Smoke put his hand on a chair back and said, “You boys dumb enough to ride a Circle 45 horse?”
The card players sat quietly, their hands on the table. They knew better than to have them by their sides when Jensen walked in, for he was on the prod. “We’re ridin’ ’em, yeah,” one hand said.
“Did you steal them or are you on Clint Black’s payroll?”
“We ride for the Circle 45,” another said. “And we been ridin’ for Clint for a long time.”
“Is that a fact?”
“That’s a fact, Jensen.”
Smoke cut his eyes to the barkeep. “Is there a dentist in this town, friend?”
“Why…ah, yeah. There is. Right over the undertaker’s place. You got a toothache, Mr. Jensen?”
“No. But this dirty, back-shooting, murderous ambusher here does.”
The hand just had time to turn around and say, “Who are you callin’ a…?”
Smoke hit him in the face with the hickory chair. Blood and teeth and snot flew. The chair splintered. Holding the back rail of the busted chair, Smoke hit another hand smack in the mouth, then bounced the hickory off the noggin of a third. The fourth jumped up clawing for his six-gun. Smoke hit him right between the eyes with the hickory club and the Circle 45 rider went down like a sack of potatoes.
Smoke grabbed the first one he’d hit and tossed him through the big window. The hand smashed through the hitchrail and landed in the dirt, out cold with several broken ribs. Smoke backhanded another and sent him sprawling, then the third 45 hand staggered to his feet and Smoke sent him sailing out the batwings. Smoke hit another five times in the side, the blows sounding like swinging a sledge hammer against a side of raw beef. Ribs cracked under the blows and the man fell to the floor, moaning in pain.
The one Smoke backhanded came to his feet, his face bloody and ugly and one hand closing around the butt of his Colt. Smoke stepped forward and clubbed the man with one huge fist. Then he grabbed the man’s gun arm and broke it by slamming it against the bar. The would-be gunhandler screamed and passed out.
Smoke dragged them outside and threw them in the dirt. Sheriff Black and his deputies stood on the other side of the wide main street and did not interfere. Smoke dunked one in the horse trough several times and got him on his feet. His nose was spread all over his face and his lips were pulped.
“I’ll say this one time, mister,” Smoke told the man. “You and the rest of this trash here ride out of this part of Montana. Go back to the ranch, pack your kit, and ride out—today. If I see you again, I’ll kill you where you stand and I won’t give you one second’s warning. Do you understand all that?”
“Yes, sir,” the man mumbled through ruined lips.
“Ride!”
Smoke released the man and the cowboy almost fell down. He managed to get his friends on their feet and on their horses. They left town without looking back.
Smoke went back into the saloon and tossed money on the bar. “That will pay for the busted window and the chair. Give me a beer.”
Smoke was sitting down sipping his brew when the sheriff walked in and over to the table. He sat down and stared at Smoke for a moment.
“You do understand that you just whipped four pretty tough ol’ boys?”
“So?”
Harris shook his head. “You think they’ll really haul their ashes?”
“They’ll either pull out or be buried here. I meant what I said.”
“I could wire the territorial governor and have him send the state militia in.”
“Go ahead.”
“That wouldn’t stop you, would it?”
“No.”
“You’re really going to kill my brother, aren’t you?”
“First I’m going to bring him to his knees.”
“That will never happen.”
Smoke’s smile was close to a death’s-head. His words were very softly spoken. “You want to bet?”
11
Clint Black sat in the study of his fine home and pondered his future. At the moment, it did not appear to be very bright. He had seen the four punchers come riding in, all beat up to hell and back, and watched as Jud paid them off and they left, that day, taking their broken ribs and busted arms and tore up faces and hauling their ashes out of the country. It had not set well with his other hands.
That Jensen had whipped four pretty rough ol’ boys in a fight shocked the rancher. He’d whipped two men at a time more than once. But four men! Nobody whips four men at a time. But Smoke Jensen had done it, and then, according to what Clint had heard from spies in town, Jensen just calmly sat down and had him a beer with the sheriff.
He had made a mistake by attacking the camp site. He admitted that. He was sorry he’d done it. He was genuinely sorry about it. But he wasn’t sorry enough about it to admit to it in any court of law. Clint certainly was sorry, but not for the right reasons.
So some forty-dollar-a-month cowhands and some snot-nosed kids had been killed. Well, big deal. Clint could buy people like that all day long. They were nothing. Nobodies.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t admit his part in the attack. At worst he’d be hanged; at best he’d be run out of the country. And now Jensen had bragged that he was going to put Clint Black on his knees. Well, that had been tried before. Clint was still standing tall while the men who’d tried to bring him down were rotting in the graves.
And Jensen moved fast. Already carpenters were banging away inside and outside the new First United Bank of Blackstown. And Clint had heard rumblings that most of his depositors were going to pull out, once the new bank opened. He sighed heavily. That wouldn’t hurt him; the bank was solvent. It was losing face that bothered Clint. Worse than that, it was a slap in the face.
All in all, Clint concluded, Smoke Jensen was becoming a royal pain in the butt.
“What happened to the man who owned this spread?” Smoke asked.
The herd had been rounded up and moved to Double D land. Clint had yet to replace those cattle that had been lost; indeed, nothing had been heard from the man or any of his hands and it was a week past the fight in the saloon.
“Rustlers,” Stony told him. “Ever’ time he’d get his herd built up, night riders would come in and wipe him out. He finally gave up and sold out. But not to Clint, and that really galled Black. Boss? Have you given any thought to grabbin’ one of the Circle 45 bunch and makin’ him talk?”
“Torture, Stony? No. For a lot of reasons. It boils down to it’d be his word against forty others. It wouldn’t even come to court. I’ve got all summer. We’ll just keep whittling away at Clint. Nipping at his heels and being a splinter in his butt that he can’t get to. It’ll get to him. He’ll eventually lose his temper and make that one big mistake.”
“And then, boss?”
“And then he’ll face me.”
Stony looked at Smoke and felt a chill crawl around in his belly. He knew then for an ironclad fact that his boss had placed a death sentence on Clint Black and meant to carry it out. And Smoke Jensen didn’t give a tinker’s damn what the law might have to say about it. Jensen was going to angle Clint into a position where he had no back-out room, and then Smoke was going to force-feed him lead.
But first he was going to break Clint Black, slowly and steadily.
Stony shifted his eyes for another look at Smoke Jensen. He had ridden back to the camp after the saloon fight and had not said one word about it. Only after a hand had ridden into town for some tobacco had the word come back. Jensen had walked into the saloon, tossed down the gloves and proceeded to stomp the snot out of four men. Stony hid a smile. Things were sure going to be interesting this summer. Real interesting. And he sure was glad he had stuck around.
Lucas, one of Sheriff Black’s deputies, noticed the men ride slowly into town. Six of them. They wore long dusters and rode fine horses. Horses way too costly for the average cowhand to ever afford. Then his half-rolled cigarette was forgotten as he recognized the man on the big, high-steppin’ bay. Yukon Golden. He stepped to the office door.