Live by the West, Die by the West

by William W. Johnstone

  “You there, puncher!” one hollered. “How far to Gibson?”

  “I’m not standing in the next county, sonny, and I’m not deaf, either.”

  “You ’bout half smart, though, ain’t you?” He grinned at Smoke. “You know who you’re talkin’ to?”

  “Just another loudmouthed punk, I reckon.”

  The young man flushed, looked at his friends, and then laughed. “You’re lucky, cowboy. I feel good today, so I won’ call you down for that remark. I’ve killed people for less. I’m Twain.”

  “Does that rhyme with rain or are you a half-wit?”

  “Damn you!” Twain yelled. “Who do you think you are, anyways?”

  “Smoke Jensen.”

  Twain’s horse chose that moment to dump a pile of road apples in the dirt. From the look on Twain’s face, he felt like doing the same thing in his saddle. He opened and closed his mouth about a half dozen times.

  His friends relaxed in their saddles, making very sure both hands were clearly visible and kept well away from their guns.

  “You keep on this road,” Smoke told them. “Gibson’s about four miles.”

  “Ah . . . uh . . . yes, sir!” Twain finally got the words out.

  “I . . . uh . . . we are sure obliged.”

  “You got any sense, boy, you won’t stop. You’ll just keep on ridin’ until you come to Wyoming. But I figure that anybody who cuts kill-notches in the butt of their gun don’t have much sense. Who you aimin’ to ride for, boy?”

  “Ah . . . the D-H spread.”

  Smoke sat his saddle and stared at the quartet. He stared at them so long they all four began to sweat.

  “Is . . . ah . . . something the matter, Mister Smoke?” Twain asked.

  “The rest of your buddies got names, Twain?”

  “Ah . . . this here is Hector. That’s Rod, and that’s Murray.”

  “Be sure and tell that to the barber when you get to town.”

  “The . . . barber?” Hector asked.

  “Yeah. He doubles as the undertaker.” Smoke turned his back on the young gunhands and rode on toward town.

  TEN

  Among the many horses tied to the hitchrails, on both sides of the street, the first to catch Smoke’s eyes was Bob’s paint, tied up in front of Hans’s café. Smoke looped his reins and went in for some coffee and pie. He wondered why so much activity and then remembered it was Saturday. Parnell sat with Bob at a table. They were in such heated discussion neither noticed as Smoke walked up to their table. They lifted their eyes as he pulled back a chair and sat down.

  “Perhaps you can talk some sense into this young man’s head, Mister Jensen,” Parnell pleaded. “He is going to call out these Rose and Cliff individuals.”

  Smoke ordered apple pie and coffee and then said, “His right, Parnell. I’d do the same was I standing in his boots.”

  Parnell was aghast. His mouth dropped open and he shook his head. “But he’s just a boy! I cannot for the life of me understand why you didn’t call the authorities after the murder!”

  “Because the law is a hundred miles away, Parnell. And out here, a man handles his own problems without runnin’ whining to the law.”

  “I find it positively barbaric!”

  Smoke ate some apple pie and sipped his coffee. Then he surprised the schoolteacher by saying, “Yes, it is barbaric, Parnell. But it’s quick. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of lawyers out here before you know it, and they’ll be messin’ things up and writin’ contracts so’s that only another lawyer can read them. That’ll be good for people like you . . . not so good for the rest of us. You haven’t learned in the time you’ve been here that out here, a man’s word is his bond. If he tells you he’s sellin’ you five hundred head of cattle, there will be five hundred head of cattle, or he’ll make good any missing. Call a man a liar out here, Parnell, and it’s a shootin’ offense. Honorable men live by their word. If they’re not honorable, they don’t last. They either leave, or get buried. Lawyers, Parnell, will only succeed in screwing that all up.” He looked at Bob. “You nervous, Bob?”

  “Yes, sir. Some. But I figure I’ll calm down soon as I face him.”

  “As soon as we face them, Bob,” Smoke corrected. “Yes, you’ll calm down. Ever killed a man, Bob?”

  “No, sir.”

