Smoke shook his head in disgust.
“The only thing that’s gonna be shakin’ around here is your butts when I kick you out of here,” the cook said, stepping out of the kitchen. “You watch your mouths around my wife, you hear me?”
“Shawnee,” his partner said. “I think that feller’s threatenin’ us.”
“Sounds like it, don’t it? Maybe we ought to pin his ears back some?”
Smoke sat the coffee cup on the table.
“Oh, my!” Evans said. “But we got the world-famous Smoke Jensen in here, Shawnee. The cook might be a friend of his. Don’t that scare you?”
“Why…I’m tremblin’ in my boots just at the thought of Mr. Smoke Jensen. Tell you what, Hawk, maybe we ought to ride out to the Circle 45 and tell Clint Black that we’ll take care of his little problem with Jensen. That is, if we can get Jensen away from that coffee pot.”
“If you boys have a problem,” Smoke told them, finally turning his head to look at the pair, “I think it would be wise to carry it somewhere else. This is the wrong town to start trouble in.”
“Because of you, Mr. Hotshot Gunfighter?” Hawk sneered at him.
“That’s part of it,” Smoke told him.
“What’s the other part?” Shawnee asked.
“Actually there is more than one. They got the loneliest graveyard I have ever seen in any town. I’d hate to know I had to spend eternity on that hill.”
“What’s the other part?” Hawk asked.
“The cook has a double-barreled shotgun pointed right at your guts.”
Both of their mouths dropped open and they jerked their heads toward the rear. Smoke left his chair like a striking snake and ran into the pair, knocking them sprawling. One jerked out a 45 and Smoke kicked it out of his hand. Whirling, he backhanded the other one just as he was crawling to his knees, the blow catching him on the side of the head and knocking him back to the floor. Smoke ripped the gun belts from them and hung them on a peg.
“Now stand up,” he said in a very low and menacing voice. When they were slow in doing so, he shouted, “Stand up, damnit!”
They scrambled to their feet and faced him. Smoke stepped closer to the one called Shawnee. “Draw,” he told him.
“Draw what?”
“Pretend you’re drawing. Maybe this is the only way I can keep you alive and get you back home safely. Draw, damnit!”
Shawnee’s elbow was just bending when Smoke’s .44 leaped into the young man’s face.
“Jesus Christ!” Evans said.
Sweat was pouring down Shawnee’s face, even though the morning had dawned very cool for summer.
“You get the message, Shawnee?” Smoke asked.
“Yes…sir. I mean, yes sir!”
Smoke cut his eyes to Evans. “How about you?”
“Real plain, Mr. Jensen.”
“Fine. Now you boys sit down and order you some breakfast. After you’ve eaten, ride back home, wherever home is, and forget about being gunfighters. The trails are long, the food is terrible, the company you keep is awful, the life expectancy is short, and the pay isn’t worth a damn. Breakfast is on me, boys. Now sit down and eat.”
“Yes, sir,” they said in unison, and sat. Evans looked up at Jensen and smiled. “The cook ain’t holdin’ no shotgun, Mr. Jensen.”
Smoke returned the smile. “I lied.”
Smoke returned to his own table and the waitress brought him a fresh pot of coffee. She smiled and said in a whisper, “You could have killed them both and nobody would have blamed you.”
“Ten years ago, I would have,” Smoke told her.
“For a man of your size, you’re devilishly quick, Smoke,” the doctor said.
“It pays to be with the name I’ve got hung on me.”
“Circle 45 riders coming in,” a man called from a table by the window.
The doctor stared at Smoke. “I was planning on going home and getting a few hours’ sleep this morning.”
“I think it’s going to get busy around here this morning,” Smoke said, shoving back his chair. “You’d better plan on an afternoon’s nap.”
17
Smoke walked outside while some of the cafe’s patrons exited by the back door, heading for home to make sure their wives and kids stayed off the streets. Hawk Evans and the Shawnee Kid sat at their table and stared out the window. Both of them knew that from this point on, they would never again strap on a gun. Dr. Garrett looked at the two young men, staring wide-eyed at Smoke, then turned his chair around so he could see what was taking place in the street.
Smoke knew only one of the men who had ridden in, a two-bit gunhandler who went by the name of Earl Cobb. He knew none of the others. He watched as they reined in and swung down, looping the reins on the hitchrail in front of the saloon. They turned and faced him.
The cork is out of the bottle now, Smoke thought. They aren’t even trying to conceal the reason they came to town. Clint must have upped the ante.
The quartet of gunhands spread out.
Smoke backed up and entered the cafe. “They don’t care that innocent people might be hit by a bullet,” he said to Doc Garrett. “I won’t have it this way.” He paused by the hat rack and took two of the guns belonging to the young men. “I’ll return these in a few minutes,” he said to the pair.
“Keep them,” Evans said. “We won’t be needing them no more.”
Smoke walked through the kitchen, a borrowed pistol in each hand. The cook, who was the owner, said, “I’ve got a rifle here, Smoke.”
“Stay out of this. I’m going to pull them away from your cafe and try to get them off the main street. People are all over the place opening up for business.”
He went out the back door and ran two blocks down to the livery stable. He cut right and stepped out into the street. He was a good two hundred yards from the gunmen, who were standing in the middle of the street in front of the cafe.
“Hey!” Smoke called, stepping closer to the other side of the street where there were two abandoned buildings at the edge of town. “You jerks looking for me?”
Earl Cobb cussed at the distance between them. “Come on,” he said to the others. “Jensen’s tryin’ to get us away from the main drag so’s no citizen will take lead.”
“Ain’t he sweet?” another said.
“He’s liable to take up preachin’ ’fore long,” another added.
Smoke was standing by the corner of what had once been a general store.
“Split up,” Earl said. “Luddy, you come with me. Dick, Patton, you cut through that alley and come up behind him.”
When he looked up again, Smoke had vanished.
Many of the townspeople had armed themselves. But since Smoke had pulled the action to the edge of town, where no businesses or houses stood, they could not leave their families unprotected. Most knew Smoke had done that deliberately.
“Jensen, you damn yellow cur,” Dick called. “Step out here and fight.”
“All right,” Smoke said as he stepped out of a doorway behind the two men. “Here I am.”
The men were lifting their guns as they turned to meet what their fates had long ago planned for them. The borrowed .45s in Smoke Jensen’s hands roared and spat fire and lead and gunsmoke. Patton and Dick were down in the litter behind the old building.
“Nice action on these pistols,” Smoke muttered, as he kicked the guns of the fallen men away from them and stepped back into the building. He had checked the pistols in the cafe and knew they had been loaded up full. He had fired four times and had put two slugs apiece in Patton and Dick.
Smoke had no illusions about fair fighting. The old mountain man Preacher had grilled that out of him. He never gave a damn for fair; he fought to win. “You always do your best to do right by the good folks of this world, boy,” Preacher had told him repeatedly. “To hell with the bad folks. Man comes after you with intent to do you harm, you fight him any damn way you can…just win.”