Maybe one of the others was still alive after all.
As Smoke began checking, the line shack door swung open. A man carrying a rifle stepped out, waved the weapon over his head, and shouted, “Smoke!”
That was his foreman Pearlie, Smoke realized as his heart suddenly thudded harder in his chest. It wasn’t unusual to find Pearlie anywhere on Sugarloaf range, but Smoke had thought he would be down at the ranch headquarters, several miles away and hundreds of feet lower.
Smoke didn’t let that thought distract him from the task at hand. He rode quickly from body to body, looking for one of the attackers still breathing and able to answer questions.
All of them were dead, victims of the accurate shooting by Smoke, Pearlie, and whoever else was in the line shack.
Smoke’s desire to resolve that question made him turn his horse and urge it into a trot toward the primitive structure.
Another man had emerged from the shack, and Smoke wasn’t surprised to recognize young Calvin Woods. Cal and Pearlie were best friends, and most of the time they weren’t going to be very far apart.
A third figure stepped out, shorter than the other two, clad in a flannel shirt and denim trousers and carrying a rifle like Pearlie and Cal. At first glance Smoke figured it was another of the Sugarloaf hands.
Then he realized something was different about the defender. The slender but curved shape, the thick mass of dark hair . . .
“Sally!” The name burst from his lips.
He kicked the horse into a gallop and thundered the rest of the way across the meadow. She ran out to meet him, and as he swung down from the saddle while the horse was still moving, she came into his arms, grabbed him around the neck, and pressed her lips to his in an urgent, passionate kiss.
Smoke wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but finding out could wait. He had his wife in his arms again after weeks of being apart from her, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter 34
After Smoke had ridden off, Matt and Preacher stayed in the clearing for a few minutes, talking about how they were going to proceed.
“I was thinking I might circle around the town and come in from the other direction,” Matt said.
“And I’ll go back down to the road and mosey at it from this side,” Preacher said. “Wouldn’t do to stay too close together. That way if one of us gets nabbed, the other one will still have a chance of gettin’ into town without them fellers knowin’ about it.”
“They’re not going to catch me,” Matt said.
“Well, they sure as hell ain’t gonna catch me,” the old mountain man declared. “I don’t get caught less ’n I want to.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “I’m sneaky that way.”
“We need to figure out somewhere we can rendezvous so we can compare notes and figure out what to do next. Maybe Louis Longmont’s saloon?”
“If those varmints got the whole settlement treed, the saloon and the other businesses may not be open,” Preacher pointed out.
Matt rubbed his chin and frowned. “Yeah, you’re right about that. How about the school? It’s on the edge of town, and those gun-wolves probably won’t be keeping too close an eye on it.”
Preacher nodded. “Reckon that’ll do. Good luck to you, youngster.”
“Same to you, old-timer.”
They rode out of the clearing, headed in different directions.
Preacher went back to the spot where they’d had the shoot-out with the three sentries. He wanted to see if the bodies had been discovered yet.
The dead gunmen still lay where they had fallen. Their horses cropped grass nearby at the edge of the road. From the looks of things, no one had come along since he and Smoke and Matt had ridden off earlier.
That probably wouldn’t hold true for much longer. The men who had taken over the town were bound to have patrols out, as well as posting guards on the roads.
It might be a good idea, Preacher decided, to drag the bodies into the woods, unsaddle the horses, and let them wander off. The dead men would be discovered sooner or later, but it wouldn’t hurt to delay that process.
He had just swung down from the stallion’s back when he heard some odd noises from back up the road, the way he and Smoke and Matt had come. Something was clattering and clanging, as if a bunch of metal objects were bumping against each other.
Tensing, Preacher turned in that direction and dropped his right hand to the butt of the Colt holstered on that side. He closed his fingers around the smooth walnut grips.
