“Even if you are Matt Jensen like you say you are, I don’t think you’re good enough to take both of us,” Toone continued.
“You might be right. It could be that I’ll just get one of you, but I’m not going to tell you which one I’ll kill first. I’ll just let the two of you think about that,” Matt said with an easy smile.
“What are you buttin’ into this for anyway? This here is just between Sanders ’n me.”
“You mean because he called you a horse thief?”
Toone didn’t reply.
“Well now, you see, that’s why I want to talk with him for a few minutes. Apparently someone is stealing horses from the Spur and Latigo Ranch, and that’s why I’ve come here to offer my help. If you and Greene are the ones doing the rustling, then why not settle it right here, right now? Go ahead, draw your pistols and let’s get this over with. It may be that killing you two might just take care of everything.”
Toone began nervously licking his lips.
“I . . . I ain’t a-goin’ to draw agin you,” Greene said. “This here’s between you and Toone.”
“Oh, I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. Let me explain it to you,” Matt said. “You see, even if just one of you draws, I’ll kill both of you anyway.”
“Y-You’ll what?” Greene’s voice was so choked with fear that he was barely able to speak. “Toone, h-he says he’s goin’ to kill us both.”
“Yes, I will if either one of you draw. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Nobody needs to be killed. You want a fight, and Mr. Sanders here has shown a willingness to oblige you. To tell the truth, I’d like to see a good fight. Mr. Sanders, do you really want to take them both on?”
Sanders smiled. “Yeah. Yeah, I would like that a lot.”
“All right. I’ll just arrange it for you. Toone, Greene, both of you drop your gun belts.”
“What? You’re crazy! I’m not going to drop my gun belt!” Toone declared. In what he thought might be an act of defiance, he reached for a glass that sat on the bar.
Matt made a lightning draw and shot, the bullet shattering the glass when Toone’s hand was less than one inch away. With a little cry of alarm, Toone drew his hand away.
“Like I said, drop your holsters,” Matt repeated.
With shaking hands, first Toone, then Greene unbuckled their gun belts and let them fall to the floor.
“All right. There are two of you against one,” Matt said. “Let’s see how you do against my new friend.”
Toone and Greene looked at each other. Then, with a nod and a yell, they rushed toward Sanders. Toone got there first, and Sanders took him down with a crushing right cross. He set up Greene with a left jab, then took him down with a right.
Though neither man had been knocked out, both remained cowering on the floor.
“Mr. Sanders, would you bring their pistols to me, please?” Matt asked.
The big cowboy, keeping an eye on the two men with whom he had just scuffled, pulled the pistols from the holsters, then took them over to Matt.
Matt emptied both guns of their bullets, then laid them on the bar. “You can have them back when you leave.”
“Let’s go, Toone,” Greene said.
“You had better listen to your friend, Mr. Toone,” Matt said. “He’s giving you good advice.”
“This ain’t over, Sanders,” Toone said, pointing at the cowboy. “This here feller, whoever he is, ain’t goin’ to be around forever. ’N one of these days it’ll just be me ’n you.”
“What makes you think you’ll be alive long enough to ever encounter Mr. Sanders again?” Matt asked.
Toone took several deep breaths. Then retrieving his empty pistol from the bar, he started toward the door with Greene trailing close behind.
After the two were gone, the bartender slid Matt’s money back across the bar to him. “Mister, here’s your money back. My name is Cheatum, Lonnie Cheatum. I not only tend bar here, I own the place. And watchin’ that was well worth the price of the drinks for you and Sanders.”
“Hear! Hear!” said one of the other patrons, and the quiet was broken by excited and boisterous conversation.
“Mr. Sanders, I wonder if you would be so kind as to take me out to the ranch and introduce me to Mr. Conway.”
“You mean you’ve come here to help him ’n you don’t even know him?”
“I’ve never met the man,” Matt replied.
Chapter Seven
Straight Arrow Ranch
“Papa, is it all right if Cooter takes me into town?” Colleen asked.
