“I—I don’t know. I’d have to find out from Reed.”
“I’d say no more than ten,” Reed said when the same question was put to him.
“Do you know which ten?” Morrison asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Send the others away,” Morrison said. “The rest of us will establish a defensive position, and when Jensen shows up, we will take care of him once and for all.”
“What about Frewen?” Teasdale asked.
“Without Jensen, Frewen is weak. My guess is, once Jensen is dead, and he knows he is dead, he will be anxious to sell out.”
“Good.”
“Just don’t forget the arrangement we have,” Morrison said. “One quarter of his ranch comes to me.”
“I made the deal and I’m sticking with it,” Teasdale said. “One quarter to you, and one quarter to Reed.”
“You got ’ny ideas about how to set up this defensive position you were talkin’ about?” Reed asked.
“I was a major during the war,” Teasdale said. “I have set many defensive positions.”
“Yeah, well, I was in the war too,” Reed said.
“There’s a difference,” Morrison said.
“What’s the difference?”
“My side won.”
Before Matt left the bunkhouse, he loaded his rifle, then his pistol, plus three extra cylinders. With seven rounds in his rifle and a total of twenty-four accessible rounds for his pistol, he was ready to take on whatever Teasdale might have ready for him.
As he was tightening the cinch on Spirit, Frewen came out of the house to talk to him.
“Are you sure you want to do this alone?” Frewen asked. “I could ask Mr. Morrison to get some men together to go with you.”
“They would just get in the way,” Matt said. “And I don’t want to get any more of your men killed. You’ve lost enough.”
“That’s the truth,” Frewen said. “Besides which, I don’t know where Mr. Morrison is. Some of the boys tell me he rode into town, which I think is quite strange. It is not like him to just disappear, especially at a time as critical as this.”
“Matt?” Jennie called, coming out onto the front porch. “Matt, where are you going?”
“I need to take care of some business,” Matt said.
“Dangerous business?”
Matt swung into the saddle, then looked down at Frewen. Frewen reached up his hand, and Matt took it.
“I would say God go with you,” Frewen said. “But I expect this is going to be more of the devil’s work than God’s.”
“I expect so,” Matt replied. He touched the brim of his hat and gave a slight head nod to Jennie, then he rode off.
“Oh,” Jennie said as Matt rode out through the gate. “I’m afraid he might be killed.”
“There will be some killing done,” Frewen said. “Of that, I’ve no doubt. But I have a feeling that Mr. Jensen will come through this just fine.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“I want a lookout posted in the loft of the barn at all times,” Morrison said. “And I want another one on top of the barn and the top of the machine shed. Also, get somebody up on top of the silo.”
Morrison was standing on the plaza at Thistledown, giving orders to Reed.
“Who the hell are you to be givin’ the orders here?” Reed asked. “I’m foreman of this ranch.”
“And I own it,” Teasdale said. “You will do what Mr. Morrison says.”
“All right, all right,” Reed said. He looked at Teasdale. “Just so long as you don’t back out on our deal after this is all over.”
“I assure you, once this is all over, all obligations and commitments I have made will be satisfied. Now in the meantime, we need to defend against this man Jensen. So please do whatever Mr. Morrison tells you to do.”
“What about the rifle pits? How are they coming?” Morrison asked.
“Why are you doin’ all this, anyhow?” Reed asked. “We ain’t gettin’ ready to fight off no army.”
“Oh but we are, friend, believe me we are,” Morrison said. “Matt Jensen is a one-man army.”
“You act like you are afraid of him,” Reed said.
“I am afraid of him. You would be too, if you had any sense. Look at the people you’ve sent against him. Kyle Houston? He was supposed to be faster than lightning. Carlos Silva? He could kill a man from a mile distant, they say. Jake Scarns? How far did he get? They had their try at him, but he killed all three of them. And that was before he killed Sam Logan and every member of the Yellow Kerchief Gang. You’re damn right, I’m afraid of him. Now, get busy and do what I told you to do.”
“All right, all right,” Reed said. “I’ll get the lookouts all posted like you said, and I’ll get men in the rifle pits. How about a cannon or two and maybe a Gatling gun? Would you like them as well?
“Damn right, if I thought we had some,” Morrison said.
“You keep talking about Jensen like this and you are going to scare everyone to death,” Teasdale said.
“I want everyone to be scared of him,” Morrison said.
“How good is he, anyway?”
“You have to ask? Six men have tried to kill him, and all six died.”
“Those could have all been flukes,” Teasdale said. “I mean you have the ranch laid out like a battlefield in the Franco-Prussian War. Only it isn’t the Prussians, it’s Matt Jensen. He is only one man.”
“What’s your point?” Morrison asked.
“My point is, when you have a good battle plan, and I think you have laid this out brilliantly; when you have the advantage of surprise, and we certainly have that; and when you have superior numbers and fire power, then it is simply a matter of execution.”
“Execution, yeah,” Morrison said. “But whose?”
It was mid-afternoon and the sun was midway down in the western sky. The men were suffering from the heat and they slapped at flies and gnats and squinted into the unrelenting glare of bright sunlight as they waited. The longer they waited, the more nervous and irritable they became.
“Where is he?” one of the men asked. “I thought Morrison said he was comin’.”
“Maybe he ain’t comin’ at all.”
“Hell, I’m not going to hang around here all day swattin’ flies and waving at gnats for nothin’.”
“You ain’ doin’ it for nothin’. You’re gettin’ a hundred dollars to hang around here all day. Don’t you think that’s worth swattin’ a few flies?”
“Yeah. And when you think about it, I’d rather swat flies than be gettin’ shot at. I don’t care if the son of a bitch comes or not.”
Matt knew that a long afternoon of waiting would just increase the tension. That was one of the reasons he hadn’t actually made his presence known. Right now he was on a hill about two hundred yards away from the big house, and he had been there since just after morning. He knew when it was lunchtime, because from where he was positioned, he could smell meat and potatoes cooking. His stomach growled in protest. All he had to satisfy his own hunger was a piece of jerky and a couple of swallows of water.
After his meager meal, Matt lay flat on his stomach, then looked through his binoculars at the activity below. He had known that he would find Teasdale and Reed and a few of his cowboys here, but he was a little surprised by how many there were.
That isn’t what surprised him the most, though. What surprised him the most was seeing Myron Morrison, Frewen’s trusted foreman, standing side by side with Teasdale and Reed, pointing to various places on the ranch.
“Why, you traitorous son of a bitch,” Matt said under his breath.
Then he smiled. Morrison was pointing out every defensive position to Teasdale, and in so doing, was pointing them out to Matt as well.
Though he was surprised at the number of defenders, he wasn’t surprised by the preparations they had made for him. If Morrison laid them out, they had to be good. Matt knew of Morrison’s military background.