A wagon came into view, pulled by a team of four mules. It wasn’t a buckboard or a ranch wagon or an immigrant wagon with a canvas-covered bed. It had a square wooden compartment on its back, and its sides were covered with hooks from which were suspended a variety of pots, pans, silverware, tools, farm implements, and other things Preacher couldn’t identify right off-hand. They swayed back and forth as the wagon rocked, banging together to create the racket he had heard. The noise had a strange sort of musical quality about it.
The man on the seat handling the reins was so fat and round that he bore a distinct resemblance to a ball. His squarish head reminded Preacher of a block of granite with a thatch of white hair on top of it. He wore a brown tweed suit and a darker brown derby was pushed to the back of his head. Rimless spectacles perched on his nose. They were tied to a ribbon looped around a vest button.
A saddle horse was tied to the back of the wagon. Draped over its back and lashed in place was the body of a dead man.
Preacher was so surprised by everything he saw that he hadn’t thought to move into cover.
The fat man didn’t seem threatening, though. He kept the team moving until he was about twenty feet from Preacher, then he hauled back on the reins and brought the wagon to a halt. “I suppose you’re responsible for this carnage, eh?” he said in a rather high-pitched voice that held what sounded like some sort of European accent.
“You mean these fellers?” The old mountain man gestured toward the dead men in the road with his left hand. He kept his right hand on the Colt, just in case. Appearances could be bald-faced liars.
The fat man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “And this one I came across, back up the road a piece.”
Preacher knew the third corpse had to be the gunman who’d been dragged off when his horse stampeded. The fat man must have gotten his foot loose from the stirrup and thrown him over the saddle.
“Shoot, no, I ain’t responsible for them,” Preacher answered. Until he knew who the fat man was and what he was doing there, he wasn’t going to admit anything. “I was just ridin’ along and seen ’em alayin’ here, so I got off my horse to see if there was anything I could do for ’em.”
“Both dead, eh?”
“Dead as they can be,” Preacher confirmed.
The fat man clucked his tongue and shook his head. “Terrible, just terrible. I sometimes wonder if this country out here will ever become civilized.”
“I wonder the same thing,” Preacher said, “but I’m usually hopin’ it won’t. Not too much, anyway. Those of us who seen it back when it was new and wild sort of miss them days.”
A shudder went through the fat man, which made all three of his chins jiggle. “Not me. I’ve seen enough trouble in my time. I came to this country to get away from the tsar’s Cossacks, and what do I find? Men even wilder and more savage! Why, if I could, I’d turn right around and go back to New York!”
Preacher wasn’t sure what the hombre was talking about, so he let that pass. He squinted at all the wares hanging on the wagon. “Peddler, are you?”
“And a tinker as well,” the fat man said. “I can mend or repair just about anything, and I sharpen knives, scissors, axes, anything with an edge. Isaac Herschkowitz is the name.” He turned on the seat and pointed. Sure enough, the name was painted on the front of the wagon, with the legend TRAVELING ENTREPRENEUR underneath it.
“They call me Art.” Preacher hadn’t used his given name in a long time, but an idea had
suddenly popped into the back of his head.
“I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but under the circumstances . . .” Isaac Herschkowitz shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “What are we going to do with these unfortunate gentlemen? We can’t just leave them lying in the road. It wouldn’t be decent!”
“No, I reckon not,” Preacher agreed. “I think there’s a town up yonder a ways. I suppose we could load ’em in your wagon and tote ’em on in to the undertaker.”
“In my wagon?” Herschkowitz shuddered again. “I think not. Those are their horses over there, correct? We can put the bodies on them, the way I did with the other one.”
“Yeah.” Preacher scratched his jaw and frowned as if in thought, although he had already made up his mind what he was going to do. “But hold on there, Ike. I just got to thinkin’ . . . I been lookin’ to go into business for myself, maybe buy an outfit like you’ve got there. How’d you feel about sellin’ it to me, lock, stock, and barrel?”
