“Only one way to find out,” Jensen replied. “Reach for that iron you’re carryin’ and we’ll decide this here and now.”
Now Ignacio grinned. “You are a fool, senor. Un idiota. You do not know who I am.”
“I don’t give a damn who you are. Just go for your gun and it won’t matter about the name.”
Ignacio noticed an odd, icy feeling in the pit of his stomach. “I am Ignacio Valdez,” he said, “the man who will put you in your grave.”
“I’ve already invited you to try it,” Jensen said. “Any time you’re ready.”
“You are indeed one loco hombre, Senor Jensen, You are too stupid to be afraid.”
“What’s there to be afraid of? Some Mexican pistolero who calls himself Ignacio Valdez?”
“Are you not afraid of dying, serior?”
“It ain’t been proven yet I’m the one who’s gonna die when we go for our guns. It could work out another way.”
Ignacio stared into the eyes of the stranger to these parts, and he wondered about him. His stare was unwavering, and he was so sure of himself.
Ignacio’s hand dipped for his pistol. His fingers closed around his gun grips. As he was pulling the heavy .44/.40 from its holster, he saw a sight that made his blood run cold.
Jensen came up with a gleaming Colt .44 in his right hand so quickly it did not seem possible, and for an instant Ignacio was looking down its,barrel, a dark round hole the size of his little finger. No man could be so fast, he thought as his own fist came up filled with iron.
The dark muzzle of Jensen’s gun shot forth a beacon of white light that was accompanied by a loud banging noise. Ignacio’s finger curled around the gun’s trigger, tightening, when it felt like he’d been struck in the ribs by a hammer blow.
The force of the impact drove him backward a half step at the same moment he triggered off a shot into the ground near his boots. He glanced down, seeing tiny tufts of lint arise from a puckering hole in his shirtfront. A trickle of blood came from the hole… Ignacio’s blood. His ears were ringing from the pair of gunshots.
“Madre!” he cried, trying to keep his feet under him when it seemed the earth was tilting at odd angles.
“You were too slow,” a voice said in front of him. “I gave you the first pull.”
Ignacio sank to his knees, his mind reeling. He barely noticed when his pistol fell from his hand. How could this have happened, he wondered. How could Jensen be faster than Emiliano Zambrano, the fastest gun in all of northern Mexico?
“Bastardo,” Ignacio spat angrily, waves of pain spreading across his chest. He looked up at Jensen, and he found the man smiling again.
“It’s all in the wrist,” Jensen explained, as if he were talking about the proper way to shoe a horse.
“Your wrist was too stiff. You gotta learn to bend it some, only I don’t figure you’ll have the time now.”
Ignacio saw himself as a small boy playing beside a creek in Torreon, a creek very similar to this one. He had skipped rocks there as a child. He knew his mind was wandering.
“Adios, Valdez,” Jensen said. “That slug caught you in a bad place. You’re bleedin’ like a stuck hog at butcherin’ time right now. I don’t figure you’ll last long.”
“Bastardo,” he said again, reaching for his wound with both hands to stem the flow of blood.
“I’d take offense to you callin’ me a bastard,” Jensen said, “if you wasn’t already dyin’.”
Ignacio’s vision blurred. He rocked forward on his knees and fell on his face, wondering if Jessie Evans had any idea how fast this Jensen was with a handgun… faster than any gunman Ignacio had ever seen… much faster than Emiliano Zambrano,
Thirty
Two cowboys came galloping over the hilltop, their horses at full speed under the punishment of spurs, pistols drawn as they rode for the creek bank where Smoke stood over the body of the Mexican. Pearlie and Duke slowed their mounts when they could see the trouble was over. Both men pulled their horses to a halt a few yards from the stream.
“We heard shootin’!” Pearlie declared, glancing down at the body. “Don’t need no crystal ball to know that’s one of Jessie Evans’s men.”
Smoke holstered his gun. “Said his name was Ignacio Valdez, an’ that name should mean somethin’.”
Pearlie wagged his head and put his pistol away. “Means it’s gonna be hard to spell fer some undertaker when he puts it on his tombstone.” He gave Smoke a weak grin. “I figure it’s gonna be like this plumb to the Colorado border. I knowed we couldn’t just drive them cows peaceful all the way to Sugarloaf the way Cletus was hopin’ we could. I told Cletus last night to make damn sure his guns was loaded.”
