The Family Jensen

by William W. Johnstone

  “How do I find that Sugarloaf spread? I might ride out there and see if they need any hands.”

  “You could wait and just ask Smoke if you want,” the bartender suggested. “Like I said, he’ll probably be in here after a while.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to bother a busy man like that. He’s probably got a lot on his mind if he’s takin’ the sheriff’s place. I’ll just talk to his foreman.”

  “That’d be a fella name of Pearlie.”

  “Pearlie,” Fisk repeated. “I’m obliged. And where do I find the place?”

  The bartender gave him directions to Sugarloaf. Fisk listened carefully, then took a coin from his pocket and slid it across the hardwood to pay for the beer, handling it as if he didn’t have too many and was reluctant to let it go. He didn’t want the bartender remembering him as anything except another harmless saddle tramp.

  He drained the last of the beer from the mug, nodded his thanks to the bartender, and turned to leave. He was almost at the door when a broad-shouldered figure appeared, blocking the entrance as he pushed back the batwings.

  “Oh, howdy, Smoke,” the bartender called as Fisk’s spirits abruptly sank. “Say, that fella there was just asking about you and Sugarloaf. He’s looking for work.”

  “Is that so?” Smoke recognized the man in the saloon as the one who had ridden past a short time earlier while he was talking to Pearlie, before he had taken the warbag up to his hotel room. He held out his hand to the stranger. “Smoke Jensen. Pleasure to meet you.”

  The stranger hesitated for a second, but Smoke didn’t think anything about it. A lot of people had heard of him, had heard all the stories about how many men he had killed and how fast he was on the draw. When they met him they weren’t quite sure what to make of him.

  “Wiley Fisk,” the man said as he gripped Smoke’s hand. Fisk had nothing to distinguish him. He was the sort who wouldn’t be noticed in a crowd.

  “You say you’re looking for work? A riding job?”

  Fisk nodded. “Yes, sir. I’m a pretty fair hand.”

  Smoke inclined his head toward Pearlie, who had come into the saloon behind him. “This is my foreman.”

  Fisk nodded to Pearlie. “Howdy.”

  “Howdy, your own self,” Pearlie replied. “Sorry to disappoint you, amigo, but Sugarloaf ain’t hirin’ right now. You might try some of the other spreads around here, or check with us again in the fall. We’re likely to need some extra hands then to bring all the stock down from the high pastures.”

  “Yeah, I understand,” Fisk said. “I’m obliged to you, anyway.” He smiled, slid past them, and left the saloon.

  Pearlie went on toward the bar to wet his whistle, but Smoke turned and looked out over the batwings, watching as Fisk mounted up and rode out of Big Rock, heading back in the direction he had come from.

  When the stranger was out of sight, Smoke ambled over to the bar. “Strange little fella,” he commented to Pearlie, who signaled the bartender for a beer.

  “Who? Oh, you mean that saddle tramp who was lookin’ for a job. What was strange about him? Looked pretty common to me. We see a bunch of ’em passin’ through here.”

  “Maybe . . . but that was a pretty good horse he rode out on. A better looking piece of horseflesh than you usually see being ridden by a downat-the-heels drifter like that.”

  Pearlie blew the foam off the mug of beer the bartender set before him and took a healthy swallow. “Horse is probably worth more’n the rest of the hombre’s outfit put together. I’ve known fellas like that.”

  “So have I,” Smoke agreed. “His name mean anything to you?”

  “Shoot, I don’t even remember his name.”

  “Wylie Fisk.”

  “Fisk, Fisk . . . Nope, can’t say as it does. How about you?”

  Smoke shook his head. “Not really.”

  “Well, we don’t have to worry about him. He pulled his freight, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah. Rode out of town.”

  “There you go,” Pearlie said. “Probably never see him again.”

  Smoke knew his friend was right, and yet some instinct still stirred inside him, some vague hunch that not everything was right.

  Smoke trusted his instincts, but nothing seemed amiss. He talked to Pearlie for a while longer, then the foreman headed back out to the ranch. Smoke ate some lunch and drifted around town the rest of the afternoon, talking to friends and acquaintances in the various businesses. He stopped by Doc Simpson’s again but found that Monte Carson was sleeping. There was no need to wake him.