  Smoke finished his pie, wiped his mouth with the napkin, and waved for Olga to refill his cup. He sugared and stirred and sipped. “A man gets real calm inside, Bob. It’s the strangest thing. You can hear a fly buzz a hundred yards off. And you can see everything so clearly. And the quiet is so much so it’s scary. Dogs can be barking, cats fighting, but you won’t hear anything except the boots of the man you’re facing walking toward you.”

  “How old was you when you killed your first man, Smoke?” Bob asked.

  “Fifteen, I think. Maybe fourteen. I don’t remember.”

  “That must have been a terribly traumatic time for you,” Parnell said.

  “Nope. I just reloaded ’er up and went on. Me and Preacher. I killed some Indians before that . . . in Kansas I think it was. Pa was still alive then. They attacked us,” he added. “I always got along with the Indians for the most part. Lived with them for a while. Me and Preacher. That was after Pa died. Drink your coffee, Bob. It’s about time.”

  Smoke noticed the young man’s hands were calm as he lifted the cup to his mouth, sipped, and replaced the cup in the saucer.

  Parnell looked at the men, his eyes drifting back and forth. He had heard from his sister and from the old gunfighters at the ranch that Smoke was a devoted family man: totally faithful to his wife and a loving father. A marvelous friend. Yet for all of those attributes, the man was sitting here talking about killing with less emotion than he exhibited when ordering a piece of pie.

  Parnell watched with a curious mixture of fascination and revulsion as Smoke took his guns from leather, one at a time, and carefully checked the action, using the napkin to wipe them free of any dust that might have accumulated during his ride to town. He loaded up the usually empty chamber under the hammer.

  Bob checked his Remington .44 and then pulled a short-barreled revolver out of his waistband and checked that, loading both guns full. He cut his eyes to Smoke. “Insurance,” he said.

  “Never hurts.” Smoke pushed back his chair and stood up. “You know these people, Bob?”

  “They been pointed out to me.” He stood up.

  “Their buddies are sure to join them. We’re probably not going to have much time for plan-making. At the first twitch, we start shooting. Take the ones to your left. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Both men had noticed, out of the corners of their eyes, the horses lining both sides of the wide dusty street being cleared from the line of fire.

  They stepped out of the café and stood for a moment on the boardwalk, hats pulled down low, letting their eyes adjust to the bright sunlight.

  “Your play,” Smoke said. “You call it.”

  “Rose!” Bob yelled. “Cliff! And any others who tortured and dragged Hatfield. Let’s see if you got the backbone to face someone gun to gun.”

  Rose looked out the window of the Hangout. “Hell, it’s that damn kid.”

  “And Smoke Jensen,” he was reminded.

  “Let’s shoot ’em from here,” Cliff suggested.

  “No!” Lanny Ball stepped in. “They’re callin’ you out fair and square. If you ain’t got the stomach for it, use the back door and cut and run . . . and don’t never show your faces around here agin. I’ve killed a lot of men, and I’ve rode the owlhoot trail with a posse at my back. But I ain’t never tortured nobody while they was trussed up like a hog. I may not be much, but I ain’t no coward.”

  Only a few of the other gunhawks in the large saloon murmured their agreement, but those few were the best-known and most feared of their kind. It was enough to bring the sweat out on the faces of Cliff and Rose and
the two others who had taken part in the dragging and torture of Hatfield.

  When open warfare was finally called by Hanks, Lanny and few others who still possessed a modicum of honor would back-shoot and snipe at any known enemy . . . that was the way of war. But when a man called you out to face him, you faced him, eyeball to eyeball.

  With a low curse, Rose checked his guns and stepped out through the batwings, Cliff and the others behind him. It was straight-up noon, the sun a hot bubbling ball overhead. There were no shadows of advantage for either side.

  Smoke and Bob had drifted down the boardwalk and now stood in the middle of the street, about ten feet apart, waiting.

  Rose and Cliff and their two partners in torture stepped off the boardwalk and walked to the center of the street.

  “Rose to my left,” Bob said. “Cliff is to your right.”

  “Who are those other two?”