Duke was last to rid his hand of a gun. “We heard two shots real close together.”
Smoke looked over his shoulder at Valdez. “He damn near shot himself in the foot just a moment ago. Had his pistol in the cocked position when he drew it, I’ve known a few gents who did without a toe or two the rest of their lives on account of that same bad habit.”
Duke chuckled. “I’ve never claimed to be much of a gunnie, but it don’t appear Mr. Valdez was much of one either.”
Smoke turned to collect his horse. “He was fast by most men’s standards, I suppose. He just wasn’t quite fast enough.”
Pearlie frowned. “That hired gun of Chisum’s, the one they call Buck, said to watch out fer a feller ridin’ with Evans by the name of Bill Pickett. An older feller, Buck said. Pickett is rattlesnake mean, accordin’ to Buck, an’ quicker’n greased lightnin’ with a pistol, only Buck claimed Pickett prefers usin’ a sawed-off shotgun.”
Nothing Pearlie said caused Smoke any worry as he mounted his bay Palouse colt. “A man with a sawed-off shotgun has to be mighty close to a target, Pearlie. Could mean his eyesight is a little on the bad side. If he crosses the road we’re takin’ to Big Rock, I’ll buy him a pair of spectacles so they can bury him with ’em on.”
Duke pointed to the body of Ignacio Valdez. “What you want us to do with that corpse, Mr. Jensen?” he asked.
“Not a damn thing. Let the buzzards and coyotes have a meal out of him. Scout around and find his horse. It won’t be far, an’ I’d hate to leave an animal tied up till it starves to death or breaks its reins. When Valdez don’t show up wherever Evans is waitin’ for him, he’ll come looking for him. And us. We can be sure of more gunplay sooner or later. Evans will likely bring this Pickett and anybody else he can hire. Like it or not, we’ve gotten ourselves into the middle of the Lincoln County War, just because we bought a herd of cattle from John Chisum.”
“I figured all along we’d have to shoot our way out of here,” Pearlie said, wheeling his horse away from the stream and the body. He spoke to Duke. “Look fer that horse whilst I git back to the herd. Ain’t nobody ridin’ point now an’ they’s sure liable to wander.” Then he noticed Smoke was looking off to the west.
“What’s wrong, boss?” Pearlie asked, when he saw a dark look cross Smoke’s face.
“I’m thinkin’,” Smoke replied.
“Thinkin’ ’bout what? If you don’t take no offense from me by askin’.”
Until right at that moment the attempted ambush by Ignacio Valdez hadn’t bothered him. But something changed inside his head in sudden fashion. “Thinkin’ about riding back to Lincoln right now to settle this once an’ for all, so the rest of you don’t have to duck lead all the way out of the territory. I can ask where to find Jimmy Dolan and look him up. I could warn him that if he sends one more gunman after this herd or any of my men, I’ll kill him. The more I think about it, the better that notion sounds.”
“It could be real dangerous,” Pearlie said.
Smoke’s mind was made up. A warning was what Jimmy Dolan needed. “You men keep pushing our herd north. Take your time, and don’t ride into any tight spots where a bushwhacker could take a shot at you. I’ll be back tomorrow. It’s time Mr. Dolan found out a thing or two about our intentions.”
Pearlie sounded worried. “What’ll we do if you don’t come back?
“Keep driving our cows toward Sugarloaf,” was all he said as he heeled his horse to a gallop.
The Murphy and Dolan General store sat across from the courthouse in Lincoln. By pushing his horse harder than he wanted to, Smoke arrived in front of the store just before closing time, at five o’clock. When he swung down from the saddle, bone-weary after so many hours of riding, trying to make Lincoln before dark, his legs were stiff.
Smoke entered the store in full stride, walking over to a clerk in a badly stained apron.
“Where’s Jimmy Dolan?” he demanded, staring down at the store clerk’s face.
“In the back, tallyin’ up the day’s receipts, only he don’t want to be disturbed right now.”
Smoke saw a door at the back of the building. “He’s gonna make an exception this time,” he said, stalking away from the glass-topped counter with his mouth set in a grim line.
He didn’t bother to knock, swinging a thin plank door inward as he walked into a small office. A man in shirtsleeves, with a distinctively pallid complexion, glanced up from a ledger book.