  It was late in the day before Smoke went back into the sheriff’s office and found one of the deputies sitting behind the desk. The man started to get up, but Smoke waved him back into his chair. “Keep your seat. Everything under control?”

  The deputy grinned at him. “How could it not be, with Smoke Jensen circulating around town all day? Nobody’s gonna start any trouble as long as you’re around, Mr. Jensen.”

  Smoke gestured toward the desk, “Monte’s got a drawerful of wanted posters and reward dodgers in there, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s right. You want to take a look at them?”

  Smoke’s hunch had grown stronger during the afternoon, until he could no longer ignore it. “Yeah, I do. Don’t get up, just hand them here.”

  The deputy opened a drawer and took out a thick stack of papers. He gave them to Smoke, who took them over to the lumpy couch along the front wall and sat down to go through them.

  He had flipped through several dozen posters depicting assorted outlaws, killers, and dealers in depravity before his hand abruptly tightened on the one he held. There was no drawing or tintype on that one, just a name and description, and a recital of the charges against the man—bank robbery, stagecoach robbery, and murder—and the reward offered for his capture by authorities in Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, and Arkansas. The description was that of a small, fair-haired man with pale blue eyes, whose name was Wylie Fisk.

  And that man had been in Big Rock, asking about Sugarloaf.

  Smoke was about to toss the other reward posters aside when a note caught his eye. It said that Fisk was thought to be traveling with a gang of outlaws led by somebody called Oliver Stonebreaker. That name was familiar, and Smoke rummaged through the posters he had already looked at until he found the one he was thinking of. A drawing of a man with a prominent black beard stared up at him. According to the poster, Stonebreaker was the leader of a gang of at least a dozen desperadoes.

  He was wanted on the same charges and in the same places as Fisk, but the law was looking for him in Texas, the Indian Territory, and Dakota Territory, as well, He had a more widespread and even more violent career as an owlhoot. In addition to murder and robbery, he was wanted for rape and assault.

  That was the man who might be on his way to Sugarloaf.

  The deputy at the desk wasn’t paying much attention. He heard a little noise, saw a blur of motion from the corner of his eye, and looked up to see that the sofa was empty. The stack of wanted posters lay scattered on the floor. “Mr. Jensen? Smoke?”

  But Smoke Jensen was gone.

  Chapter 18

  “Are you sure that’s the place?” Burke asked Wylie Fisk as the two men sat on their horses looking down a hill at the ranch buildings. Dusk had begun to settle, and lamplight glowed warmly in some of the windows.

  “That’s it, all right,” Fisk insisted. “That blabbermouthed bartender in Big Rock gave me good directions.”

  Burke nodded. Crandell and another man, a half-breed who called himself Kiowa Smith, were right behind him and Fisk. Stonebreaker had sent the four of them to Sugarloaf. Burke would have preferred to ride with Stonebreaker and the rest of the men who were going to Big Rock, but he knew he and his companions had an important job to do. They were going to make sure Smoke Jensen wasn’t in town to interfere when Stonebreaker and the others hit the bank.

  “Do you know how many hands are here?” Burke asked.

&nbs
p; Fisk shook his head. “No, but that cowboy Pearlie said they weren’t hirin’. Half a dozen, maybe, given the time of year.”

  “Then we’ll likely be outnumbered.”

  Behind Burke, Crandell snorted. “Half a dozen cowhands aren’t gonna be any match for us, and you know it, Burke. Plus we’ll be takin’ ’em by surprise. They won’t have a chance.”

  “Maybe so, but I want to wait a little while longer,” Burke said.

  “What for, blast it? I say we just ride down there and kill ’em all except the woman.”

  “I like to know as much as I can about an enemy—”

  As if to reinforce what Burke was saying, at that moment a figure stepped out on the front porch of the ranch house. A second later, a clangor rang out as whoever it was banged on an iron triangle to summon the hands to supper. Men began to emerge from the bunkhouse and head toward the main house.