“What? Yes, go ahead. I don’t care,” O’Neil said.
“Would you like me to pick something up for you while I’m in town?”
“No, I’m fine,” O’Neil said distractedly. “Go ahead.”
* * *
“See, I told you Papa wouldn’t mind,” Colleen said as she climbed into the surrey to sit beside Cooter Gregory.
“He might not like it if he knew we was goin’ out to eat together instead o’ me just takin’ you into town for you to do some shoppin’ ’n such.”
Colleen reached over to take Cooter’s hand. “You’re like everyone else out here. You can’t seem to separate me from my father.”
Cooter chuckled. “Believe me, I know the difference between you and Mr. O’Neil.”
* * *
Back at the ranch, O’Neil and Kennedy were discussing business.
“We’ll be able to pick up Philpot’s ranch by paying taxes, and we hold the mortgages to four other ranches. Thanks to the difficulty these small ranchers are facing as a result of the Regulators, I’m sure that all four will soon default on their loans. By next year, we’ll own this whole valley from the Rattlesnake Mountains to the Wind River Range, and from Granite Ridge to Seminoe Pass.” Sean O’Neil was illustrating his comment by pointing to the map that had been tacked to the wall.
“Of the four ranches that we have paper on, Conway’s Spur and Latigo is the best,” Kennedy said. “But the Circle Dot is also a good ranch. It’s a shame we don’t hold the mortgage on the Circle Dot. They have good water access and rangeland, to say nothing of the five hundred head of cattle. That would be a fine acquisition for us.”
“Yes,” O’Neil said. “Don’t worry. We’ll get it. DuPont says he has an idea.”
“What is the idea?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”
“Sean, about the Regulators,” Kennedy said.
“What about them?”
“Do you ever worry about them?”
“I’ll admit I worry about them some, but once we have absolute control, we’ll no longer have any need for the Regulators and we’ll find some way to cut our ties.”
“It may not be so easy to get rid of them then,” Kennedy said. “Especially as long as they have someone like Angus Shardeen to enforce their will.”
“Maybe when the time comes, we can find someone who could handle that problem for us.”
Purgatory Pass
Tyrone DuPont sat on a bench on the front porch of his cabin at the hideout. The bench was made from half a log sitting on short legs that had been cut to fit. He had just paid Shardeen the two-hundred-dollar bonus for killing Philpot.
DuPont had seen a lot of criminal types during his time as a policeman and since leaving the police to ride the outlaw trail. But never, in any of his experiences, had he met anyone like Shardeen, who actually enjoyed killing. Kennedy and O’Neil might be the most powerful ranchers in the valley but DuPont, with his Regulators, was the most feared. And that fear, DuPont knew, was maintained by the presence of Angus Shardeen.
Having escaped from prison in New Mexico the night before he was to be hanged, Angus Shardeen was DuPont’s most valuable asset. He was a small man, just over five feet three inches tall, but in a world ruled by guns, Shardeen was a giant. He was not the kind of man to put notches on the handle of his pistol, but if he had been, he would barely have room for all of them.
S
hardeen was a fast draw and he was a good shot, but what made him so dangerous was less a testament to his skill than it was to his psychopathic willingness to kill without compunction. And that willingness to kill was what generated the fear in others, a fear that provided the Regulators, and by extension, DuPont, with an effective balance of power.
That balance of power might be at risk. DuPont had been told of the confrontation between Moe Greene and Walter Toone and a man who’d identified himself as Matt Jensen. Was the person Greene and Toone encountered in the Pair O’ Dice Saloon really Matt Jensen?
DuPont had never met, nor even seen, the man, but he had heard of him. According to what Greene and Toone had said, Jensen had come to the Sweetwater Valley to work for Hugh Conway.
Toone stepped up on the porch and sat beside DuPont. “If Jensen’s here to work for Conway, he ain’t goin’ to be herdin’, or breakin’ no horses for ’im,” Toone said. “More ’n likely he’s here to sell his gun.”