“I didn’t hear you knock, mister,” the man snapped, making no effort to disguise his anger.
“That’s because I didn’t,” Smoke said, stepping over to the desk where Dolan sat before he drew one pistol with his right hand, leveling it only a few inches from Dolan’s forehead. “I’m gonna give you some advice, Doian,” he said, glaring down at the store owner. He thumbed back the hammer on his .44. “My name is Jensen, Smoke Jensen. I bought a herd of cows from John Chisum and I’m takin’ ’em back to Colorado Territory. Only I’m havin’ this problem with a fool named Jessie Evans, He keeps tryin’ to kill me and my cowboys. I’ve been told Evans works for you in this range war you’re having in Lincoln County. I don’t give a damn about your war, or who you rustle cattle from, or anything else. I want you to send Evans a message tonight.”
“You’re a brazen man,” Dolan said, looking up at the muzzle of Smoke’s gun. “I’ll have you arrested for threatening me unless you put that gun away and get out of here immediately.”
“You don’t understand,” Smoke snarled. “You weren’t listening to me. Call off this Evans and your gunslingers right now, or so help me I’ll come back and kill you.”
“That’s strong talk, Jensen.”
Smoke leaned a little closer to Dolan’s face. “It ain’t just talk, you dumb son of a bitch. I’ve already killed eleven of your hired guns. I’ll kill every last one of ’em, including you, if anybody messes with me or my cowboys or my cattle again. I want you to understand, Dolan. The next son of a bitch who takes a shot at me is gonna start a game between us, a deadly game where you wind up bein’ the first to die. I’ll blow a goddamn tunnel through your head big enough to toss a tomcat through, and that’ll be just the start. I’ll hunt down Evans an’ every last one of his gunnies, and I’ll put ’em all in shallow graves.”
Dolan blinked. “One man wouldn’t stand a chance of doing what you claim to be able to do.”
“Just try me, creep. You can count on one thing bein’ for absolute certain. I’m gonna kill you first if a shot gets fired at me or my friends. You won’t be around to know if I can make good on the rest of my promise.”
“You’re crazy,” Dolan whispered,
Smoke wagged his head. “I’m just pissed-off. I’m tired of bein’ shot at. Tired of having to look over my shoulder to see if any more of your backshooters are behind me. I’m a rancher up in Colorado, but I’m also a real bad enemy to have if you don’t pay any attention to what I’m tellin’ you.”
“I’ll go to Sheriff Pat Garrett over in with this,” Dolan said.
“I hope you do,” Smoke hissed, barely able to control his rage over Dolan’s arrogance. “I’ll tell him how your boys came gunning for us at Chisum’s the other night, and how I killed six of the yellow bastards while they were shootin’ at the ranch in the dark. Then I’ll tell him how the big-talkin’ Mexican by the name of Ignacio Valdez tried to ambush me earlier today, only I killed him too, an’ it was easy. Notify this sheriff if you want, Dolan. But remember what I said… if just one more bullet comes at us, you’ll be as dead as Valdez an’ all the rest of your gunslicks.”
Dolan swallowed now, and Smoke saw the first hint of fear in his eyes. His message delivered, Smoke wheeled and walked out of the office.
“You may regret this,” Dolan warned as Smoke was leaving the store.
Smoke paused in the doorway. “I doubt it. You’ll be the one to regret your actions if you ain’t been listening to what I said.”
“One man can’t be all that good, that tough.”
Smoke smiled a humorless smile. “One way to find out. Send Evans and some of his men gunning for me.”
“I may just do that,” Dolan retorted, sounding like some of his nerve had returned.
Smoke kept smiling. “I’ll enjoy it, if you do. It’s been a long time since I killed more than a handful of men at one time. But I’ll enjoy killin’ you more than any of ’em, Dolan, because you’re a yellow son of a bitch who has to pay to get his dirty work done. Send your boys after me, if you’ve got the guts for it. But if you do, I’d check on the price of a good casket right after that, and a cemetery plot, ’cause you’re gonna need ’em both. And you’ll have to hire somebody to dig the hole ahead of time. You won’t be alive to attend to your final arrangements.”
He slammed the door and mounted his Palouse as the sun was setting on Lincoln. Dolan could have it any way he wanted now, after being warned of the consequences.
