“You’re gonna shoot me in the back, ain’t you?” Pickett asked.
“My conscience might bother me, so I’m gonna let you turn around and reach for that Colt. I’ll give you plenty of time.”
“You’re lyin’,” Pickett replied. “You’ll kill me soon as I move”
Jensen nodded. “I’m gonna kill you either way, but if you want a chance to see how good you are with that six-gun, make a move for it. But do it quick, or I’ll just kill you now an’ be on my way. That shotgun blast is liable to bring Evans and his men any minute.”
Pickett felt he had no selection. He dropped Betsy to the ground and made a slow, deliberate turn, expecting Jensen to draw a pistol before he could square himself. To his surprise, Jensen remained motionless until Pickett had his feet spread slighdy apart and his right hand hovering above his Peacemaker.
“Reach for it,” Jensen said, as calm as could be.
Pickett didn’t wait for a second invitation. His hand went clawing for his gun.
There was a flash of gun metal in sunlight, then a booming noise.
Thirty-nine
Jessie and Billy Morton were the first to scramble aboard their horses when they heard gunshots, with the others mounting right behind them.
“That was Pickett’s shotgun!” Jessie cried, spurring his horse to cover the half mile down to the river crossing as rapidly as he could. “Pickett got the son of a bitch!”
Billy galloped up beside him. “I ain’t gonna believe it till I see it!” he shouted back over the clatter of iron horseshoes on rock.
Jessie drew his pistol, just in case, and as if it were a signal, every member of his gang was fisting guns. Riding as hard as they could, they covered the distance in only a few minutes, until Jessie reined to a halt on a knob above the river.
“Yonder he is,” Jessie said, as soon as the others came to a stop alongside him. “Pickett wrapped his body in a blanket so’s we can bury him.”
Billy kept looking up and down the river. “Where the hell is Pickett? I don’t see him nowhere.”
Jose Vasquez pointed to a distant horseman on a ridge on the far side of the crossing. The figure appeared to be watching them.
“Quien es? Who is that?” Vasquez asked.
“Probably just one of Jensen’s boys,” Jessie answered. “I’m ridin’ down to have a look. You can see Jensen’s dead from here, ’cause he ain’t moving, all wrapped up in that blanket like he is.”
Tom said, “I ain’t all that convinced it’s Jensen.”
Jessie ignored the remark and rode his horse off the knob to reach the river. But as he got closer, he felt something was wrong. He heard the others following him, but at a slower gait.
He rode up to the blanket-clad body and jumped down, in a hurry to set eyes on Jensen’s corpse. He knelt and pulled back the dark blue blanket, riddled with pellet holes, and what he saw made him draw in a quick breath.
“It’s Pickett,” Billy Morton observed without leaving the back of his horse.
Jessie’s hand, the one holding the blanket, began to shake. He dropped the woolen cloth quickly and stood up, gazing at the mounted figure far across the river. “That is Jensen,” he said with a dry mouth.
“He’s prob’ly laughin’ at us,” Tom said. “One thing’s for damn sure—he’s gotta be the toughest hombre I ever ran across, an’ if Bill Pickett was still alive, he’d be sayin’ the same damn thing. You can count me out of this, Jessie. I’m pulling stakes while I still can.”
“That goes fer me too,” Billy said, looking up at the man watching them from the ridge. “I knowed when he killed twelve of us back in that draw there was somethin’ about him that damn near wasn’t human. If you’re smart, Jessie, you’ll let that feller go wherever the hell he aims to go with his cows.”
Jessie whirled to Jose Vasquez. “How ’bout you, Jose?”
“I see enough,” Vasquez replied. “This man be muy malo, one bad hombre. Maybeso he is no man, un espiritu. He kill three of my cousins, also many of mi compadres. I don’t want no more to have fight with him. We going back to Mexico.”
When Jessie looked at Pedro, Pedro shrugged.
“Is no good, Senor Jessie. We no can kill him. He kill Ignacio and Roy and now he kill Senor Pickett. He make killing look easy. He kill us also if we don’t leave him alone.”
Jessie turned back to Jensen, scowling. “Mr. Dolan ain’t gonna like it when I tell him.”
Tom spoke. “Tell Dolan to try an’ kill him hisself. He’ll find out damn quick it ain’t easy done.”
Jessie’s jaw clamped angrily. “I wonder who he really is. I can guarantee you he ain’t just some cattle rancher from up north.”
“No lo hase, ”Vasquez said. “It make no difference to me. I only know one thing about him—he don’t get no more chances to kill me or mi compadres. We go home now.”
Billy rested his elbow on his saddle horn. “That don’t leave nobody but you, Jessie. We’ve knowed each other a long time, an’ I’m givin’ you good advice. Leave that Jensen feller plumb alone or you’ll wind up like Pickett an’ Cooper an’ all the rest.”