“I’m having a hard time believin’ that, Toone, ’n I’ll tell you why. I know for a fact that Conway is so far in debt that he has nobody left still workin’ for ’im but Sanders. So if he’s down to only one man, it just don’t seem to figure to me that he would have enough money to pay a man like Matt Jensen to come work for ’im.”
“That’s what this Jensen feller said he was here for,” Toone said.
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see whether it’s really Matt Jensen or not, ’n if it is, if he’s really goin’ to start workin’ for Conway. Though I just don’t understand how that could be.”
Spur and Latigo Ranch
On the ride out to Conway’s ranch, Matt learned that Sanders’s first name was Ed. The Spur and Latigo Ranch was well kept and made a very good first impression. A carriageway covered with white rocks cut through the middle of a well-maintained lawn, which was surrounded by a split log fence. On the grounds were several buildings, including a barn, the machine shed, the bunkhouse, and the main house.
The main house was a two-story white clapboard house with a gray shingled hip roof and two dormer windows. The pillared porch stretched all the way across the front of the house, then wrapped around to the left side. A couple of swings on the porch hung from the ceiling at right angles to each other to afford a congenial conversation area for the occupants.
Even as Matt and Ed were dismounting, a man and woman stepped out of the house, made curious by the stranger who had arrived with Ed.
Matt didn’t even have to ask who the woman was. She bore such a striking resemblance to Meagan Parker that he knew it must be Meagan’s sister, Lisa.
“Mr. Conway, this here feller is Matt Jensen,” Sanders said. “He, uh, well sir, a little while ago, he helped me out in town. You know them two gunsels that’s a-ridin’ with Tyrone DuPont ’n his Regulators, Toone ’n Greene?”
“Yes, of course I know them. Despicable characters, both of them.
“Yes, sir, that’s what they are, all right. ’N they was about to throw down on me, despite me not even wearin’ no gun or nothin’. But Mr. Jensen here, he braced both of ’em.”
“One man braced those two?” Conway asked.
“Yes, sir, that’s what he done all right.” Sanders laughed. “No shootin’ come of it, though, on account of what happened is that both of ’em went a-slunkin’ out o’ the Pair O’ Dice like whupped dogs with their tails between their legs.”
“Actually it would be more correct to say that they were whipped dogs,” Matt added with a little chuckle, “seeing as, once they were disarmed, Mr. Sanders here took them on and whipped both of them.”
“Good for you, Ed, good for you,” Hugh said. “Mister . . . Jensen is it? You have my appreciation for coming to Ed’s aid.”
“I would like to come to your aid as well,” Matt said.
“Oh, I uh, very much appreciate your offer”—Conway shook his head—“but I’m afraid I can’t afford to take on anyone right now.” He pointed toward the bunkhouse. “Truth to tell, except for Ed, here, the bunkhouse is empty because I can’t afford to keep any hands.”
“You don’t need to worry about paying me anything until we get your horses to market,” Matt said. “Then if you want to pay me something, I’ll leave whatever you might want to pay me up to you.”
“Who are you?” Conway asked again, the question more curious than challenging. “And what do you know about me having to get my horses to market?”
“I have a letter for you from Miss Meagan Parker. I think it will explain everything.”
“You have a letter from my sister?” Lisa asked in surprise.
“Yes, ma’am,” Matt said, removing the letter from his shirt pocket. He handed it over to Conway.
“How is it that you know Meagan Parker?” Conway asked.
“Like I said, it’s all explained in this letter,” Matt replied.
Dear Hugh,
I would like, by way of this letter, to introduce you to Matt Jensen. Mr. Jensen is a very good friend of Duff MacCallister, and as you have met Duff, you know that he is most discerning as to who he allows into his circle of friends.
And yes, this is THE Matt Jensen, and I emphasize THE because Matt is of such a reputation that I’m sure you have heard of him. Believe me when I tell you that his reputation is well earned, not only for his unique skills in dealing with difficult people, but also because he is an exceptionally good person and a man who is quick to come to the aid of those who might be in need.