  As the triangle rang, Burke quickly lifted a spyglass to his eye and peered through it. Light spilling through the open door of the house revealed the woman who was banging on the triangle. She was well-shaped, with long dark hair that streamed over her shoulders. Even though Burke couldn’t make the details of her face, he saw enough to make a pang of lust go through him. She had to be Jensen’s wife.

  “Looks like the lady cooks for the hands, and they eat in the house,” Burke said as he lowered the spyglass. “That’s good. That way they’re all in one place.”

  “So there’s no need to wait,” Crandell said.

  Burke closed the spyglass and stuck it back in his saddlebags. “No. No reason at all.”

  It seemed unlikely that anybody could get lonely with these rollicking cowhands around, Sally thought as she watched the men dig into the food she had placed on the table, but she definitely missed Smoke, now that he had been gone for more than a day. Of course, that was nothing new. They had been separated for much longer on numerous occasions in the past. She knew she would be all right until he got back.

  Still, it would have been mighty nice to see his face and hear his laugh.

  When the men were all eating, Sally took her place at the head of the table. Pearlie was to her right, Cal to her left, and the other four hands ranged along the sides of the table. There was a lot of talk and laughter as Pearlie and Cal joshed with each other as usual and the other men joined in. Sally smiled. They were good company.

  The sound of glass shattering made Sally’s head jerk up in shock. A crash followed less than a heartbeat later as someone kicked the door open. Guns began to roar even as the men at the table leaped to their feet and clawed at their weapons.

  Horrified, Sally saw two of the Sugarloaf hands crumple with blood spouting from the wounds where slugs had torn through them. She stood as her hand dove into the pocket of her dress where she kept a small pistol. It wasn’t the first time she had been caught in a gunfight. She knew what to do. She whirled toward the door and brought the .32 up. It cracked wickedly in her hand as she fired at the man who stood there holding a smoking revolver.

  He jerked as Sally’s bullet ripped across the outside of his upper left arm, leaving a painful burn but not doing any significant damage. The gun in his hand blasted again, and another of the cowboys went down. The men at the windows continued to fire, flame lancing from the muzzles of their guns.

  Somebody grabbed Sally and hauled her to the floor. “Stay down!” Pearlie shouted as he loomed over her, gun in hand. He fired toward the intruders, then grunted and went over backward as at least one slug struck him.

  “Pearlie!” Sally cried.

  Cal had his gun out, and snapped a couple shots at the windows as he scrambled toward his fallen friend. “Pearlie! Pearlie! Blast it, it’s me who’s supposed to get—”

  The impact of a bullet twisted him in mid-air and drove him to the floor. Sally screamed.

  All the Sugarloaf men were down. The massacre was complete—almost. Sally still had her gun, and she intended to go down fighting, just as Smoke would have. She lurched to her feet and tried to lift the pistol, only to have a snake-quick little man with pale blue eyes bring his own gun down in a chopping blow that caught her on the wrist. She cried out in pain as the .32 fell from her numb fingers and thudded to the floor.

  The man who had kicked the door open came toward her, scowling. “You shot me, Mrs. Jensen. You are Mrs. Jensen, aren’t you?”

  “Go to hell!” she blazed at him.

  The little man with colorless eyes caught hold of her arm. “No need to talk like that, missy,” he told her with a smirk. “We’re not gonna hurt you—too much. We need you alive.”

  “Shut up,” the wounded man snapped. His mouth was an almost lipless slash across his grim face. “Check on the others. We want one of them alive.”

  All four of the attackers had crowded into the room. One of them, a dark-faced man who looked like he had Indian blood, knelt next to Pearlie. “This one’s still breathing. Got a crease in his side, but it don’t look too bad. He’ll live.”

  “That’s good,” the man with the colorless eyes said. “He’s the foreman.”

  The ’breed rolled Pearlie onto his back and drew a knife, resting the blade on the foreman’s throat hard enough so that a trickle of blood rolled down Pearlie’s tanned neck. Pearlie groaned as his eyes flickered open.

  The wounded man stood over him. “Listen to me. You’re going to take a message to Smoke Jensen for us, understand? Tell Jensen we have his wife, and if he ever wants to see her alive again, he’d better bring five thousand dollars to Hampton Peak by sunup tomorrow morning. Got it?”

