It was baffling and irritating.
Not even the legended Smoke could fight an enemy he could not name and did not know and could not find.
Yet.
But he was going to find them, and when he did, he was going to make some sense out of this.
Then he would kill them.
It was midsummer before Dr. Colton Spalding finally gave Sally the okay to travel. During that time, he had wired the hospital in Boston several times, setting up Sally’s operation. The doctor would use a rather risky procedure called a caesarean to take the baby—if it came to that. But the Boston doctor wanted to examine Sally himself before he elected to use that drastic a procedure. And according to Dr. Spalding, the Boston doctor was convinced a caesarean was necessary.
“What’s this operation all about?” Smoke asked Dr. Spalding.
“It’s a surgical procedure used to take the baby if the mother can’t delivery normally.”
“I don’t understand, but I’ll take your word for it. Is it dangerous?”
Colton hesitated. With Smoke, it was hard to tell exactly what he knew about any given topic. When they had first met, the doctor thought the young man to be no more than an ignorant brute, a cold-blooded killer. It didn’t take Colton long to realize that while Smoke had little formal education, he was widely read and quite knowledgeable.
And Colton also knew that Smoke was one of those rare individuals one simply could not lie to. Smoke’s un-blinking eyes never left the face of the person who was speaking. Until you grew accustomed to it, it was quite unnerving.
Before Colton could speak, Smoke said, “Caesar’s mother died from this sort of thing, didn’t she?”
The doctor smiled, shaking his head. Many of the men of the West were fascinating with what they knew and how they had learned it. It never ceased to amaze the man to see some down-at-the-heels puncher, standing up in a barroom quoting Shakespeare or dissertating on some subject as outrageous as astrology.
And knowing what he was talking about!
“Yes, it is dangerous, Smoke. But not nearly so dangerous as when Caesar was born.”
“Let’s hope not. What happens if Sally decides not to have this operation?”
“One of two things, Smoke. You will decide whether you want Sally saved, or the baby.”
“I won’t be there, Doc. So I’m telling you now—save my wife. You pass the word along to this doctor friend of yours in Boston town. Save Sally at all costs. You’ll do that, right?”
“You know I will. I’ll wire him first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you.”
Colton watched as Smoke helped Sally back to bed. He had not fully leveled with the young man about the surgical procedure. Colton knew that sometimes the attending physician had very little choice as to who would be saved. And sometimes, mother and child both died.
He sighed. They had come so far in medicine, soaring as high as eagles in such a short time. But doctors still knew so very little…and were expected to perform miracles at all times.
“Would that it were so,” Colton muttered, getting into his buggy and clucking at the mare.
As the weather grew warmer and the days grew longer, Sally grew stronger…and was beginning to show her pregnancy. Several of the women who lived nearby would come over almost daily, to sew and talk and giggle about the damndest things.
Smoke left the scene when all that gabble commenced.
And he was still no closer to finding out anything about the men who attacked his wife.
Leaving Sally and the women, with two hands always on guard near the cabin, Smoke saddled the midnight-black horse with the cold, killer eyes, and he and Drifter went to town.
The town of Fontana, once called No Name, which had been Tilden Franklin’s town, was dying just as surely as Tilden had died under Smoke’s guns. Only a few stores remained open, and they did very little business.
It was to the town of Big Rock that Smoke rode, his .44s belted around his lean waist and tied down, the Henry rifle in his saddle boot.
Big Rock was growing as Fontana was dying. A couple of nice cafés, a small hotel, one saloon, with no games and no hurdy-gurdy girls. There was a lawyer, Hunt Brook, and his wife, Willow, and a newspaper, the Big Rock Guardian, run by Haywood and Dana Arden. Judge Proctor, the reformed wino, was the district judge and he made his home in Big Rock, taking his supper at the hotel every evening he was in town. Big Rock had a church and a schoolhouse.
It was a nice quiet little town; but as some men who had tried to tree it found out, Big Rock was best left alone.
Johnny North, who had married the widow Belle Colby after her husband’s death, was—or had been—one of the West’s more feared and notorious gunfighters. A farmer/rancher now, Johnny would, if the situation called for it, strap on and tie down his guns and step back into his gunfighter’s boots. Sheriff Monte Carson, another ex-gunfighter, was yet another gunhawk to marry a grass widow and settle in Big Rock. Pearlie, Smoke’s foreman, had married and settled down; but Pearlie had also been, at one point in his young life, a much-feared and respected fast gun. The minister, Ralph Morrow, was an ex-prizefighter from back east, having entered the ministry after killing a man with his fists. Ralph preached on Sundays and farmed and ranched during the week. Ralph would also pick up a gun and fight, although most would rather he wouldn’t. Ralph couldn’t shoot a short gun worth a damn!
Big Rock and the area surrounding it was filled with men and women who would fight for their families, their homes, and their lands.
The dozen or so outlaws who rode into town with the thought of taking over and having their way with the women some months back soon found that they had made a horrible and deadly mistake. At least half of them died in their saddles, their guns in their hands. Two more were shot down in the street. Two died in the town’s small clinic. The rest were hanged.
The word soon went out along the hoot-owl traiclass="underline" Stay away from Big Rock. The town is pure poison. Folks there will shoot you quicker than a cat can scat.
Smoke caught up with Johnny North, who was in town for supplies. The two of them found Sheriff Carson and went to the Big Rock saloon for a couple of beers and some conversation. The men sipped their beers in silence for a time. Finally, after their mugs had been refilled, Johnny broke the silence.
“I been thinkin’ on it some, Smoke. I knew I’d heard that name Dagget somewheres before, but I couldn’t drag it out of my head and catch no handle on it. It come to me last night. I come up on that name down near the Sangre de Cristo range a few years back. It might not be the same fellow, but I’m bettin’ it is. Sally’s description of him fits what I heard. If it is, he’s a bad one. Bounty hunter and bodyguard to somebody. I don’t know who. I ain’t never heard of the two other men with him.”
“I ain’t never heard of any of them,” Monte said sourly. “And I thought I knew every gunslick west of the Big Muddy. That was any good, that is.”
“Dagget don’t ride the rim much,” Johnny explained. “And he only takes jobs his boss wants him to take. If this is the same fellow, he’s from back east somewheres. Came out here about ten years ago. Supposed to be from a real good family back there. Got in trouble with the law and had to run. But his family seen to it that he had plenty of money. What he done, so I’m told, is link up with some other fellow and set them up an outlaw stronghold; sort of like the Hole-In-The-Wall. All this is just talk; I ain’t never been there.”
Smoke nodded his head. Something else had jumped into his mind; something the old mountain man, Preacher, had said one time. Something about the time he’d had to put lead into a fellow who lived down near the Sangre de Cristo range. But what was the man’s name? Was it Davidson? Yes. Rex Davidson.