Lisa has told me of the plague of horse stealing that you have had to endure. She expressed some concern as to whether you would be able to get your horses to market. If getting your horses to market will alleviate your current situation, I can guarantee you that Matt Jensen will be able to help you do just that.
Your sister-in-law
Meagan Parker
Hugh Conway read the letter, then passed it over to Lisa. “You wrote to Meagan?”
“Yes, I did. I hope you aren’t upset with me, Hugh, but I wanted to do something, anything, that would help us.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Hugh frowned.
“You might say yes, you’ll accept Mr. Jensen’s help, and thank you to my sister for sending him to us,” Lisa said with a pensive smile.
“All right. Yes, I will accept Mr. Jensen’s help, and I am thankful, though it might all come to naught,” Hugh said. “You know I wasn’t able to get that loan extension from the bank. Lisa, I’m probably going to have to sell fifty or more horses just to get enough money to make the mortgage payment, and I can’t get even one third of their value if I sell them here. There will hardly be enough horses left to take to market, and we’ll have to pay freight on them. We’ll be lucky to come out even. Then where will we be? We’ll be fighting horse thieves for another year just so that we can break even next year.”
“Hugh, we have to try,” Lisa insisted.
Hugh looked at the letter again, then he looked up. “My sister-in-law says that you are the Matt Jensen. I’m not sure what she means by that.”
Matt smiled. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what she means by it, either.”
“I can tell you what it means, Mr. Conway.” Ed made a motion with his hand toward Matt. “This here’s a famous man which most ever’body that’s lived out here for any time has heard of. I reckon on account of you ain’t lived out here all that long is why you ain’t never heard of ’im.”
“I suppose so,” Hugh replied. “Mr. Jensen, I am indeed honored to have your assistance. But you must understand that even if I take you on to help, there is still the problem of raising enough money to satisfy an upcoming mortgage payment in order to give us time to get the horses to market in the first place.”
“Mr. Conway, that letter isn’t the only thing Miss Parker sent,” Matt said. From his saddlebag, he took another envelope. “She asked me to give you this.”
Hugh, with a questioning expression on his face, took the envelope, opened it, then pulled out a
thick wad of bills. “My God! What is this?”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars,” Matt said. “It’s a loan from Miss Parker.”
“Oh, Hugh!” Lisa said.
Hugh looked at Matt with a wide smile. “Mr. Jensen, there is no doubt but that you could have taken that money and gone your own way with nobody ever the wiser. As far as I’m concerned, the very fact that you brought it here is all the testament to your honesty that I need.”
“You’re hired!” Lisa said with a happy laugh.
“Mr. Conway?” Matt asked.
“You heard what my wife said, Mr. Jensen. You’re hired.”
“Please, if I am to work with you, won’t you call me Matt?”
“Matt it is,” Hugh said. “Matt, why don’t you have supper with us tonight?”
“Yes, please do. And you can tell me all about how my sister is doing,” Lisa added.
Chapter Eight
During supper that evening, Lisa questioned Matt extensively about Meagan.
“What she’s really trying to ask you is,” Hugh said with a smile as he took a bite of the apple pie, “what is going on between Meagan and Duff MacCallister?”
“Yes,” Lisa said, validating Hugh’s comment. “What kind of man is Mr. MacCallister?”
“He’s a big man,” Matt said. “Somewhat taller than I am. He’s a Scot and talks with a heavy brogue, but he’s an honest man and you couldn’t ask for any better friend or, for that matter, any worse enemy.”
“You’re not answering my question. What I really want to know is, will he and my sister ever get married?”
Matt chuckled. “You do get to the crux of things, don’t you? My guess is that someday, they probably will. But for now I don’t think Meagan wants to give up her dress shop, and Duff’s ranch, Sky Meadow, is too far away from Chugwater to live on the ranch and come into town to run the shop every day. But if you asked me, I would say that yes, someday they will be married.”
Die with the Outlaws Page 5
