also be going to school there.”
Bobby’s bubble burst at this intelligence. “Why? I can read an’ write an’ do my sums, tell time, and I know the names of all the presidents.”
“That’s easy, there’s only been twenty-one of them,” Smoke teased.
Bobby threw back his head and glanced up at Smoke. “Twenty-two, Grover Cleveland being our president now. So, what more do I need?”
Smoke squatted beside the lad, oblivious to the looks of passers-by on the tiled walkway. Wrinkling his brow, he tried to put his experiences and convictions into words Bobby would understand. “Knowledge gives a man strength. It is the way to power. It allows one man to succeed where another falls to the wayside. You can gain knowledge from experience, true. The surest wellspring, though, is a good, thorough education.” He was shamelessly quoting Sally, and he knew it. “The more you know, the better able you are to face anything.”
“Even a gunfighter?” Bobby challenged, still unconvinced.
“Yes. Even a gunfighter. Being able to read a man’s mood shifts helps predict what way he will act under pressure. There are doctors who have written about those things. That’s something you can only get from school. Why, back East, they are starting to teach modern languages in the schools, as well as Latin and Greek. A while ago, you seemed so proud that I could speak a little Spanish. I can also hold my own in Lakota, Cheyenne, Blackfoot and Arapaho. I didn’t acquire them by refusing to learn. Think what it would mean if you learned a language well enough to write poetry in it.”
“Poetry?” Bobby made a face. “That’s for girls and sissies.”
“No, it’s not,” Smoke snapped. “Listen to this: ‘Age cannot wither, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Others cloy the appetites they feed, while she makes hungry where most she satisfies.’ That’s Shakespeare, one of the world’s greatest poets.”
“What’s it mean?” Bobby asked, face innocent of all guile.
Smoke plucked Bobby’s hat from his head and ruffled his red-blond hair. “In a few years, I’ll explain the relationship between Anthony and Cleopatra to you. For now, let’s concentrate on getting you some money and sending you on your way to the Sugarloaf.”
Enthused, Bobby set off at a brisk pace, then stopped abruptly. “What about Dollar?”
Smoke had not considered the pony. “We could sell her and her tack, and you’d have more money,” he suggested.
Bobby looked stricken. “Bu—but she’s been mine since I was big enough to ride. I can’t do that.”
“The alternative is to take her along on a lead rope to Trinidad, then a stock car to Big Rock. That’ll cost extra.”
“I don’t care. I can get along with one meal a day.”
Warmed by the boy’s loyalty to his animal companion, Smoke smiled. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”
Bobby’s farewell to Smoke turned out to be a tearful one, although the boy tried his best to be manly. Once the stage rattled away from the depot, the paint pony trailing behind on a lead, Smoke turned aside. He had to find the telegraph station and send a wire to Monte Carson and Sally. For a moment, Smoke’s thoughts staggered him.
What, he wondered, if Sally wouldn’t go along with it?
Seated alone at a shadowed corner table, Yancy Riggs nursed his wound. He had seen the local doctor, paid him all but the last two dollars of his dwindling reserve of cash, and been patched up. Now he dawdled over a schooner of beer in the Silver Saddle, a new saloon in Big Rock. He couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that everyone here knew what he had done and how he had been shot. Even the barkeep kept cutting his eyes to the corner.
Damn that woman, Riggs thought resentfully. The more he drank, the lower his stack of coins grew, the more he returned to the lovely figure in that kitchen. The long, graceful neck, the promise of shapely legs. A warm, pliable body. Yeah, he had to go back and sample that forbidden fruit. Besides, she had to have some cash money around the house. It would get him back on his feet.
“Howie,” a newcomer shouted greeting to the apron as the batwings creaked at his entrance. “Set ’em up. I just heard the latest.”
“What’s that, Mike?” Howie asked in a bored tone. Damn near nothing ever happened in Big Rock, Colorado, not since Monte Carson and that gunfighter, Smoke Jensen, had cleaned out a nest of snakes and brought peace to the valley.
“Burt Crocker and some of the boys just rode in from the Sugarloaf,” Mike Ho
xsey announced. “Seems she done it again.”
Icy fear clutched at Yancy Riggs’ spine, cupped his heart.
“Don’t try to be mysterious. Did what? I’m all ears,” Howie offered, busy with a stack of beer mugs.
Mike walked to the bar. “Beer first, then I’ll tell you.”
Howie drew a quart-sized schooner and sat it before the cowhand. Mike plunked down a nickel and took a long, satisfying swig. “Miz Jensen got put upon somewhat by another drifter. She popped a hole in his shoulder with a rifle, shot him clean through, and he lit out.”
Miz Jensen? Where had he heard that name? Why did it seem significant? Yancy mulled it over while he dulled his pain with more beer.
“Good thing Smoke wasn’t around. There’d been a buryin’,” Howie opined.
Smoke? “Oh, Jesus, Smoke Jensen!” At first, Yancy had no idea he had said it aloud. Then he took in every eye cut his direction. Recognition highly motivated him. He gulped back his abject terror and came to his boots. “I’m gone from here. I ain’t ever been here, an’ I ain’t comin’ back,” he babbled as he scuttled toward the tall front door.
Rich laughter followed him out onto the street. Yancy Riggs made record time to the livery. He had his horse saddled, and fogged out of town at a full gallop, within five minutes of leaving the Silver Saddle Saloon.
“Stop it! Do you hear me? Leave me alone.”
Smoke Jensen heard the feminine appeal from the intersection of a narrow side street in Santa Fe. In the larger communities such appeals were quite frequently made. Smoke had encountered it before. It usually came from a lady who had crossed her fate with one of the rougher elements. He had about decided not to take a hand in this business when a genuine cry of pain sat him back on his heels.
“Please, please, don’t touch me like that. Help! Someone help me.”
Smoke Jensen reversed his direction and rounded the corner. Immediately he came upon a pair of bucktoothed, cross-eyed young oafs who pawed lasciviously at an expensively dressed young woman. From the style of her lavish outfit, Smoke immediately pegged her for a high-priced soiled dove.
Fury of the Mountain Man Page 6