The fat man’s eyes widened in surprise. “Sell everything to you? Why, I’d like nothing better! As I said, I’ve seen enough of this barbaric country. But forgive me, my friend, you don’t appear to be a man who’s overly flush.”
“Don’t believe everything you see,” Preacher said with a grin. He’d been fairly well-to-do ever since he and Smoke had uncovered that vein of gold many years earlier. For the most part, Preacher didn’t have much use for money other than buying supplies and ammunition for his wanderings, but he generally had a decent amount with him in case he needed it. “I’ll give you, say, three hundred dollars for the lot.”
Herschkowitz’s eyes bulged. “Three hundred dollars.” Most men had to work six months or more to make that kind of money. A wandering peddler like him might not make that much in a year. But doubt appeared on his face, and he frowned. “You expect me to believe that you have three hundred dollars?”
“I ain’t askin’ you to take my word for it. I’m talkin’ about gold double eagles. You can put ’em in your pocket and ride away.”
“On what?”
Preacher nodded toward the grazing horses. “These fellers don’t need those mounts no more. You can take one of ’em, saddle and all. We’ll throw the extra carcass over the back o’ my stallion. Ol’ Horse, he won’t like it none, but he’ll do what I ask of him.”
“This . . . this is an astonishing turn of events!” Herschkowitz said. “You really propose to buy my wagon and my goods?”
“And them mules. Wagon ain’t no good without a team to pull it.”
“Yes, of course, the mules, too. For three hundred dollars.” Herschkowitz sounded like he still couldn’t believe it.
“Feller with that much money in his pocket could ride on back to Denver, buy hisself a train ticket for New York City, and have plenty left over to get set up good once he gets there. What do you say, Ike?”
“You want to trade . . . whatever it is you do . . . for life as an itinerant peddler and tinker?”
“I dang sure do,” Preacher lied.
The fat man spread his hands and shrugged. “Well, who am I to stand in the way of a man’s dreams? I accept your proposition, Arthur.”
Preacher walked over to the wagon and held up his hand. “We’ll shake on it.”
“Indeed we will.” Herschkowitz clasped the old mountain man’s hand.
Preacher took a buckskin pouch from one of his saddlebags and counted out fifteen double eagles. He let them run through his fingers into the palms of Herschkowitz’s outstretched hands.
With the deal concluded, they loaded the two corpses on the horses. As Preacher had predicted, the stallion snorted and gave him a look when they draped the grisly burden over the saddle, but Preacher said, “Settle down there, Horse. You won’t have to put up with it for very long.”
“I have some personal items in the back of the wagon,” Herschkowitz said. “I suppose you’ll allow me to take them with me. I didn’t intend for them to be part of the deal.”
“Sure. I wouldn’t ask a feller to part with his personal belongin’s.” Preacher cocked his head to the side and squinted. “Howsomever, if you was to throw that derby hat in on the deal, I’d admire to have it.”
“My hat?” Herschkowitz took it off and held it between his pudgy fingers. “For the amount you paid me, my friend, I can certainly afford to part with a hat!” He held it out. “Here you go.”
Preacher took off his old, high-crowned hat and clapped the derby on his head. With a grin, he cocked it at a jaunty angle and asked, “How do I look?”
“Positively distinguished!” Herschkowitz said.
Chapter 35
Preacher climbed onto the seat of peddler’s wagon and picked up the reins. He still wore his denim trousers, but he had replaced his buckskin shirt with a gray wool one he used as a spare, although he hardly ever wore it. He had donned a jacket as well, first shaking the dust off it since he hadn’t worn it in a couple years. The derby perched on his head.
His clothes weren’t all that was different. Preacher was clean-shaven. He had used his seldom-employed razor and a mirror hanging on the side of the wagon and scraped the thick silvery bristle from his face. He had taken off his gun belt and stowed it in the back of the wagon, although one of the Colts was tucked in the waistband of his trousers where the jacket concealed it.
