“Hello, Scraggs,” Matt said easily.
Scraggs stood there for a second, his face registering the shock of seeing Matt with his pistol already drawn and pointed toward him.
Scraggs lowered his gun. “I, uh, just thought I’d,” Scraggs started, but he was unable to finish his sentence.
“Empty your gun, Scraggs,” Matt ordered.
“Look, why don’t I just…?”
“Empty your gun,” Matt said again. “Push out all the shells and let them fall to the floor.”
Scraggs made no move, and Matt cocked his pistol, the double click sounding dangerous.
“Empty your pistol,” Matt said again.
Glaring angrily at Matt, Scraggs punched all the shells out of the cylinder. They sounded exceptionally loud as the hit the floor, one at a time.
“Now, walk over to the stove and toss your gun in.”
“What good would that do you? I have another pistol,” Scraggs said.
“Just do it,” Matt said, making a small waving motion with the end of his pistol.
Scraggs continued to glare at Matt, but seeing Matt’s unwavering insistence, he walked to the middle of saloon floor, opened the door, and dropped the pistol inside.
“That’s a nice man,” Matt said. “Now, find somewhere else to be. We’re all tired of looking at you.”
“Mister, you don’t have an idea in hell what you have just done,” Scraggs said.
“Yeah, I do,” Matt said, and he kept his gaze fixed on Scraggs until the posse man left the saloon.
For a long moment after Scraggs left, it was deadly quiet in the saloon, as if no one would dare even breathe. Then Jenny walked over to the window and looked outside.
“They’re gone,” she said. “They are all goin’ toward the hotel.”
“Good riddance,” Charley said.
Charley’s comment seemed to open up the dam because now everyone started talking, describing in animated detail what they saw to everyone else who had seen the same thing.
“Gents,” Charley called out. “This round is on the house.”
With acclamations of appreciation, the other patrons rushed to the bar.
“What about Mr. Pemberton?” Jenny asked.
“Pemberton isn’t down here now.”
“No, but I’m sure the old gentleman would like a beer,” Jenny said. “Especially since Mr. Jensen just ran off the men who threw him out of his home.”
“Threw him out of his home?” Matt asked.
“He was livin’ at the Del Rey Hotel,” Charley explained, “but Sherman and his men took over the hotel. They threw Mr. Pemberton out, as well as the three old ladies, just so they could have the entire hotel for themselves. Pemberton didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he’s stayin’ in the room that Millie was usin’.”
“I think Millie would like that,” Jenny said.
“Yeah, I do too,” Charley said. He drew a mug of beer and handed it to Jenny. “Take it up to him, and tell him why.”
Matt visited with the other saloon patrons while he killed time until noon.
“Say, young fella, you’ve got the name Jensen,” one of the other patrons said. “Would you happen to know a man by the name of Smoke Jensen?”
Matt took a swallow of his beer and studied the questioner for a moment before he answered. Smoke Jensen was better known than Matt, and over the years, Smoke had made a lot of friends by doing the right thing, even when doing the right thing was hard, or unpopular.
But, like Matt, Smoke had also made a lot of enemies, probably even more enemies than Matt had made, primarily because Smoke was older and had been around a lot longer.
Matt lowered the beer and wiped some foam away from his lip. There was nothing in the tone of the questioner’s voice, or the expression on his face, to indicate that he might be an enemy.
“Yeah, I know Smoke Jensen,” he said. He didn’t offer any more information.
The man smiled and nodded. “Uh, huh. I thought so. Well, let me tell you this, son. Smoke Jensen is as fine a man as ever drew a breath, and if you are anything like him, then I’m damn pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The man offered his hand, and Matt took it. “Thanks,” he said. “I share your opinion of Smoke.” Looking over at the clock Matt saw that it was nearly noon. He finished his beer. “I have to be going,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed my visit.”
“That has to be either the most courageous, or the most foolish man I have ever met,” Charley said after Matt left. “And I swear I don’t know which it is.”
Chapter Twenty-three
“That’s him,” Scraggs said to Clay Sherman, pointing to Matt as he left the saloon. “That’s the son of a bitch that kilt Poke.”
Scraggs and Clay were standing at the front window in the lobby of the Del Rey Hotel.
Sherman stepped up closer to the window to look at the man Scraggs had pointed out.
“So, that’s the famous Matt Jensen, is it?” Sherman asked.
“Yeah. I don’t mind tellin’ you, Colonel. He worries me,” Scraggs said.
“He’s only one man,” Sherman said.
“Yeah, well, he was only one man in the saloon too,” Scraggs said.
Sherman made a tsking sound as he shook his head, slowly. “You know, Scraggs, if I were you, I don’t think I would be all that anxious to tell how one man faced down four of you.”
“I told you how it happened. There weren’t none of us in position to get to our guns. He had the drop on us.”
“Oh? He had his gun in his hand when he braced the four of you?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” Scraggs said. “But it was near ’bout the same thing, I mean what with him standin’ there where he could get to his gun, and us sittin’ where we couldn’t. And then, when I stuck my head back in, well, he did have the gun in his hand. Almost like he know’d I was goin’ to stick my head back in like I done.”
“And here I thought I had rounded up the finest men in the territory to be members of the posse,” Sherman said. “Maybe I need to raise the standards for recruiting.”
“Here, now, Colonel, you got no call to say somethin’ like that,” Scraggs complained. “I told you how it happened. When it comes down to it, you know you can depend on me and ever’ one else in the posse.”
“I hope so, Scraggs,” Sherman said. “We’re sort of in a poker game here. And it’s a high stakes poker game.”
“He went into the café,” Scraggs said.
“It’s about noon, isn’t it?” Sherman asked.
Scraggs looked over toward the front desk of the hotel and saw a clock hanging on the wall behind the desk.
“It lacks five minutes of twelve,” Scraggs said.
“I think I’ll drop in over at the Railroad Café and have some lunch,” Sherman said.
“Want me to come with you?” Scraggs asked.
“No,” Sherman said resolutely as he headed for the door.
When Matt stepped into the restaurant he saw that Kitty had already taken a table near the back.
“I’ll be right with you, sir,” a waiter said as he started toward a table carrying an order.
“I’ll be joining Mrs. Wellington,” Matt said, pointing toward Kitty.
“Very good, sir.”
Matt sat at the table across from Kitty, and she greeted him with a smile.
“Did you have a pleasant morning?” she asked.
“Made some new friends,” Matt said. He chuckled. “And probably a few enemies.”
“Oh? What happened?”
Matt shook his head. “Nothing to speak of. I trust you got all your womanly things done?”
“I did. Do you like the color red?”
“What?” Matt asked, surprised by the question that came out of the blue.
“I’m having Anna make a dress for my trip to Chicago,” Kitty said. “A red dress. Do you like red?”
“Red? Yes, I like red.”
“Are you sure? Because it isn’t too late, you know. She could also do it in either white or blue.”
Matt chuckled. “Katherine, you are a beautiful woman,” he said. “And you would be beautiful no matter what color dress you wear.”