  Pearlie started to curse. The man with the knife pressed harder with the blade, increasing the flow of blood from the cut.

  “Pearlie, don’t,” Sally said. “Don’t make them kill you.”

  “But ma’am—” he began in a choked voice.

  “Do what they tell you.” Sally’s chin lifted defiantly as she glared at the man she had wounded. “Didn’t you hear them? They need me alive.”

  “Now you’re being smart.” The man glanced at the fourth raider, an ugly, stocky man. “Any of the others still alive?”

  “This kid’s breathin’,” the outlaw replied, gesturing with his gun at Cal. “The other four are dead as stumps.”

  Sally was grateful to hear that Cal was still alive, even though her heart broke over the deaths of the other hands.

  “You hear that?” the wounded man asked Pearlie. “You either cooperate and deliver that message for us, or my friend here will slit your throat and we’ll get the other survivor to deliver our message.”

  Pearlie blew out his breath. “I’ll carry the word to Smoke. And I’ll ride with him when he comes after you varmints. I want to be there when the whole bunch of you get your lights blowed out for good.”

  The man smiled. It didn’t make his face look any less grim. “You keep on thinking that. See what good it does you.” He nodded to the man who had hold of Sally. “Get her out of here.”

  Her captor dragged her toward the door. The stocky outlaw went out in front of them. He headed for the barn and came back a moment later with a couple horses already saddled. The raiders had readied the mounts before they broke into the house and started shooting.

  “Get on,” the man with the colorless eyes told Sally. She knew she couldn’t fight them, so the best thing to do was to play along for the time being and wait for a chance to take them by surprise. She swung into the saddle, hiking her skirt as she did so. It was no time for false modesty.

  The other two men brought Pearlie out of the house. The half-breed had put away his knife, but he had his gun out. Pearlie was unsteady on his feet, but managed to stumble to the horse they had waiting for him, and climbed into the saddle. He sat hunched over from the pain of the bullet crease in his side.

  “If you know what’s good for your boss’s wife, you’ll head straight to Big Rock,” the leader warned. “Remember, five grand, Hampton Peak, sunup tomorrow.”

  “I got it,” Pearlie mu
mbled. He lifted the reins and heeled the horse into motion. Urging the animal into a run, he pounded off into the shadows, even though the gait caused him pain. Full night had fallen.

  “All right,” the leader went on. “Everybody mount up. We’re getting out of here.”

  Sally said, “You’re fools, you know that, don’t you? You might live to see the sun rise tomorrow morning . . . but you’ll never see it set again.”

  “You let us worry about what we see and don’t see, Mrs. Jensen,” the man advised her. He took the reins of her horse and rode away from the ranch house. The other three followed, closing in around Sally so there was no way she could try to escape.

  Smoke was still several miles away from Sugarloaf’s headquarters when he heard a faint popping sound drifting to him on the evening breeze. He stiffened in the saddle but didn’t slow the ’Paloose. He recognized gunshots when he heard them, and knew they were coming from the direction of his home.

  Cold fear clutched at his belly. He never knew fear for his own sake, but threaten his loved ones or his friends and he experienced it, mixed with a fierce anger. He had still been a young man when Preacher taught him how to control his emotions, rather than letting them control him, and how to use them to his own advantage. He drove himself and the ’Paloose on, covering the ground with swift efficiency. He was on Sugarloaf range and knew every foot of it.

  The shooting was fast and furious but didn’t last long. That wasn’t a good sign, Smoke thought. He couldn’t figure why Oliver Stonebreaker and his gang would raid the ranch—they had no real history as rustlers, although they had stolen a few horses in the past—but Smoke was convinced that’s what was happening. The little outlaw named Fisk had ridden into Big Rock, found out where Sugarloaf was located, and knew Smoke was in town rather than at the ranch. The gang must have thought they would have a free hand for their raid.

  The gunfire meant Smoke hadn’t tumbled to what was going on in time to get there before Stonebreaker and his men attacked. But maybe Pearlie, Cal, and the other hands had been able to hold them off. Maybe the outlaws had abandoned the assault and ridden away.