None of the changes were major, but taken altogether, they created an effect that would make it difficult for most folks to recognize him as the gun-fighting old mountain man he was. At least, he hoped that was true.
He clucked to the team and flicked the reins against their backs, then slapped the lines a little harder when the stolid mules failed to move. Finally, they got going and pulled against their harness. The wagon lurched into motion. Tied behind it trailed the gray stallion and the other two horses, carrying the dead men.
Preacher chuckled to himself as he wondered what Smoke and Matt would think if they could see him. For that matter, he wondered how some of his old friends from the fur trapping days would react. Audie would no doubt have plenty to say. Nighthawk would just look at him, shake his head, and say, “Ummm.”
It was a crazy idea, and Preacher knew it. As a rule, he didn’t give in to such wild notions . . . but every now and then, a hunch came over him, and he played it.
Although he was confident he could have snuck into Big Rock without getting caught, fate had presented him with a way to ride into town as bold as brass and not have the men who had taken over suspect who he was or why he was there. It was a daring plan. Some of the townspeople might recognize him, despite his effort to change his appearance, and accidentally give away his identity, but if he could carry out the masquerade successfully, it might shorten the time needed to find out what was going on in Big Rock.
As he drove toward the settlement, he considered the story he would tell. He didn’t figure anybody would believe that his name was really Isaac Herschkowitz, so he would tell people that was the name of the wagon’s previous owner. It wouldn’t be a lie for him to say that he had bought the wagon from Herschkowitz. That was exactly what had happened.
The rest of the story also had some elements of truth in it. He would claim that he had come across the horse that had dragged the dead man along the road—which had actually happened to ol’ Isaac—then found the other two dead men as he drove toward town.
The friends of the dead gunnies likely would know that Horse hadn’t belonged to any of them, but that couldn’t be helped. Preacher hadn’t been willing to part with the stallion, even though it might have helped his plan succeed if he had let Herschkowitz ride off on the stallion.
He would just have to plead ignorance on the matter of the horses. Nobody would be able to prove otherwise.
Of course, all of it depended on the invaders not shooting him as soon as they laid eyes on him. If they tried that, they would get a surprise. Preacher had six rounds in the Colt he carried, and he would make them all count.
But maybe it wouldn’
t come to that, he told himself. He looked like a harmless old man. Surely nobody would try to shoot him.
He came in sight of the town without encountering anybody else. As he kept the team moving, he surveyed what he could see of Big Rock. The settlement looked almost deserted. A few people were moving around, but not nearly as many as would have been on a normal day.
As he reached the edge of town and started along the main street, several men strolled out of a saloon. The moving wagon and the jangling noise it made had drawn their attention, and they turned sharply toward it.
One of them exclaimed, “Hey! Who the hell’s that?”
Preacher couldn’t hear what the other men responded, but their reaction was swift enough. They leaped down from the boardwalk in front of the saloon, ran to the hitch rack, threw themselves into saddles, and thundered toward the wagon, drawing their guns as they charged.
Chapter 36
Matt didn’t know the area around Big Rock as well as Smoke did, but he had been there often enough that he was confident he could find his way around to the other side of the settlement.
He avoided trails and struck out cross-country, figuring he’d be less likely to run into any patrols that way. As he rode, he wondered who would be foolish enough to come with armed men and try to take over. According to what Preacher had heard, it sounded like they were after Smoke. Was “the major” an old enemy or somebody new?
And what about “the doctor”? What would a sawbones want with Smoke?
It didn’t make sense to Matt . . . but that was why he was on his way into town, he reminded himself. It was his job to find out what was going on.
Sure he had circled completely around Big Rock, he turned his horse and headed for the settlement. He hadn’t seen anyone, hostile or otherwise, and he hoped that luck held.
He rolled his shoulders and shifted in the saddle. Actually, an odd feeling hung over that whole part of the state. It was like everybody was hunkered down holding their breath, just waiting for something bad to happen.
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