  “I don’t know their names.”

  “You two in the middle!” Smoke called, his voice carrying the two hundred odd feet between them. “You got names?”

  “I’m Stanford and this here is Thomas!”

  “You take Stanford, Bob. Thomas is mine.” Smoke’s voice was low.

  “You ready?” Bob asked.

  “I been ready.”

  Smoke and Bob started walking, their spurs softly jingling and their boots kicking up small pockets of dust with each step toward showdown.

  “You boys watch this,” Lanny told the others. “I doubt they’s many of you ever seen Jensen in action. Don’t make no mistakes about him. He’s the fastest I ever seen. Some of you may want to change your minds about stayin’ once you seen him.”

  “I do not have to watch him,” Diego boasted. “I am better.” He knocked back a shot of whiskey.

  Several of the others in the saloon agreed.

  Lanny smiled at their arrogance. Lanny might be many things, but he was not arrogant when it came to facing Smoke Jensen. He did not feel he was better than Smoke, but he did feel he was as good. When the time came for them to meet, as he knew it would, it would all come down to that first well-placed shot. Lanny knew that he would probably take lead when he faced Smoke, therefore he would delay facing him as long as possible.

  “You shoulda heard that punk squall when we laid that hot runnin’ iron agin him!” Thomas yelled over the closing distance. “He jerked and hollered like a baby. Squalled and bawled like a calf.”

  Neither Smoke nor Bob offered any comment in reply.

  The loud silence and the artificial inner brightness consumed them both.

  There was less than fifty feet between them when Rose made his move. He never even cleared leather. None of the four managed to get clear of leather before they began dancing and jerking under the impact of .44 slugs. Thomas took two .44 slugs in the heart and died on his feet. He sat down in the dirt, on his knees, his empty hands dangling in the bloody dirt.

  Bob was nearly as fast as Smoke. His .44 Remington barked again and Stanford was turned halfway around, hit in the stomach and side just as Cliff experienced twin hammer-blows to his chest from Smoke’s Colt and his world began to dim. He fell to the dirt in a slack heap, seemingly powerless to do anything except cry out for his mother. He was still hollering for her when he died, the word frozen in time and space.

  “Jesus Christ!” a gunslick spoke from the saloon window. He picked up his hat from the table and walked out the back door. He had a brother over in the Dakotas and concluded that this was just a dandy time to go see how his brother and his family was getting along. Hell would be better than this place.

  Smoke and Bob turned and walked to the Pussycat, reloading as they walked. Inside the coolness of the saloon, they ordered beer and sat down at a table, with a clear view of the street.

  Neither of them spoke for several minutes. When the barkeep had brought their pitcher of beer and two mugs and returned to his post behind the long bar, Bob picked up his mug and held it out. “For Hatfield,” he said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Smoke said, lifting his mug.

  Parnell entered the saloon, walking gingerly, sniffing disdainfully at the beery odor. Smoke waved him over and kicked out a chair for him.

  “You want something to drink?” the barkeep called.

  “A glass of your best wine would be nice.” Parnell sat down.

  “Ain’t got no wine. Beer and whiskey and sodee pop.”

  Parnell shook his head and the bartender went back to polishing glasses, muttering under his breath about fancy-pants easterners.

  Outside, in the bloody street, the barber and his helper were scurrying about, loading up the bodies. Business certainly had taken a nice turn for the better.

  Smoke noticed that Parnell seemed calm enough. “Not your first time to see men die violently, Parnell?”

  “No. I’ve seen several shootings out here. All of them as unnecessary as the one I just witnessed.”

  “Justice was served,” Smoke told him, after taking a sip of beer.

  Parnell ignored that. “Innocent bystanders could have been killed by a stray bullet.”

  “That is true,” Smoke acknowledged. “I didn’t say it was the best way to handle matters, only that justice had been served.”

  “And now you’ve taken a definite side.”

  “If that is the way people wish to view it, yes.”

  “I have a good notion to notify the army about this matter.”

  “And you think they’d do what, Parnell? Send a company in to keep watch? Forget it. The army’s strung out too thin as it is in the West. And they’d tell you that this is a civilian matter.”