“He’s just sittin’ there watchin’ us,”Jessie said, with his gaze still fixed on the ridge.
“He’s waitin’ to see what we’ll do, I reckon,” Tom said. “If we act like we’re comin’ after him, he won’t be sittin’ there in plain sight very long.”
Jessie’s hands unconsciously balled into fists, then they relaxed.
“C’mon, Jessie,” Billy said quietly. “Let’s git the hell outa here afore Jensen changes his mind.”
“It ain’t my nature to run,” Jessie replied, still frozen to the same spot above Pickett’s corpse.
“It’s any man’s nature to wanna stay alive,” Tom suggested. “We got no quarrel with Jensen.”
Jose Vasquez was done talking. He gave a silent signal to his men and reined away from the river, riding off in a cloud of dust swirling in the breeze. Pedro and his two remaining men were not long in following Vasquez, swinging their mounts around after the other pistoleros.
Jessie’s shoulders sagged. He finally took his eyes off Jensen to look at Billy and Tom. “We can’t tell Dolan what really happened, boys. It’ll make us look like fools.”
Billy wagged his head. “The only way we’d look like bigger fools is to stay an’ tangle with Jensen again. We can tell Dolan a bunch of Chisum’s riders showed up, leavin’ us outnumbered. If you agree to leave this Jensen alone, I’ll stay on with Dolan’s outfit Otherwise, I’m cuttin’ a trail for parts unknown.”
“Same goes fer me,” Tom said, as Jessie finally mounted his horse.
Jessie gave Smoke Jensen a final stare, then without a word he wheeled his horse around to head back to Lincoln. It damn sure wasn’t going to be easy giving Dolan the bad news, and it could cost him a good-paying job as Dolan’s ramrod.
Forty
Approaching the lush green mountains and meadows south of Sugarloaf range brightened everyone’s mood. The cattle were fat and had proven to be trail-worthy, even the short-strided Hereford bulls. It had been two weeks since the last confrontation with Jessie Evans and his paid guns, a peaceful two weeks of guiding cows across good grazing and plenty of water.
Smoke had all but forgotten about the battles with Dolan’s gunslingers, until they neared Sugarloaf. He’d have to come clean with Sally about what he’d done, the men he killed, and he feared making the admission more than he’d ever feared the risks when bullets were flying.
“She’ll throw a fit,” he said one clear, crisp spring morning less than a dozen miles below Sugarloaf.
“You’re talkin’ about Miz Jensen, ain’tyou?” Pearlie asked with a grin, “I understand. I’d rather face the Shoshoni tribe on the warpath than Miz Jensen when she’s got her feathers ruffled.”
“I’ll make her understand,” Smoke said without conviction, “even though she’ll keep reminding me of my promise to stay wide of difficulties.”
“
We tried to avoid ’em,” Pearlie remembered.
“They was just too damn hardheaded, an’ wouldn’t leave us alone.”
Cal came riding up as the herd wound its way through a valley leading to Bob Williams’s ranch. “We’re home,” Cal said with unconcealed excitement. “Means we’ll be havin’ some of Miz Sally’s good cookin’ afore too long.”
Pearlie made a face. “I see your appetite has done returned to its usual.”
“I’m sick of beans an’ fatback. A big bearclaw drippin’ with melted brown sugar sure would be nice. Maybe two or three of ’em.”
Smoke was hoping all had remained quiet at the ranch while they were away. “Before she cooks up a bunch of bearclaws, I’m afraid she’s gonna fix me a dish of my own words, when I tell about all the troubles we had.”
“You hadn’t oughta promised her nothin’,” Pearlie said. “I reckon she knows you well enough to know such a thing just wasn’t possible.”
“She’ll have her say-so about it,” Smoke said, with all the assurance of experience.
“It’ll soften her some when she sees them good bulls,” Cal remarked. “That little one with the hole in his chest is doin’just fine. He don’t hardly notice it now.”
Pearlie spoke again. “Me, I’m lookin’ forward to sleepin’ in my own bed, ’stead of this hard ground. It’s damn sure gonna be good to be back home fer a change.”
Smoke looked back at the herd. Some of the Hereford bulls had already mounted heifers coming in season during rest stops. “Next spring we’ll have pastures full of white-faced crossbred calves. And I’m gonna wire that feller Chisum told me about down in Saint Louis, and have him ship me a good Morgan stud by rail this summer.”
“Sounds like you’ve got things all planned out,” Pearlie said. “Maybe things will settle down now. We’ve burned a hell of a lot of gunpowder lately.”
“For a fact,” Cal added quietly. “I still dream about them two fellers I killed, the Indian an’ that pistolero.”
“It’ll pass, young ’un,” Pearlie assured him. “Besides that, if you didn’t spend so damn much time sleepin’, you wouldn’t have time to do all that dreamin’.”
