“By the name of Kirby?”
“No.”
The five dusty gunhands reined up and dismounted. A ferret-faced young man ducked under the hitchrail and paused by the porch, staring at Smoke. His eyes drifted to Smoke’s twin guns.
The other gunhawks were older, wiser, and could read sign. They were not being paid to cause trouble in this tiny village, therefore they would avoid trouble if at all possible.
The kid with the acne-pocked face and the big Colts slung around his hips was not nearly so wise. He deliberately stepped on Smoke’s boot as he walked past.
Smoke said nothing. The four older men stood to one side, watching, keeping their hands away from the butts of their guns.
Ferret-face laughed and looked at his friends, jerking a thumb toward Smoke. “There ain’t much to him.”
“I wouldn’t bet my life on it,” Park said softly. To Smoke, “Don’t I know you?”
Smoke stood up. At the approach of the men, he had slipped the leather hammer-thongs from his guns. “We’ve crossed rails a time or two. If this punk kid’s a friend of yours, you might better put a stopper on his mouth before I’m forced to change his diapers.”
The kid flushed at the insult. He backed up a few yards, his hands hovering over the butts of his fancy guns. “They call me Larado. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”
“Can’t say as I have,” Smoke spoke easily. “But I’m glad to know you have a name. That’s something that everybody should have.”
“You’re makin’ fun of me!”
“Am I? Maybe so.”
“I think I’ll just carve another notch on my guns,” Larado hissed.
“Yeah? I had you pegged right then. A tinhorn.”
“Draw, damn you!
But Smoke just stood, smiling at the young man.
Two little boys took that time to walk by the store; perhaps they were planning on spending a penny for some candy. One of them looked at Smoke, jerked dime novel out of the back of his overalls, and stared at the cover. He mentally shaved off Smoke’s mustache. His mouth dropped open.
“It’s really him! That’s Smoke Jensen! ”
All the steam went out of Larado. His sigh was audible. He lifted his hands and carefully folded them across his chest, keeping his hands on the outside of his arms.
Beans and Ring sat in their chairs and stared at their friend.
“You some distance from Colorado, Smoke,” Tabor said.
“And you’re a long way from Oklahoma,” Smoke countered.
“For a fact. You headin’ north or south?”
“North.”
“I never knowed you to hire your guns out.”
“I never have. It isn’t for sale this trip, either.”
“But you do have a reputation for buttin’ in where you ain’t wanted,” Park added his opinion.
“I got a personal invitation to this party, Park. But if you feel like payin’ the fiddler, you can write your name on my dance card right now.”
“I ain’t got nothin’ agin you, Smoke. Not until I find out which side you buckin’ leastways. McCorkle or Hanks?”
“Neither one.”
The gunslicks exchanged glances. “That don’t make no sense,” one of the men that Smoke didn’t know said.
“You got a name?”
“Dunlap.”
“Yeah, I heard of you. You killed a couple of Mexican sheepherders and shot one drunk in the back down in Arizona. But I’m not a sheepherder and I’m not drunk.”
Dunlap didn’t like that. But he had enough sense not to pull iron with Smoke Jensen.
“You was plannin’ on riding in with nobody knowin’ who you were, wasn’t you?” Tabor asked.
“Yes.”
“Next question is why?”
“I guess that’s my business.”
“You right. I reckon we’ll find out when we get to Gibson.”
“Perhaps.” He turned to Beans and Ring. “Let’s ride.”
After the three men had ridden away, toward the north, one of the two gunhands who had not spoken broke his silence.
“I’m fixin’ to have me a drink and then I’m ridin’ over to Idaho. It’s right purty this time of year.”
Larado, now that Smoke was a good mile away, had reclaimed his nerve. “You act like you re yeller!” he sneered.
But the man just chuckled. “Boy, I was over at what they’s now callin’ Telluride some years back, when a young man name of Smoke Jensen come ridin’ in. He braced fifteen of the saltiest ol’ boys there was at that time. Les’ see, that was back in, oh, ’72, I reckon.” He looked directly at Larado. “And you bear in mind, young feller, that he kilt about ten or so gettin’ to that silver camp. He kilt all fifteen of them so-called fancy gunhandlers. Yeah, kid, he’s that Smoke Jensen. The last mountain man. Since he kilt his first Injun when he was about fifteen years old, over in Kansas, he’s probably kilt a hundred or more white men—and that’s probably figurin’ low. There ain’t nobody ever been as fast as he is, there ain’t never gonna be nobody as fast as he is.
“And I know you couldn’t hep notice that bear of a man with him? That there is Ring. Ring ain’t never followed no man in his life afore today. And that tells me this: Smoke has done whipped him fair and square with his fists. And if I ain’t mistaken, that young feller with Smoke and Ring is the one from over in Utah, round Moab. Goes by a half a dozen different names, but one he favors is Beans.
“Now, boys, I’m a fixin’ to have me a drink and light a shuck. ‘Cause wherever Smoke goes, they’s soon a half a dozen or more of the randiest ol’ boys this side of hell. Smoke draws ’em like a magnet does steel shavin’s. I had my say. We partin’ company. Like as of right now!”
Down in Cheyenne, two old friends came face-to-face in a dingy side-street barroom. The men whoopped and hollered and insulted each other for about five minutes before settling down to have a drink and talk about old times.
Across the room, a young man stood up, irritation on his face. He said to his companion, “I think I’ll go over there and tell them old men to shut up. I’m tared of hearin’ them hoot and holler.”
“Sit down and close your mouth,” his friend told him. “That’s Charlie Starr and Pistol Le Roux.”
The young man sat down very quickly. A chill touched him, as if death had brushed his skin.
“I thought them old men was dead!” he managed to croak after slugging back his drink.
“Well, they ain’t. But I got some news that I bet would interest them. I might even get to shake their hands. My daddy just come back from haulin’ freight down in Colorado. You wanna go with me?”
“No, sir!”
The young man walked over to where the two aging gunfighters were sitting and talking over their beers. “Sirs?
Charlie and Pistol looked up. “What can I do for you?” Le Roux said.
The young man swallowed hard. This was real flesh and blood legend he was looking at. These men helped tame the West. “You gentlemen are friends with a man called Smoke Jensen, aren’t you?”
“You bet your boots!” Charlie smiled at him.
“My daddy just come home from haulin’ freight down to a place called Big Rock. He spoke with the sheriff, a man called Monte Carson. Smoke’s in trouble. He’s gone up to some town in Montana Territory called Gibson to help his cousin. A woman. He’s gonna be facin’ forty or fifty gunhands; right in the middle of a range war.”
Pistol and Charlie stood up as of one mind. The young man stared in astonishment. God, but they were both big and gray and gnarled and old!
But the guns they wore under their old jackets were clean and shiny.
“I wish we could pay you,” Charlie said. “But we’re gonna have to scratch deep to get up yonder.”
The young man stuck out his hand and the men shook it. Their hands were thickly calloused. “There’s a poke of food tied to my saddle horn. Take it. It’s all I can do.”