  “What you’re saying is that this . . . ugly boil on the face of civilization must erupt before it begins the healing process?”

  “That’s one way of putting it, yes. Dooley Hanks has gone around the bend, Parnell. I suspect he was always borderline nuts. The beating and rape of his daughter tipped him the rest of the way. He’s insane. And he’s making a mistake in trusting those gunslicks he’s hired. That bunch can turn on a man faster than a lightning bolt.”

  “And McCorkle?”

  “Same with that bunch he’s got. Only difference is, Cord knows it. He’s tried to make peace with Hanks . . . over the past few weeks. Hanks isn’t having any of it. Cord had no choice but to hire more gunnies.”

  “And now . . . ?”

  “We wait.”

  “You are aware, of course, about the rumor that it was really some of your people who beat and sexually assaulted Rita Hanks?”

  “Some of that crap is being toted off the street now,” Smoke reminded the schoolteacher. “When Silver Jim and Lujan hear of it—I have not mentioned it to them—the rest of it will be planted six feet under. But I think that rumor got squashed a few minutes ago.”

  “And if it didn’t, there will be more violence.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are we so different, Cousin? What I’m asking is that we spring from the same bloodlines, yet we are as different as the sun and the moon.”

  “Maybe, Parnell, it’s because you’re a dreamer. You think of the world as a place filled with good, decent, honorable men. I see the world as it really is. Maybe that’s it.”

  Parnell pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked down at Smoke for a few seconds. “If that is the case, I would still rather have my dreams than live with blood on my hands.”

  “I’d rather have that blood on my hands than have it leaking out of me,” Smoke countered. “Knowing that I could have possibly prevented it simply by standing my ground with a gun at the ready.”

  “A point well put. I shall take my leave now, gentlemen. I must see to the closing of the school for the summer.”

  “See you at the ranch, Parnell.”

  Both Smoke and Bob had lost their taste for beer. They left the nearly full pitcher of beer on the table and walked out onto the boardwalk. Most of the gunnies had left the Hangout, heading back to the D-H spread. Lanny Ball stood on the bo
ardwalk in front of the saloon, looking across the street at Smoke.

  “He’s a punk,” Smoke said to Bob. “But a very fast punk. I’d say he’s one of the best gunslicks to be found anywhere.”

  “Better than you?” Bob asked, doubt in the question.

  “Just as good, I’d say. And so is Jason Bright.”

  Lanny turned his back to them and entered the saloon.

  “Another day,” Smoke muttered. “But it’s coming.”

  ELEVEN

  Smoke was riding the ridges early one morning, looking for any strays they might have missed. He had arranged for a buyer from the Army to come in, in order to give Fae some badly needed working capital, and planned to sell off five hundred head of cattle. He saw the flash of sunlight off a barrel just a split second before the rifle fired. Smoke threw himself out of the saddle, grabbing his Winchester as he went. The slug hit nothing but air. Grabbing the reins, Smoke crawled around a rise and picketed the horse, talking to the animal, calming it.

  He wasn’t sure if he was on Box T range or D-H range. It would be mighty close either way. If the gunman had waited just a few more minutes, Smoke might well be dead on the ground, for he had planned to ride in a blind canyon to flush out any strays.

  Working his way around the rise of earth, Smoke began to realize just how bad his situation was. He was smack in the middle of a clearing, hunkering down behind the only rise big enough to conceal a human or horse to be found within several hundred yards.

  And he found out just how good the sniper was when a hard spray of dirt slapped him in the face, followed closely by the boom of the rifle. Smoke could not tell the caliber of the rifle, but it sounded like a .44-40, probably with one of those fancy telescopes on it. He’d read about the telescopes on rifles, but had never looked through one mounted on a rifle, only seen pictures of them. They looked awkward to Smoke.

  He knew one thing for an iron-clad fact: he was in trouble.

  Whatever the gunman was using, he was one hell of a fine rifleman.

  Hanks had cut loose his rabid dog: that rat-faced Danny Rouge.