Bob Williams and Duke Smith rode up when they came to a fork in the valley leading to Smoke’s ranch. “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Jensen, me an’ Duke will take a couple of those bulls, an’ head for home. I’ll bring the purchase money over in a few days, if that’s okay.”
“You’re a neighbor and a friend, Bob. Pay for ’em whenever you get ready.”
Bob extended a handshake offering. “Thanks again for takin’ us along.”
Smoke nodded. “As it turned out, we might not have made it if it hadn’t been for the two of you helpin’ out with your guns once in a while.”
Bob grinned. “Always glad to help a neighbor,” he said as he swung off to pick out two bulls.
As soon as Bob was out of earshot, Pearlie said, “Hell-fire, I never saw Bob or Duke hit nothin’ whilst we was shootin’. Bob couldn’t hardly hit the side of a barn with a rifle.”
“They did the best they could,” Smoke replied, not really caring either way. Marksmanship was a low priority when it came to picking good neighbors.
He saw Sally waiting on the front porch as they drove the herd up to the corrals. She smiled a beautiful smile and waved to him.
“Best you put yer lyin’ britches on afore you tell her about this trip,” Pearlie said, stifling a chuckle.
“I won’t lie to her,” Smoke replied. “She’d know right off I wasn’t telling the truth anyway.”
“You can tell her part of the truth. Say we ran into a bit of trouble but it didn’t amount to nothin’.”
“She’d know,” Smoke told him.
Now Pearlie laughed out loud. “Miz Jensen is the only two-legged thing on earth Mr. Smoke Jensen is afraid of.”
“That’s about the size of it, Pearlie. I wouldn’t do anything that might cause me to lose her.”
He kicked the Palouse colt toward the house while the others pushed the cattle toward the corrals. When he got to the front porch, he swung down and took her in his arms.
“I’ve missed you,” he said, kissing her lips. “Have things gone smoothly here?”
“No problems,” she told him, smiling. Then her face changed to a serious look, “But I can tell you had a few problems. I can see it in your eyes, and the fact that Johnny’s wearing that bandage around his leg.”
“There was some shooting,” he told her. “I had to discourage some hard cases who didn’t want us to get these cows to Sugarloaf.”
“You can tell me about it later,” she said. “Right now I want to see those Herefords up close.”
“I’d rather see you up close for a while,” he replied.
She gave him a taunting turn of her head. “That will come later, Smoke, if you behave yourself until the sun goes down.”
“I may not be able to wait that long.”
“Then find yourself another woman. I’m not that easy, to just take my clothes off when a man comes riding up to ask.”
“Even if he’s your husband?”
“I’d forgotten I had a husband, you’ve been away so long.”
“I got back as quick as I could.”
He held her in a powerful embrace, something he’d been thinking about for several long days on the trail. “You always win arguments, don’t you?” he asked.
“We are not arguing. I won’t let you take me to bed until I see those Herefords. End of discussion.”
“I suppose I should have looked for another woman on the trail.”
“Suit yourself, Mr. Jensen. But you won’t find another woman who loves you the way I do, and you’ll never find a woman who’s any better in bed.”
He looked down at her in mock surprise. “You’ve got a very high opinion of yourself, young lady.”
“I’ve earned it, for putting up with you. Now, show me the new bulls or you may wind up sleeping in the barn tonight.”
He let go of her and took her by the arm. “They’re just what you said they were. Beefy, and I’ve seen Chisum’s crosses on longhorns. They’ll be perfect for the markets.”
She squeezed his hand as they walked side by side down to the corrals, where Pearlie and Johnny and Cal were driving the Herefords into a separate pen.
She looked at the bulls a moment before she said anything.
“Those bulls are the future of this ranch,” she said. “I’ve never seen so much meat on one animal before.”
“Some of them have already bred some of the heifers on the drive up here.”
She looked up at him with a twinkle in her eyes. “I’m sure there’s much more to tell me about the drive,” she said.
“A few minor details,” he admitted.
“Like the gun battles you got into, and how many men you had to kill to get them here?” she asked.
“I did have to shoot a couple, maybe more than one or two, but I didn’t have a choice.”
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “It seems you never have a choice when there’s a fight,” she told him. “I do wish you’d learn to turn your back on them.”
“Somebody might have shot me in the back if I’d done that,” he argued feebly, knowing he would have to tell her everything. It was because he loved her so deeply that he couldn’t hide the truth from her.
“You can tell me all about it after supper, Smoke. I’ll do my best to understand. There’s something inside you that won’t let you avoid taking a side in things, and I suppose that’s also one of the reasons why I love you. Some men would ride right past a one-sided fight. I’ve come to know you well enough to know you never would.” She examined the young bulls again, then she said, “Just remember, one fight you’ll never win is a fight with me.”
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