Thirty-one
Cal and Pearlie and Johnny were saddling fresh horses at a stream the next afternoon as Smoke returned from Lincoln. Smoke could see the cow herd grazing along peacefully, and that all was well. He waved as he rode up to the creek, just in time to see Cal pull his saddle cinch and step aboard the back of a gray colt they’d brought along to season it to cow work. Smoke’s experienced eye saw the hump in the three-year-old colt’s back which Cal had apparently overlooked. Before Cal could get his leg over the cantle of his saddle, the gray downed its head and began to buck.
Cal was dislodged from his saddle during the first unexpected jump… He went sailing over the colt’s head as if he’d sprouted wings. Arms and legs wind-milling, Cal was propelled into the air, suspended above the stream for a moment before he fell headfirst into the water, sending up a shower of spray.
Pearlie was the first to burst out laughing, just as Cal came sputtering to the surface. Smoke chuckled, knowing it was a lesson Cal needed, to watch for a slight rise in a horse’s back before he mounted, a warning that the animal intended to buck as soon as it felt a man’s weight.
“What happened?” Cal cried, scrambling to his feet in the shallow water without his hat, blinking to clear his vision. His hat floated slowly downstream, unnoticed for now.
“You got your young ass bucked off,” Pearlie replied as he held his belly between fits of laughter. “You looked fer all the world like you was tryin’ to fly, young ’un, up there with them sparrows an’ blue jays. When I seen you way up yonder, I thought I’d just laid eyes on the ugliest buzzard on this earth!” He broke into another series of hee-haws, clutching his ribs.
“It ain’t all that funny,” Cal mumbled, staggering across slippery stones in the stream bottom to retrieve his Stetson before it floated away. “I just wasn’t ready, is all it was. That gray’s got a mean streak in him.”
Johnny North was grinning. “Wasn’t that gray’s fault, Cal. You shoulda noticed that hump in his back.”
“Wasn’t no hump there,” Cal insisted, shaking water from his hat, his young cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “It was that damn colt’s nasty disposition, is what it was.” Cal stumbled out of the creek, his boots full of water, unable to look directly at Smoke or Pearlie for the moment, so deep was his humiliation over being thrown.
“Hell, young ’un, you wa
s needin’ a bath anyways,” Pearlie said, again breaking into a guffaw or two. “If I’d had a bar of lye soap, I’d have tossed it up in the air whilst you was testin’ your wings. That way, you coulda scrubbed clean soon as you landed. You done one of the prettiest dives I ever saw in my life just now. Damn near a perfect landin’.”
As Pearlie started laughing again, Smoke swung down from the saddle, exhausted by a long night ride to reach the herd as soon as he could, resting his Palouse more often on the return trip to spare it any bog spavins or other lameness. “It was a right pretty landing, son,” he said to Cal, knowing how the boy must feel with an audience for his mistake.
Pearlie fell quiet all of a sudden. He looked at Smoke for a time. “How did things go in Lincoln?” he asked. “Did you have to shoot Jimmy Dolan? Or was he ready to listen?”
Smoke loosened the cinch on his tired colt, “He didn’t pay all that much attention. I warned him what would happen if one more shot got fired at us. He figures I’m bluffing.”
“Then he don’t know you at all,” Pearlie said, serious now. “If he knowed anythin’ about Smoke Jensen, he’d know you don’t never run no bluff on nobody.”
“I’m expectin’ more trouble,” Smoke told Pearle. “Dolan is the type who thinks his money will get him everything he’s after. He talks big.”
“How come you didn’t kill him?” Pearlie asked, “Or slap him plumb silly with the barrel of a gun?”
“I’m giving him a chance to think it over. It was probably a waste of time talking to him, telling him what I’d do if Evans and his boys come back. I’m betting they will.”
Pearlie shook his head, glancing over to Cal as the boy was pulling off his boots to drain the water out. “Won’t be much sleepin’ fer this crew from now on,” he said. “I can damn near feel it comin’ in my bones, like when a blue norther is headed our way.”
Smoke cast a lingering look at the herd before he spoke again. “I’m of the opinion your bones are telling you the truth this time, Pearlie,” he said, leading his Palouse colt away from the creek to saddle a fresh horse.
Battle of the Mountain Man Page 16
