“Sure are,” Stony said. “Look like two little jugs of beets.” He stared. “Well, maybe not so little.”
“Red as can be,” Ted said. “Looks plumb funny to me.”
“Both of you saddle bums shut up. Another bank!” Clint yelled. He sputtered for a moment. “You can’t do that.”
“Who is going to stop me?” Smoke asked in a calm tone of voice. “You?”
“Back off, Clint,” Harris said in a warning tone. “If another bank wants to come in, there is nothing you can do about it. Is that understood?”
The citizens of the town had gathered left and right of the confrontation. Those in front and back of the volatile situation had cleared out, getting away from the line of fire. Stony and Ted stood left and right of Smoke, the three of them facing Clint and his dozen or so rowdies.
“How’s the feet of your de-horsed boys?” Smoke asked the rancher, smiling as he spoke.
“Don’t worry about it,” Clint replied, regaining what composure he had left him, which was very little when he didn’t get his way in any given situation. “I hear you’re accusin’ me of raidin’ your camp. I didn’t have a thing to do with that, Jensen. And if you say I did, you’re a damn liar.”
“I say you did, Black,” Smoke told the man and everybody else who was close enough to hear. “I say you gave the orders to kill men, women, and kids. And that makes you snake-low and dirty. You don’t have the nerve to do your own fighting. You’re a coward, Black. Step out of that saddle and fight me. Right here and now.”
The sheriff walked between the men. He put his back to Smoke and faced his brother. “Take your men and get out of town, Clint. Right now. Leave now or I’ll put you in jail.”
“On what charge?” Clint asked. He wanted to leave, wanted desperately to leave. But how to do that without losing face in front of the townspeople and his men? Clint was many things, but a fool was not one of them. After getting a good look at Jensen, Clint, for the first time since he was a boy, had experienced fear. And he hated himself for it.
“Refusing to obey the orders of a peace officer,” his brother told him. “Now take your men and leave. Jensen, you do the same. And do it right now.”
“All right,” Smoke said. He looked at Clint. “Some other time, Black. Let’s go, boys.”
With his brother and his men heading in one direction, Smoke and his hands going in another, Harris eased the hammers down on his sawed-off and his deputy relaxed.
“All you did was put it off for another time,” the deputy said. “It’s bound to come.”
“Yeah, I know,” Harris said. “But I got it out of town.” He stepped back, leaned the shotgun against the building, and rolled a cigarette. “My brother was scared this day,” he remarked, lighting up. “I saw fear on his face.”
“Hell, who wouldn’t be scared?” The deputy bit off a chew from a plug. “Jensen would have been killed, for sure, but he would have emptied eight or ten saddles before he went down. A man that size can take a lot of lead.”
“What bothers me is that a scared man will do desperate things, Harry. My brother took water this day. I gave him a way out, but he still took water. He was shamed this day, and he’ll not forget it. He was always a vain and a vengeful person.”
“Well…like you say, we got it out of town.”
Riding back to the valley of death, Smoke asked the new hands, “You boys know of other men who might like a job?”
“I know of a few,” Stony said. “And I ’magine Ted knows of several.” Ted nodded his head.
“OK. You two veer off now and find them. I’m offering top wages and the best food you ever put in your mouth.” He dug in his pocket and handed Stony a wad of bills.
Stony looked at the money and whistled. “How do you know we won’t just take that money and clear out, Smoke? That’s two years’ pay for most hands.”
Smoke grinned. “I’m a good judge of character, Stony. See you boys later on.”
The new hands headed off, leaving Smoke and the boys and the heavily laden wagon. “Ol’Waymore hates Clint Black,” Stony said. “He’d jump at this chance.”
“You bet,” Ted agreed. “And I was thinkin’ ’bout Rich and Malvern.”
“They’ll do to ride the river with. How about Paul and Cletus?”
“Suits me. Say, I just remembered something. Jud accused Joe Owens of stealin’ that time. Pistol-whipped him.”
“Yeah. And Joe never stole nothin’ in his life. His shack ain’t a mile from here.”
“I think we got the makin’s of a pretty good crew and don’t none of ’em live more’un a half hour away. We could be back in time for supper.”
“Let’s go round ’em up, then. I’m hungry!”
10
Stony and Ted showed up at the camp in the valley just at sundown. They brought with them the most disreputable-looking bunch of men Toni and Jeanne had ever seen. Sally had lived nearly all her adult life in the West, and she knew that appearances could be very deceiving out here. She suspected these new men were top hands who, for whatever reason, had been blackballed for employment in this area by Clint Black. Turned out she was right.
“We just didn’t cotton to takin’ orders from the likes of Clint Black and Jud Howes and that pack of gunslingers they got workin’ out on the Circle 45,” Waymore said, accepting a plate of food.
“They’s other smaller ranches scattered all over this country,” Cletus added. “But Clint’s got them buffaloed. Didn’t none of them dare hire us. We don’t hold no grudges against them for it. Man has his entire life put into a small spread, well, he can’t stand up to a rich and mean person that has forty or fifty gunslicks on the payroll. Or men who fancy themselves slick with a short gun.”
“Mighty good grub,” Malvern said. “Best I think I ever eat.”
“When was the last time you did eat, Mr. Malvern?” Toni asked.
“Just Malvern, ma’am. Mal for short. Oh, I been eatin’ regular. Seems as how one of Mr. High and Mighty Clint Black’s cows wandered over to my place and fell down. Broke its leg and I had to put the poor thing out of its misery. It was the Christian thing to do. I can’t stand to see no animal suffer. And it seemed right foolish of me to just let all that meat go to waste. So I butchered it and ate some and smoked and jerked the rest. Then, lo and behold, about a week later, durned if another one of Mr. Black’s cows didn’t come over to my place and fall down. Right in the same spot. Poor thing broke its leg. Well, I had to end its sufferin’, so I shot it, too. This has been going on for about six months. Now, since Mr. Big Shot Black has forbid me from ever settin’ foot on his land, there just wasn’t no way I could get word to him about his cows. It’s really put me in a state of confusion.” He shook his head. “And I do try to do right by my fellow man, ma’am.”
Toni looked at him for a moment, then slowly smiled. “You, Mr. Malvern, tell big whackers.”
“Occasional, I do, Miss Toni,” Mal said with a grin. “Occasional, ’deed I do.”
The next week went by in a blur of work, with everybody who was able pitching in and rounding up cattle and stampeded horses. Smoke would work until noon and then go off exploring. The bodies of his men had to have been dumped somewhere, and he was determined to find that location.
On the afternoon of the seventh day, he found a boot. Smoke swung down from the saddle and knelt down by the ripped boot. he ran his hand over the dead leaves that were all around it.
Dead leaves? In the middle of summer? He swept them away and looked at the clear impressions of hooves. Leading his horse, he began following the trail of dead leaves that led upward. Someone had gathered up great handfuls of leaves and scattered them over the tracks. He climbed on. Now he could clearly see the tracks of horses and something else, too: a clear path where bodies had been dragged up this way.